Choosing visibility

 Abandoning myself has been the safest way to remain invisible. As long as I adapt to other people's expectations, be listening to them when they whine, complain, or criticize, I need to be that listener for them and give in my boundaries, my space, my time, energy, and attention as if I don't deserve to have any of it myself. As if I need to seek permission from others or not even allow myself to think that I have a separate say in who I am and what I wish to do. 

Obedience was the most convenient concept and a self imposed limitation on me to contract and try to fit into that mold so much so that I lose sight of who I am individually. I have carried the weight of others expectations, their emotions, and their happiness mainly (my mother mainly in this context) as if I am just an extension to her and cannot be thinking of claiming rights for my own happiness and have a say on it. It's like a huge feeling of helplessness which I felt was blocked and wrongly identified with as my body and since I was made to feel weak, too sensitive by my mother and her criticisms and frustrations, I ended up believing that I am weak and that I will keep needing her support even if that means being criticized and shamed by her regularly - I felt I had no choice since I had no one else other than her whom I could say cared for me.

Others in the family couldn't care less and my aunts and uncles were too preoccupied and full of their egos and frustrations themselves that I acutely felt unseen, unloved, and scarcely cared for by them and was often made to feel the receiving end of their volatile emotions and moods. I again chose to hide, wanted to be invisible in my own world fantasies, and completely repressing all of these emotional insecurities that I faced at home with people like these who couldn't care less.

Hiding myself under so many layers of sadness, feelings of abandonment, and having to feel obligated to "should" and "should not" mode of restricting myself so that I don't upset them further. And thereby I limited my reaching out to receive support/advice/talking it out with others as I didn't want to be a  burden on them as I was made to feel like that by my mother who would get fearful, overwhelmed, bitter, and emotionally distant and body shamed me as no matter what I did was not enough for her and so felt at unease having to ask for any kind of support or guidance from any other elder in the family. 

Not allowing for myself the freedom of self expression was one major withdrawing away into suppression that I continued to fit myself into and to the point of being so dishonest with my feelings and experiences. 

Discover True Love through Thirupugazh

 Thirupugazh is not simply a Tamizh poetic compositions dedicated to Lord Murugan but is a beautiful reality depicting the cosmic universe within and outside of the Lord. Just as the shiny stars from afar dotting the vast shadows of the evening and night sky shine in their own unique light, the same way our inner truths, realizations of our ignorance, and wisdom gleaned from the truths deeply felt and resonated with are the stars that shine above the web of shadows of our mind and old programs/influences. Both cannot be separated but they stand unique and distinct in their own nature as if depicting that it's always light over darkness because darkness is simply a huge canvas set against the backdrop for light of stars to shine through. 

The focus then remains on the  stars, captivated by their presence,  their alignment, and their coming together to complete the picture above and as if mirroring our inner world within each of us. As we choose and allow ourselves to step into the truth of our selves, of who we are, flowing through blocks and barriers that make way eventually as the brokenness of our lies, our ego, our personality that we justify is owing to our success and wanting to prove a point or two to others with that, gets all torn apart as pieces of an old mirror. We cannot stitch ourselves back into the fabric of our old patterns no matter what we project from the past, it just simply stands out and cannot glue us back into our old selves, which is a relief and a painful or uncomfortable transformation in short.

Saint Arunagirinathar is that unique and brightest shining star who leads the way even in the midst of a thick blanket of darkness to open the heart and mind and who seek to follow with their soul. His gems in writing are vast, so purely honest and true in his devotion to Lord Muruga that the poems/sonnets written by him become the opening portal for the lost, the confused, the helpless amongst us to seek refuge. 

As our own inner darkness threatens/challenges to engulf us, Arunagirinathar's love for Muruga  becomes the bridge to cross this unknown space in us which is equally vast like the night sky.

Truly, love does find a way and it brightens the path like a flicker of hope, like a sudden idea to nudge us towards clarity, like perseverance against odds, like reassuring support when feeling helpless, and letting go of our old patterns and twisted or spiraling pathways to find our way back into discovering our real, true inner strengths. Because loving ourselves doesn't need a reason as love simply is the reason and finding that love for ourselves and for the higher energy within us is what divine poems/hymns like Thirupugazh teaches us.

It's time for the shift in you!!!

 There's always a season, a time for things to be the way they are. They seem like that will be the way forever, but it isn't. Time is not static, linear, or simply proportionate to one's emotions, feelings, and experiences. Time feels like it has stopped when there seems to that one conclusive moment that feels so interconnected with the past and the present and no worries whatsoever about the future arises, and there's another when time feels frozen, static as if there's no energy left in it to be moving, flowing, and it feels stuck in the mind, in the body, in survival mode.

We learn to survive our variations of times and our association with it is owing to our relative feelings that we might be feeling at that point of time and so our association with our memories seem timeless, as if it can be retrieved or it cannot be forgotten no matter what, depending upon the emotions it evokes within us while recollecting it. 

Do we adapt to our growth as a human being in our given span of time or can we say we live, we mature to grow, not live to survive from time to time until we die. Death is anyways inevitable, but aliveness in a person need not die at the cost of living one's patterns day in and day out and justifying it as everyday routine. 

We need routines but if we keep adapting to our victimhood versions of ourselves from our past, then we make our entire life and existence seem small as if there's nothing more to life than just adapting to playing small, feeling wronged, spreading toxicity and bitterness, jealousy, hatred on others disguised as vulnerability and weakness.

Nothing can bring back lost opportunities and lost time to make the past things right. We can only try to set right how attached we are still to our past and loosen its grip on us, if we allow it to happen and step into truer versions of ourselves one day at a time.

Time is not a mirror that should reflect our expectations from life. Time is presence of one's energy from one moment to another. The heaviness or lightness that that particular moment in time that's frozen is what needs to be addressed. Not relived as if time has stopped and life is supposed to adapt by itself in order to put us back in a harmonious flow in sync with our resources, support and life situations. Because life continues even if our time on earth dies. 

So, live without regrets, without shame, or blaming others. What you gift yourself in return is the freedom of being true to yourself and loving yourself for it. Because your self expression is not separate from you - it's an all new you way of seeing yourself and feeling good about it because you deserve it. Because you only live once as yourself in this lifetime. 

 I am thankful to my body, to my mind, my spirit for being so supportive of me. I am beginning to learn to value it to honor it for what level and how in depth their services have been towards running my life. And this honoring and acknowledging this truth that my body is where I am centered in and the heart that holds all the aliveness and emotions for life, for feelings, for experiences is where my balance and my expansion also lies. 

I am a work in progress towards being true to my feelings and honest self expressions in all that I am and all that I do. Thank you God/Lord Muruga for giving me this opportunity for expressing my gratitude to you.