justabouteverythingrandom

[justabouteverythingrandom]

Mindfulness & Meditation

What is Mindfulness? It is the art of being present. Such a simple word yet carrying such a deep meaning with it. If I am being honest with you, it is as straightforward as it sounds. It is living in full awareness of the current moment. Not anticipating the future or regretting the past, but feeling the life force in you right now. As Buddha has rightfully said - “The past is already gone, the future is not yet here. There’s only one moment for you to live.” And that moment is now. 

So how do you live mindfully? By being aware of every action you take. Lets take eating for example. We all eat in order to sustain life. When we eat mindfully, we are conscious of every bite we take - all our senses are centred on that one bite. You understand how it tastes, feels, smells and looks. You will notice that your mind and body are both aligned in this process. And just by doing this, you are already practicing meditation. Meditation is nothing but focusing on an action. This practice can easily be translated in all areas of our life - drinking, walking, speaking, breathing and so on. 

Thus, Meditation & Mindfulness go hand in hand. If you live mindfully, then every moment is spent in meditation. 

[justabouteverythingrandom]

Within

You and I we don’t exist,

These bodies are merely an illusion,

There is a whole universe trapped in us - what we seek to find is already within,

Living & breathing!

Then why do we become oblivious to it & seek for things outside?

Why are we unaware of our own divinity?

Why aren’t we taught to look within right from the beginning?

When I close my eyes, I see the entire galaxy within me.

Shining brightly - yet I am unable to visulaize those stars when I open my eyes.

Reality strays me away from my true light.

What is it about reality & this physical body that keeps us from evolving?

My thoughts are like the weather - bright & sunny one minute, dark and gloomy the next.

Isn’t it the physical reality that influences thought? Because if we always knew how to look within, no suffering would ever exist!

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It is a feeling of being trapped - trapped in a body, in a society, in a world where I don’t belong. Everything feels alien to me. I feel like my soul is struggling inside my body, to escape. It feels so uncomfortable that it manifests in the form of bodily pains.

I have been suicidal for as long as I can remember. I would never act on it mostly, but instead have this constant urge to not live. When I was a child, almost 8 or 9 years of age, I used to sad all the time. My father’s death had caused irreparable damage to my heart. I was never very expressive. So all adults thought I was too young to process all that was going on. Truth is, I was aware and conscious of every pain, every void that that death left. Added to that, my mother’s only brother’s death made all the pain and suffering all too real. Resulting in me constantly wishing death upon myself. I remember I would discreetly scratch on walls writing “I want to die” or scribble in this diary I had “Kill Me!”. I had dedicated pages for Baba and Sonu Mama’s birthday & death anniversaries - I would scribble how I wish I was with them and not on Earth - I was only 8 or 9 years. Teachers would ask “Arushi is always so gloomy, you are always so sad. What happened?” How about someone took the time to talk to me then? I don’t blame my mother because she was going through inexplainable pain too. But I do hold this society responsible which does find some pleasure in sob stories and loves to give their sympathies - oh, only from a distance.

Fast forward to 1or 2 years later, I had to readjust myself in a new family. Learn to live with their rules and regulations. It was a hard time. I had this constant feeling of not belonging - to either of the families. Old and new. I still do. I feel like I never belonged to my older family after we moved on to a new one and never accepted in the new one. It was like I had to prove my worth - prove that I was worth being accepted and loved by this new family. This triggered low confidence and again, suicidal thoughts to the extent when I was 14 or 15 years of age, I tried to eat baygon (ratkill). I was obviously not that courageous to go through with it so I consumed only some of it. No one knew. Actually, 2-3 of my friends knew. It later went on to be a joke. Not kidding. 

Teenage is hard and after 2 years when I was in grade 12, I tried to strangulate myself with a loofa in the bathroom at night. Had I held on for a couple of seconds more, I wouldn’t be writing this today at all and maybe, saved myself from a lot of pain. A lot. Over the years, the pain has only increased, not gotten any better. 

