Posts Tagged ‘healing’

❤️Rebels, Misfits & Shattered Souls❤️

Posted: June 22, 2019 in Life as I see it...
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My mother always says that the character of an individual can be gauged only when you live with them as truly as purity of gold can be measured only on testing it..

“सोने के kasne से और इंसान के basne से पता चलता है…”

True, may be!

But energies don’t work that way. There is some kind of hidden attraction that makes us want to talk to someone or know them better. In my 39 years, I have known many people and have friends from different walks of life.

No two people are alike, no one is the same person they were when I first met them. I, myself, have grown into the person I am, due, mainly, to my acquired opinions and experiences. I am sure people who knew me 20 years back would be surprised, if they meet me today.

GROWTH is inevitable. Life puts us through the paces and we learn. If we don’t, we stagnate and that is not good for us and for the people around us.

In a mood for self-reflection, I was pleased to realise that among many flaws, that humans inevitably possess and pile up over time, I have developed two of the greatest virtues – First, I don’t judge people by their appearances neither do I make my opinions based on first encounters, good or bad. Second, I try not to meddle in the affairs of other people, however close. Infact this, being close and thus a well-wisher, argument doesn’t go down well with me at all. I consider these two my paramount achievements in the quest for being a better person.

Having said that, my energies attract a certain kind of clientèle, if you may call them that. Long before Tyrion Lannister made it popular, I have been gravitating towards the troublesome trio of Rebels, Misfits & Shattered Souls. He had a tender spot for cripples, bastards & broken things. I, too, like the ones who are crippled by the choices they made or the ones made for them, bastardized by circumstances and broken beyond repair.

I particularly love the ones who hide their vulnerability behind masks of confidence and straightforwardness. Some might think them to be rude, impolite & uncultured. I find them fascinating. People are not born that way. I, invariably, have this exacting need to find out what made them, the person they are! It gives me immense satisfaction to peel back the layers and uncover the core they are made of.

People haven’t disappointed me, so far!

I may have had some lessons along the way but none that I regret. I have had the good fortune of getting to know some exceptional souls hidden behind the veneer of Rebels and Misfits.

They do not conform to the norms. They dress a certain way, speak a certain lingo, act as if they don’t give a damn and are willing to, in fact, find pleasure in not being understood by the people around them. They are easy to shun, actually. It is simpler to label them as rebels or misfits and then ignore them.

But what I have found underneath are myriad variety of gems. Some insecure in their abilities, others in their looks and appearances, still others in the circumstances of their lives- social or financial. Some hide their grief beneath all the verve, others are lonely and misunderstood behind the joie de vivre. It is all a facade. And I count myself lucky to be able to bring down the walls, they have erected, brick by brick and know these people as no one around them does.

I pride myself on being the unmistakable confidante of many such golden souls and I like to believe that there is always a reason why we meet the people we do. It is as much their healing as mine, and it is all planned by a power that we can’t fathom.

Well, grateful!

💫On Healing💫

Posted: October 17, 2018 in Life as I see it...
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Do you believe in Karma? As Indians I know, most of us do. ‘What goes round comes round,’ is the theory our lives revolve around.

It has been a year full of upheavals- physical, emotional, financial and any other ‘al’ that’s possible. So what begot them? Is it just the move to a new space or the lack of religious peity? Is it the negative energy of the new place or the evil eye cast on us by seemingly well meaning friends and acquaintances?

Why blame someone or something for one’s ill-fortune? I believe we reap what we sow. No one is bad in his or her own perception and decent people don’t go about planning to harm others with their words, actions or existences but try as we might we cannot please everyone and even without meaning to, we end up bringing grief to others. And grief thus brought, counts as a debit on one’s account. It is all checks and balances from there on.

We do everything possible to cast off the negativity. We mostly give in to the tried and tested method– Religion. Sadly, we have been brought up to fear God more than we respect and love Him. So we fall into the trap of the self- appointed faith healers, the one’s who claim a divine connect and we perform all sorts of weird things that normally and rationally we wouldn’t. We hear stories of how such practices brought about a change in other people’s lives. And we are tempted to try each one of them. Getting a havan or a special pooja done on an auspicious day is just the beginning. There is weirder stuff we all are acquainted with. Feeding the strays on a particular day of the week, feeding them specific stuff, eating something or abstaining from somethings come next. Then enters woodoo, black magic, tantras and mantras. We do everything and we believe in everything when the chips are down. Even my writing against them would be considered blasphemous by my equally rational family who have been bowed down in having faith in such stuff.

