Family

Identifying Myself Through My Values

Posted on by strongernow

So am doing a course on being a more resilient person, or more accurately trying to dissect what makes up a resilient person.

One of the primary things is to identify and work with your cores values.

So here goes:

1. Abundance and Generosity

2. Family and Joy

3. Passion

4. Fun

5. Honesty

6. Being Open Minded/ Expansive Life Condition

7. Travel/ Adventure

8. Cleanliness and Order

9. Logic

10. Balance and Serenity

11. Dedication

12. Doing Good Work

13. Commitment

14. Humor

15. Kindness and Compassion

16. Courage and Strength

17. Love

18. Discipline and Determination

19. Clarity and Capability

20. Concentration and Focus

21. Guidance and Surrender

22. Imagination and Creativity

23. Intuition

24. Learning and Change

25. Solitude and Introspection

26. Vitality and Vivacity

Some of these might actually seem to contradict each other, however I believe people are like diamonds, we all have a lot of facets. Thus, depending on the role I need to play, I will be pulling on that value for it. Some I think of as pairs, as you can see from the list. For me there is no separation between them and they enrich each other.

I like the idea of having a clear idea of my Values, it will help me be more true to who I am. It will work as a Guiding Hand and Force and allow me to live a more authentic life.

What are the values that you will be choosing to express in your life?

Coming back

Posted on by strongernow

My Hubby is back!! Am so glad his trip went well, but also because I am so much more appreciative of how much he is my peace of mind.

I took a few days off everything too. Traveled to Mumbai, hung out with new people, met interesting people, bought myself a clay pot that at one time I would have thought was crazy expensive, but now I love and buy simply because I love it. (Abundance as a mindset!). Then traveled to a Friend’s farm, which he is converting to an “Creative Retreat” where people can come and find space and time, away from the world, to unleash their gifts and hone their skills to be who they are really meant to be. Went and looked at a torn apart airplane, which has the potential to make beautiful rooms, and pieces of art. Had my brother in law’s birthday party, (which is always costume) which I told myself, “Screw this shit, I think my body is perfect and powerful and amazing” and wore that black dress I have always wanted to but didn’t.

Had a bit of crisis of faith one night, as I feared losing my dearest and closest and wondered if that was because I am fickle in my relationships or not as deeply connected. Giggled and laughed as my husband found a note in his jacket pocket the day after he went for salsa dancing in Spain, complimenting him. (He cannot read Spanish, so sent me the picture of the note).

I overcame my tendency to anger and managed to handle a difficult situation with calmness and authority. Overcame my own prejudices regarding others. Forgave myself for my faults.

It has been a week of growth and now it seems that I am heading into the next part of it.

More than anything I have learnt to make peace with the moment, over and over again. To adjust myself and make new changes, when plans do not go to accord, and more importantly have fun with the process! Am learning to let the light enter me, through my wounds. (Am tripping out on Rumi lately)

Am rediscovering sides to myself, that have long lain dormant.

And I feel the need to create, to sketch and to draw, to write and to sing.

I find myself, giving up old fixed ways of thinking and happily allowing space for something new.

If this is what coming home to oneself feels like, I am happy I made the effort, hard as it was. I am happy.

Keeping an Open Mind and I am still here

Posted on by strongernow

Since my Level 2, I have been buzzing with energy. Yesterday was actually wondering how my molecules are still staying together as it felt like I was going to simply vaporize with all that energy. Am going through spells of great energy, and blue energy. But my Teacher tells me it is all normal, while my bodies (mental, emotional, physical and spiritual) are adjusting to the new energy levels coursing through me.

More than anything, I realize that the Reiki energy is demanding a more open mind from me, more acceptance and definitely more sleep. I suspect that a lot of spiritual and emotional blockages are being cleared during sleep now. And I am all for that. 🙂

The good thing about this open mind work is that, I put some ghosts to rest.

I come from a family, with a brilliant father and brilliant uncles. So there was always pressure growing up to ensure we were not ‘letting them down”. Huge pressure to be “gifted and talented”. (Though now, I find I have more appreciation for those who not only have talent, but also the ability to work to hone their skills… we are all talented in many ways, but we need to accept our talents for what they are, and hone them too).

