'Rebuilding is a theoretical possibility'
Reading corner
The Calm After the Storm
by Aditi Rao
There is no more fear, only the knowledge
of rubble, the blank echo of high pitched
voices in once-bursting rooms. Rebuilding
is a theoretical possibility; we did not
plan for it. We talked only of storms
and so much damage. The empty light
fixtures have questions. The curtain rods
are trying to stand back up. We cannot
promise them a home again.
[Source: https://scroll.in/article/921141/a-kind-of-freedom-song-in-life-and-mythology-women-find-a-voice-after-violence-in-these-poems ]
Healing notes
Writing here every week is hard. Let's be honest. It sometimes feels like a public diary. A work in progress. Yet, I always only receive love for it. Some people have unfollowed over a period of time but I don't regret what I put here. Vulnerability I am convinced is a good thing.
The past few weeks have been intense for me. My therapist and I made a lot of headway but I have had experiences recently that both shook me and reinforced my principles. I guess life is mysterious and rewarding that way. In therapy we have been trying to hold contradicting emotions at the same time. Each time we attempted it, I found myself getting restless and my body wanting to change the subject. This is of course not a new feeling for me. Some days as I sink into my bed at night, I feel pain that makes me disassociate. Guess its my body-mind protecting me. So holding two contradicting emotions, like joy and pain, like love and anger - always led me to either guilt or fear.
I was surprised by this discovery. Not because it is untrue or wrong, but the realisation of the core behind this feeling. I wanted to not be called irrational anymore. And my body was convinced this was the way.
Over a period of time, I have heard that word and emotional so much that I believed it truly. I believed that I was unstable, passionate and these were not good things. It has always been a struggle to challenge why these were strengths and not weaknesses. But I found myself lacking in conviction to accept them as strengths.
I say this, again, choosing the extreme side of not seeing it as a spectrum.
When I first began this newsletter, I wrote that healing was a journey, not a destination. I believed it. I believe it. Yet I encounter myself feeling like a failure on days when entire cab rides are spent weeping. In a flash, I find myself holding onto an external truth - maybe even an external lie. A feeling that when I hold a multitude of things together, I must be emotional, irrational and unstable.
Words weaponised against me in a way that every time I tried to hold contradictory emotions in my body, my body picked the flight mode. It is not a great feeling.
And yet, I weeped with relief on discovering this. On arriving at this wonderful, comforting realisation.
I wanted to hold onto this moment and make it permanent. Accept once and for all that I am indeed a work in progress so its fine that some days are not as good. Then I smiled to myself. My therapist of course, insightful as she is, asked me what I had realised - like my inability to hold multitudes of emotions, I also struggled to not have to choose between extremes. Do or die. Right or wrong. Asshole or kind. The in-between murky, the grey nuance was uncomfortable. Somehow the lesson I had learnt was that choices were fixed. Not dynamic, changing, evolving things.
It is interesting that my emotional and decision making side both wanted me to choose, when in actuality, rebuilding requires a spectrum of being. Some of course better than others.
Food experiments
I think I take the experiment part of this section a bit too seriously. I mix many strange things together. The great part is the only feeding myself part :D
I made a wonderfully strange meal the other day. I out rice and dal together into the pressure cooker - like I do when I make pongee/khichdi. By the time it was done, I wanted something else. So I added puliogare mix to it. Meanwhile I boiled three eggs. I mixed the rice and made a tasty pongee puliogare. Once the eggs were boiled, I added and mixed that too.
Such a comforting meal indeed <3 Try at your own risk folks :D
Dear you,
It has been a long and exhausting week but I sat in my room today
with flowers and candles and felt myself return to me. What do you do
as part of grounding?
Love, kindness and warmth,
Nidsitis
'I’ve been circling for thousands of years and I still don’t know: Am I a falcon, a storm, or a great song?' - Rainer Maria Rilke