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#122: Momentum requires caring, but recovery requires letting go

Learnings from momentum, failure, and recovery

I’ve been away from this space for a bit; I was trying to do something big and intense that I’ve been hesitant to even attempt. I finally faced my fears. I created a stable psychological base and leapt knowing I might fail. And fail I did. The speed of failure was unexpected and the loss has reverberated in unexpected ways. It has also been an unexpected teacher. The observations and learnings are still unfolding and, over the next few weeks, I’ll share a few that are top of mind. May these be helpful to others.

Here’s the first one: Momentum requires caring but recovery requires letting go.

I knew going in that there was a high likelihood of failure so my goal in trying wasn’t to succeed at all costs, it was to minimize regrets and squash future “what-ifs”. I thought I’d give it a shot and move on if I failed. But my path was littered with obstacles and I could only build momentum by admitting to myself that I cared about the outcome and that it wasn’t all nonchalant under the surface. Once I acknowledged this truth though, I became more attached to specific outcomes. I gave my best in the service of a vision but giving it my all melted my internal boundaries. I started dreaming just a bit more even as I tried to be even-keeled.

I looked back at my hard road and I looked ahead at the potentially positive outcome. I thought maybe everything was harder for me for a reason, maybe I was meant to enjoy the richer sweetness of delayed joy. I didn’t even realize I was weaving these ephemeral stories. Although these stories were fleeting, they left enough of a mark that I started becoming a wee bit more attached to outcome. Even when I knew I was facing failure, there was a part of me quietly looking for the silver lining: “maybe the sweet ending will come in a different way…if I just keep going.”

The reality is that I don’t know why I was nudged in this direction by my psyche or the powers that be. I know definitively that this experience has added to my personal history and given me a glimpse of a life experience I didn’t have, and in turn created another flow of empathy. A big personal realization is that the act of letting go needs to be absolute and without caveats.

Abhyasa (practice) and Vairagya (non-attachment), is a core principle of Yoga philosophy that helps me in letting go whenever I get stuck.

  • Abhyasa means having an attitude of persistent effort but it’s a specific flavor of effort; it requires a focus on mental stability and not the outcome. This stance doesn’t just appear out of the blue at our time of need, it’s an everyday practice. It’s recommended we practice this type of effort uninterruptedly for a long period time of time so it becomes a part of our operating philosophy.
  • Vairagya is about learning to let go of the many attachments, cravings, aversions, fears, and false identities that get layered on just by the act of living and engaging in the world. This non-attachment isn’t about abandoning things and not enjoying life, it’s about the relationships we create with everything around us. We attach value, create dogma, feel aversion based on our subjective interpretations and then spend inordinate effort craving or avoiding things and situations. Vairagya is a tool to cut through these erroneous perceptions and projections to reclaim mental and emotional stability.

Abhyasa and vairagya represent two essential aspects of a spiritual life that, when combined, liberate us from everyday injuries. These principles help us create a dynamic balance on the polarity of practicing and caring on one end, and letting go on the other.

Failure is never easy but it’s a pretty regular life-occurrence. Being able to move through loss without letting our sense of self and psyche get too dinged is a helpful skill. It makes us more capable of navigating loss, taking chances, and contributing in life without the fear of getting burned. 

“The boundary to what we can accept is the boundary to our freedom.”— Tara Brach, psychologist and meditation teacher

Photo credit:  thelittlelabs. Click image or here to view animation.

#121: Internal alchemy

It was my birthday this week, so I had an in-built opportunity to reflect on my life as I start another trip around the sun.

My experience of being me has silently shifted in the last few years. There is a part of me that holds back on doing the things I love because they feel selfish at some level. Engaging with them requires shifting focus away from something that I believe is serving others towards something that only seems to benefit me. This includes physical, creative and intellectual activities like swimming, dancing, traveling to a culture I really want to experience, or immersing myself in a book; instead of working, doing chores, or helping someone.

Until a few years ago I was mostly unaware that this internal dynamic was at play. I simply prioritized things that made life feel more secure in some way for myself or another. There are many psychological layers here and my goal isn’t to dive deep into them. The gist is that this suppression of self was immensely detrimental to my own well-being and my ability to contribute to others. I recall feeling little resonance with the life I was creating and how I was using time in my everyday. I remember thinking that I didn’t feel like myself, dress like myself or look like myself. I felt lonely but wasn’t sure why. I felt like something had gone wrong but I didn’t know what.  

