One rainy night after a particularly difficult day, I was so shaken as I walked back to my room that I collapsed to my knees in a mud puddle and started to weep. My attempts at taking away the participants’ heartache were just a self-defense strategy, a way of trying to protect myself from suffering. Just then, Elisabeth came along and picked me up. She brought me back to her room for a coffee and a cigarette. “You have to open yourself up and let the pain move through you,” Elisabeth said. “It’s not yours to hold.” Without this lesson, I don’t think I could have stayed present, in a healthy
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