What If the Bad Stuff Isn't the Whole Story?
How do you keep your heart open without burning out?
When we're tired, frightened, or overwhelmed, the difficult things can begin to fill our entire field of vision. They are real. But what if they aren't all that's real? Maybe keeping our hearts open also depends on what we choose to notice.
All through October, The Gathering is exploring one question: How do you keep your heart open without burning out?
Last week, we explored some of the ways we might protect an open heart: rest, boundaries, learning the difference between caring and carrying, and remembering that we don't have to say yes to every request that comes our way.
This week, we're approaching the question from another direction.
Because maybe keeping our hearts open isn't only about what we do.
Maybe it also has something to do with what we see.
Or, more specifically:
What do we notice?
We Don't See Everything
At every moment, our senses are taking in far more information than our brains could possibly process.
So our brains filter.
They decide what deserves our attention and what can safely fade into the background.
Most of the time, that's incredibly useful.
But when we're tired, frightened, overwhelmed, or carrying too much for too long, something can happen to our field of vision.
It narrows.
We become very good at noticing what's wrong.
What needs fixing.
What might happen next.
Who needs something from us.
What terrible thing happened today.
Those things are real.
Paying attention to something beautiful doesn't make suffering disappear.
But suffering isn't the only thing that's real.
Burnout Narrows Our Vision. Wonder Widens It.
There is another possibility.
We can practice noticing.
The unexpected kindness.
The ridiculous laugh.
The changing leaves.
The person who remembered our name.
The song that suddenly takes us somewhere else.
The light coming through a window in a way we've never quite noticed before.
None of those things erases what hurts.
But each one changes the frame.
Maybe keeping our hearts open isn't only about learning how much we can carry.
Maybe it's also about training our attention so pain doesn't become the only thing we can see.
Burnout narrows our vision. Wonder widens it.
The terrible thing is still there.
But now it isn't the only thing there.
Mary Oliver and the Practice of Paying Attention
Poet Mary Oliver spent much of her life paying attention.
She walked through woods, along beaches, and beside ponds.
And she noticed things.
Grasshoppers.
Wild geese.
Dogs.
Weeds.
Rain.
Ordinary things many of us might walk past without really seeing.
For Oliver, attention seemed to be more than observation. It was a way of being fully alive.
That didn't mean she believed the world was always beautiful.
She knew grief.
She knew loneliness.
She knew that life ends.
But sorrow didn't have to be the only thing receiving her attention.
A wet field after the rain was still there.
A bird was still calling.
Something was still growing.
Something unexpected might still be waiting to be noticed.
Maybe that's one way we keep our hearts open.
Not by convincing ourselves that everything is wonderful.
But by refusing to let what is terrible become everything.
Keeping an Open Heart Doesn't Mean Letting Everything In
There's another side to this practice of attention.
Keeping our hearts open doesn't mean giving everything equal access to them.
We can be gatekeepers of our own attention.
We can decide what we're able to take on and where our particular gifts and energy belong.
Imagine belonging to an organization you love.
Somebody asks you to bake cookies for an event.
There's just one problem.
You hate baking cookies.
But you say yes anyway.
Then people love your cookies, so you become the person everyone asks whenever cookies are needed.
Eventually, something you agreed to because you cared becomes something you resent.
Now imagine answering differently.
"No, baking isn't really my thing. Is there something else I can do?"
And maybe somebody says:
"We need someone to rake leaves."
And it turns out you love being outside raking leaves.
The organization hasn't changed.
Your commitment hasn't disappeared.
But you've found a way of contributing that feeds your heart rather than draining it.
You Can't Do Everything
There is a lot to care about.
Social justice.
Racial equality.
Gender equality.
Prison reform.
Immigration.
Politics.
War.
The economy.
Climate and the future of the planet.
They matter.
But none of us can devote ourselves fully to every important thing at once.
Maybe part of keeping an open heart is asking:
What feeds me?
What calls to me?
Where might my particular gifts actually make a difference?
Choosing one thing doesn't mean the others don't matter.
It means trusting that other people will care about different things.
We don't all have to do everything.
Look Closer at the Bad News
Sometimes what hurts our hearts isn't something we're personally responsible for.
It's simply what we see happening in the world.
Imagine watching a news report about a devastating flood.
A town has been overwhelmed.
Homes are destroyed.
People are missing.
Some have died.
None of that should be minimized.
But look closer.
Who rescued people who were trapped?
Who found food and water?
Who offered shelter?
Who arrived afterward to clean up?
Who drove in from someplace else to help rebuild a town that wasn't even theirs?
The disaster is real.
So is the compassion.
The loss is real.
So are the people who show up.
Maybe sometimes we don't need to look away from what's terrible.
We need to look more closely at the whole story.
Maybe People Aren't as Bad as We Think
Sometimes the thing worth noticing is much smaller.
Imagine thousands of people leaving a crowded high school football game at the same time.
One enormous parking lot.
One road leading out.
It sounds like a perfect recipe for frustration.
But then something unexpected happens.
People take turns.
One car goes.
Then another driver waves someone else ahead.
Across the parking lot, strangers cooperate.
Traffic keeps moving because people are being considerate.
Nothing heroic happened.
Nobody made the news.
People were simply kind to one another when they didn't have to be.
And if we aren't paying attention, moments like that can disappear into the background.
Maybe people aren't always as terrible as we've begun to assume.
Look Again
Sometime in the next day or so, you'll probably go somewhere you've been a hundred times.
Your kitchen.
Your backyard.
The grocery store.
The street where you live.
Or maybe simply the room you're sitting in right now.
When you do, try something.
Stop for a moment.
Look again.
See if you can notice one thing you've never really noticed before—or perhaps something you haven't noticed in a long time.
It doesn't have to be beautiful.
It doesn't have to be profound.
You certainly don't have to call it a miracle.
Just notice it.
Because the practice isn't really about finding extraordinary things.
It's about becoming a little more awake to the ordinary things that were there all along.
Let the Good Stuff In
Maybe keeping an open heart isn't only about protecting it from everything that can wear it out.
Maybe it's also about remembering to feed it.
With beauty.
With laughter.
With kindness.
With wonder.
With those little moments we might have missed if we weren't paying attention.
This isn't an invitation to ignore suffering.
It isn't positive thinking pasted over grief.
It isn't pretending everything is okay.
The hard things are real.
But they aren't all that's real.
So sometime this week...
Look again.
And see what you notice.