Thursday 19 April 2012

What stress did to me.....

Today I noticed something I have over looked while introspecting myself and my life for repetitive patterns. I saw I was a working woman when i was trying to sustain something, ie my independence or regaining my independence after my separation. I was under huge stress at the time. I was living with a lot of responsibilities post that time period, as a single mom.Life as we all know doesn't have single track story lines, so you can imagine the levels of stress were very high. My life, every day was a long long list of things to do. Every minute of the day was filled. To wake up the next day and start all over. I lived in constant stress financially,emotionally and physically. I pushed and pushed myself.

Do you know what happened, when finally the time came, when some of the stress eased off. I agree all my problems didn't vanish . However, the more I practised my tools, life did become less stressful. I learnt to handle situations better. I learnt not to take comments seriously, from people who haven't taken the time to know me. Yet marriage does kind of reduce emotional insecurities to an extent. The financial load is also kind of divided. I suddenly started having more time at hand, and this time was not being spent, preventing or putting out any fires. It was just, free time!!! Do you know what it did to me? I started getting bored. I had always been solving problems, was on my toes morning to night and constantly figuring out things. Now I had a chance to lie back and do nothing. I started feeling worthless. Not literally but the nearest explanation I can find to explain the kind of boredom i was feeling. I berated myself for being laid back, not using the time constructively, finding problems real or imaginary to solve.

It took a long good hard look at myself to realise, maybe I was so used to stress, I couldn't enjoy a life without it. I constantly needed something to solve or do to feel good. I know, thing things are not yet that good, that I can afford all the things I wanted to do. ie: I've always wanted to learn pottery and guitar lessons. First I need to be able to afford the classes and the instruments required. I know, all in good time. Yet, I was fretting about but my hours are being spent idle and that resulted in me actually not accomplishing much during the day.

I remember the time, writing a short story was so easy for me, all I had to do was lie down and let my imagination take over and there I had short story of the day. my first short story got published when I was just 16!!! Now when I lie back, I have a purpose in my mind, an idea must come, I must channelise, I just have to write. The pressure took away all the pleasure and my imagination shut its door on my face.

I realise today, there is a time and place for everything. Discipline is good, pro action is good, hard work is good, being constructive is good, but its better to live, to enjoy every part of the process, and not to rush things that makes doing anything worthwhile. Stress is not only bad for health, it causes burnout. Its important to take a deep breath and remind our self, everything is not a matter of life and death. Though initially anxiety may seem to be fuel to you, as it pushes you to do more and more, better and better, remember stress and anxiety use you as their fuel. Soon, you will be just an empty shell. I find my CFS ( chronic fatigue syndrome) was a blessing in disguise. I did only things on need to do basis, gave rest to my body, mind and heart. As i got better, I started doing things just to enjoy the process. There was no binding compulsion to write everyday and weirdly I started writing almost everyday.

Today, I am grateful for realising, how much stress was eating away at me. I'm grateful for the tools I have, that I can use to release it. I am thankful for the reminder life is beautiful, but only for those who stop to take in the beauty of life.Stress only side-blinds you, never allowing you to see the beauty on the roadside, your fellow passengers or the beautiful sky lines. The more I let go of stress, the more beauty I allow in my life.....

Monday 16 April 2012

On relationships and love.....

A woman doesn't have to take things lying down
http://spiritualconquests.blogspot.in/2011/11/im-not-sitathank-god.html

To my readers who are finding it difficult to let go of a person the thought was "the one"
http://spiritualconquests.blogspot.in/2011/11/radha-its-time.html

too many relationships are not a great thing
http://spiritualconquests.blogspot.in/2011/11/like-note-thats-changed-hands-once-too.html

what happens when a relationship ends? One more than the other gets a raw deal....
http://spiritualconquests.blogspot.in/2011/12/death-of-relationship.html

A divorce is painful, its scars can last a lifetime....
http://spiritualconquests.blogspot.in/2011/12/when-two-people-lose.html

Love does make the world go round, love deserves a chance...
http://spiritualconquests.blogspot.in/2011/12/spoonful-of-sugar.html

