What do you do with the obsessive mind?

There was a time in my life when I could freely pursue all my obsessions, I could sit locked up in my room for hours, brooding about boredom, love, or anger. I could take off on my bike and meet a friend or two, or sit somewhere secluded and wild after a torrential fight with my mom. I could throw my frustration and anger on others and say 'I dont care' a million times and think that it didn't really matter.

When waves of obsession hit the shores of calm within, I want to pursue them(whatever the obsession is). Perhaps stay locked up, scream and yell like a crazed teenager I used to be and run away to some wild seclusion where I can just be quiet and do my thing. But that's the character of obsession I suppose. The everyday voice that does, becomes and makes grows louder every now and then, triggered by something within and out. It cascades into this restlessness to do something, anything. The restlessness to be someone else than who I am right now. The restlessness to achieve and get to that place.

What is available in your right now?

I care deeply about this obsession, about how it churns my innards and explodes on the outside and how it affects everyone I love. I honor the need to be someone more, do something more and live better, but I also know that this obsessing mind achieves nothing. An obsessing mind is busy already, obsessing about what it needs, desires and wants, in the meantime though there is a baby, a husband and family to love and enjoy. There is the right now, the right now that wills me to come back to what is happening around me.


My obsessions are my opportunity not to do something but to stop doing. It begins within, a meditative practice. A practice like my sitting meditation practice, of coming back to the present moment, of letting the obsessive mind be in the background, while I give my present moment to everything that's available. 

Contemplative Saturday

An extra dose of the ordinary life

Any day, I would choose the ordinary life, give me an extra dose of it actually. This life of coming back to the balcony and looking at the verdant backyard. The life of watching in awe how babies can teach you so much about what practice really is. This life of going back to the same worn-out mat and same old asanas. A life of absolute boredom and a life of putting the same, yet somehow new toy in the mouth. Yes, yes, give me this ordinary life where I come back to my foreign language books and sigh non, je comprends rien!  Let me sit with this life of procrastination, practice and letting go. 

Monsoon Mediation

I accept this life, this so completely ordinary life that I come back to every morning. That teaches me that there is so much beyond the mind that demands, the mind that beckons and the mind that pushes and shoves. This ordinary day of embracing baby and husband, this oh so very ordinary day of afternoon naps and quiet times, of colors and acrylics and work and some more work. 

This extra-ordinary day today is so much like yesterday and yet so different from yesterday. What does it bring today? What does it make you feel? What does it demand from you and what possibilities does it hold? You know and yet you don't.

Titled:Monsoon Mediation in Acrylics

Yes, I choose the extra-ordinary life. A life where the sun comes out everyday, the birds chirp, the weather changes and the flowers bloom-the same old and yet not at all.

P.S: As the universe would have it Karen Miller says something similar, so MUCH more articulately than I do in this post: "Settle". Enjoy!

Play!

Yes, I implore you to play. There is so much fun in that. Create mess, live random, and de-stress. Play,because you absolutely NEED to. Anyone reading this needs to play, and if you already do then reinvent play, throw out your old way of playing and just play.

Okay, so you are a serious business person or a professional working a 9 to 5, you don't have the time and you have kids to take care of and a home to straighten when you leave work that is why you need to play. 

If you need the experts to tell you that you need to play then let me dawn my counselor hat and site more reasons on why YOU should choose to play:

Play is voluntary by nature, and in a world full of rules and requirements, play is refreshing and full of respite;
 Play is free from evaluation and judgement, thus it is safe to make mistakes without failure;

Play encourages fantasy and the use of the imagination, enabling control without competition;

 Play increases involvement and interest; and

 Play encourages the development of self. 

-Caplan and Caplan (1974) as mentioned in 'Sandtray Therapy: A practical Manual' by Linda E. Homeyer and Danel S. Sweeney. 

More reasons? Okay,

Play is done for its own sake-it may even seem purposeless
Play has qualities that promote freedom and growth

Play involves a freedom from time

Play helps diminish the consciousness of self

Play has an improvisational potential

Play develops a continuation desire-you want to come back to it once you start

-Brown and Vaughn (2009)as mentioned in 'Sandtray Therapy: A practical Manual' by Linda E. Homeyer and Danel S. Sweeney. 

In a world where working in groups, living with rommies and family and being with people all the time and staying connected to them via a variety of media is the norm,  I encourage play that is done for yourself and by yourself. I encourage this, especially if you are feeling lost, overwhelmed, confused, stuck, listless or just stressed and find that you have more to-do things on your list than time to actually do them. 

Yes, its ironic, that you don't have time to actually do the stuff on your to-do list, that you don't have time to actually do the serious stuff in life and here I am encouraging you to play. Oxymoronic, but let go and just dive and you'll find that like meditation here too you feel an opening up of space, creativity and MORE time!

