Déjà Vecu

Watch when this girl goes back in time to meet her ten-year-younger self who gives her the lecture of a lifetime she forgot she ever gave and needed.

Live to Love - Back To The Future

Speechless.

Fu...d

Eight days into September, I have to slap myself each time I reach for a snack.

Most people, according to folklore, put on the weight in December. Apparently, that's when all the Christmas treats start sprouting, baskets of red and green aluminum-wrapped, snowflake-spangled, silver-lined chocolates become omnipresent, and face-stuffing becomes a form of seasonal substance-abuse. 

I'm..ehhh...not so much a fan of sugary treats. Sure, I relish the occasional chocolate or slice of cake as much as the next dude. But, something about sugary things kind of makes me internally cringe. I don't know what it is; I often get nausea just contemplating a super sweet bite. My teeth hurt. My tongue feels gross. Maybe I'm a Superwoman and sugar is my kryptonite. Yeah, I'm from the planet Glucon/ite, yo. 

Now, give me salty kinda snacks. Did someone say kryptonite? Chips, nachos, popcorn, samosas (SAMOSAAA), fries... Hello, weakness.

I love potatoes. I love pizza. I know, I know: who doesn't?And honestly, for the most part, as those of you who know me will already know, I usually eat pretty healthfully. Like, saladdddddd! Oh yes, that's my other weakness, but that's another story for another day. 

Now. The month of August is my month of shame. As it culminates in the greatest event of humankind in the history of the universe, i.e. MY BIRTHDAY.. Ahem, thank you autocorrect thingy for putting that in capitals. Goes to show how universal that truth is. ... I tend to develop a subconscious tendency toward snacking...profligately. Truly and admittedly, it is a shame.

I try to rationalize the month away by asserting that it was just an experiment to observe the effects of eating food from outside sources daily. In full-disclosure, the girls at each foodstop location knew my order by rote, just at the very sight of me. And in fuller disclosure I evilly tried tripping them up by deciding to change things up and going with different choices. I still got a smiley face drawn on my coffee cup, and still got called love/hun/darling..at least to my face. But to the point, I ate out every single day for a month..

And I'm squidgy. Wth! My abs are gone. My triceps are squishy soft. My thighs!...well thank the Force for stretchable denim.

Even though this wasn't really an experiment, I still have results that tell me that this fastfooding thing sucks. I don't even know what my arteries look like. On second thought, maybe I don't want to know. But now that my month has come ans gone, that's it. No more.

Time to get back in my Superwoman lycra...

Endorphins

Ah those good ol' hormones. Can't live with em, can't live without them. Well, certainly - and literally- the latter, anyways.

We often associate hormones with two phenomenons, generally. First, that of our time of puberty, when we're suddenly awakening to an enhanced realization of our physicality, and moreover, the physicality of the other gender, and its effect upon us. Secondly, and unfortunately, hormones are often generalized and associated with the unforgiving period of err, ..yes pun intended. PMS.

But then again, that's not just it right? Obviously not the case, because our every moment is a flux of hormones running about our body, up and down and around and around. Every single stimulation that occurs, each reaction, that's it right there, hormones at work.

Having been a medical biology student, this was stuff of immense interest to me. Not purely in the studious way either, but the magical way these organic compounds within us seemed to make meaning of how we function and more importantly...why. Once I mastered the basics it was easier to come to terms with those spells of moods and feelings by knowing what was behind it.

Along the way came the relief in realizing that my strange inclination to become teary quite easily was also perfectly explained. Crying was not a weakness, but in fact a normal biological reaction wherein external stimuli which threatened our emotional well-being, or tipped that balance one way or the other (because, afterall, we can cry in happiness too), incited the production of emotional tears, and in so doing, stimulating the release of endorphins into our bloodstreams.

Endorphins? Yep, those feel-good hormones. You may be familiar with that rush of exhiliration that comes with a good dose of exercise, or emotional connectivity with another special person (i.e. love) or...physical connectivity. The chemical composition of endorphins are very similar to opiates...so forget having a joint of heroin or popping them codeine pills...whenever you need a mood boost, all you gotta do is exercise, or fall in love, or err make love. Or cry.

Intense

I know I am seemingly always overconfident and righteous, and that I act all "miss-know-it-all"-- and no, I am not saying these things about how I am in any sort of mockery either for anyone who might feel so: I know that I am this most often of the time.