Holidays are no fun when you're single, or when they are too many demands on you....
http://spiritualconquests.blogspot.in/2011/12/holiday-blues.html

Some people just suck the life out of you, do you have to deal with such people
http://spiritualconquests.blogspot.in/2011/12/emotional-vampires.html

Glories are written about a forgiving heart, yet forgiveness is a process....
http://spiritualconquests.blogspot.in/2011/12/before-forgiveness.html

How to carry on with your life, after a devastating break up....
http://spiritualconquests.blogspot.in/2011/12/picking-up-pieces.html

Your mind/ego screams you want your lover back....do you really?
http://spiritualconquests.blogspot.in/2012/01/i-want-him-back.html

Asking for help and then receiving it can be very hard on self reliant people, I understand....
http://spiritualconquests.blogspot.in/2012/01/i-need-help.html

A rude awakening and major changes in life can shake anyone's confidence, but are are you giving into your fears....
http://spiritualconquests.blogspot.in/2012/01/afraid-of-moving-forward.html

Starting a new relationship, finding the perfect mate....its a wild goose chase...
http://spiritualconquests.blogspot.in/2012/01/in-search-of-love.html

Cheating breaks hearts, it destroys a person from the inside, you have the power to say No, whatever the role you're playing...
http://spiritualconquests.blogspot.in/2012/01/i-dont-want-to-be-alone.html

Tips and technique, tools and guidance from someone whose been then, done that.....
http://spiritualconquests.blogspot.in/2012/01/i-dont-want-to-be-alone2.html

Trying everything in your power to get over a broken heart? here's help, yes its a manual.....
http://spiritualconquests.blogspot.in/2012/01/broken-hearts-anonymous-how-to-overcome.html

Pitfalls to avoid and signs to look out for, is your partner serious about you or conning you....read between the lines....
http://spiritualconquests.blogspot.in/2012/01/i-will-never-get-married-to-you.html

Its not easy, but it can be done, staying friends with your ex....

Sunday 15 April 2012

There is no God...?

I have seen people keep their faith, when things are normal in their life. Through hardships, they struggle to keep their faith. There are times though, when despite their prayers, the situation goes from bad to worse and they is no solution in sight, they begin to lose hope and worse they begin to lose faith. I have heard , time and again, people lash out and say, there is no God, there is no such thing as God. If there is a God, where is he, why isn't he responding to my prayers? why isn't he helping me? I do understand the frustration, yet there is certain clarity required in their perception.

First thing first, faith is not faith,, when doubt enters every time something goes contrary to your wish or desire. God has nothing to do with your good phase or your bad phase. These things are determined prior to your birth, by your higher selves, keeping in mind your karma, karmic balance, lessons, experiences to be had. You always have a free will and choice, especially regards to your attitude. The more you resist, the tighter the knot gets and the more you prolong that phase or lesson of yours. Acceptance with grace and total surrender to the situation at hand, saves your own energies to be used more proactively.

Second, God, is not Santa Claus, an anaesthesia or pain killer. He is not there to do your bidding and provide you with everything you ask for. If you have pain, he has given you tools to deal with it. If you can't find the tools seek help and accept the situation , instead of rubbishing it.We beg him for a job, a spouse love, heal my child, we ask him to reward us for all the years of our faith in him. We demand miracles. We want our problems to go away now. We are filled with anger at the injustice, we believe he is meting out to us.

Third, God, is the creator. Much like a person, who build a machine, that now operates at auto pilot, he set the universe in motion, thousands of years ago. He is not sitting idle next to the machine he created, listening to every component complain about how hard they work, how though things are.

Fourth, Prayers help you for sure. We do not go to a temple, church or mosque, as a hotline to God. We go their to align our self with the light. The light, being purely white, consists of every color possible. Whatever, that is missing in us be in mind, heart , body or else where, gets a replenishment of that color. When the light washes our entire being in its pure radiance, we find our bearings and calm down. Once that happens, solutions that were evading us , start coming to us, much like oiling in the machinery reducing the friction and improves the performance.

