First published on Facebook on October 31st, 2011

Forgiveness is not about condoning an act or behaviour,
It is not about deciding who was right or wrong.
It is not about inviting more of the same into your life,
It is about moving on.

Forgiveness is seeing that my expectations of you
Were unmet and the reason that it is so,
Is because no matter how reasonable these seemed to me,
It was actually an insistence that you live in accordance with my hopes.

In setting you free of my demands of how you should be,
I reclaim my own freedom within.
I notice all the anger, pain and hurt emptying -
Allowing a fresh, new beginning.

I choose to remember and respect the fact
That your life is yours to lead,
The person I truly need to make peace with is my self,
For being who I was in the past, and who I am now being.

Photo Credit: Raj Kashyap

There will be moments when it seems hopeless

Exhaustion has seeped in to the core

You have done all that you think you could,

And then also some more.

There is no rock bottom,

Falling through a never ending hell,

Light seems a distant dream,

You are too demoralized to care.

Right when it seems like giving up,

Or giving in,

Is the easiest thing to do:

Shake yourself this once more, rise anew.

For every drowning man,

A life line is thrown.

But reaching for it with his dying breath,

Is his job alone.

Why bother, why try,

When insanity seems more sane?

Because you were born to live.

To rise, again and again.

No matter how tough these times,

Or deep the darkness of  the night,

Beyond these waves of despair,

There is a peace. There is always light.

Photo Credit:  Binu Fernandez

Ever had thoughts and feelings that you wish you had the courage to express, but didn’t?  Were you too afraid that you wouldn’t be heard or wouldn’t be understood?  Or was the relationship too precious to risk “rocking the boat”?

I do not refer to an emotionally charged outburst, or any insensitive discourse.  What I am discussing here are subjective observations and personal feelings, but those that have already undergone your scrutiny and consideration. Those that remain unsaid, are stirring inside you, and knowingly or unknowingly influencing your every interaction with that other person.  More often than not, the primary reason for keeping quiet in such cases – is the desire to maintain harmony.  To avoid uncomfortable conversations that may take us into uncharted territory and leave the relationship transformed forever.

Yes, in all probability, there will be discomfort.  But there is also a possibility that the transformed relationship will have greater depth, transparency and honesty.

Keeping silent does not mean that you forget about it.  Hence, there may be growing frustration, resentment and anger, that continues to simmer within you.

Nor is the other person always oblivious of your unrest.  When we don’t say everything we want to, others sense it. And in their mind, they fill in the blanks with their own version of what the unsaid is. Soon everyone is uncomfortable and getting further away from truth and mutual understanding.

So the whole purpose of the withheld expression is defeated. In trying to keep interactions comfortable and maintain “good” relations, we may often end up worsening the situation.  Until one fine day, it all explodes with one or the other  emotional charge.  If this happens, you can be sure that healing such wounds would be far more challenging than what you would face today.

Deliberate suppression of one’s true thoughts and feelings is a kind of pretension, because things are really not the way you are projecting them to be.

Byron Katie said reality is always kind and  I would agree.  No matter how uncomfortable you are feeling, if you speak your truth – with compassion and consideration for the other – you are in fact doing both your self and the other, a great service.  You are honouring the truth of where you are in the moment, and you are acknowledging that the other is capable of a mature listening.  Your opening up in this manner can create a space for the other to share authentically with you as well, facilitating a healthy dialogue.  This could lead to either a deepening of a respectful and honest connect – or an amicable recognition for the need to part ways.

To me, both are higher outcomes than the sustaining of relations by means of a fear-driven silence.

One last point I would like to add… if we are unable to stand up for our self in our personal spaces, how are we going to be strong enough to stand up for what we believe in within the larger society?  And if not enough of us have the courage to make a stand, how do we expect to bring transformation in society?  There are many burning issues which often go unaddressed because of our reluctance to engage in difficult conversations.  It is simply easier and more convenient to remain silent.

So how will you choose?  To speak now, or to forever withhold your piece?

Photo credit: http://exploringart.blogspot.com/2011/06/little-guide-book-speak-up.html

“I always knew it.  This has confirmed what I have felt all along.  My son is special.  He is here for a reason.  God will not let him leave his work incomplete.”  The elegantly dressed lady epitomized poise and courage.

