Real growth

My mother-in-law doesn't like to take responsibility for her actions, her behavior, her happiness, her feelings, her emotions, and in short, her life. She is hyper observant, judgmental of those around who aren't being responsible in any way towards her feelings, and when it comes to taking responsibility for her life, she tosses it aside as if without any care and gets often trapped in her past narrative of how much trauma she was caught in and how helpless and humiliated and stripped off support from family she was. In truth she keeps people at a distance even if it's for a small drop in their attitudes and communication which she takes the right to interpret, and even if as intuitively done but projected on others as if they are in the wrong and that she is flawlessly perfect as she assumes herself to be.

Just because people have been on the worse side of trauma, does it give them the right to devalue, judge, compare and put down others and simply become more and more bitter nitpicky, nagging, and a thorough energy vampire who can gaslight others to flames effortlessly. My mother-in-law is one such prime example of growing up bitterly through age and being on the extreme ends of looking at life or people and maybe never seeing, accepting, and empathizing genuinely with the middle shades. She locks herself in her myriad world of emotions and feelings which she feels intensely and expects others to understand her without her expressing clearly, objectively the purpose behind so many emotions and feelings. 

It's like she sets herself up to ice-skate on slippery ice made from her frozen tears, her unresolved emotions, and a fragile mind which is so prone to breaking up at the drop of a hat.

And her life if at all anything has been a repeat way to push her to strike a balance within herself and not look for shortcuts by blaming others for her losing her way in the world of extremes. 

I feel sad for her lack of objectivity, her intense want to discern people and read situations without allowing her feelings to come in the middle, and wanting her ego to say it all and have the final word, as if proving to the world over and over again that she is significant and that her traumas have made her feel really important and that the world outside is too insensitive to not wholly acknowledge it, and so giving her the license to be bitter, vengeful, manipulating, bad mouthing and gaslighting people. 

Do traumas make us more ego driven and entitled people? Or do they really help us change our perspective from a victim with a sympathy seeking persona to that of a open hearted person who empathizes with others troubles mindfully, who cares for others on the grounds of humanity without personal bias.

The harsh truth is that my mother-in-law is real when it suits her needs and dramatic when others get what they want seemingly "easily" as if implying it's by fluke, and as if all the efforts in the world so far have been done only by her as she witnesses the "injustice" of the victorious over the victims. The extremely dramatic attempt to relive her past, and yes it's been completely stressful at best and a lot of forgiveness from her towards herself and others are the only key to free herself from her locked in past which she sees as a mark of weakness as holding on and not forgiving is what she thinks reminds her of how strong yet helpless, how controlled yet individually skilled she was and she has been all along. 

Trauma is a teacher to some and a cause to self sabotage for others. Our karmic account doesn't feel the pinch of our hurts, regrets, conflicting emotions and tumultuous feelings, and yet all these need to be felt, grieved, released, forgiven sometimes, expressed through art, journaling, talking, singing and so much more, and in short to open a portal within ourselves to create possibilities to recreate ourselves through the seedings of trauma and blossoming through inner truths.

Real growth is painful. And the more we resist growing up, the sadder and lonelier life seems to get without any exceptions. Humans, until they are alive and until their karmic account is active for their current birth, will have to learn to become subjects of vested interest from themselves individually and from that of others so that the fine balance of connection between both is alive - because we don't live only for ourselves and neither can we live only for others - we just need a good blend of both so that we grow up whole and full as much as possible in this lifetime.

My faith has grown stronger and even if fears threatened to lurk in the shadows like uninvited guests, but when the spotlight of my truths came to the centerstage, it was as if I finally found the courage to come out and to be me. Whether people liked this version or they criticized, or were utterly indifferent, it didn't matter anymore. Faith in a higher energy and faith in myself have been the constant tug of war within me and when both these come together as potent synergies, they blend to become one.

