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Honouring Your Past

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Photo attributed to Thenix

Photo attributed to Thenix

If you look to the past too much, you are not paying attention to the present or the future. You are either spending too much time in regret or anger, both emotions that are not very useful in moving onward and upward. I spend a lot of time doing exactly the same. I spend time lamenting about the past, regretting my past mistakes, my past actions, my past words. I spend a lot of time in jealousy and anger over the past. Basically, a lot of my mental activity is spent in frivolous activity, that is never going to lead in any positive change in my life or spirit.

It doesn’t mean that you should completely forget about the past, and consider never, ever looking back. Honouring your past is something that I have yet to learn. To look back upon the years that have passed and actually be neutral about what happened. Whatever happened had to have happened, in order for you to be where you are right now. There is no good or bad in your past. There just is. If you can look back at your past with neutrality and a sense of learning from it, you will have reached a good place in your spiritual development.

It is an extremely hard thing to do. I have yet to meet a person who has managed to do that with any measure of success. It seems that all of us are still struggling with it. But like in any situation, the important thing is to try, to keep on trying, to try until you die. Maybe we should have this as one of our spiritual goals for the years to come – to honor our past, to try as hard as we can to not look back with anger, or regret, or any other debilitating emotion. To look back and think, yes, that was a mistake, now how can I learn from it? Just the thought of being able to do that successfully makes my heart sing.

All of those moments that I spend crying about the past would be erased. I would be free from the stigma that I bring upon myself from the vagaries of the past. No one has any control over their actions in the past – all you have control over is the present. Why would you think you would be able to change the past by thinking about it? All you can do it change the present by using the lessons of the past. The only sane thing to do, really.

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Resistance Falls Away

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Photo attributed to Thenix

Photo attributed to Thenix

Everything is happening for a reason. It is so easy to see that in hindsight. The reason I was late for work was because there was an accident on the 401 that I missed. The reason I wasn’t able to sell the car to the first offer, was because I was about to get a better offer from someone else. The reason this guy broke up with me, was because I was able to meet a much better man. That is easy to say when you are able to look back over the last few months or years. But, it isn’t very easy in the moment. That is the problem isn’t it?

I try and try to think of everything that happens in the moment as necessary, not good or bad. It is what has to happen in order for the next thing in the order of things to happen. You cannot force a child to start walking before he/she has learned to crawl.  You cannot hurry up life by skipping a few steps. Those steps will come back to haunt you in your sleep or daydreams. But sometimes I falter as well – I have a hard time with accepting everything as is. I resist, I try to change the circumstances too fast, I get frustrated when things are moving too fast or too slow, I get angry, emotional, anxious, fearful, jealous. I go through a number of different emotions, until I realize calm, peace, and stillness are the only way to go.

An example of this would be travel. I see a lot of my friends on FB talking about being in South America, and Thailand. Reading about it, makes me excited for them, and also jealous that I’m not somewhere exotic, fearful that I will never get to travel, anxious that I am not saving up enough money to go travelling, anxious that Thenix will leave me if we go on a trip together or before we go on a trip together. One person holding all of those emotions inside isn’t a right way to live. Eventually you are going to burst into pieces and splatter some of that onto the loved ones around you.

Hard as it may be, you have to realize that everything is happening as it should. The only way you can truly live your life is plan for the future, but live in the present. As long as you are doing everything possible in order to plan for the future, all you can do is live in the present moment and pray for the best. Nothing you do right now will change the future. Even the best planning might turn into naught. Realize that, and just assume some zen.

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Waking up on the wrong side of the bed

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Photo attributed to flickr user Paco CT

Photo attributed to flickr user Paco CT

My colleague and I were having a conversation a few days ago about waking up on the wrong side of the bed. He had just read the book, ‘The Secret’, and he was in that zone where all of a sudden, everything seems interconnected, everything happens for a reason, and nothing is just a coincidence. He woke up that day, in a bad mood, he didn’t know why, but the world was a dreary place that day. He went out of his house late for work, tripped on something and scrapped his shin, missed the TTC bus, and dropped his morning coffee all over himself.

He walked into work, without his cheery self, and everyone noticed. At that point, I bought him a cup of tea, as I had made one for myself, and I didn’t want to waste the tea bag that I used. Instantly, you could see his outlook on life improving. He started smiling again, and he didn’t feel like the world was out to get him. What changed? The world didn’t change from one second to another, and nothing outwardly had changed in his situation.

It was his outlook on life, and on everything around him. Thoughts become things, and thoughts are powerful. We have all heard those terms, those phrases, about thoughts, and the power they hold over our lives. But we dismiss them, or we forget about them in the moment, when our anger or jealousy seems too powerful to be forgotten. We hate, we are anxious, we are angry, we are upset, we are on the wrong side of the bed, and nothing can get us out of that funk.

