by Neelam Nanwani | Jan 4, 2021 | Soul Words
Once again I have descended into deep contemplative mood. Once again, quietude has BECOME me. No, it is not a shelter I take to avoid processing my pain.
It is an ally perhaps, moving me into deeper aspects of my Self.
Co-dependant tendencies, childhood pain, feeling unloved in one’s childhood and how that plays in our life and how that shapes our adulthood is once again prime in my ribs.
I have been very quick to identify co-dependant tendencies in people / students/ mothers/ friends/ partners/siblings/ children/ teachers.
And all along, perhaps, I myself ignored this aspect within me. All along I told myself, ‘Ah, how can I be co dependant? I have healed so much of my childhood adulthood pain? And yet, I was the first one to identify it / see it in others.
Yesterday, this aspect shook me. I am being forced to come to terms with it within my own psyche. It was at my doorstep through my partner, through my friends, through my students, through my own way of relating and feeling within when I held myself back.
It was a painful aspect to acknowledge and realize within myself how childhood pain and rejection had so deeply embedded this tendency within me.
I can see it in the other and yet it was too difficult and painful to acknowledge it within own self.
It takes courage to acknowledge our pain and it takes courage to take this deep descend into our shadows n dysfunctional subliminal tendencies in the journey of our ascension.
Getting triggered by the victimhood of students was an alarming sign which presented at my doorstep regarding my co dependant tendencies. Rushing to fix and make things easy for Paul was another alarm which kept me entangled in my co dependencies.
Wanting to be a clingy needy baby in any relationship where the pit of this hole of / lack of love never felt filled was an alarming sign of this co dependency.
Always fearing losing a relationship and over compensating with over providing / over being there for someone is a classic sign of this co dependant behavior.
Who am I without this? Who am I if I am not there for someone? Why does it make me feel so inadequate or restless or unsettled when I am not being there for someone?
The whole aspect of me being a teacher is engulfed in this pain.
Today, I am questioning every feeling which stirs within me – be it of motherhood, friendship, love, sharing, and being a teacher or whatsoever.
As I stand back and hold space in the truest sense of the word, it is still making me uncomfortable. It is making me restless and it is making me unsettled. How I wish I could reach out and touch their pain and soothe it for them and how I wish I could tell them they do not have to go through this pain the way I did and how I wish I could show them the way. How I wish I could be there for them in a way NO ONE has ever been there for me and how I wish I could offer a container as one has ever offered for me?
How I wish I am seen for my love and received the way I would like to and how I wish the stream within me flows and just flows and flows without questioning whether it is the flow of a gentle mother, a tough mother, a friend, a co dependant ally or my own desire to be held and loved – unconditionally.
How I wish I could lay on the lap of my mother and just be caressed on my cheeks and how I wish a father who could just hold my hand and help me cross the road.
How I wish I had a friend with whom I could just BE and how I wish I had a partner who was stronger than me .
How I wish I was a mother and how I wish I could offer and share my LOVE with my own little girl.
As I descend in to a different layer of this pain, I find courage to write about this and express this to myself and tell myself as no one has ever told me before in a way that I would like to hear.
I tell this to my little girl “Cry away little girl. Cry your heart out today. I am here. Holding you. And am here for you.”
by Neelam Nanwani | Dec 18, 2020 | Soul Words
I see you. I honor you. I acknowledge you !
We are in Sedona. Day 6 and the much awaited flee market shows up. We are all excited. That’s what we have been waiting for.
We stop by after our lunch and we start going through stuff put up by various vendors. There are many shamanic goodies which lure the spirit.
Paul’s attention is drawn to a vendor. A native american lady who has display of her goodies. A necklace with turtle catches Paul’s attention. We ask the price. It feels a little over our budget. We move on.
In moving back and forth between different vendors, I am pulled back to her again. Her stall is empty with no people. I feel pulled to ask her if she can offer her neckpiece for a certain amount. She agrees.
I call Paul back to this place. While we are completing the transaction, I send out loud a blessing for her stall. “May you get more clients who may love your work and may you be blessed with more customers amd abundance”.
She is touched and says she really needs the blessing.
A voice in me tells me to give her a hug. She comes out and I move to the other side of the table.
We hold each other in loving embrace while I whisper into her ears, “I see you. I honor you. I acknowledge you.”
Her eyes tear up. My heart swells up as she says, “So you see me, haan”?
I see her. She sees me and in that moment unspoken love, acknowledgement and honor is exchanged.
While we are still standing at the edge of her stall, we observe customers one after another starting to gather up.
She becomes busy in attending them as we quietly move away.
As we prepare to wind up our trip here in US, it brings re-enforcement that we as humans need just that.. someone to see our essence. Someone to acknowledge how we feel. And someone to honor our unique being.
