Image by Leo G. Franchi

Every time I find myself uncomfortably alone, when I feel a sense of losing the direction of light, I review Pádraig Ó Tuama‘s How To Belong Be Alone poem.

Pádraig is an Irish poet, theologian and mediator, deeply invested in the difficult and necessary fight for peace and reconciliation in the world. He is also one of the hosts of the beautifully diverse podcast On Being.

Read in his own voice and evocatively illustrated by Leo G. Franchi, this poem offers a tender meditation on finding yourself amid the noise inside and around you, especially on the days when you fear you are either too much or too little, and all your insides seem to have a life of their own.

A few lines stay with me:

“It all begins with knowing
nothing lasts forever,
so you might as well start packing now.
In the meantime,
practice being alive.

…

You need to control
your habit of forgetting
to breathe.

…

Where do you feel
anxiety in your body?
The chest? The fist? The dream before waking?
The head that feels like it’s at the top of the swing
or the clutch of gut like falling
& falling & falling and falling
It knows something: you’re dying.
Try to stay alive.

…

You belong
here.”

This gentle and compassionate poem has an immense capacity to ground, and I will forever be grateful to Pádraig Ó Tuama for gifting it to the world – and thus to me, and to you, as we all belong to the same world it speaks to.

You can find the whole poem on OnBeing, where you can read it yourself or listen to Pádraig read it aloud.

And if you are having a hard day today, remember to breathe and to “practice being alive”.