The Dance in the Basement

I want to share something with you. Outwardly, its not profound or deep or even significant. But its an experience that each of us lives for. An experience that cuts through all the boundaries to show us the purity of our souls. Or not. Whether we hurt or bleed in some way, or whether we flow through life living for the next moment, there is always the experience of

Indifference: When You Want To Care

For many of us we sometimes experience a state of indifference. Put simply, this state of being is a lack of emotion for anyone or anything. Which doesn’t sound very nice but it’s like any other state of being, it may or may not last very long and it is an indicator of your overall wellbeing. Also known as apathy, psychologists refer to this state of being as anhedonia, which is defined as being unable to feel pleasure or joy. As a ‘condition’, this state of indifference is often said to be a core symptom in depression or PSTD but I also think it’s a natural human occurrence that stems from the experiences we have in life and the way we process our emotions and thoughts, and in this post I will offer my perspective on indifference in general.

Grief and Getting Back to the Swing of Things

When it’s time to join the fray of life again we often make the mistake of saying to ourselves “It’s time to join the fray of life again!”.

Confused? Well its simple really, when we pass through the initial stages of grief, sometimes we tell ourselves its “time to get back to the swing of things” because we have grieved long enough and life is continuing on.

But how long is long enough when we have suffered such a deep loss?

If you lose a parent a child a spouse or a job or a relationship, think of the level of attachment we have to that person (or job, etc). If it’s a parent or child, these are people we have known and loved deeply all our lives so what makes us think we can cope with a loss of that magnitude within a specific timeframe? We cant! It took a lifetime to build such trust and love and its understandable that it can take a while to come to terms with losing such an important attachment in your life. It may be even more intense with the loss of a spouse.

Validate your emotions by feeling them

“My toy car broke, I’m so upset.”

“Be grateful you have other toys. Just think of the poor children in Africa who have nothing, not even food.”

And so begins our journey into learning to stamp down our emotions. We learn that our negative feelings are invalid. We learn to conform to the ideal of putting on a brave face despite our circumstances. We learn our feelings don’t matter.

And worst of all, we begin to have these conversations with ourselves.

How many times have you told yourself to be grateful, be thankful, be happy for what you have and just be glad you’re not the poor person down the road who has no feet?

And how many times have you secretly thought you would rather have no feet than feel like crap?