Cracked Open by Illness - Jeff Foster

Just because someone manages a  smile today, or seems to hold
a positive outlook, or cracks a little joke, or convinces you that
they're okay, doesn't mean they're okay.

The experience of being on the inside of chronic illness has
completely cracked me open to a deeper compassion for
all my brothers and sisters.

I have no idea what anyone is going through, under their facade,
their mask, their personality, their brilliant defences, the 
"positive" or "spiritual" outfit they wear to survive.

They are trying to survive in the only way they know how.

Spiritual teachers and their students, therapist and their clients,
priests, philosophers, life coaches, world authorities, saints
and sinners - they are all in pain.

We are ALL trying to survive the only way we know how.

Let's be a little kinder to each other.  Forgive each other for
our masks, our awkwardness, our closed hearts, our weirdness.
Go beyond surfaces.

Sometimes we are not okay,
and that's okay.

As Ram Dass said, "we are all walking each other home..."

Jeff Foster

As some of you know know Jeff Foster has been very ill
since last July with debilitating Neurological Lyme Disease
that impacted him, not only physically but emotionally.

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You may also be interested in reading a poem by Danna Faulds
on illness, called What Remains.

Or read John O'Donohue's piece on The Challenge of Illness

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Photo - Mystic Meandering