The Journey of Me

Self portrait - Oct 2018

In this my fortieth year, a very significant year.... I acknowledge the many experiences that serve as deep lessons. Two stick out.

On health, wellness and caring for the self. 

I started the year quite unwell from running myself to the bone with non-stop working, travelling and being in service and care for everyone except myself. My body and my mind came crashing to a halt and I was rudely reminded how frail life really is. Shuttling back and forth along hospital corridors, in between tough medical regimes, battle exchanges with my angry body, firm and candid conversations with doctors made things clear.  In order to live and live fully, not just the simple motions of day to day rigours... I needed to really prioritise where, why and how I got to spend my finite energy and time in this embodiment and in my remaining time on earth. And you know what, I chose to prioritise things, experiences and people that are inherently kind and who filled, added meaning and affirmation things that really mattered. This simple resolve was transforming because often our lives are everyone’s except our own. It shifted my attention inwards to seek my silenced and muted voice and wishes to define this part of my life journey. It enabled me say 'yes and no thank you' to work, leisure and school activities. It enabled me to walk away from interactions with people who sucked rather than restored my energies. And importantly, it enabled me to see that these changes while scary, drastic and difficult, are necessary in order to not just survive but to thrive.

Until then, I did not realise how heavy the life chosen for me was.  I am still astonished by the magnitude of unraveling, the un-juggling and the un-carrying of things and people that were frankly draining and killing me......throttling my neck so to speak. The constant state of being ‘on’ and always available for colleagues, family, friends, dependants drained me to my core. Our bodies, minds and labours are not only taken from us as women, but also devalued by the communities we love and belong to. We are constantly taken for granted in so many implicit and explicit ways. Shaming and linking personal achievements, aspirations, desires and individuality and then lumping it as ‘selfish’ if I want or have things for myself. We women especially are constantly bombarded with misogynistic put downs from our nearest and dearest who have unchecked sense of entitlement to our bodies, out time, our attentions or presence. This takes a toll and erodes our sense of self and we remain stifled or make ourselves small but wide open to fit into everyones jigsaw puzzle.

If this is speaking your truth, pause breathe in and out and truly reflect....A lot of times we weave ourselves, our life mission and our identities as fated to work and to exist only for the happiness and service of others ......AND often we die trying and failing at this. We see ourselves only in the role we play and in the relationships we associate with. We loose our names and identity and think believe in single journeys of being woman is serving everyone except self. We remain nameless. Except for our gravestones.... and below our names a more prominent epitaph that reduces our lives as... ‘as mothers, wives, or daughters’......My journey on health this year has taught me to say YES and NO to things that drew me close or take me away from centering on LIFE as I define it for myself. Nothing is that serious that I cannot hold or let go of if its any less than enriching in my existence as an individual. This ‘self-full’ act is deeply political and unapologetic for me. It's time to interrupt this narrative of shaming us for expanding our sense of individuality....it is eroding souls and killing our bodies.

On love, what a complicated four letter word. 

Love and its intricacy in my life is rich and ripe and now slowly manifests in the way I CHOOSE to love. Again, this year marks a pivotal time for me to redefine how I consciously choose to exist in the aura of love. It is not easy to assess who, how and why we love the way we do... and even more-so to honestly reflect on who, how and why we open to receiving love from those who chose us in their lives. This year I focus on evaluating all my love associations and sift through them one by one. It was a delicate odyssey of deeply understanding that a lot of my loved ones were an an in-road for me to get a sense of purpose, to feel needed and wanted. I am a keen follower of Thích Nhất Hạnh’s teachings and he articulates so well a thought that has captured my attention; 

“A POT IN SEARCH OF A LID.... Very often we feel like a pot without a lid. We believe that our lid is somewhere in the world and that if we look very hard, we’ll find the right lid to cover our pot. The feeling of emptiness is always there inside us. When we contemplate the other person, sometimes we think we see what we feel we lack. We think we need someone else to lean on, to take refuge in, and to diminish our suffering. We want to be the object of another person’s attention and contemplation. We want someone who will look at us and embrace our feeling of emptiness and suffering with his energy of mindfulness. Soon we become addicted to that kind of energy; we think that without that attention, we can’t live. It helps us feel less empty and helps us forget the block of suffering inside. When we ourselves can’t generate the energy to take care of ourselves, we think we need the energy of someone else. We focus on the need and the lack rather than generating the energy of mindfulness, concentration, and insight that can heal our suffering and help the other person as well......” Thích Nhất Hạnh, How to Love

The journey of practicing love has really evolved in me this year. I am more intentional on reviewing how love plays and reciprocates. My focus is centred on enhancing a more nourishing of way of seeing and understanding a beloved's suffering, desires and needs and simply offering them loving kindness as a gift over, and over again and over again. I am so fortunate to have someone who deeply and simply loves to love me in all my manifestations. I consider this one of my most precious gift from the universe.

I am aware that each one of us has experienced pain and that it sometimes causes us to be hurt and hurt others with our words and actions. I am more aware as a person I am complicit to both causing and being on the receiving end of this pain and hurt. But, I also have faith in the goodness of people and deeply believe that our (good) intentions and our words do not always match up.  I am trying to constantly remember we are all human even when our actions can be cruel. I am trying to walk my talk of creating happiness for those I choose and also to recognise that my needs (and happiness) also matter. I am learning to accept that I cannot control how people love me but I can walk away if it is destructive. And I see now how easy it is to get trapped cyclic toxic relationships when we forget ourselves...our identities and do not remind us that its never in our place and purpose on earth to fix other people’s hurts and insecurities... These reflections gave me generous room to select paths to walk toward or away from love that captures my soul. This is how love turns up for me. And I am grateful for it and hoping to never ever take the love I have experienced for granted. 

And now more than ever I see through a new set of lens how generous the universe has been to give me some health, some love, this life and a small spark lit inside me until this very moment. I feel a ‘me’ inside myself that no one can take away because it’s not ‘theirs’ to give in the first place. And since I found this me, I feel a deep unending amount of love and compassion pouring outwards to you all my dear humans, even when we are not so nice to each other. Even when I know health is finite, love is a close companion to pain and hurt and life is shorter than a fleeting moment...I am grateful, I am grateful for the lessons and for sharing this moment with you.

Whatever fate has past this minute of posting this, this journey of me thus far was worth it because it linked you to me with these few thoughts.....