Healing

Was supposed to be doing some work tonight but stumbled upon a photo that I shouldn't have seen. 

First, it made me feel indifferent. Then my mind started playing tricks with me. It told me I should feel something. It told me I should judge and I should analyze. What is this? A test of my healing? 

And that sent me into the depths of my wounds. No, I think the better word today is, my scars. No longer open wounds. No longer wounds that were left there to bleed for years, wounds that used to be visited from time to time to add salty tears to and remind myself each time how painful they are. 

This time, things are different. They are now scars. Healed wounds. Healed. Not perfectly, but they are no longer openly bleeding. The mark will always be there, and the tears might wash over them at times, but now, they no longer sting. Because they are no longer bleeding wounds. They are just memories. They are visible for the mind to revisit, but they hold no pain. 

Surely there are some wounds that were not mended perfectly, surely for those they might still sting, but now we know how to mend them. No, actually, we now know that they CAN be mended. They don't need to bleed for us to be a person with a past. Those wounds no longer need to hold the emotions that once were. 

Healing is a long journey, it truly is. But the beauty is it gets easier and easier. Every step forward is a step further away from what used to tether you to the past. By the time you realize and look back, that thing that once bothered you is now so so far away that you can't even really "see" it anymore. You know it's there, but it's so blurry you forgot how it felt like. And now the future is nearer than the past. 

This journey of healing and self discovery has led me to learn who I am. And to learn to teach myself things that everyone else is too broken to learn. We can have a million people around us guiding us but at the end of the day, ultimately it is ourselves that need to steer the ship. And this I will do. I will steer this ship to complete healing. 

I send myself love and compassion tonight because from the thousand of steps I have climbed up in this journey, tonight I have stumbled back down a few. But that's ok, right now I am sitting on that step that I stumbled to and I am sending my heart love and the energy to climb back up further again. Because I have climbed a thousand steps, what's does a few steps back do to my journey? Nothing. Because my intention is going forward. And as long as my mind says forward, no matter how many steps I fall back on, I will still always only continue forward. 

Lessons from Adversity

Feeling like a failure has taught me that failing is only temporary, but can be permanent if we let our minds imprison us. 

Anxiety has taught me not to belittle any hardship someone goes through no matter how small it seems to be.

Getting teased for being fat has taught me that mean words don't help anyone be a better version of themselves but contributes to the destruction of that person from the inside out.

Being poor has taught me that everything always works out in the end.

Poor health has taught me to be more in tuned to my body and that good health is truly priceless.

Being in stressful situations has taught me that mental health is above everything else.

Dealing with rude people has taught me that kindness is always a choice. 

Meeting a selfish person has taught me that selfishness is actually living in fear. 

Being judged has taught me that I do not truly know everything about a person and what they are going through.

Heartbreak has taught me that I didn't love myself enough and placed my happiness in another person's hands. 

Hard times have taught me that any moment or situation is all about perspective. 

Resentment has taught me that I was punishing myself all along for someone else's actions.

Frustration has taught me that I have let my ego mind take over my perspective on things far too many times by needing everyone or every situation to act out as how I expect them to be. 

Fear has taught me to be a safe space for everyone who comes to me. 

The lack of confidence has taught me that I didn't believe in myself enough. 

Internal turmoil has taught me to be the peace that everyone searches for. 

Paranoia has taught me that it is mostly my mind creating problems for myself. 

Not getting everything I want has taught me to cherish what I do have. 

Being on the receiving end of empty promises has taught me to fulfill all promises made or never make one. 

Anger has taught me that no one makes me angry if I don't allow it. 

Sadness has taught me that letting go with faith is always best.

Unpleasant situations have taught me that there is a higher purpose for every experience. 

Disappointment has taught me that not everyone will behave the way we want them too and that is ok. 

Trauma has taught me that I didn't have to hold on to it in order to have an identity. 

Most importantly, adversities have helped me learn that healing doesn't mean forgetting, it just means remembering something but no longer with the unhealthy emotions attached to it. 

Thank You

Thank you for your obsession with money so I can learn that money isn't everything.

Thank you for being materialistic so I realize that there is more beauty in intangible things.

Thank you for putting wealth above family so I know that doesn't go well in life.

Thank you for putting so much importance in a person's title and appearance, so that I know to look at a person's heart instead. 

Thank you for teaching me to pretend to be a different person to different people so that I know that I only want to be the real me all the time. 

