Give-in to the Flow. Yes, give-in to Life.

Calling It Out

Feeling stuck, indecisive. Pause and ask  'What Am I avoiding?'

Notice what comes up.

This IS the 'raw material' to work with. The stuff that will aid in finding a way out of a 'limbo-laden, stuck, dissonant' state.

Explore.

The inquiry will inch us closer to 'the authentic self'- the truth.

Because, it is more terrifying to stay in a place we Already know is where we don't want to be!

Because, most often the answer is in what I am avoiding.

Practicing it!

Freedom in Nothing-ness

I Don't like this.

I Never do that.

I can Never be like that.

I am Not that.

I Am this.

These are definitions and identity-traps we've willingly walked into, holding tightly to our ground —arrogant, self righteous— at very weak moments in life when we felt the ground slipping away. When it most certainly felt we would lose out if we didn't utter the 'I never' or 'I am' and desperately latched on to an identity, a definition! To feel victory - merely in that moment, in a context!

How often soon after, till much later in life, have we felt the shackles of one such momentous utterance, felt forced to live by it, till it strangled & coiled around our necks and juiced the happy energy of living out of our veins, however invisibly.

A moment of victory, a cross for life.

When there is no definition, when my possibility is everything, there is no pressure to merely mimic or conform to a foible, a weak moment.

Let's try it the next time.

and experience this Freedom in being identified for Nothing.

From my private classroom : An excerpt

My classroom with my 7-yr old {February 5'14,7:30 am}

Aaditya: "Mama(earnestly), sometimes I feel something I can't tell!

It's in the middle of happy-sad, it's in the middle of surprise-angry. It's in the middle of everything."

Me: "Ok I understand. Can you tell me a little more about it?"

Aaditya: " It's something (voice trails off)... sometimes it goes down, sometimes it goes up or it goes faster. I don't like it!"

Me: "Ok... when does it happen?'

Aaditya: "I don't know! Anytime it can happen. BUT I DON'T WANT TO FEEL IT!''


Here he is, a boy-child, intimately in touch with himself. He is deep into the 'I wonder' practice of life. A boy easily in touch with his feelings, the sensations of the highs and lows and he is often eager to express how it makes him feel, even as it feels in his young bones & sinews.

I flashback to my childhood - was I ever into this practice of expressing? I grew up with 3 siblings, happy and carefree - were we ever sharing the 'I feel' world taking place inside of us? The answer is a revealing NO. I can clearly remember feeling these feelings, deep and throbbing. What I cannot remember is ever venturing to share them around. It was a different world—far muted.  And I realise, that must've been the way with many childhoods.

That's one kind of growing up.

How does this kind progress? How does it manifest later in life?

The other end of this growing up shows up much sooner than later in life:

•   As the Teenager we are Parents to ('My child doesn't talk to me any more'/ 'I wonder what goes on in my daughter’s head!')

•   In the relationships we try to nurture and possess and feel one-sided about ( I just don't know how to make her/ him express'!)

•   As the Spouses who want to be nagged for having a real conversation with (' I don't know what's happening in his/ her life any more', 'I am scared to ask him/her.... just doesn't share!')

Grownups - guarded, unsure, scared to be audible, visible, vulnerable, conditioned to view vulnerability as cowardice and weakness, scared lest we are seen as 'not strong enough'! To make up for it, we give fuel to small talk, chatter, the noise of nonsense as conversation, the utmost soullessness of human connections. 

The feelings muted; the decibel cacophonous.

This is how the muted-ness advances. The context is simple albeit confusing : Feelings are weak. Expression of feelings (fear, anger, mistrust,  shame) is weakness. We are meant to exude courage, often act invincible and any expression otherwise is akin to baring us as weak, making us seem less human, utterly vulnerable. And this context reaches a zenith : and soon we bottle and cocoon up in our attempt to be the strongest version of ourselves! 

Uninhibited at birth and restricted in growing up!

A Child is born open to the universe of experiences, to be loved, to be cared for, being dolefully dependent, eager to trust, ready to express a want - a vulnerability, to voice disagreement and discomfort, to emote relentlessly and fearlessly. And somewhere early these instincts get blunted, muted for the purposes of growing up. Without going into the reasons, let's just say growing up conditions these basic human instincts.

And my realisation is that we Parents can convincingly keep this free flowing conduit of feeling-to-expressing alive and clog free. In the least, we can commit to prolong the duration of this phase for unconditioned outpours and feelings.

In my private classroom with Aaditya, lessons arrive not so much in how well he explains, it comes bundled in his urge to express every bit of it, his willingness in his every attempt to put a word to these indescribable highs and lows that his mind churns up. He does not stop to judge the feeling before sharing; he does not care that it might make him sound like a scaredy-cat. My little Teacher teaches me the sheer courage in vulnerability, in laying bare the deepest disturbances so willingly, so trustingly. Be it for the mundane Monday morning blues or the natural low of missing cousins and friends in a distant country or the sheer thrill of going on the roller coaster ride! 

