Sharing our vulnerability with another person is always a tough thing to do regardless of how much progress someone has made in the journey of self awareness and self love.
I see there are two parts to sharing our vulnerability with others.
The moments from our past which anyone could easily judge us for. Still we process those thoughts and emotions time and again until it gets dried up and all the associated guilt, shame, regret and other tough emotions evaporate away and the experience alone stands crisp as a sun dried pickle that can be stored in a container for years together. This container can be opened anytime and the experiences can be shared with close friends and strangers alike without a second thought.
And the toughest part comes when we are feeling vulnerable at the moment and our rational mind hasn't yet processed through all the emotions. When the default trauma response screams loud "I don't need anyone. I can handle this myself." And the inner child whispers gently "I miss my mom". It's at this moment when vulnerability is experienced at its peak, it's hard to open up to someone. Not because you don't want to. But you just don't have the words that make any sense about how you feel.
Head and Tail are just two sides of the same coin. It's all a matter of how we choose to look at things. It's all about our perceptions. They are not very much different from each other. So many philosophical and motivational books advocate this concept.
But when a toss is made, whichever side of the coin turns up, it leads to a decision being made. And no amount of philosophy can deny this fact.
As we reflect back on life events, we have two ways to look at things - A series of new experiences(say head for simplicity) or a series of endings that you are still struggling to let go of(say tail).
This hyperactive mind does a toss without our knowledge. And a head shows up. "Wowwww!!", The mind screams out loud, "What an adventurer I am. How bold and courageous I am to try out so many things in life. I am living such a happening life."
Maybe because you chose to bunk probability classes during college days, most of the times a tail shows up when the mind tosses the so-called metaphorical coin. And the very same mind attempts to push us into depression. "Why has every single good thing in my life came to an end? Why can't things just continue and keep flowing? Why do I keep coming back to square one? Why do I have to start from scratch each time?"
It's time to throw the coin away, enjoy a mid-night snack and catch up some sleep maybe. I am sorry coin. Maybe no one taught me how to use you the right way. Good Bye!
P.S.:
In the grand scheme of things, life is like an ever-flowing river, we are moving forward, through various seasons. People, things, situations, experiences come in like leaves and logs that fall in the river. Nothing comes with us forever. We get to taste those experiences, cherish those moments and let them go as they float away (It is easy to say). And lo, as we keep moving, new leaves, new logs, new lives come our way to accompany us. They too will float away,and new more will come. Thus continues the cycle of life, with us ever-flowing.
P.P.S.:
The passage you read in the P.S. block above is not written by me. It's a friend's comment shared via whatsapp
My soothing and best companion JBL Bluetooth speaker started giving some extra static noise while playing melody songs with beats. Maybe the static noise was evident very much with such songs.
I was worried if my dearest companion fell sick. Just as I would google my symptoms whenever I felt unwell well(and even when I'm not), I did the same. Dr.Google suggested these troubleshooting steps:
1. Check if your speaker is running low on battery.
2. Check if your phone is running low on battery.
3. Check if there are any other Bluetooth devices or wifi router nearby which could cause interference with the frequency.
4. Check if your phone and speaker are placed too close to each other.
Wow all the symptoms are present. Diagnosis completed - Interference it is.
After taking the required actions, my speaker is healthy again :) Yayyyyyyy!!!
And just then I realized this is not so much different from the "manasu ennamo pannudhu", " Manase sari illa", "manasu edho maadri iruku" kinda symptoms that we get more frequently than common cold and flu.
Troubleshooting steps?
1. Am I running low on energy? ( read as craving for a nap but want to stay awake and intensify the suffering)
2. Dehydrated?
3. Hungry? ( Pasi vandha nee neeya iruka maata)
4. Do I keep finding new things to worry about even after finding solutions to every single issue? ( Time loop isn't a big deal. Have you seen my worry loop🤨) .
5. Am I deprived of human interaction? ( I have an allergy for humans anyway. Leave it)
6.
7.
Oh, wait!! When did I even start making checklists? Am I slowly turning into Sheldon? It's worry loop again. What am I supposed to do now? Run through the checklist or run away from it?????
P.S.: Adulting is realizing you just love both these equally.
Vaazhkai or vattam pol mudindha idathil thodangadha!
The Rock Bottom is one of the stations that we visit during our journey called life. This is a station that makes you feel so isolated, anxious and instills an existential dread inevitably.
The name sounds cool as if there is a rock on which you can unfold your mattress and take a nap. But in reality it feels like a bottomless pit of hopelessness and despair.
