Saanams Mind

All of us acknowledge that there are domestic scenes where physical abuse of a spouse is seen . But how many of us acknowledge the presence of emotional abuse in a relationship. Maybe less has been spoken about it, or maybe its not as evident with the damages as physical abuse, but it is a reality.

When one cannot pinpoint why the relationship is going wrong and its difficult to express it, one partner controls the other completely, one partner does not value the thoughts or feelings of the other, intimidates and threatens the other, accuses the other of affairs, feels jealous of the partner talking to anybody,nothing one does seems good enough, one gets mixed signals, as if all that behaviour is just becoz he/she loves you,  one has to account for every moment, account for every penny spent, children are used to make one feel guilty and  the blame is all on the person if any thing goes wrong. Even the choice of friends is constantly ridiculed and commented on. These are a few things one sees in an emotional abusive relationship.

The affected person is always on egg shells, careful of annoying the partner, makes excuses for the partners behaviour,  feels that they cannot make decisions on their own, is constantly on the edge, anxious and depressed too, is unable to keep in touch with friends and in the long run loses self confidence as the partner’ s behaviour is constantly eating into their self image.

This kind of an abuse is as bad if not worse than physical abuse as its damaging as well and eats more into ones psyche. The people involved in such relations would do themselves good if they recognised what they are involved in and took appropriate steps to protect themselves and stop themselves from being victims by seeking support & help and taking charge of their lives.

Would appreciate it if you have anything more to add on this situation.

Was reading through some stuff and came across this beautiful writeup…

Promise to be so strong that nothing can
disturb your peace of mind

To talk health, hapiness and prosperity to
every person u meet.

To make all your friends feel like there is
something in them

To look at the sunny side of everything and make
your optimism come true

To think only of the best,to work only for the best
and to expect only the best

To be just as enthusiastic about the success of others
as you are about your own

To forget the mistakes of the past and press on the
greater achievements of the future

To wear a cheerful countenance at all times  and give
every living person you meet a smile

To give so much of time to the improvement of yourself
that you have no time to criticize others.

To be too large for worry, too noble for anger,and too
strong for fear,too happy to permit the
presence of trouble.

Well just what I needed to read at this point of time when I feel am a little messed up with unwanted thoughts and feelings I can do without.In life there comes sometimes ,however optimistic you are , trying times that keep testing you. Having been through such a time, decided to snap out of it because not only was it givin me a loss of sleep but was draining me completely of energy. Ultimately what happens in life happens and when it does its easier to accept than to fight it. Telling myself was easy n practising it a little bit more difficult.But i guess i see a  more positive me .What troubled me, I dealt with it and reading the above pointers made me feel good.!!

“Tears are words that a heart cannot express’

Why do we cry? We cry when we are very emotional. Someone’s kind gesture may move you to tears, someones touchy story may unleash tears , a moment of utmost happiness may make   a tear roll down your cheek . When you are real sad, tears have no way of stopping from rolling down your cheek. So are tears a way of expressing what your heart says without words?

It has been proven that emotional crying sometimes is very cathartic .It cleanses ones body of toxins and gives one a feeling of some release too as it cleanses ones mind as well.Crying though is not grief but a way of getting over your grief. As repressed grief results in rage , its necessary to shed a few tears to get over ones hurts.

Speaking of tears, I believe there is another way one cries An invisible way of shedding tears when your heart cries. A tight squeezing pain in your heart, one that doesnt even wait to reach the eye to roll off but just squeezes your heart strong enough to give you a physical hurt. This I call the tears of my heart. A silent way of weeping without letting the world  know how much you hurt.

Tears each one has them… some more  of a share than others…

Emotions- a bodily reaction that one feels when exposed to certain aspects in our lives. They are also known to motivate charecteristic behaviour.So do they guide us to behave in any particular way? I kept thinking of this because as far as I see it … Emotions do play a big part in each one of our lives.

If I look at my life and some things that happened the way it did, I wonder if my emotions clouded me into behaving the way I did, or if emotions were responsible for me accepting a lot of things even when it hurt. So in a way emotions do make us behave in a certain way.For emotions  do make us feel and what we feel we act on.

