Vel Maaral - an individual perspective

 Vel Maaral has been my saviour in more ways than one. It has been the knowledge tool that has kept me protected in the dark of ignorance, pain, distress, and blocks. The Vel or the spear is known to be the breaker of barriers, be it psychological, physical, or any other level possible. So, it's safe to say in short that my life is an answered prayer even if my mind creates doubts, anxiety, fear and so on.

My soul has been placated like how a cranky kid's nerves are calmed down, and that's how I feel when I read it and each day feels like a new interpretation of revelations close to my life.

So, it's not just a loop of Tamizh mantras, but a medicine that cuts through the thick of layers that live entwined within us, and Vel Maaral liberates us from the karmic imprints as we absorb its essence in depth over a period of time. The Vel is the object and the essence in it all that has many functions depending upon the nature of inner demons - it can find its way through to the root of evil within us and bind us to faith and not fear, freeing us thereby to stay afloat and not sink under the weight of our unconsciousness.

The repeat nature of our everyday thoughts, imaginations, assumptions, and external influences makes it look as if we are caught in the web of the mind as it spins so many stories around our life experiences. But to weave a narrative which is free off the stickiness of past programming is a step in the right direction as our lives are woven in the direction that we project today. And I have at many a time looked at external sources of help to help reconcile my past with the present reality and my tendency to stay lost adds challenges of its own. But Vel Maaral has been the awareness creator as it helps me become aware of how far I stray(staying distracted) away from my current situation and how much are my fantasies and day dreaming feeding off off my straying in one topic of interest or another.

So, the focus is not to artificially create a velcro sticky faith to stay stuck on Lord Muruga or his weapon, Vel, but to detach myself from the loops of patterns which don't serve me any good today.

The enemy for me is not some strange looking person or thing on the outside, but the foggy, mystical, fantasizing, free flow of imaginations of my mind which is centered on projecting myself as a strong individual who is almost always trying to be right in her dialogues with others. An inner critic who is strong and simply unrelenting in the many forms it takes up in my mind as if to emphasize my mother's umpteen versions of her disappointments and criticisms on my health no matter how many doctors or how much care she thinks she gave - I could not shut her down then, but through these imaginations and my having the last say in each of those dialogues with her or with others, it's like I am finally getting to do that, but the damage is only on me, through me, like a self inflicting injury to cover the deeper wound within. 

I am yet to put to action the reparenting towards gentle self love that I so need to do, but my inner critic is so stuck on proving others wrong that I have truly negated my self growth even if I am painfully aware of the severely limiting aspect of adapting my beautiful, creative imaginations to the loops of criticisms, be it projecting on others or on myself.

It's almost like a judgement, all this inner chatter every day, and drains me off my life energy. I am thankful though for the Vel Maaral has made me straighten my mind out atleast this much with discretion and awareness of my own mind for now because I am not as alone and lost as I used to think I was. 

I can choose to better use my imagination and that is to create a new and maybe better reality. 

Imagination, intuition, perception, and sensing, deep conversations are all me (my inner strengths) for all along, but since I had so much of my repressed emotions and unexpressed feelings, and walking on egg shells in an emotionally dysfunctional family dominate my reality and my sense of self so much that I could not use my inner strengths in a way that would help manifest my external reality and be authentic to it to the fullest. The goal to be my actualized true self is something that's manifesting gradually as the supportive and assuring Vel Maaral is the weapon that breaks through and slays even invisible enemies as they surface to my reality and makes me better aware of the extent of my distress and helps to release them slowly and be in sync with the now.

 

A new core, a new shore

 All along I have lived like a deer in the headlights losing sight of my self priorities. It's a lot of confusion for who I was because I was made to feel guilty for who I was by my mother for whatever sensitivity I had in health as her frustrations, her fears over my health were superimposed by her and so I found myself constantly caught in the loop to appease her at the cost of prioritizing myself. My emotional sensitivity is something I was myself in the dark and the truth of that crept up making it impossible for me to ignore my emotions and feelings which was at a much later stage. But still, the knowing that I was made to feel a certain way about myself and the painful realization that I had chosen to disconnect from myself in order to stay blindly tuned to my mother's expectations was self sabotaging to say the least.

Now I don't go out of my way to be flexible for her. I just try not to get too rigid either in my stubbornness about embracing real change within me. Just giving in to her "love" a bit no matter how much of a bait she uses her love and care for me as, but she does that to wield her control over me as she is used to controlling me either through her frustrated yet helpless way of caretaking me as if I am a terminally ill patient back then. She made me believe that I am too weak and that affected my sense of self a lot. 