If not this what is the solution then? I believe the solution lies within us. One has to go through life without judgements, sans the feeling that ill things happen to me always. We have to have faith in God and his sense of justice. He wouldn’t give us a burden too heavy for us to carry. Yes, there may be hardships but just like good times don’t last, bad ones don’t either. Life is a mix of both. Our problem is that we don’t rejoice in the good times, they are taken as a matter of right while we whine away during the painful periods. Pain is inevitable. Whether it is loss of health, wealth, mental peace, a loved one- everything brings us pain. As humans, we just need to learn to accept what is given to us. We will start HEALING, the moment we realise that it is just life with its ebbs and flows, its triumphs and sorrows. No one else is responsible for what we face in life. It is just our actions that beget reactions. No amount of guilt can make life easy but acceptance can. If we recognise where we went wrong, we need to accept it without guilt, rectify it if we can, take a lesson and move on. There is no use crying over spilt milk. We can’t undo our actions, however digital we get. We can just correct them and learn from what transpired. We are humans and are bound to falter in life but that shouldn’t stop us from growing and experimenting and living.

As for religion, I have always felt that spirituality is much more important than being overtly religious. Then again, to each his or her own. Believing in God is important but a Punishing God is just the figment of our imaginations and a very popular one at that, specially in our society. God doesn’t work that way.

Healing has to start from US and our unwavering faith in the goodness of life and judiciousness of the Almighty.

Hugs can heal. Listening can heal. Being there for someone can heal. Music can heal. Words and actions can heal. A kind heart can heal. It is the super power of us humans. We can Heal.

I don’t know why but I am reminded of Rudyard Kipling’s masterpiece of a poem- ‘If’, so I would leave you with that.

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;

If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,

And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

https://youtu.be/sxKJqmBh8M4

Of Hope & Despair… 

Posted: October 14, 2016 in Life as I see it...
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For days now, it has been on my mind. Infact it is the only thing on my mind for the past couple of months. Like other things negative, I thought this too shall pass and probably it would but right now it is getting worse. I know that people who care about me might want to reach out after reading this. I fear that. I really don’t want sympathy. That is the reason I was shying away from putting this up on my blog. There might be some people who would find it in bad taste, writing about something so personal and putting it up for the world to read. There might be still others who would think me weak and snively for not being able to hold myself together in the wake of life’s challenges. Some would think it a highly pessimistic state of mind despite being so well read. Yet others would feel I am too young to be going through a crisis like that, that it is just a figment of my imagination or something that I have picked up from the various things I read on a daily basis.  

However, I, myself, recently got around accepting the fact that it is indeed Depression that I am dealing with. And despite all the misgivings mentioned earlier, I have decided to once and for all write about it and face the consequences later. My decision to write stems from the belief that acceptance is the first step towards healing, gathering courage to share it, is the next. 

Such is human psyche that accepting something like this and then trying to talk about it or deal with it, takes a lot of grit & determination. I even wanted to use some other word in lieu of Depression but then that would have been yet another denial, yet another bottling up. The fact that I am writing about it should rule out all kinds of denial. 

I don’t want to go into the clinical aspects of Depression, they are best left to experts to ponder on. I would only share what I have felt and observed and the ways I would like to be treated by my loved ones. 

There is this constant sense of foreboding, of something bad happening. A weight descends on the heart and there is a consistent constriction of the chest. Over-analysing every decision and move becomes a tiring habit and the gravity of expectations, both from self and others, is immense. 

Socializing doesn’t appeal too much. A feeling of solitude even when surrounded by people, a rote- I am good or I am fine to people’s query of How are you?, becomes commonplace. I rather enjoy the company of people I don’t know intimately than the ones I do because it eliminates the chances of being asked too many awkward questions. It also helps avoid the possibility of being judged by people on the state of my mind. I hate to be called demented or doddery or stupid or mad or senile. 

If someone realises that something is not right, they keep asking me what is wrong and are disappointed when I say that I really don’t know. The truth of the matter is that I really don’t know what has triggered this or what is feeding it. I don’t understand my constant need to cry or being hugged  by someone without asking me what the matter is. Eye contact has become a problem, I can’t look people in the eye and connect. I lose interest midway in any conversation with anyone. 

There are times when I want to confide,  some of my surface thoughts, in people I love but can’t find words in absence of a strong enough reason for all this. I am also wary of disappointing them in my abilities as a human being of a certain age. It is a societal norm that by this time in my life,  I should have everything sorted out, but I don’t,  so people might judge. Most of all what I dread getting is Sympathy or Pity. 

All I want is a little empathy, care, love and an assurance that they’ll be there for me in whatever I am going through, no questions asked. I know, no one can change the course of one’s life to accommodate the eccentricities of another but isn’t that what genuine love and care is all about. If someone is reaching out to you for help, you must be pretty important to them. 

I love people who can convey with one hug what a thousand words fail to do- warmth, care, love, strength and a promise that come what may, they will be there, always. Sometimes, it is gratifying to be reassured, in words and deeds, by the ones we love.  

All said and done, I feel there is still Hope for me, that I will reach the light at the end of this tunnel, sooner rather than later.