What to Say

I've been thinking about what I'm going to write in the next letters to my Circle of Love COLL recipients. As I call up their names each morning when I rise, I send love and caring thoughts their way. How do I convey this to them, these total strangers?  


A recurring thought for me lately has been "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger." 

Of course I'm not going to write that - even bastardized Friedrich Nietzsche isn't what one would call comforting - even though I have always invoked that saying when times are hard for me. It makes me laugh - think about it - you're not dead, right? But not everybody gets my sense of humor (as I've proven time and again at faculty meetings and job interviews). 


Just because I think that humor is the great healer, doesn't mean everyone does. I have another fallback if a more serious bit of encouragement is required. I picked it up from Eckhart Tolle: "This too will pass."

Still. I don't want to speak (or write) in platitudes or ill-placed humor, especially since I don't even know the people in my circle of love. I try to write the letters, being especially thoughtful, reluctant to cut corners or crack jokes. They don't know me yet. What if they are so unhappy that my humor is offensive? What if they are so embittered by their difficult circumstances that words of encouragement simply ring false? I picture them throwing my well-intentioned letters aside, scoffing, even more irritated than they were before the trip to the mailbox. 

The creative process?

Ah. I just figured something out.  I haven't been trying to write a friendly, caring letter. I've been trying to meet one of my arbitrary requirements. I'm supposed to come up with the brilliant new insight on suffering, the be-all phrase that will end their pain and bring them joy and happiness forever after. 

This is a familiar sensation (and not a good one). I'm all too gifted at paralyzing myself into inaction by being unwilling to make a mistake. 

In the end, I have to remember that COLL volunteers aren't required to cure anybody. All I have to do is be myself. That may mean taking the risk that I'll say the wrong thing. Still, I have to just leap out there and write something that I feel and believe in the present moment. I have to hope it is received the way it was intended, and then, as with everything in life ...

I HAVE TO LET GO.

It is the only choice. Give generously and let go. I really do believe what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. And I really do believe that pain, even the emotional kind, passes if you let it. My unwillingness to err, which I push through to write these next letters, is passing with each word I put down.