Archives for September 2016

Dear 20 Year Old Me

September 27, 2016 by lyra777 Leave a Comment

Saying goodbye to my 20s with a Roaring 20s Great Gatsby Party!

I have turned 30. Entering a new chapter of my life has made me reflect on how I have grown in the last decade. This then made me wonder – if I were to write a letter to my 20 year old self, what would I say to her?

Actually, if I were given the choice to send a letter back into the past, I wouldn’t. I would want 20 year old Marie to plunge into her new decade with the same ignorance I did. Why? Because my hardships and struggles have made me the woman I am today.

But if I had to pick six pieces of advice to say to her, perhaps I would say something like this.

(I also have a recommended reading list at the end of the entry based on what I’ve written, so please check out below if interested.)

1. Be your authentic self

In your twenties you believed that life is a performance. Every action, every conversation needs to be manipulated to bring about the ‘perfect’ outcome. That is, to have other people like you.

The problem with this is that because it’s an act brought about by fear – that is, the fear of not being liked – you spend all your energy trying to avoid this outcome as much as possible. To do so, you constantly suppress what you think and feel. This is nothing short of violence towards your self.

In fact, in not being honest you are not only hurting yourself, but you are doing all the people around you a disservice.

Life is too short to be anyone but yourself.

Remember these three things:

Be honest with your emotions

We may be taught that ‘emotional control’ is a sign of maturity. This may be so, but this is different from emotional suppression. If you deny and push down how you are feeling inside, it doesn’t miraculously go away – it gets stuck inside you. The result is that you become a volcano of emotions, waiting to explode. Often also, this leads to depression. It is possible to openly accept all the human emotions we feel – from happiness to anger to sadness. It is only through truly embracing them that you can let them go.

Be honest with your words

There is something to be said about radical honesty. You may feel like you are preventing people from getting hurt by choosing words carefully, but in actuality you are doing them a disservice by not telling them the truth. This doesn’t mean however, that you tell the person you hate that they are an asshole. This is not helpful. I very much recommend nonviolent communication as a means of getting across what you are thinking and feeling.

Be honest with your body

If your body tells you to stop, stop. Don’t push it beyond what it wants. You will find that to do otherwise will eventually hurt your body. You don’t have to push your body to the limits to achieve something. Yoga is a prime example – you work closely with your body, listening carefully to it and soon flexibility + strength follows.

2. Constantly let go

In Japanese there is a saying, ‘dan-sha-ri’. It means refusal, disposal and separation. Derived in part from yoga, it refers to the cleaning and throwing away of unwanted items.

The importance of this is perfectly demonstrated in the parable with the keen zen pracitioner and the enlightened master. ‘Teach me everything you know!’ the young practitioner said to the master. The master simply told him to pour him a cup of tea until he said stop. Even when the cup was overflowing the master said nothing, ‘The cup is flooding!’ the zen practioner exclaimed. ‘Yes’ said the master, ‘that cup is like your mind, how can I teach you anything if it’s full already?’.

If you don’t throw away things in your house, it clogs up. Mess builds. Life is the same. If you don’t constantly let go of things – may it be thoughts or emotions – they accumulate and you’ll simply have no space to let in the new. When you feel like you’ve hit a life block, then don’t do anything more. Instead, let go.

Oh, and on a side note, remember that your inner state and outer state are closely connected. If your room is messy, that’s probably a good sign that you need to do some cleaning on the inside. Conversely, an effective way to start your inner cleanse is through scrubbing the house and throwing away all unwanted items!

3. Remember that you can be the observer

In your early twenties you lived your life swayed by emotions and thoughts. It was like you were on a boat rocked constantly by a storm.

It doesn’t have to be this way, because one thing you must realise is that you are not your thoughts. You are not your emotions either.

You are, in fact, the observer of all of these things. You are the listener. You are the feeler. As such, you can choose not to react to what emerges from you. That is not to say you should suppress your thoughts and emotions (see ‘1) Be Your Authentic Self’). It just means you are fully present with your thoughts and emotions, while making the conscious choice not to respond to them.

Meditation is key to sharpening this technique.

4. Remember that all actions come out of love or ignorance

All actions come from love or ignorance. Even fear and anger come from ultimately not understanding what you are dealing with properly. Each and every single decision in life we have a choice as to whether or not we make it from these two states. And there are absolutely no excuses – ‘but that person was being horrible, I had no choice’, ‘I had to respond immediately’. No. We always have a choice, so long as you are totally present in the moment.

