What Cannot Be Said Will Be Wept

My teacher once told me about a retreat he went on with Christina Feldman, during which his mind got very dark. He went to her and described, in detail, the despair he was feeling. “Why is this happening?” he asked. Without a trace of unkindness, she replied, “Well, you’re probably always this way.” He started laughing.

We talk a lot about our problems, but our words often bring little relief, because the thing we’re saying is not the real thing we’re trying to say. We use words habitually rather than specifically. As the expression goes, if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. For some people, that hammer is sadness; for others, anger or loneliness. These habits carry us away from the point rather than toward it.

There’s a line attributed to the poet Sappho: “What cannot be said will be wept.” In this sense, both talking too much and talking too little end in sorrow. The remedy is to reconnect words with a felt-sense in the body. For it is there that, as we speak, we can sense which words bring tension and which bring relief.

We also have to learn to speak plainly. I’m often struck by how my clients use metaphors to avoid saying the thing itself. Recently, a man said, “You know how it is: sometimes your tank is empty.” “You mean you resent how much your wife expects from you?” I asked. He started to cry, and I knew we’d found it.

One thing I’ve learned to watch for is the habit of telling myself that “everyone” or “everything” is a certain way: “Everyone disappoints me.” “Everything is wrong.” When I spot these generalizations, I ask: What specific person or thing am I upset about?

The other day I had the sense that I didn’t belong in this world. Then I remembered that a friend had recently hurt my feelings. Suddenly, the pain wasn’t coming from everywhere; it was coming from one place. That kind of focus allows us to let go and heal.

Ajaan Lee once said, “You should bow down to your mouth every morning.” Your mouth has as much capacity as any god to create worlds, destroy them, and work miracles. Take it seriously.

John William Godward, "In the Days of Sappho" (1904)