For years I used to ask my children when they were upset or angry, "Do you need some love and understanding?" They would collapse in tears, nodding, and climb into my lap. The question helped remind me to sit with their feelings, not try to solve everything every time.
It's a refrain, now, this question. They (my children, now teenagers) ask it of me too, and I ask it, silently, when thinking how I might approach one of my students. The demonstration of that love and understanding is different than the physical comfort I give my own children (who still climb into my lap), but the question refocuses me to what is important: compassion and empathy for the human struggle we all face.
This is wonderful, Camille. It reminded me of a reframe I came across last week. A mother suggested this question for kids/teens mid-meltdown: Is there anything I can do right now that won't make the situation worse? What a brilliant way to validate pain, acknowledge our limitations as parents, and empower our loved one that's struggling.
Wow! Words we wished to hear amidst the passing of years. Compassion means “to suffer with” and it’s only when we can grant ourselves and others that gift and grace that we may grow.
I love your question-"love and understanding"! This reminds me of when my now-adult children were in school and would come home upset about something. I would ask-do you need me to do something/get involved, or do you just need me to listen? I think in all that time, only once was I asked to get involved. Similar, but I love yours.
I love this so much!! I knew, after having gone through chaplaincy training, that this is what I needed to reach for, when rearing my children - but the urge to fix or give advice is so strong. What a very helpful way, even now, for me to help loved ones in my world whose urge to fix and advise is also the go-to response when hearing of a woe, to instead reach for what *I also* need most -- love and understanding, first.
I LOVE this, Camille! I work with students with special needs, and when they are acting out, one of the first things I tend to ask is whether they need a squeeze - many of them are autistic and the pressure can help so much. I guess I say it a lot because those same kids, over time, will just find me and fall ino my lap and I understand, without a word, what it is they need and what they have come to rely on me for. XO
So generous and expansive. One of the fastest ways to transform a human beings lived experience is to genuinely and courageously say to them: “Tell us about it.” It’s like setting an infinite canvas of healing before them to create and find themselves again. The most recent episode of “The Light Show” with Light Watkins demonstrates this beautifully as his guest is expansively invited to “tell about it.” Our stories told set is free after all.
100 percent yes!!! I hear the thrashing syllables and evocative vowels that take me on a reunification journey every time I listen to the echoes of John O’Donohue, Pádraig Ó Tuama, or David Whyte - all who came into my life through On Being.
And of course, apologies to the poet for my interpretation of punctuation (kinda like my soup receipt.). I need it repeated, then stop. Slow down. Repeat it again.
“No feeling is final” comes up for me a lot too. It can stop the thinking spiral I use to avoid feeling the thing and let me acknowledge the uncomfortable feeling. It also allows me to feel and appreciate the moments of joy and gratitude.
This is one that comes up for me a lot as well. It reminds me that I don't have to do anything with my feelings, just feel them. It also helps me remember that the feeling will pass.
Oh my word!! Thank you, so much, for this! Suddenly, I am reminded of Dorie, from Finding Nemo - just keep swimming, right? No matter what. Just keep swimming!! XO
Listen softly and carry a big heart. (I wrote this many years ago when asked to summarize my year of hospital chaplaincy as a resident. It continues to serve.)
Mmmm, thank you, Stephanie! I have heard speak softly, but we need it's sister, as well, this listen softly. Without judgement or criticism. Beautiful! XO
I use this one often. I associate it with Fred Rogers (a genuine hero in my book) but I use it with children and I use it with adults. It is powerful and true. Thanks for reminding me of it.
In a world that’s assaulting us to always change, strive, strain and be something else, these words ring like a melody your body needs to hear. Thank you! 🙏🏻
I enjoy carrying a poem within and seeing how life meets me there. Recently I renewed my friendship with this Rumi piece:
All day and night, music,
a quiet, bright
reedsong. If it
fades, we fade.
And, then this new practice:
As I slowly learn to play the Japanese bamboo Shakuhachi flute, I compose simple pieces to accompany poems, mostly haiku. I look forward to reciting Rumi’s poem, then playing the flute. This becomes a threesome, me, Rumi, and the Shakuhachi. 🐸
How beautiful it must sound together, the haiku and the reed flute 🪈. I play the metal flute 🪈. (I apologize for the use of emojis, but typing here on my phone, it is the first I have seen this new flute 🪈 emoji after there not being one for so long).