I for one have rediscovered play in my life through art. I began to draw and color with oil pastels. With a little encouragement from Lisa Wilson, Awareness Artist at LifeUnity and after some inspiration from a few online classes from artists like Tam and Jane Davenport and youtube videos on how to draw this and that I began to unravel the creativity and "flow" from within.

For me, play is about:

Freedom: It frees me and eases my tensions, it loosens me up and fills me with love for all the other areas of life.

Stillness:It stills me and quietens me.


Insight: The beauty in scribbling like I do is in finding and discovering what I am truly feeling and thinking.

Titled: A holding space for my emotions.
My dad thinks I might be going crazy, when I showed him this one!  But that's play for me. Sometimes random and sometimes an expression of what I am feeling. This is a scribble I did when I was feeling stuck and wanted some release. The back and orange box like things represent the feeling and the cross strokes represent the sinking feeling I was experiencing then. The blue background is a  representation of a peaceful holding space. After I did it, I had a good laugh and the "stuck" feeling disappeared!
So go ahead and go crazy! It might help.

Creativity: Sometimes I know what I want to draw and other times I ask a greater energy to guide me and present me with something to draw, and other times I just draw an inner state of being.
Sometimes (most times actually)It might make no sense to anyone around me but it clarifies me and shakes away any mood cloud I might be experiencing.

Untitled.

Judgement Free: I dont draw beautifully, nor is my goal to be a professional artist of any kind. My goal is to just Play. If its beautiful sometimes so be it.

No rules: There are no rules in my play. Ofcourse, you cant use a pen after you paint with oil pastels, of course, oil pastels can smudge and mix in strange ways but those are just some "rules" some ways in which this game can be played/not played but for the most part I feel a huge space where I can explore and play the way I want.

I began to maintain an art journal too. It looks like a child's play and my mom says that maybe because I didn't get to do enough of it as a child I am doing it now. Maybe its true, maybe there is a child in me that wants to play, that wants this release. And why not? Internal Family Systems Therapy suggests that there are many parts within us, a child part, an adult part, a rational part, a creative part, etc and my child part is really helping my adult part relax, loosen up and create joy in my life. Don't you want that for yourself too? Research like the ones I indicated above suggests that it helps when adults play. It helps when couples play, it helps express aspects of your life that you cant find words for. So play!

There are SO many ways to play, for the most part you will just have to check-in with yourself and realize there is a certain part of you that wanted to play a certain game/instrument/whatever forever but never found the time to do it or thought it was too childish. Set aside that adult self that is so judgmental and play because   you will love it when you do it a few times and will want to keep coming back!

So why wait, stop all your work, especially if you are feeling all anxious and NEED to finish work and just take a break and play! Even if it is for a few minutes only. And don't forget to ENJOY!

Getting up front and center

It makes no sense why I am angry. I am actually indignant. Honestly, even indignation doesn't make sense. Anger is such a limbic response that using the reasoning mind to understand it is of no use. So I watch it for what it is. That boiling heat in my chest, the throbbing pulse in my temple and that shallow breath, heavy and hot. I am grateful for the quiet around me. I am glad to be alone to just watch it instead of hurl it on someone else.

A waterfall or a meandering stream?

Streams that meander down the mountains turn into a waterfall or a slight sliver depending on the mountains that create it. They are made of the mountain, they come from the mountain and yet look different depending on the season. Thus is emotion. It is what the mind makes of it. As I watch my anger it finds a comfortable place within and sits there, floating about, while I move on to other things. I sit with my little one while she plays with her toys, placing one thing after another, in increasing size, into her mouth.

Today, my internal world seems calm, even with anger present somewhere within. That wave of loneliness that had come a few days ago has also found a still pool to sit in. I can't say the same for yesterday and the day before, when I tried to distract, occupy and push myself away from the spate of emotions that seem so natural today. The quality of emotions is such, when you get a little distance from yourself and your overwhelming emotion you realize its not permanent. It might leave behind sadness with its passing-another transitory yet available emotion, or joy depending on what the mind makes of it. But you know, this time around, its was not about getting a little distance from the emotion. It was not about letting it pass on by, not about letting go.

I was angry and I let myself be angry without lashing out on anyone. I was lonely and I didn't jump into conversations, books, or the television, or even my thoughts. Not for long but for long enough to let my monkey mind shift perspectives. It was enough to get my mind to befriend these uncomfortable emotions that I push away always. It is not about just happiness always is it? Nor is it about comfort. It is about being authentic in the experience of now, without suffering or at least by being aware of the suffering that comes from wanting only this and not that.

So this time around it was about getting up front and center with the overwhelming emotion. Yes, you are here. Yes, I feel you. Yes, I am grateful for your presence, you need a vehicle, a form and a guise, but I see you for who you are. Yes, you can stay. Yes, you can burn in my ear, heat up my chest and make me want to hurl you at another. Yes, you can stay while I keep on watching you for what you are. Just watching you, watching you.