On a similar vein, remember there are no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ decisions. There are only decisions that either come or not come from the heart.

But surely there are ‘right’ decisions! You may say. For example, what if you invest in something and it is a huge success? Wouldn’t that be a correct decision? Well, what if after your successful investment, you become so well-known among your business peers that brings about jealously? What if someone backstabs you and steals all your money, leading you to suffer terrible poverty? Your ‘right’ decision may not seem so ‘right’ anymore.

My point is, you never know the complete consequences of what each decision brings. Some may be pleasant, but they can quickly become unpleasant too. So the only thing we can do in these circumstances is to ensure that every decision we make at least comes from a place of total openness and honesty both to ourselves and others.

5. Live with humility

In your twenties you are still struggling to find your place in the world. You believe that there is such a thing such as a ladder of success, and it is your job to work hard to climb up on it. As such, people lie above or below you on this hierarchy, and you have a drive keep on top of it. You are also terrified of falling behind.

It is time to let this idea go.

First, if you define ‘success’ as ‘being skilled at something’, you must realise that there will always be people better at everything single thing that you do. Even if you were an Olympic gold medal winning champion, one day your muscles won’t be what they used to be and someone else will take your spot.

Conversely though, there will also always be people who are less skilled at things than you. So just accept that there is this spectrum of people that will always surround you, no matter how good you become at something. Therefore it is pointless to get on the treadmill of being ‘at the top’.

More importantly though, remember that this whole idea of placing people and things on a scale is a mentally constructed one, so it can be abandoned. For example, let’s say you start sewing. If you break it down just to what it is, all you are doing is threading a needle in and out. And the experience can just end there. But if you come out of the present moment of performing this action and start comparing yourself with others, then suddenly you are ‘better’ or ‘worse’ than other people at it. You could have just stayed in the moment enjoying your sewing.

Humility is being in a state where you do not see the world anymore on a scale. Everything just is. There is no ‘better’ or ‘worse’. Things just are. Seeing and experiencing the world in this state will bring about a massive feeling of liberation.

6. If you want to live life to the fullest, play with it.

One of the biggest errors you made in your twenties was thinking success and suffering were synonymous. They really aren’t. Success may take lots of effort, yes, but it doesn’t have to involve suffering. Suffering is simply a mindset.

If you are the type of person who approaches life ‘seriously’ you may find yourself facing a lot of blocks in life. Why? Because this type of consciousness and attitude is actually very limiting, not to mention painful and boring.

Instead, think of life as a game. To play is to be creative, to be exploratory and to have fun. Approaching life as a big playroom helps you to more effortlessly navigate what it throws at you, no matter how hard it is. Even for things that may not seem like a playful event, such as a break-up, stressful exams or illness, try bending your attitude a little and see it within the context of a playroom anyways. This doesn’t mean you are not taking what has happened seriously. In fact, it’s the polar opposite. Because you want to approach all of these hardships in the most effective way possible, this is what you are doing. Less suffering from you means that you can be there and help out others during these hard times.

If you want to take life seriously, stop taking it seriously.

Thorns

September 20, 2016 by lyra777 Leave a Comment

Words can have a funny effect on us, especially when we are little

thorns-1 At the end of the day, that’s all they are – words – so we can easily just allow them to pass by

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But often, instead of letting them go, we take them…

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…and transform them…

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..into thorns

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And we stab ourselves with those words

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Keeping them inside us as we grow older

When a thorn is there for a long time it starts to feel numb, and we may not notice that it is there

That is, until something, or someone, happens to rattle the thorn thorns-7

Bringing up the pain

What rattles the thorn can be directly related, or indirectly related

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Although it was us that stabbed ourselves with the thorn in the first place

We can forget this

And blame the pain on the person who moved the thorn

thorns-9 But when someone touches our thorn

We must remember that this is a gift

They are reminding us that there is a thorn that we need to remove

When we feel the pain, it is an opportunity to feel it

And to see it for what it truly is

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As you start to do this, the healing can start

The solution isn’t to deny that the thorn is there, or to pull it out with brute force

In fact, the more you apply pressure, the further the thorn will plunge in

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The solution instead, is to do what you should have done in the first place

When you heard those words many years ago

Let go

Remember that it was you who stabbed yourself with those words in the first place

So it is also you who has the power to release it

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Finally freeing yourself of pain

Remember, this is all thanks to that person who rattled the thorn in the first place

Alerting you to its presence

So the next time you feel stress, anger or pain because of someone else

Instead of lashing out at them, ask yourself

Which thorn is being rattled?

