Saanams Mind

“There are moments in life, when the heart is so full of emotion That if by chance it be shaken, or into its depths like a pebble Drops some careless word, it overflows, and its secret, Spilt on the ground like water, can never be gathered together” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow…. Aren’t we always on an emotional roller coaster ride most of the times of our lives Being a woman I relate better to emotions or my heart more than my head or reasoning.Emotions, that hold us together in our short span in this world…sometimes bruised by the relationships we have in life.

Emotional abuse…a less talked about aspect or form of abuse in a relationship but one that does exist. Sad part is that this is a condition that can leave permanent damage and is not detected until its too late. How does one know they are involved in an emotional abusive relationship?

The abuser is always angry with you and you dont always know why they are . Its as if you are permanantly walking on egg shells not knowing when an outburst will happen. Suddenly they are angry for something you never did, or something that was ok in the past n suddenly not now. Or they may just be very vague about it not letting you know why they are mad at you.

They block all communication with you.This may happen in many ways. They may deflect the topic and take off on another track.They may not respond and keep silence. They may just get up and walk out of the room .They make you feel you are totally invisible and do not exist.

They tell you one thing today and deny and say completely different things the next day. They change their stories so often that you wonder if you are wrong and imagining whatever you heard the previous day or if you misunderstood it all , when in reality they are messing your mind up and this is a nasty form of abuse called gaslighting.

They forget you are an entity in yourself. They are so narcissist that they think of you as an extension of themselves and refuse to acknowledge your individuality.At best you are an object to be utilized. they do not expect you to have your own feelings and thinking. They expect you to read their mind and understand all that they are not saying as well. They dont give you space but expect you to understand their need for space.

They promise to change but rarely live up to those promises. They may stop for a while,but when you are totally fed up of their behaviour but slide back to the old pattern of behaviour once you again relax a bit. this is actually called Hoovering.

The scars left by such a relationship is not just deep but lifelong. Its worse as these scars are not actually visible and take sometimes a long time to be detected . They corrode into your self esteem , making you feel inferior and low . You are left with a low self image as you begin to think you are good for nothing as nothing seems to please them. It takes out the spirit of life from you and leaves you in complete devastation.

The abuser rarely ever agrees to take counseling or work on the issue. The ones who have two sides …one sweet n the other nasty, leave you feeling even more confused as you are not sure if its normal or if you are being abused.”Emotions are priceless. Emotions become a still life picture. A picture of sheer happiness or complete devastation that can be a constant rerun when the mind is restless.”

If stuck in such a relationship do try and recognize it for what it is…I cant offer you solutions for such a situation but definitely knowing what it is can help you deal with it better … I can just pray n send love your way and say…God help you…because its not easy dealing or living with such relationships.

I have spoken about silence before in some of the earlier entries and as I see it most of us fear the silence and fill it with noise. Oft late I have been contemplating on taking up Vipasana meditation… that is a camp for 10 days where you spend time with yourself and nature, without external interference of noise, music, phones,tv etc and where you dont talk with anyone. Its a way of spending time with just yourself and your thoughts, with nature …being alone. Its a way of just discovering more of yourself and coming to terms with yourself ,your circumstances and your feelings and making peace with them.

Being alone …when we actually find ourselves , it becomes a privilege and not a punishment. All the good work and your concentration comes from when you are alone. All your dreams dreamt when you are alone. Your best ideas come when you are alone,your solutions to all problems, your creations, your thoughts of wanting to make a better world come when you are alone . You see art and hear music better when you are alone.

Its the time when you drop all pretences and are completely true and bare naked with yourself.It is that time when you are in touch with your innerself. A time when you are most receptive to your innerself, a time when you connect to the higher energy that runs the world. A time when you speak to God and when God speaks to you.A place from which you absorb a lot , to fortify your spirit with grace, forgive your ineptness and fills you with a new resolve. A time when in silence, you can find the echo of your true intent.Its the highest place I think I can aspire to be .

Sharing your aloneness takes trust. It means revealing the innermost working of your heart and can expose you to the risk of indifference or the frustration of not being taken too seriously. It means risking the pain of not being heard when you want someone to listen to whats in your heart.It means allowing another ( it can be just one or two and definitely not more) to look into and know you as you are, without any masks, pretensions but as the the person you are ,with yourself. This is the heart of intimacy.Being intimate is being with another as you are with yourself .It means exposing yourself completely .It entails loving yourself and then loving another.

