Recently I have been suffering from a small ear blockage, which has reduced my hearing in one ear down to about 50% or so. It is intermittent and not serious and will soon be dealt with, but despite all this, I have found it strangely troubling. Apart form the very mild buzzing it creates, it seems to also build an invisible wall around me and I just feel the need to retreat behind it. It sounds silly and if anyone else were to say this to me I would probably think they were being daft! It is odd how such a tiny thing can become a literal barrier between me and the world.

I can rationalise it as being about the increased difficulty of communicating becomes ‘too much work’, but whilst it certainly requires more effort and determination, that really isn’t it. I can remind myself how lucky I am that it is so small and merely temporary and remember those poor people who suffer more serious forms of deafness. However the knowing and understanding does not alter my subjective state one jot. I feel like the sun has gone behind a cloud.

Of course we all erect and use barriers all the time; “If I ignore him, I can pretend I didn’t see him…” “I’ll pretend I never heard her…” “I’m not in…” and they have valid social usages, but there are also those ones we hide behind, ones that make us smaller than we really are, ones that keep us locked up when the world wants us to come out and play.

Mine is being dismantled tomorrow, but today might be a good day for you to take down and destroy some of your own barricades and let the world see just who you really are…

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” Jalal ad-Din Rumi

“You cannot be wimpy out there on the dream-seeking trail. Dare to break through barriers, to find your own path.” Les Brown