I listened in silence.  There is little one can say in such a situation.  Her twenty-three year old son was lying passively in the I.C.U.  His bike accident two months back had left him comatose. Nobody dared to speak about it openly, but there had been murmurs of “alcoholic”, “irresponsible” and “no hope” amongst the visitors.  The mother appeared to have heard none of all this.  She remained positive and stoic. During the brief visitations we were permitted, I would hear her whisper encouragement to the passive boy.  There was no sign that he could hear her, but she never gave up.

Later that night, a loud wailing pierced the eerie silence of the ICU..  The tension was acute.  Who had received the fatal news now?  But that was not the case.   This was another mother.  Another desperate, exhausted soul who cried out in sheer misery.

“Why? Why?” she sobbed as she was led to a chair by a nurse.  Everyone’s eyes had turned to her.  Another visitor gently reached out to pat her hand and console her. “Don’t worry.  He will be alright.”  That worsened her cries.  “No!  Don’t say that!  Enough!  Enough! Please let him die now. I cannot take this anymore.”   There were a couple of startled gasps.  Loud enough to reach her.  They seemed to ignite the anger raging in her.  “I shock you, do I? What do you know?  What do you know about how much we suffer every single day!  For the last three years.  Every day a battle to be fought.  Every breath a struggle.  You can sit there and judge me.  But if you only knew!   If you had only an ounce of compassion in you, you would join my pleas. Let him die.  Let him die now!”

The pain in her voice seared every listener in the room.  No-one wanted to know more details.  No-one wanted to answer the questions that arose in their mind. About themselves, their patients, the lady, her son.  None of them. For the first time in months, a crack appeared in the controlled veneer of the poised lady.  She grew white and one could see the churning within her.  Disgust, pity, anger, judgement – they all left a visible trace as the distasteful frown.  But as she continued to watch the helpless tears flow, she began to change.

She watched transfixed.  One mother seeing another.  One woman recognizing another.  One soul understanding another.  Just one tear appeared at the corner of her eye.  She did not wipe it away. Moving slowly, she went across to sit beside the weeping lady.  Sensing her intensity, the second lady grew silent.  In one long look  they exchanged stories of a lifetime.

Steeling the tremor in her voice, the first held both hands out and said, “Come, let us pray. I have prayed for my son to live and you – for your son to die.  But God has been trying to take away mine and keep yours alive. Perhaps we are not hearing the answer he has for us.  Let us change our prayers today.  Let us pray for grace.  Let us pray for the strength to trust.  For once – let us pray for us.”

The river flows ceaselessly,

The thirsty come when they must,

To drink only as much as they can,

Never less than what their heart desires,

Never more than what their mind understands.

The river flows perennially,

It allows them to be.

Whenever they choose to return,

They will be welcomed,

Warmly nourished, and set free.

I sketched an outline of the world I dreamed

And invited light to bring it to life

It poured in fluid, generous and colourful,

Spilling over, blurring the lines.

I was taken aback as before my eyes

All the boundaries melted away

And though this was not what I had wanted,

It was better in its own way.

Light can leave no crevices unlit,

Vacuums unfilled,

Or shadows hidden,

It does not discriminate between what “should be”

And all that can happen.

With equal acceptance and loving grace for both

The canvas was now filled

With a bright and complete universe

There was some surprise,

Some grief and even some regret

For my surrendered plans

That had been laid to rest.

Yet, eventually I raised my hands

In grateful prayer

With a heart full of thanks…

It may have taken a while,

But finally,

Now, I understand.

An inner landscape artist.  Is there such a term?  Because I get flummoxed when I have to describe what I do.  Author, facilitator, life coach, healer – these are some of the terms I use lightly.  To try and keep it brief.  But the truth is that I do little other than tending to my inner landscape.

I lovingly go around tilling the soil and allowing it to breathe.  I remove the hardened rocks of pain, the shards of shattered dreams and the pieces of heart walls that may yet remain.   I clear the straggling weeds of worry and persistent runners of anxiety, acknowledging that their time is up now.  I thank them for filling my landscape and distracting me when I had little else.  Now, I thoughtfully plant the flowers that bring colour and fragrance to my world.  I patiently tend to the saplings of trees that sometimes take years to bear fruit or offer shade.  I marvel at the fanciful butterflies and singing birds that these bring.

