Manifesting my humanity

                                                       

                                                                     PHOTO BY Shaz

Why can’t I be good? Acceptable? Strong in values? Committed to my family? Loyal to all my old and new friendships? Hard-working? Disciplined? And every admirable trait known to humxnkind because that’s what existing on this planet is about whether we humxns are aware of it or not, and whether we’re in favour of achieving such gratifying acts, thoughts, and feelings or would rather like to infuse them with a tablespoon or more of destruction. 

Mind you, I don’t wish any life’s expiration. I don’t sit in solitude casting calamitous hocus-pocus on those who may have taken part in damaging my character. And I have never doubted the loving hearts of the people closest to me. No, no. I only desire total annihilation for me on certain days when I can’t fathom the monstrousness deep within me. 

You’re probably wondering what infernal regions internal to this particular universe am I alluding to because if it remains a perplexity to your ethical convictions, you’ll have very little choice but to speculate. And most of us know that making assumptions about others based on too few facts or zero evidence for that matter creates a Frankenstein sort of effect whereby the affliction inside becomes compounded with bogus claptrap that if I were taken to court, all this added nonsense would be considered indubitable proof of my delinquency.

The truth? There aren’t any words in this language to allow myself to comfortably and without shame express exactly the inner torment that has been an undisclosed trajectory for most of my life since the age of two or three. I use trajectory because this portion of who I am on Earth continues to make an indelible and detectable curve or wound that dwells in me until this life I know terminates. 

I’ve always hoped for atonement. Every time I believed the abomination had gone, it comes charging back in greater degenerate depths. Defeated yet elated in the crude moment though it takes away my capability to spend hundreds and thousands of minutes and hours to do significant, rewarding, and purposeful endeavours to support my own health and wellbeing and make a lasting and meaningful difference in others. 

For instance, the knowledge and capacity I have could be utilized to help and support freedom, the humxn rights, the health and safety of the millions of people all over the globe who are suffering and are begging the international community to step in and rise up for humanity. We see this most recently in the brutal slayings of innocent civilians in Palestine by the occupying Zionist state and military forces of Is-raol. We are living in the 21st century, 2024 is just around the corner, and yet we are still having to witness the complete depravity, cruelty, and violence of humxns against their companion humxns who have lost their families, grandparents, mothers, fathers, children, friends, members of the press, healthcare providers, teachers, farmers, and many other humxns just like you and me who were just going about their days doing errands, etc. They were and are people with dreams and goals, all wiped out within seconds, hours, days, weeks and months. And their pets and animal companions were forced to face, too, this relentless assault on their peace, safety and dignity. Added to the despair, malnutrition, disease and poverty are now constant fixtures of an already beleaguered region. I would join so many humxns and add my voice and resources wholeheartedly to this tragic loss of life, land and liberty of the Palestinians. May God bless them and turn the tides in their favour. And may all the world wake up to acknowledge, and to act and be part of saving Palestine and the Palestinians from this genocide. 

I will conclude my post here with the responsibility that I must begin the process of healing ❤️‍🩹 what lies in my heart, mind and soul, so that I may be of generous and compassionate service to the world and its inhabitants - humxn, animal, all species. I know only this life and I must make it purposeful, exceptional, and trustworthy to myself and to all the world, the magnificent world and its equally magnificent residents. 

♥️

“Louder Than Bombs”

I asked myself what happens to a person when they cannot express their feelings, emotions, and deepest thoughts to at least one person who could understand them or tries to. It’s happened to me. I’ve seen it happen to other people around me. What happens is that the subconscious reacts in whatever ways could redirect this confluence of inner distress. Maybe taking a form that may not be palatable for society. Expressing an intensity whose depths and origins even the person who enacts the subsequent behaviours might not be conscious of. 

Why is this so? Why are so many people living their whole lives wrapped in silence about their circumstances, situations, life trajectories and inner conflicts - these elements that create anxiety, fear, sadness, anger, and the whole range of melancholia. By the way, men and boys have higher rates of the risk of suicide in Canada. 

The self-imposed or societal solitary confinement remains internal up to a certain point. Then the restraints become unbearable. We are busted open, not quietly, but - to borrow The Smiths album title - louder than bombs. The eruption can be heard by victims or loved ones, maybe by the cops and the media, and consequently, by the public. 

There is no specific research I can draw on off the top of my head that studies a correlation between repressed emotions or mental anguish to violent behaviour, but, if you, dear reader, do know of one or a few, please leave links in the comments. 

How I chose to cope with repression is through consuming an unsavoury list of dependencies that racked my body, mentally, physically, and emotionally, fracturing my essential character and how I presented myself to the world. Having been diagnosed with Spasmodic Dysphonia in 2008 was one variation of the fracturing. But, again, to borrow the song title this time from Ivy’s tune, I had to “keep moving” despite that my voice made people wince, cry, laugh, shout profanities my way, exclaim that I must leave at once because my voice was disturbing everyone else in the space - people wondered why I even spoke at all. I remember attending a lecture by Dr. Gabor Mate on mental health and then meeting him afterwards. He said there is something that I am preventing from getting out. He was right, of course, but I had no hint of what that could be then. Now, I’m getting closer to what it might be - I’m getting closer to this truth about me. The voice changes with every realization I have made regarding this truth.

Everyone has their truth and struggles with the self. Some people are fortunate to know others they trust with their lives and can be vulnerable around them and make declarations about their innermost beliefs, thoughts, feelings, and emotions without the fear of judgement from these confidantes. But a great number of folks do not have warm, kind, supportive, and loving people around them who they can open up to at least about their deepest pain/hurt or the nethermost elements of their character. Furthermore, what we can reveal about ourselves is affected by a host of factors including: Does it conflict with the law? Are we abominable people for thinking and feeling this way? What actions have we already committed that could engender dismay or horror? Elements that perhaps would cause distress in the listener, a form of judgement no less. 

If The Thing is not disclosed to anyone, it is exposed through our habits and behaviours that possibly can lead to self-abnegation and/or force iniquities on to those we know and/or to those who are strangers. Society has been receiving the message to change the ways it perceives people who have troubling inner lives since time immemorial. Our systems built upon colonial rule, patriarchy, misogyny - ultimately, are codes of violence that systematized into coercive control of other peoples, their ways of life, and their lands. Change will not come to the West instantaneously because it is so steeped in the violence it created. 

This violence drives war, rape, human trafficking, displacement, inequality, racism, homophobia and transphobia, gender-based violence/intimate partner violence, and much, much more including the prison industrial complex. How about instead of putting people behind bars, we can develop alternative methods to ensure accountability by connecting them to programs and services where they can be heard and 

PHOTO BY NEEL SABETH

encouraged to contribute in self- and community-sustaining ways. Offer or create environments with universal health care and efficient social services, and strengthen and enhance the communities they self-identify with and provide assistance, assurance, compassion, care, treatment, respect, love, and dignity; otherwise, dying by suicide, for instance, will continue to make headlines and become a permanent fracture of our century. 

