‘It never rains, but it pours’ has taken on new meaning in the last week ! As people struggle to come to terms with the losses and difficulties that the November rains have caused to businesses and homes around West Cork it may seem as though the country is beset by problem after problem.
When bad things happen to us it can induce a fearful pattern of thinking that is a struggle to get out of. Worse still, when several things happen together, we can feel overwhelmed, that there is no room to breathe and that no sooner have we come up for air than another wave hits us.
We all encounter events in our lives that are beyond our control, yet it is our attitude to these events more than the event itself, that can make or break us. One reaction is to close down, to stop reaching out but the tragedy is that the more closed we become the more life shrinks from us and so the cycle continues. Another way is to pretend everything is fine. Sometimes we make such a good job of this, we even believe ourselves ! As human beings it is our natural tendency to look around and see others doing well. To assume that everyone else is getting a smooth ride! This is in part due to the game we all play. The I’m fine game !
I fight regular battles with my inner fears. When things happen to us or our loved ones that we could never have predicted, it haunts us forever. Lurking in the corners of my mind, all manner of dangers, fears and anxieties seem all too real. What I have found is that speaking them takes away their power. Allowing the fear, frees me far more than fighting it.
No-one wants to be constantly be-moaning their lot but a little honesty about how we feel and what we are experiencing can break down a lot of barriers and help us to feel less isolated and more grounded. The cycle of fear can be broken, by sharing our emotions and fears we become vulnerable and it is precisely this vulnerability that draws people to us. In order to receive help, we first need to reveal that we need help. It’s hard to feel empathy or compassion for someone whose veneer never cracks ! Some of my closest friendships have been formed in times of crisis and that tells me, that what we seek from each other is a real, deeper heart connection. As human beings we can so easily lose trust .So my questions to you today are these :
‘How do you live your life, in a closed or an open fashion?’
‘How can you be more real in your life?’
‘How present are you in your life ?
We can grow to be closed or even shutdown through our experience of life. Yet it is important to realize that often that experience is long gone and by clinging to it we are tainting our possibilities for our present and the future.
