From Awareness Builder 101: Chapter 5

5. Fragile

 

The evening I wrote the previous page, the friend of one of my students died. Far too young. Life was taken away from her, her time was complete. What a painful reminder.

 

A bit over a year ago I collapsed just like that and was taken to hospital by ambulance. Whilst enjoying breakfast at the local market, all of a sudden it felt as if all the energy fled from my body. My blood pressure all of a sudden was extremely high. When I was carried into the ambulance, I consciously looked at the sun and consciously felt its warmth on my skin. Maybe that was the last time I would see the sun from this side of heaven….

Yet I was lucky, it all proved to be a false alarm.

 

The night after writing the previous page, I woke up in the middle of the night. I felt horrible and again, all energy fled from my body. I went to sleep feeling great and happy, and only hours later, an extreme fear filled me. What is my body doing to me…..? Will it give up on me…? Is my time now complete…?

Again, false alarm. Again, a wake-up call. Yes, probably the rather intense last weeks impacted me, maybe even the writing yesterday caused some unconscious stress.

 

That’s not the point. Stings’ words in his song ‘Fragile’ are so spot on! We might think we’re untouchable. We might be blessed with a good health, a strong body and a strong mind. And we are so fragile…. Nobody is too strong, too healthy or too important to not be told that, all of a sudden, your time is complete. That you will become one of the stars and life in this form will no longer know a new tomorrow.

 

Because on and on the rain will fall. Like tears from a star, the rain will say how fragile we are.

(from Fragile by Sting)

 

When a tear from a star falls on you, you’re called to join the stars and we’ll never know when we catch that tear. This calls for a certain humbleness. I am, you are, we are not better than anyone else and none of us is untouchable. We’re all equally fragile.

When taking this as a given, when we are aware of our vulnerability, it doesn’t call for living so careful that we avoid any risk. NO! We need to live!! When Snoopy’s friend Charlie Brown said to him “One day we will die Snoopy….”, in response Snoopy said: “Yes, but every other day we will live…”.

This is a simple wisdom, yet very powerful and it calls us forth to live our life. Fully. Now. Free. On purpose. Actively. Yet aware of how fragile we are and that one day we’ll be called home to the stars. Embracing how fragile we are, at the same time encouraged to appreciate life more fully. Live it.

 

 

Journaling questions for this chapter:

 

What does a fully lived life look for me?

 

What am I allowing to get in the way of that?

 

If I would not be given a ‘tomorrow’, what would I do today?

 

 

© 2024. Alex Verlek, Coaching Works International.

 

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