What's Left After Being Dependable All Day

You were the reliable one again today, and now that it is quiet, you are still braced for the next thing to need you. This practice asks nothing useful of you. With slow cello and harmonium beneath a steady voice, it lets you exist without being needed and sets down the weight you carried alone.

Transcript

You were the one who kept it together again today. Now it is quiet. And you are still braced for the next thing to need you. This practice is called meditation. What's left after being dependable all day. It does not ask you to be useful here. That is the point. Let the back of the body be held by whatever is behind it. Let your jaw soften. Let your hands stop being ready. You do not have to earn this rest. Being dependable became a way to feel safe. But you are allowed to exist here without being needed. For these minutes. Nothing depends on you. Repeat quietly. I do not have to be useful. To be allowed to rest. The weight I carried today can be set down now. I am more than the one who holds things together. Nothing here needs me to stay ready. You were allowed to leave with less weight than you brought in. Not because everything is handled. Because for a few minutes. . . You stopped carrying it alone.