There are some things that must be experienced to have a clue.  If  you have never had a rebellious teenager, if you have never felt a full panic attack, if you haven’t grown old, been pregnant, been fat, if you’ve never, you won’t know.

If you have never been thin and beautiful, or large and virile, if you haven’t jumped from a plane and felt the free fall before the shoot, if you have never held a graduation diploma after working harder than you ever have, if you haven’t, you will never know.

So how can you?  How do we understand, give advice, and how can we be present.

There are common thoughts and common feelings, like the air we breath.  Rejection, hope, the intersection of thought with emotion with soul, our 6 senses; sight, hearing, touch, smell, taste, emotion, these we may be able to understand.  We may not be able to understand divorce but we will know rejection.

The sense of accomplishment, being the first in generations to graduate from college for example, is in each of us in our own context; picked for the team, sleep through night after days of preoccupied thought absorbing up the early morning minutes into hours, aware of self-value after chasing it over hills of bullying and comparisons.

Comparison is the thief of joy. – Roosevelt

There are going to be a lot of things that we will never understand in others.  But we will understand how to be present, stand beside someone, allow you to have your unique experience but although unique it is with commonality.   Everything we go through has commonality.  We are designed for just that point in time, for connection.  It is the pursuit of a lifetime.

Self-care tip:  Seek and engage in community.

Questions:  What is it that you feel alone in?  What do you believe is unrelatable?  Or Why not?  Please tell us your story.