When Love Means Letting It Burn

What if every painful thing happening around you isn’t actually yours to fix, heal, or learn from?

In this episode of Untamed Voices, we step into the story of two ancient forests growing side by side—connected by roots, wildlife, and years of shared history. But when one forest begins to burn, the other becomes consumed with trying to save it, until an unexpected groundskeeper appears with a very different lesson.

Through the metaphor of fire, boundaries, and renewal, we explore what happens when compassion turns into over-responsibility, when someone else’s discomfort becomes our emergency, and when helping begins to interfere with another person’s path.

Sometimes the most loving thing we can do is put down the bucket, tend to our own forest, and trust someone else with theirs.

Because not every fire is ours to extinguish.

And we do not have to become collateral damage in someone else’s learning.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:41

Hello all and welcome back to my podcast. I wanted to just acknowledge that and apologize for not posting a podcast last week. Things got a little too busy for me and I just decided to take a break. But here we are, back again, and I'm really excited to be here. So thank you for being here with me. Today I just want you to imagine something. Imagine that somewhere far, far, far from here, beyond the highways and houses and all the places that we know, there are two forests. They have grown beside one another for hundreds of years, maybe thousands. No one really remembers anymore. There's no fence between them. No sign announcing where one ends and the other begins. So if you were a bird flying overhead, you probably wouldn't notice the difference at all. You would simply see green, miles and miles and miles of it, pines stretching toward the sky, old oaks with enormous twisting branches, wildflowers scattered across the forest floor, moss covered stones, creeks winding through the trees like silver ribbons, deer crossing freely between them, roots tangled beneath the soil. From above they look like one forest, but they're not, they're two forests. And I say that because that's going to matter. Because one summer one of the forests catches fire. It starts quietly, not like a giant explosion or anything, not flames racing dramatically through the trees. Just a little bit of smoke. Maybe lightning struck somewhere deep inside the woods. Maybe an old tree fell. Maybe dry brush had been collecting there for years and years. Doesn't really, really matter how it started. What matters is that something begins burning. And the neighboring forest notices. Of course it does. It can smell the smoke. It can feel the heat. Animals begin running through the trees, birds scatter from branches, ash starts drifting through the air. And because these forests have grown beside each other for so so long, the second forest becomes afraid. Something is wrong. So it does what many, many, many of us do when someone we love is struggling. It tries to help. Sound familiar? If a forest could pick up a bucket, just imagine it doing exactly that. Running towards the flames, throwing water, stamping out embers, dragging away burning branches. Anything to make the fire stop. And for a moment, it works. The flame settles, the smoke clears, everything becomes quiet again. The neighboring forest exhales. Okay. Oof, we're finally safe. But a little while later, guess what happens? The fire comes back. And this time it's actually somewhere else. So again the neighboring forest rushes over more buckets, more water, more effort, and again the fire goes out. Until it doesn't. Because underneath all of this is something neither forest understands yet. That fire wasn't entirely accidental. The forest had become incredibly overgrown, branches had fallen and never decomposed, dead leaves were piled thick across the ground, old trees stood hollow and brittle. Underbrush had grown so dense that sunlight could barely reach the forest floor. For years everything had accumulated and accumulated and accumulated. The forest needed clearing, it needed light, it needed space. There were even seas seeds buried beneath a soil that could not open without heat. They had been waiting there for years, maybe decades, waiting for fire. But every time this fire began, the neighboring forest came running. So I've been thinking about this a lot lately. Because I think that there are times in life when we assume that if something painful is happening near us, it must be ours. Especially if you're someone who has spent a lot of time healing. You become almost like trained to look inward. Someone's angry? Did that trigger me? Someone pulls away. What attachment wound is this showing me? Someone treats me poorly. What is this mirroring? Something painful keeps happening? Okay, universe, what the hell am I supposed to learn, right? Okay, so listen. I love those questions. I have built enormous pieces of my life around those questions. They have changed me. They have actually healed me in many areas. They have helped me understand myself in ways I never ever could have understood otherwise. But I think there's another question that we don't ask nearly enough. What if this isn't my lesson? What if I'm simply standing close to someone who is learning theirs? So back in our forest, years pass. The forest, the first forest, keeps catching fire. The second forest becomes incredibly good at noticing smoke, actually almost too good. A little whiff, bucket, a strange glow between the trees, bucket, a little heat in the air, bucket. Eventually, it doesn't even want to see the flames. It begins anticipating them. It watches the sky, becomes hypervigilant, checks the wind, studies every change in temperature. Is something burning? Are you okay? Do I need to come over there? And somewhere along the way the second forest stops tending itself. There are wildflowers that haven't even been watered, branches that need pruning, trees that need attention, little saplings trying to grow. But the forest is so exhausted because it has become the unofficial fire department for land that isn't actually its own. And here's the thing, I wonder how many of us have done this in our daily lives. How often have we become so so busy managing someone