Look at anger… When angry most lose track of thoughts. They become irrational and even say things that they do not mean because the only thing they want to do would be to hurt the other person.So anger kind of blinds them to reason. So it does affect the way one behaves.Lets look at Love… a powerful emotion, one many claim to have felt , but an emotion few truly understand. Love brings about such beautiful aspects in a humanbeing. It makes you a better human because it gets the softer side of you forward. It makes you forgiving, makes you more accepting , tolerant, loving, indulgent and sensitive to another human being. So in a way, love makes things different. If you truly love someone and specially when love is unconditional , you even through your hurts manage to smile and accept everything as a package, the emotion love rules over how you behave.Look at depression… when one feels low, one has no interest in anything , no interest in eating, no interest in clothes, Tv, nothing. The way we walk, the way we talk everything changes and  wwe cry easily. Again emotion rules over the way we behave.Look at Infatuation…. One does so many things to impress the person one is infatuated with. Even to the extent of being someone they are not. They try to get the persons attention no matter what and do not care about anything else or anyone.

So looking at all this I feel emotions  control the way you behave to such a large extent.So is an emotional person erratically behaved? Probably yes.Because they are  influenced by their emotions to a large extent and that reflects on how they behave. I guess so we have to keep our emotions underr a tight reign to have a balanced behaviour.

Going over the past two weeks, I sometimes wonder how I survived the stress of it all. Too many things happening and all at once . It was mentally rattling and completely drained of energy, negative to the limit and weeping about something that hurt me a lot, I asked myself is this what you really want from your life? I then sat and reviewed through all that happened which had pulled me down and realized the more I dwelled over what I thought was wrong more n more negative stuff was happening .

So I spoke to myself and decided that this was it! I remembered there was a coffee reader here who was considered great and inspite of knowing about her for more than a decade I never ventured there. Something prompted me to go to her and I did so. Was I happy? Of course not only was she accurate, she was positive. Reading through all the stuff she had on the wall I realized I did myself good by going there. When I mentioned it she goes, God wanted you to come here only now and also said that my faith is what had pulled me up every time I slid down. She also said that I am blessed with Gods saaya over me . I dont know what struck me then.

I came back home so much more positive , As I looked at it , it was a sign for me from above saying am here, you go on and do your bit. I sat down to pray, I did something we Hindus call a Karmic de-linking, with all those who were indirectly making me feel low.

As I ponder over it, isnt it that we all get signs from above telling us which way is the right way. Why do we fail to accept it. Sometimes it comes in the form of your sixth sense,sometimes a dream, sometimes a thought that triggers off and sometimes just plain old fashioned advice which hits the right chord. How do we fail to see what God wants us to see?

If we are a little aware of what God is telling us, we definitely would save ourselves so much of agony , pain and heartache. They are all around I guess and it is upto us to tune into it and do what is right by us. Because we are all Gods children and he definitely keeps us all under his protection.

Many a times I feel I get taken for granted. Whats so great about it one may think it happens, well, it does happen and we do allow the ones we love take advantage of us once in a way but it hurts and rankles when done pretty often.

I always wonder if being around someone too much and probably they being used to you so much that they do not value who you are and what you feel is what makes me feel am being taken for granted. I have always been taught that relationships are a two way highway…so it surprises me when people cant take 2 minutes of their time to enquire if you are well or not. How self centred is that?

So is being taken for granted the same as being taken advantage of? Taking one for granted is when one does not value the presence of somebody in their and being taken advantage of is when they know they cant get away with it because this person cares for them. Both are kind of intertwined.Being taken advantage of of is when ones goodness is being used to get work done and is done intentionally whereas being taken for granted is when one is not noticed or appreciated for whatever they do.

I guess the way to deal with it is not to be NICE all the time but voice your opinion by being assertive. I guess then you get the respect you deserve .It doesnt mean you are not a strong person if you are being taken for granted, it just maybe that the person taking you for granted is so used to you that they dont realise the value you add to their lives, so maybe its a good idea to let them miss you and all that you do
for them time to time.Maybe its the familiarity or maybe just the comfort level they have but being taken for granted definitely takes a toll on any relationship.So if you are making an effort to work out a relationship , the other person should recognize and make an effort as well.

So maybe its time to stop and think a bit if you take people for granted or even if you are the one being taken for granted because it doesn’t bode well for anyone in a relationship to feel used to even to use the other.

