by Neelam Nanwani | Nov 4, 2024 | Soul Words
“Make no mistake about it – enlightenment is a destructive process. It has nothing to do with becoming better or being happier. Enlightenment is the crumbling away of untruth. It’s seeing through the facade of pretense. It’s the complete eradication of everything we imagined to be true.”
– Adyashanti
Neelam at Shamanic Vision chooses to call this process, “The Art of Unbecoming.”
When our soul chooses to embark on this journey, all that we hold so dearly and attach ourselves to, begins to be scraped off.
The journey of our spiritual evolution or rather the journey of our unbecoming is similar to that of the snake that sheds its skin.
We are called to unbecome/shed all the skins /masks that have become an intrinsic part of our identity.
Over several lifetimes and generations, we pick up imprints, samskaras, ways, attitudes, beliefs, attributes that begin to define who we are and we unconsciously keep operating out of those imprints quite involuntarily over and over and over again.
Neelam may feel she is aggressive or behaves in an aggressive way, but is being aggressive her true nature or is that a defense she learnt in her childhood to feel safe?
- Is that a coping mechanism she learnt from her mother?
- Is that how women in her lineage were?
- Is that the story she picked up in her mother’s womb?
- Is that the way of being she learnt in her upbringing years as a consequence of certain events which unfolded in her life?
If Neelam is not all that happened to her which now constitutes an integral part of her identity, who is she?
Can Neelam really become her authentic self and HER TRUE NATURE until she involuntarily keeps operating out of old programs?
A point may come in the journey of Neelam’s soul, where she may begin to question everything that she is or has become.
Is that her true nature? What masks has she worn upon herself to protect her wounded inner child? Where is her true self hiding?
If Neelam has to come into her true nature, a samudra manthan within her BEING has to happen. The churn has to bring forth the reality of all the unpleasant truths (the poison) which Neelam has chosen to believe or enact about herself.
Until this process of Samudra Manthan happens or keeps happening, the aspects buried deeply in Neelam’s unconscious will keep surfacing until she finally acknowledges, accepts and lets them go.
Once the process of this deep churning is over, the true gems (gifts, medicine, treasure) buried deeply within the ocean of her unconscious will rise and come to the surface.
All the buried stuff that comes to the surface cannot be bypassed or be overlooked by distraction. And there is no choice but to accept and embrace the vish (poison) rising in the process.
Samudra Manthan is indeed a huge metaphor for each one of our lives. And it can be a pain inducing process indeed. It can bring up conflicts and more chaos before it finally brings up peace and treasures.
Samudra Manthan is a journey similar to that of the journey of the underworld. The journey of the underworld is depicted and narrated in so many different ways where the seeker is often challenged to dive into the underworld, is lost, betrayed or killed only to be rescued, revived, re-birthed or resurrected again, to come back with new gifts and treasures.
Samudra manthan is a journey which goes on individually and collectively within all of our lives. Some are mildly affected by it while some have been given no choice but to ferociously jump into the process.
What kind of manthan/churn is happening in your lives? How has it impacted you positively or negatively?
Do share with us in the comments below.
Header Photo source.
by Neelam Nanwani | Oct 16, 2024 | Soul Words
Grief is a natural response to loss.
More often than not, we assume that a person going through grief needs privacy or isolation. Although, everyone grieves differently, grief is so heavy that it needs an unconditional presence, a container to be held and most importantly be witnessed non judgementally.
Grief has no timeline and more often than not, we judge the person whose grief lingers. Statements like you are attached to the comfort of pain, let go, move on, be brave, are often more damaging than the density of grief itself.
When we invalidate a person’s grief in the name of being strong or moving on, we not only invalidate the loss and the emotion of grief, we also invalidate The PERSON experiencing distress.
Grief is a wave. It ebbs and flows. Just like the waves of the ocean. If we do not control it or negate it, it comes forth and then very naturally retreats.