We now have the opportunity, the capacity, the human power, and the resources to transform and make it possible for people who are suffering privately excruciating attributes and conditions to express publicly in spaces that are safe(r) their deepest sorrow and darkest perturbations. They can receive steadfast attention and grow into transformative healing. In this way, society may realize and achieve healing as part of an equitable, compassionate, helping, and respectful landscape of new systems of care. A landscape that was punitive in scope - an ubiquity that could remain unchallenged except we, the people, can actualize a world that advances transformative justice and healing for all including other sentient beings, toppling these confining and decrepit regimes and their overbearing systems of domination. 

There is so much to learn about the nature of the self and transformative journeys in Indigenous Peoples’ theirstories, customs, cultures, practices, medicine, foods, ways of living, healing circles and health. These varied, diverse, and global nations have ancient and contemporary traditions that put transformative journeys for vulnerable populations into supportive practice within community. 

Free Palestine, The Congo, and all peoples who are trying to survive under colonial rule. Fight for the liberation of all people. Only then can we all be free. 

-30-

Portals exist throughout our lives

I've gone through another portal. These portals show up for me secretly without notifying me. They direct me to pass through them whenever they feel the time has come for the ending of one book and the beginning of a new book. When i look back on my memories, I understand what these portals have done, but this truth has come to me now after turning 50. 

These portals allow me to look back on my time on Earth and does not hide any of my faults. As i view these moments, i feel dissociated from the person being 'filmed'. This is ok. 

The portals that come to me dissociate me from the person in the past. Each time i pass through, they change me. This is a common experience among many of us. We feel dissociated from the past and the person who was 'me' in several film scripts. 

My sibs know 'me' the best. They will tell you that there are qualities in me that identify me as the person in the past. I agree. And, of course, i am all those versions of the 'self', and of the humxn family.

This new change - Neel - is based on some memories about that child. Read Concatenation published on this blog on May 25, 2015. 

Peace, all you bright souls.

💞🌟

 

Samantha a.k.a Sammy, but best known as Lalu

Lalu-jaanu, on our first day together. June 2014. PHOTO BY SI

Lalu-jaanu was a sweet and quiet cat. She had no voice, but often a purr. It sounded like the roses in my mom's backyard - a calm hush on days she wasn't feeling too old. She was 10 years old when I adopted her. On other days, she purred as if to say, things inside were out of order. Things that didn't trouble me, because I read purring was a sign of contentment. It was later that I found out it was also your cat trying to tell you that she was not ok.

She was a patient at a cat clinic. I took her there a few times, then switched to another veterinarian because the new cat was going there and I wanted both of them to get care from the same place. That vet only saw her once and told me that Lalu was suffering from pain in the mouth - gingivitis or worse, periodontal disease. The vet suggested extraction and switching to soft food. She told me to think about it and get back to her.

She never saw the vet again after that. Because after AK, there was Mini. Both AK and Mini had significant health issues that I was not equipped to handle. AK at 4, had UTI (urinary tract infection) - at least that's what I thought he had at the time. I never found out what it actually was, and still am not sure. A few days before, he was showing signs that something was amiss, but I had hoped it was the same as last time, and that soon, he'd be back to somewhat normal. Four days later, he was dead. Lalu saw it all. She was on the bed near him. I had him for exactly a year.

Then there was my Mini-munoo. She had CKD (chronic kidney disease) and it was only noticed when her tummy looked like there was a soccer ball inside it. I didn't pay it any mind, but the vet did. She took an x-ray, and then showed me what was going on with Mini. The vet said she would drain the fluid from the cyst that had formed around one of her kidneys, but the CKD couldn't be helped because of the stage Mini was at. She was only 12. I used to say that she accepted death - she stopped eating, stopped drinking water, and just sat in a chair, not responding to me. When the vet and her assistant arrived at my home to put her under, Mini-munoo's former humxn and her partner were there too, and I was grateful for that. She died in my arms.

What about Lalu-jaanu? Well, Lalu passed away about 3 months before Mini. She was really thin - eating kibble was hard on her mouth and probably causing further inflammation in the gums. She had lost a tooth a while back - one of her fangs. I wasn't prepared for what the vet at the emergency animal hospital told me about Lalu's condition. It was worse than I thought. She had fluid around her lungs, so that's why she was having trouble breathing. They put her in a small enclosure and put an oxygen pump in her mouth. I told her everything was going to be ok. She wanted to go home though. As she looked up, our eyes met.

Then the vet came back after the tests were done. Before, it seemed after they got the fluid out, Lalu would be breathing as normal again. This was not the case. They found cancerous tumours in her lung cavity and her tummy. Tooth decay and bad bacteria from the mouth may have been a factor, too. Leaving my Lalu-jaanu at the hospital, I went home to decide on what to do. I called my vet and she said it was too late to save her and putting her down would be the humane thing to do. Mini-minoo was still alive at the time, and gazed up at my tearful complexion. I cuddled her and thought I never had the chance to do this all that much for Lalu.

Just before I took Lalu to the emergency, she came over to where I was, sitting in front of my laptop. I can't remember what I was doing at the time - I was working on something. It was late - around 3 a.m. or nearly 4. I don't quite remember. She came and circled my feet like she'd always do. Then she'd go off into the other room. But after a few minutes passed, I went over to her and found her gasping and lying on her side. This was an emergency and I didn't want what happened to AK happen to Lalu. There was a momentary pause as I struggled to figure out what to do. I called the emergency animal hospital and they told me to bring her in, so I picked Lalu up as gently as I could and put her in the carrier - she was like a feather. When I held her, I felt a swelling on her tummy, but didn't have time to think about it. The taxi arrived.

The thing about Lalu's death was that I failed to be with her when they administered the first injection. That must have been terrifying for her. The first injection was to put her in a kind of peaceful daze. She was alive but barely. Then they brought her to me where I was waiting inside a room with a couch, dim lighting, and a few other things that made it a calm part of the hospital. They left me alone with her before the final injection. I said thank you to her, for the 5 years that she was with me. I said I was sorry that I let her down and didn't check with her first before bringing other cats into our home. I said I really appreciated how much she eventually accepted these cats - AK and Mini - though she took her time. She and AK became like best friends, something that I hadn't noticed until both were gone. There they were, in the pictures. In each one, they were together, sharing their food, interlocking their tails, sitting side by side, one looking at the other as they relaxed in front of the large window.

I looked at her face - her eyes were open but glazed over. She was already gone. The vet came with the second injection and in it went, inside her, to fill up her vessels with pentobarbitol, shooting its way towards the heart. It went faster than that. I was crying, so hard, and kept kissing her forehead. She had passed on. I stayed for some time with her before calling the vet to come take her. I left for home with a heavy heart, burdened by confusion, guilt, and grief. My Lalu was no longer here. She joined AK somewhere in the realm of consciousness, feeling or thought floating in the universe, maybe. Or, maybe she stopped to exist in her capacity as a cat. There was nothing left after, just her ashes.