My will to want to fight back, to take a stand for myself, to take responsibility for my physical and mental health were all so limited by my mother's way of seeing me and that was me, the deer, getting blinded by the projected headlights of an external source, my mother, as I lost sight of my goals, my visions for my life and what lies ahead.

Life does not happen when you stay stuck in the comfort of who you think you were (no matter how weak, negative, ill willed it might be) but in the discomfort of who you want to become (as opposed to the expectations of others if needed) being fully centered on your true wants and needs.

I have been a survivor living off my mother's projected toxic love for me and wanted to assume that that's really true and good for me, but it isn't. She has steadily dampened my fire for exercising my will and I was so caught up seeking validation from her that I repeatedly self doubted myself and exercised limitations mindset on myself that I can easily adapt to and created ill will within myself for who I am and kept being in a confused space for who I wanted to be.

Her trauma of losing my father during her pregnancy seeded trauma in her womb and deep within me and I birthed trauma at each and every stage of my life being fearful, overwhelmed, confused for who I am and thereby numbed myself so much so that I stay sunk in deep unconsciousness of my self.

Her image of a sympathy gained from others victor (at the cost of projecting a negative image of her daughter) is who she has always been, and making me feel responsible for her state, whether physical or emotional, is who she maintains herself to  be. And to that effect, no matter how much is done feels not enough, specially when she steps out and it becomes mandatory to look out for her comfort at each and every step of the way which is exhausting to say the least.

My creativity feels stifled as my inner thoughts circle around the times of the past and the present which hovers around my mother and how much I have been taken for a ride.

Life is a journey but when you become other people's ride, then you need to get back to being driven so that you can take charge of your travel and your experiences fully.

I am tired of being other people's ride and I am not so altruistic as well, but just made to feel guilty constantly and hence had given in to prioritizing others, courtesy my conditioning embedded deeply by my mother's behaviors as mentioned above. And so I became a dumped site, thanks to few friends who assumed that my space, my calm is something that they can exploit and just validated for my being all so idealistic and giving and generous with my listening and time as I too let them believe and was never being true to myself while being with them. I thought I had to stretch in terms of empathy and understanding and that was energetically draining which I didn't realize back then but kept giving away my power, my space to accommodate others.

My heart flutters like tender wings,

And gets stuck in the pull of weighing down things.

It had to find its strength, the flaps continued to beat against odds,

To open my trust in believing myself and not stay enmeshed in others lives like peas in a pod.

Strength is when you stop saying you are weak,

But give yourself reason to trust that life ahead is not so bleak.

Wings without ascension is not freedom,

It's being authentic without fanning the fires in the belly out of boredom.

Mother wound was my cocoon and my comfort nest,

Walking on egg shells to not anger or sadden my mother, a daily test.

This is emotional abuse, I was not aware,

Didn't call out my mother out of shame, guilt and confrontational fear.

 I revisit this wound scratching the inner surface which isn't my core,

The need to let go the old and connect to my flow is releasing my hardened heart from the mossy shore.

Cutting loose from the compulsion to go round and round without finding a way out is a clear sign,

That the footprints don't follow you as much as you ruminate or whine.

The memories of feeling isolated and abandoned without support haunts me in silence,

I find comfort in the truths of my soul which speak softly to assure deep guidance.

My soul reminds me to speak to the repressed voices within,

To accept plainly their pain, their unspoken fears, sadness and anger without triggered spins.

To believe that I deserve calm and love and support is entry into my core,

The silence after this storm held me in its arms as I paddle my way to a new shore.

 

Release self doubts, embrace your truths as they are

 Self doubt is one of the worst diseases of the mind. It devalues a person's potential, her ability to look past her fears, blocks, negative thoughts and so on as one's self doubt keeps all these aspects alive as they all compound to self doubt.

It's a meaningless wandering where there is a never ending dead end and yet no way out of this loop of feeling stuck. How easily, how effortlessly is the submitting oneself to this dark void where the possibility of light is shut out by the individual herself. 

I have gone through 5, 6 years of submitting myself to the fires of truth, inner reflection, journaling, releasing, and so on, and yet have not gotten through the test of such times? The severe pain of emotional numbness is something I have realized over and over again and it leaves me feeling sad, tired at times, and in order to distract myself from this pain I binge watch some series or the other which is again another way to keep being emotionally numb but with a bit of awareness that I can't get too lost in that and need to find my way back home to my heart. 