else's internal weather that we just stop noticing our own? Someone we love becomes upset, and suddenly our entire nervous system runs towards them. Someone withdraws and we begin searching for the bucket. Someone is disappointed in us, bucket. Someone is angry, bucket, someone is struggling with consequences from their own choices, bucket. Ooh, you get the point. Someone is uncomfortable with the boundary we set. Oh god, where is this bucket? Right? Because maybe if I explain it differently, maybe if I'm softer, if I reassure them, maybe if I take a little more responsibility or make myself smaller or help them understand, maybe if I can just make this okay, the fire will go out. And you know, sometimes it does for a while. But here's what the second forest couldn't see. Every time it extinguished the fire, the dead brush remained, the hollow trees remained, the unopened seeds remained buried beneath the soil. Nothing actually changed. It just stopped burning. And then one year something different happens. There's a drought, a long one. The creek becomes narrow, the moss dries, the grasses turn brittle. And one afternoon, lightning cracks across the sky. The first forest catches fire again, but this time the fire is enormous. The second forest sees it immediately, and instinctively it reaches for the bucket. Because that's what it does, right? We established that. That's what it's always done. But before it can cross into the neighboring woods, an old groundskeeper appears. Now, I don't know why there's a groundskeeper in my imaginary forest. Apparently there is. Just bear with me here. Maybe he's there the whole time. And I'm just now noticing him. Maybe he's one of those mysterious old men in stories who appears exactly when someone is about to learn something important and then disappears before anyone asks thinks to ask where he lives. I love those by the way. Either way, he's there. And he tells the forest something strange. He says, Don't cross. The forest is horrified. I mean, what do you mean, don't cross? It's burning. He nods. I know. Then we have to help. And the groundskeeper says, No, you have to protect your side. I think of this groundskeeper as kind of like a guide or an or internal intuition, you know, depending on what you believe, right? We all have this voice inside of us. A lot of times, well, not a lot of times. Sometimes we listen, sometimes we don't, right? Some people learn to listen better, some people don't. You know, some people lost their faith in that internal voice, and then regain that faith in that internal voice, right? Anyway, so he begins clearing a strip of land between the forests. Brush, leaves, fallen branches, anything the fire could use to travel from one forest into the other. The second forest doesn't understand. It feels cruel, heartless even, because it can hear trees crackling in the distance. It can see animals running, it can feel the heat. Everything inside it wants to rush towards the fire, but instead the groundskeeper keeps clearing. Eventually there's a long, long strip of open earth between the two forests. A fire break. And then they wait. I think this might be one of the hardest things we ever learned to do. Wait beside someone else's discomfort without making it ours. Because boundaries can feel incredibly uncomfortable when you are accustomed to rescuing. There can be a moment when you think, Am I really just going to stand here? They're upset, yes. They're disappointed, yes. They're angry, maybe. They're uncomfortable, definitely. And I'm not gonna fix it? No, not necessarily. Because their discomfort may not mean something has gone wrong. Their discomfort might actually be where something finally begins changing. Whoa. Right? Their discomfort might actually be where something finally begins changing. Huh. Look at that. The fire reaches the firebreak, leaf flames leap high into the air. Heat is tremendous. For a moment, the second forest is certain the boundary won't hold. And I imagine that moment too. That moment when you stop managing someone else's emotions and everything in you screams, go back, fix it. They're gonna leave. They're gonna hate you. They're gonna think you're selfish, they're gonna misunderstand you. Do something. The groundskeeper doesn't move. So the forest doesn't either. And the flames reach the edge and stop. Not immediately. There are sparks, there's smoke. A few embers cross over and have to be tended. Because boundaries aren't magical walls. Other people's experiences can still affect us. Love still affects us. Conflict still hurts. Watching someone struggle can still hurt, but the whole fire doesn't have to become ours. And eventually the flames turn back to where the land they came from. For days the first forest burns, and the second forest grieves. Because sometimes protecting yourself doesn't feel victorious. Sometimes it actually feels terrible. Sometimes you know a boundary is necessary and still wish you didn't need it. Sometimes you understand exactly why someone behaves the way they do. You know their history, you know their wounds, you know what happened to them. You can practically trace the path backward and see how they became who they became. And your compassion whispers, but they're hurting yes, they may be, and still, their pain does not automatically become your responsibility. This is something I am learning. Understanding someone does not require absorbing them. Compassion does not require access. Love does not require self-abandonment. And another person's healing does not require my destruction. I can say I see your fire, I know there are reasons it exists, I believe there may be something sacred happening inside of you, and I refuse to burn with you. Eventually the rain comes, the fire goes out, smoke hangs between the trees for a while, and the first forest looks completely different. Blackened trunks, ash, open spaces where thick brush once stood. The second forest looks across the firebreak and thinks, look what happened. For a while it wonders if maybe it should have done more. Maybe it could have saved those trees. Maybe it could have prevented all of this. Maybe it failed. But the old groundskeeper says nothing. He simply points. At first the forest doesn't understand what he's pointing at. And then there in the black