The world is a hard place, the world is a soft place.
The world owes me, the world does not owe me.
What is your mantra and philosophy of life?
Scott Peck years ago, in his book The Road Less Travelled said, life is difficult. Buddhists say we create our own suffering. There are theories about embracing life with its hills and valleys. There are theories about the mountain being there, and how we see it, get to know it, and climb it step by step, or we just observe the mountain, respect it, and get on with our ordinary, or is it extraordinary lives. I am tired thinking of all of this. It calls to me and wrecks my head at the same time! It is not easy to hold it all.
My beloved brought in daffodils this morning that were blown down with the wind and rain. I sent him back out for the greens stalks as well. As I arrange these beauties in a small vase, I notice, they are nothing without the greenery that accompanies them. It reminded me that beauty needs simplicity to show itself off, or is it the other way around?
I gave thanks for both. I am reminded that without my sorrows I would not appreciate my joys. Without noise I would not yearn for silence. This is the Ying and Yang of life. Welcome to life!
I looked out my window and wrote this poem –
Crows
She sits like an old Irish woman wrapped in a black shawl.
Or a drug dealer in a dark hoodie watching everything.
Staying still until the time is right to leave safety and descend into competition with the other crows already sharing pickings.
Looking in the window, as we look out at them.
The old couple eating breakfast with the birds.
They are getting closer to the house, she says, too close, says he.
I study her and she studies me.
We are both industrious.
I admire her resilience and her craft.
How they fall in and fall out with each other holding boundaries, sharing chores, doing what needs to be done.
Just like him and me!
I reflect on my therapeutic work as a tutor and counsellor and psychotherapist. In our work, we as tutors and psychotherapists and supervisors are asked to hold it all, to see the bigger picture. I am invited to see the bigger picture of myself and my learner or client in our shared humanity. I am required to sit with, and be present to my struggles and resilience, to my darkness and light and to remain open and non-judgemental to all. It is not easy to hold it all.
I am invited to be with you, my beloved, learner, supervisee, or client and to remain curious as to your perception, mantra, view of yourself and others and to your unfolding process of maturation. I sometimes forget this is your journey and not mine. This is at your pace and not mine. I reflect on what is my place and my part in this twosome, in this relationship. I have many judgments of myself and you. It is not easy to hold it all.
Yet I continue to get up day after day. I continue to begin again, to succeed and to fail again, often within one hour. I continue to live, to love, to regret, to laugh and to cry again. I am holding it all, and I am letting it all go too.
