Rage – Frustration – Irritation

There is rage inside me. A frustration that I didn’t know I had inside me, until now. Having gone through recent episodes of outbursts, I realised I am getting irritated to any and everything. There is a restlessness. Restlessness in taking steps to pursue my dreams. Restlessness when it comes to relationships, can’t handle patterns that hurt me in the past anymore. Even a slight hint of traits in the other person that had once crumbled me down, make me run away. I am letting go of people, and not in peace, but in frustration. I no longer wanna deal with inconsistencies, unclear actions, indecisive statements. I wanna scream loud. But the scream doesn’t come to my throat. I wanna beat the shit outta of any inanimate object. But I don’t. I wish somebody could understand that I need myself to feel loved, for once. I wanna be heard. For once, I don’t wanna be the ear that listens and connects empathetically. Well, empathy is dying waise bhi. I no longer delve into emotional things a lot. I run away at the sight of them, at the mention of such incidents. After all these years, now, I don’t wanna fuckin’ read between the lines anymore. I wanna experience things as they are, and not find any meaning to them. I wanna live life a bit materialistically, a bit superficially, and experience all the pleasures and leisures that a life has to offer to a person who has worked hard to earn those pleasures.

Letter

It is strange. How on the New Year’s day, all you think of amidst every other thing that you have going in your life, is that one person. It is a mystery to me always, how I fall in love with someone and sometimes can’t even say to myself whether it is love, or just infatuation, or a strong liking, or an obsession, or a habit, or attachment, or just a craving for an unfulfilled wish. Having so many things going on in your life, when you are finally working towards your dreams, finally building new habits, finally being positive about things, neglecting the negativities, spending more time with family and friends, and feeling actually happy after all this time, feeling balanced, feeling that you are finally getting back your centre, your focus, again! Inspite of all these things, you just end up thinking about that one person. When you start missing them in your good as well as bad times. The thought that you just wanna message them, the thought that you just wanna let them know that you’ve been thinking of them. Yet, you can’t. Because you have to let go!

Why can’t you get rid of this feeling? Why can’t you stop adoring the person for all the good things that they have? Why can’t you forget how genuine they have been? Why can’t you forget how respectful they have been towards almost every person they come across? Why can’t you unsee their humility when they try to learn from people and give heed to opinions of people who are younger than them? Why can’t you dismiss the fact that they never try to show that they are a know-it-all, even when they are intellectually more mature than most of the people in the room? Why can’t you be oblivious to the fact that inspite of them outgrowing people in their social circle, they still hang out with them, giving everyone due respect? How can someone be such a good person? And why can’t I be with them? How can they be special, yet enjoy even the most basic things of life with utmost pleasure and still not expect everything to be over the top! How can someone be so ‘not objective’, who doesn’t see people for what they bring to their life, but accept them just as they are!

I know I know, people shouldn’t be put up on a pedestal. Nobody is perfect! Each one of us have our own insecurities, bad behaviours, etc etc. I know you have stopped expressing these days. You don’t speak it out loud.

Trust me, I have seen the subtle actions that shout to me that you too reciprocate. But I just discard all those signs thinking that they might just be a sign of my overthinking. Prove me wrong na!

Meditation

Earlier I used to fear sitting for even 5 mins of meditation. The thought of having to face my thoughts so upfront was scary. Especially in the phase when I was frequently going through episodes of overthinking and anxiety.

But the past two months have been a major transformative phase in my life. It started with just one firm decision one day. I was like, “That’s enough! I need to join a dance class”. I chose the first slot of the day, before the first batch of students swarm in for their fitness dance class. The dance studio is located at an amazing place. The building itself is a lil vintage type, not reallly vintage, but definitely not a modern one, which I like! Yes, I am fed up of mere boxes as buildings these days. I wanna see some uniqueness. Anyway, the studio is in the first floor which has a terrace. The sight of the wideee roads from there and a park at the front, with the golden sunlight early in the morning and chilly breeze, just add up to the amazing vibe! Ah I totally love it!

So, this decision, made me to start making small decisions for every next step that I need to take in a day, which ultimately made me have a routine. So even before I officially start my day at work, I am already done with the most important tasks. Done with my dance, yoga and meditation, breakfast, newspaper, and even shower. And then I sit for my work. Ah, such a nice feeling to be active and totally pumped up for the day since the beginning of your work hour. I feel totally fresh and much much focused.

So now coming to the meditation part. So, it’s not something that is very intensive for me right now. I am a beginner, like total beginner. I started off with sleep meditation on an app called ‘Insight Timer’. You guys can check it out too. It has many free guided sessions. The guided sessions which involve visualisation and soft music work for me. The sleep meditation was calming. But eventually I stopped sleep meditation. Don’t know how and why.

But I incorporated it in my morning Yoga routine.