He is game to share anything   - a flutter, a tug or a murmur!

Sometimes, It's enough to know what I don't want.

'What do you wish to eat?'

'I don't want anything fried, I don't want any soup, no starters...'

'but what do you want?'

(feeling pressured, still drawing a blank) 'I don't know!!'

A shot from your life too?!

How does it make me feel in a situation where I have to end up saying 'I don't know?'.

Uncomfortable. Less confident. May be even a bit guilty (in the face of pressure to throw up an answer).

It has been uncomfortable and all of that for me. It has made me fumble and choose the next best that comes up hurriedly. Or accept one that is offered in respite. The feeling in the pit has been a constant : discomfort.

Then something shifted, unnoticed. As years have advanced, I have learnt to grow comfortable in not knowing. More grounded in knowing less about what I want than what I don't.

I am growing  surer of what cannot and does not interest me.

I can legitimately voice what I don't wish to do than perhaps what I can.

I am far surer of Who I am not, than I can ever be of Who I am.

And I am comfortable in that admission.

Because today, right in there is guidance. In there is my opportunity to explore.

And all that was needed was to be comfortable.

There is as much guidance in what does not and cannot happen in my life as there is in what can and does, maybe more!

Reframing the Perspective

I am going to buck the trend today, and I am going to suggest that it's not about the Now. 

The past is relevant, in fact very meaningful.

The caveat being it is only as meaningful as I can make it to be.

For me the past manifests as two feelings in our present : The first is Gratitude. 

What is this Gratitude? (And here I'm going to explore Gratitude in the context of the past)

A flashback that makes me miss a moment or one that I want to relive, a memory that makes me misty-eyed or evokes sighs of fondness and the 'I wish' - is, for me, a moment in Gratitude. I am reliving a memory as it still holds some meaning for me today. In fact, many-a-time its value is more apparent today than when it played out in my life. I miss that moment because in its memory I understand something new and unique about myself. With each appearance of that memory in the rear-view screen I know myself a little better. The warmth of that experience makes me want to relive it time and again.

What are all these emotions that I experience when I remember this moment in the past? Do I feel thankful that it took place? Do I feel a bit lucky —consequently a tad humble— having experienced it? Do I feel a rush of warmth and well-being when I assign a position of 'purpose' to it and am able to join the dots from then to my current life. This is how Gratitude feels, certainly to me. It's that feeling when we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to many things that we are today. 

Gratitude comes to us as a heart full of memories. Of course, it can be for the present too but in its most humble form Gratitude is about what we have already lived.

The second emotion inextricable from the Past is Regret.

Regret is also an emotion that the past is often demonised about. As someone wrote, it seems there's a movement of sorts "to cram our life with every possible kind of experience lest we have any regrets". Quite befitting if you buy into the chutzpah of the 'I have no regrets' idiom  and the number of ways people are trying to arrive at that state.

I am no one to call this evil brandishing of Regret wrongful. I just wish to give Regret a chance in our lives. Not in denying it but in reframing it!

What is regret? Let's dive into how that feels. It's a memory of a momentous blip in our Past, a moment of choice, a moment of decision (or indecision), with me or more than me in it, that channelled my life ( and probably theirs') on a certain path that was (and still is) somewhat undesirable, avoidable and stirs up some pain. Simply put this Regret has the capacity to make me feel sad, dolorous, repentant enough to wish it away, and certainly avoid a reliving of that experience.

Now let's get to know Regret in some other ways.

  The context of the Past from our Present is  diabolically apart.

  Is there merit in acknowledging this before we begin to berate ourselves and regret our past ?

  Regret emerges from reflection and introspection. We experience it as pangs of conscience.

  If I indeed wish to live a life of No Regrets, am I also fine being less 'reflective'.

  Conscientiousness feels right - at least mostly.

  Is it then worth attempting a new frame to view Regret within?

Some Questions thence to ask (as Coaches or  ourselves caught in its crossfire):

• What am I without the Regret?
• How do I feel as this 'I' who is without the Regret?
• What if that life-story/ decision/ choice had turned out differently? Can I be sure of that?
• What do I really feel when I feel Regret?
• What does that emotion (Regret) teach me every time?

from the answers that we get and in 'reframing' the beautiful play of conscience in Regret, in acknowledging ourselves as creatures of conscience & reflection, and by detaching Regret from the stigma, we can facilitate a shift—towards a peaceful place in our heart. Perhaps even to a place of Gratitude for those very Regrets.

Let us acknowledge and accept those Regrets and maybe in the process, just when we are looking them straight in the eye, the letters will soar and surge to explain their meaningfulness and tell us the story about why they existed in our life so far. And in that moment Regret would have found a peaceful place in our life. 

And it might well be a liberating moment!

It does work for me!

and that's one reason to get yourself a Coach;)