Knowing this is sacred and the risk you take sharing that ‘Sacred aloneness’ is a big risk , more so because if you are rejected for showing your true self because the other did not understand you, or just didn’t care enough to understand, you tend to recoil from the world, feeling your trust is misplaced, broken and the world is just empty or hollow .Though the thought scares me I wonder if I can learn to love being alone. Can I learn to share that aloneness with someone again? Maybe I can work first on learning to love being alone

Does the thought of being alone scare you and would you risk sharing that aloneness with someone?

“We’re born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion for the moment that we’re not alone.” Orson Welles.

Today yet another friend decided to shut herself away from all friends citing that she had to punish herself… keep herself away from her friends,.What am I feeling??? I lost yet another friend I shared every thing about me with.. One I trusted with n yes my trust is yet again shattered…. but I guess the heart is numb from pain. Immune and as I have not yet recovered from the happenings of last year… I am watching the illusion of me not being alone disappear yet again. My eyes are dry as my tears have run its course and if there was anything else left in me, they die a complete death today.

As the quote says, we are born alone, n live through an illusion to die alone. I guess so for me its just about waiting for the ‘die alone’ part left for illusions are just that… illusions n I woke from mine a while ago. Relationships are purely of convenience for a time. Words are shallow n are said just for a moment and then one fine day …Kaput….when you are utilized to the fullest they all disappear because they no longer need you. If this is not an illusion then what is ?

“We’re born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion for the moment that we’re not alone.”

Hmm But then you have another quote that says “The person who tries to live alone will not succeed as a human being. His heart withers if it does not answer another heart. His mind shrinks away if he hears only the echoes of his own thoughts and finds no other inspiration.” Pearl S. Buck…:) Something to think about wouldn’t you say ?

Would I wither away??? Shrink into nothingness ???? Lets see.

“Life is not lost by dying; life is lost minute by minute, day by dragging day, in all the thousand small uncaring ways….”

Yet another year gone by and hmm maybe I have lost out on a lot of time , precious time, lost in the time spent in depleting my life’s energies with my moping , with my tears n pain .The new year is here and as always I hear so many resolutions, decisions made for the new year. I wonder why each day cannot be a new one and more than a resolution I made a decision. A decision made 2 days into the new year and one made as I read through an article on emotional makeover .

Emotions generally take each one on a roller coaster ride, sometimes they go easy on you and sometimes make life so, so difficult. Striking a good balance between the ups and downs seems to be of utmost importance to me right now. To move away from the emotional patterns of last year and to build a more happier me. That is not to say I wont be sad ever. That would be seeking the impossible as am human and as aforementioned, one does have cycles of ups n downs.But I am determined this year to make myself emotionally strong enough to change my life by changing my emotions.

That would probably involve a few steps . First of all to learn to rearrange the negative energy from the negative emotions and understand my emotions.To manifest these negative emotions positively .Instead of allowing them to work against me to make them work for me .As emotions create an imbalance in our mind , to free myself from these disturbances in order to experience a greater happiness.

To learn to express the emotions instead of holding them within. When one keeps the hurt inside ,that is the surest way to be unhappy. Tell those who hurt you that you hurt and why you hurt. Other wise the hurt manifests itself in you as anger that can be directed against yourself with time.So to express your feelings even though it means putting yourself and your relationships at risk.But its worth it as it is the right thing to do. Its the only way to build any relationship instead of allowing the negative emotions to fester within and decay the relationship.

Be open and taste freedom. This involves a lot of self acceptance and a willingness to grow .One embraces positive emotions readily when open. This makes it easier to change shame into will power, guilt into healing past actions, anger into determination ,sorrow into compassion,jealousy into self love. When you hide feelings or emotions within they hold you a prisoner and take over your life.Instead of that be open and that redeems you and makes you free.

Negative emotions are energy depleting and a sure way to ruin yourself . I have realized this and am looking forward to an emotional makeover. When I need a cleansing of my emotional baggage I guess there is always room for venting here in my blog So here’s to an emotional high in 2010.

Are you going choose a emotional makeover or planning to wallow in a negative emotion hangover? Do share.