Yet often, I find it difficult to figure out if it is who I really am, or who I am because it is my "armour", as in my defense mechanism... I know it is definitely partly because of a defense mechanism...and one that I have cultivated so much over the years that it has become a second skin that seems to be who I really am. And that is something which I have let happen self-consciously, so that everyone just figures that is who I am. That's not to say this is any excuse for being this way...it being a second skin is no excuse to say it isn't who I am. It's still who I am. But it is somehow an armour for that side of who I am which I refuse to let others see; if they are not able to see it, they cannot reach it, and if they cannot reach it, they cannot use it, abuse it, nor destroy it. 'It' of course, being me.

Vulnerability is that state we guard most closely. We do not want to become attached because it opens up our portal for vulnerability. And we learn to guard this vulnerability through experience. Experiences which for the most part we would categorize as unpleasant, because they have taught us pain, and it is through this pain that we have witnessed our vulnerabilities as never before, and therefore we, within ourselves, have seen it for what it is and how to shut it up tight.

 This was meant to be a personal anecdote, and as usual when I write, it ends up going general, and vague, and the one(s) I intend to have this said to would likely be the one to tune out and get lost and distracted. I think, also, that me writing vaguely is another form of defense mechanism, because I am writing about my vulnerabilities for all and sundry to see, though I really had intended it for one. I could have certainly written to the person directly, but for some strange reason I felt that this was a topic I could possible learn the lesson I mean to teach myself more emphatically if I put my failings out on the laundry line.

My lesson is of humility. (And interestingly, two of my soul-siblings have expressed similar thoughts via their blogs (i.e. vulnerability, attachment, self-weaknesses, and humility); as often I am not certain if it is that we simply feed off one another's thoughts or that we truly experience the same at once..)

I have hidden my humility through my pompousness. In being a in-your-face hyper and confident girl, the girl who always has an answer and who always refuses to back down from her arguments, I seem to have done too well a job of hiding my vulnerability, so much that it has somewhat backfired on me; the ones who really need to know me, and who I really am, I am not certain if they believe that me exists. Because I myself haven't been able to figure out who this "me" is.

But (again like those others) I have acknowledged that it is a perpetual journey of self-discovery. And much of my established idealism that I have grown with love like it were my own secret garden of roses, has been one that also comes with its thorns: in letting my feet off the solid earth, in dreaming of the "ideal" I had cultivated so many expectations, so many that they could never possibly be truly practical.

Perhaps that is why it is amazing that I have found sanity in the fruition of the main dream. And that I am learning to be practical through this one dream; to let go of many others which were frivolous in many ways...and yet....

And yet, what? I don't know really.. I am writing all this without forethought, you see. I don't even know where I really am going with this. I guess, I am learning that we cannot hope to establish who we are at any given time. It is impossible. And yet, we are constantly evolving and learning. And it is through our responsibilities and relationships that we most learn to gauge ourselves. We cannot hope to hide in a cave in order to survive, simply because the person we are is too volatile to indulge in interaction. It is through interaction, and through both bad and good experience that we best learn who we are. It is through the struggle where we learn what needs to go, and through the good that we learn what we should keep.

I am addressing this discourse to a number of people, certainly. But again, this is a reminder to myself. I was in fact the one who many years ago (I seem to have been such a wise person when I was so idealistic, and yet I was naive? What a paradox)... I think it was best noted (by myself) when I observed that for a rose to grow stronger and more beautiful, it needs to be clipped and (I am stretching for the right description right now; I know I summed it up beautifully in a line that I posted on Golden Moments, let me look)...Ok found it:

Pruning the rosebush and cutting out what isn't needed makes the rose stronger!

So in summary: ... (and this is specifically for the one I had originally intended this message for)

I don't mean sarcasm, or mockery, by learning to be a better person, nor is it a slight to say that I am learning to become a better person through what I am discovering because of our interactions. It isn't a bad thing necessarily that the bad is brought out through them, but that more of who I am is starting to come out in the open, lots of traits that had been long-dormant because they had always been hidden behind the armour., and lots of new responses that never had reason to exist before that are now alive and new in the world like a newborn baby, yet to learn how to be clothed.  I mean it in the best possible way, to be a better person for all in question.

E for Enlightenment

An unexamined life is not worth living.