 

Move beyond fear to let go fears

 Fear to let go our fears is the central glue that keeps us bound to our conditioned beliefs which keep us doubting our true potential as humans, and triggers anxieties when our authentic sleeves are not fully expressed. When this fear tries to keep us feeling small, afraid to risk putting our best foot forward, then being in fear becomes a natural response as if restraining oneself to take reigns of one's life. 

To let go giving in our power to fear and holding strong our reigns of inner core strength and faith in a higher power is what shifts gears in our journey ahead. Whatever challenges that are bound to come will come, but not at the cost of not exploring our authentic possibilities as individuals in the light of situations. 

This life as this particular person happens only once. And the lessons that come with this life might stay for many lifetimes for the purpose of soul growth. Each day really counts in this lifetime is not then just a cliché, but they all add up in making us ready for one stage of growth to another as energies, as souls.  

From hurt to healing

 Saint Arunagirinathar who has poured his heart out to Muruga Perumaan is the ideal representation of what surrender to the divine would be. The many forms of surrender that flows through many of the saint's poetic, profound and unconditionally loving representations through many of his written works dating back to many centuries ago in Tamizh is proof of love for the language as well as for Lord Muruga who adorns Tamizh as the symbol of His knowledge and divine superiority.

This kind of love that breaks open the heart of the Muruga devotees is the flow that sparkles with truth, courage, and unmasked emotions. And Arunagirinathar is a skilled artisan who chips away one's inner blocks for the beauty and compassion of Muruga's presence to emerge in oneself. This fluidity which purifies in its flow of emotions, one suppressed feelings, judgements, past hurts, ignorance, and darkness is a path in itself - the means to Lord Muruga's feet being the end. 

Is Lord Muruga the blessing behind one's problems, or does He delight in testing a person until there's nothing left but to surrender? Is surrender the last option or is it the break open point of acknowledging one's truth and set it free, whether there be problems or none whatsoever. 

Any which way, the visuals that the saint's flow of words evokes is quite unique and a beautiful reminder to stay in the moment to enjoy this divine connection with the Lord.

Broken connections cannot be discarded - they can be repaired, healed, released, and refreshed for more deeper understanding with the other concerned, or simply moving away in order to help oneself release that contact/that acquaintance from one's life. 

Connection with another without honesty is a mere shallow relationship, and if one floats or sinks in it, it doesn't matter. Lord Muruga gives all of  his loving, sincere devotees to reexamine their basis of faith in Him and wipes clean any surface dirt in the form of shallowness or greed or other ulterior negative motive, if they be the reason behind approaching Muruga.

To Him, His devotees are not set separate or higher or lower no matter what be their past background - He is the same to all. The different ways of wanting to open your heart to experience a closer sense of His guidance within you is a matter of your commitment and the courage to believe in His love for you and vice versa. 

He is a balm to those who are constantly plagued by self doubts, anxieties, sadness, anger, fear of uncertainties and generally a life coach to streamlining all these tides in order to not hold back to take the plunge in order to take control and steer clear of your life ahead no matter what comes your way.

The transformation from hurting to the healed is a painful and yet a deeply true one. And I am blessed and lucky to be part of this beautiful journey so far.

Be true to loving yourself

The pain of facing my truth was far greater and more overwhelming than expected. It was not a matter of pride anymore that I too can face my truths and be truthful as if to prove to my intuition which came up with a whispering "I am not being true". What a joke! How far away from my real self I had gone away from was the bitter truth and no matter how much I try and divert my attention, binge watch shows, and try to numb my feelings, it won't just go away. 

The discovery of real pain was the unknown and the pseudo one that had physical weakness and regular migraines written all over it was just the layer that covered the actual pain which I had begun to discover post my intuitive wake up call to be true to myself. Not that my bodily pains were fake from any angle, but the 'used to it' feeling and also having to adapt to my mother's limited ways of seeing and understanding me was also a non support support that I had to painfully resign myself to no matter how much I tried to repress it all under fake positivity. 

