Stability is a Rock Climber

Bad can be Good. By this I certainly don’t mean that bad things are actually a good event, far from it, but if everything was good in life we would never have anything to compare it to.. which one would really make you appreciate life more, better than the last good thing or better than the worst thing? But if you’ve been sick, you've felt the pure joy of being healthy, if you’ve felt heart ache you feel the extatic beauty of being in love and loved, if you’ve felt alone you feel the benefit of having family & friends around you to support you. Would you even know how good any of those good things really are without feeling how utterly bad the shit times were? I don’t feel we truly realise the good stuff until they disappear from our lives, even if temporarily. But those moments are the ones that made things matter more and mean more to us.

We sort of become complacent as human beings.. it’s not as if we have predators left right and centre anymore to keep us on our toes.. our cave man days are over. We now have a much more complex set of targets and goals in life.. the foundation is still instinctually to survive as did our far away ancestors, but in addition, we may aim to; receive an education, get a job, find love, get married, have children, buy property and in between each of those goals you set for yourself, lies all the true details that formulate you as a human being.. and in your plight to achieve them they put you on your trajectory for the real changes. How enlightened would a cave woman version of me truly be in the world today, I wonder, with less knowledge of society and education than modern day me but with a contrasting life that aided her much higher survival & foraging skills in the wild than me. Would she be as spiritually developed? Have more or less resilience to tragedy than me?.. Neanderthal HKintsugi may have been less worldly for modern day life but life experience is everything and so are our present exposure to the world around us and circumstances we find ourselves in that provides our greatest transformations.

For me, every situation, circumstance, every creature or human being that has crossed your path has taught you something & has grown you. These encounters are positive, negative, necessary and fated. By fated I don’t mean that you haven’t got your free will, that would be pretty ridiculous, but our meeting of important people may well have been divinely orchestrated for the benefit of both/all parties. It is a very spiritual point of view.. that we are not per chance thrown together or casually just bumping into all the ‘right’ people.. that said.. where we’ve had negative experiences in our lives there has always been some good, some help around you. Just when you need it most your best friend suddenly gets an urge to call you or your next door neighbour turns up just as you’re locked out of your house or even those times when you’re scared or lonely and you read an advertising billboard with the words ‘you are never alone.. call the Samaritans now’, or even the time when you’re ill and your pet won’t leave your side. It doesn’t have to come from people.. but animals, nature, a job just falling out of the sky onto your lap, you take up throwing darts or as little as an inspiration you receive or peace felt simply being lit by the afternoon sunshine.

You know, I have always found Rock Climbing an interesting sport, something I did for a few years of my life (my family & friends then would know).. it actually gave me a crick in the neck looking up all the time and generally speaking it mostly terrified me but there was a feeling of accomplishment reaching the summit and the view always made it worthwhile.. along with abseiling it down at the end! To me, I’ve always thought of life as being a rock climber. For a super stable foundation you‘d have all four limbs somehow connected and attached to the rock face, even if you remove a hand from it, you’d still be able to hold your stance. But remove two, of the four, starts complicating things and if you have one only.. it’s difficult to hold on to. If each of those limbs described an important aspect of your life like home, job, health, family/friends.. removing any of these would mean some stability in your life is still there but removing three of the four or all, means quite a fall. If you feel like you’re not grounded and just floating or overwhelmed you have likely removed or changed the balance on one too many of these pillars and it’s time to stop, take stock and make some plans to bring stability in your life.

Anything that has fallen out of your life, was something that needed to be shaken up or changed for the better.. a wise friend once said, ‘if you’re on the wrong path, the universe will bump you off it’ and she meant that, through circumstances out of your control. With each scramble to reconstitute ourselves back together again ready for our next climb, it is mostly in hindsight that we can truly reflect how far we’ve come.

I give thanks for all the crappy and less than terrible times in my life because without each of those stepping stones I wouldn’t have been ready for each new chapter, each new relationship, each new climb and version of me in my life. I certainly had help even when I pushed my family and friends away trying to deal with things on my own a while back. For me, the help usually turned out to be the sunshine, sitting outside in the garden and where the sun has cracked through the dreariest of dark grey clouds when I’ve been driving with more than a few tears running down my face. Everyone and everything has provided just the right amount of contrast I needed to shape, change and make me grow and be stronger in so many different ways. Thank you so much for making me strong, resilient, tenacious, honest, outspoken, creative, passionate and brave.. most of all brave.

That saying, my trials have been bum fluff to the many I’ve seen in the streets or on the news where an overwhelming amount of tragedy has struck and my heart goes out to them & hope they receive the help they desperately need. We all need to quieten our minds and energy and be open to receiving the help around us and if there is anyone in your life that has been struggling, is in need of a friend or advice, then be there for them. You may just be that little glimmer of hope they needed that day to be able to carry on.

But mostly, celebrate all the victories and failures that have made you. You are the universe’s best collaboration of timing & events there ever was!

Love and Light☀️

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