I realize a lot of the issue with being “talented or gifted” is that there are categories you have to fall into to get this label.

My sister is brilliant at abstract art and lateral thinking. But it took my family years to see that as a talent and not as a bunch of scribbles or defiant thinking.

Me? I don’t know yet. What I am good at is, constantly educating myself, my connection to being spiritual, and ability to stare people down…. hehe

But basically, as a child growing up, every time someone mentioned that someone was ‘gifted or talented’ or that ‘family is gifted and amazing’… there would be a lot of guilt from the comparison. That somehow we had let our family down by not being ‘gifted’. Didn’t take much to spiral into a circle of self-loathing and negativity.

Last night, my husband was talking about a brilliant friend of his, who had committed suicide, unfortunately. And he mentioned that the friend’s whole family was extremely ‘gifted’. I started spiraling out.

Then a voice in my head said, “You are still here and still fighting, you all are.”

Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that those who commit suicide are weak, or that I am better somehow, because I did not give in to the dark and relinquish life. (Though yes, have been sorely tempted in the past). I understand the pain, that he might have been in, and the anguish. I know how it feels to think, that the world will carry on without you, and that your absence will not make a difference too long. How the pain inside is so much, that the thought of another day… is unbearable.

But what that voice (Inner Spirit, The Universe? I don’t know..) meant was that… I am here. Gifted or not, I fight, I don’t stop. Gifted or not, I am moving forward to be better and to make the world a better place, even if its in a small way.

I am still here. Gifted or not, with my own bundle of contradictions and idiosyncrasies… There is a role for me to play, and another’s definition or standard of whether I am enough or now, is irrelevant.

I am not my dad or my uncles, I am me. And I am here.

Am ready and willing to step out of my own head and ego and allow the Cosmos to show me and lead me, in fulfilling that, which only I can.

Uncovering my Inner Judge, Jury and Executioner

Posted on by strongernow

Getting comfortable with discomfort, has throw up a lot of discomforting things… very, very uncomfortable things. It’s like I am winning the smaller battles, but the challenge keeps getting bigger and bigger.

Watching what all triggers me off, and gently prodding them to see what the real underlying issue is, I found that besides the need to feel in control and badass, often I get triggered off by what I consider the ‘behavior of a spoilt child’.

Essentially when I think that people carry around a sense of entitlement without having worked or done anything to justify it. (This is my flawed perspective, coming from a place of fear. These kind of thoughts and limiting beliefs, come from a place of feeling separated from the Universe, from a mindset of lack, and a state of Animality and Hunger in Buddhism)

We hold children’s camps at my farm. And usually I love it, I like kids, I love sitting with them and playing games and just talking to them.

But I have been disconnected from that feeling for a while now. Also, because often I used to talk to the kids who were having serious issues at home or school, and in trying to help them, would come away drained and weak. (Boddhisattva Fatigue, Putting the Oxygen mask on others before myself, instead of tapping into Universal Knowledge and Compassion, forcing it out of myself… not a good idea.)

The last year, after the conclusion of a dramatic and exhausting section of growth in my life, I started distancing myself from others, became a loner and very aloof, because I needed to replenish my own reserves of energy, to stop the draining.

But now I find that my ego has become crazy protective about keeping me from what it considers ‘energy drains’. Frightfully so. Compassion is something I am having trouble with. This is a far cry from the empathetic person I used to be till a couple of years ago. My ego shuts my empathy down the moment it ‘thinks’ it hears someone being negative or weak. My ego is going out of its way  to ensure that my pain-body doesn’t get activated. But considering that the pain-body and ego are quite interlinked, this is just the pain-body trying more of its tricks.

But coming back to it, Yesterday my urges were mainly getting triggered because of this one kid at camp who was homesick. Now he is a big kid, about 12 already, and there are a lot more little ones at the farm, including his brother, who is 9. Everyone else was fine, but this one.. he was driving all the instructors and the care-takers crazy.

He constantly complained to stomachache and headache when there was someone around to give attention to him, but the moment he thought no one was looking, he magically recovered. He was also sitting and crying to other little kids and triggering off home-sickness in kids who were fine and having fun. (Negativity breeds negativity, remember?I guess this is why I took a sabbatical off people, it was triggering off too much sorrow and pain in me.)

