Confidence

[desiderata]

Since my mom's passing this January I've gone through the spectrum of emotions associated with grief. The one area that's not so talked or written about is confidence or lack of. After the toll of losing a close one it is for me very hard to get back into the day-to-day rhythms of life. I can see the lack of abilities I had attained over the years slip and I wonder if I will ever recover them. I told my dad that "mom always believed in me" and now there is one very important person not in my corner any more. I can feel her spirit but sure do miss her physical presence. It is all part of life and believe it's a test of faith.

 

[David Baxter PhD]

I think there's a kind of constancy and foundation that exists for anyone who has not lost someone very close to them, perhaps especially if it's a parent or a child. And when that happens ("the unthinkable" - not because rationally we don't know it can happen but because emotionally we don't allow ourselves to even consider the possibility until it does), it's as if we are suddenly painfully aware of how fragile that foundation is and how illusory that sense of constancy always was.

It may be that it's not so much a loss of confidence in yourself as it is a loss of confidence in the universe, the stability of the universe. What is there that we can count on in the face of such a loss?