Sunday, April 24, 2016

My Own Golden Cage

I started my year with an illness and over the last 3 months have had a spate of health issues. Health issues that have forced me to work from home, work less hours, visit doctors, take medication and reassess my lifestyle. In some sense, it was long coming.

I know it's not burn out. It's been years since I worked weekends, long hours or late nights. I start work at ten in the morning and usually leave office by sixty thirty in the evening. I rarely work weekends. So, I know it's not work.

I have had sufficient ups and downs as a non-profit entrepreneur and built some resilience around conflicts at work, pressures of goals and impact and erratic funding cycles. I do realize my risk appetite has come down. I also realize that I am not out to change the world NOW, that too single-handedly. I have a more balanced, patient and pragmatic view of my work and my approach to impacting lives in the world. I know this work requires a lifetime and more and I am willing to make that investment.

My wife says, there is a churn that is happening in my being and my body is manifesting the shifts through these illnesses. She is usually right about these things. Though, I am not sure what shifts are happening in my being and why these shifts are manifesting through different illnesses.

On the contrary, I watch my wife who is also my journey partner at work. She is surging ahead with confidence and love in her life journey. She loves work, understands her body, listens to her body, mind and heart and makes healthy choices. Over the last few years, she has nurtured her soul and continues to do so with many creative practices. She does quilling, zen-tangles, arts and crafts, paintings and puzzles. All creative practices that quieten her mind, give her personal space for reflection, bring balance in her life, make her centered and keep her happy and engaged with life. She is great at taking care of herself and saying NO. At work, I notice she is able to give more of herself to people and her role. She is turned-on about what we are doing and is able to inspire, motivate and more importantly empower the team. She is supremely self-aware and is able to create an amazing space for reflections, learning and personal growth to happen.

She has been urging me to take up a creative practice to heal my soul and my body. I know she is right. Yet, I resist it.

I enjoy nature and yet I hardly spend anytime in nature. I love meeting friends and yet I have been putting off meeting friends for months now. I plan to call and meet and then vegetate through the weekend or distract myself with to-do-lists of errands. I had nurtured my interest in reading last year but this year, I have avoided taking up books to read. I love writing poetry and yet find reasons not to write. Friends have invited me join play groups for some physical exercise, I complain about not being able to get up in the morning. Recently, a dear friend sent me a colouring book for adults. I watch it at my table and have been avoiding picking it up. Yoga and meditation has been recommended to me. I am avoiding it.

I see the impact. I am not working to my potential.

My week starts with to-do lists from work and my weekends start with to-do lists on the personal front. The never-ending, ever expanding to-do lists. Even reaching and connecting with family and friends goes into my to-do list now and then I detest doing it because now it's just a task - not something I really want to do because it nurtures me.

It's like a protective shield around me that is preventing me from expanding, exploring and discovering the magical me. My self-built golden cage.

I see myself constantly living in guilt. Guilt of not nurturing my being; not giving myself importance. Putting myself first. The paradox, though, is that when I do put myself first, I feel guilty for not being there for family, friends and colleagues. I feel selfish and self-centered. I have got caught into a vicious web of resistances and limiting beliefs.

I wonder why I resist being kind and gracious to myself. I wonder why I resist an opportunity to nurture myself; to take a break; to do nothing, to go away for sometime; to give myself and my body rest. I wonder what are the resistances that hold me back from living my potential. The self-limiting belief systems that become me and gnaw away at me - slowly and steadily.

With so much suffering that I see, listen to and receive around me. Do I keep myself miserable so I can relate and empathize with the suffering of others who come into my life?

Do I feel guilty for living a life of privilege and happiness and hence find ways to stay in pain and suffering?

Is it because I grew up with watching my parents struggle and having received messages (consciously and unconsciously) that life is a struggle, have I embraced this approach to life?

Do I have it in me to accept myself for my awesomeness? Be bold and unapologetic for being Me? Embrace the idea that nurturing myself is part of this work and life. Accept happiness in equal measure to pain and suffering. Be kind and empathetic to myself for only then I can authentically be empathetic towards another human being. Do I have it in me to break out of my golden cage?

I hope expressing it is the first step towards changing the narrative of my life.


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