The powerful thing about emotions is that we choose them, they do not choose us. It might seem like they appear out of nowhere and take a stranglehold on our body and mind. But they are not real. Ephemeral as they are, they are wisps of nothing. We can choose to wallow in our misery or emotions, or we can choose in that moment, to let it go, and move on. The minute you do so, instantly, your life improves, changes, moves on, gets better.

What are you going to choose today? Gratitude and Love, OR misery and hate.

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Spending your future now as opposed to later

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Photo attributed to flickr user jurvetson

I have been having a hard time motivating myself to write in this dingy weather, everything seems to stop when it’s cold and rainy outside. It just seems like the world stops and no one seems to care anymore. Of course, this is just in my mind, it is all in your mind. Being a desert baby, being born in the desert, and having lived in the desert till the age of 15, I wish to be hot all the time. No wonder I took to hot yoga so well. Ruminations aside, I started thinking about living in the present and living in the future.

A lot of spend a lot of time in our heads, thinking about the future, planning the future, dreaming the future, and whatever else it might be. Sometimes we go to the past, regretting the past, wanting to change the past, and all of those glorious emotions related to it, embarrassment, anger, regret, jealousy, and so on.

Even though we plan the future in our heads, a lot of us do not actually live in the present as if we are planning for the future. We spend all of our present income on the present, without ensuring that we save for the future. We spend all of our time in the present, as if we are never going to die, as if the future will never come. We live with all of our music inside of us, not letting it out yet, waiting for that ‘someday’ when all of our hopes and dreams will be realized. What are we waiting for and why are we living in the present robbing our future selves of everything important, time and money?

We are as the title says, spending frivolously now and having nothing later, instead of having ‘just enough’ right now and ‘just enough’ later. ‘Just enough’ is key. It doesn’t mean you scrounge. You have adequate food, adequate shelter, adequate transportation, and adequate clothing. You do not skimp on warm clothes in the winter, or walk around in shoes with holes in them. You take care of yourself, but you do not go overboard by spending $100 on a pair of flip-flops, or something else equally ridiculous.

‘Just enough’ ensures you have ‘just enough’ throughout your life, without having to scrounge, scrimp, save or regret.

Thanks for reading!

Repression

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Photo attributed to flickr user Leighton Cooke

I was at my yoga studio, after a long two weeks without any yoga, when I realized I had a half an hour to kill before the previous class would be let out. There is a library of books that the new manager, Julia, has bought in with her. I picked up a book randomly, and flipped through the pages, randomly, to start reading at a particular section. It is funny how the universe gives you exactly what you need at the exact moment that you need it.

T and I had been talking about repressed feelings. I do dream analysis, and a lot of my dreams in the past few weeks have been about my childhood. I always end up at the two streets from my childhood that I remember, one from Doha and one from Dubai – they are both really distinctive in my head. I always end up there, and I walk from there, to a fair, where I see all these people having fun, and then I try to go home, or back to my family. The main theme doesn’t vary. I wondered why my childhood is coming up again and again, and T suggested maybe there is a repressed memory there that you need to deal with.

I opened up the book, by Deb Shapiro – on body-mind relationship, and guess which page I randomly fell onto. The page about backs. I don’t remember the exact wording now, but she said, that the front side of your body is your social side. It is open and happy, because it is the one that gets shown to the world. But your back is a completely different story. Your back is always hidden, it is literally in the back, it never gets shown to the world. It is where we store everything that we do not want to think about, everything that is repressed, everything that in our minds is demonic or shameful, hateful, shadowy.

I imagine the reason I have been getting so much in my back in the past few months is because I haven’t dealt with something that I have stored back there, and is now coming up, because I am doing all of these yoga poses to open up my body in every way possible. Also, I think being in a relationship, where you are opening yourself up to a complete stranger, telling him all the details of our life, results in this coming up as well.

I have blogged about the molestation already here, and I am going to blog about my bed-wetting, hoping to get my back moving again, and my repressions going onward and away from me.

Soul on Paper

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Photo attributed to flickr user Massimo Valiani

Isn’t it nice to have your Soul on Paper? I have been journaling since the beginning of my twelfth year on this planet. Which is 17 years ago, if you can believe it. Wow, now I feel wise. Or I should be wise, after that many years alive, but I just feel tired.

Interesting. I didn’t actually think about that word, before I put it down. It came out automatically. Even though I have been journaling all this time, I still feel that words are powerful and they really have the power to change your life. They change mine every single time, I am able to share some wonderful thoughts with my readers and with my subconscious. All of those thoughts that are meandering around inside of me, buried deep or right at the surface, wherever they might be, I am able to put them down on paper and really, truly see them out there in the open.