When I speak about love here, am not talking just about the romantic kind of love but love that exists in every relationship. A person loves you because they love you… no excuses , no conditions…its there and if there is love then it is there anyway , there is no need to wait or try to win that love. No explanations are necessary as explanations cannot make sense of love anyway. If one has this powerful burning need to be loved, or there is a powerful reason to be loved, then that love is very precarious and can easily disappear.

If people tell you they love you because of this, that and attach conditions then that is conditional love that will disappear when the conditions are not met. The sad truth is these people who proclaim to love you don’t really do so even when their expectations or conditions are met because they have a whole new set of rules and conditions for you to follow. This is more about control issues than love. So this is not actually love , its more one wanting a control over another’s life and sadly this kind of love doesn’t last nor is satisfying as once the conditions are met it is often found that a new set of conditions appear.

If one feels love is going to rescue them, that is a clingy kind of love and is dissatisfying as well. They cling so much to the one they love, initially the loved one may feel secure but in time it gets smothering and difficult to handle. They then begin to reject that love. On the other side, the one who rescues you again begins to control you.You may start disliking yourself for being weak and needy.

The only kind of love that I feel is real is the one that comes without conditions. One that just exists for itself, no reasons, no explanations no conditions no excuses…it just is. This love loves you for what you are, the way you do things, your personality, sense of humor, or just because of the way you make them feel good about themselves. This love is the ‘one’ one has to be true to because this person mirrors you the best. There are no tests for acceptance, there is no search for anything more, they are just being themselves and are grateful for it.

What would your thoughts be on this?

“Some people come into our lives and quickly go. Some stay for awhile and leave footprints on our hearts. And we are never, ever the same.”– Anonymous

Isnt that true of friends….some of whom we make a ‘forever’ pledge with…. but does forever really exist.??? I dont think so. People change, circumstances change and people may drift apart no matter how much people respect each other or care for the other .I wonder what can really drive a wedge between two people who were inseparable before. I gave it some thought and here is what I feel can seperate friends.

* Other relationships -While some friendships are not tested by these changing dynamics, a lot of friendships fail when a third person enters the relationships.There can be a ganging up or speaking behind the back that can mess the relationship.There can be a competition for attention.an entry of a third person can cause a slight change in the relationship.

*Love and Marriage-Its amazing how everything changes when one of the friends fall in love. Suddenly they are always unavailable to you even when you need them the most . Even worse if one is single and the other gets married. They may prefer to hang around with other ‘couples’ rather than a single friend. The priorities shift and while two people mature enough can handle it, most dont…losing friends , unable to balance the new entrant in their lives.

*Children – Children demand a lot of time and attention and throw any household out of sync … making sure the parents schedules are planned according to their needs. This puts the parents out of touch with friends as people without the responsibility of kids can indulge in a lot of activities like concerts, nights out etc …which parents of lil children may have to put on a back burner for a while.

*Lifestyle changes- This can make friends move apart too. For example when among two friends who liked drinking together ,one gives up drinking…the other may not like it. They may have been buddies in college and in time each may drift into different habits while one may stick on to the same . Its only but natural for them to go different ways.

* Moving- When distance instead of making hearts grow fonder can drive the two apart. Specially college buddies who move away to start their careers always mean to keep in touch but the excitement, drive and ambition can create a distance, the geographical distance playing a part in it as well.

*Different paths- Sometimes friends who choose different paths have nothing in common to talk or share about… they may have less of a common ground to share on. Time changes them…they go different paths so they drift away from each other.

* Grief- This one is something that changes a person the maximum. Grief can in someone bring in so many changes…some for the better..some for the worse. Anger, disappointment, hurt,
helplessness all these associated feelings with grief can change one within while the friend watches feeling utterlly helpless and unable to help in anyway.The friendship may suffer as a result.

Nothing in life is a constant except change. With change most of the dynamics of a relationship changes….I believe a true friendship that is meant to last does as it goes beyond these superficial changes in life. It lasts if the two people involved want to make it last. I have had a few friends from my kindergarten days with whom I share a friendship for over 33 years. We still gel as well as we did years ago. I have real close buddies from the past 3 years…with whom I have been through a lot and they have been there with me every step of the way….
I believe anything is possible if you apply your mind to it completely. So are friendships. If you want them to last they will provided both want it to. Those who leave..they are precious jewels in the chain of memory we treasure.

