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#94: Body as an instrument

I was recently unwell in a way where a concoction of things, chronic and acute, had me in bed for a few days. Eight punishing issues were cropping up at once. I tried not to add value judgments, which helped reduce mental chatter and made it easier for me to go with the flow. I alternated work-in-bed, Netflix-in-bed, reading and rest based on what my body could handle. By the second day, the observer in me starting seeing each issue as a thread of human experience: gastric distress, back spasms, inflamed adductor, twisted pelvis and grief just to name a few. I thought of people who had dealt with these threads at one point or another. I examined the threads that were new to me.

For example: When people had back problems, I understood theoretically but not until this experience did I really “get it”. I felt from inside how completely debilitating a back spasm could be. How all bodily movements, not some, are silently supported by our core. I knew that our core includes our back and not just the abdomen, and that true abdominal strength comes from deeper muscles and not just the surface-level 6-pack muscle. Yet, not until this event did I patiently isolate and feel the firing of different layers of core muscles. I finally played with the exquisitely designed jigsaw puzzle made of bones, muscles and tendons from inside my animal.

There is sometimes a struggle in spiritual practice about whether it’s more important for us to nurture the spirit or the body. The body is seen as temporary while the spirit more lasting. And I absolutely get this wisdom; I’ve personally benefitted from feeding my spiritual wellbeing in dark moments. But…we are clothed in this earthly bodysuit till our dying breath. If we don’t have a body, we are literally not alive. Like all animals, we have sophisticated abilities for functional activity, growth, reproduction, and continual change before eventual death, and we also face periodic glitches. I have come to see that this glitch-ridden experience inside our frequently painful bodysuit is how we unlock our spiritual practices. Body is where the nuggets of insight, wisdom and empathy live.

We can’t each go through the countless human experiences to be had. But we can go through some. Some of us will face cancers, heart attacks, severe burns, while others will face chronic migraines, irritable bowels and weak bones. Some will have the ache of untimely loss, addiction, and postpartum depression, while others will have to care for a parent with Alzheimer’s or a schizophrenic sibling. Between all of us, we cover the entirety of human experience.

Modern tech would have you believe that intelligent life can operate without a body, while simply simulating the predictive capacity of the brain. What we completely miss is that true intelligence isn’t just prediction, it’s also compassion and resilience birthed from painful surprises. This is the valuable journey that a human body allows. Over time, we can become instruments of all that is tender and powerful at the same time. Like a tree that filters environmental toxins and releases oxygen.

“It is not our job to remain whole.
We came to lose our leaves
Like the trees, and be born again,
Drawing up from the great roots.”― Robert Bly, poet

#83: The curvature of dreams

I didn’t have a clear sense of what I could do in life when I was growing up in India. I was drawn to many things, but they were either unavailable to girls or if they were, I opted out because of constrained resources. The desire to be an independent woman capable of taking care of loved ones butted heads with the stark reality of limited resources, options, and role models. We didn’t have internet so I couldn’t think very big, just big enough for me and even that felt overwhelming. I remember moments with my mom as I would inarticulately share my worry and she would quickly see the core of the matter and offer strength-inducing wisdom. I recall that glum teenager’s internal sentiment: “but you don’t understand how hard this is, how different my goals are from my reality”. I also know that after this kid wiped her tears, she made the seemingly limited choices on offer. When I look back now, I did everything that I could imagine doing as a 16-year old. My life and work may not feel like a big deal to the current-day me, after all I created this gradually. But when I pause and look back, I see the massive ground I have covered outwardly but more important, inwardly. I am floored by the precision with which most of my dreams came true.

I came to Los Angeles on a scholarship and frequently drove through the Malibu canyon while living there. As a new transplant and an even newer driver, I paid high-quality attention to the road and the beautiful scenic turns. These early drives left an emotional mark. I would often think that the curve of the canyon roads was like the curvature of our dreams and longings. At any given time, we can only see so far.

So, today when I look up towards the scary future that I’m now capable of imagining, I do so with more patience and courage. The words that my mother shared with me now come from within. I now understand why she had faith in the small steps. We get the gift of seeing further only when we travel the seemingly insignificant path in front of us.

“Again and again in history some people wake up. They have no ground in the crowd and move to broader deeper laws. They carry strange customs with them and demand room for bold and audacious action. The future speaks ruthlessly through them.” ― Rainer Maria Rilke, poet and novelist

#80: Metabolizing hard emotions

Ants seems to have a focus, a sense of connectedness and resilience I aspire to. I see hordes of them walking their path with purpose as a collective, sometimes carrying objects that appear too big for their small frames. Put your finger in their path and they walk around it, making a new path without fuss. And they always pause to interact with an ant coming from the opposite direction, as if exchanging important everyday intel. If we zoom out on a human life, as if looking down from an airplane, we are no different. We commute literally and figuratively on a path towards our goals alongside others. We encounter roadblocks, we bump into other humans and exchange information.

