The Guest

Rumi pictures a person as a guest house, and each feeling as a visitor to be welcomed. Anger, grief, fear, and joy may come in. This lesson adds one caution: do not hand them the key. The guest may sit. The guest does not send the letter, choose the reply, or cancel the errand.

Locking every feeling out is a different mistake. A shut door to your own grief does not make you steady. Hold the threshold open and keep the key: the feeling is met, and the act stays yours.

A checkable fact still gets checked. Fear about a dose is a guest. The dose is still measured. The feeling tells you that you are stirred. It is not the measurement, and it is not the decision.

The angry reply

A sharp note arrives, and anger arrives with it. The hand wants to answer in the same heat, before the note has been read twice.

The lesson is to let the anger in and keep the key. Read the note. Then decide. The visitor does not get to send the mail.

Try this today Name the feeling you have right now, then choose your next action separately.