With my freshman year coming to a close, I find myself reflecting on all I have experienced in the past eight months. This weekend, I had the opportunity to attend a retreat which promoted this reflection. During our journaling activity, I found myself focusing in on the lyrics to the song that was playing in the background: "Heavy" by Birdtalker. The chorus of the song is a repetition of the same line:

Leave what's heavy, what's heavy behind.

When lines in songs stick out to me, I take it as a sign that there is some message, some meaning in the lyrics waiting to be brought to light. As I listen to this song on repeat while writing this article, I am slowly finding out that meaning for me.

The song begins from a place of loneliness, a place of sadness, fearfulness, and pain, and transitions into one of community, of turning fearfulness into love and healing. Lyrics shift from "being lonely together" to "just wanting to be together". The emphasis of the word together throughout the song, and words of endearment, through calling one's fellow people one's brothers and sisters are important to recognize.

Life's worries and struggles are not meant to be faced alone, we can find healing in the people around us.

Yet aside from that point, I think the chorus' lines stood out to me so much, because sometimes, we just need a reminder that amidst all the problems and situations we might encounter in our lives, when it comes down to it, we are not meant to focus on what weighs us down.

What the chorus is urging me to do, what it is urging you to do, is to let go of what is holding you back in life, what causes you fear, sadness, and pain, and move forward.

What I have been realizing more and more, is that those intense feelings that come from situations where we feel we are wrong or have been wronged, any situations that bring down our energy, none of this should have any place in our life. Just as I wrote about not letting anyone take away my joy in a previous article, the song has a similar message, in that we are called to let go of whatever is "heavy" in our life.

As I spoke about earlier, the greatest way the song suggests we do this is by reaching out to people, by being together with people. Recently, I have been questioning my ability to live presently, my ability to really be fully with the people I love most.

Now, I feel inspired to bring my whole presence to those around me.

Hopefully, this vulnerability will allow me to move past whatever it is that is holding me back. I urge you all to do the same. Life is full of happiness, joy, and smiles, and yes, it can also be filled with pain and hardship. I truly believe, however, that by making a conscious decision to focus on the here and the now, not anything that has happened in the past or in the future that causes you stress, we have the ability to "leave what's heavy behind" and live a life full of love.

I am so grateful to have found people, to have community, who have given me a space to shift from fearfulness and pain, to one of healing.

Yes, it is important to feel and process things on our own, yet it can be even more powerful to be surrounded by those who remind you that you have the freedom to change.

Readers, I hope you don't allow yourself to be weighed down by whatever is happening or has happened in your life. Life is meant to be enjoyed, not endured. Find the people who allow you transform your weighed down feelings into ones that express your best self, it'll make all the difference :)

Talk soon,

Sam