So my meditation basically involves playing some soothing, some spiritual, some religious songs, some soft unplugged versions, and visualisations. And trust me, doing this really really calms me down, helps me bring focus to my breath, to my centre, the (chakra in your head) as they say. Yes, I can somewhat feel it. And slowly, the other thoughts start to fade away. I literally just visualise ‘aesthetic’ or ‘escape into nature’ type visuals while listening to these songs, and it works for me. Sometimes, I speak to myself in my mind that I am getting back to my centre. And other calming statements that are spiritual, like, gratitude, giving away the fate of results to the Universe (to God), having faith that now you have unloaded yourself from disturbing thoughts, concerns, overthinking and insecurities and have given this task to God to do what’s best for you!

This letting go of power and having faith doesn’t mean I am not taking responsibility for my actions. It just means, that I say to myself that I have done what needed to be done and leave the rest on some supreme power. This way of spirituality intensified when one of my friends asked me whether I pray. I replied a no and he said that I should have some faith. And I myself had a similar philosophy in life, but just that I wasn’t consciously practicing it until now.

During one of my meditation sessions, on a day when I was already a little concerned about what complexities I had within myself, I literally started choking with teary eyes I guess, I felt vulnerable, but in a good way. It felt a positive vulnerability. It felt as if I was confronting all of the negative emotions, which made me almost cry, realising that I did have some pain in my life, with myself and that pain was genuine. But, I felt that feeling, and the feeling left me. This entire session felt like this.And that was such a nice feeling. I got reminded of this instance today because I watched a reel of Ranveer Allahabadia and he was mentioning that the first meditation experience can be scary and negative. And he has had episodes when he has cried or had outbursts of anger while meditating, and I could relate to that.

Although, whatever I have written here comes from a very short span of time, literally just 2 months. But it has had solid impact on me. I hope the results of all of this will be visible to me more profoundly in the coming months, but for now, what’s important to me is that, because of all this, I am finally doing things that I needed to do for a long time to create the life that I’ve always wanted for myself! ❤

I hope I’ll give you some more good updates from my life in the upcoming months ! ❤

And yeah, love and best wishes and strength and courage and faith, to everyone who’s picking up the pieces and finally gearing up to heal and to create the lives for themselves. ❤

Real Issues

As time passes by, I get more clarity on the real reasons behind most of my sufferings in life. I realise how much OCD has seeped into my everyday routine and everyday thought process. So much so, that it has now even built up regular arrivals of anxious phases. I was just going through OCD symptoms today. Earlier I used to think that I just have OCD wrt the germophobia (mysophobia). But that’s not just it. OCD can refer to general obsessions and compulsions as well. And I got to know I do have its effect on soooo many routine things in my life.

Lately, I don’t know how the anxiety has fuelled up. Earlier it used to be once in a while that I got those anxiety attacks, which used to show up as physical symptoms. Now, it has become quite frequent. Anyway, I am dealing with both these things and am hopeful that I will get better with them. But while I am still living with these in such intensity, it gets really difficult at times. Your mind’s stuck in a loop and your head just aches. You don’t really know what is that thought that’s making you feel this way. But you feel there’s something stuffed inside your head, that’s even occupying physical space, sucking up both your physical as well as mental energy and you are left gasping for breath. A few times you may even find your heartbeat racing. There are occasional feelings of tightness in your chest.

To be honest, there’s a certain kind of guilt attached to expressing experiences of mental problems. Sometimes you start questioning yourself, why is there even a need to share about your mental problems? Just to tell people that you’re in the league too? Or do you want them to sympathise with you? Or you just feel that having mental issues is elitist?

They are not. Trust me. Everybody goes through it. But maybe, people from not so privileged phases in life, might sometimes not be able to exactly pinpoint what mental problem are they facing or whether are they even facing any.

I don’t know. I still sometimes feel, not so okay with sharing about this. But it’s fine. I was occupied with these thoughts today and did in fact had a phase of mind being stuck in a loop and hence decided to share.

Overwhelmed

I just feel really overwhelmed and anxious with the current phase at my work. It’s all new, no clear guidelines what to do. I get stuck at almost every step because there’s some or the other issue with my access, or some build issues. And it’s scary to reach out to seniors every single time I encounter them. And to be very honest, I feel I am facing way more technical issues than any other co on-boarder must be facing. I don’t know why. It feels like being left in the middle of the sea.

It’s so much overwhelming today that I feel bad in the gut. I feel nauseous.

A Sweet Encounter

After a few days of coming to this city, I was just going around the corner of my street to a stationery shop to buy a notebook. While gazing around I saw a girl around my age stepping out of the car and entering into a mobile shop with two men. It seemed a familiar face. On giving a hard thought, I realised who she was. With a smile on my face, I crossed the road towards that shop. Our eyes met and it seemed that she too recognised me. She gave a big smile and opened the shop door for me! Sheetal Ji….Hi ! And I was so happy that I shook hands and embarrassed myself little bit because the shaking kind of disbalanced us while entering the door. Anyways, wasn’t a biggg embarrassment, just a small, she would have hardly noticed. And then we started talking. I greeted her father too. It was her brother’s mobile shop. I expressed how happy it feels to meet someone you’ve mostly been in touch with through social media! She agreed. Why this was so special was because, I had been coordinating with her in one of the dance competitions hosted by Nrityam. I had returned back her nathni which had been lost in the stage after performance. Since then, we had been in touch through WhatsApp status. She is an amazing dancer. She was the winner in that competition and I remember the vibes that she had passed on with her Lavani performance!

