“It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them. So throw away your baggage and go forward. There are quicksands all about you, sucking at your feet, trying to suck you down into fear and self-pity and despair. That’s why you must walk so lightly. Lightly my darling…”
~ Aldous Huxley
I’ve had this quote on my wall at home for a long time. It comes back to me when I catch myself holding my breath, clutching the steering wheel with a white-knuckled grip, or “angry typing” on the keyboard. It often comes up when I’m tempted to respond to a hateful email or cranky comment. It’s not easy to do, but it is necessary.
Holding tightly to things — particularly intangible things like those pesky opinions and feelings that keep us all stirred up — is exhausting. Always being in a position of resisting something, even when we aren’t conscious of it, is an energy drain.
And what does it accomplish? Nothing. The more we resist, the more we push or pull, or struggle, or fight, the more tired we get.
In a world where opinions and feelings are elevated above facts and reason, it’s very easy to attach our identity to our opinions and feelings and hold on even more tightly. We need to remember that we are not our feelings or our opinions. If we don’t identify ourselves that way, we can hold those things lightly and save our energy for more worthy pursuits.
