A few days ago one of my clients sent me this photo, which is currently doing the rounds by email. It makes me snort with laughter – perhaps much more than it might for others. For me, as the youngest of six children, with all of my wonderfully remembered sibling issues, it really tickles my funny bone. I feel complete empathy for these two. I know EXACTLY how that would feel being the kid sister, ENGULFED in that shirt when I SO didn’t want to be anywhere near my brother. It’s also the whole idea of things being so consistently bad enough that there is a need for all the effort involved in making that shirt. It still makes me chortle at the recalled feelings, the remembered reality of sibling squabbles, and it also makes me smile to realise how simple life really was back then despite them. How wonderful it was being free to express my feelings so openly and, often, with very little restraint!! The glorious honesty and immediate release of it all. And I can now, even quite sweetly, recall the times when my parents needed to guide me back into more appropriate behaviour too.
Then, on the very same day that I first saw this photo and laughed out loud with empathy, I got side-swiped by a polar opposite wave. The news of the horrendous and shocking tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in America tidal-waved over me. Like many others, I am in a mind-boggling search to comprehend the reality of such ghastly destruction, and in particular to somehow understand the overwhelming rage, violence and fear of it all. The fall-out from this will have a mushroom-cloud effect over so many people.
The world is resonating with grief and pain, as we try to imagine how we would feel if our children were so violently ripped away from us. It’s a loss that would feel almost impossible to bear.
I cannot understand why this happened. My first thoughts are around my awareness of an increasing expression of rage and anger exploding out all over the world, in a variety of ways, in recent years. At the same time, these events are also engendering an outpouring of global support, and heart connection, in ways we haven’t seen or experienced before. Perhaps the polar opposites of rage and love, isolation and connection, fear and faith are joined along a continuum of healing, somehow.
I pray for everyone in that community to be supported into their full recovery in whatever way, and for as long as, may be needed.
I pray, from the bottom of my heart, that these tragedies compel us to change how we all get along together. That we make meaning out of them by learning how to become more effective supports for each other. We need to deepen our sense of safe, reliable family and community connections, so we can weather life’s perfect storms when they hit us. We need to ensure that no-one is left to struggle alone with those potentially overwhelming and destabilising waves, in whatever way they may arise. Perhaps this would ensure that no-one ever has ANY reason, or ability, to express themselves with such atomic-effect and unrestrained destruction.
If you need support please Contact me today. I also offer a FREE 10-minute telephone consult to assess your situation and explore how I can BEST help you. Call me on 0411 57 58 57.I’m wishing you a Brighter Future,
www.sophielippell.com.au
Psychotherapist, Hypnotherapist and Success Coach