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.
There are many things that I feel alone in. Probably the worst are the ones that bring shame. It doesn’t seem to matter if it should be my shame, or the shame of a child, those are the things I have the hardest time in expressing to others and in not feeling alone in. A few years ago, I had a child that made a bad choice (I still have that child! Making better choices now). Anyway, the choice caused me to lose my best friends, pretty much my only friends were we are living. It also had other reprecussions, people at church judging, the community, people who have gone out of their way to let me know that everything is my fault, ect.
Anyway, I have never felt more alone. I couldn’t talk to anyone and really didn’t want to. But I had a councilor who encouraged me to choose one person to make friends with and talk to. I did. I made a new friend. One who supported me and supported my child. One who didn’t judge or make accusations. One who gave me unconditional acceptance. Someone who has really become a friend.
Times have changed. It has been a rough couple of years, but there are so many more blessings that came out of this than I ever imagined. I have learned that the most important thing is not to relate to something that you can’t. It is to accept mistakes in others. To allow them to change. To not cast blame. There are so many things we can do to just become a little nicer in the world we live in. I like what you said about being present. That is what happened to me with my new friends. They just took me in and became constants in my life. I think there are a lot of things that are unrelatable simply because we can’t or won’t talk about them. We won’t give anyone a chance to accept us in spite of those things. I also think that is ok as long as we can find other ways to reach out and be a part of the world around us. I don’t know that I will ever be good at talking about some of the past. But who knows, when the right time comes and I feel safe enough, I just might.
Hello Pattyann, friend. I’m sooo sorry I’ve been awol. Please forgive my tardiness in replying to your elegant comment.
I agree so much with your testimony as experienced anecdotally with those I practice with – “We won’t give anyone a chance to accept us in spite of those things.”
Speak friend!
Finding the “connections” is one of my favorite parts about life’s journey.
Echo! Thank you Leslie!