What do you think changes the dynamics of a friendship sometimes?

Time…memories…tears …reminders..

My baby turns 5 today. No longer a lil fellow. Amazing how time flies by. Five years of laughter, tears, memories, pain. new relationships, old ones , some gone forever.As I look at the past five years I wonder about myself. I have changed. Big changes in me , specially the past year. Today a lot of memories came tumbling back in my mind, bringing a small smile on my lips and tears in my eyes. Can that ever go away? The memories???

Five years ago after a pretty tough pregnancy , battling high blood pressure and balancing everything, when my baby came into this world, my smooth as a clock running household that consisted of my elder son and hubby turned topsy turvy. A wailing ,squalling, attention seeking brat who just turned me to mush with his smiles and antics. Sleepless nights, smelly diapers, worry at every sneeze and cough….my world centred all around him. Deciding to be a full stay at home mom, I battled my moments of boredom and filled it with the gurgles of my baby and music. Today when I see him speak and play, learn something new or just smile and hug me…the ‘I love you mama’ makes it worth every moment.

Five years…so many friends, new cousins, nephews, neices and so many new people in my life. Memories attached to each one of them. Some stayed and became closer, while a few were recalled by God. Yet a few more decided to break my heart and walk away leaving me to cope with the shattered pieces around me…trust and faith all in tiny fragments …blinking up and asking me “think you can put it together once again”???

Five years …a smile reminding me of things, words and phrases bringing back some thoughts.But the biggest reminder music…each song specially connected to certain people ….the lyrics connecting me to them. Circumstances changed and a few of them connected to the songs drifted away…..I gave up music completely. They were too painful for me to hear as they always made me weep and think about good times. But I slowly am going back to them now…learning to cope and move on.

Five years…so many moments of laughter with Anam n Shona and many others….the times together bringing such moments of happiness into my heart, a warmth that nothing can take away from me. Special people who I have been blessed with…Precious to me and treasured for a lifetime…No matter what I have that and can time take that away from me ?? No.

Five years … a part of which I spent getting to know some special people in my life…my kids…Anam n Shona .A blessed gift from the one above as they have enriched my life so much more …I thank God for these five years.I would not change it for anything else .

Over the years I’ve met a lot of people in person and online. Friendships have been formed… some have faded from sight, some simply fell apart as our paths took us in opposite directions, some were broken due to fights, and lucky some are stronger than ever.

It was a slow realization but it hit me today that really the people I’ve been turning to lately haven’t been my old friends.

At one point over the past few months I had one of those old friends tell me that she didn’t feel like she knew me any more. Part of me, of course, wonders how well the ‘older’ friends really know/knew me to begin with since I was so closed until more recently. I think that the dissolving of some of these relationships lately has been because I am more open, I am more positive, I don’t hold back, and maybe it’s just too much. My opinions before were stated but often muted a bit… but were still considered to be blunt, when now it’s been upped a few notches to what I really think… I don’t believe in sugar-coating, never have and probably never will.

Really though I’m finding that a lot of people don’t like it when you’re straight-forward about what you think or believe. We live in a society, it seems, where people prefer you to lie to them so they can believe whatever it is they want to believe instead of being faced with what you really think. That’s not the kind of friend I prefer though – I’d much rather have one who I can always know where I stand with. We might not always agree, things might not always be pretty – but it’s not glossed over and watered down or, worse yet, just completely false. I can handle truth, but absolutely feel ill when I find out someone’s going to different people with different stories (and there’s always someone who’ll do this – sometimes though you find yourself disappointed by the one who decided to play all sides of the fence and pretty much just screw everyone over).

It was in evaluating my friendships with a few people that my thoughts began coming down this road, but that’s not to say that it’s all pertaining to any certain individual or individuals. My thoughts to this point really have been very general, and as they’re beginning to feel more specific I’ll end. One thing, though, is for damned sure. Right or wrong I’m true to myself. I never pretend. What I say is what I really think and feel.