In 2020, I started tapping into the ideas that spoke to me. I then started pursuing the activities and interests that drew me in. My everyday thoughts and actions started mirroring my deepest curiosities, interests and aspirations; creating a uniquely personal constellation within which my days started nesting and sprouting.

Over the last few weeks I’ve realized that doing this has literally produced energy within myself. I’ve noticed an increase in my mental energy for attention, absorption and problem solving; in my emotional energy for joy, resilience, and navigating change; and my physical energy for movement and recovery. And then there is the profound spiritual energy of connection: to self, to others, to all of nature’s cyclical patterns. With all these energies finally at concurrent play within me, I feel more integrated, well-resourced and joyful. My psyche doesn’t feel so fragmented. I don’t feel the need to chase every shiny object or idea. I know what I am made for and what I am not made for. My internal curiosities and nudges have led me to a level of self-knowledge I didn’t have before. This loving connection to self isn’t selfish. It is freeing, stabilizing, nurturing and joyful. It is the definition of thriving.

And I am better able to contribute to others from this place of thriving.

“This is an invitation to join your life.
Without fear or bravado.

No performance or perfection, bring the real you.
Imperfect. Evolving. Fully here.

Like a gangly wildflower, root into who you are.
Then show up for other wildflowers, just as they are.

Each of us different and unique.
Fully growing and glowing.

Just like plants.
We root down to rise up.
Whatever that means uniquely for each of us.

Underneath the surface, we are holding hands.
Reaching out and reaching back.
Feels like another’s hand is on our back.

To create societies that come alive.
Touch this invitation to join your life.

Join. Your one life.”

— Suparna Chhibber
     Written in 2021, as I was starting to tap into myself

Photo credit: Suparna, using DALL.E

#120: Emptying the regret-filled suitcase

It’s almost one month into the new year. Personally, this is right about when I switch from the optimism and promise of planning-mode into the reality of review-mode. I realized last year that I resisted my weekly reviews because that’s when my judgy mind would shoot regret-arrows. Every missed item became a perceived failure.

I had become really good at shoving regrets into my mental suitcase, zipping them up under pressure, and storing them in mind’s attic. To be opened at another time when I felt better resourced. Intellectually I knew that reviews and adjustments are what make plans successful and that planning is iterative, but I still found myself avoiding review time. The regrets I had saved were stealing energy from the future. 

So before doing any planning this year, I opened that regret-filled suitcase and spent time reviewing the regrets themselves.

It sounded scarier to me than it actually was. The fabric of each regret was simply dreams and hopes. Innocent dreams and hopes, might I add. Although I really had to pay attention to parse out the ones that were actually mine. Some were in my suitcase because they seemed to be in everyone else’s. Some were mine to begin with but I had outgrown them and they no longer fit. Some I kept, in case I could fulfill them in the future. No dream was left unseen. I essentially emptied the attic.

Whatever dreams I kept, I hope to hold them very lightly. Because even if I fulfill them, they may happen in a different way altogether than I imagine.

I don’t want to make superficial plans that I hold on to like a control freak. I want to orient around deeper and consistent intentions that transcend annual plans. I want to keep clearing this extra mental weight as it builds up so I can enjoy the process of doing, learning, and reviewing. Of succeeding at some things and inevitably failing at others. When regrets start stealing energy from the future, it’s time to let them go.

“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.” — Marie Curie, physicist and chemist

Photo credit: Gio/Unsplash

#119: The leaking faucet, unlocked door, and boiling kettle

My bathroom faucet has two knobs, one for hot and another for cold. On a particularly busy day, I rushed out of the bathroom and didn’t turn off one of the knobs fully. I came back later to running water that was more than just a minor trickle. I was disappointed in the waste I had contributed to and surprised by my lack of attention.

Then another day, my husband (Tim) left our primary key fob hanging at the lock on our front door. His hands were full so he left the key in the lock intending to come right back out to grab it. Meanwhile, I locked the door from the inside. We realized what had transpired after a couple of hours. The key fob had all our keys: the house, garage, car and mailbox. This was a big deal because we’ve personally seen an uptick and consistency in petty crime since Covid—stolen mail, packages, garbage cans, and most recently a smashed car window.