Thank you for making me tell so many lies, so that I know I don't ever want to live a life full of deception. 

Thank you for the hard times so I can appreciate what I have now. 

Thank you for the trauma so I can learn to manage my thoughts.

Thank you for the selfishness so I know that my happiness is my own responsibility. 

Thank you for rarely being around, so I know how important it is to show up.

Thank you for missing every single milestone so I know how nothing is more important than just being present for the ones who love you.

Thank you for saying I love you and I miss you, but failing to make me believe it as a child, because as an adult, I realize that actions do speak louder than words. 

Thank you for believing that people only want to be around you when you are successful, so I know that I don't want to be surrounded by people like that. 

Thank you for making empty promises, so I know how much value a promise should hold.

Thank you for all the disappointment for it has taught me that nothing in life is certain.

Thank you for abusing your health, as it has taught me to cherish mine. 

Thank you for thinking we would be happier around a materially successful you, as I have realized that our loved ones are happy to be around us no matter who we are. 

Thank you for forever holding on to the belief that your happiness will come when you achieve this big thing, for it has taught me that happiness comes from within. 

Thank you for constantly putting yourself in stressful situations for the sake of money, so I can value peace before material success. 

Thank you for placing value in a person's physical appearance, so I learn to place value in a person's soul. 

Thank you for believing that people only love you with certain conditions, because that has taught me that true love is unconditional.

And most of all,

thank you for being exactly the way you are, because of that,

I AM EXACTLY THE WAY I AM SUPPOSED TO BE. 

Tears shed, wounds healing.

My Grandmother, The Unaware Teacher To My Soul

Sometimes I feel called to write about certain things but each time I write, it is an inspired action. I don't sit down and force myself to write for the sake of writing something because nothing good can come out of force. Everything good comes from inspiration. 

Tonight as I was having a difficult time dealing with my grandmother, I suddenly had a thought, that I should write about the timeline of how she has been one of my life's greatest teachers.

When you read the title of this blog post, you might think that I would have wonderful, amazing stories to write about my grandmother teaching me things and imparting her wisdom onto me. 

This is completely the opposite because this connection I have with her on earth has been one interesting journey and only one can find it so if they have emotionally removed themselves from the experience and look at it as an observer. 

You see, she is a negative person by nature and was what I now know, addicted to negative emotions. During her coherent years when her mind was still alert, no one had thought to tell it straight to her face that she was literally a bitch and full of negativity. Well maybe because she was the matriarch of the family. And I say this with no remorse because that is a very accurate word to describe the person she was. More so in the way she treated me. Now it is too late to teach her about speaking positive words and cultivating more love in her heart because she is no longer coherent and can't understand half the things you say to her. 

At one point during my early teenage years, I was the subject and her source of drama and negativity. I didn't know why she hated me so much. I was the most well behaved grandchild of hers and yet she had so many reasons to hate on me. She couldn't see the me that I truly was, but I never let my experiences with her make me a bitter person, so I never ever had any intention to "get back at her" per se, and I am grateful for that. Because many years later, she has realised that I am the only one who doesn't talk back at her. Did she for a second think why she hated me so much then? 

She was the reason I cried myself to sleep every night and skipped meals so I wouldn't have to go out of the room and hear her bitching about me. No one knew this until I started opening up about it in recent years. 

I came home straight from school every day, never went out unnecessarily,  did everything she told me, was polite to her and was pretty much the opposite of my twin brother. And yet, she hated on me, not my brother. She found every little flaw I had and went to town with it while her other grandchildren were no better than me. Oh how odd! And that brings us to the first lesson: "A negative or bitter person will find problems or create them where there are none and that is of no fault of our own. We just happened to be in the same existence with them at that time." 

Oh and I was not the only "victim" of her addiction to negativity. Before I came into her experience, she used to pick on another cousin of mine, and when we moved in to live with her, I was her new target and my cousin was off the hook. After a few years of picking on me, we had a new addition to the family by marriage, and she found her new target so I was let off the hook. So many years have passed and now that I am more conscious of her behaviours, when she picks a new person to create fresh drama, I just pretend I don't hear all the negative things she say and give no attention to it because I know how it feels to be her source of negativity. This is lesson no. 2: Sometimes, hardships we have been through, help us to be better people to the person who's going through the same. We become more conscious of how certain actions or words could affect another human being. Also, a negative person addicted to hating people, will always have someone to hate. Don't take it personally because they will have a new person to hate next. 

