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My last blog got quite long and frankly, I lost interest in continuing it…possibly why I would make a horrible author. I would most likely publish the book half written!
So I will clarify now, that the reason I was able to write that blog was because all these months later, I could access the sadness and pain I felt over the last year with detachment. I no longer feel sad about those events. But I also want to remember and learn from them. It is new for me to acknowledge my feelings and I am working hard at seeing them honestly and letting them go…I haven’t quite figured out how to do that yet, but I hope before my next life to at least make some progress! So that was my intention with my last blog. I hope it didn’t leave anyone too depressed…maybe that is only my amateur writing skills, in not letting my readers know the end is happy. Or maybe that’s ok…not all endings are happy!
33 has started and now that I’ve reflected honestly on 32, I can aspire for a peaceful, healthy and happy 33. And I have had a good start…with Ayurvedic treatments to help strengthen my body and calm my mind. The treatment for the mind involves continuously dropping a stream of warm oil on your forehead. It completely calms the mind and relaxes the nervous system…I usually fall asleep and my head inevitably turns to the side so that I wake up with oil dripping into my eye! But other than that it’s quite effective! I wake up rejuvenated and with many less negative thoughts about Thomas and how I let myself get so sick from the stress of being with him!! Baby steps!
Arun, my Ayurvedic teacher has commented that by feeling many of my emotions coming out these days – and getting quite exhausted by learning to deal with them and let them go – I am finally becoming a woman! He recommended I learn how to deal with them fast and not keep them in my heart too long, otherwise they will migrate to my colon. It feels quite odd that I never learnt how to process my emotions but as they are triggered over and over these days, I realize more and more how little we got to know each other so far. I’ve heard of sadness, anger, insecurity, doubt, but I’ve rarely felt any of them as strongly in the past as I am these days. It’s quite interesting to observe. But not as nice when I cry in my room wondering where the tears are coming from!
Shit, this was not meant to be another depressing blog! I’m trying to share this journey and am hoping that writing about it is a step towards releasing everything that is building up in me…rather than continuing to suppress things I am not comfortable looking at. Please don’t misinterpret it as complaining or as a cry for attention.
I always knew I loved India because of how alive I felt here…all the senses are stimulated constantly…between the strong smells or urine, cow shit and burning garbage, the loud car honking, construction and locals standing outside my bedroom at 6 am yelling good morning to their neighbours, and the vibrant colors and non-stop motion all around…it all perks up each of the senses constantly. It make sense that meditators need to seek out caves for silence and less distractions in order to really focus. As a beginner it’s virtually impossible to stop the mind from wandering, even in the “quiet” little village I live in up in the Himalayas. This year India has finally opened me up emotionally. I always yelled at the rickshaw drivers who nearly ran me over. And I always felt love pouring out of me for the hospitable locals who took me in as a complete stranger. But this year, I felt my anger strongly as I watched my friend’s Kashmiri boyfriend aggressively push her and threaten to kill her. I felt my heart open as an Israeli guy I didn’t know comforted me after holding me back from punching the Kashmiri guy. And I cried like a baby after a local waiter that I’ve become friendly with slapped me across the face for poking him in the leg with my toe (I’m still trying to figure out the real reason he felt it necessary to do that…I understand now that feet are considered disrespectful in Indian culture, but my punishment still doesn’t seem to fit my crime.)
You might wonder what I do here day after day, but dealing with these events one after the other takes up a surprising amount of time! Looking at the way I react to these people and situations is time consuming….since I usually don’t understand them immediately. There are also various meditations I’ve learnt to let my true feelings come up, let them go and forgive myself and whoever I felt hurt by. I am a much more complicated being than I ever imagined and it’s quite a journey to learn about myself. Who knew?!!
The benefit of letting out the emotions, is that the positive ones are coming as well. I feel a relief when I let go of something old and can be more genuinely happy in these moments. And hopefully soon, the negative emotions will diminish and only the positive ones will remain.
I am grateful to finally be starting my Ayurvedic studies this week with my beloved teacher…who I learn just as much from during our casual chats than in formal class teachings. For example, the patience he forced me to cultivate while waiting almost 2 months for my classes to start! It only took me 6 weeks to get there…with 1 week left to wait for a lesson. Again, baby steps! I probably raved about him last year so for you loyal readers, I will spare you my non-sexual love affair with this great man! He actually got married this year, so someone else is in his heart…or at least will be…it was an arranged marriage. He is extremely traditional and insisted on his parents finding him a suitable life partner based on the traditional astrological methods and meetings of the families. He only met her once as a formality before saying “I do” (or however it is said in Hindi!)
This evoked many discussions (with him and others) about what it means to have a happy marriage and whether arranged or love marriages produce them more often. These conversations have been with people in both kinds of marriages as well as single people from India and the West. No one seems to really be sure which type of marriage produces more happiness, although everyone has an opinion about it.
The general consensus is that love marriages most often produce unhappiness because of the rate at which they result in divorce. How can an arranged marriage result in unhappiness when the majority of them last….some people ask? What seems to be overlooked in that question, is the cultures in which arranged marriage is most common…they are cultures that don’t only frown upon divorce, but often ostracize the single women after and shun the fatherless children. (I have to say I am still unsure of the repercussions of divorce on the man or if there even are any…even a husband’s death can be blamed on the bad karma of the wife and deem her an outcast.) Does this mean every marriage that stays together is a result of a happy couple or that the importance of the family unit trumps the happiness of the mother and children (and possibly the father…I still have to look into that)? And more importantly, if divorce is out of the question, do the people involved simply surrender to their lot…accept what they’ve gotten into…for lack of an alternative? In that case, how can their happiness be determined? Would they themselves even be able to answer the question “are you happy in your marriage?” Were they even allowed to consider it and take steps to alleviate their suffering if their marriage was not fulfilling?
On the other hand, just because a marriage ends in divorce, does that mean it was not a happy one…it must have been happy at some point? Ok this seems like a stupid question…why else would 2 people get divorced? But better questions are did the couple give up simply because their society allowed them to? Had they been pressured to fight for their marriage, to work harder at finding solutions to their problems, would they have found happiness? Are we in the west just always looking for something better to the point where we don’t even realize the best is right in front of us?
With all my free time these days, these are the things that consume my thoughts…unexplained emotions and useless but interesting conversations.
There are also many different daily Buddhist philosophy classes that I randomly attend, many mountains to be hiked and food to be cooked in my shared kitchen. If you ever want to test your patience, anger, tolerance level, share a kitchen with cheap backpackers who have no problem stealing from strangers.
Fortunately a slow and simple life, with some classes here and there, is quite conducive to my slow recovery. I hope to climb to the top of the mountain I live on before I leave here this year….but for now I settle for not losing my breath as I leave my house everyday to hike up the short distance to my meditation class or the chai shop.
Mmmmmm chai…I think it’s about that time now.
Namaste
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mom
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Very inciteful. I always learn from them and you too I guess. Keep on growing. We all should.love you