Challenging failure

We live in a number-obsessed society. We’re told to start a career by X, get married and have kids by X, make six figures by X etc…the list goes on. Given how much pressure there is to meet a whole bunch of milestones by a certain age, everybody feels pressure sometimes — especially women.

Recently, I’ve been relying on a Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) technique called thought records to help me deal with that when I, too, feel the pressure. Thought records help me stay mindful of my thoughts, question them, and ultimately come up with a more balanced, rational assessment.

Here are a few thoughts I came up with recently that helped me challenge my own unhelpful thinking the other day and feel better. I’ll keep adding more as I think of more, but just wanted to share a few in the meantime.

Thought: My birthday is approaching and there is so much I’ve not done. I am a failure.

EVIDENCE FOR:

If I wasn’t a failure, I wouldn’t need to constantly reassure myself with thought records like these or through therapy.

A lot of people in society would think I’m a failure because I haven’t met certain milestones by a certain age.

EVIDENCE AGAINST:

OR could it be that one set of beliefs has had a far more time to cement themselves in your head than another? You’ve had a little over thirty years of being exposed to and believing negative societal beliefs, whereas have only had a few years to question them.

What everybody in society believes isn’t always helpful, rational, or true. Sometimes society believes silly, irrational things. Society, for instance, struggles with things like racism, sexism, etc…

Also, even societal ideas of success are constantly changing. For example, there was once a time in history when women who even tried having a career were looked down upon – and certainly, a failure if her ambitions came at the expense of her family.

If pain is the illness, love is the cure

I love this quote because it so perfectly illustrates the relationship between the personal and greater societal issues. And because it highlights the importance of something we – me most definitely included, particularly on my darker days – sneer at: love.

So many biological, political, social, cultural, economic, and psychological factors fuel the various social issues we hear about every day – gun violence, mental illness, war, poverty, abuse, you name it. When you really think about it though, at core, each of these problems all actually come down to one simple thing: a lack of love somewhere down the line. Some call it hate, but I personally feel it’s more accurate to call it pain.

Either way, if those are the root issues, then love’s also the cure.

Viewed from this perspective, working on being a truly loving human – through your actions and healing the wounds that keep your heart closed – thus becomes a revolutionary act. That love spreads and plants seeds in others that grow just as easily as hate and pain. And they can help heal this world at a much deeper, longer-lasting root level than any clever strategy, medicine, or weapon the mind can create.

It sounds so simplistic, but I’ve been reminding myself of that a lot recently. The news – and the issues plaguing our own personal lives – can feel overwhelming and make anybody feel powerless, but remembering all of this makes me feel a sense of control. No, we can’t eradicate suicide, mass murder, war, poverty, abuse, and whatnot overnight. But there’s still a way to reduce how many happen and be a part of the cure by chipping away at the cancerous tumor that fuels them: through love, the light that can heal a dark world blinded by pain.

Learning from Loss

I’ve been revisiting the abandonment work of psychotherapist Susan Anderson to help process emotions around a recent loss. What she writes about the amygdala has particularly helped me.

The amygdala stores memories of how you responded to previous fearful events and threats you experienced as a child/teenager, such as abandonment or betrayal. The whole point of the brain, and thus the amygdala, is to protect you. It cannot differentiate between past and present; it’s not aware, for example, you’re an adult now who can take care of yourself now and survive being left by somebody, never mind that that somebody who just left you is not actually your parent.

Thus when faced with the feelings of abandonment as an adult, you automatically respond in the same way as you did when you were a child. Your body goes into fight or flight mode, literally trying to fight for your survival.

That’s why those first emotions we face when abandoned – the shattering, as Anderson calls it – are so intense, and sometimes completely out of proportion to what actually happened. This is particularly true for those who have experienced intense childhood trauma. If your memories of abandonment were particularly painful and terrifying, your old, “primitive” self will respond accordingly.

Your biochemistry is taking over, and thus you are literally out of control.

The way forward is to use your cerebral cortex – or the rational, adult mind – to regulate these intense emotions.

My first experience of loss was the death of my Dad at age seven, an incident that threw my family into financial insecurity and caused unimaginable hardship for awhile that threatened my survival.

Loss really was a threat to my life, and that’s what my amygdala remembers.

It was an amazing thing to read and realize, and I was flooded with self-compassion as well awe at how the mind works. At the end of the day, our brains are just trying to protect us. Emotions we perceive as irrational are actually the most rational things in the world.

I keep reminding myself of this information now when the unsettled feeling comes back. This is just an old response; feelings are not facts; the trauma isn’t actually happening. There’s no need to react. I take deep breaths, and thank my brain for protecting me. After pausing, I continue with the day. All is well. All is safe. I’ve got a safe refuge in myself to rely on and take care of me now.

