when I was small, I used to believe that life is like a ladder. I learnt about the steps on that ladder, and how to climb it. because I was only a kid, I didn't worry about not having reached the top yet, but I did have a distinct feeling that there was a top. that one day, I would have taken all of the steps on the ladder, and thus have succeeded in life. my teachers and superiors instilled in me the need to work hard, to study and learn and progress, one step after another, up the ladder. I often heard things like man up, toughen up, grow a thick skin, grit your teeth, all in service of charging on up the ladder.
while I was focusing hard on the life waiting for me at the top of the ladder, life, however, wasn't waiting for me. it was happening all around me. right now, and right here. and one stroke of fate after another, my ladder slowly started to disintegrate. the more I tried to hold on, the faster it crumbled, until I finally fell crashing down, landing in a heap on hard earth. gone from my reach were the lofty heights I had aspired to, slipped through my hands like clouds. as I lay there, trying to find the strength to pick myself up, I felt the cool earth touch my skin, the grass tickle my cheeks. I didn't know it then, but what at the time felt like the end, would turn out to be something entirely different.
the world we grow up and live in today is a challenging one. by this, I don't mean to say that in other times and ages the world wasn't challenging, but the present Western industrialised consumer culture poses a unique set of challenges that many people struggle with. we are overwhelmed, we feel helpless, things become too much, for all the things we have, all the impressions and opportunities, the associated obligations that threaten to suffocate us.
we live a life of pressure. we have become victims of our own success: our supposedly linear economy, that has in fact been on an exponential trajectory for a couple of hundred years, if not more, has unmistakably reached the turning point upwards, and we are struggling to keep up. what was sold to us as a ladder, was never a ladder.
and growth conditioning is strong. in economy, it is all that counts. we are exposed to countless messages, flashing lights, images, sounds, all vying for our attention in an ever-more competitive struggle between many different stakeholders seeking infinite growth in a world of finite resources. and in their fight over what is limited, each of them becomes louder and louder in a desperate attempt to make themselves heard, pressing in on us from all sides.
as the only blueprint of life we were ever taught involves a ladder, the only way we know to react is to harden ourselves to the world. we grow that tough skin we were told about. and because of it, ramp up the stimuli. we seek more and more extreme experiences and sensations, but are able to feel less and less.
and then the ladder falls apart. turns out life really wasn't waiting, life was happening. family members grow old or get sick. loved ones die. relationships break up, dissolve into nothingness or metamorphose into ugly beasts we don't know how to pacify now awakened. strength crumbles. enterprises fail. crises, of both personal and global scale, transpire. dreams shatter and opportunities pass into unattainability. even the thickest skin can't shield us from it all, in the space of milliseconds it is ripped off and we stand bare and naked and raw in the face of our overwhelming feelings.
the child we once were, the one who had that tempting ladder dangled in front of its nose all of those years ago, hidden away at the bottom of our hearts ever since, is weeping hot tears of pain, yearning for our love, compassion and support. but instead of listening to what it is whispering, we go with that old ladder narrative, and tell it to toughen up, pick up the shreds of hard skin, and try to patch them into some kind of armour again.
when we encounter another wounded soul, the only way to silence our inner child is to suppress any stirring of feelings, and so we tell them to toughen up, denying them what was denied us, and thus propagate the very thing that holds us prisoner in our own hard shell. and that is how it spreads, the numbness, infecting one person after another.
until, that is, we find ourselves lying on that hard, cool earth, after our life has come crashing down around us. this time, instead of following the ladder narrative that got me there, all crumpled up and dusty, every bone in my body aching, I chose me. I chose to listen not to that warped story of endless scaling, but to myself. to my inner child, that desired nothing more or less than understanding and support, loving kindness. in that moment I knew, if only I listened, I would be able to tell exactly what that meant, what that looked like. I chose to hold, cradle, soothe. to let myself feel it all, no matter how scary a scenario that seemed. I lay there, rocking myself back and forth, shaken to the core, the pain coursing through my body. I acknowledged and validated my feelings, giving them the space and attention they deserved. I saw the situation clearly, for what it was, not with judgment, but with understanding and compassion. and eventually, I was able to hold my own hand and slowly get up. what I had thought was the end had instead taught me the most valuable lesson of all: that feelings are, in fact, for feeling.
they are not for suppressing, or ignoring. they are not for trampling over or numbing. pain is just that, pain. it comes from life itself, and when we try and suffocate it, it only increases. it doesn't go away, instead it festers on, to blaze up even stronger at a later point in time and spill over and hurt not only us, but the people around us aswell. the only way to overcome pain or grief or disappointment or loss, is through. to dive into it, the deep end. hold your own hand, show up for yourself, create that safe space for yourself to feel it all. open up your heart, wide.
don't let it harden you. let it rip you open, crack you, break you, so you may fill the voids with liquid beauty. wrought of compassion. of understanding. of love.
committing that greatest act of rebellion in this world.
love.
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