And I found myself annoyed with him, and contemptuous of him.. (Seriously ego? Contempt of a 12 year old… gawwd.)

My ego was going “At his age, I was taking care of my sister and helping around the house, I was moving schools and going to places alone, I am a girl and I never cried like this cause of homesickness, what a baby!, how can parents bring up kids to be so fragile, don’t they know that someday these kids have to become adults, they are just enabling weak and sappy behavior! What a sissy kid, what kind of parents!”

Right…. See what my ego did… It judged, it compared, it drew conclusions. I had drawn conclusions about his kid and his parents and his future, based on him behaving a particular way now. This is how the ego separates and perpetuates an identity for itself. 

Of course now that I was paying attention to these urges and tendencies, I saw this arising. And I am horrified. Utterly and completely. Because though this kid is an extreme case, I noticed myself judging and comparing from such an negative place in other situations too. In some ways, I am like an emotional bully, if someone or something does not conform to my ego’s idea of how things should be, my ego subconsciously tries to find ways to push others to comply. This is not sitting well with me, as I have been at the receiving end of emotional bullying too.

A few weeks ago, my sister was having a really bad day and wanted to talk to me about it. And I just wanted to run. Run as far away from it as I could. We both used to have heavy pain-bodies, and I could physically sense mine getting activated. I could feel myself mentally and emotionally shutting down as I sat with her. Which is not fair to her. That was an opportunity to take that negativity and instead of letting it breed, release it to the care of the Universe. To allow for it to be transmuted into something bigger. So I sat and got very still and focused on my breathing, while listening to her. I shut down all the thinking and just tried to be as present as possible. And it worked. In a few minutes she was feeling better, and more positive. I had not replayed old patterns which would have given the pain-body in her food to grow.

I will admit, it wasn’t easy, my ego did rise up in an attempt to squash down the negativity in her, using bullying tactics. But besides a few hiccups, I did manage to be there in the now. (Though we both had to leave the room after and burn some candles there… it was physically heavy in the room after that.)

Today according to the Book, May Cause Miracles is the day, we choose to be miracle workers for others. For me, I guess the work entails removing this feeling of separation between others and me, accepting the Oneness of Self and Environment as my Buddhist Practice says. 

I am not going to beat up on myself for this…My Inner self came up with this protection system, as previously, my actions in compassion and kindness were also highly motivated by fear, and not love. It did the best it could given the circumstances, I was a ‘good kind person’, who listened to everyone and tried to fix their problems, because my ego had made that my identity. I was worthless if I did not give and give, even when I myself needed help and attention from me. I kept putting myself last and that just made my insecurities worse, as my worth depended on others changing things, on them being ‘fixed’. Being empathetic and kind had become a job for me, not the original joy it used to be.

Over the past year, I have been working on my sense of self, and that does not come from who I am and what I do, a label I give myself…

I just am as I have always been, Complete and Whole in the eyes of the Universe. I am finally coming to a place, where my actions for others are motivated more by love than by fear, more by abundance than by lack, more by miracles rather than logic.  

It is time to let this judiciary system of mine go.

Trains going by

Posted on by strongernow

My parents caught a train last night to their hometown.

And I was sitting and discussing with a friend, about perhaps catching a train, rather than a flight.

I love trains. I like the sound of the wheels when it is dark outside and everyone is asleep.

I like to sit silently and watch the lights flash by.

The rolling motion of the cabins.

There is a certain sense of belonging I get on train journeys.

Yes, sometimes there are too many people there who are loud and noisy and who insist on eating smelly food.

One has to be careful with your luggage as well.

But for me, all of that is worth it.

Cause the little time in the night, I get, I find such great inner peace. That is what living in the moment feels like. That is what being in absolute communion with the Universe and my Inner Spirit feels like. I think this is often called satori. But naming it will not change the nature, or even come close to encapsulating what I feel.

I sit here silently

The wheels are turning

Time is going by

But as the trains flash past

They take away my pain

I watch them come in

I watch them leave

Like a empty headed child

I sit and I watch

And I am so happy

I have such peace.

