you do not have to be good: what mary oliver can teach us about life
You Do Not Have to Be Good: What Mary Oliver Can Teach Us About Life
My breath caught the first time I heard her slightly scratchy voice say:
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
It felt like Mary Oliver had cracked me open and peered inside. She knew my struggles and with a few simple words, was releasing me from the prison I had created for myself. How many of us share this fear, that we are not, somehow, good enough; that we have to repent, apologize, or live in such a way that makes up for our inadequacies. For many that I work with, this is an old fear that haunts much of their days.
It's easy to see why so many share this belief in our own inadequacies, we live in a world that sends us this implicit message daily. We're bombarded with advertisements and influencers ready to sell us products that will magically make us better people, perfect partners, more attractive, or more successful. The way out of our feelings of inadequacy, our culture says, is to consume more.
In Wild Geese and many of her other poems, Mary Oliver offers us a different alternative than consumption. She tells us that the question of goodness is irrelevant, instead, we are instructed to simply let the "soft animal of your body love what it loves." Loving in this way is an act of mindfulness: to simply love and be fully with that which you love. As happens so often in her poetry, nature and animals can be our guides to living life more authentically.
Animals don't waste time questioning their worth, they instead see to their needs and take what pleasures they can find in life. Cats don't question whether or not they deserve to bask in the warmth of a sunbeam, they just do. My sweet 50lb labrador mix dog doesn't worry if she is being too clingy or annoying when she climbs into my lap to be pet.
If you allowed yourself to simply let the "soft animal of your body love what it loves" what would that look like? Children, like animals, can be our guides here as well. Young children before they have been socialized or the world has taught them otherwise, love what they love passionately, without self-consciousness. I remember loving to sing as a child, but somewhere along the way I learned to sing quietly and then not at all, least I embarrass myself with my inability to carry a tune. And yet, I find some joy in creating silly songs to sing to the children and animals in my life.
In my work helping people unlearn the painful lessons of the past, we take Mary Oliver's words to heart; giving ourselves the permission to simply love what we love, to build a life on foundations of that love, and to be fully present with that love.
Wild Geese ends like it begins, with another sucker punch:
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
We can love what we love, purely and simply, without questioning whether doing so might jeopardize our sense of belonging—by being a living being, with air in our lungs and a sky full above us, our place "in the family of things" is firmly and without question a resounding YES.
Mary Oliver tells us to lay down our questions of worthiness and fears of inadequacy and to embrace our life, at times both harsh and exciting, and to live this life loving what we love.
If Mary Oliver’s words resonate with you and you’d like to learn how you can more fully love what you love without the past or your anxieties getting in the way, feel free to reach out to me here.