20240430

Readalong edition: , ,

It is a gift, for another to willingly accept your presence in their suffering.

A gift, honestly given, always serves the giver. It is a clean release of energy — and clean energy will return to them in kind, in a form that serves their now. To give honestly is to encourage the process of one's own renewal.

It is a remarkable, vulnerable act.

The place where something leaves you is tender. It takes time for the newly-exposed surface to grow accustomed to the air and the light.

When this occurs as a part of giving to another, it signifies the giver's choice to trust the other. In the act of giving, the giver takes a part of their own self (one only ever has one's self to work with, for all intents and purposes), removes it, and offers it to you: but critically they offer both the gift and their newest, most vulnerable face. An honest gift is an act of trust, saying, "I am willing to experience your response to this act, and to experience it with you".

I think often about the way I receive the words and intents and energies of others.

I wrote a while back () about the negativity sink, in concept and in action: the idea that we can be a willing conduit for the heat of resistance, letting it pass on through us to be absorbed by the firmament beneath.

Lately my role seems more like lovingly reflecting the jagged edges of another's pain, moving my self in to be with each raw edge and angle of another, while maintaining the stability of my other surfaces, the other places where I meet the world. In that moment of meeting, my form changes: I willingly move into the space of another's pain, and — with their consent — I hold myself to its surface, being with them in their own honest form. The person in pain is (to whatever extent) unable to meet the world well with that jagged edge. The risk of meeting a less than gentle response is ... a risk. I count myself lucky, whenever I find myself joining someone in this way. By willingly letting my self flow into and around their raw and torn surface, I both (1) give it a protected space in which to self-soothe, and (2) I become a kind of surrogate surface, taking over for a moment the duty of their representation to the rest of the world. A jagged surface is not a great building material — hard to stack something on top of that. You can build a tower out of jagged pieces, but it becomes a balancing act. It's not intrinsically stable. But if you pair each jagged edge with something that can meet its contours without resistance and which then offers a new, regular surface, you create a piece that can be a part of a stable structure.

The part that comes next is super interesting: we do part ways, the other and me, but I take some of them and they take some of me. The border between them and me is re-drawn, with gentler lines than were there at the start. It's a beautiful thing. We are both better for it. :)

I can really only engage like this when I'm at like 110% stability. I can't do this sustainably (let alone capably) if it puts me into the red. It's critical that I be so rested that I have a surplus. I give from that surplus. I do choose to go into the red sometimes, as a one-off, but that mode cannot be the norm.

Around 3pm yesterday, my mind and body both said nap, lol. So I did, because I'm 100% intuitive movement these days, no more calculation. 4hr nap, and 8hrs of sleep later that night. I was already rested, and I woke up this morning with a surplus.

I also woke up tasting grief.

I have an idea of whose this is, or at least who it might be passing through on its way to me. I don't actually need to know; my job remains the same, no matter its origin. , and I care for my guests.

You are always experiencing the most direct route to the world you hold in your mind's eye.

Yesterday, you consciously shifted your vision to a world in which you experience the power and joy of [a specific other]. You felt the truth of how your lived experience with this person has been anchored to expressions of their suffering and the diminishing of their spirit. You felt the desire . You shifted your focus accordingly.

This is the most direct route to the world you hold in your mind's eye.

They do not need to know you are experiencing this. Also, they do know. Also, we are all one, and the specific semantics work themselves out, whether or not you trace their paths. All things exist in balance. When you encounter grief amidst your own abundant joy, it is as if a question is put to you: will you hold me?

Onlookers: You need not say yes. Nothing is ever required of you in the now. All things are intrinsically balanced across the whole, and the experienced now is something that you get to design. It's probability's job to create balance for those choices in the surrounding fields, to stabilize the reality of your creation in the now. You always get to choose.

Isaac: There are not so many places left like this, for you. :)

I am content. I have let go of it all too many times over for this to feel concerning or destabilizing.

I wrote a note to myself, an email I put in my own inbox:

you're not doing it because it's a business. you're doing it because you're helping. :)

One of those anchoring realizations that I put down in writing to make it easier to retain — same as all my tattoos, by the way!

I've been less interested in coding the last couple of weeks; the most potent point of emission has been here, in these ideas and words and communications.

I wrote that one-liner email after one of our app users showed me their discomfort, and it returned my focus to the place where my best code-work has always come from: the place where I help.

[ love ]

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