I felt grateful because I had such amazing experiences in my college life, met totally new people, built healthy work relations with them, with people who shared the same passion for art as me, particularly performing arts! Becoming a part of an artistic network in the city is very special. You somehow meet people who knows someone you personally know, in the field of art, And that’s really special for me. I am grateful for all the experiences that specifically Nrityam has given me.

Yesterday some of my Nrityam friends had come to pick up stuff from hostel. And we met. We went for a boating ride at 8.30 in the night! Haha…. It was beautifulllllll….. Soft breeze and the cool water….what an amazing combination! And a medium-paced, swiftly moving boat on the lake was fantastic. It felt peaceful…. It felt wholesome.

Also, yesterday, my bestie from hostel & my classmate as well, came to spend the night with me. We had great fun chatting through the night for hours. I literally spilt out every damn thing about my life(love) to her. It was damn fun. We even shot a reel. It was so pleasing to see her get excited about dance and all! She had watched most of the Nrityam entry videos too… Haha… She’s such a darling! Always supporting whatever we do in Nrityam!

❤

Confusion

Today I was chatting with a friend and he intrigued me into thinking whether I am doing the right thing by taking up this internship or not. Because of long work duration and not getting time to study. And now I feel a knot in my chest added to the confusion regarding whom to choose, that’s another thing that brings somersaults of anxiety in my stomach. I am stuck in a confusion whether what I am conforming to is ethically correct or not, for other people who are wishing to intern. By conforming, I am creating a market with sub-standard pay to interns will become acceptable. And I suddenly started feeling guilty for my decision. But I don’t want to feel guilty. Because this internship has given me an opportunity to lift up my ass from the chair and get into a productive routine. But I am feeling guilty. Also, I am alone in Raipur, so that feels bad too sometimes.

Void

I have realized lately, that I don’t feel fulfilled. There’s a sense of emptiness, a void that doesn’t seem to go away any time soon. Although I am constantly trying to get out of this phase, things just always spiral back. Even during happy moments, I am not truly happy. I mean, everything is so temporary. Two days I am fine, and the third day I fall back with a thud. And this repeats. I have recently relocated to a different city for an internship. 3 months in the city I am doing my college from. In the hope, that getting out of my house, from my hometown, will give me a breath of fresh air. Getting into a routine, working for a goal, although temporary by working in an office would bring me peace. Surely the first few days were fine. But today, I again feel that void, that loneliness. I am not able to connect to anybody the way I want to, the way my soul needs. I don’t know whether I am the one who is sabotaging my relationships by overthinking. But this time, it feels, no! I am not the one to be blamed. Although, I am the one, who, if compromises, can start the relationship again, but right now, I just can’t. I just can’t because of some very personal reasons.

Why does the same thing happen to me again and again?

It feels like I am neither here, nor there. I feel useless. I feel, I don’t have enough skills to move forward. I am literally sitting still, doing things that do sound interesting to me, but sometimes feel that all of them would go in vain.

There have been multiple instances in my life this past year, because of which I should have been very happy. But I am not! I don’t know what’s stopping me from being happy.  I can’t even say that I am at peace. There was the phase of my placement, of getting to know someone new, of getting in touch with an old special someone, of shifting to a city, alone, first time doing an office work, even though as an intern. But nothing made me feel completely accepting of myself. Happiness and contentment is very temporary for me. Actually, absence of them might not have caused a lot of trouble. But the problem is, I feel this void. Had I not been feeling this void, absence of happiness wouldn’t have caused me much trouble. The ones with whom I can really connect emotionally are the ones who have put boundaries. They don’t let me in, neither they become open emotionally. The ones who put in efforts, have their own troubles, which sometimes propagate to me and I get disturbed.

I just hope I find my way, find my happiness, and not be jack of all, master of none.

Parde mein rehne do…Parda na uthao

I am meant to not speak your name

It is meant to keep you hidden behind curtains

you expect me to keep this a secret…

but what should I do…if I wanna shout

shout loud that I love you from the top of the hill

To speak with joy, that I’m in touch with you again

To express how grateful that I can hear you again!

Sometimes I try and try to hide it all

but I can’t help it and utter your name

but I can’t tell them that I am in frequent touch with you

I have to deceive and say that I am just an acquaintance for you!

Once or twice I mention you to my loved ones

My eyes must definitely be shining that time, that I’m sure

One can easily identify the excitement in my voice

and that’s what gave away our secret years back.

Just now I talked about you to my mum

only to come in my room and go through the guilt trap

I am not supposed to speak to her about you

coz all I fear is…losing again…you!