Watching trains,

With no control over my journey

And absolute surrender.

Facing my Pain-Body

Posted on by strongernow

Had huge blowout with my husband yesterday.

And the observer in me, was watching me lash out and make the situation worse and was powerless to do anything but watch.

When people talk about the red haze of anger, they are not kidding. I could see the anger in me, could hear part of me going, “woah.. slow down girl, that’s no way to go”; but was carried away by something that was bigger than my inner self. (for now…am so gonna win this war!)

It was only after a massive crying session (which for me is a big deal… I never used to cry, not even on breaking bones) and almost an hour of chanting and meditation and writing, that I was able to feel stable again… well, kinda… was still shaky, but not fall over shaky.

And that’s when it struck me; that a simple miscommunication had led to this fight.

I had thought, we had booked a spa treatment for his mom already for her birthday on Monday, and he thought we were still looking at options.

And that miscommunication had disintegrated into a complete chaos, hurtful diatribe between us. Leading to me nursing a cut up heart, and debating whether to leave and move out, and unsure if I wanted to ever let him get close enough emotionally to hurt me like this… (Sounds familiar? How many have had this same thought? Hands up please)

At which point, the term “Pain-Body” flashed across my mind. I opened up book, “The New Earth” by Eckhart Tolle, remembering that, that was where I had seen the term. And there it was, Chapter 5, The Pain-Body.

“Because of the human tendency to perpetuate old emotion, almost everyone carries in his or her energy field, an accumulation of old emotional pain, which I call the ‘pain-body’.”

He goes on further to describe individual and collective pain-bodies, where collective pain bodies are the ones that belong to groups, or the collective psyche of humanity.

What was relevant and what I was looking for was the passage on how the pain-body renews itself. It acts like a primitive life-form and thus, to survive, it needs to feed itself. And it feeds on negative thinking and on drama in relationships. 

The usual pattern of your thoughts creating your emotions gets reversed, when the pain body is activated. Here, the emotion carried within the pain body quickly gains control of the mind, and then your thinking becomes negative. VERY VERY NEGATIVE.

What happens in a relationship, is that its often hard to resist another person’s pain-body that is determined to pull you into battle. Considering that the ones who love you most, know all your vulnerable spots, the pain-body in them pushes all your buttons trying to activate your own pain-body. (The ones you love are not their pain-body, remember that. They have just been taken over by an alien life form for that bit. Next time imagine a slug in their brain, controlling them. That might help.Slugs die eventually.)

So that is what had happened. Regardless of what had started it, our pain-bodies had just decided to orchestrate a coup over us. Usually we are pretty happy, well-adjusted people.., then BOOM!!

Well, my husband’s pain-body is his own… (I don’t think he knows about it yet, and right now, I don’t think he would be open to the idea of a pain-body either…) and I had to deal with mine. Whatever triggered it off, now that I knew about it, it was time to handle it.

After chanting and writing and dissecting my feelings for a long time (interspersed with bouts of flood-like weeping, which was a totally alien concept till yesterday for me…), I came to the realization that my pain body gets activated, when it feels accused of ‘Not doing or being enough’. When my identity as a “good, helpful, caring person” get threatened.

(Totally Random Note at this point… husband just called to say that he has picked and booked an option for Monday for MIL, its all done, completed and now I don’t ever have to have that discussion again… Whew…)

And I started tracing that feeling back to my childhood, where I had picked up a limiting belief, that our value and identity in the world, is based on whether you are constantly doing things for others, or being better than others. This is also a family pain-body, I realized and quite possibly comes from the community I come from too… Can you see why my pain body got activated? My husband’s pain-body too is possibly similar. (Environment reflects self, remember?)

The problem when everyone in the same house his this kind of belief, and is constantly working to be better, or do more than the next person, it leads to resentment and to comparison. Guilt and Anger are also close companions. (“See how much I do! You never help, you don’t do anything here! You can never do anything right! See your ancestors, how cool they were! You are such a disappointment, I cannot believe you are my child.. Yada Yada) 

All the action and the communication is coming from a place of fear and ego, not love. This often leads to the One Man Army Complex, or Person against the Odds, The Misunderstood Hero Complex… you get my gist. Anything that challenges the Complex or this ego-inspired identity activates the pain-body.

