Theloopylululog

A fear?

You mean one sir, singular?

Really?

You don’t know who you are posing the question to, do you?

Act 1

Fear, thy name was Lalitha.

I was born into fear.

Read that again.

I am not saying I was born to fear everything that came my way. I am saying I was born into a family where one parent feared the other. The other feared his own parent.

So in essence I was born into inherited fear. Fearing everything just naturally followed.

My mother wouldn’t admit it but she lived much of her life on the edges of low key anxiety. First at her home fearing her brother and the choices made for her by her family. Then she married into one where physical violence was kinda normal. Every man beat every woman. It felt like an inherited right.

I was born into a family where the father thrashed the mother and children grew up believing it to be love. Treated like a football for skipping an afternoon session at school when I was 5. I still own the teapoy that nearly blinded me when my father kicked me in one of his violent rages and I fell just an inch away from its edges. Not as a reminder, no, but just because it’s teak!

My body knew to recognise fear before it knew love. What am I saying! In fact my body believed fear to be love!

I buried myself in books because performance was awarded at home and at school. A pronounced stutter in childhood due to the body’s close promity to anxiety led to mockery and more fear. Forced to participate in every other cultural and extra curricular activity in school because I was considered intelligent. Consent seemed to not have made it’s way wherever I lived!

I had a photographic memory that remembered everything that helped me get through school. Was I intelligent? I won’t know. Everybody else thought so. I was clever. Smart. Exceptionally good at moulding myself into whatever the other wanted just so they could stay as far away as was possible from me. So I could be whatever I wanted to be, atleast within the confines of my heart.

The world around me never knew who I was because they were too busy instilling fear into me. So deep, I was unaware as to who I really was beyond the deep dark layers of hardened fear that I wore as a cloak to escape people in reality.

When everything you are, from skin to speech and everything you do, from trying and being is questioned and rebuffed, you begin to fear yourself. Fear you will never be enough.

Need I mention I became a high functioning perfectionist as I aged? Like a circus monkey. Overthinking. Over analysing. Over doing.

Something as natural as making friends through life became an act that needed high doses of mandatory prep! Even calling someone had me write the whole thing on a piece of paper and practice it in front of a mirror…many a times just never even making it to the phone call.

Romantic relationships. Disastrous to say the least. Needless to say that I have never known any kind of relationships at its best. I stop myself from going beyond a certain point. There was always a fear that I was never going to be enough for the other. So why even bother.

The world made sure to point it out that I was too much. Too dark. Too thin. Too much of love. Too much of emotions and feelings. Too much intensity. And no, too much passion for life! Who wants that, right?

The worst hit? Relationship with myself. I knew what the world didn’t like in me. Pretty much everything. I didn’t know where I began beyond the dislike of the world. And here I thought I knew myself well. Could I be more mistaken? ( Hat tip to Chandler Bing)

What I knew were my fears. Who was I beyond the perfect facade I had created for the world? Beyond the performance artist, the yes woman, the people pleaser, the sacrificial goat and the temperamental bull?

Act 2

Rebel, thy name was Lalitha.

Defiance does something to the body. It solidifies the softness that makes a human, human. Especially when not used to aim at the right target. It turns the heart into a stone. The mind, you ask? The mind just imprisons itself in self hatred and depression.

The 20’s turned me into a rebel. The streak continued well into my 30’s. Leaving a lot of damage in it’s wake. Personal relationships had it the worst. People generally kept their distance. I was spewing the life long fear chained within out into the world as anger. Misguided. Misinformed. But I continued. Obviously it was counter productive. I was the one who hurt the most.

I learnt to say No. First in fear. Second in defiance. Third in tears.

Nothing really worked.

They came from a place of scarcity. Pity for the self. Complete lack of trust that I deserved better.

I failed at everything but I never gave up. Multiple attempts at suicide came to nought. I feared what I wanted most : Death!

BUT something deep within me was stirring, trying to come up for air. Something that believed nothing is impossible, that dar ke aage jeet hai. ( Victory is beyond fear)

Act 3

Courage, thy name is Lalitha.

At 33, I went on a silent retreat. A 10 day Vipassana camp at Igatpuri. I was already into meditation and yoga but something felt amiss. A chance meeting with a business owner where I supplied clothes of my signature brand came back from one such retreat serene.

Tranquility. A beautiful word, isn’t it? How softly it falls out of the mouth, like a fish creating bubbles in water just by breathing. I wanted that. The feeling of being at peace with myself. My life. Despite everything that made it my life.

I didn’t think twice. Booked my slot. Booked my tickets. Packed my bags and just left.

Silence and Solitude have always been what defines Lalitha. But the silence and solitude that Lalitha knew were weapons she used to punish. The world and herself. They traced their source to fear.

Fear of being herself. Period. Not inspite of…or despite something that happened to her. Just herself, however or whoever that might be.

On the 4th day, of a particularly humid May, my mind kind of just broke. If you have ever meditated, you know this. Something shifts a wee bit within and light just breaches through it. Once light filters in, there is no place for darkness.

Vipassana teaches you to look at things as they are. Without embellishing it with any adjectives. Without building a story around it.

So when I sat for 11 hours in meditation everyday, every fear I have ever encountered came out into the open. Without reaction I gave it an audience. I saw it. It tried to push me into a corner. I stood my ground.

It’s not easy. It’s one of most difficult things I have ever had to do. But with practice it becomes just that. A practice.

The essence of the retreat distilled from my experience is this.

When fear creeps up, watch it. Face it. Do not run. Do not hide. Stand your ground with clammy hands and a sweaty heart. If you need to wet your pants, wet it. But do not let it bog you down. The more you run, the more it chases you. The more you face it, the smaller it becomes. From a monstrosity that threatened to kill you at first sight, it dissolves into nothingness in your presence.

This has become the foundation on which I built my life from scratch.

I came out of the self imposed silence a different person. I still had millions of fears. But I faced them all.

Silence and Solitude were no more weapons. They were friends, aides, guides, teachers, therapists; all rolled into one.

Stopped being afraid of my clients. They were after all just people. Demanding to the core. But people like me essentially.

Quit business on realising that it was just another facade I was hiding behind.

Began writing. Put my honest best out there. Made many friends. Lost many. Fell in love. Lost it. Gained a true friend. The kind of friendship that sees the real Lalitha behind the many avatars ever worn by her.

Took therapy. Which blew every cover I was hiding under. When I finally met the real Lalitha, I couldn’t believe I and her were the same!

Without the heavy cloak of fear that had become second skin. Remove the fear, and what is left is ME. Always courageous. Always enough. Always herself. Who can walk into a fire knowing and feeling the fear thumping within every heart beat, but also aware that it is just the ground beneath the phoenix rising from her ashes that I am.

I will face a wee bit of fear even now, before I hit the publish button. I always do. But not enough to not do it anyway. I believe in the power of my words. First and foremost I write for myself. I go back and read myself at every opportunity I get. Hit the first like myself. The world can reject me all it wants. I can’t. I won’t.

Not because I am too entitled or enlightened. Far from it. To tell myself I am enough. The words are out there. They will find their way to wherever they are destined to go. Find a heart or two to rest. And fly again.

What is courage anyway? It’s not the absence of fear, it’s the mastery of fear as Mark Twain once said.

Fear will always be a part of me. Not as fire that burns me. As fuel that ignites the undying and indomitable courage within me.