There is an image I keep coming back to. A figure in ivory, lying back in still water, petals gathering around the shoulders and in the loose spread of the hair. Eyes closed. Hands open. Nothing about them is trying.
The first time I saw it, I cried, which surprised me. It wasn't a sad picture. It took me most of a day to understand why it got to me: I couldn't remember the last time I had let anything carry me. Not a person, not a day, not even a bathtub. I had been holding myself up for so long that I'd forgotten it was optional.
This is a small letter about that. About the prayers that ask for nothing, and the strange, difficult practice of being held.
What floating is and what it isn't
If you've ever learned to float, you'll remember the moment it worked. You stop thrashing. You let your head go back further than feels safe. Your ears fill with water and the world goes muffled, and then, almost without permission, the water takes you.
Floating isn't collapse. A body that collapses sinks. Floating is a cooperation. The water does its part, which is to hold, and you do yours, which is to stop fighting the holding. You still have to breathe. You still have to keep your chest open. But you're no longer the only thing keeping you up.
Most of us know two modes: effort and giving up. We row, and row, and row, and when we can't row anymore we drop the oars and call it failure. Floating is a third thing. It's trust that has a body.
The harder part being held
Here is what I've noticed in myself and in nearly everyone I sit in circle with. We are generous with support. We're quick to bring the soup, drive the friend to the appointment, hold the crying child. What we struggle with is receiving it.
Being held means admitting you needed holding. It means someone sees you without your oars. For a lot of us, that's harder than whatever we were carrying in the first place. So we say I'm fine, and don't go to any trouble, and I've got it, and we keep rowing in circles in very calm water.
They let go. Not because they were ready,
but because they were tired.
That's how it usually happens, honestly. Not in a moment of spiritual readiness, but in exhaustion. And that's all right. The water doesn't check your reasons before it holds you.
A small practice for a place of holding
- Find a place of holding. A bath if you have one. A sink of warm water for your hands if you don't. A patch of afternoon sunlight on the floor works too.
- Lie down, or lean in. Let the floor, the water, or the light take as much of your weight as it will. Notice which parts of you are still bracing.
- Name what is supporting you. The floorboards. The warm water. The house around you, the ground under the house. Say each one silently.
- Say, as a plain fact: I am being held. Not as a hope or an affirmation. As a description of what is happening.
- Stay as long as it's comfortable, then a little longer. When you get up, thank each thing that held you, by name.
What I want you to know
The figure in the water isn't weak. They're not giving up. They're learning to let love arrive without earning it first, which might be the bravest thing a tired person can do.
You don't have to carry yourself today. Not all of you, not every hour. Find one place, one person, one warm bath, and let it do its part.
For your journal
- When did you last let yourself be held, and what did it feel like?
- Which oars are you still gripping, even in calm water?
- Who in your life would carry you, if you let them?
Floating beside you, Kelli