Makes life pretty hard, I tell you.

Am still working on healing myself. I theorize, that since my meditation and chanting and yoga does not leave much time for negative thinking, my ego and pain-body are starting to starve. Which is why the huge drama. It needed to eat desperately. But the good news is, if the fight had not happened, I would not have noticed the presence of the pain-body within me, or been able to identify the source and triggers for the pain.

So what I am doing is:

1. Acknowledging my pain-body

2. Accepting it without judgement AND Forgiving myself and the Pain-Body

3. Filling it up with Love And Compassion. Surrendering myself entirely to the Universe, I imagine myself just sinking into a pool that is filled with love and compassion. I let my Inner Guide take over.

I am not saying I have succeeded entirely. Truth be told, am still hurting and smarting somewhere. And a part of me, is still struggling with opting out of the blame-game.

But there is space around the pain and anger.And the more I focus on filling up with love, as hard as it was yesterday, slowly, drop-by-drop I am finding and feeling love.

I guess, at the end, that’s what its all about. our Journey and how much love we can bring to it, how much forgiveness we can give. 

Looking with new eyes

Posted on by strongernow

The more work I do with myself and paying attention to what life has been reflecting back at me, the more I learn about my past and how I was responsible for it.

I refuse to beat myself up about it. After all, I was working from a place of ignorance and not knowing, but it wasn’t like that was a choice. I didn’t have the resources then or the understanding.

Also, as children, we pick up tricks from our parents and the world around us.

Growing up in a chaotic world, where logic reigns supreme and your success is counted in terms of marks on a paper, or your IQ points, it is easy to forget where we actually come from.

It is easy to forget to live in the moment and the sheer sense of wonder we had as children at just being alive, at having another new day to just live and laugh and play. But one can always then choose to remember. 

I have been focusing on my relationship and perspective of my sister lately.

Being the older one in the family, and the less ‘troublesome compliant one’ often I was put in charge of her, or made responsible for what she did or did not do.

Considering that there is only a 2 year 2 month difference between us, there was not much I could do to ‘control or train’ her.

And my sister is a passionate amazing person. Which 4 year old is going to listen to a 6 year old, who she sees as constantly sacrificing and being ‘obedient’? I am so glad she did not. Am so glad she challenged me the whole way, else I might have turned out to be one of those judgmental people with severe myopic vision when it comes to being right or wrong.

I would not have met the people I do, made the friends I have, traveled the world, and taken up challenges, if my sister had not pushed my buttons and limits all that time.

Thank you Sis! I owe you tons and tons and tons! My life is amazing and wonderful thanks to you. Thanks to you, I remembered to follow my heart, fight for what meant most to me, and to listen to my intuition. Thank you for saving me.

My sister and I had a hard time for the last… I don’t know… decade? Caught up in our own dramas and shadows and ghosts. I started seeing her as a flawed, selfish person. It did not help that my elders kept on forcing that perception down my throat…

Please note.. No one is like ‘their uncle’ or ‘that grandparent’ or whatever… People are people, they are themselves. Do not judge them by someone else’s life. No child needs that tag or label, before they have even discovered who they really are. 

A few nights back, as I was contemplating and meditating at night, I was thinking about how my ego has given me a flawed perception about who I really am. I just am. With or without the ego. There is no defining it, no trying to put it in a box and no trying to fit in, or live by a label.

And then the epiphany struck…

If how I saw myself through my ego’s eyes is so flawed, what about how I was seeing my sister? Or anyone else for that matter?

It is one thing to say, “Look for the Divine in everyone” and trust me, your ego will ‘look for the divine’ and then gloat… after all, aren’t you being the bigger person by looking for the divine in such flawed people, aren’t you more enlightened than them?… yada yada yada. Shut up Ego.

Recognizing that you have no clue on how to look for the divine and that you cannot even see it, is a good step. Because rather than deceiving yourself, you now can move ahead with new eyes.

I started off small, dug up old pictures with me and her, thought of the time in school we dressed her up as a geisha, how we would cuddle at night and sleep, and how she would hide shiny things as a child. Things that made me smile, things from a more innocent, true time.

