Wrapping Up
Darling, I know that you suffer. That is why I am here for you.
I’m so sorry you have suffered so much.
I may not be there in person with you right now but, somehow, across time and place, I feel your suffering right now as I write this. Tears well up in my eyes. I know your pain.
It’s going to be ok. No feeling lasts forever.
Let it out.
Follow your inner guidance.
It might help to start with small things with lower stakes. What do you really want to eat? What do you really want to wear? How do you really want to spend your day today?
As you become better practiced at following your inner guidance with smaller things, you’ll get more skilled at following you inner guidance with bigger things.
As you consider decisions, try holding one option in your mind (“look left”) and then the other (“look right”). “Try on” each decision—imagine yourself in different scenarios. How do you feel in each scenario? Try saying the options out loud as if you are actually doing each thing.
How does it feel to say each option? What is your body telling you in each scenario you imagine?
Does one feel more like expansion, and one feel more like contraction? If so, can you dig deeper? Why? What about that direction feels expanding or contracting? Can you find old wounds or more nuance in the direction? (Like, don’t necessarily go with your first impulse. Your first impulse will be your body telling you you’re most familiar and proven path to relieve suffering and/or increase pleasure. Sit with it a little longer and see if you can feel which direction feels like growth and a better long-term solution.)
You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.
The truth feels like freedom.
I can’t know what you need to do next. But I can offer you some possible next steps. Try these on and see how they feel…
What if, for now, you put your energy and attention into owning and releasing your hoarded, log-jammed emotions?
What if you put your energy toward flourishing while you wait patiently “till the right action arises by itself”?
How do those feel in you? Do they feel like the right next step for you?
If those don’t feel right, what does feel like the right next step for you? What else comes up in you?
Right it down. Or let the question settle in you until an answer arises.
You’re going to be ok.
Love has you.
I want to leave you with two of my favorite Rilke poems…
I believe in all that has never yet been spoken.
I want to free what waits within me
so that what no one has dared to wish for
may for once spring clear
without my contriving.
If this is arrogant, God, forgive me,
but this is what I need to say.
May what I do flow from me like a river,
no forcing and no holding back,
the way it is with children.
Then in these swelling and ebbing currents,
these deepening tides moving out, returning,
I will sing you as no one ever has,
streaming through widening channels
into the open sea.
by Rainer Maria Rilke
Sonnets to Orpheus II, 29
Quiet friend who has come so far,
feel how your breathing makes more space around you.
Let this darkness be a bell tower
and you the bell. As you ring,
what batters you becomes your strength.
Move back and forth into the change.
What is it like, such intensity of pain?
If the drink is bitter, turn yourself to wine.
In this uncontainable night,
be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses,
the meaning discovered there.
And if the world has ceased to hear you,
say to the silent earth: I flow.
To the rushing water, speak: I am.
by Rainer Maria Rilke
English version by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy
THE END
Thank you so much for taking the time to go though this whole retreat.
I hope it has been helpful for you.
If you’d be willing to give a little feedback or would like to make a donation, please do so in the form below. I’d love to hear your thoughts.