To reflect this though I’m trying to change a few things in my life and that includes cleaning up a lot of things. If I’ve not had a real conversation with you outside of few comments here and there in a while or there hasn’t been some sort of other interaction you’ve been removed, regardless of how long I’ve known you or the type of friendship we’ve had in the past. I have decided to start afresh & so in order to do that would want to start off with only the people I have a personal connection with. I don’t mean to make it personal, so please don’t take it as such. I feel that I would rather relate to people I connect with no matter how my relation ships have been in the past.

If you think you can relate to the new me and want to connect with me, you are more than welcome to do so.

Have you ever realized when someone lies, they aren’t able to accept the truth? When a person lies, it’s never once – it starts with a one lie but it just goes on like a cycle. To cover up one lie, the person just keeps going on and on. Often I’ve noticed when a person is lying, they don’t remember what they said to few different people on the same exact topic or situation. It’s easy to catch the liar this way. It’s easy to figure out the person is lying when they keep forgetting what they had said to someone. For example, if someone today tells me something about a situation, tomorrow the same person will not remember what they said, so they will make up something new. Hence, the lies just goes on and on.

When a person lies, they aren’t able to accept the truth. They think the other person is also stupid, so they just keep lying. What they don’t actually realize is that people aren’t stupid, they just keep quiet to see how low you will stoop. How far you will continue to go to cover up your lies. In fact, when these kind of people are told the truth, they run. They run from the situations, they say things that have no value. In fact, they start accusing others. It’s amazing what people will do to cover themselves. They think by accusing another person, they will get away. What they don’t realize is that, even if the Human beings don’t say anything, or if they don’t stoop to your level, God is watching everything. How far can you run? You will one day have to answer to not Humans, not the people you lied to or hurt with your lies, but to God.

When a person’s heart, mind and soul is clean, they don’t run. They don’t run away from the reality of situations. They don’t run from facing the people. In fact, they proudly face the situations. However, when a person’s heart, mind and soul is not clean, they start accusing others, they start making up things for their benefits and they start ruining relationships. I have always been told that it takes years to build a relationship but it takes a mili-second to break it. How true! When I get into any relationship, I give my 1000%. Whether it’s family or friends. I am not able to tolerate lies. I am not able to keep quiet when someone is being accused for something they have not done, nor do I keep quiet when relationships are being played around with. I am very outspoken – it’s a very well known fact to those who know me. I speak my feelings and I do it clearly. When someone teaches you to always speak the truth, be honest, instead of talking behind someones back, talk to the face…I do it. I have always been taught that. I do exactly that – except it gets too hot to handle for some people. They do not want to face the reality, they do not want to face the world with the lies they have told or continue to tell to fool people. For me, these kind of people are too into themselves. They don’t care about people or how it can affect someone.

I don’t keep quiet when my loved one is affected by such people. I do not keep quiet when the one I love is being hurt by someone who has nothing better to do in life than to boost their own ego. I do not keep quiet when someone I love is being played around with. I do not keep quiet when someone I love is being told lies so that someone else can cover up themselves. I do not keep quiet when someone uses another person, innocent person to take revenge. I certainly don’t keep quiet when someone I love is put in the hospital because someone is being selfish.

So if you lie, learn to handle it as well. If you don’t like being told the truth, don’t preach honesty. One should not preach what they can not follow themselves. Unfortunately, this cruel world is filled with people who love to preach good but don’t actually follow it. Don’t listen to themselves. So look into yourself first before preaching the world. Truth isn’t easy to handle, it does get too hot to handle when you aren’t used to telling the truth yourself either.

Note: Got this in an email a while back. Something made me think about it and read it over and over. Fits perfectly with my life right now. God Bless.

To realize
The value of a sister/brother
Ask someone
Who doesn’t have one.

To realize
The value of ten years:
Ask a newly
Divorced couple.

To realize
The value of four years:
Ask a graduate.

To realize
The value of one year:
Ask a student who
Has failed a final exam!

To realize
The value of nine months:
Ask a mother who gave birth to a stillborn.

To realize
The value of one month:
Ask a mother
who has given birth to
A premature baby.

To realize
The value of one week:
Ask an editor of a weekly newspaper.

To realize
The value of one minute:
Ask a person
Who has missed the train, bus or plane.

To realize
The value of one-second:
Ask a person
Who has survived an accident.

Time waits for no one.

Treasure every moment you have.

You will treasure it even more when
you can share it with someone special.

To realize the value of a friend or family member:

LOSE ONE.