We often try to fight it because:
- We have numbed our emotions because of shame and fear
- We are tired of grieving or
- We some how feel ill equipped to process our pain, do not have the liberty/comfort or resources to feel and process it
A person who has been unable to process, feel or metabolise one’s emotions may find it difficult to BE PRESENT to other person’s grief.
We often feel inadequate when someone is grieving. We do not know what to say, how to behave and how to react or respond.
This innate sense of inadequacy subconsciously propels us to give suggestions, advise or gyaan to the person grieving. We do not realise that we are only trying to make our own little child feel adequate. It is indeed not supporting the person in pain.
Encouraging a person to feel his or her grief while being present unconditionally to what they might experience can more often than not be THE BIGGEST contribution to that person’s existence at that point in time.
When this gesture is absent, the undigested pain can often give rise to another wounding in the person’s grieving. Thoughts like do I matter, why should I live, does my pain matter, is something wrong with me might become the centre stage of the grieving person’s existence.
I personally experience a lot of unrest, shame and anger when my pain is invalidated and not witnessed.
It is perhaps this frustration and anger with the collective that might have contributed to my illness in the grieving period.
And perhaps my pain of feeling invalidated over and over again has given rise to my desire to exit this world time and again. I have been wise enough to not let this voice overrule other voices and instincts. I have been fortunate enough to have a spiritual foundation to support me through my teachers and student community whenever I am stuck or go through a crisis. That said, it has not been easy and continues to be a herculean task.
I miss physical presence when I am grieving. I miss soothing words when I am in pain. I miss someone nurturing me as I navigate through my pain. I miss physical touch and comforting when I am grieving or in pain (physical or mental).
I succumb to being a victim at times. Alas, I am only human.
I am a warrior. But the warrior is now tired.
I hear myself and my thoughts and feelings every day. Sometimes I continue to grieve bitterly and sometimes I swallow the lump in my throat.
While articulating the journey of grief, I wonder today whether my disturbed mental health is because of the various lumps I have consciously and unconsciously swallowed – of anger, of despair, of frustration, of loneliness.
There are many grieving communities in the world and one can turn to them for support in the lonely journey of our grief, trauma and pain. I often introspect why I didn’t turn to these communities when I was at the peak of my grieving period. I do not know. Perhaps I was afraid or rather my orphaned inner child was afraid of being ostracised, isolated or judged AGAIN.
Perhaps now, I am becoming ready, bit by bit daily to offer grief education and grief support so that whatever I have gone through or am going through, others who are experiencing grief, may not have to go through.
Many times we need healing or counselling. But more often than not, we just need love and a nonjudgemental presence to be a witness to our pain and most importantly to feel, “We belong and we MATTER.”
I personally believe that the fundamental need within each one of us is to know and believe in our cells, that WE MATTER.
And I wish to tell each one of us going through an existential crisis or some kind of pain or grief, however big or small, that YOU MATTER.
Photo by Jason Rosewell on Unsplash
by Neelam Nanwani | Oct 10, 2024 | Soul Words
I was a mischievous kid in my growing up school years. And yet I was a loner and a rebel.
Even in those years when kids have fun, I was over accountable, over impeccable, over committed and over idealistic.
Top it with being emotional, intense, a deep feeler and a thinker, it made me quite a package.
Sprinkle it with vulnerability and naivity, having clarity of what I wanted to do and BE and yet be befuddled when it came to external maps and roads; be a recluse and yet a leader, one might feel, it’s quite a dichotomy filled combination.
When I was with my twin flame Paul in my 40s, he often called me a person filled with dichotomy. I would often wonder, “I am such a simple person, I am the same inside out, every one can literally read my face, so where is the dichotomy?”
Having gone through so much after he passed and doing a life review, I can clearly see and perhaps now understand what he meant.
I do not know whether being a dichotomy filled person is a problem or a gift. But this is who I was and perhaps am.
After he passed, I knew that I only wanted to live for my purpose, clear all my baggage of lifetimes together so that I didn’t have to come back again on this earth to deal with it.
