Delivering Love

I try not to write unless I genuinely feel I have something to say. Over the past few weeks and months little stirrings of ‘something’ have danced in my head. They haven’t lasted long, clouded by life I suppose. So it was a genuine surprise today to realise that its been a whole year since I wrote anything. It would be easy to write about all that the last year has brought into my life, eventful to say the least, but that is not what’s in my heart. Yesterday has had it’s moment and today is about forging a path for the future. For someone who is reflective, sentimental and occasionally ensnared by all that has passed this is a colourful, hopeful leap into unknown terrain.

The journey’s of our lives are, without exception, peppered liberally with endings, losses and changes, some by choice most far from the control of any human being. The world we live in is fast, changeable and incessant in it’s demands. There is an expectation that grief, loss, change, must be quickly , and dare I say, quietly, incorporated into our lives. The human mind and heart is ill equipped to perform such emotional gymnastics with the rapidity society demands and so we flounder. Often in loneliness and isolation. We seem to carry fears perpetrated by unspoken ‘expectations’ or worse we decide for others what they are willing to share with us in our moments of change. Either way life appears to have lost any sense of solicitude towards ourselves and in turn we are inclined not to seek it from others. Our willingness to give compassion has become a measure of opposites. Those with expansive and accommodating hearts appear to be the least able to receive similar from others.

There are plentiful opinions around the consensus of modern society being entitled, and while there is truth to this, I cannot help but fear that this has become a convenient disguise for vulnerability, loneliness and fear. If we cannot and will not be gracious to ourselves amidst the tumultuous events of a life lived, how then can we truly be compassionate to others?

Buzz phrases such as ‘self-care’ and ‘trauma informed’ are becoming the norm. My fear is, that rather than help to deepen our consideration of our humanity as individuals, it simply serves to provide puddle deep platitudes to ourselves and others. Telling someone they need to incorporate self-care into their lives is not the same as asking what they need so as to be able to rest their mind enough to even consider ‘self-care’. Being trauma informed is not an ability to score someone’s ACES (adverse childhood experiences) it is having a heart willing to recognise the results of an ACE and to draw close to another in a way that allows them to drain some of the emotional toxins from their mind and body. Instead, too often, we are more likely to inadvertently suppress whatever trauma has raised its ugly head and so the cycle of vicious personal suffering continues.

If I could write here why we do such things then I would A- be a wealthy woman and B – be a very content one. So why this bog? As ever, it started out as something else and has become something different entirely. Writing allows me to shut off reason and deliberation and as my fingers dart across the keys very often I see my ‘real’ thoughts rise to the surface. In this case I am becoming increasingly suspicious as I type that my levels of toxic stress have reached ‘overflow’ and that this heartfelt piece is less my bravery in putting myself out there and more a caveat to what my subconscious feels may be judged by others.

In simple terms .. when our souls are overwhelmed even iron will power will not allow us to conceal our truth as it is in those moments. We are vulnerable, in need of compassion, love, friendship and unconditional acceptance. Yet we live in the age of the hidden. We use computer screens and WhatsApp messages to conceal our fears and sorrow. We use our professional abilities, life roles and busy schedules as methods of both denial and disguise. STILL vulnerability is seen and felt as weakness, STILL lonely people sit side by side with other lonely people instead of embracing one another and filling voids that are draining the essence of who we truly could be. If only we could allow ourselves to be open, to receive and to give. These are the moments of unexpected friendship and healing. If only we could make it our habit to sit along side friends who love us deeply and allow nothing but consciousness and presence to communicate what words can’t say.

I observed such a moment only recently and I confess it initially confused me. I felt oddly vulnerable and whole at the same time. It was unexpected in it’s intensity and on reflection I realise that it was a moment that reflected the similarity in emotions between two people. Dare I say connection. I spend my days attempting to be attentively present for people in moments of extreme vulnerability. ‘Holding space’ for them as the fancy language goes. In uncomplicated terms, holding back all and everything that will threaten to come and invade the space they need to ‘feel their feelings’. This is what I ‘do’. Yet the truth is I rarely, if ever, allow myself these moments. They have become so alien that when I did have this joy I hardly recognised it! I cannot help but wonder if our lack of face to face, human to human attention to each other has dulled our senses to the joys and healing powers of human connection? And when we do discover a kindred spirit do we fear more than we embrace?

“We really must make more effort” .. anyone else use that expression? Commonly heard after a much deliberated and militarily organised face to face meeting with someone we have, at some point in the past, had the afore mentioned moment of connection and taken the leap of friendship with. In old language – a true friend. Many years ago as a student midwife, one of my tutors, an incredibly vibrant Irish lady called Sinead MacInally talked to me about her views on friendship. Probably the first true feminist I ever encountered, her words have stayed with me . She believed that true friendship walked the line of ‘falling in love’. Not a sexual love, but even so, a deep connectedness that actually disrupted the mind, body and soul. To her, friendship endured more than any other human connection with the exception of mother and child. In my younger years I understood this much less than I do now. It also offers a deeper understanding of why the pain of losing a true friend, regardless of the circumstances, is interminable.

But we cannot ever allow ourselves to believe that the interminable loss of a friend means we cannot connect with others. *Some things change and some stay the same.. but we WILL always carry on…IF we are willing to open our hearts and be vulnerable enough to see the now. HEALING comes when we step aside from what we have lost long enough to see what we could gain. When those moments of reaction in our souls whisper to our hearts that new beginnings are afoot.

‘You can kiss your family and friends good-bye and put miles between you, but at the same time you carry them with you in your heart, your mind , your stomach, because you do not just live in a world but a world lives in you’. William P Young (The Shack)

Dedicated to those who have stirred my soul, old and new, and to embracing new beginnings.

*Hymn To Her

And she will always carry on
Something is lost
But something is found
They will keep on speaking her name
Somethings change
Some stay the same

Keep beckoning to me
From behind that closed door
The maid and the mother
And the crone that’s grown old

I hear your voice
Coming out of that hole
I listen to you
And I want some more
I listen to you
And I want some more

She will always carry on
Something is lost
But something is found
They will keep on speaking her name
Some things change
Some stay the same