Lalu-jaanu's ashes are in a small sealed pot like AK's and Mini's. The three petite urns are on top of the bookshelf, along with photos of each of them and their collars. Memorials. Soon, one day, I will release their ashes in Lake Ontario. This was something I had planned on doing last summer, but never got around to it. After COVID-19 is cleared, I promise to myself, to my mom, and to my two kitties who are now my biggest worry, to release the ashes, to let go of the guilt, and to be happy that I had 3 fur babies who lit up my life in the small, precious ways they did.

Lalu was my first adopted cat. I knew she had a tough life before I met her. She had a tough life even after. If I could get inside her mind (and in the minds of all my cats), I'd know what to do to help her remain calm in the face of overwhelming hardship. She was unique with a soul to call her own.

If Lalu-jaanu can hear these words, I hope they will convince her to forgive me.

Rest in Peace, Love, and Joy, Lalu-jaanu, wherever you are, as a spirit, as a star, as air, as nothingness, or whatever you dream yourself to be in death beyond the Rainbow Bridge.

Oct 3, 2004 - Feb 25, 2019. Photo by SI

The Creeps!

Photo of waves crashing against the rocks. Lake Ontario. PHOTO BY SI

While everyone is freaking out about COVID-19, I'm afraid of the night and the strange sounds it brings with it. Sometimes, the wind will rap on my back door, waking up my cat. She'll look towards the door for a while, then look at me. She's not really scared, actually. She's a 4-year-old fighter with some of her feral kitty instincts still intact. My older cat, on the other hand, is a scaredy-cat like me, only the terror doesn't stay in him for long because he's got his humxn by his side. He'd listen intently to the noise or to the silence, would tremble a little, and stay close to me, reaching his front legs out and resting them on my arm. I'd reassure him that it was nothing. He'd sense my trepidation, though, and so would the younger one. Still, they would make their peace with the darkness by falling asleep, so they could travel through another world.

What about me? Who's going to help me drift off? I tune in to the silence, expecting to hear something loud or the crash of an object in my vicinity. But other than the sounds of the fridge and old-apartment creaks and cracks, I don't hear anything else except a constant whirring sound - like water gushing from somewhere. It lasts for some time before it suddenly stops.

Then, stillness. Or, disquietude.

What about the jangle outside? Could it be the tempest tap, tap, tapping against the door, windows, and brick walls? Or, could it be peculiar vibrations, notes, and tones that were comparable to soft thuds, footsteps, or someone fiddling with the door handle? It's been terrifying me since December 2015, if my memory serves me correctly. In actuality, the fear comes from a childhood of being afraid of the dark, of monsters and malice. I didn't know during my formative years that it was anxiety - at least that's what they call it in the DSM-V. But in my mind, it was dread, panic, or the creeps!

to be nothing, i am

New Story by SI

i remember yesterday, but i am not absorbed by it,
recollections of it are neutralized,
i look at it from an observer's view,
it's no longer me,
yesterday is supposed to shape me,
not entirely, or not at all,
since loosening myself from it,
maintaining contemporaneous fluidity,
now I am free,
from its perturbations,
from its bedlam,
from its crux,
to be nothingness, no shame, no remorse,
the categories coming with this physicality,
even they are consigned to nothing more than peculiar details,
of a life lived,
unless i'm in company of the few who have some under classification,
i don't mind, it can't alter or disturb the passage,
because the passage is, during a retrospection, an observer,
paramount to point out that...
i am nothing,
nothing is emancipation, setting free, soveriegnty,
at least to me, it portrays the neoteric,
the unusual, the innovative, the raw,
i don't know why they who are around me are perpetually sobbing,
at any moment, at every moment,
they are chained to quondom resolutions,
such approaches aren't of the harmonious variety,
they bear stagnation, the mopes of no hope,
the people lather in lament,
even though their lives are not in yesteryear,
they are too here and now, they too can find their independence,
or is it clearance,
i was one of them, for some time, not presently, not these days, not ever from now,
gleeful, gratified, can't complain, even though they don't consider it as truthfulness,
they don't believe because they're in theirs, nonetheless,
they require me to be nestled in my own craters, excavate all, like them,
but the observer only perceives if alone, articulates what is prevalent if with them,
what is before them, the people's sorrowing, the people's wretchedness,
when these people ask, who are you if you are not "she" from the past?
i answer, i am me, from the here and now, not "she",
if they wished for "she", they'll never encounter "her", never unearth "her" from me,
"those days", they settled in, with no suffering, no struggle,
with placidity, with congeniality, with quiet partition,
today, the looker-on, only at certain intervals,
in exact definitude, i am awake, living, potent,
i am de novo,
better still,
a blank, a cipher,
entirely a zero.

the story of the ball

reaching up and away by SI

it was a tennis ball, yellow, round, white threading,
it was handled by a few, thrown and caught, then, thrown and hit,
it rolled the few times it thought it made its escape,
only to be picked up and thrown and hit,
again and again,
it wasn't worried though, it eventually will,
it didn't do as well as the other ones,
but it wasn't meant to just be (a ball),
it was meant for superlative catapulting,
that no hand could throw,
although the hand or some other object must give it its momentum,
otherwise it will stay forever under a bench or seat,
finding repose on a placid floor of green,
that was the goal of other tennis balls,
but not for it, not for it,
it was meant to be on its own,
with forms of patronage to move and release it,
with that came minor freedoms, as it moved outside,
and then major ones dazzled it,
it flew over and across an entire route of conveyances and contraptions,
then it made its way through a wet, grassy grove,
torpedoing above hedonistic edifices,
parachuting towards incandescent Moirai,
it wanted to go beyond the caboodle,
feel the sun's rays, the moon's obscurity,
or the hole as it swallows it whole,
and so, all of it happens,
and it is no more, because it fell into the hole,
and into that hole, it must have come undone,
it was a tennis ball, yellow, round, white threading,
but now, it is nothing, that is how it wished to end.

From the Tops of the Hills and High Above Into the Stars...

...this scruffy pale-skinned kid shuffled his way up, moving "in all ballerina-like ease" up the craggy mountain-face that saw him at times half-crawling on all fours or once at the top, standing in utter bewilderment at the magnificent scene around us. He took a raw overview of the space surrounding him now, feeling the soothing cooling down of temperatures as they wrapped their whispery thin, almost translucent frailties around you, the boy.

but, nope, you're not afraid, this time. Cuz you witnessed just moments before that fiery spirit give birth in your hands - your heart pulsating bright reds and then launched into my orbit. 

Prayers & Petitions: Ramadan Day 2

AK and Lalu sharing the window perch (2016). PHOTO BY NEONSAB

Don't think for a minute that our very own social justice movements are free from oppression. We mimic our oppressors all the time, because despite our delusion that we can build more just, equitable communities, we should realize that we are using the same building blocks as our oppressors.

