Sometimes it feels like so many words are written and said, so much bandwidth devoted to opinions and theories and arguments, that adding more verbiage to the hubbub is a worthless activity.

The word “radiate” came to me this morning. As a writer, I’m prone to writing, of course, but sometimes it seems more important to just…radiate.

Consider the migrant crisis. It hurts to look at it. I don’t know what to do. I feel guilty for the comparative triviality of my day-to-day concerns. In the wee hours, at my worst, I sometimes wonder if it’s shameful to feel happy and carefree when so many are suffering. I sometimes feel ashamed of the worries that plague me, because my life is as easy and free as anyone could imagine.

When this happens, as soon I remember to, at 3 or 4am, I take up a spiritual practice based on a Hawaiian system for healing. It involves holding suffering people in my heart while mentally repeating the phrases: “I take full responsibility. Please forgive me. I love you. Thank you.” I learned about this process first from my friend and mentor Dawn Ryan, then from a book called Zero Limits, by Joe Vitale

The idea is to take responsibility for everything in our lives, because everyone is connected. Some say “I’m sorry” instead of the first phrase, but I prefer “I take full responsibility,” and it’s how Dawn originally taught me.

This mantra gives me somewhere to channel my concern, at the very least. At the most, it clears the way for new insights and promptings to action. Or perhaps just for a few more hours’ sleep, which puts me in a clearer space to do my work in the world. (Which I so question in those dark hours, wondering about its value.)

Saying these words and sending light? It’s not nothing. Though it’s impossible to quantify, I suspect that the shift from guilt/shame to love/light has a real impact, and not just on me. In any case, these last few days, riding my bike or walking my dog in the sunshine, I can’t hold back a sense of exhilaration, pure happiness. I don’t want to. A friend told me that my happiness lifts her when she’s hit a rough spot in her own life.

So here’s to radiating.