how would a black arm band make a difference?
Have you ever experienced loss? Yes, is the answer.
At some level, every single person you see, hear, touch and interact with is processing some kind of loss in some way.
For some it is trying to be buried deep but, most likely it is coming out sideways or turning into anxiety or illness. Maybe it’s being stored in your ‘baggage’ compartment. For others, they will be overtly showing signs with anger and negativity. Others may be overcompensating and filing up every moment with business.
I am sharing this with you for a very specific reason which will make sense by the end of this blog.
You started to have the experience with loss from the day you were born. You lost your comfy womb, you lose the comfort of the breast feeding, you lose your dummy, you lose your toys, you lose your childhood freedom to institutions (school), you lose friendships, you lose jobs and confidence, you lose identity, you lose a pet or a grand parent or a sibling or a parent.
Some losses are minor and insignificant to you.
Some losses are very significant and they change you, they affect you, they influence who you are and how you interact with life and people.
Have you ever experienced grief?
Have you ever lost someone close to you, someone that helped define you, someone that helped life make sense to you? How do you cope with that loss? How do you process the confusion associated and the sadness associated? How do you reconcile and make sense of your world again?
Everyone outside the doors of your home is touched by grief and loss,
but we can’t know who or even what kind of grief or loss people are carrying with them. We can only see peoples behaviour and how quick we are to judge that behaviour on flimsy, non empathetic information and facts.
For example someone is taking too long to make a decision in front of you and they are holding up the line and you get impatient with them for not being aware of the line of people they are holding up. But for all we know that person may be holding a massive dark cloud of sadness inside them because they just lost a loved one and they are struggling to function as efficiently as you would like them to. Or someone is driving in a manner that pisses you off. Or someone is drinking too much and making a dick of themselves or perhaps someone has dropped the ball on a work project etc. If they are not wearing a black arm band, it’s easy to judge not so perfect behaviour.
What I am not doing is making excuses for poor behaviour.
What I am attempting to do, is to raise some awareness in our busy, comings and goings to people and what they may be going through and what pain and loss and grief they may be holding inside them.
If those of us who are processing some kind of loss or grief were all wearing a black arm band, as a way of alerting the rest of society that we are currently grieving, I believe the majority of us would be wearing a black arm band. And if we did see someone with a black arm band knowing it meant they were currently grieving, how much less would we judge and how much more empathy would we extend instead?
If people are pissing you off too much ask yourself if you need to be wearing a black arm band and maybe you need some help processing your loss.
And ask yourself, if that person annoying you was wearing a black arm band, how would it make a difference to your judgement of them?
If you are experiencing grief or loss and struggling emotionally, chat to your GP or to a counsellor to help you process the loss in a healthy way.