And let the healing process begin

Afterword

For the purposes of this story, I have said that we can turn other people’s words into thorns. However, in reality we can turn any thought that we have into a thorn. For example, you may be with a group of people and feel ignored. You think ‘no one ever listens to me’. Instead of simply observing this thought and letting it pass, we can transform this into a thorn to carry with us until we choose to pull it out again.

When our thorns are rattled it is painful, and we really don’t like it. So we actually spend so much of our lives being fearful of, and trying to avoid, situations that could potentially move our thorns.

I for one, am terrified of criticism. This is because it moves my thorn saying that I am a bad person. I observe in myself how I navigate situations to desperately avoid this from happening. I think this occurs on a subconscious level for many of our thorns.

However, this is a shame. Because the only way to remove the thorn is to feel where they are and to see them for what they truly are. Only then can we relax and let them go. Thorns are actually very much like shadows (see previous blog post), so the best way to release them is to stop resisting them and to accept and love them. Nothing else is needed really. The thorn will then come out by itself.

Darkness: Cognitive vs Emotional Depression

September 13, 2016 by lyra777 Leave a Comment

We live in a dualistic universe. Up vs down, positive vs negative, light vs dark. So far with my posts I have been writing optimistic, hopeful posts. I would describe them as talking about the ‘light’ side of life. However, now I want to discuss the opposite end of the spectrum of human experience — darkness.

A person once mentioned to me that I had ‘insufferable happiness’. I replied that this was because I live with a ton of darkness. Although during the day when I am with people I am smiley, what most people don’t know is that pretty much every morning I wake up in floods of tears from the weight of emotional anguish I feel inside.

Now, in writing this post I am not looking for sympathy. I am finally writing about this publicly because I want to share my experience. For 15 years I have felt very misunderstood, and have explored and learned about darkness in my own way. I am still learning. If the posts I write resonate with anyone out there, I just hope they know that they are not alone in their experience.

On the surface, people may see what I have as clinical depression. If we go by the definition provided by the most famous clinical diagnostic manual, the DSM-V, then perhaps I do. Symptoms include chronic depressed mood, difficulty with sleeping, difficulty concentrating and loss of energy.

However, over the years I have come to distinguish between two types of depression. The first is what I call “cognitive depression”. The other I call “emotional/spiritual depression”. I’ve outlined the differences and similarities between the two below:

Cognitive Depression	Emotional/Spiritual Depression
Often triggered by some critical event.	No attributable trigger.
Comes and goes in large waves.	Always there like a white noise.
Feelings of helplessness, lack of control, despair, sadness.	Feelings of emotional anguish, pain, sadness, anger and suffering.
Clear negative automatic thoughts. Self-critical.	No relationships between thoughts and feelings. Mind can be very clear, even optimistic.
Low self-esteem	Self-esteem not necessarily affected.
Feeling feels like it stems from the mind.	Feeling feels like it stems from stomach region.
Necessary to recognise the negative automatic thoughts for what they are. Necessary to let go of needing to be in control. Surrender and accept the circumstances that have occurred.	Necessary to accept, love and surrender to all the dark feelings that are bubbling up to the surface. Empty the mind and let the feelings be.
Difficulty concentrating.
Fluctuations in appetite.
Difficulty getting to sleep.
Need time alone, but also very lonely.
Both characterised by long periods of sadness.

Whilst the two can occur separately, they are not necessarily mutually exclusive. For example, you can start off with emotional depression. Even though your thoughts are clear, you are in a ton of emotional pain. Concentrating is difficult. Because you can’t concentrate, work is affected. When you fall behind on work, this can make you feel bad. This can be the trigger for cognitive depression, where this time round you do have critical thoughts that race through your head.