As a default reaction, we might try all possible ways to climb out of this place. Any attempt to escape this place only makes you feel exhausted. This reminds a famous quote "The only way out is IN".
At one point you would start feeling tired of being tired. That's when you'll start to accept the current state for what it is. Your eyes try to see things a little more clearly. You get to see you are not alone after all. There are fellow human beings who go through self imposed isolation just as you do.
What's the way out then? Maybe there's no way out. Even Alice had a chance to escape her rabbit hole. Maybe you are trapped in this station forever.
This station deprives you of every single superficial aspect in your life. Which means you are left with nothing other than your own core self.
Maybe this core self has a GPS that helps us navigate this territory better. In all our efforts to escape this place, we never cared to look at this GPS.
Maybe the whole purpose of this station is to learn how to seek comfort and a sense of security within ourselves. When the purpose is met, platform 9 3/4 could open magically leading us towards Hogwarts Express :)
Expecto Patronum!!
Moral of the story: If death is inevitable, go for Death By Chocolate (DBC) cake.
No doubt you would have come across so many youtube videos, self help books, facebook ads for online classes, in fact anyone you know from that neighbourhood uncle to someone in your friend circle would have given a motivational pep talk with free advice.
In fact I had a huge collection of motivational quotes once upon a time. Would you believe me if I say that I used to write motivational quotes everyday on a white board in my office :P :P
But now when I see anything like this, my first instinct is to get a big stone and break that scissor. It's ok da. If I can't do something, let it be. I don't want to do it. And Phoebe comes to my rescue here:
Chuck it man. There is no need to force yourself to feel motivated every single nanosecond of your life. It's perfectly fine to feel crappy when your life seems unfair. Yes, life sucks. It's ok to feel like a failure. It's ok to feel like a loser. It's ok to feel like nothing is in control.
It's really really okay to scream and cry like a baby. You are just a human. You are free to feel all emotions that your mind and body keep churning. There is nothing wrong with feeling sad, angry, depressed and anxious all at the same time. Stop judging yourself for this.
Ron might have got the emotional range of a teaspoon. But for a normal human being like you and me, our emotional range extends beyond the boundaries of our home, office, city, country, and may be even farther than the universe itself. It's ok to feel emotions intensely. It's your strength, not a weakness.
Even nature isn't always sunny and bright and doesn't always bloom all the time. Nature happens in cycles - Day/Night, Summer/Winter/Autumn/Spring, Solstices. Even moon goes through a cycle every 28 days - New moon, Waxing phase, Full moon, waning phase. And the sun goes through its own cycles every 12 years.
Just like how water gets evaporated and becomes cloud, and then eventually the cloud condenses and comes back to earth as rain, there will be times when you are full of energy and nothing in the world could stop you. There will be times when it would feel like the entire universe is conspiring against you and you are fighting an uphill struggle. And then you would feel exhausted, uninspired, demotivated, nothing would make sesnse.
There are no shortcuts to escape these phases. We can try our best to run away from tough emotions, to portray a smiley face to the entire world, to live in denial, to even feel like everyone else is having it all together and it's just your life alone that sucks. Any attempt to escape these feelings would make us look like Prakash Raj's smiling therapy. Remember this?
You definitely wouldn't want to live a false optimistic life like PrakashRaj in VasoolRaja MBBS :)
Believe me, this crappy feeling which seems to be ever-persistent is not really the end. Just like changing seasons, when it's time for your next season to arrive, tables are going to turn over for sure. There are certain lessons that can be learned only during these painful times.
Let's learn our lessons as much deeply as we can and prepare ourselves for a beautiful spring season to arrive even when the inner critic voice in our mind keeps saying...............
Life is really strange. We assume our struggles are unique to us. Yet we come across people time and again who ask you the same questions that you are seeking answers for and make you tell the answers
If our struggles are all so so similar, we are never alone in this.
2
While I find it easier to say "Let everything that's not meant to be, fall apart", my heart secretly wishes to see at the end - a few things to remain in tact, few things to hold on to, few things to cling to obsessively.
3
Is life all about settling down for choices that give a false sense of security? "A known devil is better than an unknown angel?"
4
Sometimes mind's weavings are so dense, that we don't see a little light around. Faith is seeing the light within. (Source: PradQuotes)
5
Sometimes our fight or flight response system runs overtime and detects threats where there are none. And it's so much fun to prove yourself wrong in these circumstances.
