Musings: Good Company

There are necessary times of solitude to really feel through and process what our emotions are telling us. Equally, much of our emotional processing comes from the company of others; from reading, listening and engaging the stories of other people. Isolation in grief perpetuates the perspective that we are unusual in our thoughts and feelings. That we are somehow wrong for having them, or not having them. Or worse, that all our darkest fears and thoughts about ourselves are true. There are however, people who demonstrate and empathize with our emotional experiences. There is something about the gift of receiving compassion in vulnerable states, even witnessing someone’s else’s compassion for another, that enables us to more habitually offer it to ourselves, and further, along to others.