Enlightenment is the development of a person in mind and soul. Maybe in the same way, E could mean education. But education is only a subset of what I call enlightenment. Enlightenment is learning – but much more. It’s that ability for you to transverse that cognitive space and go beyond. That feeling of being able to contain all of existence within, and feel a symbiosis with it all, while simultaneously aware that you are but a speck in galaxies expanding far and wide.

Enlightenment is that which stems from the intellect but is guided by the heart – clarification, illumination, explanation. It differs from inspiration because it isn’t exactly that which pulls us forward as motivation, but rather guides us through awakening the senses to better understand the concept of life. If it means finding the answers to why we are here or what our purpose is, that is enlightenment.

Enlightenment also encompasses the realm of faith. God, spirituality, or if you’re like me: simply living a good life or being as good a person one can be. Nirvana, paradise, jannat…whatever the realm we wish to attain through our actions herein, we aim for enlightenment. It means to step out of the dark and out of ignorance, into the light of knowledge and wisdom.

While inspiration is a current that we pull into ourselves from our environment and surroundings, enlightenment can be perceived as movement in the opposite direction. With enlightenment we become conscious of our existence in a different way, with that awareness comes a mergence of oneself with all of life; we realize the light that we are and we become one with the spectacular illumination of life.

Everyone has a spirit that can be refined, 

a body that can be trained in some manner, a suitable path to follow.

You are here to realize your inner divinity and manifest your innate enlightenment.

Morihei Ueshiba

F for Friendship

“Each friend represents a world in us, 
a world possibly not born until they arrive, 

and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.” 

― Anaïs Nin

Through the long and weary march of life, there surrounded me the tread of my comrades. In that knowledge, no matter how hard the path, how cold the rains, somehow I was able to keep on, because they were there.

What would life be without friendship? I cannot truly fathom the answer. Aristotle once wrote that a man could not be good without society; we’ve heard it said that we cannot be an island to survive. We are thrust among millions of beings who differ only by the minutest gene – is it any wonder that we need to create relations with one another?

Our ability to build friendships reflects our inner state of being; our capacity to rejoice in the companionship and fellowship with another being, to embrace that humanity in the other, and cherish that meeting of minds – that is what demonstrates a singular development of a person’s soul. All our knowledge and all our goodness; what is that if we cannot stretch out our hand to another person to share it?

Laughter. That’s what comes first to mind when I think of my memories with friends. Even when I was in the darkest places, even when I wasn’t able to open up and share my pain with anyone, I still was able to laugh because I had friends who would be silly and crazy. Sometimes, that was even better than sharing the pain, because they weren’t conscious or awkward. Laughter is the most beautiful subset of life, and it’s so perfect that it comes so naturally with friendship. However temporary, that is a happiness of its own.

And though it’s taken me a long time to really get to this point: the ability to open up and share your thoughts, your dreams, your worries, your fears. To expose those innermost vulnerabilities and discover that doing so is healing of its own kind. The ability to share has manifold benefits that echo over and over and out and beyond, ripples that take root so deeply within one’s psyche. To share, and furthermore—to be understood.

“Me too!” acts like glue. That ability to comprehend and relate is a magnetic and irresistible force field. And quite the opposite, to come across differences in another person allows us to grow because we learn more and expand our own cognitive horizon.

Sharing is caring. So we’ve all heard. It works both ways, no matter what direction the flow is. Even when you are giving, upon that open connection there is something coming back – however intangible and however imperceptible – you’re getting something back, and that is the essence of acknowledgement of existence; in friendship, it is called care. That’s what makes us warm inside; to know we are cared for, respected, appreciated, and loved.

Friendship is love, of course, but when you really try to get a grip on it, when you squint in the glare of the light trying to get a clearer glimpse of what this phenomenon is, it’s something unique unto itself. 

There's a gift of quiet blessing only friendship can impart, 
for a friend shares life with gentle hands, kind words and a caring heart.

I for Inspiration

Dreams are not without meaning wherever they may come from

-from fantasy, from the elements, or from other inspiration. 

Paracelsus

The ability of a being to exist is in its ability to survive. In the cognitive sense of the word, our survival is geared through our ability to harbour and create hope.

Inspiration is that which tells us to go on – motivation, encouragement, stimulation. Inspiration is that which is felt thoroughly with the heart though guided by the mind.

For me, life is all about continually finding something to be inspired by. Curiosity of the mind, the quest to learn more, to take a nugget of knowledge and be able to chew on it so that you benefit from its nutrients to the max. 

