The Guest House

Jalal al-Din Rumi was a 13th-century Islamic scholar and teacher in Konya, in what is now Turkey. In 1244 he met Shams of Tabriz, a wandering mystic, and the friendship turned his life upside down. The respected scholar became a poet of divine love.

His great work, the Masnavi, runs to tens of thousands of verses. One short passage became famous in English as "The Guest House", through the American poet Coleman Barks. His versions are free renderings rather than close translations, and they leave out much of the Islamic framing of the original. But the image has helped many people.

Picture yourself as a host and your feelings as guests. Joy, worry, sadness, irritation: each one arrives, stays a while, and leaves.

A good host doesn't slam the door on a guest they weren't expecting, or ask them to move in for good. They make room, offer a seat, and know the visit won't last forever.

Treating a feeling as a guest takes the fight out of it. You don't have to like it or agree with what it says. You can simply greet it, notice what it brings, and let it go when it's ready.

• ACT

  Make room: notice where a feeling sits in your body, and let it be there instead of fighting it.

• Buddhism

  Feelings are seen as passing events that arise and fall away, not as permanent facts about you.

Think of a feeling that has turned up today, especially one you didn't invite.

Your answers stay in this page and aren't saved or sent anywhere.

Sadness arrives on a quiet Sunday afternoon. What would the Guest House suggest?