Pretty Ugly Truth

Apathy Reigns

Having supportive people in your life and true friends means having people who can lend an ear to uncomfortable truths.

Can you hold space for someone when you feel triggered by them?

Can you listen without trying to fix it or add your two cents?

Can you be present for another during times of angst without blasting them from a New Age/New Thought perspective blaming, shaming, gaslighting them?

If you’re like me, I’m guessing the answer is sometimes yes and sometimes no.

Sometimes there is not enough capacity to show up in the way you’d like to for someone else and that’s ok, especially when communicated. We can’t always be there for those we love even if we desire to. Life circumstances are tricky that way.

The flip side of that is that often the individual going through hard times and needing an outlet for expression and to feel heard only gets the 3 options above as the reaction, thus making the situation worse, jeopardizing the relationship.

I once expressed to a friend that I felt disgusted with myself about something. That was the truth and I needed to say it out loud and acknowledge it, have witness, so that I could alchemize it and change. I expressed this to someone very close to which I was immediately met with the toxic positivity response of “how dare you talk to yourself that way?” In that moment I realized how widespread the inability to feel and express negative emotions is in our culture. I wasn’t being “mean” to myself, nor talking to myself in any certain way other than expressing how I really felt, a hard truth about a poor decision I made that led me to feeling a sense of disgust and embarrassment. That friend didn’t want to hear it. I can’t really know why because I’m not them.

After this encounter I did a lot of thinking and writing about how many times I was honest about what I was feeling in any situation and that in doing so I was met with barriers, resistance, even hatred.

How did the world come to a place where apathy reigns over sympathy. It’s no wonder people are walking around like ticking time bombs. They can’t express honestly without the toxic positivity crowd gaslighting them. They can’t share truthfully without the armchair quarterbacks thinking they have all the answers. They aren’t heard when they say I’m at a breaking point, I am out of capacity and just simply need a friend to say I hear you for a “season” of life (not indefinite).

In the same way I see social media posts where everyone thinks they know how to help someone suicidal or depressed, but I can assure you that there are many an Instagram influencer, cheerful sibling, and/or always put together friend who is hurting inside and wishing for once they had someone to talk to that wouldn’t end up making them feel worse, that wouldn’t want to call the suicide hotline on them to which also makes things worse.

No one can be bothered because apathy is central to maintaining the status quo and the façade of worldly expectations, especially when its a spiritual issue at hand.

Even people who claim to be passionate about “their side” ultimately sit on the sidelines and expect someone else to do the dirty work.

I don’t have the answers. From corporate lunchrooms to coffee shop meet ups, loneliness expands because no one wants to hear it…whatever “it” is. Close your ears and repeat “love and light, love and light, love and light.” The overwhelm fed by propaganda and distractions is too much…the responsibilities of survival inside sterile environments and digital prisons is too much.

It’s difficult to be present for anyone when we have lost presence with our own heart, with nature…days turn into daze.

When we can accept that someone may feel a certain way that pains us to witness, therein lives an invitation to ourselves to ask why?

I do think it’s beneficial to work through difficult times alone, when possible, but it’s not always best. Sometimes we need one another to help, to simply give space to be heard often leading someone to feel better so they can alchemize the situation and go back into internal contemplation and resolve.

It amazes me that children can hug and make up after hurt but if an adult admits to feeling hurt or expressing hurt, they are often punished, outcast and shut out instead allowing resentment to build. The art of relationships is that they won’t always be fluffy floofy superficial joy…and if they are, it’s probably not genuine. Hurt and forgiveness are integral to growth and healing for yourself and others. No one is perfect, so it’s inevitable you will unintentionally hurt someone for which you care.

When moments of challenge arise, and they will for everyone in the ebb and flow of life, I think it’s time we remember to stop seeing each other as an inconvenience, that’s the ego talking…but let the heart show up and say I hear you, I care, and I’m sorry you are going through this. You don’t have to understand, nor fix anything.

Another reason this is important is because similar responses play out when it’s not angst, but success. True colors are revealed, but it’s likely you can’t or don’t deserve to share in and relish another’s success if you haven’t been able to show up for the times that weren’t going so great. Depth of exchange requires moving through life when going in the direction of the flow and against it.

We don’t need a thousand friends, we need a few faithful ones to walk in realness….and we also have to know when to let go, not out of apathy, anger, or uncomfortableness, but from seeing that maybe they weren’t being forthright about how they felt all along….from recognizing when you aren’t walking the same road….from the revelation that you don’t want the same things and don’t share the same values….and that’s ok too.

These moments are opportunities for cleansing, not just tears, but people and situations. Learning to release with ease, even that which we love, is to recognize when we’re carrying a weight no longer meant for us.

We can’t force another to do anything and shouldn’t, but if you have someone in your life that you truly love and they are going through a hard time, sitting in stillness like an active listening meditation is a wonderful way to hear their woes and bear witness to their plight…this is being a real time facilitator of healing, love and light…not the toxic positivity bullshit that is a cloak of fear and falsity.

The world is a whirl of chaos and confusion, coming back to center and communion with the Creator is always available. No one is perfect and no one is immune to obstacles….those who attempt growth by putting themselves in the way of obstacles, in uncomfortable situations where they are certain to be challenged, stretched and forged in the fire….those who want to see what they are made of, will never be able to be seen or heard by those who avoid the fire. Those who avoid the fire and think they are being heard are often fueling a prognosis of complacency through complaining….one way is the way of transformation and one way is trance-formation….the way of individuation or the way of the status quo.

Even the strongest individual you know needs a friend sometimes, never assume otherwise.

If you’re struggling today, give yourself permission to struggle. It is in the acceptance of what it is that we can change it, but to resist it maintains the tension that never seems to loosen.

The feelers and the thinkers share a common thread, and the rope can be used to walk closer towards center together or play a game of tug-o-war.

Apathy is keeping score and it always cheats.

Pretty Ugly Truths can’t hide but can be transmuted.

Be honest even if it costs you, even if you lose the game but win back your dignity, integrity and heart…. even if no one can hear you and no one cares. A willingness to see things as they are is a superpower. Instead of wishing things were different or pretending, make-believe is transcended into gnosis and real healing can take place so you can get on with living, really living, in all its fullness and glory, in all the messiness and order, in the beauty and ugly, forged by fire, lit by peace and passion for the gift of dying…dying to the past, dying to old versions of you, dying to thoughts of what could have been….so that you can show up again on your own terms, knowing the risks you take may be hard as hell but you wouldn’t have it any other way…because you’re a firecracker that never stops burning, a wind that never stops howling, a life that never stops yearning to taste the awe and beauty evermore.

Remember, the greatest joy is found by those willing to feel the greatest sorrow, to see the ugly truth in themselves, to feel the grief inside that needs to come out…in words, in art, in movement…when you can do this for yourself, then you can hold that same space for another when the time comes…and it will come.

Be careful who you share your darkness with, but be open to see another’s when they feel vulnerable enough to be open with you, when there is trust. The strongest souls still walk with a shadow. In strength, you may be able get through something alone, mind-body-spirit, but it’s nice sometimes to not have to.

May humanity find its way back from apathy…one by one…without excuses, but with a whole lot of love.

With love and nectar for finding the sweetness out of the muck and lending an ear to someone feeling stuck,

Angela