Treat Each Guest Honorably
By: JUSTIN MCCOY, MA, LLPC
The Guest House
by Rumi
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
Some momentary awareness comes
As an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
Who violently sweep your house
Empty of its furniture
Still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
Meet them at the door laughing,
And invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
Because each has been sent
As a guide from beyond.
This meditation given to us by Rumi, a Sufi mystic, commonly stirs in the back of my mind during therapy.
As patients and I explore their anxieties, griefs, angers, and depression, I find it helpful to remember that we are not defined by the emotions or thoughts that come to us. Rather, we play the role of host to the range of human experience. Our guests arrive regardless of invitation, and some stay a night while others remain for years.
In my own life, I am often tempted to usher these guests out or to relegate them to the shadowy rooms of my psyche where I hope they won’t cause trouble. I notice the longing to find the quick fix, the tips and tricks, the right and the wrong of the experience in order to resolve it. But Rumi reminds us that the work of the host is not to rush our guests out of the room. Rather, he encourages us to “treat each guest honorably” and to “meet them at the door laughing”, inviting them in.
To treat each guest honorably means to not only allow these experiences to visit, but to tend to them, to get to know them, and to accept them as they are. I’m reminded of Carl Jung, a founding psychoanalyst, writing: “We cannot change anything unless we accept it.”
Our depressions, anxieties, angers, and griefs are not trespassers to be removed– they are “guides” from within. Even the most unruly of these thoughts and emotions visit in an attempt to take care of us, to protect us, and help us survive the hardships of life. Carl Rogers, another foundational psychotherapist, writes about this “curious paradox” saying, “We cannot change… until we thoroughly accept what we are. Then change seems to come about almost unnoticed.”
When we treat our visiting emotions and thoughts honorably, greeting them with warm acceptance and hospitality rather than as curses to be cured– that’s when the real magic of healing begins.