I am going to start sharing more interesting things I learn as I continue to read Anderson’s stuff mostly for my own documentation, and hopefully to help others.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted, but quarantine’s making me feel like…

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I need to write.

It’s ok to feel sad and be absolutely unproductive while the world is in a state of trauma. It’s ok to spend a Saturday unable to do as much as you’d normally be able to do because it’s not just the quarantine, but the shock and the grief, that has rendered you frozen.

And because, honestly, none of it is normal. Our worlds have turned upside down, and maybe we need to embrace that, so that a new world can one day rise from the ashes and carry us through.

You don’t need to capitalize on this moment, “seize the opportunity,” as all the Instagram memes say. You can sit, and sit, and do absolutely nothing while in a daze, until the tears come and flood your heart open.

You can, in other words, just be exactly where you’re at. Because honestly, I think that might be the only way to melt through the frozen. And rise. Rise from the flames like the phoenix, brand new – all of us, and you.

Learning to Love

I’ve had the biggest fear of dogs and cats since I was young. I realised recently it’s because in their presence, I have no control. Don’t get me wrong – I wanted to love them. They’re so cuddly, loving and pure. I so yearned to pick them up and just hug.

But because we don’t speak the same language, don’t have the same brains, they could hurt me. They were seductive, wild and dangerous things. A dog could sense and misunderstand my fear for intentions to attack, and accidentally scratch or bite out of his fear. The cat, unable to say, “I want to play and not be held”, could scratch in her squirmy attempt to jump out of my arms and onto the couch.

And so for most of my life, I’ve missed out on the unique love and affection only a mindless animal, free of human inhibitions, can give. Even when I started getting used to kittens and puppies, I’d approach with extreme caution – and in my guarded manner, barely receive anything in return.

Until the day came, of course, when I couldn’t resist anymore the charms of the sweet kitten I live with – watching her follow me, chase her tail, and then accidentally bang into doors was simply too much for me. I had to hold this silly, adorable little angel. So for the first time, I picked a kitten up with the sole intention of cuddling and kissing her, loving fully, rather than half-way loving, half-way protecting myself.

In those brief seconds, my entire heart melted. I felt a deep love, but I also felt for the first time in my life from an animal, deeply, unconditionally loved from this tiny creature. I could feel how tiny she is, her rapid heartbeat underneath her soft white fluff, and realised she was just as vulnerable as I was. But she will still letting me hold her, despite the fact I was huge, just woke up, and looked and felt like a mess. Even if she scratched or bit, it wasn’t meant as an attack, but was simply her own form of self-protection from a larger creature she doesn’t understand.

It reminded me of the boasting ways of the flower from “The Little Prince”, when the Prince realises she simply boasts and acts cold as a means of protection – for she is so tiny and secretly aware of her own smallness in the vast flower world, so insecure, so afraid he too will realise how small she is one day and his love will go. That she wasn’t something to be annoyed by, angry at or, or afraid, but a beautiful little being to feel compassion for, just trying her best.

Did she end up scratching me? Yes, she did. She no longer wished to be held and wanted to be set free to further explore the big world that is the living room, so in her small paw’s attempts to climb out of my arms, accidentally scratched me along the way. But instead of freaking out and vowing to never hold her again, or if I do, going back to wearing armor, I simply let her go. I had some scratches, but they were tiny, and nothing in comparison to the deep intimacy I just experienced surrendering to this tiny creature.

She still scratches me sometimes. Every now and then the rare dog will growl at me as I walk past. But I don’t run across the street as I used to, or at least most of the time I don’t. Kitten’s taught me that that’s life. You can’t predict who’s going to hurt you, and neither can you always control that. Scratches sometimes comes with love, but most of the time, those scratches and bites are a form of self-protection as a result of miscommunication and differences.

Does that mean you run away or shut off a part of yourself from the experience? No, because then you lose much more than you gain.

I got scratched, but I also got a glimpse of the best part of my own human nature and life: what it’s like to be yourself, with all your fears, in your ugly pajamas with no make up, procrastinating and messing it all up, and still be hugged, seen. The sweetness of a little creature looking up at you with big eyes, terrified of you, knowing you could kill her, not understanding your language, your brain, your ways, but still trusting you enough to let you cuddle her. Her love, giving me hope in an otherwise cruel world.

So I surrender now, and let my kitty sometimes scratch and be mad at me. (She gives cold shoulders, I close the door because I’m busy/stressed and she wants kissies etc…) But then we work it out (she snuggles into my lap, I walk downstairs and give her extra attention) , because the love means more – and is worth more – than any of those fears.

In a word or two, the kitten’s taught me how to love.