I went on to go to college. That was a good experience all in all. My thoughts were better. I started drinking alcohol which would lead to emotional outbursts and majorly mourning the death of my father - which I never had the opportunity to do when I was young. I was expected to be strong - strong for my mother. I also developed a little sleep problem for a year where I could not get sound sleep at all. I would keep waking up. I would never wake up fresh. I never thought of killing myself during college which was great. I did however, have this constant thought in my head - Baba is calling me to him. He wants me with him and I should go. Funny, now that I am writing I realize that I haven’t known him for as long as I have lost him - why do I feel so deeply then? Guess, something to explore. 

I moved to Mumbai after college. That was a great time for my mental health - I felt my work was valued and I just felt alive. I moved to Canada shortly thereafter. Adjustment was a problem but because it was my choice. I did see a counsellor briefly but the best advice he could give me was - have you tried having a boyfriend. Cool! Anyway, I started keeping myself extremely busy so that thoughts of loneliness wouldn’t cross my mind. Later, I transformed keeping busy with excessive partying and drinking. It was temporary happiness and a means for me to keep myself from falling into the dark hole again. Because frankly, I did not feel and still don’t that any of my friends will understand the emotional baggage I have or will understand the depth of the trauma. I don’t want to end up trivializing my mental state because that would do me more damage. 

My mental health was a rollercoaster with mostly good days as I kept myself very busy with work. It all started to crumble slowly last year as I hit the lowest low. I would picture myself blowing my brains out and how good it would feel to not be in this world anymore. I did not feel like talking or meeting anyone. I tried to be vocal about it too. I told some of my friends and family discreetly that I don’t think I am doing to well - I tried to be discreet about my real thoughts because I did not have the courage to tell them. I took therapy and unpacked a lot of those emotions. They helped temporarily but I felt even the therapist did not view it as big a problem as I do.  

This year with the pandemic and lockdown, my mental health has been the worse. I have had lots of instances of thoughts of self harm & suicide. I find it hard to be productive. I hang out with friends and laugh - but I don’t feel anything inside. It feels like a drill. It does not feel natural. I let my family know that I don’t feel good these days but again, I did not go in depth because I am scared to hurt them and I also feel, they don’t understand. 

With Sushant Singh’s suicide, I have felt especially triggered for multiple reasons - It reminded me of my suicidal thoughts, it rekindled my trauma of untimely deaths and it made me realize that most people cannot understand the pain you are going through.

A week or so before this news, a friend had caught me writing something suicidal - about how I feel like killing myself every minute of the day and shared it with another friend. It kind of ended up being a joke of how I will hang myself one day or that they’ll share it with my mother. I felt trivialized and reinforced the idea that none of them understand the years of pain and trauma inside me. Last year, I explicitly told  2 friends about how I have been feeling as well as my mother. Nobody took it serious so I felt like it wasn’t worth sharing. When I was young, I told my friends about the Baygon and Loofa, they ended up being jokes too. It took me immense vulnerability and courage to open up in the first place. But when each instance ended up being a joke, I don’t think I canbe vulnerable again - hence ended up writing here. Last night I had another of those episodes of just escaping this bodily world. The only thing that makes me weak is thinking about my parents, grandparents and sisters. They can’t take another loss of life - maybe my sisters can but not my parents and grandparents. Other than that, I dont think it would matter to anyone and this is not something I hold against them. I generally have been feeling like a major failure these days - I haven’t really achieved anything - career, friends, partner, socially. Maybe tomorrow will be better or not. I hope I will always find a reason not to take my life in my family as I always have. They have definitely been a trigger and most definitely been the ones who have pulled me out of it. I don’t know maybe this is the lowest of my lows and things will look up after this. Or maybe they just spiral out of control from here. I don’t know.

Maybe I will have the courage to show this to someone someday and seek help. I hope I do. But for now, I don’t think I have the emotional bandwidth to be vulnerable and be made a joke out of. I hope my soul learns to find peace here. Wishing this hope remains.