And from there i slowly moved to now… I am still working at looking beyond the pain and the anger… I am still working at letting go of my ego and the perceived pain that the ego thinks she put me through, I am still working at seeing the Divine. But I know it is there. I see it when she laughs out loud or when she talks about her dogs’ antics, or just hugs me till I get tears in my eyes. I see it in her strength and her bravery.

I may not see it all the time, but with new eyes, and a bit of practice. I will. I owe her and myself that. 

Being Filled with Love.

Posted on by strongernow

Ah… it is so easy to be miserable.

My Mother in Law was unwell and had to be admitted to the hospital on Friday. I spent the night over with her, but was also thankful for the chance to get some time away from home.

My Reiki Cleansing is opening up so many blockages, and some days I feel like I am drowning in the deluge of negativity that comes out.

I had a hard Friday night. I kept awake to monitor the drips and all the medication, but I was having a complete crisis of the soul.

Those who have read the “Letting Go of the Good Label” post, would recall that I was letting go of fear.

Friday night I removed a ton of fear that was dictating my relationship with my husband primarily. Over time, a sense of being distant had crept in, and my pushing to cover it on my own was not working.

I said a prayer to release the pain and anger, and to set myself and my husband free from the unhealthy cycle that the pain and ego had created.

And once it was gone… There was a gaping void.

And out of the abyss the a horrifying question arose…What if I had fallen out of love and not realized it? What if while I was busy being lead around by the nose, by my fears, I had lost the connection and not realized it? And if there was no love left, what did I have to do to keep on growing as a person? Did I leave him now? Or stay in this? Where was I to go from here? How could one work at something when there was nothing there?

I must have left tracks in the hospital floor, I paced so much.

Then, somewhere I received guidance… “Fill it with Love”

I almost cried, I was so happy. So that is exactly what I did. I chose to fall in love again and to fill up with love.

I kept on getting signs the whole of the next day and Sunday that I had chose correctly.

And then Sunday Night, my husband turned around and apologized for being so distant lately and for lashing out at times.

I can honestly say that there was really nothing to forgive by this point. I had set us both free from my demons.

What did happen was, I promptly fell in love again. Hehe 🙂

This morning, I almost absentmindedly noted, how my ego is trying to make a comeback… trying out new tricks to try and control my husband and how he should live his life and what he should do, making him into a perfect match for me (ego’s idea of me)… yada yada

I can honestly laugh at it now. I am willing to let this be, I am willing to allow myself to be filled with love, over and over again.

What I have learnt over the last few days, is that you have to keep bringing your attention back to love, to what you want, to what makes you complete.

It is too easy to mourn what is not there, or that something is not as it should be, or that something is wrong or imperfect.

It is harder to keep space in your heart and soul for new possibilities, for love and forgiveness, it is hard work to keep on believing in a friendly, loving universe and to know that we are loved, protected and adored by it.

But the work is worth it, it acts as a crucible for the pain and anger to undergo metamorphosis into growth and pure self-expression.

Here is my prayer from that dark night, I hope it can help someone:

I forgive myself and set my heart free

I release the pain and the anger.

I let my Soul and my Spirit rest in the arms

of a Loving Universe.

I see myself and my life as an expression of love.

Letting go of the “good” label

Posted on by strongernow

I noticed a reflection in my relationship with my husband of the relationship I had with my parents.

Both are cases, where the ‘primary’ person in my life, has got other people, issues etc to handle.

And I am asked, to be a “good” girl and be understanding.

As a child, I was a very “good” girl.

I labelled my sister as the troublemaker to make myself feel better in comparison to her, to be able to look down from my lofty perch and judge others. (Sorry Sis…. Gonna do my best to make it up to you from here on out). My parents and grandparents praised me for being such a good girl, and ran comparisons between me and my sister and others and the verdict was, “You are a Golden Child! Never disappoint us!!”

Brought up in a family where self-sacrifice for the greater good was a huge theme, I became really good at being a martyr. At being all self-sacrificing and then gloating at how much better I was than lesser mortals…

But a lot of my actions, came from my ego, from conditioning that was not in accordance with who I was or am. 

