Thursday 29 December 2011

The reality is, life involves pain.

In this Blog I have been open and honest about my feelings - 'good' or 'bad'.  And while it serves us better to focus on the positive things in our lives and to be grateful for what we do have.  Lows are inevitably a part of our lives, and it's not always possible to maintain a positive focus during difficult times.  The lows are as much a part of our lives as the highs.
The reality is, life involves pain.  There's no getting away from it.  As human beings we are all faced with the fact that sooner or later we will grow infirm, get sick, and die.  Sooner or later we all will lose valued relationships through rejection, separation, or death.  Sooner or later we all will come face to face with crisis, disappointment, and failure.  This means that in one form or another, we are all going to experience painful thoughts and feelings.       - The Happiness Trap by Russ Harris
Once I became a mother myself, suddenly there were a few whispers in my ear about how hard motherhood actually is.  When I asked them why they hadn't spoken of the hard times before, they replied that they didn't want to admit it was hard.  It's as though admitting motherhood is hard somehow makes us a failed mother.  If I find it hard as a mother that must mean I am a bad mother.  Yet it is the stories of the hard times as mothers that let me know that I am not alone in my feelings.  Finding motherhood difficult at times, does in no way make me less of a mother or mean that I love my daughter any less or mean that I am not prepared to do anything and everything for her.

I have also shared my journey this year of the loss of my mother.  I dare say most people would find this a difficult period in their life.  And I wanted to be open and honest about the roller-coaster ride of grief.  Losing my father twelve years ago and now my mother this year, have been the hardest things I have ever been through in my life.  My feelings are rife this year.  And there is no right or wrong in my feelings.  They are my feelings. 

Telling someone to 'get over it' or to 'focus on what they do have' is extremely unhelpful and only serves to diminish their feelings, which are neither right nor wrong, just feelings.  It makes it not OK to talk about 'bad' feelings for fear of being judged "stupid and shallow and selfish" by people who obviously cannot possibly understand.