Wow! This is amazing! Thanks for sharing, Ruth! I also love your name!! It's my middle name and I am named after my Grandmother, who is my favorite person no longer on this plane! XO
“What’s the temperature today darling?” A line my wife and I picked up from Rosanne Cash. She told a story where she asked an old time country singer how he kept his marriage alive after so many years on the road. He replied that he asked his wife this question regularly. Rosanne and her husband John do that too. I appreciate her sharing it for me to use.
I needed this one this morning. If it’s indeed John O’Donohue, it’s timed perfectly to be reunited with it. For I miss that man. Deeply.
I sometimes stop to wonder “Who are the ones who entered your life in the most mythical and mystical way, forever changing your trajectory? Forever redefining the threshold of who you are.
I cannot imagine my life as I understand it and navigate it now, rather wildly, without the graceful gaze and Celtic kiss of words and whispered writings of John O’Donohue. ☘️
From the first cradling of his bestseller “Anam Cara” in my hands, to the 100s of miles I’ve walked with the lyrical longings of his voice in my head. 🎧
Is it possible to miss a man you’ve never met? Is it feasible that a man gone too soon can walk alongside you with a protective hand on your shoulder in a timeless and invisible way?
I walk. I wonder. I wander the hills of the inner landscape of beauty. ❤️🩹 And I remember my identity is not equivalent to my biography.
Still I hear his voice just beyond my next step, lyrically and longingly asking, “How should I be?” 🙏🏻 Grateful for the bridge to his soul placed by On Being and its community of listeners.
“Is it possible to miss a man you’ve never met? Is it feasible that a man gone too soon can walk alongside you with a protective hand on your shoulder in a timeless and invisible way?” - 🙏🏾
So wise - thanks Bill. Padraig has said we are always talking to the dead we have known....and your words show they are always talking to us, we just have to listen.
I hear this, Bill! I echo everything you wrote. I keep him alive by reading him every single day, as part of my devotions, and occasionally listening to podcasts where he spoke. XO
Oh yes. I miss long dead poets and musicians fervently. With the ones who die young, you have to wonder what else they might have produced, what other ways they might have opened you up further, to life and love.
For over thirty years i have told the story of King Solomon's command to fashion a ring with one phrase that will make him sad when he's happy and happy when he's sad and which, of course, results in this phrase. I've no idea which came first, the phrase or the story. But in those years of sharing that story, one former student and one friend were so inspired by that phrase that they had it tattooed. But little did I know that that phrase had a deep roots in my life. One day, walking in downtown Bath, my aunt asked me what I meant when I said i was a storyteller. I decided example was the best response and told her the King Solomon story. Having uttered the key phrase, my aunt suddenly grew very solemn, looked me in the eye, and said, "Chris, that was your grandmother's favourite expression." I only ever met my scottish grandmother once and then only briefly. She'd led a hard life as the wife of a publican in a now-long-gone mining town, and having given birth to nine children (having lost several to miscarriages), my father being the last. When my aunt told me of my grandmother's fondness for this phrase, it was as if the decades between her life and mine collapsed and i was filled with the feeling of both senses of this phrase which i can only call: the bittersweet.
Countless ancestors whisper this to me still. “This too shall pass.” I have enjoyed traveling the world to learn the visceral vernacular variations of this in countless languages.
My favorite is in Russian: «Мы переживаем это.» Translates to “We will survive this” or “We will live through this.”
I’m curious if all the Celtic Irish language variations. Perhaps Pádraig can share them here, or in a future episode.
I have some poems I keep that are clipped together and hung by magnet to the door that leads to the hallway of my apartment. One of them is “In Blackwater Woods” by Mary Oliver.
Look, the trees
are turning
their own bodies
into pillars
of light,
are giving off the rich
fragrance of cinnamon
and fulfillment,
the long tapers
of cattails
are bursting and floating away over
the blue shoulders
of the ponds,
and every pond,
no matter what its
name is, is
nameless now.
Every year
everything
I have ever learned
in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side
is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world
you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it
against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it
go,
to let it go.
It is the following lines, especially that touch my soul and make me ache.v
We used portions of Mary Oliver’s poems Everything That Was Broken, and Where Does The Temple Begin, Where Does It End on the memorial cards for a loved one.
love this poem, Elaine. loss is truly the universal. if it could only be the universal unifier.... i.e., if we could allow this knowing to keep our hearts open - to all.
For years I used to ask my children when they were upset or angry, "Do you need some love and understanding?" They would collapse in tears, nodding, and climb into my lap. The question helped remind me to sit with their feelings, not try to solve everything every time.
