What I Wanted to Write About

This time of year, I usually write about the beauty of fall — the crisp air, the slowing down, the quiet gratitude of the season. This year, that felt incomplete. As a therapist, I pay close attention to what's actually present, not just what we wish were true — and what's present for me right now is something more layered than a polished reflection on autumn.

Here in Arizona, we're still deep in triple-digit heat, with real relief months away. It adds to something I see often in my practice this time of year — a kind of reverse seasonal affective disorder, where the heat becomes a pressure cooker, wearing people down the way gray skies do elsewhere.

The state of the world enters my office every day too. Clients bring in their worry — about the news, about the country, about a constant undercurrent of uncertainty. When the people they trust — therapists, mentors, leaders — don't at least acknowledge what's happening, trust in them can begin to wane. It's hard to feel steadied by someone who seems unaware of the ground shifting beneath everyone. I won’t pretend otherwise here.

So, this month, I don't have a tidy insight to offer. What I have is this: you're allowed to let this be a hard season without rushing past it. You're allowed to name what's heavy without needing to resolve it in the same breath. And you're just as allowed to feel peace, ease, or unexpected joy — even in the middle of everything else. Holding both isn't contradiction; it might be the whole point.

That's the idea I keep coming back to this week, framed more beautifully than I ever could by Rumi.

On Welcoming What Comes: The Guest House

I keep returning to his poem "The Guest House." You can read the full poem here, translated by Coleman Barks. Its central idea has been sitting with me: that every emotion that arrives — even the painful ones — comes as a guest, not an intruder, and deserves to be welcomed rather than pushed away.

That idea points to something I think of as radical acceptance:

Welcome every visitor. Sadness, fear, worry, grief — let them in rather than pushing them away. And if fortune has graced your house — a moment of ease, an unexpected joy, a quiet afternoon of connection — embrace that fully too. You don't have to earn good news by suffering first. 

This year, unable to visit Scotland myself, I've been grateful for friends there who've sent me videos of the landscape and snippets of traditional music — small, thoughtful touches that brought a piece of a place I love straight to me, even from a distance.

You are the house, not the weather passing through it. Watch your thoughts without letting them control you. Feelings come and go like temporary visitors — they are not the whole of who you are.

Hardship clears space. Painful experiences make room inside you for new joy. Every dark moment can prepare you for a brighter arrival — a guide toward wisdom and healing, not just an obstacle to endure.

Whatever is visiting you right now — sorrow or joy, heaviness or grace — you don't have to face any of it alone.

Lisa Angelini, MAPC, LPC, ACCHT