Inspiration is also used to describe the process of inhalation - as such, we do the same to our minds. That ability to take in from our surroundings and filter the good (as we do with oxygen from the air) and expel the bad, and use what we have filtered in for further use.

Sometimes we find ourselves in a quagmire of blah - lethargic, apathetic, purposeless. We wonder what's the purpose of it all? What are we doing? What's the point. That's when we often come to our wits end -- life really seems pretty futile without some sort of motivation, doesn't it?

Inspiration is often thought of as a happy thing. That bright-eyed wonder taking it all in, with blue skies and rainbows. Or, the beauties of a sunrise or sunset. But I have realized that through the lack of fulfillment, there too is profound inspiration. The void which magnifies even more the essence of what is missing, and in simply wanting, we live more.

Every single moment provides us that opportunity for inspiration. And furthermore, we possess that ability to inspire, in our own unique ways. Our experiences in every step along the way is something we can hand over and share with another, and our lessons learnt can be passed on, just as our failures can also teach.

Often we don't acknowledge the act of being inspired in our lives; more often than not, it is as common as taking the next breath, though if we paused a moment to reflect on why we are doing what we are, or how we are doing what we are, or where we are, and who we are, then we realize that inspiration is a vital ingredient in the very fuel of life. 

L for Love

Love is something if you give it away, 

Give it away, give it away.

Love is something if you give it away,

You end up getting more.

Love. The story of my life. For some people, life feels an accomplishment through their career, or the amount of money they make. Maybe it’s vicariously through the children they bring into this world. It’s the oldest cliché in the book, but for me, it’s all about Love.

Through all these years that I have experienced and sought this holy grail of mine, I’ve gone through those inevitable ups and downs that have taught me where my beliefs were wrong or my feelings ill-placed. Accordingly, I’ve also gone through many stages of anti-love, where I swore that I would remain single and dedicate my life to more practical realities, rather than chasing after a fairy-tale that led me to the middle of nowhere. What these phases of so-called self-professed anti-love taught me was that it’s really ingrained in me. That my motto I’d lived so many years and cast away, was really stuck to me permanently: Live to love, love to live.

And I’d realized, if I was looking at the overall goal, to find that soulmate who’d be my happily ever after forever and always, then maybe I need to take a closer look at this thing called Love. Because sometimes when you keep it as close to you as your own face, you then don’t recognize itin the flesh because you’ve never looked at it face to face with your own eyes. That’s the thing with love – you have to make friends with it and be familiar with its idiosyncrasies, because how else will you recognize it when it’s actually finally there in the eyes of your beholder reflecting back at you?

It's just like a magic penny,

Hold it tight and you won't have any.

Lend it, spend it, and you'll have so many

They'll roll all over the floor.

The overall picture meant one person. But love means everything and everyone, and most importantly yourself. I had to come to terms with the fact that love didn’t mean finding someone else to make you feel accomplished. Love had to start with “I”.

And what I realized was that, instead of just holding out for that one person one day, I had to wear it every day, for myself. When I did that, I found that noone else was able to take my vulnerabilities and use it against me -- I didn't give them that permission. I stopped searching for love and stopped persuading myself - always prematurely and in the wrong places - that I found it.

Being in love with the idea of love is a dangerous thing. You should love love. But you cannot expect that it will fluourish where you decide is a convenient place for it to do so. It doesn't happen just like that, you cannot plant a seed in concrete and expect it to grow. And you can't keep pouring more and more onto that seed in hopes that it will. Because what you're doing is pouring more expectation onto your hope, and in doing so, you're meanwhile drowning out that one hope as well as forgetting to feed the rest of your plants. 

No matter how much love you know you have to give, and no matter how much you seek that soulmate and companion, you still need to remember that every step along the way to wherever and however you're getting there needs some attention. Put a little love into the next spot you need to step, let it grow and keep you stable so that you can cross to the next. Love isn't something you can keep aside in the fridge for that feast you expect you'll have one day; you need to come to the realization that however much you use, you have much more to replenish it with. That's when you can appreciate and recognize the live wire connection between life and love.

You need to find it in the smallest things, the everyday things, before it will show up in the greatest place of all. The way the wind blows, or how the rain falls, the people around you --and most importantly in and for yourself. You need to extend your ability to love even the mundane moments, inject it into the actual spark of life. 

When we love, we always strive to become better than we are. 

When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.” 

― Paulo Coelho