It's a refrain, now, this question. They (my children, now teenagers) ask it of me too, and I ask it, silently, when thinking how I might approach one of my students. The demonstration of that love and understanding is different than the physical comfort I give my own children (who still climb into my lap), but the question refocuses me to what is important: compassion and empathy for the human struggle we all face.
This is wonderful, Camille. It reminded me of a reframe I came across last week. A mother suggested this question for kids/teens mid-meltdown: Is there anything I can do right now that won't make the situation worse? What a brilliant way to validate pain, acknowledge our limitations as parents, and empower our loved one that's struggling.
Oh I love this question. (and at the very least to remember to ask it of myself when triggered). Thanks for sharing, Jenny Noble!
Thank you, Mona Chopra❤️. Always love our Sunday reunions!!!
Wow! Words we wished to hear amidst the passing of years. Compassion means “to suffer with” and it’s only when we can grant ourselves and others that gift and grace that we may grow.
This line is a gem. I will share it in a parent ed class I teach for moms in recovery. Thank you.
What a beautiful question for ask your children, and for us to ask of anyone. Thank you.
I love your question-"love and understanding"! This reminds me of when my now-adult children were in school and would come home upset about something. I would ask-do you need me to do something/get involved, or do you just need me to listen? I think in all that time, only once was I asked to get involved. Similar, but I love yours.
Such simple language, but the comfort and love in that phrase is boundless. Thank you for this! I’m going to use it myself - and probably ON myself!
I love this so much!! I knew, after having gone through chaplaincy training, that this is what I needed to reach for, when rearing my children - but the urge to fix or give advice is so strong. What a very helpful way, even now, for me to help loved ones in my world whose urge to fix and advise is also the go-to response when hearing of a woe, to instead reach for what *I also* need most -- love and understanding, first.
I LOVE this, Camille! I work with students with special needs, and when they are acting out, one of the first things I tend to ask is whether they need a squeeze - many of them are autistic and the pressure can help so much. I guess I say it a lot because those same kids, over time, will just find me and fall ino my lap and I understand, without a word, what it is they need and what they have come to rely on me for. XO
What a beautiful image -- the reassuring flop. <3
what a beautiful refrain to have brought into your family, Camille! 🙏🏾
Mary Oliver: Pay attention, be astonished, tell about it.
So generous and expansive. One of the fastest ways to transform a human beings lived experience is to genuinely and courageously say to them: “Tell us about it.” It’s like setting an infinite canvas of healing before them to create and find themselves again. The most recent episode of “The Light Show” with Light Watkins demonstrates this beautifully as his guest is expansively invited to “tell about it.” Our stories told set is free after all.
My dad used to say, "It's great to go to the moon kid but it's even better to tell someone about it."
Thanks for sharing, Sarah. Sounds like the recipe for a poet! XO
The line for me? “You might as well love, you might as well love. You might as well love.” And it’s in a very Irish male accent.
100 percent yes!!! I hear the thrashing syllables and evocative vowels that take me on a reunification journey every time I listen to the echoes of John O’Donohue, Pádraig Ó Tuama, or David Whyte - all who came into my life through On Being.
Yes! Same for me. I am deeply grateful to Krista for that. She is a gift who just keeps giving.
And of course, apologies to the poet for my interpretation of punctuation (kinda like my soup receipt.). I need it repeated, then stop. Slow down. Repeat it again.
“Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final.” ~ Rainer Maria Rilke"
Also from Rilke: “...have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves..,”
“No feeling is final” comes up for me a lot too. It can stop the thinking spiral I use to avoid feeling the thing and let me acknowledge the uncomfortable feeling. It also allows me to feel and appreciate the moments of joy and gratitude.
Such an important reminder of our impermanence. As my wise nephew once said. “It’s okay Uncle Bill. You get a do-over tomorrow.”
Love that! Made my heart smile.
So true! You do have a wise nephew!
Mmm, thanks, Bill! Take a mulligan for today, tomorrow is a brand new green :-)
I so love Rilke for understanding how to embrace the shadows as well as the light!
This is one that comes up for me a lot as well. It reminds me that I don't have to do anything with my feelings, just feel them. It also helps me remember that the feeling will pass.
That's it! Those are the two reasons that I need to always keep those words visible.
Oh my word!! Thank you, so much, for this! Suddenly, I am reminded of Dorie, from Finding Nemo - just keep swimming, right? No matter what. Just keep swimming!! XO
What a great Rilke line that I have missed. Thank you for sharing it!
