Intuitive Healer Katarina Winslow reflects on rebirth and aging
We are moving quickly into a new era of truth. More and more people are going inward by seeking to understand themselves better and get to the essence of who they are to be happy. To find the truth of who you are, people are stripping off the illusions of their negative self-images and their emotional and psychological wounding. To heal this world, in the same way, we need to strip off the illusions of society and reveal the real intention of life - a happy life.
Talking about life, I instantly related the celebration of this 100th issue of Together to a hundred years. For some reason, the sound of a hundred made my brain connect to 100 years. Our minds associate words in various manners. We all make different connections in our brain waves. Some people might relate the number 100 to 100 reasons why? Others may immediately connect the number hundred to 100 million or a hundred billions for that matter. The more romantic may relate it to 100 kisses.
No matter what, talking about years, I believe that in the future we will talk about this time in history as ' the hundred years of truth.' More revelations about society emerge every day, the aggression on the climate, aggression on women and children, corruption and deceit, power and misuse of it, growth of racism and separation... to just touch the top of the iceberg.
Even if everything seems more chaotic by the day and there are severe threats to the climate, the positive aspect is that at least we start to see what we need to attend to. Just as in personal healing, it is dark and uncomfortable at the beginning of bringing our wounds to the surface, the same holds true for society. It always gets darker before it becomes brighter. When we throw more light on the truth, we see more of the pain that society holds.
There may have to be 100 years of truth for us to heal this world, but if we continue to bring the truth to the surface, healing will eventually happen. With truth as our guiding star, I am convinced that we will be able to provoke a rebirth of human consciousness.
Talking about rebirth and years, I can't help reflect on my experience as a carer of old and disabled people in my teenage years. It is fortunate to have a glimpse of aging already at the early age of sixteen.
For four long years, I spent my weekends, holidays, and an entire year after high school working with old and disabled people. I can't begin to tell you what I learnt during those years, but I can tell you that it was a real blessing. It was a gift to see with my own eyes how little power we have in the face of aging already as a teenager. Above anything, it taught me to be grateful for the little things in life and to not take anything for granted.
I believe it is what the world needs right now, for more people to become conscious of not take anything for granted. To help that happen, I would like to put a spotlight on aging.
After all, aging concerns us all.
In the face of our own mortality, we are all equal, regardless of our success or lack of it.
With this in mind, do you know that most people end up wearing a nappy? Not the little invisible ones that you use for your menstrual cycle, but a big and bulky one where you are forced to do all your needs. Already back then, in 1985 in the welfare state of Sweden, there was no way that we carers managed to take all the old and disabled people to the bathroom in time.
Imagine what the future will bring for our generation. In spite of the sad reality of having to wear a nappy at the end of your life, the most shocking to me as a young carer was the yucky smell of the parboiled potatoes wafting through the restaurant and the corridors of the complex. Did you know that at the end of your life most of us won't even have the freedom to choose what to eat? Also, if we are lucky to still be able to lift the spoon to our own mouth, we will have no power over what is on our plate. There is nothing that will protect us from the lack of flavour in our dishes, nor the solitude involved in getting old.
During my years as a careworker, I met people from all walks of life in a fancy area by the seaside in the south of Sweden - just imagine in the less favorable areas. The most striking thing all the old and disabled people all had in common was heartbreaking loneliness. It didn't seem to matter who you had been or what kind of life you had lived, they were all so lonely. It seemed everyone was just dropped in their apartment, filling their days with hours and hours of solitude, waiting for time to pass and life to end.
Amongst the people I got to know, there was a foreign correspondent who had spoken eight different languages and traveled all over the world. Sadly, there were no signs left in her appearance of her adventurous and courageous life. After several electrical shock treatments, she had been reduced to a vegetable in a wheelchair with no possibility to care for herself. Some people lost their sight and hearing, others had rheumatism or multiple sclerosis. Some people had lived through the war and hid their coffee under their bed, some fine ladies had lost their husbands, there were dementia and despair.
If you had ten, one or no children didn't seem to matter - the common denominator was solitude, and a profound loneliness. For the more robust ones who still managed to walk on their own, the highlight of the day was to be able to go to the supermarket. A simple hello, thank you and goodbye at the cash register was cheering up their day. Visits were restricted to birthdays and Christmas, as their children were busy living their own lives.
It is difficult to condense in a few lines what it means to become old, but what I can say is that it involves helplessness, solitude, and humiliation. If you haven't understood compassion yet, you will do so when you are sitting there on your own in your too big a nappy and eating smelly food.
We all know that the world is facing enormous challenges at the moment and that we need to rethink how we care for ourselves, others, and the planet. To become conscious that one day it will be you and me sitting there alone in our wheelchairs could speed up the development of a more compassionate world.
No matter what you believe, no matter your values, we are all equal in the face of aging. If I had a magic wand, I would like to give us all a glimpse of our aged self so that a light of compassion and gratitude for the small things in life could grow in all of our hearts.
Let us understand that nothing we own will save us from the reality of aging, and what is the point being the richest in the graveyard?
With this in mind, let us start making real changes in this world now.
Not in a hundred years…
