Hello Dear reader,
It’s been a long time away. I hope you have been doing well.
I am back with my mindful Monday newsletter again and feel so at ease even as I write this very sentence.. to be able to sit and write and feel peace after a very long period of turmoil.
It felt almost as if I was in the midst of a heavy sea storm, and now finally the water is calming down.
To those of you who are new here, I welcome you and I hope that you will like this space of words that I send every Monday.
To everyone who sent me emails and remembered me asking me how I was doing, I am so thankful for your kindness.
I had been thinking of my unsent letters and emails every Monday every week and desperately wanted to show up again with love and lightness.
But unlike Taylor Swift, I could not do it with a broken heart.
I had been going through a breakup after my relationship of 7 years ended.. but to call it a break-up sounds childish to me now.
It was a heartbreak, which now seems to me, more like a heart-opening.
Opening, because it opened me up to so many layers that I had hidden deep within that I did not know of. And now, I am more thankful for it than sad.
It’s surprising how much suffering and sadness teach us, whereas we learn so little from peace and happiness.
And so in today’s newsletter, I want to share some random thoughts and understandings which my heart opened up / is opening up to.. Bringing me, now peace and lightness after a long period of craving, avoiding, neglecting and intentional suffering.
Here it goes…
1. Anger is a robe that hides other emotions.
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Anger is not the true emotion that we feel most time.
We feel we are just angry, but what we truly feel is different underneath.
Anger is like an iceberg and underneath the iceberg are hidden other emotions such as disappointment, insecurity, hurt, worry, stress, exhaustion, regret and loneliness to name a few.
I saw that anger was the emotion that allowed me to hide my vulnerability.
Anger was a robe I had been putting on many times to not let myself feel let down.
I saw that anger is also one of the tools of the ego to feel that it has control over the situation and to act superior.
Of course, it is a fake sense of control, but by acting out with anger, the ego feels satisfied, it feels safe and it no longer feels threatened by the situation.
Anger is a way the ego saves itself.
But anger is also not all that bad.
Whenever we get angry, whether we’re angry over little things or big things, it is an opportunity for us to go where our anger is pointing us.
It points us to what we’re hiding and if we’re willing to look, our hearts can entirely transform.
Thus anger is an invitation for us to find what or where we haven’t healed, and go heal that.
So in a way, anger too is our friend who shows us the way in its own hard way.
2. Contradicting Self
We say we want to be at peace. We say we want to be happy. We say we want to reach for our highest self. But there is a part deep inside us that loves to feel sad.
It revels in suffering and takes great pleasure unconsciously in living like a mess.
You know you want to change or have to change, but there is something within you that equally continues to avoid true peace, resists change and does not want to take a shot at happiness.
For this part of the self, pain is pleasure and sadness is peaceful.
This part of the self seeks unhappiness, seeks things to be angry at, seeks pain, seeks to waste time, seeks distraction, seeks perfection and continues to delay your happiness and joy.
This is the part of self that loves listening to sad songs, finds great pleasure engaging in negative habits, loves to think or talk about the ways someone did you wrong, avoids self-reflection and wants you to be consumed with the past or future.
Most of the time it might not be a great unbearable kind of sadness. It finds most pleasure in the kind of sadness that seems to be there in the background of your life.
You’re not completely miserable suffering, but you’re not at ease either.
This part of the self secretly loves to remain stuck in unhappiness and suffering for months and years.
And many times it is extremely successful in making you do so.
It would rather look at all the faults and changes others need to make but it would not like to change oneself a bit because to change oneself means to do something with your suffering and unhappiness.
This part of the self is not you, but simply our negative functions inside us.
And the truth is that it rises up occasionally wanting for negative fodder and tries its best to bring you back on its old ways whenever there is a little opening for sadness or negativity so that it can survive; so that the pain and suffering can survive.
A way to do away with it is to recognise that there is this part in you that would love you to remain in suffering and for you to dwell and talk about your sadness.
Begin to recognise when these negative functions start to arise. Notice them and notice the urge that wants you to go along the road to suffering.
It will be easier that way then, to choose simply not to go that road again.
3. Self-love and self-care are the medicine you need to soothe and heal yourself.
Nobody can save you. Nobody can heal you. Only your love for yourself can.
To truly love yourself is to take care of yourself, and to be patient with yourself.
So often we beat ourselves up for not being our ideal version of what we think of.
I am guilty of doing that time and again. And it never works.
What works is when I am patient with myself and when I am kind to myself.
To truly love yourself is to build yourself up, instead of beating yourself up.
As Louis Hay says, “You’ve been criticizing yourself for years and it hasn’t worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens.”
To love yourself is to follow your heart even if it requires you to take risks. It is to live a life without regret and go on believing in the potential you know lies dormant in you.
You need your own love more than anybody else’s, and when you give it to yourself, another person’s love won’t make you complete, but it will only complement your own love.
The goal, in the end, is not to have love but to BE love.
Before I end, here are a few comforting things that have helped me come back to peace and no longer listen to that part of self that likes to dwell on sadness…
- Exercising. I joined a gym last month to gain strength. My vision is to be strong enough to ride a Himalayan bike and go on a bike trip to Leh Ladakh. That’s my next travel goal.
- Reading Ruskin Bond’s short stories, and I feel like I want to write short stories from my life too.
- Being away from the noise of the internet and social media. I have locked up my phone in my armoire and am currently using an old keypad phone that has no internet access. I am only using my main phone once a day to check on my work messages and it has been so freeing.
- Sitting on my balcony full of plants and writing in my journal.
- Morning Yoga. Currently on Day 20 of Yoga with Adrienne- FLOW
- My sister’s friend, Pegila has been staying with me from the past month. She’s been a lifesaver for me, to have someone around while living away from home. I am thankful that God chose her to come stay with me at the right time.
- My friends who gave me all their time and were there with me to listen and talk to, sometimes for more than 6 hours even.
- Wonderful afternoon naps for an hour or so.
- Painting occasionally
- Cooking and eating healthy delicious food.
- Finished reading Yung Pueblo’s Inwards yesterday, and it was a beautiful reminder of the life I truly want to live.
- Praying and meditating again
- Listening to affirmations, podcasts and wonderful music again.
- Having my cats with me and relaxing with them
- Accepting and letting go. I am smiling, and letting go. And it truly feels so peaceful.
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