The crossroad...

We have truly no idea how the next moment would turn out. But we don't live that way. It takes immense courage to live like that. As if you are on the edge of a mountain. You can fall off any moment but then maybe you won't. Or maybe it is more like standing at the beginning of infinite crossroads- the point where a node breaks into many others- all in different directions and you can either just keep walking in the same direction or switch to another. What do you do? The road ahead is likely to be the same. But the road on the left could take you on a different path. But then is that yours to take? And usually it is all dark and you can't even see much ahead except a vague silhouette of what lies ahead.

Every moment brings up questions like this and all we can do is to nudge apart the shades of the past which cover the lantern of awareness. Then somehow, something helps you know which way to turn. And you turn and come to another crossroad.

At one point, I used to think that this was getting too difficult. I wanted a simple, well defined, clear path and take any surprise out of it. Having choice comes with its responsibilities. And, at times, we choose to live this difficult life of awareness. And sometimes, we prefer to blindfold ourselves, trust in luck and keep moving on the same path. And then we blame why it is not how we expected it to be.

As I grow older, I see that it is all right to change paths or to keep moving. Except without the blindfold. Then even though things don't turn out the way I expect, I am just that bit more at peace. Even when I have an accident. Because I know that it was the path that I chose and that is enough.

So, what do i deserve?

I never asked this question to myself for a really long time. Never. For me, life was more about doing the "right" thing and protecting others from my feelings. I searched for validation in authors, in friends, in characters on cinema...whatever worked.

But usually others did not get it. So far as I pushed what I felt, under the carpet, no one else knew my anger. When I expected something I wanted from others, something very reasonable like returning a call and did not get it, I rationalized. Oh! she must be busy right now. There must be a really important reason. Sometimes the saint in me told me - Move beyond expectation. Dont ask. Be Loving. Let it go.  Be brave.

It only helped for a while.

The anger grew within and then became sadness. It began to be the way to live. Loving others without loving myself did not work.

I slowly realize that it does not have to be that way. I can ask for what I think I deserve. It is all right to expect. It is all right to feel miserable when I do not get what I want. It is important, very important to find those who will listen to what I ask for and would make an effort to reach out. But ask what you deserve. Have that clarity. Don't be afraid of asking. Otherwise, how would others even know.

Yes, life is complex. Yes, sometimes we reach out and are frustrated. But it is important to wear your heart inside out. To be vulnerable. To show vulnerability. It is a softer heart and a harder path but I am coming to peace with it. 

Who is in your cloud?

"So, what do you do when you feel that you are ALWAYS in the minority?", asked a friend to me in today morning. "How do you react when what you say and feel seems to be different from what others say and feel?", she asked.

I looked back at her. My answer was "Self compassion". From where I am standing that seems to be the only way to deal with this. I have felt a part of such minority for a really long time. I guess many of us have. We try to fit in, adjust, make amends, say sorry and be like others. The urge to be "we" is strong. Overpowering. But sooner or later, for some of us, the "me" will rebel. It will grow stronger and keep asking - a voice that you can't really quiet down. But accepting and proclaiming our difference in perception brings the fear of being an outcast- separate from the herd. And separation is death, shouts another voice encoded within for survival.

Hence, self compassion. To love oneself without any comparison or judgement. Especially when you feel absolutely by yourself and without a hand to hold on to.

But, self compassion can be tiring. It requires rejuvenation. So, a more practical option is to also search for those who "connect" to you. Those soul warriors are few but they are out there. They might not have the same troubles as you have but they have suffered and they will understand what you mean when you say that clearing your emotional debris is no cake-walk. Their bag of worries and their baggage of past might be different but their path and their way of walking on it is the same as yours.

Then, when they talk to you, healing happens.

Today, the same friend who asked me questions about being in the minority mentioned Jeff Brown and I chanced upon his quotes. And I could connect to it. Like a child who sees one sea shell on the shore and then another ...and then one more, I began to read what he said. I began to fill my pockets with these lovely shells till my pockets bulged.

