I am not selfish but I realized I can no longer be selfless. Giving and healing others is my joy, sharing my love and passion for life is everything in me. It grows exponentially when nurtured. It just hasn’t been nurtured properly for a long time. The pandemic started and it took away my ability to just share that. It took away the things that fill my cup and I have withered away. Every little while there is a wisp of rejuvenation. There is a whisper of new life into me. I write poems, I sing, I make music and art. I get excited to share everything I have, over bounding with so much joy. It doesn’t last for long, when you keep filling up everyone else at the cost of you.
I finally spent some time at the end of December, just doing things I loved. Eating what I loved, doing things I enjoyed, just letting go of everything else and letting the world slip away. I don’t need to give to be worthy, and to be enough. I started to understand what it means to get gratitude in the little things and I started to heal the parts of me that were scared to feel relaxed, carefree, to trust that the other shoe wasn’t going to drop, that I could dream big and let it become real, and have faith in God that it would. I made a mistake, stepping out while still raw because it only shook me.
I take dreams and I make them real, I plan them, and the betrayal of losing something that made you excited, and made you motivated, and hopeful, is hard. Dreams push life forward. The idea of something new, fun, bigger than you. I had a dream for the summer that died when the pandemic struck, of travels and a new life. That was ok for the time being, to have left that behind. At some point, I just stopped wanting anything ever again because what was the point if dreams just go to die. I did do it, I did step out into the unknown, the plank of the ship, the place where you aren’t sure what will happen next. I jumped for it, head first but it wasn’t the time.
Dreams don’t end, they have a time and space. They have a place where they belong. Maybe they aren’t meant for today, and for them to be fully real, and enjoyable, and for them to be authentic, then we need to be in a different space- spiritually, mentally, emotionally, or physically. Maybe they weren’t a good fit for us at all, like my dream of being a fashion designer. All I know is that dreaming is interconnected deeply with caring for yourself. You can’t recover very well when you are drowning, after having jumped head first when you aren’t ok. What I mean to say is that, if you aren’t in a good space yourself, your cup is not full, and you take a chance and it fails, it’s hard to reset. If you jumped head first and you have a buffer, it’s different.
I don’t like when people say I’m perfect. If they knew what I was thinking most of the time, they could understand. I think I try to be the best version of myself, but somewhere in the years of training that have passed, what was criticism that was supposed to make me better, has turned into a version of myself telling me that the best version of myself cannot be pleased with what I am today, and content in the moment. It is self-judgements and not ones towards others, what I am tolerant of from someone else is not what is acceptable of myself, I know better. I can do better. It’s not that I am wanting to be perfect, there is no perfect. But I strive for more, and more, until I eroded being able to see myself for what I am. I have hundreds of awards to tell me how great I am, but if I can’t see it for myself, it doesn’t matter. I feel like seeing what I am, and what I’ve become and how far I am, would be egotistical. For me to revel in worldly accomplishments, in degrees, in beauty, is just not me. If you want to see the story behind the sherni, you must be worthy of hearing it. It didn’t just happen. I’m not the type that shows up and tells everyone who I am, what I am, because what defines me after all? Nothing. Everything there is, belongs to God. Everything “I” am, is not mine.
This mind has travelled with me for 8.4 million lifetimes, with the past impressions and every story that it carries with it. Here today, it comes and how can I say that it is nothing. It is everything. It is on its journey home. The gratitude and appreciation that comes, for this body, for what God has given, for everything that makes up this life, can only come if you don’t act out of ego, but also consider it all as on a level playing field. Just like other people are everything to me, I can give and give, I should be giving that much to the inside too. What is outside is inside. I got a hukam today after my ardas, the one that was singing in the form of a shabad all day. “My beloved lover is always and forever beautiful. He is my hope and inspiration. Pause.” Raag soohi, the raag of love. I remembered that shabad, over and over through the day and I love that line, He is my hope and inspiration.
I won't search in places I don't belong anymore, and run in crowds where I am not seen and heard. There is magic here, in this brain, these fingers, love in these arms, and passion in these eyes, that are just wanting to be seen. But the person I wanted to see them, was actually me. I think I should have realized when I was hospitalized that I need to stop running to help people when I can't move, but I have learned that the mind is stronger than anything and I do have that capability. I have the ability to get up and go even if I'm injured, even if I can't breathe, because to preserve another is to serve God. Yet somehow where did I forget to preserve myself. You should not to go places where you are chased away, unseen, and unvalidated, where your talents are considered nothing, where your beauty is ugly, where your time and love is without meaning. How do you feel safe where disrespect is the punishment for asking for what you need or want and you become too afraid to ask anymore. Basic things. Where you expend everything into care, and get nothing in return. Somehow over time you don't know what is real, what is normal. Years of this type of friendship taught me this is where spirits go to die. It is a psychological warfare not for the weary and eventually I just got tired. No matter who puts you in this space, you should not go to these places in your own mind. I am not selfish, but I need to be now, to spread my wings and find my way. I am not selfish, but I need to be less selfless and realize that no one else's opinion of me is more important than mine, that no one else's definition of me is more important, that no one else is in my shoes, that no one else has lived what I have lived and thrived, and accomplished what I have. Many times I have been told I did the impossible. As much support as I have, I don't know a single person who thought I could actually do this besides myself, and the only thing that drove me to this point, that has pushed my mind and body to do things that it wouldn't be possible to do, was God. It comes back to that Rahao. My friend called my a few days back, "how are you standing and have not yet collapsed? how do you move out of bed in the mornings? I don't understand." Willpower, I have realized, is the strongest asset. No matter what, you keep moving. Today's impossible means loving myself so much that it doesn't matter what anyone says of me, or does, that I keep my heart open- for myself. I will do that impossible with my willpower.
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