by Neelam Nanwani | Feb 3, 2022 | Soul Words
We ask people, “how are you?”, but are we really prepared to RECEIVE the answer fully?
This does not mean our intention about asking about their well being isn’t genuine. However, equally true is the fact that most of us feel befuddled and don’t know what to do or say when a person genuinely shares what he / she is going through (challenges / pain/ feelings/ situations). The part within us that deeply wants to support and help, feels lost. What can I do? How can I help? And we sort of realise that there might really be no way to help and that brings helplessness and a deep sense of inadequacy or feeling of unworthiness within.
This is a very difficult space to BE in and feel that unworthiness within the self, to be intimate with that innate sense of helplessness that creeps in during these situations.
Our human brain or mind works very fast. It wants to so deeply help and support in order for the person’s pain to go away that it starts conjuring solutions or statements. It starts giving ideas , suggestions, plans of action -say this, tell them to do this, do that, da da da da da ……and this inner programming is so quick that before we start realising, our mouth has opened or our hand has typed suggestions, solutions, or indulged in situations where we start doing or saying something that we feel might help or support the person.
This addresses our concern that we might be feeling. It helps with our own helplessness or deep rooted sense of unworthiness.
But, what about the person at the receiving end? Did we check what he / she might need?
Is he / she just sharing ? Is he/ she just venting or ranting? Does the person need solution or does the person just wants to feel needed, validated or acknowledged in that moment? Or simply witnessed and held?
Agreed that online spaces make this process immensely difficult. But simple statements like “I am listening”, “I am present”, “I see you” while controlling our own inner impulse to advise or suggest solutions without asking if the person needs any suggestions can go a long way in not invalidating the other persons pain and experience.
Allowing ourselves to BREATHE through our own innate discomfort and helplessness of not being able to do much, learning daily about BEing rather than slipping into Doing, these are the things which would, in my opinion go a long way – for ourself and the person that we desire to support or be there for.
We want to take away the pain of others and support them. We desperately do what we know best. We are indeed coming from a place of support and love.
However, in that moment, what does the person really need??
Can we ask, “How can I support you today?” Can we simply listen from our body and not just the mind?”
Can we breathe through our own unconscious helplessness that keeps coming up when we really aren’t able to do much ?
And yet can we realise that pure presence IS everything?
Holding space IS everything. Gentle nudges ARE everything.
Listening IS everything.
Do we realise that the other person’s sharing might also bring up “our own pain & helplessness” and it is our own inability to feel our pain that provokes us to offer solutions or suggestions that haven’t been sought yet?
Do we realise that simply sitting with that person may make ALL the difference in their field??
What bigger need do we humans have than being witnessed for who we are and what we might be going through? This doesn’t mean encouraging victimhood. This simply means, for now, being present to them fully and may be when the wave has settled, ask “Do you need a suggestion or advise?”
Do we realise that pain, loss, trauma and grief is such a roller coaster that the person going through it may start feeling “I am not important, and that during the grieving or traumatic period, their sense of self is HIGHLY diminished. They already are questioning their existence and their state of being; they are already feeling that something is inherently wrong with them for them to feel what they are feeling or what they are going through.
By giving our solutions or healing suggestions, don’t you feel, we might not only be diminishing what they are feeling but also indirectly conveying a message, that they might not doing enough??
And that is the least that we want them to feel, isn’t it??
Do we realise that they might feel that the whole world is going on enjoying life while all they feel is pain ? Is something wrong with them or about them that they have manifested so much pain in their life?
And when we advise, we further might enable this state.
Do know, that solutions are welcome too. But it depends how actively engaged you have been in their healing journey. If you are just a passer by or have been a mere spectator, then please check if your suggestions would be welcome or is it the need of that moment.
More so, is it YOUR need or THEIR need?
No one can lessen the pain that the person might be going through. All we can do is to walk, may be a few steps with them without invalidating their experience and pain and there by not denying (but aceepting) our own pain.
What we honor, honors us back.
This is the biggest act of kindness, in my opinion, to the other and to your own self.
by Neelam Nanwani | Jan 30, 2022 | Soul Words
I have always had a problem glorifying God or any divine beings, for that matter.
A part of me cannot put anyone on a pedastal. Yes, I love them, honor them, respect them, can also worship them, but I cannot over glorify them.
Precisely why, I run from places and people where a cult gets formed.
Wherever there is a cult, there is no Self. Every one follows someone rather than one’s own sovereignty and Self.
I hate to put myself on a pedastal too.
When I talk about dieties or guides or gods or goddesses, I feel a ONENESS with them.
They can be my mother, father, brother, sister, guide and yet my pal, my buddy and yet a little girl (like my Kali) and a little boy.
I feel a resonant oneness with them. I don’t put them UP. I don’t put myself DOWN.
There is a presence which I acknowledge and honor.
My presence is not below it either.
There is a unity. There is oneness.
