Monday, November 16, 2020

Of Vortexes

Have you ever felt like you were stuck in a never-ending vortex?

A place of constant struggle to flee, and yet the trajectory of where you find yourself does not allow an escape? 

Perhaps you wish you had wings of your own to fly.

And yet the howling winds remind you that the torture of the constant swirl has long sapped your energies and broken your spirit.

Have you ever felt that life has had its way with you... Of having flung you around like a raggedy doll - without care, or respect.

Have you felt the desire so much to want to break free.

And yet the chains of the vortex pull you deeper still.


At some point of time, you have to convince yourself that this is all in your mind.

And perhaps there needs to be a lot of work in the convincing.

Perhaps it requires a total reset.

Perhaps you have to come to a place of quiet where you can no longer hear a thing.

A place where the howling stops.

A place where the opinions stop.

A place where the expectations stop.

A peaceful place where only your mind can go.

A new place that is not a vortex.


And yet you know that your mind is not to be underestimated.

There is a brilliance there that will drive to make the vortex a permanent tangibility.


But this should not be so.

Surely your spirit isn't to be trifled with either.

With great fear presents opportunity for great courage.


Save yourself.

Still your heart and mind.

Take that bold step out.

Even though you may fall...

It is still better than staying in the vortex till it steals even your breath - at that point it will be too late to go anywhere else.


It is not too late.

Monday, January 06, 2020

Of New Year resolutions

I spent the last weekend of 2019 with two of my mentees and we had the very meaningful activity of setting New Year Resolutions together. I enjoy specifics, so we broke them down into quite a few categories: Physical, Intellectual, Emotional, Social, Spiritual, Financial, Career Development. That should cover most facets of life.

One of my emotional goals was to blog at least once a week.
I suppose writing is some form of a sustenance for me, as well as an outlet for my constantly troubled idealistic INFP mind.

I've got a lot of personal goals this year.
But I have to chart the systems to get what I want to be at the end of this year.
Hopefully my efforts to break everything into bite-sized pieces of life will help me move a little step ahead at a time.

Friday, July 05, 2019

One day at a time.

It's been a while since I've last written and I thought I should at least post an update...after all, my last post was pretty depressing.

This is a good juncture to also add that most things on social media - blogs included - often don't portray a holistic version of one's life. At least for me, this blog often contains either informative things I thought to share, or emotions too much for me to bear and needed to spill out somewhere. I suppose that last post fell into that "I needed to spill somewhere" category.

The truth is, last year was pretty rough for me... in fact, the past few years have been.
For something like the past 8 years now, every year brought with it something more devastating to me than the last. It's almost as if life was trying to turn me into an armadillo of sorts... except I don't think I have been recovering fast enough to be able to deal with the next blows.

A big break up, an unexpected law suit, a major surgery, having almost lost my father (twice), business troubles, and last year having some psychotic person stalk and harass me (plus later understanding there was barely any legal protection available for harassment cases unless I was willing to fork out so much money to control some mentally unstable human...)... that was pretty much my breaking point. I simply couldn't take it anymore.

(I don't know if you can empathize with my feelings of hopelessness in that case of harassment - when you listen from a third party cautioning you that there is a human alive relishing in their ability to spark fear in you by harassing you. I am probably stronger from that and would tell her to "F-off" if I ever see this human again...but I would wish it on no one. It is not a good experience. It is enough to know there are weird people out there, without having to experience it for yourself.)

I guess that last post came at some point of some night I was just feeling really sorry for myself.

It's kind of like reaching a place of helplessness where you feel abandoned by God, and by humans, and you just seek the last place where you found security... and then realized that that's not there either. It was a hopeless place... I suppose it was worse when throughout all these years, I've found that I've had to hide all this brokenness. I had to keep up with appearances, and try to be strong...and when I faltered, and decided to stay home and just be real with myself, I felt guilty and irresponsible.

Have things gotten better since last year?

Yes and No.

Yes, in the sense that my harasser has stopped (although she is still on the loose somewhere in this country and probably still needs psychiatric help).

But no, in the sense that I've developed sporadic panic attacks..which are probably from the cumulative amount of traumatic experiences I haven't had time to process.

Since last year I made quite a few changes though... I dropped out of a lot of groups. I tried to distance myself away from people who made me uncomfortable in any way (I say this because sometimes, in business/social groups, this is a pain I believed I had to bear...to tolerate people that had very different value systems from mine. But I realized that that just wasn't true.).

I'm still not done yet. There are a lot of things I'm still cutting out of my life... and there are days where I do wish I could just move far away from all my daily sources of stressors, to restart someplace else and try to figure life out in a more peaceful place, at my own pace, before the next crazy thing hits.

And perhaps I will.

But for today, here's an update saying that things are not perfect...nor are they all better, but they just aren't as bad as they used to be. I think I've lost myself somewhere in between, but now, in the small chunks of peace I can find, I'm trying to rebuild.
And for that, I'm thankful.

One day at a time.