I need some goals to translate my inner realizations into actionable activities and be true to my energies through the process. 

I have the courage to face my pains repressed through emotional numbing and have been blessed with beautiful divine guidance and intuitions, but now when it comes to holding myself as a sovereign being who's a culmination of all her experiences, good, bad, and everything in between, then why does the impulse, the desperation to get a job for my financial independence become a pressing factor in my mind. 

I take pride for my efforts, sincerity, and perseverance, to work towards self realizations of my inner world as much as possible, but without Lord Muruga's protection, Ramani's support, Amma's support in her own way as well, this wouldn't have been possible. 

I need to stand by this becoming of a new self as the shedding and letting go of the old has happened and is also a work in progress. I can't keep criticizing my past life with the awareness, realizations of today. Looking back at the past was/has been a compulsion, but the more I feel connected is when I stick to the present and be open towards future with hope and not anxiety.

I am okay today for who I am and the meltdown of the past has given way to acknowledging my inner wounds, but to keep ruminating on it or have doubts on how will I go further in life with self doubts, anxiety and so on is not going to help either. Just keep walking until I find a path that would help me stay grounded and also flowing in my consciousness and I believe that path has already opened and I am on it, but with triggers now and then about what will happen in future, how will I manage without this support, and how much can I rely on myself are something that comes and goes. It's ego at play probably, but as much as I learnt to trust myself through my own brokenness while bearing open my emotional wounds and feeling them, grieving them, and slowly finding the strength to let go of them, it's these that I need to remind myself as I have withstood the utter distress, depression, sadness, anger, and so much more of emotional numbing, and it's through the healing of these inner emotional wounds that has given me inner strength gradually, that the same inner strength will help me cross over and be the bridge to a mindful present and a promising future.

It's time for procrastination to go!

 Procrastination has been my placebo so that I can avoid getting sick as being out in the sun has for many a time caused headaches and nausea. But the underlying stress of getting criticized, emotionally abused has weighed far more and made me withdraw so much so that just procrastinating felt like the only way to sustain this want to explore life and come out of my addiction to comfort and getting caught in the need to seek validation from others if they find my health alright enough so that I can proceed with full confidence in working on a job.

In this way I had adapted to loneliness so much that whatever creative energies that could possibly flow on a regular basis got all stuck and stagnant owing to my old habit of procrastinating and self doubts.

It's so boring and so much a dead end when I am being supported nevertheless but there's nothing at this time left for me to stay inspired and dig deep into what I can offer creatively. 

I feel so exhausted for lack of goals, lack of vitality to want to seek out goals if possible, and simply submit to binging tv shows or Netflix series, as if I need to just spend time and not invest wisely on some healthy pursuit of a hobby or an activity that's enriching my mind. I feel equally sorry and sad and also angry and helpless as if the direction that I had set my sails for was so very seeking the shade of safety and not the risk of trying being under the sun.

I tend to give in to my mind's negative chatter without learning to shut it down from time to time. Staying absorbed in tv shows is not going to help silence my inner chatter, but it's just another way of unconsciously interacting with the dialogues, script, and flow of the content on tv or computer. It's absolutely exhausting even if I stay stuck in a spot for a bit longer than needed and not restful. It just gives me another distraction, another excuse to stay away from consciously interacting and creating and getting involved with creative pursuits possibly.

What skill, potential or creative outlet that was unnoticed, and completely neglected almost by my mother, my uncles/aunts and hardly appreciated is the very weakness that I have nurtured negatively in my heart for a long time and the weight of not being validated cannot capsize my creative strengths, no matter how oblivious my parents might have been. 

To see myself truly, fully, with warmth and empathy as I had wanted to just be spontaneous, give my opinions, be vocal about my confusions, fears, health challenges, and so much more has been so silenced by me out of lack of trust, lack of security at the house that I grew up in with so many people that my chest can't hold the overflowing pain and emotional hurts from numbing anymore. A big price to pay in trying to want to fit in with the crowd that I lost my voice, my confidence, and just kept being "nice" and quiet, and easily understanding, flexible, and everything that I maybe not. 

What's painfully real is how much I couldn't live for myself and self prioritize owing to getting caught up in all these programming. As much as it's on them, my parents. their emotional dysfunctionalities and in whose presence I tried to survive, but it's my choice finally to self sacrifice without any reason. For whose sake did I do that? And what did I gain by doing that? Just more trauma to bear, to repress, and stay entangled in them as if I can be as equally invisible as these insidious patterns. I am a product of such patterns anyway and I can't feign ignorance on the level of self sabotage that it has done unconsciously.

