Discouragement

Throughout the journey so far, I have always maintained the need to use negative experiences to set in motion transformative processes that are important for our personal growth: and so in FROZEN the emptiness we had come into contact with became an opportunity to be aware of our deepest needs; in THE WAITING it was about accepting and using even boredom to our advantage; in (THE) RISE I emphasized how humanity sometimes brings out the best in itself in times of greatest difficulty. This is my prevalent sentiment: the presence of limits and evil, in all its forms, is unquestionable but in the face of it we still have the freedom to make our own choices. And it is often a choice to undergo or act on changes: personally, if we do not lack inner resources, it is essential to at least try to direct our efforts toward actions that will be beneficial for our lives. However, it is not always possible to do so, or at least not immediately. Sometimes suffering, that is, the state in which we experience some form of physical or mental/emotional pain, imposes itself as an ineradicable element, impossible to ignore or reframe; we feel overwhelmed and powerless in front of it, crushed and paralyzed by fear or anxiety, without energy. DISCOURAGEMENT, having gone through THE LONGEST NIGHT, represents the moments when we can only stop rejecting things as they are, remove the filters with which we read reality in an attempt to build protections, embrace the evil and discomfort that derive from it, without resisting but remaining open to it (surrender).