Theloopylululog

A skill I consider basic, that most people don’t actually know how to do is being with themselves in quiet self-awareness.

Too yogic too quickly?

Well…there is no nicer way to put it and I don’t believe in being nice to butter up the truth anyway.

Fact of the matter is people hate being left alone with their thoughts for 6 to 15 minutes so much that many would rather give themselves electric shocks. (Timothy Wilson as per his psychology study in 2014)

Tragic, no? We would rather hurt ourselves just so we could keep experiencing something happening than just be in silent company with ourselves.

The Master of all Skills

The basic skill according to me that gives Life the opportunity to regale us with the miracle it is, is to be self-aware. Every other skill we learn and master as we turn the calender year after year is yet another facade that masks the skill that we are here on Earth to learn, possibly even master.

Do we know who we are beyond the juggling we do in the jungle of life?

Who are we beyond your roles?

Our performances? Our responsibilities?

Remove work, family, hobbies, entertainment; all that you call your precious and what is left?

Or should I say, who is left?

Answer that and you are well on your way to Nirvana.

If we do not know our innate selves or worse, lack the curiosity to explore who we are beyond the conditioning we are born into, what even is the point of life?

Being with our SELF is about listening to our body, mind and soul. To know our moods, thoughts and our reactions to external stimuli. Know our behavioural patterns and how they impact the world we live with. We hack that and we have hacked into knowing everything surrounding us better.

When we understand who we are beyond the games we play, we are better able to understand who we are not. Remember the friends you had nothing in common with yet surrounded yourself with because you were afraid to be left alone? Remember the ex who made you feel like a boring 3 year old shrivelled up tomato because you didn’t know they weren’t the right fit for you?

The Quietest of all Truths

One of the most profound yet simplest of truths we come across when we set out on this quest to self awareness is the quiet realisation that we are a work in progress and we will probably never be able to understand ourselves fully.

That leads us to being empathetic to other people too. People at work, at home, strangers passing us by at every bend of the road. We need to wake up to the fact that we are all like art; evolving with time.

Have you observed an oil painting getting older?

The colours get deeper over time, blending into each other, bringing a newness and vibrancy to itself that lacks when it was first created. Revealing it’s truths, little by little as it ages, refining itself in ways you never imagined to be possible when it was freshly made.

I have. I work predominantly with oils on canvas and some of my paintings painted over 2 decades ago have transformed so much! You won’t notice the changes until you really go beyond the surface. It’s magic revealing itself as you peel the layers beyond the facade and I am surrounded by it, touchwood!

Aren’t we the same?

Take my own example.

I lacked self esteem and self acceptance as a kid. My emotions were bursting at the seams at all times. Although I loved being alone, I always felt lonely when left alone with myself. I enjoyed my company but was ready to drop that at the slightest hint of company offered by my siblings.

Put me in a room alone and I would have either crawled out of it, dug a tunnel out of it or raised hell! I was afraid of myself.

As luck would have it, I moved from a small village to the city at 8. Lost all friendships and all semblance of order in my life in a single morning.

I moved from friend to friend, book to book, song to song, sleep to sleep; hopelessly searching for I know not what. An anchor maybe?

Over time, things eased. I wasn’t afraid of being left alone. But loneliness…that always accompanied me like a loyal dog.

From family to partners, I tried to anchor down to someone. Never fully understanding that holding on to someone with a firm grip while learning to swim the waters of life will never make me an accomplished swimmer. I had to go it alone.

Why Being Alone can lead to Self Discovery?

In my 30’s I chose to voluntarily go to a silent retreat. Become a recluse for 10 days. Live in complete seclusion even when I am surrounded by people. Yes, I am talking about Vipassana.

Need I say it changed me? I went in as one and came out as another.

Those 10 days made me meet myself. Every moment I was alone with my thoughts in my own company. Surrounded by the thunderstorm within me. Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide.

The day the jewel within broke itself open is the day I came face to face with who I am beyond my name, my job, my family…beyond everything I knew as truth. Enlightenment isn’t all that far if you indeed seek it. It is right here…right here within us!

Mastering the Art of Comfort in Solitude

Today I can proudly claim I am my own entertainment channel. Be it at home by the window in the balcony humming away to glory as the trees outside waltz to my melody. Or during my various travels by bus or train, when I can spend hours staring out the window at the sights and smells of life as it lazily wakes up to a new day; I am the most comforatble when I am quietly enjoying my own company.

Be it while sitting in the middle of the room mesmerized at the dust particles sparkling like crystals as the sunlight walks in stealthily hiding behind the pale curtains and seeking the shadowy wildlife it creates on the walls. Or be it on a train journey watching light dance around across wet mountain rocks throwing iridiscent rainbows off balance.

There’s an unparalleled beauty to time as we watch it move past us without any agenda or guilt attached. Just walk hand in hand with time without any shame and tell me you did not enjoy it.

I can’t even imagine a life now, always doing doing doing. Flitting from one thing to another. Things, people, more things, more people. Desperation to do only leads to separation from being.

The Luxury of Beingness

As I take a walk from being seated on my haunches for long and take a sip of my mint tea, I look at the cup now in awe. When was the last time you tasted mint tea and admired it’s luxuriant taste?

From an anxious emotional wreck clueless of who I was and how to help myself, I worked my ass off to become someone I can trust blindly even on my worst days, especially those days when darkness beckons to loneliness and beyond. It certainly didn’t happen in a day or a year. I put my head down and clocked in the inner work year after year, decade after decade to finally be this woman who is doling out self awareness advice to all and sundry.

In hindsight I feel sorry for the girl I was who didn’t know that she was searching for that special something in all the wrong places. Hindsight also tells me that it doesn’t matter. I am here, aware of who I am, never letting a moment go to waste if it can be spent on myself with myself.

Miles to go and Promises to keep

There’s miles to go before I sleep. Miles and miles to go, promises to keep, even as the woods go darker, lovelier and deeper within me. Who better to go with but me and only myself?

“I have been and still am a seeker, but I have ceased to question stars and books; I have begun to listen to the teaching my blood whispers to me.” ~ Hermann Hesse

All said and done, Life led without self awareness is mere existence. Passing the time somehow, grasping to the noise outside, as it slowly becomes the noose that takes us to our death long before our body actually does.