By Patrick van Wageningen
I meet many students struggling with stress, effort and failure. There is a lot of fear in students of not doing it right and that drives them to go on and on. This is also familiar territory for me. Life as it is presented to us is a life of constant peaks. You are never completely satisfied because there is always more to do. When you have accomplished something, you move on to the next, as if you were some kind of never-ending project. And if you fall anywhere on that journey, toward that sacred goal of fulfillment and happiness, then you fail. Because you are not supposed to fail. You are not supposed to feel cunt or heavy. It is not the intention that you all just fail and that you can no longer keep your head upright.
Those people who really fall by the wayside are only symbols of a deeper need for peace and tranquility that lives in our society. The script of always more, better, higher has its limits. It's okay not to know sometimes, to slog and be allowed to search. It's okay to suffer and not do it right. It is even good to foresee what is going on in your life. It is important to feel what is going on in your body. Because that heaviness and fear also have something to tell you. They too are full of life. To do well in this situation is to come to terms with your own feelings and inability. Withdrawing into yourself and drawing limits to what you do or don't do is not a sign of inability.
It is a sign of a healthy system that says enough is enough. Now I may rest, now it may really be about me, now I may feel what is going on in my inner world. Not for the image of me that I think I should be in this world. Attention to that inner world and what lives in it can then become a breeding ground. It is the place where you process the fallen leaves of life and build a healthy nutrient layer, like the humus layer in the forests.
You can really continue from there. Only then do we see depression and anxiety again as seasons of life, for which there is time and attention. We then interpret depression as deep rest, an opportunity to give well-deserved attention to your own system and let the difficult things be there. Fear is a protection that indicates that you really want to live. All those things that we put away have something to tell us. Do you dare to listen?
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