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Every since I realized my soul wanted to go back from the womb everything has been different.

Everything yet nothing makes sense at all. I understand why I always feel this way yet i don;t understand existence. I don’t understand the source of happiness at all. 

I don’t understand what I have lost what I have found. I lost everything the day I lost Baba. Everything crumbled at its seams. Nothing was the same. I have never been the same.  Would even half my problems exist if Baba existed? His face is so fresh in my head just like his dead body. If everything is an illusion that was an illusion too. His bleeding eyes. How can a 7 year old remember these details. I wan to forget these images.

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There is a constant strife in my life - to be accepted. Why dos being accepted feel so hard. Why isn’t anyone ready to accept me for who I am. I think, its me who isnt ready to accept myself.

I find it so hard to love myself, Why wouldn’t others find it hard. 

Everyday seems to be harder. I feel like I should kill my self every day of the week. i don’t want to live this life. everything i a burden. my life ended the day baba left me. Baba was the last day of my life when I saw him on the death bed. His eye bled. And my soul has bled ever since.

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I have always felt the absence of a father figure in my life. Baba left me when I was only 7. I was so young to understand. Yet i felt so old enough to be responsible. 

I did not chose this life- of hardships and suffering.

I have been reading about Buddha. He says the source suffering is ignorance.We do not exist. this is all an illusion 

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What do we want in life? Why is it so hard to find happiness? Why arent we wired to see happiness?

This lockdown has been hard. I thought life would turn around when I returned back toToronto. It has been the opposite of that. I have been thinking a lot about what I have lost over the years. Not what I have gained, 

Why is it so difficult to see anything in our lives which a positive light? 

I am tired and I long to return to the source. I want to go back. I never wanted to be born. This life seems like a burden.

Have you heard about the burden of existence? I feel it every second of being alive. It is a struggle. Why does it feel so?

I try to recount moments of happiness in my life. There seem to be many, I still feel afraid and alone, gravitated to the likes of my childhood.

What is going on? I need someone to care for me. Something no one has ever done for me.

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Why are we even alive? What is the point of this all? I was supposed to go back right from the womb. I was not supposed to live this life of pain. I was done with the pain. Then why did my soul decide to take on this life? Why did it agree to take on these pains? Of losing a father? Of losing loved ones? Of never being accepted? Of never belonging? Anywhere. What was I born to accomplish? I wanted to help others. I wanted to do the right thing? How did I end up being the wrong person? Sometimes I lose the will to do everything in life? Is it depression? Or is it just me returning to my womb state? Wanting to go back to my womb state? Back to mother Earth? Not wanting to be heard? Not wanting to be visible? Blending to existence.

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What could have been?

What is life without any relationships? What is life with relationships?

Why do we forfeit some relations while trying to maintain some others? How do you retrieve relations that are lost?

If you shed your ego, do you think the other side would do the same?

Or if the connection was lost, was it your destiny and nothing in your hand? Were you just a puppet in fate’s hand?

Irrespective you are left thinking what could have been? And I am not at all talking about romantic relationships here. Everything other than romantic lovers.

If certain people still existed, would you still be close to them? Or would that have died, still?

What could have been?

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It’s a constant cycle

We fall down - we get up - then we fall again.

They say bad times don’t last. That is indeed true. However, the residue lingers. You never really emerge out of the pain. 

I sometimes meditate and try to visualize my heart. Whenever I do, I see my heart with multiple stabs and cuts and wounds. All accumulated over the years - from struggles, people, situations. I try to heal them but they are so deep. And I don’t necessarily know the origin for each scar. But I do know that each time something mildly hurtful happens, that wound becomes deeper and deeper. Its also a constant cycle of healing and hurting.

On the flip side, here’s a round of applause for us. We survive and keep trying to heal despite those wounds. Constantly fighting a tug of war between what goes on inside and the outside world. The ultimate goal is to reach a place of perfect harmony - inside and outside. Till then we shall continue running like a hamster in this constant cycle.