Originally wrote in 2014

Happy Women’s Day

The beautiful hands of the one who created me:

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I drew this simple design on my Mom’s hand on Valentine’s Day. The act held special significance. My Mom is an Indian Hindu widow from more traditional times, widowed young when I was just a child. Tradition holds that once a husband passes, a widow must no longer beautify herself the way she did during his life. So for years my Mom wore white Indian dresses.

You can imagine, then, that to apply henna – usually used to adorn brides- on a widow would be an outrage to the traditional, older types. Shameful even. Especially on Valentines Day.

Yet with the passage of time and the growth of willful, rebellious, authority-defying children in the US, my Mom slowly sheds away what I view as many disempowering customs of old.

And so, mostly unbeknownst to my Mom (she just thought I wanted to doll her up in honor of the day and play with henna) that’s exactly why I did it.

Here’s a toast to my brave, progressive Mother, who often can’t see her brilliance as clearly as I do. The world has been cruel to her as it has many Indian women of her generation and even mine. Being from different times, cultures and countries, we haven’t always seen eye-to-eye but she tries. And for this, I am so proud.

And to every Indian woman like her throwing off the cultural shackles preventing our gender from flying… Thank you. You give me hope. And a future.

Happy Women’s Day.

“Mistakes” are actually the unexpected beautiful quirks that transform your planned semi-copy into You

Painting this taught me again how sometimes “mistakes” are actually the unexpected beautiful quirks that transform your planned semi-copy into You.

That butterfly in the middle was a mistake. I accidentally applied too much black paint when I tried to replicate a very complex, intricate, and elegant design by somebody else. I thought I screwed up the painting and I gave up on it because I was disappointed. (“I paint to feel happy and relaxed, you dumb canvas. Not to feel like a failure again. Eff art! I want pizza.”)

I came back a little while later in that all blobbed up, brainless, relaxed-I-can’t-possibly-screw-up-my-life-any-more-so-let’s-eff-up-more-and-have-fun-with-it playful state, and lo-and-behold, hideous black blob trying to be somebody else began metamorphosing into butterfly.

But I didn’t notice what was happening because I was so absorbed in my blobby, brainless, happy state just playing away. Suddenly failure metamorphosed into playful, inspired experimentation.

The ceramic paint marker I abandoned after using it on a series of failed Christmas gifts (failed, because I forgot to dry each mug in the oven after and so the designs washed off after the first contact with water) I realized I could use to draw the intricate interior.

The supplies I received as gifts from two “failed” relationships added the sparkle and the color. My sister’s love on a day I felt anxious and sad added the gold (Sharpie pen paint).

The desire for validation created the black blob, but it also led to surrender when I once more failed to make up for past scars on my self-esteem by trying to be the perfect somebody else.

And as I stepped back to view the result – tired, bloated, but happy – I saw how long- ago heartbreaks and disappointments sought a canvas to create beauty instead of more pain via self-destruction.

I guess this piece taught me on an even deeper level that it’s not the canvas – the finished outcome – but the story behind it that creates the meaning, far more valuable of a thing than how perfect the piece turned out to be. And it’s that, to be honest, the story – the art’s story, your story, my story – that is why I doodle, why I write, why I do anything.

And when I remember it’s about the bigger story of me – us- the why and what did it all mean…I guess failure and success can’t really apply.

Now onto the next mind f***. I mean, piece.

Gettin’ Creative In Japan

1) Kintsugi Class:

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I took a Kintsugi class in Tokyo. Kintsugi is a traditional art form where one repairs broken pottery with gold.I fell head over heels with the practice and its philosophy after artist @emilymcdowell_posted about it. (Her meme is in the middle there.) I just adored the idea that brokenness can create beauty. I knew I had to give it a try, so I did 🙂 Check out the pottery in the borders there to see my results!

2) Lake Kawaguchiko:

We were about to embark on a boat across the river to see Mount Fuji in the middle of a snow storm, providing some incredible photo opportunities! I was pretty proud of my edits on these two specific pictures which I made while in line to board the boat:

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3) Kyoto:

I didn’t really need to edit this very much, but I was proud of the angle:

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4) Cherry Blossoms:

And of course, my beloved cherry blossoms — the reason I came during March in the first place! Special thanks to my sister for two of these photos.

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To see more of my Japan photos, check out my public Facebook album:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10158622469095160.1073741871.707165159&type=1&l=999a9d693a

I’ll be sure to write more posts about my incredible experiences there one day. For now, I just want to enjoy and be in the moment.

Letter to a Stranger

This piece is now published on The Elephant Journal

Dear Stranger,

I don’t care about you—I care about You.

I don’t care about the small you that you think you are, that volatile sense of self the world has fed you, where you’re riding high on greatness one day and in the dumps the next, feeling abandoned by all. Your friends, like the 15 minutes of fame, adoration, societal approval, gone the next moment when the feelings fade, and something better walks along.