God , our supreme creator , the almighty exists. He doesn't need us to believe. If we do and when we do, we are aligned to his light and the divine in us enables us to become co-creators.He is his creation. We know only a small percentage of his creations, yet , he is evident in his perfect creations. The galaxies, the planets, the flora and fauna. Every flower that blossoms, regardless of a gardener present or not proves he takes care of all his creations. There is a joke, its so apt today. One a scientist goes to God and says, we don't need you anymore. We have figured out how to create man. God smiles and says Show me....The scientist bends down to take a fistful of dirt and God stops him and says, use your own dirt....!!!!

I have gone through very very bad times, Ive gone without food, I was apart from my son for two years.A divorce, heartbreak, giving up on dreams, abuse, financial crisis ....Yet faith is not like seasons that changes with every changing phase. I learnt, I have a great listener in God, who does not judge . He listens and if you sit very quiet, you feel his embrace. you her him whispering to you. If you stop making God into something you can understand cerebrally with tangible proof. If you seek God as your personal genie or trouble shooter, you are setting yourself up for a disappointment. You are not him. He sent you to live, to experience, to deal to cope, to learn and to grow. The manual, is your very life, introspection is a tool, watch the patterns that repeat in your life, observe your thought and repetitive feelings. If you believe you do not deserve better, what does God have to do with it. You learn patience, you learn compassion, empathy, unconditional love, trust and much more in a single life time, but only if you're willing to learn. If you are a reluctant student, no teacher can teach yo, if you only want to hear what you wish to hear, you will never grow.

God, is not debatable, you can choose today, to change your perception of God. You can make him your best friend, lover or parent but please do get over the perception, he is there to serve you....One last thing, you may chose to believe in God, or not, but he believes in you...that's why you are here....

Saturday 14 April 2012

Waiting for our dues......

My husband says, a process is always more interesting than the outcome. I don't know about that. I do know, when you're in the middle of a process, your mind can leave you in a tizzy. A process seems endless, and a lot of time you end up wondering if anything is worth it? The process, be it of farming, or looking for a job, or a spiritual conquest. The journey always is unpredictable, it throws you off the track, it shakes up your assumptions, it brings forth suppressed fears. One of the biggest fears, we all face regarding one aspect or another, I notice in usually two areas of life monetary and relationships. We have deep rooted beliefs, we don't deserve better. We attract situations to validate this belief, then we try our best to overcome, every obstacle we have manifested / attracted but deny to our self permanent victories.

My first marriage was a lonely one. Trust me; there is nothing worse than a lonely marriage. It damages everything, from your self esteem, to your capacity to enjoy any of life's pleasure. The scars remain with you, no matter how much time has passed. Yesterday, I had an epiphany. I understood, why although I’ve forgiven, let go of my past, released anger, there was always one part of me lingering in the past. A part of me that felt unfulfilled and empty, like it needed something. I understood, most of us, wait for the very same thing, all our lives, without being able to pin-point, what it is that still hooks us with our past.

 It is the desire for justice. By justice I do not mean the front row to karmic payback. The suffering of those, who were our perpetrators, gives us no relief. We do not seek revenge, though we may day dream of it from time to time. What I mean by justice, is compensation. You do a job, with full dedication, hard work, using all your talents, at the end of the month; your compensation is your pay cheque. It becomes your right. When that is denied to you, you keep waiting for it, sometimes you ask for it, when it doesn't come, anger, resentment and several other negative emotions fill your heart. For everything we do, there is a consequence, there is also a something that becomes due to you, and it becomes your right. Sure we all have been taught to do our Karmas and not desire the fruit. We may drop the desire, yet our subconscious also knows when we have been denied, something that was rightfully ours.

