Love Actually.

 What is love really? Is it the avoidance of fear of abandonment? Is it allowing your most vulnerable insecurities come up and finding the voice to actually share it with your partner? The moments, yeah, they matter -  the romance phase, honeymoon phase, and so on, but what matters more is are you still able to love yourself despite your truths showing up? It's not the inner truths or outer projections that matter, but how good you feel about being yourself. 

For starters, I had grown up is a severely emotionally neglectful family and since love was never expressed in any way that met my expectations, I believed that I just had to behave, say, act in ways that made me adaptable to what others thought or expected. In other words, I just became a sponged in version of my family and as a result learnt to neglect myself and what I truly felt about my life. 

I had made so much space for someone better, or powerful, or more controlling, and so much so that I gave up on taking control of steering being in the driver's seat of my life. 

Love is truly what makes you grow, not fit in with a picture of what others think is right. And you can never be right for others all the time or prove others wrong enough in order to be right. Love is hard since it's honest. It strips the need you think you need in order to warm up to being in someone's good books and just speaks volumes without having to prove you are right over others and just slip into quiet confidence which is distinct and unique to being you without guilt, shame, excuses or lies.

Love is not how we wish to stage so that others see us in ideal light but it's a flicker of hope, a small but significant spark to lead us to our inner darkness and back to meet our true self again -  a life spanning discovery in short where we keep rediscovering ways to honor and respect ourselves first and give the gift of kindness, truth, and service wherever needed in others lives.

Love is the ability to see ourselves even if we are incomplete, flawed, fragile, and so much more and not criticize away these unique aspects that make us who we are. Our life narratives need not be perfect but it can be one of learning to love, forgive, accept, and move on without having the need to prove to anyone anything about why we are the way we are -  just simply letting ourselves be and having the courage to fall, to rise, to endure pain, to seek support, to create space for rest, recreation, creative connections with your hobbies or creative pursuits, and to develop your own language for authentic self expression through your thoughts, words, and actions is all there is to it. 

Each to their own but this is my slice of love actually.

Cosmic power's drumming

There are so many places to hide that I don't wish to let myself out the door,

Locked in the twisted pathways of the tunnel, in and out of many pit stops there, as if a lure.

I felt the world outside the door to be too real,

And looking for my shadow in the darkness, a cold appeal.

I stepped out to prove many a point,

That I am no ghost and as painfully alive as a disconnected joint.

The single step to embrace my truths and everyday realities was not an exercise in emotional numbing,

But a journey of a thousand miles, an echo towards the future, and a call to heed to the cosmic power's drumming.

Don't be in hiding with your imaginations

 To feel real in my head, in my thoughts, in my day dreaming is alright. By imaging, fantasizing, I do not become weak. I just have a rich imaginative inner world and it's been a companion for filling up my thoughts and I had gotten so compulsive about staying in it that what could have been my strength in terms of expressing through imaginations and dreams on writing, through coloring, singing, and so many other creative pursuits became a suppressed way of "normalizing" my sensitivities, my physical health included. It's completely alright. As I think in hindsight, it was a placebo that became my comfort zone, my distracting space for lack of emotional regulation for frequent health sensitivities.

In fact my lack of accessing my emotions was the core reason for falling sick often. It's like making myself unavailable for my feelings, for what they wish to truly express, and what do my emotions want me to hear were all thrown out of the window as I kept looking for the door to be visible so that I can get out of this comfort zone.

Since my mother emotionally neglected me, I did the same with myself, and could not come out to express and ask anyone else for support as I was so loyally bound to her trauma and it didn't occur to me that I had and have the choice to seek support for some empathy and understanding from others. I felt like an emotional orphan growing in a physical body which is not letting go her mother's trauma for fear of coping up with anything new other than the trauma I had been already exposed to. 

When her trauma became my reality and when my sensitivity seemed a lot to take for me, I just shut myself down and the more I acted out in my imaginations and fantasies, the more I felt seen, atleast by me. It provided as the best accomplice for trying to stay invisible in a huge, emotionally chaotic family. 

