Knocking down the wall

She thought she knew of loneliness.

She’s been lonely most of her life.

Not alone, but definitely lonely.

And for the most part she was fine with it, even considered herself happy and content.

She wasn’t actively looking for a relationship – it was never her priority.

But then she met someone who felt like home. And has become her home for a blissful while. Home which she cherished and appreciated every single day. It felt so good to belong. It made her life so infinitely better!

And then she had to give it up.

Became homeless again.

Resilience

Most of my life I believed I’m a late bloomer. And in many ways, when compared to some sort of standard, I indeed am: there is an abundance of things I got to do way later in life than most. I know now that it never mattered (still doesn’t) how quick, slow, hard or easy I find things in life. As long as I’m moving and changing, at my own pace, I’m doing it right. And so do you, fellow late bloomer, or you, slightly less familiar early bloomer.  

But I’ve recently realised that alongside being a late bloomer, there has always – or at least for the past decade – been a sphere of life in which I seemed to be right ahead of my peers. Emotional sensitivity, intuition and self-awareness were the things that – then and again – kept setting me aside. And ultimately getting me into endless trouble.  

Healing happens in relationships

What I love most about psychotherapy is that everything I learn, I can easily fit into my own life experiences. It all makes perfect sense and I barely ever need any research to prove it, just because I gathered enough proofs on my own already. And it goes deeper: I believe that as different as we all may be, all human experiences are universal. We all carry them inside us. And this is the reason why at the core of psychotherapy, lies relationship. Relationship with yourself, your family, your friends, your partner, with people in the larger sense, with your beliefs, your environment, the world. We’re all social creatures, we’re not wired to live inside our own heads all the time, we need some external connections. Some reality checks, as I like to call them.  

And this is precisely why therapeutic healing cannot happen outside of relationship with another human being (be it formal or informal). No matter how many wise psychological books you’ll read, no matter how many notebooks you’ll fill with scrupulous writing, without connecting to another human being, you achieve little in terms of actual healing. Some useful knowledge at best, but knowledge without tools to utilise it, doesn’t do much.  

It’s hard to live easily

The title of this blogpost is a rough translation of a favourite saying that my friend Kuba (who also took the above picture) repeats all-the-bloody-time, like a broken record. I don’t even remember when and how it all started, because it’s been going on for years. No matter what situation we find ourselves in, it always fits. The ultimate truth about life: what looks easy never is easy. Ironically, if you really want an easy life, you have to put a lot of work and effort into it.

Duh, things never just become easy, you have to work hard on making them easier.