I have often questioned myself whether this is me denying the god/ creator.. whether it is my ego.
I have felt like this for years. Yes, I am a rebel. I question all stereotypical things.
I question my own thoughts and muse.
And yet, I am finding this radical courage to put it out in the open for the first time, I am not less than God.
I am not merely his / her / Divinity’s spark.
I AM THE DIVINE.
We often worship or glorify that which we think or feel we are not.
One of the reasons, many spiritual practices were given to us, like chanting 108 /1008 names of a particular diety, it was simply to glorify and embody THAT vibration within and Remember it and Re-member it.
In this journey of Becoming some thing, seeking something, how did we forget who we ARE??
Many spiritual teachings talk about, “Remember you ARE God”. How much do we really understand its meaning and true essence?
Jung said, people we admire are a part of our golden shadow. It means we have that part within us, but, we have hidden it, suppressed it or masked it.
Even if we think purely from a psychological perspective, if we glorify a particular person or a master or diety, doesn’t it also imply it is our golden shadow, waiting for us to own it, embody it and integrate it?
The more I deepen within my own journey of grief and loss, of death and re birth, all teachings, all truths point in one singular direction.
Unbecoming.ReclamationRemembering. Re-membering.
The disconnection from this sovereignty of who we truly ARE IS the root cause of so called contrast or evil, including illness.
Aham Brahmasmi. I AM. SHIVOHAM. True Self love.
by Neelam Nanwani | Jan 18, 2022 | Soul Words
Over the last several months, I have poured out a lot of my anger, angst and vulnerability on my social media pages / facebook timeline.
From some, it has invited advice/suggestions as if pouring it out had to be fixed.
From my family it has invited shame and ostrecisation.
And yet for a few, it has given them an opportunity to understand how important it is for us to feel our pain, express it, and how rawness and vulnerability is not weakness but an important way of being.
For those who needed to learn, even my raw uninhibited primal sharing of my grief and sorrow, anger and pain has become an important teacher in their field.
For some, my way of being is a poison, for some, my way of being is medicine.
And I JUST AM.
And in just BEING, I am learning to simply be a witness to both the scenarios unfolding in my space before my eyes.
More often than not, a lot of shame and judgement has followed me as I have flowed shamelessly with my emotional outbursts. Am I being a victim, am I being too clingy, am I getting co-dependant, am I seeking attention, I have questioned myself several times. I have felt the shame when someone has distanced themselves and it has made me unsure of myself.
At the same time, I have allowed myself to deepen into a space of honest self enquiry. I have descended into my pain and allowed myself to trace the roots of what I have been feeling.
I have traced it back to the lineage wounds when women might have been blamed or shamed for men going away or not being present. How many times do women get blamed for a relationship gone sour !!
“He went away because you were a bitch”, “He divorced you because you did this or that”, “He left because it was your fault:.
How many times do we hear this in our society? If the relationship goes sour or a man leaves, the society is so quick to point fingers at a woman.
During the past several months after Paul has passed, I have felt this shame and I have found myself in the question box, “Did I do something wrong? Was I getting too attached or clingy? Was my communication inappropriate?”
I felt this pain of the women in my lineage (both paternal side and maternal side) and I asked the spirit of the fire to destroy and transform this shame, for, it doesn’t belong to me.
As I continued feeling the ripples of this shame, validation etc, and the emotional field continued to be volatile, I suddenly got into a conversation with few of the students (not mentioning names).
Yesterday, not once but thrice, it was validated in my field, how me wearing my triggers/emotions on my sleeve (aka sitting with my pain/anger, expressing n feeling it freely, writing about it, vocalizing it) has helped them realise and understand the importance of being real, the validation that they needed to express and feel fiercely and the safe space where they could be themselves and the ability to see how expressing our emotions, doesn’t make us less courageous but more courageous.
Vulnerability is strength and not a weakness.
Everything that churns in my space daily, and the ability to feel it so intensely and acutely does overwhelm me at times.
I cannot believe the finer layers of the same work that I thought I have completed and processed are arising in my field again.
I am learning to be an innocent wise child, while sending love to the wounded inner child and I am reminded of the words of Matt Kahn,
WHATEVER ARISES, LOVE THAT.
With allowing that, and learning to love that arises, I am being ME and owning it, daily, one step at a time.
by Neelam Nanwani | Dec 22, 2021 | Soul Words
We all have such a deep need within each one of us to be recognised for who we are.
It gives a signal to our wounded psyches that we matter and that we deserve to exist.
When we are recognized for our being, we feel validated. We feel we matter. We feel we are not insignificant in this vast universe and we try to make a sense of why do we need to continue to live.
This sense of living gives us a meaning, a purpose to our existence. This inspires us to keep going and fuels our healthy ego.
Unfortunately this also keeps us in the loop of continuing to seek validation from others and continue to be in a space of proving our point of view.