I just couldn't bring myself to talk about all this with anyone because I felt too small, almost to the point of feeling invisible and just had to merge with a crowd of family members and with friends, I had to just be on the listening end as if to drown my sadness away in prioritizing their problems and simply minimizing mine as nothing and silencing them. Not that any friend noticed my doing so as all that they cared for was to be vocal about their issues no matter how small or trivial it maybe. 

I was so defined by my health problems that I began to identify myself as powerless but kept it repressed as if I was giving the image of perseverance. But in truth I persevered to try to be as disconnected with myself as possible and projected some intellectual image of intelligence, humility, skill and so on. I had no pride in who I was nor in what I did. The loop had to be maintained and that was to minimize myself as much possible, and that was because of the deep seated disappointment in myself and also guilt that I could be of no use to my mother except being a bodily weak person who constantly fell sick. 

My resilience to want to build a strong real persona was so lacking that I conveniently hid this under the physical weakness aspect. I didn't see any point I guess to want to unearth my inner strength and want to believe in that and build a more truthful and honest relationship with myself. No action, no self love, no goals, no passion, no compelling ego, no vision for future, just nothing. And to unearth all these truths one by one or in whatever random order that it came up in simply stirred, angered, and broke me a lot. It was the real pain after all and having found another hiding mechanism as in watching shows, movies, instead of hiding under physical weakness as I had done earlier, I have to come face to face with this aspect of myself that I can't forever create some kind of escape outlets or the other in order to not feel my real emotions, feelings, and experience life deeply. The more I have abandoned my life earlier as a child and much later as a grown up even, that much deeper my quest to want to connect with all aspects of myself as some sort of redemption. Not that the lost phases of time, experiences, connections with more people can be redeemed, but this is my life given to me. 

How much of a loss I am at in avoiding living and taking control of doing so is all on me. 

And that's why the need to want to attach, merge, connect or whatever with Lord Muruga so much as if to make up for all the pains of having lost out on living due to an ill programmed understanding and weak attitude towards living put together -  I don't know if I have any strength left in me as it's an empty space that has no scope for filling it up with whatever I might have wanted back then but couldn't acquire or manifest, and so the limitations mirror with a thousand refractions as if to reflect the life that I had been living in all along which is again one of the ways deeper truths show up. 

When one's core truths pass through fears, anxieties, obsessions, and so many more diversions, they hide the light they so wish to throw light on. And I am glad I am able to see this light for what it is even if it reveals a very vulnerable side in me. 

Everything seems interconnected now. No matter how far away from my reality I might have gone away from, the path back to my truth or truths is through these lies, these half truths, and self limiting beliefs that I had held onto. This releasing, purging, and recalibrating frequency has been a full on arc, a very important pathway to meet my truths slowly, sometimes suddenly, and to embrace all this with kindness has been hard, but it's work in progress. Because I am so used to minimizing myself as if rejecting myself so much so to the point of numbing and wanting to be invisible that all these attitudes towards myself is something I need to work on. 

Self love is not hard, but the layers of past conditionings that make you believe that you are not worth it is the hardest to break free and to let to of as that's the closest to our "truth" that we have assumed ourselves to be. As love had to be earned from someone outside, it was always deficit, and I deeply believed that I am not worth being loved for who I am. And when this core belief begins to get shaken up, you are left with only yourself to hold on to in order to heal this belief, and heal it with love. Because the amount of self criticisms that I had rallied on against myself is so ingrained and so habitual that it's almost cruel. 

To see love for myself die as if it's some lifeless object that is defective, powerless, and guilty is the most cruel that I can be towards myself and I had been living in a self imprisoned life sentence of sorts as if to bear the weight of this burden till my last breath, and this unfolding of this burden that came to light as my truth was a lot to bear. It simply crushed me. 

I am glad that I am able to recognize and release it as I journal it now through this blog. 

Two Pillars

Protection and criticism were the two pillars that I went running to and back in order to justify my journey. These two kept me bound and small and made me assume that I need to be alright with criticism from my mother and her overbearing protection of me in order to justify my love for her. It felt heavy, this signing up to be confined to being so contracted and yet blindly doing so like a programmed puppet who's oblivious to her mental fog and emotional handicap.

