This feels especially poignant and especially important, this week.
The writer has had a difficult few years personally, and is close to the lives of many others who would say the same. One thing she has learned is that it is oddly possible to laugh, to find enjoyment and connection, in the bleakest and saddest of landscapes – if only for a moment. It is possible both to find and to create little islands of warmth and light, in the midst of adversity and pain. We can do that for ourselves, and we can do that for each other. And it is so important.
It doesn’t take away the pain, and it is not about suppressing feelings or experience (which seldom works out well for long). This is more about opening to what is there, and allowing the releases and respites that come – stepping into these spaces in presence. Often that is about relationship – with self, with another person, with another living creature, with the natural world, with a work of art. An opening of the heart, that may bring laughter or tears, but carries with it a sense of meaning, of aliveness and therefore possibility.
Palace Gate Counselling Service, Exeter
Counselling Exeter since 1994
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