The Guests Who Arrive at 2 A.M.

I woke up at 2 a.m. this morning remembering things I wish I had done differently. Things I didn’t follow through on before leaving my company. Conversations where I thought I had explained something clearly, only to find out later that we had walked away with very different understandings.

There was so much to keep track of then. I often felt like some ball was being dropped, even when I couldn’t tell you which one. And sometimes things did get dropped. Sometimes that affected other people. I know that.

At 2 a.m., though, I wasn’t thinking through any one situation in a useful way. I was feeling that deep, familiar sense that I had done something wrong. It was there in my body, and then the memories started coming

I’ve been thinking about Rumi’s poem “The Guest House,” which describes the feelings that arrive in us as unexpected visitors. A joy, a sadness, a fear, a moment of awareness. His invitation is to welcome them.

I love the poem. I also find myself thinking, Really? Even this one?

Because shame is a hard guest for me. So is the fear that I’ve hurt someone, missed something important, or failed someone who needed me.

As a parent, those feelings have had plenty of opportunities to show up. All three of my children have struggled, and there are times when the question washes over me: What have I done wrong?

I can know that there are many things involved in their struggles. I can understand that intellectually. Then I wake up in the middle of the night, and I’m right back in that feeling.

In 2018, when my son was going in and out of treatment, some people stopped talking to me. They said I wasn’t listening to them. I remember how painful that was, because I was trying so hard to do the best I could. I was scared. I didn’t always know what to do, and I was trying to find my way through something I had never experienced before.

Maybe there were things I wasn’t able to hear. I can leave room for that now. At the time, it felt like I was struggling to help my child and losing people around me at the same time.

That feeling has stayed with me—the sense that I’m not allowed to make mistakes. Or that if I do, people may decide something about who I am.

And yes, sometimes our mistakes are big. I don’t want to gloss over that. We can hurt people. We can fail to follow through. We can think we’ve communicated something and never check whether the other person understood us.

I’ve done those things as a parent, a partner, a friend, and in my work. I want to be able to acknowledge them. I also know how hard that becomes when I’m already feeling ashamed, or when I feel spoken to as though I’m an idiot, especially with other people watching.

Then I may go looking for someone who will understand what just happened.

This is where I’ve noticed something in myself that I don’t particularly like. I’ve been trying to put gossip down, and it can still show up when I’m really dysregulated. I want someone to validate what happened in a meeting or a conversation. I want to hear, “Yes, I can understand why that hurt.”

Sometimes, in trying to get that, I say more about another person than I feel good about afterward.

That’s hard to admit. It’s also something I need to see if I want to do it differently. I need people I can talk to. I’m still learning how to ask for support in a way that helps me understand my own experience without getting pulled further into talking about someone else.

So when I read “The Guest House,” I think about all of this. The shame. The fear. The regret. The urge to explain myself. How do I stay present when those feelings come through the door?

I don’t have a neat answer. Sometimes I don’t recognize what’s happening until I’ve already reacted.

Other times, I can catch it. I can feel that familiar sinking sensation and realize, Oh, I’m feeling wrong again. I can take a little time before I decide what the feeling means or what I need to do.

That little bit of space matters to me, especially as a parent. I don’t want every fear about my children to become something I urgently need to fix. And I don’t want shame to keep me from hearing them when there really is something I need to understand or repair.

I want to be able to make mistakes and keep learning. I want that for my children, too.

I’m not sure I’ll ever greet every difficult feeling at the door laughing, as the poem suggests. Sometimes I’m doing well just to notice it and stay with myself for a few minutes.

This morning, that was what I needed. There were things worth reflecting on. There were also memories I had already gone over many times. I didn’t need to figure out my whole life at 2 a.m.

I needed to recognize how much shame had arrived, and give myself a chance to come back to those thoughts in the daylight.

Do you recognize that feeling—the sudden certainty that you’ve done something wrong, even before you know what it is? I’d love to hear what helps you stay with yourself when it shows up.

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