Keeping myself on the hindsight and losing focus on what truly matters to me and my growth as a person was simply self destructive at best. And cutting myself off the tied ropes to these pillars was blocked by my unwillingness and lack of integrity and honesty with myself and my feelings. 

And when my intuition whispered out loud in the middle of the night in 2019, I had to wake up to face the "I am not being true" flash message. It upset my carefully constructed tower of lies which was stubbornly rooted in my broken ego, arrogance, and repressions for over many years till then. I tried to deep dive to unearth my truths as if I wanted to disprove my intuition itself and prove it wrong! But the more I navigated, the more I lost sight of the roots that had held onto my limiting beliefs and this sinking feeling in the depth of my lies, hurts, betrayals, anger, sadness and so many unresolved emotions was the new root albeit on a bed of thorns it seemed then.

The path to one's truth(s) is not a straight line connected by one's logic, and all the inner criticism that followed one truthful realization after the other didn't help me sit comfortably with my past and derailed me to look forward to anything that I was connected to no matter however creative I might be.

To unlearn what you held close to your heart as real protection and security were disrupted from the core as I had to learn to let go out of sheer brokenness my mother's influenced concepts which cocooned my real growth as a person. 

The path of slow, tiny steps to one's flight and freeing from the heaviness of it all naturally and gradually became really important. The layers of false, limiting beliefs cannot be the substitutes for a safe cocoon and in its dilution and letting go, I was disillusioned with the concept of bonding with your family and trusting them for emotional support.

Divine intervention, guidance, blessing and so on may all mean the same, but when they appear at its designated time according to His will, it changes your life for good for real and that's irreversibly true. I felt the impact of this change within me as if a tool has been woken up to get readied, sharpened or refined for self protection and this is what Lord Muruga (My God and my all) has done with my life. His compassion on the face of my so many challenges seemed impossible to ignore and a daily bond as if venting, sharing, and confessing to Him became my habit. 

His lotus like two feet rests on my inner world no matter how murky, or still ridden with blocks it may be. These two new found pillars are completely trustworthy and for lifetimes to come and are like my parents, His two feet, which promise to protect and love, as I have taken baby steps to hold onto them. 

Ten Dance

 Ten Dance, a Japanese movie on Netflix is a BL movie which had made waves and still stirs up the interest of many audiences across the globe, is a compelling watch for the efforts put in both acting and dance by the lead pair. As a newbie in watching the homo genre movies/shows, this movie felt raw, loose in plot, and yet captivating for the lead performance of the pair, Ryoma Takeuchi and Keita Machida, who start off being rivals and come together to later fall apart because of their twisted reasons for love, and finally their passion for dance brings them together in the 10 dance format.

The movie was a demonstration for amateur audiences who may not be aware what ten dance competitions look like and kudos to both actors for putting their best foot forward, literally, as they dance to the five International Standard and five international Latin styles which tests the dancers endurance and versatility. 

Ryoma Takeuchi embodies the latin styles of dancing with such carefree spirit and fluidity that it made it a watcher's delight and his performance as much as his looks are a treat to watch. Keita Machida is the other cherry on this bl cake and he's simply kawai and cool and sophistication personified as the world dancing champion in the International Standard format who wants to move up to the first position and constantly pitted against many competent dancers and critics from other regional nationalities.

The chemistry between these actors seemed magnetic and beautiful and even if the story didn't come together as much as their chemistry did, and even for those uninitiated like me in watching bl shows or movies, this movie needs a closure in the sequel, a more nuanced one I hope, which would help audiences understand the unique space they wish to create as characters and not simply exaggerated versions of ambition and unrequited love in an unblended whole.

Opposites do attract, whether they be the opposite sexes or the same, but when motives behind why they(in this movie) behave, react, comply, compete, conflict, empathize and so on the way they do is not clearly outlined in connecting plots of the story narrative, then audiences are only left with absorbing the visual dynamics and unspoken love language which by itself is not enough. Complicated relationships cannot be explained perhaps but bringing together ambition and love as the leading heroes is unique and a space to watch out for.