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PATIENCE AND HOPE

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Patience. Such a simple work yet carrying such restlessness in its name. Why are we told to be patient? You will get that job. Don’t worry. You will get the love of your life. Just wait. You will get that house. Don’t stress. Sounds very simple, doesn’t it? Here’s me hoping it was.

We never ponder over the implications of simple words which maybe, we are unconsciously manifesting in our lives. 

While waiting for that dream job, I spent countless days wondering if I was a failure or if I was even worth it. Sure, the joy of when it finally came was unmatchable but those feelings left scars inside. Self inflicted emotional wounds. And oh, what if it never came! 

Waiting for the right time for the right person to walk in? What about all those nights where I just long for a loving embrace? This period where I am told to be patient, is leaving a trail of self doubt and feeling of being unloved. Loneliness to top it all. Yet I have to be hopeful it is going to happen for me. We are scared to think otherwise.

The dream house, those moments of quiet that the heart craves for. While I am ‘patiently’ searching for it, we are not talking about the frustration of getting declined and how that is affecting. How emotionally draining these road blocks are? And again the same question, what if there is no castle? We can only hope. Makes me laugh a little.

It is ironic how patiently I am still writing this, maybe because I am hopeful. It’s strange how patience and hope come in the same package. There is no hope without patience and no patience if there is no hope!

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FAKE!

Fake smiles, fake tears, fake EMOTIONS! Can you really ‘fake it till you make it’? Or is it do you really want to make it like the others? Fit in to a crowd? 

I peep inside myself. I want to make it - not like the crowd in the room. Make it in my own different way. Why should I have to fake it when I can just be who I am and be the PERSON, just as inspiring, just as successful. 

Often, in social gatherings, I find myself panicking. I start to sweat and can feel my heart pounding, constantly looking around to see if anyone else notices how awkward I feel. You may ask why? To be honest, I don’t know the answer. Maybe it is the feeling of not belonging, not conforming to a social norm or group. My life has always been unconventional in terms of experiences, hence the feeling of not belonging to the normal always is what makes me anxious I think. I try to fake it - faking laughter and I do it damn well - you cannot tell. My heart is somewhere else. I can hear my laugh in my head and every time it’s not genuine, I can hear it play in my head louder and louder. UNAUTHENTIC. 

We are social animals. We need to belong to a social group, scenario, community. But the world teaches us wrong. We need to belong but for that we do not have to be like the others. Maybe articulating what reality I want to believe in versus what fake reality I am currently living in will help me reprogram my brain - IT IS OKAY TO BE DIFFERENT. YOU DONOT HAVE TO FEEL JUDGED! 

One day in the future when I re-read this, maybe I will have embraced the way I am - everywhere - internally and in the world. 

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I woke up today morning. This day felt nothing different from the others. Until that moment in the day when I found my nerves trembling. Not with fear. With something unexplainable. I could feel the walls in my stomach crumble. I could not define it. I could sense panic. 

Five minutes later, a sense of accomplishment took over. I could notice something different. I had changed. I wasn’t the same as before. 

Those ten minutes of sensation was my soul and body reacting to my release of all unwanted emotions. I let go of all my anger and guilt. I let go of all sorrow. I was happy. I AM happy. 

I feel changed. For the better. My soul feels free. My inner child feels alive. 

I still feel every emotion on the face earth. The difference is those emotions don’t take control of me. They give me a feeling of fullness. They make me feel alive and grounded. 

I have forgiven. I have forgiven everything that ever caused me pain. I have forgiven myself. 

Everything bright awaits me. Everything good is out there waiting for me.

I have a higher life purpose. To be an instrument of upliftment. 

I will. I can. 

I am love. I am loved. I am lovable.

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How do you know you have changed How do you know if you have changed for the better or for the worst. How do you accept the change. How do others accept the change. Does it even matter.

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Change is calm. Change changes you forever.