Allow Yourself to Break Open (Amanda Quraishi)

"Sorrow, pain, and loss will come to us but what we do with them and what we allow them to do with us is a choice. So surrender. Lament. Allow yourself to break open. Allow your heart to expand until it includes everyone. Erase the boundaries between you and the world. They are false boundaries anyway."

When was the last time that you allowed yourself to break open?

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Kindness by Naomi Shihab Nye

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.

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This episode was written and recorded by Amanda Quraishi, a digital creator, educator, and strategist. It was produced by Rev. Jim Keat. Background tracks include Button Mushrooms by Podington Bear and Through Space And Time by Alsever Lake.

Visit www.trcnyc.org/BeStillAndGo to listen to more episodes from all five seasons of Be Still and Go.

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Visit www.amandaquraishi.com/ to find out more about Amanda Quraishi and all the ways to follow her work online.