He, Me & the struggles!

As I am writing this, am sure he must be dealing with his other clients. I am not his client; am his friend. But for me he is more than a friend. He is philosopher, guide, crisis manager, go-to buddy other than being therapist and anti-depressant.

I don’t know if it is his profession or his aura or his assuring smile or his serene face - whenever I go to him, he just helps me to successfully open up my bottled-up thoughts. Today was no different. I don’t know, he possesses that power to calm down my soul. Whenever am stuck-up and cannot move further in my life, I fix appointment with him.

So today’s was an intense session. He first asked me to puke out all those things that were bothering me. He is a great listener. He will never interfere until am done with. Hats off to his patience! I told him everything without any hesitance. I told him about the nightmares am having of late – recent being the one where I saw one of the most important person in my life die. I woke gasping for breath & I was sweating like a pig. I described my other nightmares too.

He said that too many things were going on my head simultaneously & he correctly pointed out my fears too. I told him about my biggest fears and inhibitions – about losing my loved ones, about my fucked-up career trajectory, about my relations with my friends, about my trust issues, about being directionless, about being disillusioned in life, about being un-settled, about my favourite things, about myself, about all the inferiority complex I have about my appearance, about getting old, about ending up all alone, about ending up in misery, about dying without doing anything fruitful for myself or anyone, about everyone hating me.

After handing me a glass of water he asked me to relax and take deep breaths. He unfolded my things for me – he told me upfront that when you think dualistically you end up limiting things. He told there is nothing correct or incorrect, early or late, failure or success. Having such “churnings” are part & parcel of life. As you grow up you got to think relatively and realistically. He said we succumb to different kinds of pressures – societal, peer, family or from ourselves. We tend to fail in adjusting our idealistic hopes with our realistic possibilities. And that’s an issue everyone struggles to cope with. Some succumb to it, some choose to ignore and some like you keep digging more. None is wrong, none is right and that is how the way it is.

You need to inculcate certain skills to address this. Don’t think of past – its long gone, past is in the past. Let go of things, let go of guilt, let of people. Forgive everyone including yourself; you are no God to be perfect. You are just a human and by that virtue you don’t own world’s all the problems. Like past, you should not be thinking of future too, in a sense you got to think it in shorter terms. Don’t think too far – 2 years henceforth. Make a feasible, workable plan to achieve all that you have planned. Keep writing different journals – journal everything – your thoughts, food you eat, memories, gratitude everything.

Expect less and accept more. Expect that you will face all kinds of "isms" - sexism, colorism, ageism, casteism & all different kinds of discrimination. Expect that life is never going to be a joy-ride. There will be the times when you will be back-stabbed, when you will be punched straight in your face by the surprises thrown by life. Be ready it. That will make you strong and that in fact what life is all about.  

Learn to live a minimalist life. De-clutter everything you don’t need any more. Don’t hesitate to cut-off toxic people, toxic friendships, and toxic relationships from your life. No need to beg love, no need to go behind people who don’t respect you or have no faith in you. Whosoever is meant to be in your life will remain anyway. Just remove all that unwanted stuff. Learn to stay calm and watch things neutrally. Everything is temporary.

In all this churning there will be times when you will feel hopeless, when your efforts will seem to be futile, your beliefs will get hurt; you will feel so low that you will feel like giving up. This is the exact moment, when you need to hang on. Just keep going but please don’t have any sense of entitlement. This is just a phase and it shall pass soon.

The lifeline activity we did shows that you have been through the worst phases in life earlier too where you felt like quitting, but you did not, and kept going. Just keep doing that. Take one thing at a time. Most importantly, invest in your health-physical & mental and also in your goals; that investment will never go fail howsoever worst be the recession. Keep up your spirits high buddy; you’ve got nothing to lose.

Talking to him gets me high! I thought I will document all this because I trust my poor memory. I know I will need this note for the future as well. Besides, I know many out there who are struggling at different levels. May this piece help you get some peace!