Therapy Bits

Gloriousness and Wretchedness

Life is glorious, but life is also wretched. It is both. Appreciating the gloriousness inspires us, encourages us, cheers us up, gives us a bigger perspective, energises us. WE feel connected. But if that’s all that’s happening, we get arrogant and start to look down on others, and there is a sense of making ourselves a big deal and beign really serious about it, wanting it ot be like tha forever. the gloriousness becomes itnged by craving and addiction.

On the other hand, wretchedness – life’s painful aspect – softens us up considerably. Knowing pain is a very important ingredient of being there for another person. When you are feeling a lot of grief, you can look right into somebody’s eyes because you feel you haven’t got anything to lose – you’re just there. The wretcheness humbles us and softens us, but if we were only wretched, we would all just go down the tubes. We’d be so depressed, discouraged and hopeless that we wouldn’t have enough energy to eat an apple. Gloriousness and wretchedness need each other. One inspires us, the other softens us up. They go together.

(Disclaimer : if you have suffered abuse you will feel wretched as part of the painful emotional wounding and healing process, you may at tiems not have the energy to eat an apple, because your energy may have been stolen by other’s hurt and projections and the wider lack of understanding and validation of true causes that bring bad feelings that can find no place and no recognition. In this case you need support and validation to heal so that you can associate the wretchedness with those who passed it off onto you because they could not bear to feel it themselves. Sometimes we are trapped in wretchedness for a number of years. So this reading obviously does not apply to that situation.)