And yet as days, weeks, months and years went by, I didn’t know who I was. I started losing a sense of self and that was immensely rattling to the ego. The ego needs identity and here something was happening in my field that was shaking the ground beneath my feet.
I struggled to hold tightly to the identity that I held so closely to my chest, for, who was I without it and what was I if not for that?
The ground beneath my feet was so shaken that in practical life and living I had a difficulty for such small matters as fetching an auto rickshaw and going to the market for mundane chores.
Nothing felt certain. I didn’t understand what was happening to me or rather inside of me.
All I knew that there was breakdown of identity and no sense of SELF.
My self assuredness was gone. All I was left with was grief for Paul’s passing, abandonment and rejection (for not having anyone by my side as I was grieving), shame because I was not feeling any more inner strength and a feeling of being an utter total failure.
It brought forth a huge existential crisis and a death urge. The despair was humongous and my body just couldn’t contain it.
The declaration that I wish to FINISH it all in this life time brought upon its own share of initiations and challenges.
Illness struck one after the other. The emotional ruckus brought more illness and illness brought more grief.
I got entangled in this loop of healing, healing and healing.
There was no LIVING.
As I am beginning to say goodbye to perhaps the most difficult 4 years of my life, I am making a vow to myself to LOVE and LIVE again.
It doesn’t feel easy. My life has never been easy. From a girl child whose mother beat herself up just because a girl was born, harbouring the feeling of being awkward, rejected and a loner all life long, to having lost my studies, career and mother to her menopausal depression and suicide to having lost Paul and falling prey to menopausal depression myself, life feels like having come to a full circle.
A part of me feels so detached from my purpose and yet another part of me feels so elated after I have completed a teaching session. Am I done with what I have come here on this planet earth to do?
Is it time to say goodbye? Perhaps not. What feels true is that it’s time to live the life unlived.
It’s time to drop the need to do something or become something but it’s time to live truly the ordinary and not just live it but truly explore and enjoy it…to not just live from a sense of duty and purpose alone but truly with a sense of dancing with this life with wild abandon.
The human existence is as special and extra ordinary as our spiritual quest which often becomes another layer and level of entanglement with the ego.
It’s time to become still…it’s time to flow…it’s time to LIVE again.
Header Photo by Pitt Rom
by Neelam Nanwani | Sep 24, 2024 | Soul Words
Why does the one person who doesn’t value or appreciate us become so important over all the others who do see us, value us and appreciate us?
I guess our mind has a tendency to go to the source from where we need love but don’t often get it. And we keep running to get it from that source only to retraumatise our wounded rejected inner child.
Why is it so difficult to retrain our minds to appreciate the sources of love and support present in our life rather than keep running for the one source from where we need it but keep coming back disappointed over and over again?
The source that disappoints could be our parent, our child, our partner, our lover, our friend or someone else who the mind attaches importance to.
Why do we often loop in our traumas even though many aspects of our life seem to be moving ahead and yet some parts of us attach to the pain, and keep inviting traumatic experiences again and again and again.
Re-parenting the fragmented parts of our psyche is hard. Feeling loved when our childhood experiences have been of feeling unloved and unwanted is harder.
Saying no to those who make us feel rejected is hardest because we are so afraid of letting them go, we are so afraid of feeling empty, miserable or alone again.
We often put up with breadcrumbs knowing fully well we deserve a well laid out lavish platter.
Old wounds come gushing back no matter how much healing we do. That’s the cost of childhood trauma that we pay as adults. And if we are married and have kids, we leave that trauma for our future generations too.
Breaking free from these entanglements and old patterns of behaviour within the self may feel miserably challenging and painful.
But this is what self love demands. If we truly love ourselves, would we allow ourselves to be re-traumatised again and again?
When old hurts resurface, wouldn’t it be wiser to become aware and do a reality check instead of wallowing in misery, “Is this hurt/person/incident/situation really worth killing my self love and causing me mental, emotional or physical distress?”