I let someone else define me as a “good” girl, and then bent over backwards and more, not willing to let go of the label that defined me, made me special, made me unique…

But besides the need to be special, the need to be more than the next person, I was/ am still also driven by fear.

Fear of being less, fear of being abandoned if I didn’t play by the rules, fear I was a terrible person and that love was lost to me forever, fear I was invisible.

But the longer I put off intuitive action, actions in line with who I really was, actions that came from a source of love rather than fear…

The more disconnected I got… The more resentful I got, the more I felt being taken for granted and that everyone was taking advantage of my good nature, and that it was an unfair burden to put on a child.

When you act from a place of powerlessness or fear, the only way to go is up.

Except up is the higher state of Anger.

Anger forces you to take action.

So every once in a while, when I was feeling ignored enough, or that what I needed was constantly being put on the back burner, and that no one was looking to my emotional needs, I would either implode or explode. Something in me believed that the shock value in me doing so would jar everyone’s heads out of the sand and they would actually listen to me. Give me what was my due for being a “good” girl. Love and affection and compassion.

I must take responsibility for what all happened, there was no way to reach out to me as I was so disconnected from myself and what I wanted. My pain-body was intense and heavy.

My fears lost no time in manifesting themselves in my life. There was always something for my primary person to be concerned with, rather than me. There were always situations that reflected back that I was flawed and broken and less. And situations that reflected back my invisibility.

And everyone around me was also caught up in their pain-bodies and everyone was looking to the other person to fix them.

But over time it has become a pattern.

Endure till the point of no return, then explode or implode. Rinse and Repeat.

People get used to patterns.. even though it did not happen too often, my family came to expect these shock waves and that made them defensive or wary around me.

More disconnect from the Source and Others and thus, more pain.

I found myself repeating this pattern in my relationship with my husband. I have labelled people around us as ‘troublemakers’ i.e. those who are responsible for me not getting what I need from my ‘primary’ person as he is too busy dealing with handling their shit.. (there is still residual anger in me… working on that part).

And I start the pattern… I become more understanding, more patient, more kind, “It’s okay, maybe next time. I understand, Of course! This is important to you!”

And all the while these actions are coming from a place of fear… and my ego’s perverse need to be “better than them”.

And thus, the anger builds up, and the resentment builds.

I find myself wanting to leave and never come back. Hurt and in pain, from the perceived injuries. (“What is the point, he is just like them! He only wants to be a superhero to others! He just takes me for granted! When I am gone, he will realize.. yada yada” Shut Up, Ego.) The Child in me wanting to get away from the fire that burnt her.

Question is… what then?

Avoid relationships cause this pattern is the only one I know? Or just keep repeating these patterns till the day I pass from this life?

All I have is myself, all the change I can make is from myself. I know that the real relationship I need to work on, is the one with myself.

To realign myself with actions that synchronize with love and compassion. To be authentic and present in my life, and in me. 

It doesn’t matter who stays or goes, as long as I am out of alignment, I will never be complete within myself.

The anger in me, the ego in me wants to lash out still, place the blame, the responsibility on someone else, anything else… It is a fight not to let it do that.

But the first step in recovery, in breaking these patterns is…

Step 1, Gratitude

I am grateful, that I am in a place, where I can see these patterns and bring them into the light, I am grateful that I am in a place, where I can now purify these patterns and release them.

Step 2, Forgiveness

I Forgive myself and other for actions that had their source in fear. I forgive the child within me, I send love and compassion to her. I Forgive myself for not being true to me. I Forgive all actions that came from a place of pain and fear.

Step 3. Create Space 

I now create sacred space within me, I release my ego and my fear. I see them leave me, I feel my body get lighter.

Step 4: Surrender and Connect

Inner Guide, Higher Self, Universe

I call upon you to fill me with your love and compassion. Heal me and help me move closer to you. Take me into your protective, loving embrace and guide me. I Surrender to you and allow your Perfect Design to manifest in my mind, body and actions. I let go of the ego defined label of “Good” and now allow your miracles to work through me. My life is just a dance and you are the dancer. Breathe into me, and make me alive.

Today, I let go of the need to be “”good”. Today, I am happy to just be.