Our modern need, maybe understandable, to ease the suffering we have experienced or that we see around us, has made us want to avoid harsh terms such as: melancholy, craziness, loneliness, depression.

 

One of the addictions of this age where we live is our desire to feel good. I once read in a book about selling that people want to spend time with positive people, that it is much better to stay at home if you are having a bad day, or if you are in a bad mood.

 

I noticed this also in the relationships with the people we consider to be our friends. They will be there for you when you are well; however, when you go through difficult moments everything is empty around you. This did upset me a lot; however, I understood that it is not necessarily because the others abandon us, but because it is more likely a defense mechanism.

 

We do not concentrate on the difficult situations the ones around us are going through, not because we do not care, but because of a survival instinct. Sometimes we go through the world wearing metaphorical horse blinders and we pretend that we do not see certain situations, sufferings, in order to manage to exist.

 

The discomfort created when someone tells us that they might have a disease, or that they are going through a nasty divorce, or they are too alone, or when we read certain texts, when we watch a play or see a movie that shakes us – many people find this discomfort hard to bear.

 

When my father died 8 year ago some people avoided me for a while; they were afraid that I could have talked about how difficult it was for me; they did not need that in their lives back then.

 

Our survival instincts are more accentuated that those of understanding, acceptance, compassion; and maybe that is a good thing. At the same time, how much humility, how much suffering we carry within us without taking a deeper dive within ourselves; not from superficiality, but from the same instinct of survival.

 

But I think that until we are not able to stare, metaphorically speaking, at the sun in front of us, we will not be able to know how hard we can burn. Until we know our weak spots, what makes us feel good, bad, what makes us mad, scared, what we avoid, what subjects we consider taboo, we will not grow as individuals.

 

#knowyourself
#selfawareness
#whatmakesyoumadbadsadglad
#innertheatre