Today, I see it in the hierarchies we have created around who's more socially and politically 'woke' right down to the lingua franca, the right level of 'wokeness', the lack of understanding and acceptance of people who are neurodivergent, and neuro-'dissident', the exclusionary and clique-preservationist tendencies in most of our movements...When people don't behave according to our self-righteous, grandiose, colonial-influenced-capitalist-types-devoid-of-thinking-feeling-emotionally-intelligent-emotionally-responsive-in-order-to-be-functional-and-productive-members-of-society, we judge them as unfit for the spaces that are supposed to be for community but that we define according to our agenda and our definition of 'social justice' which ultimately aligns with a social order centering colonial-settler-white-European systems of governance, law, crime, and punishment. We judge them, and then, through our subconscious conditioned and internalized oppressions, we use incriminating language to demonize them and their behaviours to neatly dissect these 'outcasts' from the purity of good manners, good functionalities, good productivities, approved by no other than the State apparatus. They teach us to be mindful for sure; mindful that if we should crumble, we will be discarded.

True to form, oppression invalidates the lived experiences and realities of so many of us who were born in different times and generations.

True to form, oppression doesn't differentiate, it paints us all with the same brush, and makes us ALL feel completely useless because of the ways our minds think and roam. Think and roam. As Creatives must.

True to form, there's no such thing as 'social justice', just different, and perhaps, more deceptive, layers of oppression to add to what's already there; deceptive, because we *think* we're in safe(r) company, among those who say they care, but actions always speak much louder than words. When they punish to teach us a lesson, we know they support the PIC and all other industrial-complexes because it suits their agenda, their plan, to win some coveted spot near the 'big man's' throne.

True to form, oppression has absolutely no interest and zero-tolerance for rehabilitation or anything close to a justice that is transformational, reconstructive, or restorative, or more aptly, Indigenous.

True to form, oppression never understands what brought a person to a particular moment in their lives. Oppression doesn't care. People act out and they alone are responsible and must bear the consequences of their deeds. This also allows the State to treat them in even more vicious ways than the acts they themselves may have committed.

True to form, oppression never recognizes the part it plays in creating the very energies that cause people to react based on their conditioning. Oppression does not take responsibility. Oppression and its multiple exploitative and violent systems avoid being held accountable. And anyone who dares to make it do so, the pushback will be intense and hawkish.

Sign of the Times.

How to fight our internal inclination to Oppress?

Here are some things I've committed to doing. They may not work for you, but the beauty of human intelligence is our capacity to adapt new information to suit our circumstances and personalities and dis/abilities without losing its spiritual benefits.

(1) When someone insults me, I offer them an invitation to unpack the insult and offer them a learning experience.

Someone once said to me that my eyes were scary because they nearly popped out and that person read my eyes popping out as an act of aggression. As an anxious persona, my eyes will open wide whenever I am excited or agitated. I used that as an educational moment to inform the person of why my eyes do that. Instead of calling them out, I called them in, invited them to learn something so they wouldn't be afraid next time they saw me get all bug-eyed. I also learned something new though from that person. I learned how past trauma can impact a person's reading of people's nonverbal communication styles and uncontrollable behavioural ticks.

A similar thing happened when I spoke to a stranger in my Spasmodic Dysphonic voice condition (adductor version - a strained, strangled tone). They said they had just heard the 'devil' speak. I invited them to unpack their fears, and provided them with details about my voice condition (notice, I don't self-shame myself by calling it a 'disorder'). We talked. Again, this person learned something about me and different voice conditions, and I learned something about them growing up in an orthodox religious household. Once they knew why it sounded the way it did and were able to move past their fear, we were able to converse about other things during the weekend retreat we had both registered for.

(2) People are not always (or never) the sum of their actions.

I made friends with a prisoner who as a young soldier went on a killing spree in the country he was stationed in. I wrote about him in a past post, but I might have taken it down. He didn't survive his guilt, unfortunately, and apparently died by suicide, but to this day, I don't believe he would have died by such means, as he had shown much interest in not only connecting with me, but also with others who were interested in his story and his desire to seek some deliverance from what he had done. He knew he had a lot of road to cover on this journey, and he knew all too well that his acts had made him more enemies than friends. When I first read the story of what had happened, I was in tears; tears of rage, tears of sadness, tears of grief for the families and people directly affected. But on that same night I found this story, my sorrow motivated me to write him. I did not think he'd ever get the letter but he did! Soon, he asked for permission to correspond with me through the prison email communication system. I knew that agreeing to it would mean that all our emails would be read by the higher ups. But for the short time we corresponded, we connected on a level beyond the narrow confines of our identity labels. He had also connected to a few other people too on the same level, and even though, I did not know them, it seemed we were all connected on a spiritual plain, not only guiding ourselves through the grief, but also supporting this ex-soldier's journey towards redemption. He died too soon for that to happen, but I am hopeful that what we began is now sacred healing energy bringing light and love to the families, friends, and all those who suffered such intolerable losses on that day when our soldier friend sealed his fate. Incidentally, a play was written about this person, and it was performed by this theatre company in 2015, subsequently performed by others in more recent years.

(3) When we meet people where they're at, we allow ourselves to see beyond our identity walls.

Have you ever had convos with people who are actually quite racist? How about homophobes and transphobes? How about people with ableist views, or who are ageist? And then, how about the misogynists, the patriarchs, those traditionists who think womxn need to stay in the kitchen? And the folx who treat people living with HIV and AIDS with revulsion and exclude them? What do you say, how about sitting next to someone on the sex offender registry and having a coffee at Tim Hortons with them? Or, maybe someone who's harmed animals in their past (by harm, I include even the lowest threshold of harm to animals, which for me, is giving them up at a shelter, which basically means that this person is no less placing them in line for the gas chamber - yes some States and I guess some places in Canada use the gas chamber to euthanize unwanted dogs, mostly cats, and other animals.

I continue to meet people who fit the above schemas because most often, they come through my door (my door means wherever I may be in some spiritual or temporal place), they come through my door, to start a dialogue, not a fight. That dialogue leads to story. And stories have the power to humanize us, no matter who we are and what we've done. 

I've been blessed to witness transformations in people. You'll believe it can happen only when you allow hateful language to come through your door knowing that it 'can't touch this'. People will change when they know in themselves that it's time to change. They won't change cuz I'm screaming obcenities at them and calling them a bunch of "sexist misogynist violent neanderthals' or engaging in exclusionary practices within places I work or through my social networks to keep such people OUT.

