Hello 2021...
I'm strangely unmoved by your arrival, no resolve to do anything spectacular, rather inclined to just be. As hot air balloons coast, I'm sensing that this year will be one of less effort, more acceptance.
Whilst listening to a recent documentary on CBC (my go to for current affairs), I heard the term "Post Traumatic Growth". I was struck by the calmness that washed over me as I pondered the notion of GROWTH AFTER TRAUMA. My personal experience of 2020 and the COLLECTIVE TRAUMA that has been the pandemic and the political apocalypse, is one of a fresh and gentle understanding about me. Nothing cataclysmic, just a gentle shimmering of knowing on the horizon of my experience.
As Jack Kornfield so gently phrases acceptance and presence, "nothing to do; nowhere to be; no one to become...".
As a Compassionate Therapist, more and more I am committed to moving into the slipstream of my own life. Free from resistance, pure acceptance allows me to be fully present and CONGRUENT. I often describe congruence as when my inside world matches my outside reality. When I am in a place of congruence, I am most able to be an intuitive guide and companion for you.
COVID has offered me a rare opportunity to experience PTG and to feel liberated from the confines of what the popular lexicon regales as critical to our mental health - "building resilience, cultivating mindfulness, self-care". Don't get me wrong, I'm all for gentle practices that support our well-being, just not because Instagram tells me so. I'm also not afraid to have a dull, lethargic day - I have ceased fighting these types of days - the resistance is where my precious energy gets burned up...like having an app running in the background, draining my battery.
Post Traumatic Growth is revealing a kinder, gentler way of being - I feel it - it feels good - and for that, I am grateful.
It is a new era for me...GROWTH AFTER THE RELENTLESS POLITICAL AND PANDEMIC TRAUMA THAT HAS HERALDED THE ARRIVAL OF THE 2020'S.
I am growing, are you?