This last example is the most recent. We were stepping out for a walk when I felt a nudge to go back inside the house and check the stove. I found one of the burners on at low flame. We had just wrapped up brunch and Tim meant to make a second round of coffee in our moka pot but reduced the flame when he got interrupted. It went unseen by both of us.

After these events I became hyper-aware of turning off faucets and burners after use, and ensuring keys weren’t left hanging on external-facing locks. I was very tuned-in to the potential of harm from each of these scenarios. I knew that countless other random things can happen and do, but the ones I fixated on and learned from were those that happened to me.

I see this tendency in all of us and even for the bigger things in life. I knew a person who had almost drowned in her teens and had been on a life-long journey to overcome her fear of water. Another friend had difficult experiences in foster care and hadn’t seen healthy examples of family life growing up, so she chose to not have kids. Yet another highly competent surgeon friend was publicly brutalized by her boss even during intense surgeries, so she’s working on making medicine more humane for patients and providers. I have repeatedly experienced unexpected and out of turn deaths. This created an outsized fear of losing my loved ones and a heightened awareness of our limited time on earth. My experiences have shaped how I value human relationships and the work I’m choosing to do moving forward by centering relationality in my vocation.

There are countless human experiences and we can’t have them all. We are designed to tune into and learn from our leaky faucets, our unlocked doors and our boiling kettles. Experience is the primary tool for learning and once we embrace our own painful experiences fully, they become gateways to see another more completely. Difficult experiences may not be life’s weapon against us, they might be its most potent growth, connection and empathy tool. 

“Tears water our growth.”— William Shakespeare, playwright and poet

#115: Who we become on the sidelines of conflict

I’m part of many different professional tidepools, each with a group chat on Signal or Whatsapp. The Israel-Gaza conflict has surfaced in these spaces over the past month with layers of aches and perspectives. The personal and collective histories like a messy bundle of electrical wires: inextricably enmeshed and full of charge.

While Israel and Palestine isn’t the land of my ancestors, my elders experienced identity-driven geopolitical conflict alongside the fear, anger, hate and violence it generates. Their forceful expulsion from their birthland is full of stories of slaughter. I was also raised in a beautifully plural society and have experienced the turmoil that sometimes rears its head in true diversity. I’ve seen the nature of individual and collective conversations we have with each other during such times.

Our first step is ususally to share and explain our side. If we are genuinely and fully met in our grief, we feel more secure stepping out further to try and understand the other side. Most conversations get stuck at the first stage because we don’t typically acknowledge another’s pain in public (or private) discourse. We also shy away from acknowledgement because it invites action of some sort; which may be unclear, hard, or even impossible.

So the spaces for shared sense-making—where people bring in their deepest emotion, truest thoughts and questions, with a desire to shape a healthier future—are rare. This shared sense-making is hard enough face to face with people we love and issues we have known about all our lives. It’s even harder in group chats or social media with people and issues we know little about.

Although we all sense that group chats are a choppy tool for perspective sharing and sense making, we have the constraints and tools that we have so we engage. And like most spaces, a few voices step into the circle to share, some with more comfort and assertion than others. Whether we are inside the circle or silent on the periphery, we listen and digest. We learn about human nature and our own nature by coming to terms with our comfort, discomfort and boundaries. We gain a sense of how we like to learn and engage. We create perspectives about ourselves, people groups, and whole cultures. Often without realizing, we veer towards hope, helplessness or cynicism. All these become muscle memory.

Then one day down the line, even if we stand quietly in this conversation, we will step inside some other circle and share our thoughts. We might do this with nuance or binaries, with an attitude of sensing or ripping apart another’s perspective. One thing is for sure, how we behave when we enter that circle in the future will be guided by who we are becoming while on the sidelines today.

“At our best, we serve as inadvertent triggers for each other’s eventual illumination.”— Mark Nepo, Poet

PS: This is a good one about not having a hot take on everything, which forces us to have a definitive stance on issues when first a posture of learning and inquiry is better suited— Pick a Side. Pick a Side. Pick a Side. Now.