Rilke was...the whole of living in one life. Brilliant man. ❤️
It lives on my fridge so I can see it daily and keep it close to my awareness . It has been so helpful for me.
Listen softly and carry a big heart. (I wrote this many years ago when asked to summarize my year of hospital chaplaincy as a resident. It continues to serve.)
I really like this. The older I get, the more I value patient, soft listening (and very little speaking) in myself and in others.
Thank you. Soft listening allows gentleness, and hopefully, discernment over judgment.
Mmmm, thank you, Stephanie! I have heard speak softly, but we need it's sister, as well, this listen softly. Without judgement or criticism. Beautiful! XO
Thank you for writing softly.
What a beautifully captured phrase for the work of the chaplain, and for us to carry into all our interactions. Thank you! I will keep this.
Thank you Wendy. Let’s all begin listening softly.
I love you just the way you are
I use this one often. I associate it with Fred Rogers (a genuine hero in my book) but I use it with children and I use it with adults. It is powerful and true. Thanks for reminding me of it.
I use it with myself mostly, but if I had a child or someone special I would tell it to them often.
I wish everyone in the world could do this. I do believe it would bring more peace.
Ha! I should use it with myself. Good idea! Thanks .
In a world that’s assaulting us to always change, strive, strain and be something else, these words ring like a melody your body needs to hear. Thank you! 🙏🏻
I enjoy carrying a poem within and seeing how life meets me there. Recently I renewed my friendship with this Rumi piece:
All day and night, music,
a quiet, bright
reedsong. If it
fades, we fade.
And, then this new practice:
As I slowly learn to play the Japanese bamboo Shakuhachi flute, I compose simple pieces to accompany poems, mostly haiku. I look forward to reciting Rumi’s poem, then playing the flute. This becomes a threesome, me, Rumi, and the Shakuhachi. 🐸
How beautiful it must sound together, the haiku and the reed flute 🪈. I play the metal flute 🪈. (I apologize for the use of emojis, but typing here on my phone, it is the first I have seen this new flute 🪈 emoji after there not being one for so long).
PS - Reword it a little bit (or don’t!) and the first sentence of your post sounds like a good first line of a poem.
Oh my goodness! I wish we could hear the final marriage of flute and poem! It sounds lovely. 😊
Behold. Be held. Be kind.
Beautiful -- give and receive.
That's what she said
Wow! This is amazing! Thanks for sharing, Ruth! I also love your name!! It's my middle name and I am named after my Grandmother, who is my favorite person no longer on this plane! XO
Thanks Danielle. I am Ruth Ann. My grandmother was Ruth Eva--with who I had a wonderful relationship.
I LOVE this!! I am Danielle Ruth. XO
Wow. This one hit like a ton of bricks. 🧱🙏🏻
“What’s the temperature today darling?” A line my wife and I picked up from Rosanne Cash. She told a story where she asked an old time country singer how he kept his marriage alive after so many years on the road. He replied that he asked his wife this question regularly. Rosanne and her husband John do that too. I appreciate her sharing it for me to use.
hee hee! Thanks for sharing, Lee. That is lovely and wise. XO
It’s a simple overlooked gesture, and one I love to greet my spouse with each day before we start our morning walk.
From Joni Mitchell:
“In the church, they light the candles.
And the wax rolls down like tears.
There is the hope and the hopelessness
I’ve witnessed all these years.”
Awake my soul...where you direct your love, you direct your life. Mumford and Sons. ❤️
Thank you, Brigid! I adore Mumford and Sons! And your name, too! XO
"We soften into strength."
I am so sorry but I do not remember exactly who said this . . . it could be John O'Donohue.
These 4 words say so much that is true to my heart.
I needed this one this morning. If it’s indeed John O’Donohue, it’s timed perfectly to be reunited with it. For I miss that man. Deeply.
I sometimes stop to wonder “Who are the ones who entered your life in the most mythical and mystical way, forever changing your trajectory? Forever redefining the threshold of who you are.
I cannot imagine my life as I understand it and navigate it now, rather wildly, without the graceful gaze and Celtic kiss of words and whispered writings of John O’Donohue. ☘️
From the first cradling of his bestseller “Anam Cara” in my hands, to the 100s of miles I’ve walked with the lyrical longings of his voice in my head. 🎧
Is it possible to miss a man you’ve never met? Is it feasible that a man gone too soon can walk alongside you with a protective hand on your shoulder in a timeless and invisible way?