I lie down on the grassy meadows whose warm texture of earth and grass nurture the spinning of fresh worlds.  Idly I watch the clear blue skies and occasionally build or zap clouds for the fun of knowing I can.  I meander along the babbling brook –all the while realizing that its song comes from the obstructions it surmounts.  I rest my feet in the cold, sparkling water of life, knowing that it constantly changes.  Constantly reinvents itself and it’s path.   I follow the stream to the inevitable ocean, where I can spend hours listening to the soothing waves ebb and flow in their natural grace.

And in this peaceful inner world, that welcomes all – breeze and storms alike – I invite others.  I introduce them to the space of light. Of this freedom to be.  To taste and smell and feel the richness of the tapestry that we together weave.  And ever so often, they relax back into themselves.  They discern between the noise in the world, and their true heart song.  They imbibe the nourishment that can only come from meeting the moment, the here and the now.  And once they are well accustomed to their own vibe, they leave.  Sometimes to return for another rest, sometimes for a celebration.  Sometimes to grieve the loss of what they never wanted to let go of.

Eventually, they too find their own inner worlds.  And begin to enjoy their garden of loving serenity.  So now they return to exchange notes or share snapshots of their beautiful creations. Once in a while, inviting me to share their new horizons.

And we smile with shared happiness and remain rooted in peace.

First published on FB on Monday, August 31, 2009 at 1:14pm

When you accept what you resist
You can completely let it go

When you choose to forgive
You realize you hurt no more

When you learn to enjoy aloneness
You start to value togetherness

When you allow yourself to fly freely
You begin to love the feel of earth

When given choice and freedom
You find commitment is preferred

When you explore who you don’t want to be
You allow your true self to emerge

When you have claimed your power
You are willing to surrender it without a word

When you practice discipline
You understand the relevance of free flow

When you stop seeking answers outside
You realize you already Know

That which we run from – chases us.

Uncomfortable situations, tasks, conversations and emotions are often avoided.  We either run away from them, or wish they will go away.  If nothing else, we hope that they may magically resolve on their own, as with time – most things tend to sort themselves out.  Right?  Not necessarily true in all cases.

If we can find the courage to dive deeply into exactly that which we wish to avoid – we find that it soon loses its sting.  We are amazingly adaptable beings and if we give our self the chance, our reactions can soon be moderated by facing the challenge squarely in the eye. But when ignored, threats to our comfort zone actually turn into limiting walls which prevent us from achieving our full potential.

A simple example is the amount of energy that gets trapped by guilt caused by procrastination.  This blog post started as a consequence of noticing how much ease and freedom I am experiencing from having gotten around to preparing my tax returns.  Despite being well qualified and adept in financial matters, that is still one of my least favourite tasks.  As I now sit back in satisfaction, having faced what I had been avoiding (for weeks) – I am reminded of the many different contexts in which I have noticed this message. Here are some diverse examples:

• If you have ever gone swimming in cold waters, you will agree that it is far easier to plunge in, rather than testing the temperature with your toes.

• In an autobiography of a forensic doctor, he mentions how the best way to deal with the stench of dead bodies is not to cover your nose, but instead, to take a deep whiff of the odour!  Apparently, the smell sense desensitizes after receiving this initial, powerful odour and he found he could then continue to work without distraction.

• A less dramatic and more graded treatment commonly used to treat phobias (in cognitive behavioural therapy) is systematic desensitization or exposure therapy. Herein, the person is gradually exposed to increasing levels of what he or she fears in a safe and controlled manner.  A substantial proportion of persons respond to this line of treatment.

• NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) uses a process to release strong emotions or beliefs, in which the person is asked to assume the ‘Cook’s Hook-up’ position and is then given the command to “Feel it as strongly as you can, as clearly as you can, until you just can’t feel it anymore”.  While having the person dive deeply into the feeling, this statement and position enable release.

