Experiences & Stories
How’s it going?
- Good!
How’s it really going?
- It’s alright man.
No tell me really!
- Well… It’s ok, just a few things that are stressing me out.
Ah well, that’s life. Something good will come out of them.
- Really!! After all that pestering to tell you what was really going on, I begin to open up and that’s what you have to say?
A pretty valid reaction, I’d say, if a well intentioned friend were to start philosophizing, instead of sympathizing.
As I sat down at my work desk today, I suddenly felt very grateful for some things that are happening in my life, things that are going right. Simultaneously it occurred to me that a lot of unpleasant things have led me to these good things, so I must be grateful to them too. And behind this sudden shift is simply being more connected with myself. As vague as this sounds, it’s increased my confidence and self-belief that I can deal with anything that comes my way, till the time I give attention to whatever gets triggered inside. And not bottle up emotions and stride on — that’s how I lived until recently, without room for any weakness, the motto then was “If you feel weakness in your inner consciousness, don’t let it through. Keep moving ahead”. And this isn’t all bad, it can keep us going for a while. But we will lose steam eventually. At least I did.
I didn’t get depressed, but my enthusiasm for life was declining. My energy was lower. The size of the list of things I wanted to do was larger, but so was the gap between what I was doing and what I was meaning to do. I had terrible days, only seeing what wasn’t working out in life. How the world wasn’t like I wanted it to be. “Was I realizing my true potential doing what I was doing? Or should I doing something else?” These were things always bothering me, coming in the way of things on that list, draining my energy to act. People around me would be full of appreciation and sometimes even awe. But I thought they were either lying or stupid. Because I myself was full of self doubt.
At that point had a friend said “maybe something good will come out of this” I would’ve felt like smacking him or her. But now I genuinely feel I wouldn’t change a thing. That period is responsible for getting me to where I am. I’m not any better off in terms of things that were bothering me. They still bother me, and I’m still far from my personal goals. It’s just a shift in how I process what is happening, what is reality. It’s not even a huge shift, it’s actually quite subtle. But it’s remarkable nonetheless.
What is it? What has changed? I feel it’s that I’ve learnt to open that door and welcome whatever is knocking. There’s probably enough bottled up for me to discover one new thing every day for the rest of my life. But every day as I discover something new, or something I’ve already discovered but with a new flavour, I feel more evolved. I feel lighter. I feel more energized. I get new ideas. I see new possibilities. I see how everything I’m doing, and all the opportunities I’m sensing, are all aligning every day, towards all the goals I have for myself. I’m not focusing on how far I’m from the goal anymore. I’m focusing on what seems like the right thing to do today. Trying to give it my full attention. And while doing so trying to drop the thought of the goal. The thought of the goal makes me worry. It makes me think of everything that can go wrong. There’s merit in that kind of thinking. It’s important. But I try to make time for it separately. I try to not let it bother me at all times. So I now set time aside to sit and reflect, just reflect. When I’m in action mode, I don’t want to reflect. Or foresee. When I do sense this “what-if-it doens’t-happen” fear, I let it in. I talk to it, I tell it that I’m aware it’s there, and I value what it’s trying to tell me. I assure it that I’ll address it. The fear lives inside me, but I’ve made room for it. It only bothers me when I deny it my attention. And it feels the need to be heard, because it has to tell me something important. So it keeps knocking. I sit pretending not to hear, but fuming inside. That’s what I try for not to happen now. It does happen, but as soon as I sense it, I let it in.
Becoming friends with my feelings has been fun. And it’s made life more fun. I’ve been meaning to blog and write for years, and now I’m writing my first post. I think it’s because of this shift.
Now I think of my self from last year, reading this post from my future self. My past self will have no idea what to do. How to be, or how to act, to create this shift. This will add to his worries.
So, what really can one do? One thing for sure is to be open. Even when I was under all that stress, I was open to ideas, people, and experiences. I happened to meet some people who were more evolved, and were able to speak to me in a language that resonated. Wherever I felt a connection, I spoke about my concerns and vulnerabilities. I recognized that my way of being was not serving me anymore, and got convinced that I need to drop it. In theory I’d been reading about all of this for a while, but it only formed into something tangible when it did. I can’t really tell yet what really worked. I do know a big shift happened when I attended a 2 days workshop on meditation and mindfulness which introduced these concepts in a way that resonated with me. But even from that experience, I can’t say what it was that really flipped the switch. And I know how frustrating it is to read such posts and not get any ideas on a tangible action.
So here’s one idea. Today when I was being all thankful, and realized that the switch happened at the workshop, I randomly started tracing back to see how I ended up there. And that made me realize that literally, my entire life led me to it. Now, I’m a strict atheist, and a self confessed roller-of-eyes to things like “the universe aligned to make this happen for me”. You say the word universe in front of me and I won’t be able to help but roll my eyes at you. So I laughed to myself as I thought this thought today, inwardly rolling my eyes at myself. But then I thought of many other good things that have happened. And let’s just look at it logically, how could it have happened if it wasn’t for everything that happened before. Here’s the flowchart I made, and what inspired this post.
This is a very simplified chain, and can go on and on. Additionally, each link will have it’s own chain. If I take it to another extreme, the “universe” type, I can even say facebook got created so I could attend that workshop. Let’s not go there though!
Many of the links in this chart were actually unpleasant experiences, at the time. In fact, none of these were purely pleasant experiences. All I’m trying to say is that all the good that has happened, is because of all the good and bad that has happened prior to it. And while all of us have moments when we get into “only if this hadn’t happened…” we all also have some peak experience that we would never want to replace. But those experiences wouldn’t have happened had it not been for the ones before, including the unpleasant ones. That’s my takeaway from this little exercise this morning. Everything good that’s ever happened is because of all the good, bad, neutral, and boring experiences from the past. So let’s just sit back and enjoy the show, and eagerly await what’s about to happen next? Knowing that many good and bad things lie ahead. And maybe someday we reach such an understanding that we feel events are just events, neither good nor bad!