I don’t care who you are in relation to everybody else—the status you may hold, the money you may have, your looks, the influence, or even whether or you’re considered a “good” or “bad” person. I don’t care if you’ve gone to jail or if you’ve just won the Nobel Peace Prize. I don’t care about what the world thinks of your potential, or lack thereof. I don’t care how far along or behind you are on the rat race, how together you seem.

I care about You, the you with a capital “y,” and who you are now as you journey through the paths that life bring at whatever pace you may need.

I like you for who you are now, not what you can be—although I know that you are capable of so much. I care about your heart, that fragile beautiful diamond whose value has not always been recognized in this cold, shut down world with all its messed up priorities and ways.

I care about that heart pain, about how it’s broken pieces feed your mind’s lies that you are not worthy, not loved, not enough, and I wish I could take them away. I care about those memories that shattered your innocence and belief in the world and yourself, in the beauty of your dreams, and I wish I could erase them all.

I care about that moment your heart closed—when he abandoned you, when she said no, when the fist met your face, when they laughed at you, degraded you, insulted you, or simply did not notice you. And I wish, I so wish, I could have been there, to catch your fall. I care about the child you used to be, how the world wasn’t there for that kid.

How the world now judges you for the physical manifestation of those mental scars when what you really need, when all you ever needed, is/was love.

I wish I could apologize on behalf of everybody.

I care about your soul and essence, the million tiny beautiful and not-so-beautiful things that make up the story of your life and the masterpiece you are. I believe in you and your innocence. I believe in second chances, that the burn was not the end but simply a part of the necessary fire in the never-ending growth of your phoenix soul.

In short, stranger, I believe in You. I love You.

If there is one thing you must take from this it is this: there is at least one person in this world who doesn’t give damn whether you’re the most successful, beautiful, together person in the world or that the only thing you accomplished today was getting out of bed. Who doesn’t care what the world might think, or what you’ve done, how many mistakes you’ve made, how many you’ve hurt out of your own in pain.

She still believes in you. She still loves you. She believes in your light, your purity, always.

You are loved.

Love,

Sheena Vasani

I am a bigot.

A professor once told me the first, and the most important, step in eradicating racism, sexism, gender role oppression etc…is to first acknowledge it in yourself and constantly work on it. Whether it’s you acting or thinking in a discriminatory manner towards others, or yourself, we all have prejudices somewhere within us. How can we not? Our histories and lives are filled with all types of prejudice; even saints or respected figures had them ie Gandhi, Mother Teresa, MLK, Nelson Mandela etc…Mandela himself owned up to that.

So I’m always uncomfortable around self-righteous types who point the finger a lot but never look at themselves. When people judge too much, I wonder what they are repressing and thus projecting. I don’t trust them. I think most don’t, hence we roll our eyes at “do-gooders” sometimes. Many don’t feel they’re coming from an authentic place because they are not – they are annoyingly, hypocritically “holier than thou” acting out roles rather than being themselves, and coming from an honest, inspired, heart-filled place. The ones who are legit, however, like Mandela – we feel inspired by.

I get it because I was once like that myself – not just with societal issues but personally – until I realized I was so motivated by fear and sometimes societal definitions of “good”, “acceptable” “perfect”, I wasn’t really growing or self-actualizing as a person. I felt so trapped. And like a disgusting hypocrite, I was afraid others would find out the darker side of me, the side that believed more in certain prejudices or was weaker than I would outwardly convey.

Honestly, because I was like that, I thought everybody was too – politically correct, perfect beings on the outside, but not so much on the inside. I felt pretty bitter, guilty, and inferior – a huge fraud. But to admit this would make me look bad, so I tried to pretend these things weren’t there. I was so ashamed, but I had no way to communicate or deal with it, so I projected it outwards and got even angrier and judgmental of others. And I most likely alienated and turned off more people.

Now I’m more self-aware and comfortable in my own skin, I’m not like that anymore, or at least am not most of the time. And I’ve noticed now in my own life – and others experiences – that people tend to listen to and respect those who have the courage to own up to their intolerance than those who are always angry and fail to look in a mirror. Judgment, labels, self-righteousness, the words “You are so this and this”, “People, or this group, are sheep, lazy, complacent, dumb, ignorant, self-absorbed” doesn’t really do a whole lot when trying to resolve issues. It just creates shame and guilt, and as anybody with an understanding of psychology knows, those are the exact emotions people do anything to avoid – and thus will avoid anything that triggers it off, whether through avoidance or anger.

A lot of people are generally loving and caring, willing to listen, learn, grow, and change when you communicate to them from a down to earth, humble, understanding, problem-solving way/approach. Or at least that is my experience and observations. It’s just all about honest communication and self-awareness.