It is true when Eckhart Tolle says, that negative emotions and the pain body we have, are addicted to and feed on negative emotions for energy. When we let ourselves do that and are not conscious of our unconscious mind, we constantly need the negativity to give us energy. Because negativity finds joy and love revolting. 

She's 90 this year and thinks she's turning 100. That's how "clear" her mind is now. I no longer hold a grudge or any emotional attachment to the past she created for me because, how could I be angry with someone who now can't even tell her age? I used to see myself as a victim, but now I see myself empowered with the experience, grateful even for what has happened has taught me such invaluable lessons.

The funny thing is, I am now the only one in the family she can talk to. She acknowledges this fact now, because I'm the only one who doesn't lash back at her in anger and frustration. Everyone gets frustrated with her words and actions, more so now that she sometimes doesn't make sense when she speaks. She even thanks me for being the one who takes care of her and the one who she could ask anything. Oh how the tables have turned! If I was bound by my ego, this would be the perfect time for me to make life hell for her as how she had made mine. But I would find no pleasure in doing so and it would only harm my own being. Lesson: Be so evolved in your soul that you see the pointlessness of acting on the power you now have over someone else. Because people who live in a toxic cycle will usually end up stuck in their own toxicity, and you can be the observer from the outside, being in awe at how life turns the tables around and the way things come full circle.

I am no saint and till now there are days and nights that have been very difficult to deal with her. By difficult, I mean, keeping my own emotions in check and being conscious of my feelings and reactions. It is truly a test to the mind. Constantly reminding myself, how could I be mad at someone who thinks she's a hundred years old? 

She sometimes does know how to push one's buttons. My family tell me that I'm the most patient with her but I won't deny that sometimes it's a real struggle to communicate with her. As blur as her mind could be sometimes, there is a constant trait in her that is still there: her negativity and addiction to bitching about people. Sometimes, she sits right next to me, just to babble on about her past tales, but they are almost always the negative things she remembers about events and people. It truly drains you of energy if you're not careful. This is also why no one wants to sit and watch TV with her in the living room, because she'll start spewing negativity. It's pretty sad when you think about it, but our world is what we create and we can't blame anyone for not wanting to drown in our negative energy. As I observe the things she has attracted into her life, I sometimes feel a sense of pity for her because it seems like people can't seem to help being rude to her now. Is this what we call karma? As she had spent her vibrant years causing emotional and mental hardships to others, has she sabotaged herself along the way? I dare not say this is a lesson, because I am in no place to judge someone else's karma but something to ponder here is that whatever we spend our energy in projecting, be it positivity or negativity, always comes back to greet us like a boomerang. Can we expect the world to treat us with loving kindness if all we've been busy doing was spreading hate?  

I am constantly on a journey of being conscious of my unconscious mind, and so I would be lying if I said that there isn't still a tiny bit of hurt when I think about what I've been through. But it truly is just a tiny bit and I have come a long way, if I hadn't, I wouldn't be able to notice these lessons. 

I do hope that you too, realise that everyone sent to our experience is there to teach us something. Sometimes we may not realise it then, and only know many years later when our soul has evolved or awakened enough to learn the lesson. Things only come to us when we are ready. 

I will leave you with this quote from Eckhart Tolle: 

"Human interaction can be hell. Or it can be a great spiritual practice."

Which will you choose? 

Much love,
Evie

Meditation

It has been a little over a month since I started meditating daily and sometimes 2 - 3 times a day. Yes, I am aware that I am blessed enough to have the time to do it a few times a day and I truly have gratitude for that. 

Meditating daily has been very life altering for me so far but if you observed my physical life from the outside, you wouldn't be able to see any changes whatsoever yet. However, the change inside has been so profound, now I don't want to go a day without meditating. 

I've read about, known about and even tried meditating years ago. I always thought that it wasn't something I could do. Sitting at the same spot trying to have no thoughts? That doesn't seem very fun right? Seems pointless too. How silly I was as a person with anxiety to not have really explored this. However, I don't regret anything as I believe that there is divine timing in everything but I do remember one very small event that was probably the connection to what's happening now. It was on one day when I was telling my brother about the anxiety I had and he said that he saw Vishen Lakshmi on Mindvalley saying that I need to meditate. 

The reaction I gave him was, pfftt, I tried it, you don't understand, meditation won't help me, it won't remove the anxious feeling I get. You see, it is true when they say that you can't help someone who doesn't want to be helped, or that if a person is not ready to heal or not ready to receive a certain information, whatever you tell or do for them will be of no use. But it does plant a seed. What he said that day did plant a seed in me. Somehow I still kept thinking about what he said from time to time. 