 We may not be aware, we're waiting for an apology, a letter of gratitude, payment for our work, equal rights, equal love and attention from your parents, a right to express our inner most thoughts, we may be waiting for our turn to come, or a break to prove our self, maybe all we are waiting for is for someone to truly understand us and love and accept us the way we are. All our spiritual tools help us shrug off most negative emotional charges, they help us focus on the good we have, to seek the blessings in our current situations, but none can take away the charge from truth. Truth is light itself. Our rights, our dues, our compensations are truths, that our mind may not grasp or word but our heart knows and so does so does our  sub conscious. This waiting keeps us hooked to the past, regardless of all our attempts to get over, move on, get past.

Someone ones asked me, why I still talk about my ex-husband. If, I have forgiven him, and moved on? Yes its true, most of my wounds have healed. Yet, I understood last night, I'm still waiting for some compensation, due to me, due to the wife, who gave up so much of herself, came out shards of her former self. Compensation for the trust betrayed. Compensation for her goodness that went un-noticed, unrewarded. Compensation, for the fact, that I continued to believe goodness of his heart. It’s not only him. A lot of situations in life makes one feel that way. As though, the very universe has denied you, your dues. Especially, when you never lost hope, or faith, when you continued to do everything by the book and yet, your struggles never end.

Today, what I've written, is a process. A sorting, if you must, and understanding, that is beginning to emerge. What the end result or deduction will be, I do not know. The solution to how to let go of this desire for compensation, I have yet to understand, yet I found, the insight interesting enough to share. Perhaps, like me, all you're waiting for, is compensation or your dues. I will ask you, what I asked myself...Is the waiting helping me or anybody, in any way? Is it worth it? Is it worth repeating drama patterns, just so you can feel validated? If you knew you were right, why do you need any one, including the universe to pat you on the back and say good job? I don't have too many answers right now, but the insight is important. And more important for me was the realization, NO, it’s not worth it, any hook from the past, positive or negative, is taking away the charge from my NOW, from my present, and that is not worth it.

I did find an affirmation, in the book of Louise Hay, I'm sharing it with you, with alterations I've made to it. I hope it will help you and it will help me. " I release the past and allow myself to heal every area of my life NOW, I release all hooks, tying me to the past, Now, with blessings and gratitude, for all the things it enriched me with. I release, Now, the need for the patterns to repeat” (or any other need, such as poverty, unstable relationships, lack of intimacy, victimization etc )
With faith and grace.....

Thursday 12 April 2012

What makes Life worth Living

Today, I woke up , edgy and restless. A question kept going on in my brain in a loop. This is actually quite frustrating, because your brain does not pause enough to listen to the answer. I do believe, every question, has within it, the answer to the question. The question that haunted me this morning was, what makes life worth living? I posed this question to several of my friends. Very few respond to serious questions. A joke garners a lot more response. Yet a did get a few serious replies. I narrowed down my own answer along with the few replies I had received. I broadly categorised the answers and came to an understanding. As everything else, all answers belonged to one of these categories. Wealth/ Fiances, Romance/ Relationships, Career/Ego and just a couple in the Spiritual realm. Strangely enough not one answer, including mine referred to our physical well being or health.

I do agree, good sex, great relationships with lover, family etc, a great career and no worries of money do make life easy, more fun perhaps. The question still remained, What makes life, worth living? I mean, I know we come down to gather experiences, we learn lessons, undo mistakes, balance our karma and all that, yet, it can't just be our survival instinct , that makes us want to live, to beat the odds. What makes a cripple beggar want to live. What relationships, career or wealth or even physical well being, makes him want to evade death? In all these aspects we all see highs and lows, victories and losses, and hope for the good times, aspirations of betterment keeps us on our toes. This still did not answer my question.

I tried to look for an answer within the question. I got two answers. A worthy life and LIVING. A worthy life, is something each individual defines for themselves. Its not just social workers or philanthropists who lead a worthy life. A world without entrepreneurs, artists, poets, actors , writers would be dry, drab and dull. What would a day be like with no music or good food. A person defines for himself, using existing parameters to define a life well lived and Worthy. That explains the answers I received.