At times I wonder if it was just me over-reacting to seemingly normal things.
Or if the possibility of threat was real but. it got miraculously sorted out by a greater force.
6
That un-named feeling where something is stuck between the heart and the throat, struggling to find a way for its expression, oru nimisham vaai vittu azhudha nalla irukume nu thonum, but thalakeezha ninnu thanni kudichalum azhuga mattum varadhu.
7
அன்பிற்கும் உண்டோ அடைக்கும் தாழ் ?
பூட்டு சாவியே இருக்கு :D :D
Setting it free is the only way out for you to take a deep breath of freedom from the stories your mind keeps yourself stuck in.
8
I remember the concept of Palingu thirai from ManiMegalai. This Palingu Thirai that's as pristine as Saint Gobain glass, allows someone to be seen but not heard or felt.
Is there a tiny version of this palingu thirai that's stuck in my throat which stops me from expressing the emotions that are troubling me and also stops me from feeling heard?
9
My go-to checklist for whenever I feel cranky:
1. Am I sleep-deprived?
2. Am I dehydrated?
3. Do I lack sunlight exposure?
4. Am I hungry or running low on carbs or sugar?
5. Did I miss my workout for more than 3 days at a stretch?
6. Is it a long time since I spoke to a friend?
7. When was the last time I said hi to my journal?
8. Is my day packed with back-to-back calls?
10
When you are the kind of person who seeks external validation from people in your life, and they take it as their life's purpose to make you feel invalidated at all levels of your existence, you have two choices:
1. Accept their judgement as irrefutable one and stay stuck with it all your life
2. Make peace with the past and keep exploring new horizons while being completely aware that you could break down anytime the sharp remarks from past strike you. Take a deep breath and tell yourself: "Evlovo paathutom. Idha panna maatoma?"
Never ever give in to the stupidities like Fake it till you make it . It's ok to feel weak at times. After all, you are just a human being with all the fragilities that life has bestowed upon you.
P.S: Life isn't that cruel anyway. It has also given you certain strengths that you are not aware of. Go figure them out and add them to your arsenal !
11
When you are tired of waiting for tables to turn, and there it is - a shift happening (however fleeting it might be), from a position of being questioned all the time, to a position of questioning people in authority.
12
She had always felt like a budget version of Disney princess throughout her childhood and adolescent years. And overnight things turned upside down. The same sweet relatives showed their monster like faces. And it was extremely hard for her to even comprehend it.
And then one fine day, she reached a conclusion. Maybe this is what being a woman feels like.
Why am I wide awake at 3:33am ? Should I call it mid of the night or almost beginning of the dawn?
When the entire world, or at least half of the planet earth is sound asleep, what does my soul search for at this odd hour, keeping me awake?
What makes me feel like I'm the odd one out?
The way an existential crisis could manifest in each one's life could be different. But are we not all looking for the one thing that which is stable, that which no one can snatch away from us, that which will never leave us alone at our most vulnerable moments?
Then what makes each of us to believe that ours alone is the worst struggle in this whole universe?
What makes us feel different from our fellow beings and keeps us locked in isolation imposed by the weavings of our own mind?
While it feels like I'm slightly touching the boundaries of nihilism, (which states that there is no point to this existence at all), I still do believe with whole of my heart that there must be a greater reason or a purpose to this existence.
I'm just tired of searching for it everywhere else. I'm just tired of seeking for it in all the wrong destinations. I'm afraid of looking within.
What am I supposed to do? Why doesn't life hand us a blueprint? What's the whole point of this "freewill of choice" when every choice I make seems to bring me back to this same thought again and again?
Having exhausted all modes of transport that stare right at my face, there is still one more, a scary one though - Leap of faith.
To be explored...
2
What's this that makes me feel stuck as if some invisible force has bound me to experience a certain set of events in loop similar to GroundHog day movie?
What is it that I'm struggling to reach an acceptance with?
What do I really want?
What is it that I'm struggling to express to myself?
What's really troubling me?
What's the way forward?
3
Fear of Missing Out
It's such a pain in the neck. And it's true.
All the years you had been struggling to build a life for yourself, to become independent, the struggle to adapt to a new work environment, making it through constant reorgs. Suddenly you stop for a moment and look back to notice that you haven't lived your life. While the rational mind could convince you pretty well that you were busy battling a huge thing that was meant to throw your life apart. And thats quite true as well. It's not the fear of missing out. But the pain of what has been missed out and the fear of never being able to make up for it, that tugs at your heart.