What do they mean? Why are they there? What are they trying to tell me? What can I learn from them? What can I unlearn?

Whenever I do stop journaling or writing in general, I do feel a blockage. I feel like something’s missing. I feel like I should be doing something, but I am not. I feel something blocking my emotions, it’s like a clog in the system. It needs a plunger, a journaling session, to unclog things, to get things moving along, for life to get going again.

It’s like yoga for the mind. Yoga, physical yoga, works on our complete system, mind, body and spirit. But I find journaling goes deeper into the mind, and if done in combination with a  physical asana practice, it works miracles. I practice the combination of the two as follows: Go to yoga and then go home and journal about anything that comes up. It works like a charm.

Do you put your soul down on paper?

Principles

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If you knew me personally, you would find that I am always harping on and on about my principles. I have principles and I will stick to them, by god. Sometimes I find that sticking to your principles too closely results in a problem as well. Of course, you shouldn’t be always jumping from thought to thought or from principle to principle. You shouldn’t let others sway your thinking, you shouldn’t change your thoughts depending on the sway of the the wind passing through your hair. But you should have enough flexibility built in that when you realize that your thinking is wrong, that your principles were built upon the wrong principle that you should be able to change over to a different viewpoint, without feeling like your world is falling apart.

That is what happened to me over the weekend. My world felt like it was falling apart. All my beliefs about myself fell apart. I fell apart. I was devastated. I have always believed I an an intelligent human being. If nothing else, I have my smarts. I might not be the smartest person in the room, but I am up there. I am quick. But I fell for an internet scam. I know! I was stupid. A friend recommended me to something, and I fell for it. Of course, that ‘friend’ is no longer to be found and I am out 2000 dollars.

It is so stupid, I cannot even bear to look at myself in the mirror. I have nothing left to look at. I am a shell, a nobody. I have nothing left to admire about myself. Nothing to be proud of. Of course, this too shall pass. But until then, I feel hollow, empty, distraught.

Being free

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Every time any of my friends talk about opening up their own business so that they can be free, I always wonder about that freedom that they are aspiring towards. I feel like even though they would be working for themselves, they would still be grounded or stuck because of their business in their home country. It is not really the kind of freedom that I would imagine.

Being free to me entails being able to pick up and go anytime you want. I know that I am lucky because I am able to talk about picking up and leaving and I am really lucky that I am able to do that. But I also think that I wouldn’t have been in this mindest only a few months ago. I was still thinking about opening up my own business and trapping myself in one country for the rest of my life.

I’m glad, therefore, that I went through the breakup and went to Hawaii, which is where I had a chance to read the 4hour work week, which is a book that literally changed my viewpoint upside down. I realized then, that a lot of things that I have been thinking are completely wrong and that there is a different way of living that I didn’t even think about, because I hadn’t been exposed to anyone who was living that way.

I did a really eye-opening exercise yesterday. I calculated how much I have earned over the course of the last 8 years of my life, which is when I started my earning life. I calculated that I have earned around 200,000 dollars out of which I have not even a single penny saved. I wanted to cry out loud and beat myself senseless when I saw that waste.

I could totally see how people could work 30 years of their life, earn millions of dollars, and have nothing to show for it. I am glad at least that I figured this out earlier in my life, so I can be more vigilant from now on about spending, saving and doing more with  my money. I want my money to be used for experiences, but not items. If I look at all the clothes, shoes, books, jewellery and other items that I have collected, I always think the same thing, I wish I had spent my money on travel, instead.

And now I am! I am going to spend my money traveling, instead of sitting in an office. I realized that no matter how amazing the place is that I work for, no matter how cushy the job is, I will still want to leave it ( as do a lot of other folk who work for it), because we always want to be free and on our own terms.

I was told though that the journey has barely begun and the doubts have barely started. You think getting out of this rat-race was hard, wait till you actually get out there, and then you will realize how hard it is to stay out of the rat-race. Everything about the rat-race is so alluring. It is so charming, so much like a Casanova, you know its bad for you, but its so tempting to just fall in love with the handsome stranger. You know you shouldn’t be in the rat-race, but its just so easy to get back into living to spend, rather than spending to live tendency.

I have realized and realize this even more every day, that I am done with it. I am totally and utterly done with it. I can’t even pretend to summon any enthusiasm for the whole business anymore. Dont even ask me to pretend, because I cannot anymore. I have pretended long enough. People think I am passive, because they haven’t seen the tides of passion that have been tamped down, while preparing myself for a journey that is yet to come.