I don’t know if ants are able to go about their business without internal turbulence, but humans are a constant swirl of emotions. You can bet that our emotions will arise and fall every few minutes the way waves crash onshore repeatedly; especially when we interact with others or do work that matters to us. It’s in our cells to experience emotional waves in response to others and to create waves in them whether our interactions are deep or shallow. Our emotional waves create thoughts, which drive actions, which in turn drive more emotional waves…and on and on we go rippling. I’m assuming ants don’t go through this.

Sometimes these internal swells become all consuming and throw us off our path entirely. Our instinctive response to such moments is to either spew emotions or suppress them to live lives of control. In the latter option, we create barriers so the waves don’t crash so hard. But over time, we not only smother that difficult feeling, we block our ability to feel and express in general. The barriers we create to protect ourselves end up locking us in our psyche where unfelt and unexpressed parts of ourselves create layers of density. Suppressed emotions only have two avenues for release ― our reflexive reactions and unexpected bursts of emotion ― so under the right pressure, our dense emotional layers tend to blow up like volcanoes. This brings us down the long winding road back to option 1…the indiscriminate spewing of emotions. 

There is a third option. Over the last few weeks, I’ve created a mental model that I’ve found productive in navigating my own raw emotions. I’ve started viewing quiet moments as spaces to metabolize life and emotion. To digest and move through whatever comes up in the course of my days. To see how like waves, my emotions churn up mud and sediment, making it hard to decipher reality. That the waves feel scary only when they’re tossing me around without my control. But when I sit on the shore and observe without judgment or involvement, they eventually subside. Rather than shutting the door to my difficult feelings like I used to, I now invite them in for a silent coffee when my house is quiet. At some point in this self-accompaniment process, it feels like I’m metabolizing life, learning, and growing with it. I also find important information contained in my hard emotions, that within the ache and fear is the intel for my next step. What’s more surprising is that once I gather that intel, the waves subside on their own and I start walking on the path again with more ease.

Until the next wave ofcourse. I still see myself flinging raw and unmetabolized emotions on others or into my own actions but now I have a framework to anchor back to.

“The attempt to escape from pain, is what creates more pain.” — Gabor Mate, physician and author specializing in treatment of addiction

#76: Systems of -isms

Like -ing, -ation, -fy, or -itis, -ism is a suffix appended to the end of a word to form a derivative. Suffixes have meanings so -itis indicates inflammatory disease say dermatitis, -fy forms verbs that denote producing like amplify, and -ism indicates a distinctive practice, system, or philosophy. All -isms are preconceived and widely held ideas that are often fixed and oversimplified, they create unjust treatment of different categories of people or things, and are harmful to those on the receiving end. When this prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination is based on race, we call it racism; when based on age, we name it age-ism; and when due to sex, we refer to it as sexism. Capitalism and authoritarianism are -isms too.

As mentioned above, an -ism is a system. A system is a cohesive group of interrelated, interdependent parts that can be natural or human-made. Systems are bound by space and time, influenced by their environment, defined by their structure and purpose, and expressed through their functioning. A system is more than the sum of its parts if it expresses synergy or emergent behavior. Our economies are systems, so is the garden in our backyard, as is our work culture.

I’d like to dissect sexism like a specimen as it’s one of the -isms I’ve faced countless times. I’ll take one very specific example to explore how the -isms we repeatedly navigate are both out there and in here. Even if we are unwilling participants, we live within these systems and they infiltrate us in subtle ways.

I strive to wake up early in the mornings, to have silent time for reflection and writing. I prefer to do all of this before my workday begins and when I don’t, I’m not able to get to it later in the day. My husband in tandem has a packed work schedule that’s typical of big consulting firms; with early mornings and late nights, back-to-back meetings, high-pressure and high-visibility deliverables, and often zero breaks for food. It’s been particularly relentless recently. Because I’m more adept at cooking and I love him, I ensure he doesn’t go hungry. He’s a wonderful partner and puts in his share of work in his limited free time (laundry, gardening and home maintenance are his domains). When his work takes over though, it takes over my life, routine and mind-space too.

Then rather than writing right after my contemplative practices like I prefer, I make breakfast. By the time I get to my desk, my internal silence (which I appreciate for writing) has dissipated. I’d rather just make my tea and start writing but if I don’t first make breakfast, he won’t get a chance to eat…and I feel guilty when he hasn’t eaten. Similarly, when I heat a quick lunch, desperately wanting to get back to work, I worry he hasn’t eaten. When I see his empty water bottle sitting on the kitchen counter, I know he must have been in such a rush that he forgot so I fill it and poke my head in his office inconspicuously to prevent dehydration and headaches. By the time I get back to my work, its often taken far longer than I would have liked and my focus has already dissipated, replaced by self-scolding.

