For the Birds: Your needs are not transactional

swift letters for busy people - #7

Hi friends! I have something good to tell you.

---

When I made the decision in October to leave my 10-day silent meditation retreat after only three days, I immediately felt better.

The circumstances of the retreat, it turned out, were causing me pain and confusion. Making the hard but clear decision to leave early felt like reuniting myself with my own agency. It provided a relief so palpable and immediate, and so good-feeling, that I began to wonder, as I re-packed my bags and waited for my ride to show up, if maybe I should just stay after all.

THAT.

That thing—that reflexive turn back toward what was making me feel worse, which happened the moment I started to feel some relief; how we sometimes mistake feeling better as the withdrawal of our original need.

That’s what I want to be curious about today.

---

A friend tells me about feeling better, and then deciding she’s willing, after all, to attend an event she hadn’t really wanted to.

An acquaintance tells me she’s taking on something heavy and beyond her assigned duties at work, after having an especially uplifting weekend.

I think it’s an oversimplification to read such moments as compassionate or generous.

OR RATHER, I think those of us inclined toward compassion and generosity must monitor the edges of our giving, because that’s where our selfhood sometimes slips away.

I’m talking about the moments where, upon feeling relief, we then overextend ourselves. Or, as with my retreat experience, we doubt the gravity of a need by assessing it primarily once it has been met.

As if feeling better is an experience that incurs expense.

Or as if feeling better comes wrapped in obligation.

Or as if feeling better is a signal that we must now sacrifice a preference, boundary, or need.

(As if we have to be feeling worse in order to warrant having preferences, boundaries, and needs in the first place.)

Do I walk around feeling like I must earn or justify these things for myself?

Do you?

---

You don’t have to earn or justify your preferences, boundaries, or needs.

Your preferences, boundaries, and needs are not merit-based. You always already qualify for them.

You are allowed to not want to do things, to say “no,” to protect your edges, and to steward your desires without assuming they must be counterbalanced with sacrifice.

Your personhood is not where the larger world’s imbalances must be balanced out.

You are allowed to luxuriate in a moment of feeling better, and then to stay there for as long as you want and are able to.

You are allowed to steep in goodness.

You are allowed to bask in a lifted mood.

You are allowed to say “no,” feel good as a result, and then maintain your “no.”

You are allowed to say “no” and keep describing yourself as compassionate, because compassionate people have to say “no” a lot of times, too.

You are allowed to revel in your increased capacity, for however long or short it sticks around, without giving another part of yourself away.

Because that wouldn’t be compassion. That would be transaction.

You already deserve relief, fulfilled needs, and goodness.

When they’re around—keep them! They’re yours.