So, create a cloud. Put yourself in it. Put all those who connect to you in it too. They could be friends or colleagues. Even authors. Anyone whose reflections of their journey resonate with you. And even though your cloud might be small, you would feel that you are not alone. Let them go when you no longer connect to them. Let yourself go find another cloud if you dont connect with them. After all, clouds have no fixed boundaries. And neither have you.

So, Jeff Brown - welcome to my cloud. I am not alone, and neither are you..

Hugging the loser in you!

It is common for us to aspire for winning. Get attached to it. Run away from losing. After all, that is how you succeed and grow, you are told.

Let us take this piece of "conventional wisdom" and challenge the wisdom in it. Let us turn it upside down to see if believing this will create any scars.

As i piece my own life together, I slowly begin to unpack those aspects of me which, Debbie Ford or Carl Jung would say, have been disowned. In the last 4 decades of my existence, I have not respected my losing - even though it stared at me in my face from time to time. I turned away when it came near my face. I tuned away when it yelled. I did not acknowledge it. I was not a loser, I told myself. I will WIN.

Incidentally, in my rush to be a winner, I kept creating conditions which made my losing a matter of time. I would never relax. If a relationship was going down, instead of accepting that such things happen, I would either withdraw or push harder to win. It never worked. If I had relaxed, I would have seen how my actions were creating the very suffering I did not want.

The loser label was simply not acceptable.

Reality says we will lose sometime or the other. A job we want might go to someone else. A lover we see as our soul mate might walk into someone else' arms. The life we so tenaciously hold on to will lose to death. Losing is guaranteed. And it is not just OK but also sensible to accept being a loser when life hands you a tough one.

No, I don't want to run away from it anymore. I want to stop and say hello to it. Yes, i am a loser sometimes and that is cool. I want to hug this fear, this demon of losing I have been running away from.   Accepting that i can be a loser allows me stop pushing into those areas where there is no light at the end of the tunnel. It allows me to water those plants which will blossom. It takes away the burden of being all-knowing, all-good all the time. It allows me to look rather at what I do than what result am I going to get. It allows me to enjoy the process. It allows me to breathe.

It's a short life. Win some. Lose some. But live it fully. Thanks to Debbie Ford for bringing this to my awareness.

Let's Watch...

Imagine stories. Expressions from the heart. Words with feelings. Narratives with softness of sensitivity and the depth of human experience.

What happens when you want to play these stories out? What happens when you take a teller's tale and use your body to show how it all felt? Use your voice to capture its essence. With no preparation. All improvised. Play it back to them with honesty and commitment.

Playback theatre is all about enacting our life's stories...again. Sometimes as a fluid sculpture with voice and movement, sometimes as an image frozen in time, sometimes as vignettes unfolding magically and sometimes as stories acted out in a narrow corridor. So many ways to reach out and share. 

But what Playback theatre does is more than a re-telling. It heals. As we watch our own stories played out by an ensemble of actors, there is a part in us which witnesses and somehow puts it back in a different perspective. Almost as if the contents of our memory are re-shuffled. The pain that some of these tales are soaked in begins to subside. The joy these stories contain infects others. We feel better. Much better.

As an actor, I loved playing the stories out. I read somewhere that if we delve deep within, we realize that our feelings are replenished by the same source. Acting required me to dig in and drink from that source. No planning and preparation. Being totally there. Beautiful to feel so connected.

As a teller, I saw my own stories replayed and yet transformed magically. A short frail boy who hit three sixes again became a hero. His joy reaching out and embalming the souls of even those who had never seen him.

As a conductor, I had the opportunity to sometimes hold the threads of the teller's story together so that the actors could always make out its essence. I had to make sure that the art form fit the story. A fragmented story, for example, would be done justice to in the playback form of corridors. So much invisible work that binds the whole performance together.

As a watcher, I had the time of my life. Listening and watching as the human drama enfolded every day and I felt being tugged by invisible strings which reached out from the words of the teller and the expressions of the actors. The Me became a We.

My journey with Playback is new. And like all new journeys there is an overarching sense of excitement and a niggling sense of uncertainty. Who knows where it will go. 

Let's watch.