Despite

How are we supposed to feel in a catastrophic situation? How are we supposed to feel in a collectively traumatic episode?

Cultural conditioning, customs, and the most primitive reactions of human beings assume that faced with these circumstances we feel panic, lack of control, indiscriminate rage, a feeling of moral insult. As if life were betraying us.

People who manage to keep calm either through faith, optimism, resilience, or the ability to see challenges and failures as learning opportunities, are usually accused of being “deniers”, naïve, unconscious accomplices of the tragedy. Those who stay calm in a personal way, with little emotional support from ideologies or institutions to contain them, usually feel attacked and shamefully react to critical eyes (or envious) of the people that justify their irritability, violence, anger, to exogenous causes that can’t be controlled.

However, there is a possibility to work on building a feeling of inner calm that allows us to assess what external resources we count on to face the uncontrollable, unpredictable, and scary challenges.

There is a possibility to, despite the fears, despite the rage, find that little bit of personal power, that little bit of emotional resource, that little bit of calm that allows us to reach the next moment… after the storm.