For the past weeks my days have been a seesaw between negativity, crushing and burdening many times, and toxic positivity, seeping guilt and despair in its wake.
Life is beautiful and hard, when we are lucky, in equal doses. Times when our cups runeth over alternate (again, if we are lucky) with moments when we feel so cornered by grief, frustration and anxiety that we simply just want to crawl into a corner. To keep moving ahead we need to see each other in the eyes of others as in kind, compassionate mirrors. It feels to me that more and more this is a very high commodity these days.
Lately I have found myself treading so very fearfully and lightly in connecting with the people around me. The many changes that have occurred in my life and in myself over the past half a year have left my soul raw and any poking hurts tenfold.
From those we try to connect with who see our reaching out as a long awaited opportunity to regurgitate all of their unfiltered frustrations, half baked negative assumptions and estimations, to equally disconnecting phrases such as “oh just look at how blue the sky is” or “just think positively” or the ruinous “just don’t think about it, be thankful you are healthy, “ these are all damaging rejections to any bid for connection that we are trying to make.
Empathy is hard. It is very hard to look the person in front of you in the eye, allow them to express their feelings, hold space and acknowledge. It means allowing them to touch a part of us that mirrors the feelings they are expressing. But it is the only way to truly connect. Sympathy or “let me tell you how to feel today” are othering and painful.
In a way, it is very simple: sometimes we cannot understand what the other is going through, sometimes they sound absolutely ridiculous and on a soap box, other times their joy and luck makes us puke. Humanity. And yet, when we are at the other end of a bid for connection, we are not called to correct or prove we have it worse. We are called to look the person in the eye, mirror their pain or joy and, if we cannot find anything kind and compassionate to say, remain silent, and extend our arms wide inviting them into a celebratory or healing embrace.
Photo by charlesdeluvio on Unsplash
Connect 