Friendship- a relationship that I consider  one of the most beautiful ones ever existing. You get a choice to choose friends and each friend in most cases is a Gem to be treasured. At different stages in our lives we meet and make different friends and sometimes these friendships last a lifetime creating a bond never to be broken. A good friendship is food for the soul,, one we need to survive because friendship is love that keeps us secure in its warmth and this is priceless as it really does make you who you are. Friends are the family we choose  and in that sense are really precious.

They say changes are the only constant. So do friendships change with time or do some friendships last through thick and thin? Sometimes friends do drift apart and there could be many reasons like other relationships, marriage, children, lifestyle changes,moving to different places, grief and sometimes when we change the way we look at things. Some friendships that do not have a special bond do break or weaken
when all the above cited changes happen in life.

As I see it, there are some people we are linked  with in an inexplicable way. An invisible bond that you know is there.With these people one does not need to correspond on a daily basis for the feelings to last. You meet them after years too the feelings are there, intact, no discomfort, no awkwardness. Just pure love. That is what I would say is pure n true friendship. A precious relationship to be treasured. It is something that is
earned so cannot be treated frivolously and taken for granted. It needs nurturing and caring so one has to treasure it.

I have some wonderful friends I treasure , ones who I laugh with, ones I cry with, ones who chase away my blues and with who I have such strong emotional bonding that I know come what may, they are and will be a part of my life. I just cannot sometimes put my finger on what keeps this  invisible iron bonds in place but I always count myself lucky to be blessed with such friendships. 2 from school, 2 from college and a few I made friends with online,when I see them I realise how lucky I am to be blessed with so many good people and angels in my life.

The joys of a true friendship is a joy that lasts forever so make friends with care and never let go of the ones you cherish for rare as they come, true friends are the most precious gems one finds in life.

Disappointments in life….they come in many ways. You aspire to do something it doesn’t happen, you look forward to something it doesn’t work out, or you are disappointed in people when you keep them a little high in your esteem and they fall in your eyes or when you feel let down by them. Every human being goes through them, but for me the last instance, the disappointment in people is what hits me the strongest .

What is disappointment? The world we are a part of is far from perfect and disappointments are easy to recognize. A hollow helpless feeling inside .A feeling of betrayal, of being let down, of breaching trust. A failure to fulfill a promise or an expectation .Hurt, disbelief also accompany the feeling of disappointment & is directly proportionate to the strength of the relationship you have with that person.

That to me is what I call the biggest disappointment. When its circumstances you can somehow reassure yourself that you have no control over it but when it is a person, specially someone you care for or look up to, someone who you hold high in your mind, does things that disappoint you I guess the hurt, the hollow feeling is more.the hurt more and the feeling of being let down even more.

Why feel disappointed in someone? Well I guess because in the course of time, in a relationship one builds a trust, an image, a feeling about someone and when they do something that violates these things you feel let down , a sense of a breach of confidence in the person because their actions is not what you expect of them .

So how does one deal with disappoinments . Some withdraw, some give up and each one does it in their own way. Hmmm maybe they are there to teach you something. No matter how hard we try disappointments in life happen, so do grief and pain. But we have to accept these come just so we can appreciate joys and happiness.

Most often we look at others actions as being the reason for our disappointments  it goes inward or maybe one looks at ones ones one feelings and actions and why it happened. If  one looks within then one shouldlook at the others actions.

Look at disappoinments as challenges to be met with. Analyse, learn and move on. Talk to friends about it and when you look at others problems or issues you feel you are not alone so it helps cope in a way. Do not have expectations from anyone. You are bound to be disappointed.

Be patient and that gives you the strength to go over disappointments.

“When dealing with disappointments, take a step back from the original, issue stand back and ask yourself what do I want from this and what really is the solution? Disappointments are not meant to hurt you but are there to help one grow and to remind one of their priorities.”

“Real Love is a conscious choice made with your head, confirmed by your heart and executed by your person. Every act of love is an act of choice.”

Read this in the ‘Signature’ part of an email I got. I think I disagree with this statement.

