The Hard Phase Waves

 I watched something the other day which outlined the ages of time for all of us. He said it more eloquently - but I cannot stop building on it.

0-25 is a phase I can't remember what he called - but I will call the Initiation Phase - because it is you beginning your life, you and we all are learning the ways of the world, and becoming acquainted with all your foundations, and vessel (body). Its scary, enjoyable, free and unbound. It moves as you do - and it teaches you how and what it could all be about. You feel it is all consuming as you move through it - but learn in hindsight it was unchained - it was the most unchallenging.

60+ is the Release Phase - the happiest generation, the release of all that came before. Despite the impending mortality; despite the vessel wearing tired, and despite your health being your largest concern. Apparently this phase is the most settled, the most secure mentally, the age you no longer pine, or fear, or succumb to unwanted territory or will. 

The 25-60 - this is called the Hard Phase. I didn't know this until I hit 40 - but it is hard for so many reasons, for so many times. It is where the Initiation Phase is proven to be a fallacy, an infancy - a baby approach tentatively wafting the world and its issues under your nose - but never giving you the tools, ability to endure or the sustainability to prepare for the Hard Phase.

It is before you succinctly secure the Release phase, before you can release your hopes wishes and wants and fears and concerns. It is the one where all the foundations get rocked and moved, and where you learn - it is all just part of something that will go on beyond you.

The Hard Phase is where I reside - teetering on the edge of depressional tiresome of sad news, loss, hard relationships, difficult health worries for those above and those below, the weary exhaustion of anxiety; trying; resetting.

It is for everyone. It comes to us all.

Not everyone will feel it all at the same time, for the same reasons, but they will all have their Hard Phase. For some poor souls some Hard Phases come early, rocking their initiation and shaping their outlook too young and early. For some lucky, it comes a bit late. Stomping on our Release phase when we should be securing our ability to trust nothing is trustable.

But for most of us - the enduring lesson in the Hard Phase is simply - learning there is no control, and to just hold on. To seek the sunny days and be present in them. To not look too hard for what has been or expect too much from what is left to come. To learn to know the day yesterday when the world wasn't rocked was a good day - that tomorrow will come anyway even if you don't want it too - and that you're meant to feel like this - and learn to grow from it.

Most of us learn to grow. Some refuse, and infantile themselves - desperate to hold on to the Initiation Phase. Some move through it seamlessly and then have knocks of Hard Phases during their Released years, it isn't linear - and it isn't the same.

But when it comes, it can feel relentless. It can feel like the universe isn't set right. It can feel like you have given out wrong vibes or bad omens somehow sometime, and the universe is punishing just you. It makes you introvert- and consumes you into believing you are struggling alone - that maybe you didn't set up shop in the beginning right, maybe you don't have the right tools to go on. It makes you feel tired, worn, aged.

The waves of the Hard Phase are different for all. Some feel loss for the first time, some for the last. Some feel pain or health or worry or struggle to get to grips with their waves, they drown, desolate in feeling this life isn't for them.

It dangles us on the precipice of pondering if we didn't do it right. It can consume so you lose sight of all the good. It can occupy and diminish all the sunshine you've built and earned.

Learning we all have this phase - knowing that everyone will struggle at some point - and that at some point, we all will be comfortable with our mortality and learn to not shape our destiny or control the uncontrollable is coming - provides me with comfort.

Death of a rock, child's health scarily close to loss I can't fathom, my health changing how and who I am, family pain and hurt - work not excelling, friendships slipping past, ageing before my brain. It comes when you feel you can no longer cope. Out of all the pain in the last two years, my aging dog having a stroke was the straw for me. I cried my ugly cry and it felt like two years of deep sorrow came through. I am capable of knowing my dog will die, and that I accept. Being another wave when I feel so tired of feeling sad rocked me once again.

And it will make you so tired of feeling sad that feeling sad will feel different. Each cut burn and scar isn't as deep. If its deeper, all the cuts before have been placed to prepare you for the deep ones. Its all meant to be.

Learning each and every crashing wave is literally meant to happen to shape and make you - is a release. Learning to acknowledge pain, worry and fear, - whilst also learning to not consume the present - is enlightening. Knowing each and every human has these struggles at some time - is settling.

I am no Guru - nor do I have the ability to think I can cope with all life throws at me, I just know now that there is so much more to come. And with each heart break, knowing I can re-mend, that I have the ability to see sunshine again, knowing it is only what we have right now that is all we have ever had - is comforting. I am also learning with each heartbreak, that the sight of the small, easy, calm things will come again, and they look brighter than before. The sun ray feels warmer, the snow flake more precious, the child's laugh more innocent and the cuddle more warm.

So if you feel the Hard Phase Waves - and they crash so relentless - know you are not alone. Ageing is reshaping to allow you to build the next set of armour needed for the next round of the Hard. We all have our own, You are not alone. Just keep holding on to see that next sunshine ray. x