Nothing is more real than my imaginations and the more that I started to live through them, the more I felt that I had a routine. It still is my routine and I do dislike switching back to actual reality to focus, but I think it's best if I learn to use my inherent imaginations and put it to good use through some form of creative outlet. And so expressing my imaginations will not be defense shield from trauma but a seamless outlet to self acceptance from within and out.

I never thought of imagination as a bridge between two worlds, but it sure seems like a beautiful way to bring myself together to offer the world my slice and view of life without trying to shy away, shrink or devalue myself for what comes out in offering through writing most likely, but there can be more to creativity than just one form of expression.

Self acceptance

Self acceptance is the real key, 

Don't go seeking approval from one branch to another, as you need to discern the forest from the tree. 

You stand out tall and authentic from the rest for who you are, 

It's clear, your stance on your life, even from afar. 

Don't stay stuck on how others see you and chop your self expression to half, 

You are not the herd, you can sometimes choose to follow, just like the trusting calf. 

Stay in your own line while allowing for others to pass, 

Don't stand too long as you need to move on and be your own kind of class.

Daily self love

It's a lot of tears for a love hardened so dry,

Nothing to gain but everything to lose if I don't grieve or cry.

Just how much suppression is enough to be all good for others?

Like a pile of sticks, stones, and dried leaves that wrap up my inner shell, my loneliness, in dusty feathers.

To embrace my true self now is to come clean with all the hidden pain,

And let it sweep the old for the new, nothing to lose, but a life put together to gain.

I had given up on hope and courage and faith on a power higher than my fears,

It took me decades to accept that I am sensitive but not kind to myself, a truth that shifted my life's gears.

Letting go all my inner criticism, an echo of my mother's projections, a long standing wound,

To heal is feeling fearful sometimes as the criticisms will stop to hound.

Self love is not trying to be good enough for anyone except you,

A mindful habit to hold your brokenness together and show some daily love and not just out of the blue.

 

Self expression, a decision

Give something that you love but don't have time for, a try,

It's better to know how things might fail rather than play safe and say goodbye.

The lost opportunities hurt the most, not the number of victories won,

To let go expecting things to turn out perfect is real and not something to shun.

So, keep up the efforts, keep up the spirit to express your life,

What you decide and how you keep up with it is a path to befriend and not block with strife.

Fight for yourself and stand up for what you believe and value,

Nothing is a waste, everything happens for a reason as you put aside self devalue.

Safety Pins

 The kid hidden in the dim space in the garage was looking for safety -  safety from her outer world, controlling voices, and expectations to having to fit in to her family. All these didn't feel safe. At all. It was safe when she could hear her emotions but that felt like searching for a safety pin in the dim garage - there but not visible, can be felt but hidden somewhere, and just another dusted under the carpet.

Trusting herself because of not being in touch with her emotions felt like she was a stranger to her world, her mind, her desires, her goals and just plain disconnected with her truths. Her emotions were the needle in the haystack for sure and something that could hold her together, no matter how varied her emotions, in oneness with her life.

Compassion without self love is a garment that's loose all over the edges and simply won't fit the person. Mindful compassion is made to fit and creates the flow and the shape that is distinct to the person's psyche. All along the kid grew in dresses bigger than her fit and assumed that that was enough as long as it didn't restrict her movements. Little did she know that bigger sizes didn't make her more mature and that she can't fit in with other people's expectations for being something or someone to them, even if she tries to stretch farther than what's truly comfortable to her in order to wear what others want as if it were her own.

She understood gradually that the attitude she chose to embody was her authentic fit and that it can change from time to time. What's not her or hers she would be shed anyway. 

Her life lessons were like the colorful pins that come in varied sizes and shapes which don't limit the garment in any way, but help create a distinct flow and pattern in a seamless way.

Life is a trial room and not a dim garage space to hide your real self. You can always know how you respond to your emotions when you listen to them, see them, and wear them if you feel they are true to you. Don't shrink yourself in order to fit in with others emotional manipulations and control and don't settle for others exaggerated emotional dramas which come off your shoulders like rags -  when it's not yours to wear, no matter how loose the fit, don't try to snuggle your way in to fake assure yourself that it's all okay.

Embrace your whole personality - your body, your mind, your emotions and your expectations, everything put together as one because they all come together for your one and only one lifetime as of today.