Empty Vessel

 Living in my own made up lad of friends, conversations, humor, understanding and so much more is my inner space more or less. I am a creator who's vested with the sole rights to create, stretch, live, laugh, get moody and so on in this space that only I can get in and out of. A tunnel of make believe which keeps me company and keeps me in the dark of wanting to connect with real people outside of my make believe which I have never wanted to honestly - this loop of imagination keeps me under the impression that I am just genuine in who I am being whether I talk, or joke, or laugh, whatever that be. I am true to this imaginary world so much so that I don't have much energy, focus, or interest left to want to connect to real people in real ways. I have had a deep yearning to want to be liked for truly who I am but had grown to dislike myself so much, having been under the perfection microscope of a frustrated and expertly criticizing single mother. 

I had let myself go so much so that I lost touch with who I really am - mood, behavior, likes, interests, good days, bad days, highs , lows and so on - someone who's frozen in a mold so much that I had to be loyal or programmed to stay that way because I couldn't care less about how far I had disconnected from myself and didn't realize back then that this was self erosion at best. And why? So that I can survive in such a family which again couldn't care less as long as I met their vague expectations.

I was weak in my resilience to want to be genuine as a person and be assertive in doing so. I resisted - my mother, my mother's family and their intimidating control, coldness, ego, drama, comparisons with other family members in dismissive ways. I resisted - getting close to get to know my true feelings about what I think about all of this at home and how I feel deep down about growing up in such an environment. 

I chose to procrastinate being who I am and the attitudes that I wanted to develop in order to grow as a person. All that has changed quite a bit. But my creating excuses to keep goal setting, trying to push myself to get to some activity that stirs up from within is so lacking and apparent that I have become comfortable with the numb pain that comes with it. Instead I look for motivation on the outside and act as if I am a sponging tool that just can sit through days and years sponging in life, people's activity around her without getting to live what it feels like being just myself in my own natural flow.

My natural flow has become adapting to others, their mindsets, attitudes, behaviors, and so much observation goes into all this that it becomes my survival mechanism - it has been that way for a long time now. But when I feel uncomfortable in thus observing, I withdraw, shut them down, and move my focus away onto other things. I don't like to get involved with people who make me feel uncomfortable in forms that I decipher through my sensing of who they are (sometimes intuitively, sometimes by observing their chain of patterns).

Either I try to want to feel as if I am a very important part in others lives or completely dismiss myself away to the point of avoiding social contact as much possible. So, in essence, my attitude about people, connections with them, trusting them, being empathetic to them are just random acts in my daily life and not a day to day involvement with fellow beings. I am too dismissive of my involvement with others and it's also due to how much I was ignored as a person when growing up in my childhood and how much I was criticized for simply being health wise sensitive by my mother. I had gotten used to a lot of invisibility in short and always figured out ways to stay invisible. 

All these are realized parts of me that cannot be minimized to make it look invisible and for all the namesake living that I had done for a long time, it simply has to be part of my life flow and I am simply allowing it to go. Flowing is just being, sometimes releasing, and at times taking a deep dive to come back up to the surface, to swirl with the loops and patterns and again release  them with the flow - my energy through it all feels mixed, heavy, overwhelming at times, and yet a beautiful, magical churning of sorts that places me back on the center of my core whatever that be - but just empty, still, clogs washed inside out and released feels natural as if all these movements and stillness in my mind and spirit are bringing me home as I tightly hold onto the vessel of life.

Fear has also been a major part to hold onto life, and fear not for getting to the subtle changes and flowing with them which I can discern sometimes but the fact that what was once comfortable and make believe are just that - I can't hold onto them either. It's in getting to know myself deeper, and navigating with the tides that creates a sense of ripples but even that too does pass. 

The more I am in the clear of where I am going and even if I am not at that point of time, but simply trust my journey and the spirit that guides from within is the most secure fastening to life that I can hold onto.