soil, something green, tiny, almost impossibly small, a sprout, then another and another. Seeds that had been buried beneath the ground for years have finally opened. Sunlight reaches places it hasn't touched in decades. Wildflowers begin appearing. New trees grow, animals return, and slowly the forest begins again. Not as the forest that it was, as the forest it was trying to become. And suddenly the neighboring forest understands something really important. All those years it thought it was saving the other forest. Maybe sometimes it was preventing something too. Not intentionally, not maliciously, lovingly. It was trying so hard to prevent pain that it never considered that some things can only be learned by being allowed to unfold. And I think that about people. Sometimes someone needs to experience the consequence. Sometimes someone needs to sit in the silence. Sometimes someone needs to discover that when they withdraw, you will not chase. That when they become angry, you will not automatically surrender your boundary. That when they refuse responsibility, you will not pick it up for them. That when they create chaos, you will not reorganize your entire life around it. That doesn't mean we're teaching them a lesson. I don't want to become the groundskeeper of someone else's soul either. It's not you. It's not, I'm gonna show you, right? It's I'm going to stop interfering with what belongs to you. There's a difference, a huge one. One is punishment, and the other one is surrender. And maybe this is where energetic boundaries become important. Because we usually think about boundaries as words. No, stop, I can't do that. I'm not available for this. And those matter. But I think there are boundaries that happen long, long, long before language. Quiet decisions within ourselves. And lately, one of mine has become I refuse to become collateral damage in someone else's learning. I refuse to become collateral damage in someone else's learning. And you know what? I can do that. I can set that boundary. I can witness it, I can love through it, I can send love toward it, I can hope that something beautiful eventually grows from it. But I do not consent to being destroyed by it. Your anger does not have to become my shame. Your disappointment does not have to become my energy, my emergency. Your withdrawal does not have to become my pursuit. Your fear does not have to become my limitation. Your confusion does not require me to abandon what I know. Your fire can be your fire, and I can tend to my forest. Because here's another thing. While the second forest was constantly watching for smoke next door, its own forest was growing. There were things happening there too. Wildflowers, saplings, nests filled with tiny birds, streams changing direction, old trees dropping seeds, life. Beautiful, ordinary life. And it had been missing some of it because it was always looking toward the smoke. That part kind of gets me. How much of our own life do we miss while monitoring someone else's? How much beauty goes unnoticed because we're wondering whether someone is upset with us? How many mornings do we lose? How many dinners? How many walks? How many belly laughs? How many quiet moments? How much creativity, how much rest? How much of our own becoming? Because somewhere nearby, someone is burning. And we believe love means that we have to watch the fire. Maybe it doesn't. Maybe sometimes love means turning around, looking back into your own forest and noticing, oh, there you are, your life still waiting for you. And folks, this is not selfish. I have heard that so many times, but I feel selfish when I do that. No, it's not selfish. It's part of life, it's part of the way that life unfolds. If we don't tend to ourselves, if we don't take care of ourselves, and we focus on other people, that interferes with their life. And it prevents us from living ours. So years later, the two forests are still neighbors. Neither one moved. They still share birds. Wind still carries seeds between them. Their roots probably still meet somewhere deep beneath the soil. They're connected. But they are not the same forest. That is the wisdom. Connection does not erase distinction. Love does not erase boundaries. And another person's journey does not automatically become ours simply because we are close enough to feel its heat. Sometimes life is asking something of us. Absolutely. Sometimes the mirror is ours. Sometimes the trigger points towards something inside us that desperately wants our attention. Sometimes we really do need to look inward and ask, what is this here to teach me? But not every time. Sometimes the smoke is coming from next door. And maybe the question isn't, what am I supposed to learn from their fire? Maybe the question is, what would it look like to trust them with it? To trust that they have their own path, their own soul, their own guides, their own timing, their own relationship with whatever is greater than all of us. Maybe I don't have to understand what their fire is doing. Maybe I don't even have to know whether something beautiful will grow afterward. That isn't mine either. My responsibility is here, my soil, my roots, my choices, my integrity, my healing. My little patch of this enormous world. And when smoke begins rising somewhere beyond the trees, I can notice it, I can care, I can even feel sad. But I don't automatically have to grab the bucket. Sometimes I can simply walk to the edge of my forest, stand behind the firebreak, place my feet firmly against the earth, and say, I love you. I trust that whatever belongs to you will find its way through you. But I will not burn so that you don't have to. I will not become collateral damage in the process of your becoming. Look, people, I've burned too. I've burned many, many times, and have come back up even stronger every single time. I have faith in this because I've lived it many times. So, your lesson can belong to you, mine can belong to me. And maybe somewhere beneath the soil, our roots can still touch. Without either forest having to disappear. Thank you so much for listening and for being there and sending you all so much love. This life can be tremendously difficult. But you know what? Each one of you, you got this. You got what it takes, and you got this. Alright. See you next time. Bye.