Why is it people think they don’t need to check on the strong ones?  This isn’t my question, I saw it on my feed the other day and it got me thinking.  We’ve been talking about healing, perspective, worth, etc. for a long time now.  In that healing, we’ve had to discover patterns and reasons for behaviors, some of which we need to accept aren’t ours to begin with.  The defense mechanisms we learn and adopt as children become the habits we have as adults and sometimes those turn into obstacles we need to overcome.  I’ve said it a million times here: we aren’t meant to carry the weight of those who came before us.  We aren’t meant to add to the walls around us.  We certainly weren’t created to isolate and do it all on our own.  We operate under this misconception that we need to do it on our own to prove some sort of strength or worth.  The reality is that only creates false ideas and perceptions such as idolizing people and thinking they have it all or that they can do it all.

The greatest successes come from a unit, a web or system of support.  While we all have things we are remarkably great at, the truth is that most of us are great at wearing a façade.  I’ve often asked what would happen if we simply let the facades fall away. What would happen with that level of vulnerability?  What greatness would emerge in the world from simply creating a place where we all shared the best versions of who we are?  The absolute highest potential of what we could do without competition?  Competition started as a means of survival and evolved into sport and now we continue it as a way to make ourselves feel better about ourselves.  What if we let go of the competition as well?  I think we’d discover that there is joy in the softness and that the need to be strong emotionally was far overrated.  That isn’t to say I want people falling apart at the seams, we need a modicum of emotional control.  But we can put aside the air that we have to do it all alone and that we are always strong. 

I know I’ve been afraid to reach out to certain people because they seemed like they had it together on so many levels.  I created this separation between us, a hierarchy, that created distance because I put them above me.  I know I’ve been told that people have been afraid to reach out to me for the same reasons.  We are trained to make judgements based on what we see and take action based on that interpretation.  We don’t necessarily know what’s actually happening behind the scenes in someone’s life.  The truth is we are all neurotic messes playing the same game and the more we wake up to it, the more we shed the necessity to isolate or create divides between us.  We are better when we connect.  Sometimes the people who appear to have it together the most are the ones who are barely holding it together.  Let’s learn to withhold judgement and ask the questions instead.  You never know when someone simply needs an ear—and we may be surprised to find when we need one as well.  We all need someone at some point, even the ones who look like they have it all together.