Last week, we heard the news that Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain had committed suicide. There has been an outpouring of confusion, compassion and grief. Why did two successful people, who appeared to have everything to live for, take their own lives? Were the signs there? What can we do to become a more loving, conscious society that notices when others are in pain?
We have created a society of increasing superficiality. We are encouraged to pursue happiness, to be creative, to be productive, to make a difference in the world. We are surrounded by images on social media of the edited highlights of our lives. Do we really know how anyone else feels? Few people post images of themselves crying, alone at night, feeling overwhelmed by the sadness and grief that are part of the human condition.
For those of us who are interested in spirituality and personal growth, there is a tendency to believe that once we have meditated enough, prayed enough, attended enough retreats and seminars, had enough life coaching (!), we will transcend the messiness of human life, no longer be subject to the waves of “negative” emotions such sadness, anger, jealousy, grief and despair that wash over us.
We fail to see the irony in our motivation to get somewhere else, even as we read about The Power of Now.
Teilhard de Chardin wrote
“We are spiritual beings having a human experience”
In our quest to live the truth of our spiritual essence, we are in danger of forgetting what it means to have a human experience.
We are becoming so conditioned to the expectation that we “should” only be feeling “positive” emotions that the darkness of some of our thoughts scares us and our overriding impulse is to hide how we feel from a world that seems only interested in “I’m great, thanks”.
We compare our insides to other people’s outsides and conclude that we are broken, that there is something wrong with us, that if people really knew who we are and how we feel, we would be rejected.
I have seen a number of posts and articles on social media in the last week, some encouraging those who feel suicidal to reach out for help and call suicide hotlines and some expressing the view that when suicidal thinking has become all-consuming, reaching out is impossible.
It is not enough to recommend suicide hotline numbers, we must begin to address the reasons why we are surprised when we hear of a suicide. Why did we not know how they felt? Is it because depression filled them with such despair that they saw no point in reaching out, or is it because we walk around the world wearing masks and those whose masks have crumbled feel there is no place for them, because they can no longer pretend?
The Scottish theosopher Sydney Banks wrote
“If the only thing people learned was not to be afraid of their own experience, that alone would change the world”
It is time to have an honest conversation about how we really feel, who we really are. We must extend loving hands to each other, without our masks and say “I hear you, I see you, I understand.”
It is time to let go of trying to fix ourselves and others and to develop the capacity, as has been articulated in another arena, to say ME TOO.
I understand the energy it takes to present my mask to the world and I am ready to take it off. I am ready to stop pretending that I have it all together. I am a human being, just like you. I get frightened by my own thinking. I get lost inside my head, thinking my thoughts are telling me something true about myself or the world.
They aren’t. They can’t, because they contradict themselves constantly. They create every feeling I have, moving from joy to despair in an afternoon.
Can we stop pretending to have the answers and stop being afraid of how we feel?
Can we give ourselves and others the permission and space to feel what we feel? Would acceptance of how we feel, no matter how dark the feeling, lead to a realisation that there is nothing to fear because
WE ARE NOT BROKEN
Is it possible we only think we are broken, because no-one is telling the truth?
What if the best thing we could do was to take off our mask and be fully ourselves? To show the world the normality of every thought, every feeling?
To know that you are not alone?
Is it possible to accept our feelings and not be frightened by them?
Ram Dass said
“We are all just walking each other home.”
It is time for honest conversations on the way home to our truest selves. The selves that are BOTH spiritual and human. We are in this together, this glorious, messy, joyful, painful human existence.
Let’s stop denying the painful parts.
Let’s walk together, masks off, holding hands, with acceptance and love for ourselves and each other.
Let’s make it a world where no-one feels so alone, so full of despair that they can no longer live among us.
Let’s stop pretending.