I am not saying we should not acknowledge our pain but if the pain is a repetitive pattern caused by some internal wiring and faulty stories that we have kept feeding our inner child, isn’t it time to become aware of this inner chatter and consciously, over and over again, rewrite this inner dialogue and keep feeding a New Story to the child self within?
Don’t we all deserve better?
We are love and we are loved…no matter what the internal and external stories project.
Let us all remind each other this very simple and yet profound truth that we are indeed not unloved but very deeply loved not just by the universe/divine/our guides and power animals but also by many many earth angels.
Maybe it’s time to feed a new story to our inner children.
Will we at least try?
The Empowerment Circle is coming back in October 2024 with a new topic of discussion: Magic of Menstruation. It is open for MEN & WOMEN and is on 2 October from 6 to 8 PM IST.
Join the WhatsApp group for details.
by Neelam Nanwani | Jun 28, 2024 | Soul Words
When we embark on the journey of our spiritual healing, we often ask, “What is within me that has brought this to my doorstep?” This doesn’t mean that if someone abuses me, its because something is wrong within me and hence I have attracted this situation or challenge.
The premise simply is that we take full responsibility of and for our lives.
When we view life from this perspective, we stop being a victim of our situations. We introspect, what within me (thoughts, beliefs, emotions, imprints – karmic/ancestral, womb, birthing, society, religion, upbringing or any other) is bringing this to my doorstep.
What can I do to shed these imprints or beliefs or fears within myself?
More often than not, we desire that the outward situation (be it relationship, finance, health) changes. But the outward situation merely reflects our own hidden buried subconscious unconscious state/psyche.
We often (if not always) attract on the outside what we ARE on the inside. The contribution of our subconscious mind is 90% in what happens in our lives and the conscious mind just plays a 10% role. Our subconscious mind and what we store in our unconscious psyche is a sum total of our past lives, ancestral stories, stories we pick up inside the womb of the mother, our birth scenario and our upbringing.
All of this is formed through the journey of our soul in its evolutionary process from one life time to another.
The lessons and karmic imprints accumulate over a period of time and the challenges (if lessons not learnt) become harder.
We also tend to get influenced by the thought process and emotional makeover of our primary care givers. Whether we have had a functional relationship with them or a dysfunctional relationship with them, we tend to become like them out of our innate unconscious sense of loyalty towards them.
As lifetimes go by, we move farther from our own innate truth and Essence and we become someone who we are Not.
Lifetimes could go by until we realise what we have done to our own self. This immense loss of self, in a given life time stares at us, screaming for owning who we ARE.
We often do not know, how. But the soul is now ready to reclaim its innate power and truth.
And with this begins the journey of self realisation of the soul – realising who it truly IS and its innate Divinity and essence. However, for a soul to know itself, it has to first shed what it has become or the imprints and masks it has acquired through thousands of years during its evolutionary journey.
This descent of the soul begins the process of deconstruction. This is often known as the journey of the underworld or at times a dark night of the soul. It feels like every thing is breaking down and coming to an end.
The human experience feels full of misery because breaking down of what felt safe and familiar once, is all going away. We cling (at times unconsciously) and feel that the misery is not ending. We feel patterns are looping and we push harder and harder for things to improve.
What is perhaps needed is to not push but to pause and allow the process of deconstruction. Yes, it takes courage and this “Unbecoming” is an art. An art that we have not been trained into.
We have been trained to “Become Something.” What we need to perhaps learn and be in allowance of is this Process of Unbecoming.
Nature dies and nature is reborn. We are nature personified and should we desire to rebirth our Being, we have to allow this deconstruction, shedding and UNBECOMING – just like nature does.
Neelam Nanwani is a midwife to the soul and conducts talks, lectures, workshops, mentorships and retreats in this Sacred Art of Unbecoming. Join the WhatsApp Group for staying updated on free talks, circles and events.
Header Photo by Pixabay