To keep this post short, I won't go into the unique string of events that led me to go into the practice of meditation. I guess I was finally ready to heal and was finally receptive to the information. The effects were very clear. On the days that I would start my day with meditation, the anxiousness I felt during the day would be significantly reduced. Also, it was harder for anxiety to emerge (if that makes sense). For example, during moments where I would usually feel anxious, it felt like my body could control it and keep it under. 

It's also worthy to note that before I started meditating, I had been somewhat free from anxiety for some time (or so I thought lol). Basically I seldom had anxious days but after I started meditation for a few days, the anxiety came back like a bitch! Creeping up on me at all times of the day. I recognised this as a purging of old emotions and energies. A healing crisis, and so I continued meditating to pull through. During this time, it became clear to me that meditation trained my body to keep anxiety away while cleansing all the old and stored negative energy I had. I was confident that I would get to a point where my chakras (energy centers) would be so balanced that anxiety will cease to be a part of me. I no longer wanted to identify as the person who deals with anxiety or feel pity for myself for being a "victim" of this "condition" that I could surely overcome one day.

The amount of peace and love in my heart that meditation has gifted me has been crazy. I always felt that during any moment where I didn't feel anxious = feeling peace & calm. How wrong I was. I didn't know what inner peace and wholeness was until I actually felt it. In this world where we are often told that we need to be productive and achieving something at every waking moment, inner peace and being in the present moment is a foreign idea to us. Reading Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now had also been a big part of my inner transformation. I won't go into the details of the book but now I have moments where I just want to sit and savour the feeling of inner peace washing over me. It's such a unique feeling of lightness, wholeness and a fuzzy feeling all over. Sometimes I just want to close my eyes and just be. 

Besides these intangible improvements I have experienced, these couple of days have been a crazy ride for what would be the tangible effects of my practice of meditation. In clearing all my chakras, I have previously felt a subtle movement of energy up all the chakras. But it had always stopped near my heart chakra. I didn't feel any movement moving past that. Sparing you all the nitty gritty details, during the past few days of my meditation, I had tremors, shakes, vibrations, involuntary body movements, contortions and convulsions. This was energy moving through me and giving me a healing. 

One time, my body was twisted (involuntarily) in a way like how a chiropractor would twist you and I felt a pinch at one side of my waist where I usually had issues with. That pinch felt like a message to tell me to check it later. True enough, after the meditation, I checked to see if that part still hurt like it usually does when I placed my legs in a certain position. To my surprise, it didn't hurt anymore. And it wasn't just a temporary relief because it has been 3 days after that episode and it still doesn't hurt. It is like what Joe Dispenza says about this, my body just received a biological upgrade. By the way, my meditation practice has been largely based on Joe Dispenza's materials. It was what started me on this journey. 

I watched a video by a monk (while I was searching for the answer on why I had these weird body contortions during meditation) and what he said really made sense. He said that the body is so intelligent that it knows what position to put your body in, in order for the energy to flow to that part that needs healing. I had other profound "healing sessions" during meditation and the body truly is really intelligent and knows exactly what it needs to do in order to heal you. If only you give it the right environment.

I keep a meditation journal where I record all my experiences and progress in meditation because I want to look back on my journey one day to see how far I had come. 

A long time ago, I saw someone write that love is the only answer in this world. I knew what that statement meant but I didn't truly understand what it meant until now. I now know that love REALLY IS the answer. Having the elevated emotion of love vibrating in your body in such large amounts will be the answer to your physical ailments, and other negative experiences we have in this 3D physical world. Now this may sound like all hogwash to you, but hopefully one day you too, will be able to grasp what it truly means. You may say, don't tell me I'm gonna love my enemy who did this, this and this to me?! 

I say yes, for your own good, you have to love your enemy or any other person who've wronged you.

 

Heard of love your enemy drive them crazy? The more appropriate thing would be to say, Love your enemy, set yourself free. Loving your enemy is a gift to yourself, not to your enemy. And the way to truly understand this is by doing inner work. Doing inner work is a gift to yourself and others. But ultimately a gift to your soul. 

So, cultivate love in your heart today. Joy, gratitude & appreciation are also elevated emotions that will raise your vibration. 

Sending love to whoever reading this. Including my future self. ❤