Every act of choice is an act of love otherwise we would not choose in the first place. I choose something because I love it and without love I would never choose something. If we choose something which we don’t love, it would not be termed as choice it’s something which is forced. If you choose something because time/situation demands it, then again it’s not a choice; it’s a settlement or an agreement

When you choose something when time demands it, it’s a sort of an agreement you go into and not a choice, you settle for something rather choose it. If we have too many agreements/settlements in our life, it would mean that you are giving into lot of demands, and then it means it’s time to look back.

If we do not have any option then go with it…but then maybe I would not call it a choice . Well I would call it Life. I’ve always believed we don’t get to choose everything in life, and sometimes it works out for the good…so when it really gives us a choice then why not go and make the best use of it, go and choose the things we love? What if we have nothing which we love in front of us, then we must go in search of it, or may be hold on a little we never know what we love. I mean I think no one really knows until one actually feels it.

What if we really don’t have time to find what we love? Maybe that’s the thing we are doing wrong, always thinking about time, maybe we should let time do its work, and us ours.

What if I neither have faith in myself or on time? I think we ought to, faith is the basis of life forms, faith on anything we consider…if nothing then just believe in faith, anything you trust, anyone you want to trust.

What if you do not get a sense of trust in things we see; does trust lead to compromise? I guess then we should not see, and trust does not lead to compromise, rather it opens you up, it opens you up for the world and the world includes us.

What if we wonder will the world be bothered whether I am opening up or not? What if they want me in closed? I guess world wants us to open up and loves it that way.

You know, when we close the doors it’s our rooms which end up darker and not the world.

Maybe I’m not making any sense or maybe I’m trying to understand the feelings I’m going through at the moment. Life…it truly knows how to bring us to a point where it’s up to us as humans to decide what we want.

Such is our life…… so fragile. A death in the family and a lot of things came to a standstill. A call one lazy Saturday morning and then began the spiral of changes that came with the loss of a close family member. A vaccum created for the family members that probably can never can be filled again by anything or anyone .

For me it was a realization of many things… how people react in times of crisis, the value of bringing up children and teaching them how to be affectionate, how when push comes to shove many disappear and then the sheer futility of just focusing so much on the negatives of your life that you forget to enjoy your life or the happy moments that it brings along. Along with it I also realized how difficult life is when one is repressed emotionally for many years that even grieving for a loved one is not done .

As I went about my work , as many did disappear along their regular lives, I stopped to think why I had volunteered to do it when I was the least popular there. I realized that I always went with my heart and my heart said do it, stop thinking of yourself and this is the time someone really needs your help now. So I went on ahead and did it and I guess I realized what my strengths were, I realized when really pushed I could be as firm as the rest of them and more so every problem is as big as you want it to be .In spite of not being big on following rituals , I was the one nominated to do all the rituals. For someone who does not do much without knowing the significance I learnt a few things why they are done and began doing them.

With lots of time on hand, I got into the think mode, I kept thinking of the life of the person who had passed on, the little things she had done for people around her neighborhood, for the members of the family for her friends were all recounted by the people who came to mourn her loss. But among those who came were the ones who were negative, they remembered only the cribs this person would make on the fellow members and cry , all they saw was she cried all her life and went away.

Well each one of us leave behind imprints and I guess I learnt that life is so short, one day we are there , next we may not be , but the trick is to focus on what we count as blessings and get on with it instead of wasting life by focusing on what we don’t have.

Apart from that I learnt two things, the strength of people is seen when in crisis. Some who appear timid and quiet rise to the occasion, become the strength , where as the most those who are loud & appear to be leaders  making a noise always turn out to be cowards , shirking their duties. Well funny how most true natures appear in times of crisis as this.

I saw ones on pedestals fall, some quiet & appearing as rug mats rise in my eyes.

To me this has been a good learning experience. I know I am headed for an another change in my life. May be more responsibility. I am learning to talk less, expect less and to just accept things how they are. The changes in relationships with family , with my friends, in general with everything in life. Nothing seems permanent. Everything an illusion and yes more people are just into themselves and self centered. Not bothered about threading on peoples feelings, peoples thoughts , if one is grieving, if one Is sad. Ultimately the individual deals with it all on his own

The person who passed on left behind a legacy of relationships, some which may strengthen because of their absence and some that may break as they had held them together, for now the void created so big that it cannot be comprehended until its experienced. But Time stops for none and life goes on .

So another milestone in my growth as a human?? May be.Afterall isn’t that what life is? A jorney of lessons from life to death.