To put living to another day is the most disservice I can do to myself and no matter how much I can attribute to my past and getting so warped and deluded by them, the fact that I have let my life go a lot and have managed to live, if at all, is through my impulses, sudden flashes of ideas to cook a dish this way or that, sing thirupugazh, draw sometimes, but it's only when I do some job, some service for another that it feels meaningful. I do try to place others first since I am used to living through the collective conscious way and going with the others flow is what I do best. But the more I try to justify that it's working towards others and putting others before me first is all very ideal but it doesn't always sit well with me. I do this just to escape taking personal responsibility for my individual actions towards building my life and most often than not end up feeling scattered. 

Procrastination is not some safe keep deposit that will yield better results tomorrow - it's just a delayed way to come to terms that nothing will change even then unless some movement, some initiative is taken today. I can offer all the excuses I want, but staying stagnant without much excitement towards my life is pretty pathetic, and I can never expect support from others when I don't brace myself to support and work on self belief as a strong foundation to do so. 

Believe in your inner healing

 My mother put me through a lot of emotional abuse and emotional neglect as if I deserved them for being physically sensitive. Her trauma for being emotionally wounded for her expectations of wanting to stay with her partner, my father, got cut short so suddenly in 2 years time from her marriage and specially when they were pregnant with me, it was a sudden tragedy of losing my father to a massive cardiac arrest while she was 3 months pregnant. 

Her trauma seemed to fill me up from the womb that even if I got separated from her physically as an individual, my inner voice, my mind, my sense of self had gotten so saturated with her repeated outbursts of her trauma at her at each and every episode of my health problems, no matter how small and not so terminal it might be, but she enacted my getting sick as a way of lashing out her frustration at my absent father and being left all by herself to deal with me, that her technical way of taking me to doctors at each and every instance of my health problem was the only glue for me towards her as there was no sense of real love or acceptance from her for me.

 She thrived on sympathy from her brothers and their families and left me all by myself to deal with my repetitive ruminations about my past health issues no matter what be the circumstance for today - whether I do well at a job, whether I decide to change jobs, whether I think of stretching myself more for a particular goal/project etc, it felt like my past trauma of being shouted at by my mother, my emotional numbing at that time, and my unspoken and conflicted emotions had all been so bottled up that I kept repeating them in my head as means to stay stuck in trauma myself which has been so severely self limiting and has robbed me off of my precious self trust and belief in my self. And when my relationship with myself has been compromised, so convoluted with the frustrations of my mother's emotional projections from her tragic past, I internalized the same pattern of staying stuck in trauma as a way of criticizing my self and learning over and over again to adapt to my "limitations" -  adapting here in this case means trying to fit into my mother's super narrow perspectives of me and my life to the point that I got disconnected from my real sense of reality.

I was feeding off off her trauma so much so that I preferred punishing myself with negative inner talks, repetitive ruminative of past illness, and unfavorably bringing them up in my present day as if more and more loneliness, and such dismal inner darkness, and not knowing how to reach out for help and just staying stuck with self neglect, self doubt, abandonment, and continuing to adapt to my mother's sense of power over me which was not physical assault but giving into her emotionally abusing me over and over and shaming me for having weak health and making me feel guilty for the same at each and every health episode even if it be small one. She made my life a tragic reliving of her past and which I believed was true for me which just severely restricted me from knowing what my true sense of reality, choices, facing challenges, and learning to grow.

My mother may have been a recipient of severe emotional neglect and abandonment herself from her parents, her siblings and so on, but what she did to me cannot be taken in casual light, but is not the centre point of my life's concern either. I have healed better and grown better from within to realize that my life completely exists outside of hers and that I am not a subject of her emotional projections, no matter how tragic or sudden it might have been - it's her trauma and hers to handle. She is half foot in the grave now and has lived off my life by absorbing my ideas, objectivity, and even concerns. All that I am not is because of my withdrawing from taking personal responsibility for my life and expecting others to fix it for me. My mother assumed she was fixing it but all she did was break me further from my core. She only knew so much and I was not ready to outgrow my expectations at that time.

Being toxically interconnected through trauma which is mostly projected on me by her is not my moral obligation anymore and it's been made explicitly clear in my own ways. She has asked for a meek sorry for the same but that doesn't change the fact that she's still completely oblivious to the damage she has to me and to my mind. 

