It's okay to be 'not okay'!

“How are you?” — I’m okay! translated as: I’m fine! That’s the usual jargon when you do not want to say anything more in particular. Conventional fill-ins or start-and-finish-and-be-done-with-it tactics. Just a hello… bye-bye!

- SR ESME DA CUNHA, FDCC

Then if one day, instead of the usual expected answer you are confronted with a: “Umm, I’m not okay, not good!” the whole conversation takes on a different tune. A concerned: “Really? What’s up?” Then the two become more personal as one relates to the other his/her frame of mind or body. Things are not okay!

The “I’m fine, I’m okay” conversation stops with the exchange of these meaningless niceties, and we thus miss a chance to really encounter the other person in his/her actual reality, or to disclose the pain we hold in our own heart. The “I’m fine” response can be a cover-up or mask we put on when we don’t intend or don’t dare or feel too embarrassed to reveal ourselves to the other at a deeper and more personal level. We miss the chance to be really in contact with another. We isolate or alienate ourselves, recoiling into our proverbial shell, and we try to live life alone.

What a blessing, if one day we find someone to whom we can honestly say: “I’m not okay…” What concern, what tenderness, even what healing we forfeit in those other shallow encounters!

To be ‘not okay’ is okay.