I don’t have a place in anybody’s life.
This is the dark side of my much beloved solitude.
As many other women subjected to a high culture from their childhood on, I have a slightly longer distance between my inner world and what I project outside. High culture may sound snobbish to the reader and the reader is correct; I am a snob. However this time I use it in its scientific meaning; a culture with highly developed social norms and etiquette. They tend to be broken easily in the chaotic, hedonistic, superficial urban life; as flexibility is not one of the qualities of such a sophisticated set of values. So what I personally end up with is a deep rooted belief system shaped by highly specific norms and qualities which can only survive in their natural habitat, except I wasn’t born in that habitat!
One of the important rules is no unpleasant emotions or extremely pleasant emotions are to be displayed in public. Not because we are psychopaths, on the contrary it is out of respect to the inner worlds of everyone around. Our unpleasant moods or extreme happiness shouldn’t trigger and cause discomfort to others. So it comes from a place of respect and compassion; beautiful…
I mastered it quite well for a long time (except for my outburst of joy or anger in the confines of a much closed circle) but my quest in life brought me to a place where the inner world needs to meet and connect with the outer. The natural disasters as well as the miracles happening in the inside may as well be contained; valid choice. Turns out; it cannot be my path any longer as it is not serving me and creating diseases in my body. My path is about bringing awareness to this circus inside, value it compassionately knowing that it does not define who I am, still allow it to gently pour out of me. The latter is a challenge, still unknown territory. I am trained to be composed, as any other human being I am working my ass off to be the ideal I set for myself. Let me clarify; the ideal doesn’t only mean the achievement of certain, set social goals to be loved, respected and appreciated. It also contains the zillions of personality traits, some of which contradicting the other, however all deemed valuable and stored in the hard-drive called subconscious throughout my life. So in the different corners of my mind there is this me in her ideal form and shape that my programming strives to achieve; me as I managed to master up till now and performs in the social life, parts of me that I am totally unware of and the me who observes this play. There may be a couple of others that I miss out now but you get the picture; pretty crowded in there.
And there are moments when I am right in between the inner and the outer. Not resting peacefully in myself or performing for the outside world but just looking and trying to figure out what is real at that moment. The real, when I started with this writing was finding no place for myself. So I want to look into that. What causes that sentiment? On the surface there are several triggers. It is more difficult to find common points to even have simple conversation about with my family as our worlds seem to grow further and further apart. I feel tired of being the ‘eccentric yogini’ when I meet my old friends; that many things I do seem super interesting and also weird to them. I happened to go through several relationships recently where I felt in the periphery, like a pleasant guest who doesn’t want to overstay; afraid she won’t be welcome anymore should she wish to relax and settle in. While thinking about all this another part of me was screaming ‘bullshit, you have so much love in your life’ but I didn’t want to listen to that part. Yes there is a lot of love in my life. This doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t face the shadow making me feel like I don’t belong. I don’t only want to think that I belong to everyone and everywhere as long as I am rooted in myself; I also yearn for the full comprehension of it. There are many ways leading to such a connection and one is to be able to look into the face of the evil within. That evil may only be a part of me that I manufactured to protect myself from pain and I am grateful for it. Just; it is time to let go.
A few moments in my shadow later I received a message from a friend far away. He was explaining me about a deep connection he had with me during a meditation yesterday, how he truly experienced us both reaching bliss and how he realized that I am an anchor in his life. The controversy hidden in this synchronicity pops up as a naughty little elf in the sky pointing its fingers at me, shouting out loud ‘you silly little idiot’ and laughing.
Does that message erase all the doubts and worries? No. My work on this is too deep to be carried away with one spark. But it does show me the nature of this life; as it is called beautifully in Sanskrit Leela; the divine dance.