And what better way in doing so, by being ME. When I said those words I was not being this or that. I was being ME. Expressing what I felt in that moment. Be it negotiating that price, be it offering a blessing or be it giving her a hug or whispering those words in her ears.
And as I reminiscence that moment in sedona, it brings a certain warmth to my heart. The smile and teary eyes will always continue to be a part of me.
The quest in her spirit which so needed to hear :-
I see you. I honor you. I acknowledge you.
Aho !!
by Neelam Nanwani | Dec 17, 2020 | Soul Words
It is easy to be quiet.
It is difficult to speak up.
It is easy to hide
It is difficult to come out in the open
It is easy to get clouded
It is difficult to shine
It is easy to be quiet
It is difficult to speak up.
It is easy to give
Difficult to ask.
It is easy to not show up
It is difficult to show up
It is easy to not offend
It is difficult to confront and challenge
It is easy to fit in
It is difficult to stand out and be different
It is easy to be easy
It is difficult to be difficult
It is easy to shrink
It is difficult to expand and grow
It is easy to cocoon within oneself
It is difficult to go through metamorphosis
It is easy to not take risk
It is difficult to stretch and push the edges
It is easy to bottle up
It is difficult to explode
It is easy to feel embarrassed
It is difficult to own the mistakes
It is easy to want to fix it
It is difficult to hold space
It is easy to clip wings
It is difficult to let someone fly away
It is easy to worry
It is difficult to trust
It is easy to be a victim
It is difficult to be vulnerable
It is easy to escape
It is difficult to face
It is easy to put up with it
It is difficult to say “It’s enough”
It is easy to be in lack
It is difficult to believe “abundance is my birth right”
It is easy to stop and give up
It is difficult to keep moving forward
It is easy to die
It is difficult to live life
It is easy to live as we live
It is difficult to leave this world “Alive”
All our life, we keep living this way, thinking this is easy and that is difficult.
How about if we just LIVE and while living try dipping our toe into some of the difficult things?
For, it is not about whether it is easy or difficult
It is about whether I want to live FULL and FILLED?
And if so, then why can I not try even if it feels difficult? Where and how can I push those edges ?
What can I do to dive into the difficult? Who knows it may actually not be so difficult.
Hmm..What do you feel? Shall we take a dip??
by Neelam Nanwani | Dec 16, 2020 | Soul Words
When I desired appreciation for my contribution, I was shadowed and my ego self was wounded. I screamed, I cried, I complained that I was not being SEEN. I was so angry that people were not appreciating or aknowledging my contribution or Being.
Fast forward.. I learnt to acknowledge my own self, appreciate my own BEING, I worked a tonne on acceptance of my own SELF, the scenario slowly started shifting.
I had people in my sphere who started acknowledging my gifts, my being, my teachings. But the ‘my’ was still there. The ego self still felt inflated and I felt a high when there was appreciation or acknowledgement.
And then different layers of the judgement wound surfaced again. They would rear their ugly head time and again to take me into my pain. They helped me to allow my grief. LIFETIMES of grief. Generations of Grief. Grief of my spiritual ancestors.
For two long years, my grieving process has continued and it deepened even more taking me through the dark night of the soul during the lock down.
Grief Dissolved my EGO. Separation and sorrow dissolved my identify. Who was I without my twin, without my friends, without my work? And once again the ego self reared its ugly head. “You are not there for me, you are not present to me”, the ego was still present. Wounded. Attached.
Layers and layers of unpeeling are leading me to the stage of detachment from the ego. Detachment from the journey of others, Detachment from the outcome, Detachment from the fact that others are not committed on their healing journey or detachment from the fact that a full blown treasure house of potential is still locked up in the chains of trauma unable to blossom and unable to experience freedom and movement.
I am learning to be detached from my own pain, from my own journey as a teacher. Today, I truly understand Surrender. Today, I truly know I am not leading. I am being led.
Today I truly feel I am not the teacher, the teachings are being shared through me.
And today, I do not desire any appreciation or acknowledgment and just the contentment of being there for others and helping others shine in their light or becoming a conduit for others journey is enough. For, I know, “I” am not doing it. It is being done “through” me.
And so, the pain that I felt upon being misunderstood when someone would get triggered through me, is also slowly dissipating. For, even here, it is making me realize, I am not doing this. It is being done through me.
The more that I am deepening into the conduit that I am, the more the ego self is dissolving. The more the pain bodies are just dropping. 2020 has truly been the year of jet speed healing. Ask and you truly receive.
But it is gonna take courage to die. It is gonna take courage to dissolve the ego.
Dissolution of the ego is dissolution of the self. We are too attached to our identities ( who we are, how we should be, what we should be etc etc etc)
Dissolution of the ego means dissolution of the identity. Which is a HUGE thing. We are afraid of that and so the drama continues.
