One Life To Live

One of the most significant sources of anxiety and depression we all face is the family unit.

There’s an expectation that those closest to us are the ones who will protect and comfort, guide and encourage…and for a great many people that is the general reality. But not everyone and not all the time.

To a greater or lesser degree we are all damaged. Things we have seen, experienced or imagined have broken parts of our hearts and our heads. We spend the rest of our lives trying to hide from the broken parts or pretending to ourselves they don’t exist while keeping those same broken parts hidden from each other.

The truth is that we’re fooling no-one, least of all ourselves. Pretence is no defence.

If we refuse to deal with our own pain we have limited capacity to help others deal with what they are suffering. And yet we continue to make our way through life packing our pains in our personal grief case and doing all we can to keep the lid tightly closed.

But as much as we are responsible for our own happiness we are just as responsible for our own sadness.

Life is not simply what happens to us it’s about what we do with what we encounter.

We have one life to live – and that’s our own.