Most modern men will say they respect women and treat them as equals but what we all don’t see is that -isms aren’t as simple. In the scenarios above, where does my guilt and emotional weight come from? Why am I more adept at cooking and he at home maintenance? How is he able to care for me with tenderness and respect but without guilt? Could I just do my work like he does his without worrying about him? (This is why I miss being in an office environment by the way). I couldn’t tell you even if I tried where my love ends and the ingrained gender-normative patterns begin. I’m quite independent and free by all Indian cultural standards. I have a marriage of equals but I can’t shake some of my behaviors because of my cultural exposure, where the fierce strength of women and their subservience is on equal display.

In our trigger-happy social-media fueled world, it’s easy to have an angry knee-jerk reaction when someone brings up the -isms they struggle with. We’re tempted to find someone to blame or to deflect responsibility altogether. But these are very messy, entangled threads that weave invisible webs all around and through us. My husband’s employer, for instance, is as much a part of this system; because there is an underlying assumption that overworked employees are able to ensure their own wellbeing. This is where capitalism meets sexism, an example of -isms intersecting and weighing down certain people in unseen ways. He’s able to work like he does because I stay on top of our nutrition, cleaning, groceries etc. Employers most certainly don’t see their part in feeding our gender-normative behaviors at home.

The first step when navigating an -ism is to see it as a system and do our small part in untangling our own complex and interconnected threads. I’d like to be more like my husband– tender yet boundaried; but I don’t think I will ever be able to just walk by with food and dive right back into focused work when he is clearly hungry. My personal task then is to create some healthy boundaries with his employer and not let them encroach into my work, to erase the guilt and infuse my care only with love. We can work on our -isms only if we first become aware of the patterns.

“Living is like tearing through a museum. Not until later do you really start absorbing what you saw, thinking about it, looking it up in a book, and remembering – because you can’t take it in all at once.”— Audrey Hepburn, actress and humanitarian.

#68: Room for doubt

There are times where even a hint of doubt is undesirable. For example, high-stakes situations with immediate consequences; like landing an aircraft or performing life-saving surgery. For a lot of other things however we carry more doubt than we show and we tend to hide it even from ourselves. Maybe because action requires certainty and commitment to follow through and we fear if we dwell too long in doubt, we’ll melt our resolve to act. But suppressing doubt doesn’t nullify it. We carry uncertainty, hesitation and indecision perpetually.

A particularly poignant example for me is Mother Teresa, who continued in her good works despite a 50-year crisis of faith. She says in one of her letters to her spiritual advisor – “When I try to raise my thoughts to heaven, there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives and hurt my very soul. I am told God loves me, and yet the reality of darkness and coldness and emptiness is so great, nothing touches my soul.” This is was written in the 1940s, relatively early in her work and roughly 30 years before her Nobel Peace Prize in 1979. These doubts never abated but she didn’t abandon her belief or her work.

It’s a difficult place to operate from…when something speaks to us intrinsically enough that we commit to it but know on some level that we know little and will never know the full picture. Parenting, faith, and entrepreneurship are some common examples but the biggest example is the human life itself. Most of our discomfort is tied to the existential questions. Can any of us say with 100% certainty, without any doubt why we are here, what the purpose of a human life is, and what happens after we die? We fill in the blanks with high-judgment estimates and go about focusing on our daily life and goals. We let the act of living guide and consume us enough to create a sense of certainty in aspects: “I don’t know what happens after but know I was made for this work”. “The only thing I’m certain of is that I love my kids”. “Math has always made sense to me”. “I feel at home when I play the piano”. And so on. Micro doses of certainty on the macro path of unknown. Moments of clarity interwoven with moments of doubt, fear and loss. 

My evolving theory on doubt is this:

  1. The clearest indicator of what we should pursue and how we should live is a faint and sometimes hard to hear signal that we carry somewhere inside. Even though we carry it within, it comes across only when we silence the noise of daily pursuits, and listen without judgment. Because we may resist what we hear.
  2. We have to act despite doubt. The action doesn’t need to be big or all at once.
  3. A shared space with other people doing similar work is a huge boost, especially if we aren’t comfortable with what we’re being called to do. If this space or collective doesn’t exist, we need to create it.

#3 is perhaps the most important part in working alongside doubt. It ensures that in difficult moments, we have the wisdom of others doing  their own but similar work. That we have a safe space to air doubt, gain perspective and courage to keep going. It’s important that they understand this specific practice we have chosen. Its nuance, its promise, its fear, its draw and terror, the joy of having taken this path and the ache of having given up other options. If we want to keep going, it’s important we create a space that helps us recommit when we stumble. 

“It’s not necessary to be a saint to do good. You need willing hands, not clean ones. If we wait for our souls to be totally clean, our time on Earth may slip away.”― Mother Teresa: Roman Catholic nun