Trapped: A Western life lived

This morning, whilst going for a walk on holidays, I locked myself out of the apartment.

I didn’t bring a set of keys.

I thought how apt this was as a metaphor to describe my experiences of life as a wife and a mother.

Trapped.

Whilst some people may argue that this is not the feeling of the experience of being a wife and mother, in my case, I’d argue differently.

Whether it’s the juggling of a career, whilst raising kids, running around, being a taxi, doing the doing of motherhood…. a lot of it is a trap. Modern life is a trap.

Many people don’t question this feeling of entrapment, or are even aware of it – and then it can hit them like a tonne of bricks – until such time as life comes crashing down, dominos fall in their life, for example; losing a job, loss of a house, loss of a partner.

We need to question the Western ideals. Parenting in the 21st Century comes with a multitude of pressure not realised in generations past.

The compulsory and obligatory ‘things’ we ‘must have’ or ‘must do’ can be extremely overwhelming.

Our existence at this time in history, where we are governed by a 24/7 news cycle and many people aren’t switched off from technology at all, further entraps us.

It’s important to look more deeply into what’s going on around us, so that we can have a better life.

Existentialists (those who study our human existence) suggest that we all have existential anxiety.

Our collective human anxiety will only increase if we don’t consider all of the changes that are regularly happening. I certainly don’t want to become more robotic, how about you?

So, it’s important to view our modern lives through the lens of our existence.

It’s normal that we would have anxiety in our current climate of fear mongering by politicians, world terror, lack of security and tenure around obtaining jobs – and so much uncertainly and a raised complexity to our interactions with others.

Though if we look at all the technological changes, it makes sense that there would be an increase of mental health concerns, yet often we are looking at the symptoms not the root cause.

The majority of us are dealing with complexities beyond that of previous generations, less relaxation time – so that we can have time with family and friends and not enough general ‘time out’.

I therefore propose a kind of radical acceptance of yourself and the world around us and an important presence that is compassionate to yourself and others.

There is much disconnection among our glimpses of connection, that the growing isolation I see through my client’s eyes is only natural.