The more simple and yet complex answers was LIVING. What defines living. A life where every moment is filled with activity, or where every moment is enjoyed. Every moment, when you feel alive, when you are growing , learning, experiencing, that in a gist perhaps defines living. Be in the moment, live in the now, all wise men and maxims point us in the direction of the NOW. Living every moment in the NOW, is the most difficult for most of us to achieve, we live both in the past and the future, never mindful of the present. I figured, if just living and now was what we were meant to be doing, how is it that life becomes so complicated.

Do we not have barometers inside us to tell us how our individual life is panning out. What does another soul's journey become our parameter on how to lead our lives. For every individual a different thing makes them happy, fulfilled and fills them with passion. Its doing different things for each of us that fills us with wonder or a desire to strive for. Our goals, our lessons, our experiences are all very different. What makes Life worth living? Yes the answer, simple as it may be, remains, Living. Doing things that makes us feel alive, doing it to the best of our abilities and regardless of obstacles and against all odds. To be, just be in our natural state, in the now, is what makes life worthwhile. Living as Me........makes my life worth living....

Wednesday 11 April 2012

The dark cloud and the silver lining.....

Did I beat the CFS I was suffering from since January this year? Well for most parts. This year has been particularly hard. It started with my husband not having a job and not receiving payment from his last job. I went through CFS, which left me utterly exhausted and confused. Yet like they say, every cloud has a silver lining. This phase of my life too showed me several silver linings. For one, when you have no money, its so easy to figure out who loves you for who you are, and not for your power, fame , money or any other reason.

 Strangely enough, in the worst of my times, I have found my friends surrounding me. They sort of form a protective circle around. One friend, I know only from a social networking site, calls me up from out of the blue, says motivating words to me, offers help. Another one paid my phone bill. A third friend, made sure he came to visit me , more than usual, to talk to me, make me laugh, to encourage me to step out for short spans of time. Weirdly enough ,when I was out of groceries and with no money, I found myself being asked out for dinner, more than I was in the entire year. I have felt so loved as I can ever hope to be.

I found myself planning to take up a job, once my son's vacations are over. I found myself getting excited again about pursuing my hobbies like swimming.After years I wanted to learn to play the guitar and take up pottery. I did a few paintings along side my son. I ended up seeing the tender side of my husband and the mature side of my son. Yesterday, things got so bad, I had to sell of certain personal items to pay the monthly bills and yet, I was not anxious, bitter or depressed. I found a deep calmness running deep within myself. I realized the past three months, though they were difficult on my body, they made me strong from the inside.Now forgiveness, is not just a technique, it flows naturally. Faith does not waiver and prayers happen automatically. My intuition became clearer than ever. I found negative energies directed toward me, no longer affect me or my moods. A peace has descended.

My ramblings are not without purpose. What I learnt through this entire process, this phase of physical weakness and monetary bleakness was, these things do not affect you, unless you allow them to. I learnt, there is definitely a reason why something happens. The surface maybe, what is tangible to us, yet most important work happens within us. If only we let go and let the process happen naturally, take its own course, in its due time, we will not get exhausted mentally. The process will strengthen us from where it matters the most. A car needs to stop running and sit in a garage for it to get serviced. From time to time, we all go through phases that compel us to pause , force us to sit down. Things do not go the way we desire. We do not have jobs, or relationships that work. We may suffer from humiliation, abuse or illness. It is hard to accept when someone says, check your premise, you have attracted this situation in your life. We may not have attracted the situation in our life, we may not like the circumstances, yet, it always gives us something in return. It may leave you with an awareness of your inner strength, compassion, empathy, spirituality or new ideas. The trick is to not let the circumstances exhaust your mind. For that, you just have to let things happen. Do not spend too much energy thinking about it or try to fight it off. Efforts in the correct direction, reap the rewards a a later stage much like a filed needs to be ploughed, fertilised before the seeds are sown. you do not reap the plants immediately, you continue to water and tend, only when the crops are ripe do you harvest. Every thing in life has a process and every process has its own cycle and time for completion.

One thing that helped me, and I'd like to share, was closing my eyes and taking in white light from my crown chakra and my third eyes and giving the intention of it reaching every pore and cell in my body. Hope this helps you too....