What to Do With the Heaviness

"It's not the weight you carry,
but how you carry it—
books, bricks, grief—
it's all in the way
you embrace it, balance it, carry it . . .

Mary Oliver, from "Heavy"

Dear Ones,

I haven't forgotten about you. I know you understand. Things take the time they take, don't they?

Perhaps, like me, you are sometimes overcome with a heavy heart. Perhaps, like me, you sometimes feel you are buckling under all this weight. It leaves you heavy on the couch, or leaden in your thoughts, shuffling in your feet.

Perhaps you notice that your gut is wrenched back and forth by the necessity of difficult decisions. Or, you feel it in your mind, a wind that kicks up one concern after another, leaving you feeling windworn by mid-morning.

Perhaps you notice how you've been avoiding your heart. On first check, you're not quite sure you can feel it. But if you stay, you note the heavy, sinking feeling.

You might be tempted to fly right back up to your mind. I know we've been taught this is intelligence to solve it all. . . . How's that been working for you?

Or, you might just return to a frantic sanitizing of those doorknobs again, or a little more baking, or maybe that all-absorbing project. .  .  . Just stay busy becomes your mantra.

Soul friends, return to that heaviness in the heart, won't you? I know. It is heavy. Let yourself really feel the weight. I know this seems counter-intuitive, but there is nothing to fear here. Trust me on this.

Notice how and where the heaviness sits—is it high on a shelf in your upper heart, perched perilously? Or, is is down low, threatening to pull the rest of your heart down into its heap? Notice. And breathe into this place. Stay with it. Stay with it when this heaviness wakes you at 4 in the morning. Stay with it when you lie down in bed tonight. Stay with it when you notice your grieving child or elderly parent. Stay with it when your friend reaches out with a sorrow you cannot solve.

This is practice, friend. When you stay with it you are learning how to carry this weight, how to balance it, how to embrace it.

And your heart has been created for just this heavy lifting. It has. Consider how with every moment its muscle flexes and releases for you, for the world. Your heart has been training its whole life for this heaviness.

Give it the oxygen it needs. Breathe into it. And notice—it may take hours as it did for me in the wee hours of the night. But stay with it and notice how the weight eventually gets integrated and comes into a balance.

You may think "I'm never going to be able to hold it all. I cannot allow myself to feel this." I know. Just practice.

Then, maybe, like Mary Oliver, you'll be able to say,

So I went practicing.
Have you noticed?

Have you heard
the laughter
that comes, now and again,
out of my startled mouth?

How I linger
to admire, admire, admire
the things of this world
that are kind, and maybe

also troubled—
roses in the wind,
the sea geese on the steep waves,
a love
to which there is no reply?