Laying Down The Second Arrow

There’s an old Buddhist parable I came across recently—about two arrows.

The first arrow is the pain we can’t avoid.

The moment of loss. The thing that didn’t go to plan. The gut-punch of life doing what life does.

The second arrow is the one we fire ourselves—through judgement, blame, shame, or resistance.

That part of the story landed somewhere deep. Not just as a nice idea, but as a real, lived knowing.

In the original teaching—found in the Sallatha Sutta—the Buddha says:

“When touched with a feeling of pain, the uninstructed person sorrows, grieves, and laments, beats their breast, becomes distraught. So they feel two pains: the physical and the mental. Just as if they were pierced by two arrows.”

The first arrow is the pain itself—the physical discomfort, the emotional wound, the real-life difficulty we all face. The second arrow is the suffering we create around it. The inner spiral. The story that says this shouldn't be happening, or I should be handling this better.

One is part of being human.
The other is a habit we can gently unlearn.

Because I’ve felt both arrows.
I still do.

The first arrow: the grief I didn’t see coming.
The burnout I tried to bypass.
The anxiety that arrived uninvited.

The second arrow: the inner voice that said you should be coping better.
The stories of failure I built around the feelings.
The pressure to keep it together. To stay soft. To be “regulated,” even when I wasn’t.

I’ve noticed how quickly I can move from pain to self-judgement—without even realising I’ve crossed that line.

As if the discomfort itself wasn’t enough, I add a layer of meaning.

This shouldn’t be happening.
I shouldn’t feel this way.
I should know better, do better, be better.

And in doing that, I lose access to something important: compassion.

What breathwork, embodiment, and trauma work have helped me remember—over and over—is that the first arrow is part of being human.

It’s not personal. It’s not failure.

It just is.

The second arrow, though—that one’s optional.

Not always easy to catch in the moment. But optional, still.

Sometimes, catching the second arrow looks like pausing.

Noticing the tension.

Softening my jaw.

Placing a hand on my chest.

Breathing, without trying to change anything.

Other times, it’s messier—sitting on the floor, unravelling the knot in my throat, whispering to the parts of me that feel small and ashamed.

Neither moment is perfect. But both are ways I choose not to turn against myself.

Both are ways I let the second arrow fall to the floor, unused.

I still forget.

I still fall into the spiral.

But this teaching reminds me: I can meet myself with less armour. I can let the second arrow drop.

And in doing that, I make space for something softer to arrive.

A breath.
A moment of presence.
A tiny thread of trust.

It doesn’t take the pain away.

But it does change how I meet it.