GLACIER COLD MENTALITY

2021 was all about SELF CARE. So what's 2022 for?

Your physical health, mental health, emotional health, financial health, spiritual health, health of your gut, your anus, your pores, your navel. And at the end of it – honestly, we’re not that much better.  Far from feeling we’ve been cared for, most of us are indignant that we have not been cared for enough. Are we really better off for all that self-care?

Well, the therapists are. Yes, I believe in therapy, I have it twice a month but I do not agree that ‘in an ideal world, every one would have a therapist’ because in an ideal world, surely we wouldn’t need one?  In an ideal world, we would know how to care for each other.

 But if COVID, climate crisis and cultural conflicts have taught us anything it is that we DO NOT know how to care for ourselves, our world or our neighbour.  We certainly don’t know how to care for the stranger or our enemies.

 Save the planet?  We can’t even save ourselves! The poor planet’s been saving us from ourselves for millenia and it’s finally had enough: ‘You’re on your own, kids!’ like a worn out, abused parent or partner.

 So when will we grow up?

What will it actually take for us to stop being selfish?

When will we comply with the laws of the universe?

 Even a snowflake, beautiful, unique, self-contained as it is only lasts seconds unless it can coalesce with other snowflakes.

If it manages to do this, some dynamic transformation occurs.  It becomes a substance that is beautiful, powerful, traffic-stopping (literally) landscape-shifting in its own way.

 And under pressure, it can change yet again: become something even more powerful, deep, fierce, more beautiful as it flattens mountains, carves valleys, sources rivers, controls weather systems. That one snowflake from the heavens becomes something that can last millenia.

 I think the planet is mirroring our selfish petulance.  Our toxic souls are literally polluting the elements around us, disrupting the harmony of solar systems.  We are so out of sync.  Self-care is different from selfishness.  Self-care may mean to nourish my soul and promote life maybe I should love my neighbour and cherish the planet that protects me.  Maybe I should worship something Higher than my own Self.

 May 2022 be the year we transfer these 2021 skills of caring to others and to our environment – not just thinking self-care is about meeting our own needs.

Another year of navel-gazing and frigging self-care memes and this snowflake will quite happily melt into vapour.

 2022- all about the glacier cold mentality.