Why do we fill the space between us with layers of past experiences? unclear expectations eyes covered hearts sealed Where we once danced freely to the rhythm of our hearts We are now screaming incomprehensible words feeling more and more alone together
It’s been a long time since I had taken the time to sit and write here. I do write in my journal a bit more often, and I realize that my reflections tend to go in circles. It is as if I had at least two inner voices. One is the limited one that keeps falling back into old patterns of behavior that only bring stress and distress, and the other one is the one that “knows better” but unfortunately isn’t always heard by the first one until it is too late.
All in all, however, I think I have managed to more or less keep my peace of mind for most of the Fall semester. There have been some small challenges and some bigger ones, and one thing that always helps is to tell myself that worrying on its own will never bring solutions. So, I do what I can, and let go of the worry. It requires work, but I am getting there.
I am grateful for the people that surround me. My husband, my kids, my colleagues, and my friends. I have allowed myself to experience new things this Fall, mingle with new people, and it has brought lightness and moments of fun to my everyday life. I have decided I need to dance more, but since I am not super keen to go to nightclubs at this stage in life, I have found alternative arenas to do so, and every time I spend some hours dancing, I feel lighter in my head, and my body feels relaxed. I join from time to time something called The 5rythms, such a cool way to let the body move! I believe dancing is a very nice way to express ourselves. I think I can compare dancing with the asana practice. When I do my asana practice, I go into a flow of movement and breath and that makes me feel safe and light. It is the same when I dance.
I still need to work on being assertive at the right time. I tend to put aside what I need or want because I am afraid to make the other person feel bad, or because I don’t want to be seen as ‘difficult’. The problem is that when I don’t clearly express my needs, small frustrations keep accumulating, and I end up coming to a point where I lose my patience and all the accumulated frustration comes out in a rather hurtful way.
In my defense, I have been trying to figure out what are “reasonable” expectations towards the few close people I have in my life. I have thus come to the conclusion that no expectation that causes distress can be a reasonable expectation. My internal needs are nobody’s responsibility but mine. I need to work on them. We all go around with our own luggage and the more I experience, the more I realize that I just have to let people be and do as they best can and rather focus on what I do and say. I think I will bring two keywords to 2023 with me: compassion and understanding. Both towards my own limitations and towards others.
There is another side to this reflection, and that is to stop seeking what is not to be found in certain people. Sometimes this means turning around and walking away from a relationship, other times it means releasing that relationship from wanting the person to do something he/she isn’t able to do.
Lastly, I really need to work on using the tools I have learned through my Yoga studies. Use my breath to be present, let go of my tangling thoughts, and keep redirecting my attention inwards.
I hope, that in 2023, I will finally come closer to setting my mind free from the limitations I have been struggling with all these years and start focusing on what is really important.
Whilst drowning on one thought Sitting in front of my laptop For a moment I lift my gaze Who catches the beautiful patterns the clouds make in the early evening sky Why obsess about the one thing that didn't go my way today? I ask myself When my world is full of wonders And while contemplating the vastness and awesomness of the world and the Universe I remember what I have most at hand Me
Three green leaves
I held you tight
Under the sun
and in the stormy weather
As seasons change
You gradually transform into
Beautiful bright colors
Getting ready to
Free yourselves from my grip
and graciously fly with the wind
In the meantime
I am thankful for each moment
I can still hold you
Close to me
Most of us experience if not often, at least at some point in life wanting something that is difficult to get or even that we cannot have. I remember when we were trying to have our first child. It took us a while, and at some point, we were told we probably wouldn’t be able to without ‘help’ from specialists. I remember the feeling of desperation and helplessness. Of feeling that it wasn’t fair. Why us, why me? We talked a lot about it and decided we didn’t want to go through the process of trying with in vitro. I tried to understand why I had such a strong need to become a mother.
Thinking back, I think I was still relatively immature, but I was able to understand that I had a need to nurture someone, to give love to someone. I said this to my husband, and we decided that it didn’t matter if the baby was born from us or not. We contacted adoption agencies to start the process of adoption.
It turns out that the Universe had other plans for us, and I got pregnant some months after we received the papers with the information, and not only did we have one child but three! Almost one after the other.
I have had other periods in my life where I have felt a similar lack like the one when we were struggling to conceive. I have wanted to have something that I don’t have. Maybe the need to become a mum wasn’t the first need I felt in my life that was difficult to fulfill, and it certainly wasn’t the only one.
Yoga came to my life in one of these periods of lack. It has taken me years to understand where it comes from, accept it and direct my attention to what I have and can create. Yoga has given me the tools to go a bit deeper, to turn my gaze inwards. Of course, on the surface, there is always something out there that I might desire but looking closer and reflecting I realise that the lack was all a product of my perspective. Maybe the feeling of lack of validation comes from a deeper need to see my worth that is independent of what I do or don’t do. My lack of connection with someone might be a lack of connection with myself which then makes it difficult to connect with others. My lack of love might be my inability to see that I have love inside me. And so on.
The challenge when we seek to fulfill our needs with a very specific wish is that 1) we risk not seeing what we do have 2) we don’t realize that what we seek, is deeper than the material thing, and thus we can give to ourself and others.
I thought to write this post partly because I have teenagers in the house. They all want things, and of course, I think that this is partly positive since that is what drives us to keep going in the world. But sometimes, they can get so obsessed with what they “lack”, that they don’t see what they do have. I know, this is a typical phase in life, and there is maybe a scientific explanation to it, the problem is when we become adults, some of us might never realize what I describe above. We might spend a lot of energy and time chasing that single thing that we think will make everything be better.
Right before I sat down to write this, I saw a short video from a Yoga teacher I follow on Instagram (@yaeleshy1), and I was surprised to see that she was talking exactly about the same thing I’ve been reflecting on these days. She put it beautifully: when you feel you lack something, sit with that desire, feel it, and try to see if you can define what the deeper desire is. Is it love, is it safety, is it happiness? If yes, how can you create it for yourself and others? There is nothing wrong with wanting as long as we manage to understand where this want comes from and evaluate whether we want to spend all our lives chasing that specific form that we think this want or this need “has to” have, or if we can invest our energy and time in seeing what we have inside ourselves and thus what we are able to create around us.
Yoga of Mukti 