I am not saying that those of us labouring for social justice change must suddenly open the flood gates to ALL those labeled 'deviants' or 'miscreants' by society (by a society which is actually not interested in preserving the good, but have its sights on preserving the wealth among the few). So, they ultimately decide who's in and who's out. Notice, some people get a thumbs up for their nefarious actions, while others don't make the cut and get processed in a PIC factory. If the latter are lucky and are saved from the PIC, then they're the ones who end up coming through our doors. They're the ones who are either going to keep doing what they've been doing - bringing more harm to themselves, and tragically, to others who are in their way - or they might do something about the potential option a chance encounter with us might offer them in the form of a seat or a spot in this inner sanctum that now they too have a hand in envisioning - but maybe their first response may be to manipulate. And throughout the trajectory of their presence in a space that belongs just as much to them as to us, we might witness when they experience the glory of awakening into a new persona, the moments when they struggle with their internal demons and the desire to harm yet choose other channels to allow those tempests to flow through without harming themselves or others; but, in reality, we may still witness the sometimes very public instances when their not-so-at-peace persona(e) has a meltdown and all their internal work comes to an abrupt halt. And we are flustered by this eruption. But the truth is, maybe it's just fate. 

The question then for us is, will we - us, our communities, our children, our pets, our plants - hold space for these eruptions, disruptions, and triumphs all sporadically, incongruently, unpredictably presented by the broken mortals among us who are slow progressors in their internal trauma work? Who decides whose space this is? If we were collectively building a space, would we not want something closer to anarchy?

Then again, anarchy is not a thing to be 'built'; otherwise, it risks slipping back into the same rabbit hole all our other movements have slipped into - just another human-made mechanism of self-righteous control, exclusion, and violence.

Anarchy is something people can practice daily, to be attentive, open, respectful, decent, caring and loving, knowing that space can be shared, and we have the capacity to hold space for anyone, even for those who may look at us with disdain or label us as nothing but 'the dirt under their shoes', or even worse, when they're raging and throwing expletives at anyone in their path. It's easy to get provoked. It's easy to take things personally. What's not so easy is to hold space for that person, to meet them where they're at based on their lived experience, a lived experience I know nothing about until I ask, "Are you ok? Do you need to talk to someone? I have some time. What's on your mind?"

I have not yet figured out how to navigate situations where people are being physically violent, but I do know from experience, that I am not a passive bystander. When I have been witness to people's aggressive behaviours towards other humans or animals, I have not hesitated in stepping in to disrupt and complicate their performance. I may at first yell 'STOP', and once they're distracted and their eyes turn to me, with probably, thoughts of destroying the interloper, I shape-shift and start talking to them as if we're family, and that I'm their sibling, or parent, or child, or someone within proximity of a blood or chosen relative. That familial tone of voice can calm people down somewhat when it's coming from a genuine place. It's helped me intervene in situations where men were being aggressive towards womxn, poc boys starting fights with other poc boys, people uttering homophobic slurs at others, people being loud and obnoxious who are about to get nasty on public transit. I've said, "Hey, hey, are you ok? Come here, sit down, let's talk."

I don't always know what I'm doing, and so, I don't think everyone should try to intervene in what could potentially be a high-risk dangerous confrontation. But so far, I haven't been beaten to a pulp, and I thank my sweet mama for always praying for me and my bodily integrity. That being said, I have never come across anyone wielding a weapon. I will pray that if and when that ever happens, my instincts will kick in and I will know what to do to either remove myself from the situation and ensure that other people are safe too or to lend a helping hand in other ways, like calling 911.

I was once told that I saw the world through rose-coloured glasses. The person who said that was projecting their own toxic masculinity insecurities. I was born into violence, into a bloody ravaged region that became the birthplace of a new nation, born among a generation of immigrant-settlers who were uprooted from their origins and compelled to construct new identities in often violent repurcussive ways or reconstruct something close to the original but always falling short, never quite belonging to this group or subsect. If I see the world through rose-coloured glasses, then pigs can really, actually FLY (maybe once they did, and I wish they still could so they could fly away from those horrible factory farms and slaughterhouses).

I categorically deny any and all opinions regarding my purported illiteracy in what is referred to as real like. Who I am today and what I've done to bring humans closer to their humanity is a direct result of the violence I've both witnessed and experienced in my lifetime. If my 'rose-coloured-naive-foolish-sometimes-public' displays of holding space for all the ne'er-do-wells in our world are viewed as endorsements of their problematic behaviours, then I share with you what 47 years living, loving, and fighting on this earth has taught me:

Acceptance of our diverse and divergent human states is a virtue foolishly shunned by those in power and by activists controlled by social justice orthodoxies. When acceptance is intentionally practiced by those who society considers 'weak', this acceptance can bring about significant change overtime, even if the change can only be seen in the actions of ONE individual, maybe only benefiting the collective cosmic consciousness (where my Lalu and AK's energies are now among), but that may indeed be felt on earth in one or many of the billions of daily acts of human existence and of the human soul. (How many people and animals do we randomly come across in our daily lives? So, imagine what the transformed individual can do with this newfound way of living, living with joy, with purpose that creates a profoundly beautiful moment, maybe a humourous moment, or even a cynical one where they may laugh at themselves.).

Prayer 1:

May we commit to performing Acts, that in their simplicity, can spark life-affirming altruistic, tender-hearted, humane, and humanitarian beginnings where evil, hate, insatiable hunger for power and control, and the will to exterminate themselves and/or other sentient beings including kith and kin were once conditioned destiny.

The truth is, it never had to be nor has to be.

Let's get the dialogue started. Where it'll end, we don't know, but if we start with the desire to understand, the tension that might follow can be mutually addressed with gentleness and respect.

As long as you all know this, I'm with you.

You may not like me, may never like me, but I know you and somewhere in you, you know you know me, too.

Prayer 2:

Peace. Solidarity. Love. Liberation to all Sentient Beings on Planet Earth and the Cosmos.

Make Compassionate Evolution not Greed-filled Extinction our Contribution to LIFE, make it our our ever-lasting imprint for future generations and iterations of Being.

Make Every Life Form Count as ONE VALUED RESOURCE not to be used and exploited but to be appreciated for simply EXISTING. And if this Life Form needs to change for its own good and/or for the good of others, then may our Higher Consciousness and the Cosmos make it part of that Life Form's path to Healing, to Recovery, to Love, even in death.

Prayer 3:

I dedicate this pronunciamento, petition, meditation to my beloved kitties: Lalu (2006 - 2019) & AK (2013 - 2017); to all my ancestors and relations whose anthropologies I will never know; to the friends and chosen family members I call my peers who are, now, too, like Lalu and AK, consciousness, all traveling at lightning speeds through vast stretches of universe, radiating and twinkling hope for the material world, that wondrous blue-white-brown-green sphere that remains the envy of its planetary neighbours similarly suspended in the same galactic dust swirl, also colliding with the warming rays of a brobdingnagian solar Divinity. 

No matter what may happen to us here on this blue-white-brown-green dimension or plateau or dream, the good in us is stronger than our material being, and when that being dissolves into dust, we are free to spread the love we've always known but may never have gotten the chance to share on earth. But for some of us, we may be fortunate enough to find how to create more love while we exist in human form, maybe through a chance encounter with someone who was brave enough to step in and offer to listen without prejudice.