Now as I have worked on myself and with my God/Guru's blessings as well that I have realized so much of my inner pain and trauma that it feels like I am on the path of healing but through the suppressed and blocked road of pain which has now been opened and released for ease of navigation and flow of energy for over a few years now.

I may or may not get completely healed, I don't know, but trauma is never more important than one's truth and the truth is that it's never easy to let go pain, to be free from trauma and self doubts, but the more I embrace this truth that self love and genuine kindness towards my self changes my inner landscape as it has already begun to change, my relationship with myself feels different. All the unreleased understanding and blocked love from myself has slowly begun to open up and it makes me want to believe that I too can feel well from inside, I too can really heal, just one day at a time.

The answer to many a prayer

 Lord Muruga is a fierce protector and a kind guardian who makes you feel seen completely under His all encompassing eyes. He knows you better than you do yourself. Knowing Him can be your blessing if you allow your heart and mind open wide and embrace His wisdom to navigate through your pain and attain peace and reconciliation with your life, struggles, sufferings in it is what makes Him the true alchemist of your life experiences. Your willingness to submit your ego and persevere through your life's highs and lows with this newfound equanimity and acceptance is what Lord Muruga's grace feels like.

There's so much beauty in His compassion that it would melt the hardened walls of your heart and make you open to being truly kind to yourself and soften it so that His tests, His ways of letting you get closer to Him or vice versa makes it life changing to say the least. His kindness and acceptance of who we are just as ourselves is what moves us to try to work more towards letting our hurts, fears, anger, judgements, criticisms, revenge and so on go. This release is what is beautiful, unpretentious, raw, and simply authentic to each of our life experiences.

For lost and lonely souls who can do with a bit of support to get through the pains of their past and whose human lives in their human bodies feels unbearably heavy, dense, numb, and dark, His guidance, His different ways of loving and supporting you is like a soothing balm on insidious wounds - His mighty weapon, the victorious Vel, His spear cuts through the chords of all those layers knotted as roots of those wounds. 

My life in all entirety has been His blessing and His many miracles have kept me alive o matter how sudden the health issues. He has been my silent support even if my mind was ridden with so many voices, each dialoguing between one another and making me crave for living outside of this noisy space. Muruga's grace silences even the harshest critics in one's mind and it's a redemption of who you are, just as you are, and that's simply good enough to love Him, to be grateful for His myriad ways of being there for you.

He is the father that I never had, He is the friend I had always wished I had, He is the confidante who holds multi universes within His cosmic domain, He is the answer to many a prayer, and truly unconditional love in all His forms and names.

Don't get cornered but put the distractions in its place

 Distractions are needed to cope up with the stressors of one's life but getting so lost in distractions is leading oneself to the dead end of one's consciousness and mindfulness of reality. 

To experience self denial of one's true awareness of one's reality which is inclusive of goals, challenges, hurdles, and some joyful, healthy detractors that helps not get stuck in the trials of disappointments, delays of manifesting of one's goals and aspirations is in short to say denying the opportunity of opening oneself up fully to living.

Living is how well you experience, endure, learn, let go, and move on in response to life. This learn and play ground has room for all of us students to explore, create, have fun, and just keep trusting ourselves for how best we can do what we can and release what we cannot to get through to the end of our lives exploration as an all inclusive experience.

To continue to lighten up through the myriad dense layers of our past, of what can be changed and what cannot, and true acceptance of being a human through it all is what makes this journey a work in progress. Only when we are okay within ourselves to let go our heavy attachments to our toxic habits, hurtful memories, old habits which all put together are consistently and yet unproductively repeated and which acts itself out in our ways of being, behaviors, life choices is the start to our real transformation.

 Distractions then as means to cope up with the pain of real, deep change from within does not reduce the pain of letting go but to stay under the make believe fear and stickiness to our used to living from the past has to be addressed. Loosening up on the intensity of life transformative changes is important but not to the extent of losing focus of who we are in this process. 

We still continue to remain the core subject of our lives and no amount of objectification of people, places, things and so on as priority over ourselves helps. Therefore discernment with distraction is the need of the hour and the ask ourselves how we feel, what we think about changing situations maybe day to day or periodically is a huge way to bank on ourselves without losing trust in our inner strength, our efforts, and how far we have come so that self prioritization remains the core subject of our lives.

To be absorbed by the other and not have enough space for self is severely limiting and hence adapting to such a self defeating and unproductive habit is something I have been personally working on to let go. Many a distraction takes precedence whether it's social media, the neighbours, friends, family and so on, but to keep reminding myself that I am worth all the inner work in progress puts the distractions in its place.