Right now I have emotional depression. Some people find it a bit difficult to get their head around this. “What happened?”, people naturally ask. When I say “genuinely nothing”, sometimes I get funny looks. They think I may be suffering from low self-esteem, but I don’t have that either. I just have a lot of emotional pain. This was why therapy did not work at all for me. The therapists wanted to scrutinise all the thoughts I had. I felt like saying ‘ok, fine, but what you say doesn’t change at all how I feel’.

Over the years I have come to my own understanding of depression. Essentially, I have come to learn that it results from repressed emotion. Whenever you suppress anger or sadness, it doesn’t disappear. It gets stuck inside you. The only way to let it go is to fully embrace and accept the emotions that are desperately trying to be expressed. When you do through techniques such as meditation, you might even get a flashback to the exact incident where this emotion arose.

This may all sound very unscientific to people well versed in clinical psychology, but it is what I have come to understand through both my own research and experience with depression. I hope to talk more candidly about the techniques I use to manage depression in the future.

That’s it for my first of what will be a series of posts on darkness. As I said, I hope to share with people how I manage it, but also perhaps just to write honestly write down the struggles I face too. If you’re reading this and are going through something similar, don’t hesitate to reach out. Also if you have any questions, I’ll be happy to answer them in a subsequent blog post.

A Few (Inconclusive) Thoughts About Marriage

September 6, 2016 by lyra777 Leave a Comment

The other day I was watching a film. The male hero looks into the heroine’s eyes and says “Jane, I can’t live without you. Will you marry me?”.

Fast forward to the marriage ceremony. The bride and groom exchange rings. They say to each other that they commit to staying with each other for the rest of their lives, through sickness and in health, till death do them part.

A beautiful thing, right?

I felt uncomfortable.

Not because I’m a commitment-phobe. If anything I’m the polar opposite of that. And it’s also not because I don’t like weddings. I absolutely love them. Instead, I feel uncomfortable when I see scenes like this because I see subtitles underneath such statements.

“I want you forever” I don’t want you to leave me.

“I can’t live without you” I am reliant on you for my security.

“I’d be lost without you” I am attached to you for my happiness.

I wonder how many people get married because deep down one person is scared about losing the other. So they put a ring on it to make things more ‘permanent’. To have the mental comfort of knowing that the very person that you are attached to will always be there. People may do this on a subconscious level. To plunge into a marriage for reasons of fear and attachment is suffering just waiting to happen.

In addition, when couples publicly declare their commitment to each other at weddings, I often think – but what if separating is actually the best thing for the couple?

I believe that “loving” someone does not mean ignoring the changes that naturally occur between people and staying in a loveless marriage. It’s sensing what is best for both you and your partner and acting accordingly. This might mean working things out together, but it could mean parting ways. Realistically you just never know. So in a way, are you not imprisoning the very person that you love in having them make this commitment?

One person that I know who has chosen not to get married to her long-term partner once said to me, “People ask me why we don’t get married, but I feel like there is something beautiful about the fact that I choose to be with my partner every single day”. I thought that was wonderful. I too feel like one way I can show my love to my partner is to let him know that he has a choice of being with me. After all, you must allow others the freedom to be their own circle (see previous blog entry).

This then makes me wonder what the motivations should be behind marriage. I’m not talking about legal reasons – because I’m sure I could name a few of those. I ponder on the non-legal reasons because I know I do want to get married someday. Granted, I will freely admit that part of the reason is to wear a lovely wedding dress (what girl can resist having all eyes on her) and to have a day that celebrates love.

I’m still trying to work out good reasons to get married that aren’t based on fear and attachment. I know the feeling of wanting to share the rest of your life with someone. I know the feeling of being permanently connected at the heart with someone. And of course, I know the feeling of loving someone. I guess marriage could be an overt declaration of these emotions.

Yet, I cannot help but feel that marriage symbolises a permanent union. This idea belies how I feel about wanting to ensure that both my partner and myself feel free. Of course, there is a choice of leaving one’s partner even when married. It’s called divorce. But the gravitas is different.

I think the only answers I can come up with at the moment are these two: 1) If you feel a timeless connection (aka union) with someone on a spiritual level, you want to symbolise this on a physical level. This perhaps is marriage. 2) I like the idea of taking on my husband’s last name as a symbol of becoming one family when we have children. We are one unit and a tribe.

So yes, I’m afraid no conclusion to this post because I’m still mulling on this one, and any thoughts will be much appreciated 🙂 Stay tuned for another post someday…!