I pray that somehow, somewhere, all those loved ones in the spirit world will instill in all us broken people here, the ones confined in sweltering, raging cages built by the PIC, the ones consumed by blood-thirsty evil in their basements, the ones falsely elected to lead who cannot lead, the ones who exploit and consume to maintain their 1% status, the ones driven by desperation who maim, torture and kill other sentient beings, the ones who remain in denial, the ones victimized by unimaginable trauma, the ones dislocated, the ones silenced, the ones colonized, the ones under threat of air attacks, the ones, those ones, these ones, everyONE...I pray that our Higher Cosmic Consciousness will instill the profound realization that we each have some untouched reserve capacity for spiritual self-transformation that, even if only for a moment, will gift us with an extraordinary experience... 

...where we feel in our whole body and being UNCONDITIONAL LOVE for that unloved child in us, for the unloved children before us, for the unloved people in our lives, for the unloved people we've harmed or who have harmed us, for all other sentient beings who are innocent, domesticated or wild...

...and also the will, the urgent desire and commitment to self-transform and to reconnect with that most loving of spirits - that which remains in every human soul despite living through the ravages of human existence - that which a singular act of Divine Grace breathed into us before we rose in human form, that most loving of spirits that does not manifest the violence passing through it, and each time the violence implodes, what Divine Grace breathed into our dust will not allow the violence to explode by remaining in stillness, in acceptance, and in the wisdom of knowing that an impulse is fleeting, and with time, such impulses that lead to violence will fade as that most loving of spirits within us begins to SOAR. 

And this concludes my prayer for the night on the second day of Ramadan.

Ramadan Mubarak.

Remember, we are our Own Liberators.

Peace be Upon You.




Neonsab

Jack-in-the-box

My midnight meditations bring me back,
front and centre,
To a lifelong impulse for brute force and tribulation,
What the mind witnesses in childhood,
The heart covets amidst a contaminated
coming-of-age.

I sprung forward, a languishing jack-in-the-box,
Arms wide open,
beckoning to the vexed troglodytes,
Promising a warm home, in me,
Despite swallowing the venom in their discharge.

Go away, they said:
A knife, blade propelling,
Slices the empty plastic bottle just a few inches in front of me.
Imagine, this was my only shield.
But my guts still spilled out in a hidden cavity called sorrow.
Or maybe it was titillation?

We don't want you, they said:
A head butt, sharp, stinging,
Leaving a violaceous stain
On tormented brow,
Made not from prostrating in prayer,
Plainly from a direct hit by the beloved tempest
An inconvenient discolouration,
I rearranged my hair.
Nobody noticed.

Your face is repugnant, they said:
My head dizzy after being tossed from the seat.
Huddling at their feet, I saw the tight stretch of skin on choleric knucks,
They came down, down, down,
A furious pounding,
A tantrum, kicking my huddled mass,
Exhaustion disrupted the battering,
Weak men tire quickly.

We don't need your consent, they said:
Because they were doing me a favour
Phallic protrusions breached tender portals of an unsuspecting body,
Igniting no pleasure, only exquisite injury,
That I would not call by its prescribed name.

Shush, they said:
Hands now encircling my nape, compressing, squeezing
Strangling the voice they cursed
Soliciting my annihilation, but breath lingered,
So, mighty walloping of the belly supervened,
Until sleep turned rage to rest.
I wept because I was still alive.

You see, I'd magically pop back up with arms opened wide,
Anguished smile in red maquillage, putting on the pretty
But they always saw past the simulated femme
Concealer, a failed camouflage
Woman, smile, they said.
But the creases exposed the mutant underneath.

This petrified their ego, but no harm in profiteering
From infatuations I diagnosed as love
They were men after all, anticipating their big break
Until then, they sought the prerequisites that would help pay their way,
By plundering their tenacious jack-in-the-box,
Limerence was free currency,
And biting the hand that fed them had no consequence.

Some random midnight insight...but good insight.

Why do people mistreat or hate those who help them?

Click on the link above to first read the answer by a commenter on quora, and then read my blog post below.

This is a very insightful response to the conundrum of being hated by others who we have helped. Many of us do what we do because we enjoy the act of giving, but then again, we may also be people-pleasers who constantly search for validation by helping others. And also, our help may be tinged with arrogance that we may not see in ourselves but others can. Haven't we all been there? I'm sure in experiencing someone's resentment towards us and wondering what we might have done to harm them may trouble us because we don't see any wrong in what we've done. Who knew that, in offering support to the friends/families we love in their times of need and who we thought would appreciate our support, we may have indirectly contributed to their feelings of helplessness, inadequacy, and shame? It doesn't mean we should stop offering to help them (or maybe we should stop?). Being aware of our privilege (education, skill set, etc) and knowing that we are all working within a classist, racist, ableist, homophobic, transphobic and patriarchal system that is not equitable and is consistently discriminatory towards communities that have been historically marginalized could help us better understand why the receivers of our help are no longer talking to us because perhaps our help reflected something they painfully desire(d) in themselves that they have never had access to due to social/structural inequalities/life circumstances. I don't know what it would take to restore these embittered relationships. Maybe it would take each of us to be brave by self-reflecting rather than pointing fingers, and developing/strengthening what I learned in my friend's Connections course based on what Brene Brown coined as 'Shame Resilience'. But after this long and babbling self-reflection of my own here, I wish you all a peaceful and restful night.

Review: One L: The Turbulent True Story of a First Year at Harvard Law School

One L: The Turbulent True Story of a First Year at Harvard Law School by Scott Turow
My rating: 5 of 5 stars



View all my reviews

Thoughts so far on Scott Turow's book One L: The Turbulent True Story of a First Year at Harvard Law School

Reading the book One L by Scott Turow, I found an interesting passage that expresses human nature's constant conflict between the desire to achieve our full potential free of any social expectations and the necessity to avoid being "too awesome" because of our interconnectedness with others, and how our success/awesomeness may negatively impact them. And yes, even law school students, despite the intense competition among their ranks, may also relinquish their competiteness for the greater good in some classroom situations, according to this book. It's both sad and heartening to know that some of us have this engrained disposition to set in motion our own failure (even though we know we can do better) in order to appease others who may not be enjoying the same privileges we are due to the ways in which various inequities have affected all of us and our relationships with one another. So, we fall because our connection to others becomes more important to sustain than our own advancement, which may possibly be, both, an act of solidarity and self-destruction.

Words to Remember You

Yellow lily. PHOTO BY SI.

I appreciate you.

I appreciate that you taught me the importance of being genuine.

I appreciate that you modeled honesty when things were not right to you.

I appreciate that you made an effort to rebuild bridges and give people a second chance.

I appreciate that you acted on your concern for others.

I appreciate that you presented your passion for creating networks of care and motivated people to act.

I appreciate that you were forgiving to others and to yourself.

I appreciate that you stood up against oppression and stuck to your principles.

I appreciate that you recognized your weaknesses but equally acknowledged your resilience.

I appreciate that you valued deep, strong, and lasting friendships.

I appreciate that you remained hopeful and had faith in your and other people’s capacity to offer care.

