Coping…

Coping…

For most of my life I have “coped” with whatever has landed at my feet. Sure, there have been times when I have laid on the floor and howled at the horror of whatever calamity had landed in my life. There have even been the odd dark moments of the soul when I have thought it might be better not to be around anymore.

But I have always somehow managed to pick myself up, dust myself off and get on with it.

There have been a lot of tears, I am a crier, often moved to tears for good and bad reasons. For a long time, I felt that my crying was a weakness, made me appear to be somehow “less”. But I can see now, it was just another one of my coping “strategies”.

Coping is defined as:

“the fact of dealing successfully with problems or difficult situations”

I think of it as quite a British thing – stiff upper lip and all that. My parent’s generation coped with so much. Growing up through World War 2 they and their parents needed to be stoic and strong. Accepting of how things were because they had come through something so awful that gratitude underwrote everything they did.

That attitude crept into the upbringing of those of us born in the 50s and 60s. But of the war did something else too. It changed everything. Traditional roles had been turned on their heads. Traditional values changed. We all started wanting ‘more’.

Fast forward a few years and we were riding on the merry-go-round of acquisition. Spending money in our quest to get ‘more’ without considering the real cost. Seeking the instant hit of dopamine that satisfying a desire for something could bring us. And when that did not make us happy exploring chemical solutions that appeared to do the same.

And now. Well, I think the last year, with all its fear and difficulties, has reminded many of us of what really matters. More people are searching for a spiritual solution. Seeking connection and love. During the pandemic, many people discovered new coping strategies. Some healthy, and some less so. Exercise, being in nature, Netflix…

As the world scrambles towards a return to ‘normality’ I have decided that coping is not good enough for me anymore.

I want more. Not more stuff, since we uprooted ourselves and relocated we have definitely realised that we do not need most of the “stuff” we have spent years accumulating.

No, I want more of the simple stuff.

I still cry a lot. But nowadays my reasons are different. I cry at beauty, at stories of kindness. At those moments of love and connection that are all around us if we just open our eyes and see. And I know that my tears are a sign of strength, not weakness.

I wish you joyful tears. Let your stiff upper lip tremble.

Don’t cope. Give in to every emotion. Feel every feeling. Live life.

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