I walk. I wonder. I wander the hills of the inner landscape of beauty. ❤️🩹 And I remember my identity is not equivalent to my biography.
Still I hear his voice just beyond my next step, lyrically and longingly asking, “How should I be?” 🙏🏻 Grateful for the bridge to his soul placed by On Being and its community of listeners.
“Is it possible to miss a man you’ve never met? Is it feasible that a man gone too soon can walk alongside you with a protective hand on your shoulder in a timeless and invisible way?” - 🙏🏾
Yes, it is possible for a man gone too soon to walk alongside you with a protective hand in a timeless and invisible way.
So wise - thanks Bill. Padraig has said we are always talking to the dead we have known....and your words show they are always talking to us, we just have to listen.
I hear this, Bill! I echo everything you wrote. I keep him alive by reading him every single day, as part of my devotions, and occasionally listening to podcasts where he spoke. XO
Somehow, in the missing and in the longing, he still here. Made alive in you Bill. And in those of us who have fallen so deeply in love with him.
“Is it possible to miss a man you’ve never met?”
Oh yes. I miss long dead poets and musicians fervently. With the ones who die young, you have to wonder what else they might have produced, what other ways they might have opened you up further, to life and love.
This too shall pass.
The good and the bad. Enjoy the good while we are in it and know the bad will not last. Nothing is permanent.
For over thirty years i have told the story of King Solomon's command to fashion a ring with one phrase that will make him sad when he's happy and happy when he's sad and which, of course, results in this phrase. I've no idea which came first, the phrase or the story. But in those years of sharing that story, one former student and one friend were so inspired by that phrase that they had it tattooed. But little did I know that that phrase had a deep roots in my life. One day, walking in downtown Bath, my aunt asked me what I meant when I said i was a storyteller. I decided example was the best response and told her the King Solomon story. Having uttered the key phrase, my aunt suddenly grew very solemn, looked me in the eye, and said, "Chris, that was your grandmother's favourite expression." I only ever met my scottish grandmother once and then only briefly. She'd led a hard life as the wife of a publican in a now-long-gone mining town, and having given birth to nine children (having lost several to miscarriages), my father being the last. When my aunt told me of my grandmother's fondness for this phrase, it was as if the decades between her life and mine collapsed and i was filled with the feeling of both senses of this phrase which i can only call: the bittersweet.
What a beautiful story, Chris! Such powerful invisible forces at play within us... I’m reminded of Thay’s phrase, “a cloud never dies.”
so much can be said in so few words <3
Countless ancestors whisper this to me still. “This too shall pass.” I have enjoyed traveling the world to learn the visceral vernacular variations of this in countless languages.
My favorite is in Russian: «Мы переживаем это.» Translates to “We will survive this” or “We will live through this.”
I’m curious if all the Celtic Irish language variations. Perhaps Pádraig can share them here, or in a future episode.
Cohen: “There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in”
Tartan wicker 🧺 for the 🖤 wicked West. A poem inspired by your love for the light called CUR ACHE:
Meoir by goyin
once? Ciseán twice,
Tartan gooinney,
kwan-kwan,
creckit as kionnit!
Dhíol craic caolach
and no breckanagh.
Coracle a taxi
To Monapii?
🙏🏻❤️🩹
I have some poems I keep that are clipped together and hung by magnet to the door that leads to the hallway of my apartment. One of them is “In Blackwater Woods” by Mary Oliver.
Look, the trees
are turning
their own bodies
into pillars
of light,
are giving off the rich
fragrance of cinnamon
and fulfillment,
the long tapers
of cattails
are bursting and floating away over
the blue shoulders
of the ponds,
and every pond,
no matter what its
name is, is
nameless now.
Every year
everything
I have ever learned
in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side
is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world
you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it
against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it
go,
to let it go.
It is the following lines, especially that touch my soul and make me ache.v
To live in this world
you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it
against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it
go,
to let it go.
The universal loss that we all face...
We used portions of Mary Oliver’s poems Everything That Was Broken, and Where Does The Temple Begin, Where Does It End on the memorial cards for a loved one.
So much comfort and affirmation in her poems.
love this poem, Elaine. loss is truly the universal. if it could only be the universal unifier.... i.e., if we could allow this knowing to keep our hearts open - to all.
“Don’t meet disaster halfway”, Salman Rushdie, in Fury.
Ooooh I like that one.
For it changes you, so let it. Fully. From it you’ll emerge wiser, stronger, and more compassionate.