I appreciate that you put your trust in others and asked for support when you were hurting.

Because, my friend, you taught me that no person is an island.

Because, my friend, people may not have had the chance to see the WHOLE of you.

And so, I say these words about you and for you, because I don’t want to forget your humxnity.

I don’t want to forget your vision for a kinder, more loving, more just and forgiving world.

And if I am one among a few people who now hold your vision close, I will do my best to model its life-affirming and empowering message in my thoughts, in my actions, and in my spirit.

And one more thing I wish to say...

You made it after all, my friend, so fare thee well. 

Fare thee well. 

In memory of my brilliant friend.

Dear Losers of the World

Dear Losers of the World,

I hear you. I see you. I connect with you and all the mess you've created on this earth. All the mess you expect others to clear away for you. Dear Losers. I feel the pain of your anguish - that anguish, that dread that knows, without even looking in the mirror, that it was all done by YOU. All of it. All of it. Not a single other. Not a single wee tiny little mouse. All of it was done by YOU. 

And because of that, you're kinda feeling loser-ly tonight. You're kinda feeling like all confused, and hurt, because you can't make sense of the guilt, that gnawing, attacking, insulting, totally not-pc GUILT! When you feel like that, you feel helpless. You feel sorry for yourself and then you can feel the power within you slipping away - actually the power just kind of starts vanishing in the thick of it, in the thick of the unconscionable but in the thick of discovering the unconscionable which then becomes conscious to you. It becomes so real. Too real. And you can't escape the discomfort of it all. 

So, you try to scratch it out of you, to slit the skin so the poison burns your fragile exterior as it pours out with singular uncompromising speed, you do everything you can, that's within your power, which is actually no longer power, but sickening self-pity instead that will further devastate and deviate from what you were initially brought somewhere to do.

Dear Losers, I know your life, my life, are fragile webs and they can't always hold the impact of all the wrath we fling this way and that way like the steel blades of a hurricane slicing through hope, faith, peace, love, whatever. I know that in this experience of deep loser-li-ness, as you think thoughts of offing your putrid selves for the benefit of all Humxnkind and for the sake of the Animals who will no longer be murdered just to feed you, for the sake of every being. It is better to lose your life than the world having to lose the lives of so many others.

So, in that experience, in that moment when it's too late, when you've lost your life (could be both literally and figuretively), I want you to feel pride for having done what you did. For having the guts to go without a bang. For letting the world find out gradually that you are no longer with us. 

Because that's just what losers must do. They must off themselves and hope to the Almighty-master-fear-monger-himself-herself-their-selves that where their souls are heading/headed is a place where such worries are never entertained. And so, my dear Losers, you will find great peace in death. Great riches none like here on Earth. Great moments of joy and wonder, never fear or danger.

And I wonder, Dear Losers, what that would be like.

Death, Grief, Remembering, Learning

AK/Boojie staring out from one of his favourite hiding places. PHOTO SI

A friend of mine recently lost her cat, who died quite suddenly. Cats have passed from sudden death syndrome, and vets say it may be connected to heart health issues or ringworms. My friend posted a few heartfelt narratives about her precious fur baby and wrote about that special interspecies bond that all cat lovers know so well. It was beautiful prose to remember a beautiful friendship. I know that my friend is devastated from her loss and it made me think about losing AK/Boojie in January of this year.

What I've learned is that though the frequency of visits from Grief start decreasing as time passes, the emotional intensity is always the same with always the same questions running through my head - why? how? what if? But no matter what, all those feelings and all those questions cannot somehow erase the suffering some of the cats in our lives went through - suffering that they often endured in silence until they could no longer stand the pain.

I will never forget the sight of AK as he was leaving this life behind. The rigor mortis set in within two hours. I stayed close to him for a while and Lalu did too. Then I covered him up in a blanket and placed him in the large litter box with a cover that I washed completely before putting him inside. He couldn't fit anywhere else because his body had stiffened. I covered the box with a prayer mat and then waited for the morning to come so I could take his body to the vet to schedule his cremation.

AK's former caregiver arrived at my home to accompany me to the vet with AK. He wanted to see him. When I opened the top cover of the box and pulled back the blanket covering AK, he knelt down and stroked AK's head. He loved AK like family, and I knew that seeing his best little fur buddy that way broke his spirit.

I think these memories are important. They play a significant role in making us humans realize our capacity to nurture deep emotional and spiritual connections to other species; there is an intelligence and intimacy there that only people who have opened their hearts and homes to such relationships truly understand and appreciate. My hope is that through loving all the animals that have come and gone in my life, i will learn to extend that kind of familial sensitivity, affection, and concern to other animals, especially the ones who suffer from the day they are born to the day they are killed, for food, for scientific and medical tests, and for entertainment.

I will never know why at 4 cat years of age, AK had to go, and why I was not able to provide him a peaceful death in time. But life and death collided that night. In such circumstances, the learning is like a slap in the face. And so, to continue honoring his memory and to never forget the pain of his death, the two cats with me now receive all the best of my care. It is still a rocky road though and this home I have for them is not perfect. I can only work hard and can only hope that my fur babies - when each of their time comes - they will be in a safe loving comfortable space, they will be pain-free and can make their exit from here and head for their souls' liberation without any fear.

Sending loving thoughts and prayers to my friend's cat, Frida, as she begins a new existence somewhere in the universe, maybe as consciousness - consciousness that adds more love, more playfulness, and more joy in our world because that's just what cats bring to our lives in general and that's just what makes them such amazing healers, such dedicated furiends, and such engaging teachers. Rest in peace, sweet Frida.

The Other Me

Filtered. SI

I saw the other me tonight. The other me from a past life. I need the filter though to protect that other me so you can't see them as clearly. But I can.

I understand now why those red dresses mean something to me. Why the stories enrage me. Why the voice wants to be set free. It's the other me.

Somebody who was a nobody, then became...a body.

And this is why we need to stop telling people they're not like us, or they don't know us, or they can't do what we can do. There is an other in all of us - maybe one, maybe ten.

When you find your other like I found mine - captured in a selfie, from a distance, you too might see it. The confusion will clear. It might scare you, but you will understand the whys.

The past beyond this past. Beyond that past. Beyond. Beyond. Beyond.

How far back does this other me want me to go? How many lifetimes were skipped? How many other mes did I miss? Or, did it all happen yesterday?

If I look deeper, I might find the puzzle pieces to put the story of this other me together. I might see their name. On that list. In red. On a sign held by a mother, or a grandmother, or a sister, or a daughter.

But the other me never really died. They were waiting to be found.

So, here they are. In this selfie. Flashy colours. Slight grin. Proud chin. Back. Not for truth. Not for that other damn thing. Not for a sad red dress. But for reclamation. Resurrection.

Restitution.

This other me. Now you will hear their voice. Free. At last.

What happened?