• In an inspiring book “I’d rather laugh:  How to be happy even when life has other plans”, Linda Richman suggests throwing yourself a “Pity Party”.  She describes how she sat in Shiva (mourning) for twice the traditional period when her young son died.  She did not feel she had gone through all her emotions.   Linda’s idea of a “pity party” is to stay in bed, stay miserable, watch sad movies, cry and so forth – until you just can’t do it anymore.  And after a point, you cannot.   Once she had acknowledged and lived her grief fully, she could recover.  But how many of us have that much faith in our own resilience?  To accept and allow what we are feeling so thoroughly – that we can finally arrive at a subsequent peace?

• The Buddhist practice of Tonglen advises us to “Breath in Pain, Breathe out Joy”.  Pema Chodron’s site explains this beautifully.  My own experience and understanding of this practise has deepened over the years and I find Tonglen to be a wonderful way of dealing with any worry.

• Personally, I believe that one of the significant contributors to the efficacy of tools like EFT, TAT and dynamind is the fact that they allow the feelings and situation to be described as it is.  You do not have to jump into any positive statements that you do not believe, but can fully express everything – just the way it is in the moment.  This provides an immense freedom from feelings that have been denied or suppressed up to this point.

• The fundamental fear of death can be a significant influence on the choices we make.  It is not uncommon for persons who have had to face this fear due to illness, accident or some form of Near Death Experience, to celebrate life far more fully than before.

To conclude, perhaps the most direct route to inner peace is found by braving our way through the storms, rather than trying to navigate around them.

After all, the rainbow comes after the rains.

Related articles:  Breathe in Pain, Breathe Out Joy, Sparkling Stillness

Finding my way to “Inner Peace” with Kung Fu Panda and friends turned out to be more entertaining then I had expected.  My sister was using her Navigator to help her with driving instructions.  I am more accustomed to using Google Maps and studying the directions beforehand.  So this constant interaction with the Navigator was most interesting.

Despite the monotonous voice, the ‘Lady’ seemed to have a mind of her own.  Her instructions sounded firm and one had the feeling that disobeying her would lead to dire consequences.  Every time we ignored her suggestions, there would be urgent cries for correction.  As the turns were ignored, there were sulky announcements that she was ‘recalculating’.  She would come back with a set of new instructions and every few metres there would be a fresh warning that we needed to turn.  It soon became a cat and mouse game – wherein I was now seeing this unknown person as a character that could be teased.  You could literally push her buttons by making unplanned detours.  This would leave the ‘Lady’ troubled and confused.  Resolutely, she would return with a fresh set of instructions and the more chaos I created, the more frequent were her warnings.  Now her nagging and repeated instructions were beginning to annoy me.  So I finally put the device on mute.  But after completing a few errands, the mischievous temptation to trouble the device returned.  I was beginning to miss this Lady that I had created in my head.  When I got back in the car, the silence was noticeable. As though I had finally won in this game of advice and disobedience and caused a gloom to descend on this helpful Lady.  This result was not very enjoyable.    So I gave the Lady her voice back.  For a while we followed her directions and the thought came that she was recovering her composure.  This perception was hilarious, but nevertheless – almost believable.  The voice seemed more even and the instructions more spaced out.  Then at one juncture we took an unmapped bridge and she began crying out ‘Drive on the highlighted road’ in what sounded like a panic stricken voice.

Laughingly, I finally ended the whole drama and switched off the Navigator.

This is exactly what we do in life.

We project our own stories on another and create a complete character and drama that is entirely based on our own perceptions.  I was able to give this  monotonous, artificially generated voice a whole personality effortlessly.  I could imagine her trials and her relief with equal ease.   Her temperament was read as bossy, efficient, sulky, troublesome, concerned or helpful – all as per my interpretation of her ‘reaction’ to my choices.

All this while – knowing fully well that this was simply a game and that too one that I was playing with a piece of artificial intelligence.  My choices were simply generating effects which were being spelled out by a neutral voice.  But  I was taking this response personally and attributing qualities to the voice.

No wonder our life dramas are so much more complex and engaging.  Wherein we are completely lost in the stories we have created and can totally lose track of our contribution to the whole scenario.  We are unable to see any hope for change, because we have not learned to recognize the sound of the voice in our head.  We become victims in dramas that pack in so much noise, that one forgets to look for the mute button.

Pause.

Listen with discernment.

Look again.

The road to the Sparkling Stillness within each of us becomes apparent only when we slow down enough to see it.