The moment this doesn’t happen, our ego self feels threatened and is pained. The result is numbing, disassociation, anxiety, anger, frustration or any other way in which the child self wants to express itself or protect itself from this hurt or pain of not feeling significant or worthy or being unseen.
Yes, it is one of the 6 basic human needs to be seen and recognized.
This need to be seen and recognized keeps us on our toes and doesn’t let our seeking and pursuits end.
We keep seeking from one road to another, one shop to another, one job to another, one phone to another, one home, car, pieces of clothing to another.
The pendulum swings to the other end when we don’t realise that in the process of seeking and why we are seeking it, we forgot WHAT is it that we began to seek in the first place.
At the end of the day, we all wish to feel appreciated, valued and acknowledged for who we are and what we are here to be and do.
But somewhere in this process of feeling significant, we also invite the feeling of being insignificant.
Yes, there are many detours on this earth walk called life.
Before we realise it, we who in actuality desired to be seen, appreciated and validated, also somehow begin to hide and play small. (Various reasons, for this, for sure).
The dichotomy between feeling validated and being seen AND playing small and hiding keeps us ENTANGLED and looped in.
This sometimes projects as over giving (need to be needed and feel valued and important), anger for feeling helpless or violated (lack of boundaries) or totally being self centered (over compensation).
We are wounded adults in some way or the other and our inner child is in constant need for this reassurance that he/she matters and is valuable.
The constructs of society do not teach us that we do not have to EARN this significance. That we matter and are an important strand in the web of life no matter what.
This lack of embodied awareness also keeps us away from our true BEing and constantly keeps us encaged in our doing.
This whole process creates undesirable trauma and imprints and then we keep busy in another pursuit to feel significant by getting obsessed about it through our “healing process*.
What we do not realize is that we are trying to fill something with something whereas the process of Real-I-zation and the true awakening is that we already ARE enough.
And that no external substances like career, job, money, home or healing practice is going to fill that emptiness of the worthiness pot.
And through my own pitfalls while being on this journey of mending the brokenness within, TRYING to fill it up with this or that, I am beginning to realise that nothing I DO can fill this pot.
Not because I am trying to fill the worthiness with something external..
BUT
Because the pot that I thought was empty IS actually already full. However, no one has ever told me so nor have we been taught to Access That which already IS & Exists.
Our living in this earthly walk comes always with conditions attached as emerged through the human construct.
We do not know or perhaps are never categorically taught to
Access That Which Already IS.
We are only fed with conditional worthiness.
I am worthy to be seen only if this happens or I am worthy to be recognised only if I do this or that and so on.
And in my opinion, to be able to access what already IS there, IS the true purpose of healing and our BEing.
Nothing less. Nothing more.
To access I AM is the true journey.
Is there a destination ? Does it matter as long as “I AM” ??
by Neelam Nanwani | Jan 10, 2021 | Soul Words
Every man who feels disrespect or anger towards or violated by a / any woman, has a responsibility to heal his own inner feminine emanating from his own wounded masculine.
Any woman who feels disrespect / angst/ frustration/ anger towards or violated by a / any man has a responsibility to heal her own wounded masculine emanating from her own wounded feminine.
It is not a dance of genders anymore. It is a dance of one’s own inner feminine and inner masculine.
Begin with the hurt you have felt as a child and as an adult through through your mother for healing your inner wounded feminine and the hurt that you have felt through your father for your inner wounded masculine.
There are many many layers to healing this aspect but unless we address these fundamental aspects, our relationship with the world and with our own self IS NOT going to improve.
What we disown, get rid of, finds its way through in some way or the other and hence no matter how painful this process may be, (and yes it is indeed a long one and not a one session or event thing), the sooner we acknowledge it and begin the process of peeling off, the sooner will be the re birth.
It is ok to be angry with our pain (care) givers and it is ok to move away from them for the sanctity of our own being.
However, ultimately, it is crucial to GROW UP and face the hurts and pains they have caused us consciously and unconsciously and stop going back to them for validation and approval.
This is not an easy journey as a child who has felt unloved through her / his childhood needs a tone of acknowledgement and validation and who else can he / she look to except his own roots.
For, if it cannot be from our roots, then the whole foundation feels shaken and entire life feels fake.
This pain can numb us, freeze us, make us cold or indifferent to the suffering of others or make us violent and absent to the needs of others. Not to mention, a total disconnection from one’s own TRUE SELF.
This is a pain which is so crucial and such an important aspect and crux of healing for the entire humanity and without addressing this, whatever esoteric heights we may conquer will be a sheer waste.
Wounded parents give birth to a child which then becomes a part of a wounded family who then grows up to be a wounded adult who then creates a wounded atmosphere for self and others.
And
Quite unknowingly so.
And that is just the sad part of it all. The wounds that we run away from, we unconsciously cause in others until the day we seek to deconstruct our own self totally and allow the painful death of the self.
A rebirth is possible only when we allow this death within and without.
A crossover awaits. Will we allow??