Somewhere in the middle of nowhere lies hidden memories of a past. PHOTO BY SI

Is it really important to find out what happened to you if you have no clue what happened? Can healing only be linked to "what happened" or is it possible for healing to come from never knowing the truth of what happened but working on managing the after-effects/consequences/symptoms of that truth? You may have an idea of what that truth could be, but you run into a mental barrier or a blockage that prevents you from discovering that truth. In seeking the truth, how to go about it if memory fails you? Still, can one heal without having to search for and unearth one's archaeology? Can we find liberation through what we know of ourselves in the now without the need to dynamite the concrete walls that imprison the past? Maybe it's for a good reason that we can't ever know.

Grieving with the rain

Boojie-Woojie looking into the lens and thinking fur-baby thoughts. Spring 2016. PHOTO BY SI

Today I picked up Boojie-Woojie's small blue urn and held it close to me. I wondered how all that big bright presence that was you could fit inside such a small space. I lit the candle beside the urn and the one placed on the table where your memorial photos greet me daily as soon as I enter the apartment. Lalu never lounges too far from it whenever I let her out on the stairwell. It's like she knows you're there watching over us.

In lighting candles in your memory every single night since your death at the end of January this year, it was my way of reaching out to whatever form and energy you are now. I don't know where you are. I only hope that wherever you may be and in whatever form, you are not suffering. It would break me completely if I ever discovered through all my explorations about life after death that you are now worse off. I am always praying that your joyful and active spirit is creating ripples of laughter and happiness through the elements that define your Heaven.

Boojie-Woojie, maybe you are aware that another fur baby will soon be arriving, another one who looks kind of like you but is also her own unique spirit. I found her the same way I found you, and I wonder if this is your way of giving me another chance. I will not delude myself into thinking that she may be you as a different fur baby. I know you're gone forever. But your memory will guide me towards a better life for myself and for Lalu and for the new one entering our home.

I don't know why whenever I think about you, whenever I talk about you, whenever I look at your photos, whenever I write about you, I shed such heavy tears. My heart will never be at rest knowing that I could have done so much more for you. I always think now how much you're missing out on and what fun it would have been for you as you continued growing and learning about the world around you. You were still a bit of a baby at 4 kitty years of age but in human years, you would have been a 20-something youth!

We all miss you very much, and you know what I mean when we say "we". All the humans who had the honour to know you and to care for you - they too think of you just as much as I do. We are always rooting for you, hoping and praying that someday we won't feel the intense pain of flashbacks of those final hours before your last breath; we will (and must) instead rejoice in and celebrate the brief and beautiful time you were with us.

Forever Boojie-Woojie-Boo-Boo. May Love be with you always.

Don't give up because...

PHOTO BY SI

...Life will always hold out its hands for you. This may seem like a cliche or a bunch of cheap words to get you thinking of your life in a different way, but you have to trust me when I say I've been where you are now. Actually, I'm never outside of where you are now. It's a constant battle I have with myself and inside my head. This battle you know yourself - the one in which we tell ourselves all kinds of lies about what we think of ourselves and who we think we are and all the ways we need to rid the world of our presence. I've too felt the self-loathing and experienced the hard and unrelenting bite of guilt and shame. And then depression. I know this is something you can relate to as well.

Do you always feel like this? Always so shitty about yourself? Always thinking you will never be deserving of anything that comes close to some peace of mind, about your life? Well, if you're always feeling shitty, then I can appreciate why you would refuse to reach out and talk to someone. If you already feel you're worthless to yourself, how will your mind ever convince you that you are deserving of seeking treatment and care for that?

My answer is not a solution and will probably not end the self-loathing thoughts in your head but it may offer you some kind of catalyst to seek change. My answer is the Body. My body continues to save me. Your body may too.

My body has time and time again reminded me of the truly horrible consequences of toxic thoughts about myself. I felt the physical pain of such thinking and how it was all wearing me down and depriving me of the energy I needed so badly to keep me active, alert, and in good spirits. My body is my protector, and has helped me rebound after negative life experiences. It has never let me down - although it now sadly but courageously bears many of the scars from the self-destructive demon in me. I now recognize my body as wise and that it will always do what it can to convince me that there is still a lot more to be done in the life I currently inhabit.

Of course, those nagging thoughts will continue to come back, but each time they come, I feel I am better prepared than the last encounter. My tools are practicing mindfulness and putting on the hat of an observer where I imagine myself standing outside of myself and observing me while I am experiencing an episode of mental distress. When I observe myself from a distance, I can appreciate that this experience is fleeting - just like everything else in life - and that soon I'll stand up, dry off my tears, and resume my activities. If you try this exercise next time you feel seriously low about yourself, don't expect it to change you right away. After all, I'm just planting the seed in your head so that you may consider this strategy. I'm sure if you stepped away from yourself and just watched the other you experiencing this momentary suffering, you may feel empathy for yourself and may feel the urge to help yourself overcome this moment. You'd also see that you're human and that it would be ok to reach out for support.

I got the idea to do this from Michael A. Singer's book The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself. It really made sense to me and the more I put this mindfulness and visualization of me stepping away from my hurt self, the more I learned to accept where I was at and not hate myself for being in such circumstances. This may happen to you too if you allow yourself to connect to your body so it can send you signs and signals. Listen carefully. Your body is attempting to save your life. And it will continue to make these attempts for as long as you feel your life is not worth living. That's the survival mechanism working in us as it should.

It's not just about surviving for the sake of our species as our hunter-gatherer ancestors might have thought; it's also about embracing this life we've been given and living our full potential every day, no matter where we're at. It's about igniting our heart spirit and going beyond the trauma to a time when our spirits danced with joy as we were ushered into this world.

Living your full potential in one day can be anything, anything that brings a smile to your face and gives you the sense that you contributed some good to the world. An act of kindness? Making less waste? Recycling/Reusing? Taking public transit? Talking to a stranger? Donating some change? Helping a friend in need? Foregoing meat consumption? Taking a leisurely walk? It's in the simple where we might find our full potential. We don't have to bear important titles or several letters behind our names or single-handedly fix the world's problems in order to justify our existence. It's the little things we do day by day that can help rebuild our love for life.

Circumstances may have stolen our innocence in cruel and horrifying ways but they could never vanquish the warm glowing steel-like strength at the core of our nature: that muscle called humxnity, that muscle that keeps our hearts beating and our minds evolving. Don't prematurely end your journey. You must keep searching for the good in you and the good in others.

Your negative thought and behavioural cycles may be difficult to escape from. Never fear because through all of your own trauma/past trauma, you made it this far. Don't give up because there is still so much of the world you need to open yourself to; there is still so much of your own body and soul you need to explore, learn from, and hopefully come to cherish unconditionally.

Remember, it's in the simple things where you may find small mercies. It's in the simple things where lives may be saved, yours, mine, and those belonging to the people, animals, plants, insects, and micro-organisms we interact with along this glorious, effervescent, and transformative path.

Don't give up. There is so much more to you - beautiful, brilliant you - than you may be thinking at this moment.

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