In that space.

I talk to a lot of people throughout my week. Some younger than me, some older. Mostly women but women of various backgrounds in various places. Some behind the closed door of my office but most not. I often talk so much, with so many people that by this point in the week what I need most is silence.

Silence on the outside to recalibrate on the inside. I need the voice connected to my head to just stop for a little while to allow for the voice connected to my heart to step forward and weigh in.

This week the first thing that it has for me is a question. This is all so heavy. Are you ok?

It is hard to stop and listen when I know that is what will be asked of me. It has been hard to stop for more than one breath at a time lately because I know that is what will be asked of me.

Weeks like this are not uncommon for me. Weeks where I get an inkling in the middle of them that I am hearing the same thing over and over and over again. That I’m hearing what I am feeling repeated back to me, from different directions, out of different mouths, told in different versions and in different contexts with different words but the same underlying energy.

Right now it feels like ‘I wasn’t expecting or ready for this’ ‘This was not supposed to be like this’ ‘I’m out of my depth and don’t know how to navigate this’ ‘This feels really, really hard’.

The ‘this’ part is different in each and every conversation and even the way each person is responding to it feeling so difficult looks different, but the underlying energy feels the same.

Heavy, unfair and uncertain.

It’s more than a coincidence, it’s happened enough times for me to know that it is never a coincidence.

Everyone needs compassion right now. The person standing next to you at the school gate or behind you in a queue is likely feeling their version of this heaviness or struggling with something that looks different but feels pretty similar to what you are. The person smiling in the photo on your screen probably is too before and after the camera clicks.

We are all connected. We are all part of something much bigger than what we can see. And in that space, that none of us can see or completely understand, there is a lot going on right now. A lot for us to hold and feel and navigate.

I find that it feels a lot lighter when we know, and can respond from a place of believing, that we are all in this together…whatever ‘this’ might be showing up as for each of us.