This Being Human: Focusing, The Guest House, and Inner Hospitality
- Simone Grimmer
- Sep 8
- 2 min read
The poem The Guest House by Rumi explores the deeply human experience of meeting life’s emotions—joy, sorrow, shame, malice—as unexpected visitors. It invites us to welcome each one, not because they feel pleasant, but because they carry wisdom and possibility. Even the painful ones may be “clearing you out for some new delight.”
This kind of welcome is more than a metaphor. It’s a practice of embodied listening.
In Focusing, we turn inward with interested curiosity, presence, and compassion. Instead of pushing away uncomfortable feelings or rushing to fix them, we pause. We listen. We greet what arises—sometimes awkwardly, sometimes gently—and allow space for the body to speak its truth. We don’t bypass discomfort; we relate to it.
In trauma-sensitive Focusing, we move at the pace of safety. We don’t throw the door open. We sit beside it, noticing what’s there, whispering, “I hear you.” Sometimes, that’s all that’s needed for something inside to soften.
This same inner hospitality anchors the work of Spiritual Companioning, where we tend not just to emotion, but to mystery. We witness. We notice. We honor the sacred in all its forms—not by advising or intervening, but by staying close, even in silence.
In Internal Family Systems (IFS), this stance continues. We welcome each part of ourselves—the protector, the exile, the doubter—not to change them, but to listen. Each part is seen as purposeful, worthy of compassion, and often deeply misunderstood. Healing comes not from forcing resolution, but from building relationship.
Across these practices, one attitude remains:
✨ What arises is met, not managed
✨ What feels fragmented is befriended
✨ What is complex is welcomed as wise
This is how we honor what lives in us—even when we don’t yet understand it.
And perhaps, like the poem says, each visitor—even the ones we resist—has been sent “as a guide from beyond.”
The Guest House
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still, treat each guest honorably. He may be clearing you out for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
__________
© by the author/translator. Provided here at no charge for educational purposes. Excerpted from “The Essential Rumi,” translated by Coleman Barks, HarperOne, 1995.
🌿 Want to try this kind of inner hospitality for yourself?
Start with a short practice of welcoming your "visitors". Or reach out—I’d be honored to meet what’s moving in you.
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