Krista Tippett: What have you survived in this time? What have you carried? And what are you living through still? Make that list. Write it down. Take it in. Honor it. Imagine how you would respond to anyone else who showed you this list. Offer yourself that same curiosity, self-forgiveness, gentleness, kindness. Flex what is perhaps an underused muscle of a soft presence to yourself, in moments across your day. What can you discern, as you do so, that you need to relinquish in order to stand on the ground of reality as it is now? Can you find the space in the pain?

Remember, some things just hurt.

Consider these words of Sharon Salzberg: “Certainly if I’d heard the word ‘equanimity’ long ago, I’d have thought, That’s really bizarre. What does that mean? And so many times, we think it means indifference; but it really doesn’t. It’s such a huge capacity of our hearts to see what we’re going through, to see what others are going through, and to just have this perspective of, there is change in life. And there is light in the darkness, and darkness in the light.

“And we’re not avoiding pain, because some things just hurt. That’s fundamental. But we’re holding it in a way that the love is stronger than the pain. And the room we create, the environment we create where all of this can come and go, it’s built of awareness. It’s built of love. And it’s built of the sense of community — that we’re not so alone. And then we can really be with things in a very, very different way.”