Living in the present is hard, but it will be done, and then life will begun again, a second life, a different kind of life. Lets see where this journey takes me.

Congratulations on meeting you

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Just wanted to channel some of my ancestral Indians in the title.

Anywhoo, I have decided that I should really blog early in the morning, before I start freezing to death, so that my fingers are still supple and flexible, and still able to type at the rate of 90 words per minute. If I wait too long, it gets really cold and then I can’t really do anything with my hands. They are frozen, and useless.

I got my friend of the month yesterday and now you must be wondering why am I telling you such a horrible, private (or what should be kept private) detail of my life? Because I believe that women go through this really horribly painful thing every month for a reason. I have read in a lot of different books, that because we go through this painful period in our life every month, we have a higher plausibility of gaining enlightenment. We are more in touch with our emotions and feelings, and we are more able to connect with the pain of the millions of women who have been through period pain in the last few centuries. Because after all, we are one big consciousness, and not separate individuals like we like to believe.

I have certain things that happens to me when I am about to get my period. It has taken me a while to figure a lot of this stuff out. It still surprises me, even though it happens every month like clockwork. The week before my period I get really sad, for no apparent reason. Sometimes, I choose to focus that sadness on my failed relationship, or my failed life in general, or any failures that might have befallen me in the past 26 years of my short life. And then I lose my appetite for the few days right before my period and I gain a lot of water weight or what seems like just weight in general. My skin gets really clear as well. As soon as I get my period, I lose all that sadness almost instantly (and I start wondering why I was so sad – I am completely mystified by it) and I lose almost all of the water weight. Its so weird how all of this happens every month, but still every month, I’m suckerpunched by it, as if I didn’t expect it to happen at all.

I am so surprised by how humans can delude ourselves into hoping that it will not happen again. I hope I can be more in tune with my body and surroundings, so I know exactly when I’m feeling the sadness, that its due to hormones and not due to any circumstance in my life.

I also had a relevation a few days ago – The change in my inner mental environment has not been reflected by the change in my outer physical surroundings and that is why there is a disconnect that I have been feeling. No wonder I have been wanting to leave my city and go somewhere else. That is great!

Self-awareness

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I am always trying to gain more insight into myself and why I do the things I do, in order to exert more self-control. I feel that if I know the reason why I do things, the things that motivate me, I will be better able to influence my own actions and decisions. Self-awareness has always been a major goal of mine from the beginning of time. Why do I get mad at my Dad without any reason sometimes? Is it because I am mad at him from years ago and it just bubbles up? Why am I so adamant about protecting the rights of everyone around me? Why am I so motivated to help others in the world? Do I feel guilty or do I like feeling like I’m more powerful than them? What is it exactly?

I realized something new about myself yesterday. I miss being in a relationship more, when my parents are stressing me out. When my relationship with my parents and/or family is stable, and without strife, I feel really great and I do not feel the need to be in a relationship. But when my parents start yelling at me, or being on my case about anything or nothing, I feel this really great desire of being in a relationship. I feel the need to unload on someone else, a person who I know loves me, and wouldn’t be offended if I dumped all my emotions on them. My ex used to be a great sponge for all my emotions. I would be stressed or upset, and I would spew it all on him, and he would take it and make me feel instantly a thousand times better. I haven’t been able to find anyone else yet, who would qualify as a sponge for my emotions.

I can’t use my family, because I do not want to stress them out, and most of my friends use me as a sponge, so when they are done spewing out, there is no room for my emotional discharge.

Another thing I have noticed about myself is my tendency to want to stick to my principles to the detriment of everything else. I will stick to my principles, and fight with everyone around me, or I will bike in the rain even though I know I will get sick, because I do not want to take my car and upset my no-car rule for the summer. Its weird how strongly I will stick to my principles. I dont know if thats a good thing or bad. Being principled is good, but being too stuck to your guns is probably a bad thing. Flexibility is the important trait in an environment like ours.

I have also been trying to demonstrate ease in the past few days, so when I experience situations that would normally cause me to experience a lot of negative emotions, I try to take it easy and just let it slide off of me, like water off a duck’s back. For example, I woke up an hour and a half late today, and normally, I would wake up and start throwing things around, etc. But today, I decided to be easeful. I did everything with calm and did everything exactly how I would if I weren’t late, and I still got to work at the time that I would have, without the feeling of negative emotions. I really like doing things this way, because of course its a billion times better for my health and it makes me feel so good, and peaceful. I like it a lot and I recommend everyone to try living at least one day a week with ease. Do not let anything bother you, no road rage, no rage at all. Just peace and calm and ease.