We Are All Flawed, Yet We Are All OK

The last couple of weeks the world has been looking different to me.

Not anymore a playground where to play the most amazing game called Life.

Rather a hostile place where I need to be wary and on my guard at all times.

Shaken and saddened by the events here in London and the rest of the UK, I have been finding it incredibly hard to hold on to my reverence for life.

I have been feeling angry, disappointed, even cheated on.

Most of all, I’ve felt unable to really support others.

What would I say to a mother who’s suddenly lost her child to incomprehensible reasons?

How could I really be of service when my whole core is shaking?

As I get myself more and more “up in my head”, I suddenly see how my feelings of despair may come from a very far past.

Flash backs of a younger life emerge through my tears and I see myself being so young, and so very scared. Back then life never felt safe and I never had much trust in it.

Why would I trust something that would always end up in the same shitty way?

That seemed a logical reason for my wariness.

Since Life just looked like an impending danger to me, I quickly learnt all sorts of tricks to stay well ahead of it.

So it could never get me. And many times I feel, and many times Life caught up with me.

What I missed is that despite it all, I always kept on going.

Even the darkest night of the soul has always turned into dawn.

I guess I was too preoccupied figuring out where the hell all this fear came from, to see that the very Life I distrusted moved me forward.

That Life is what will move the grieving mother through her pain.

Breath after breath, her inner resilience and strength will bring her back to herself.

And so I see how I don’t need to find ways to be strong for others at times of true tragedy.

They too have it within themselves to pull through.

Despite our flaws, pain and fear we have an incredible inner ability to “function”.

Maybe not always as well as we’d like, but we function even when we’d like the world around to stop.

Wandering around London, I see now how I could be anywhere else and still have the dreadful feeling that something may be about to happen.

It’s not the terrorists, it’s not the people dying, it’s not living in such a big place.

It’s just the way I always looked at my life.

And this is both reassuring and humbling. I know my thinking will always change if I leave it alone and I’m just fine right where I am.

Looking around me, I sense I no longer need to be strong for others because they have within themselves my same ability to bounce back from any adversity.

We are all flawed yet we are all OK.

I can allow myself to cry for those who’ll never go back home.

The mother who’ll never hug her child again.

For the young who’ll never turn old.

For the rest of us, who are scared but still want to believe in a Life that does not make much sense right now.

And through my tears, I smile at the world again.

Blog originally published here.