by Jeff Foster & Matt Licata
Healers, therapists, friends, and lovers!
When you sit with a friend in pain,
when their world no longer makes sense;
when confusion rages
and no rest is to be found.
Just for a moment,
will you resist the temptation
to make things better,
to reassure them,
to provide answers,
even to heal them?
Will you offer your stillness, your listening,
your presence, and the warmth
of your immediacy?
Will you hold them in your heart
with the same tenderness
of a mother holding her little one?
Will you embrace them where they are,
without needing them to change or transform
according to your own needs and schedule?
Will you stay close,
holding your own impatience and discomfort near?
Will you look into their eyes
and see yourself?
Will you stay in the inferno of healing with them,
trusting in disintegration,
knowing that you are only witnessing
the falling away of an old dream?
Sometimes in doing nothing
everything is undone,
and love is revealed to be
the only true medicine.