The desire for education, titles, certifications, name, fame, recognition is all the game of the wounded ego self.
The Feminine journey is not about rewards and recognition. She just IS. She just FLOWS. She just dissolves.
The jungle fire which just consumes. It consummates and consumes. And it is scary.
When we allow ourselves to dissolve the ego, all the unhealthy attachments, the wounding and pain body we keep associated ourselves to, also effortlessly drop.
And sometimes, a mere awareness is enough.
So today, when I deepen into just BEing, and not worry about being acknowledged, appreciated, misunderstood, being seen, it comes EFFORTLESSLY into my field now.
The more I let go of this NEED, the more it dissolves my ego and the more I keep receiving it,
And the learning now, quite, ironically is to remember to not attach to the name and fame and just keep doing the work.
BUT,
To get here has been a spiral. It has been hell fire. It has been consuming. It has been deaths of several kinds.
The more detached we are from judgement, from appreciation, the more we BLOSSOM into our Being, untethered, un hindered, unbothered.
THIS IS TRUE FREEDOM. The Dissolution of the Ego, the detachment from the outcome, the death of the identity. And, it’s always a journey.
Walk at your pace. But Allow. This is the true essence of our spiritual quest.
Aho !
by Neelam Nanwani | Dec 15, 2020 | Soul Words
I fell severely ill on November 3rd, scheduled to travel in nature on November 4th. I had longed for this communion and travel in nature and was super excited about it. I booked my ticket, planned the itinerary and then was hit by severe food poisoning.
I wanted to travel and yet a huge part of me Didn’t want to.
I was confused. If I cancel, I lose money. I have been deeply desiring to be in nature and this is my free window of time. God knows when I will get this space n time again. I ought to go. And yet my body screamed and kept saying no.
I wasn’t aware whether this is my resistance, my unwillingness to break that barrier of travelling and showing up for myself or is it truly my innate being unwilling to travel at this point in time.
I churned with these thoughts as I allowed myself to rest, to cry out for support (I had no one that day to even get me medicine) and just Be.
I was worried about losing money and the opportunity of travel.
Confused between resistance and allowance, I struggled to make a decision. Not sure what the little girl in me desired. Not sure what my heart and body desired.
I allowed the confusion and chaos to torture me until I reached a point and I said to myself, “Fuck it. I am not going. And even if its resistance, for once, it is ok for me to have resistance and not be so hard on myself. I am human and I am allowed to be not so perfect. I donot have to be a warrior all the time. I can be weak and not so great at times.
With that thought, I cancelled my travels and felt such a huge sigh of relief that I didn’t have to go.
I allowed myself to be kind and gentle with my resistance, if at all it was that. I allowed myself to feel the confusion and not feel guilty about the loss of money and opportunity to be in nature- something that I always desire and aspire for and perhaps need it the most.
I have been beating myself up for the non creation of my website (not that I am saying it is ok to not work on our procrastination, fears, resistance etc) but atleast for some moments, it is ok to feel the failure, the loss, the fear and not FIGHT IT.
Not desire to be perfect. A perfect teacher. A perfect student. A perfect husband, wife, son, friend.(Not that I am saying make a habit of it).
But let’s strive for realness rather than perfection.
So much of our baggage just flies off of our shoulders by this mere acknowledgement “I am ok even if I am wrong. I am.ok even if I can’t do this. I am ok even if I feel broken within.
I am.ok even if I feel fear or pain.
Dear Man & Woman – Kiss your brokenness for once and Receive. For, that is the way of the Feminine. Let us learn to honor our brokenness, our humanness, our imperfection.
Sharing a beautiful poem by Maya Luna on this .Be with this, for now.
Love and gratitude
Neelam
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When you fail
Don’t be so quick
To dust yourself off
With pep talks
Meant to get you
To rise up triumphantly
And exclaim
I am not giving up!
Don’t be triumphant
Instead
Give up
Yes that’s right
Give up
Not forever
But just for now
Just for a moment, at least
Just
Give
Up
Give it all up
You will be tempted
To comfort yourself
With spiritual concepts
Meant to assure you
This is all for the best
This is all part of a grand plan
To cleanse you
Purify you
To teach you a grand lesson
To make you triumphant
Glorious
Heroic
No
Don’t do any of this
Don’t be a hero
But also do not be devoured
By shame by self hatred
This is just the same game played
Backwards
No
Just give both up
Just for a moment
Just stay low
Low to the ground
Your false self
Shattered
Breathe the grass
Taste the dew
Inhale the soil
You failed
You broke
Life broke
Kiss the brokenness
And receive
Your true self is hidden
In these spaces in between. Maya Luna.
