joy #3

Phew..

The new year has been crazy busy and some where around the corner, it nagged me, that ive stopped writing.
And that i haven't really stopped to look for the silver lining I promised myself I'd look for, everyday.

Listening to a chirp on the radio today morning, about emotional health put me on a trail of thoughts.

We are conditioned since young to not feel our emotions. To bury the emotions deep down inside, in order for us to carry on unperturbed in life. up to a certain point, it is important and imperative that we bury them deep inside and put a tomb-stone firm over it. Because otherwise, the amount of thought process that goes into it becomes a burden

But the emotional energy that goes into burying these feelings never go away, the just lay around. Whenever we bury or suppress what we feel, we are merely adding to our set of emotional baggage. Simply because dealing with the emotions require us to acknowledge the presence of our emotions. That is what we all fear.

Fear, seems to be a very interesting term and something I've been pondering about for sometime.

We cannot live without the fear. For without fear, life looses its zest. Fear supplies adrenalin (you may say its th other way around), fear makes up behave the way we behave, fear in simple words actually make who we are, Us.

Fear can be easily broken down to 4 basic, Fears. And no they do not include fear of spiders or heights as in contrary belief. The very basic significant four are

1. fear of loss

2. fear of rejection

3. fear of feeling vulnerable

4. fear of feeling the full force of our emotion

Its these fears that drive us human beings and any other fear is merely the derivative of the above mentioned.

The fear of feeling the full force of our emotions are more often than not the major fear everyone has. We deny ourselves from feeling what we feel. Its more of a defense mechanism rather than refusal to acknowledge. We have conditioned our minds to not get too close or in depth with an issue so as to avoid emotional pain or scars when the issue takes a wrong turn.

We make our selves believe that if we ignore the emotion long enough or bury it, it will dissappear.
Its far and very far away from the truth.

Simply because the term energy, comes from the word' Energy in motion'.

The first law of Thermodynamics says '

'Energy can be neither created nor destroyed. It can only change forms

In any process in an isolated system, the total energy remains the same'

We need to find an outlet for all this energy, for if otherwise they just build up in our system, till we get tired of it and eventually fall sick.

for example, if we have an issue at work place, we tend to generally shut up about it. Or, have a chat around the water cooler, with a colleague.

Having a chat is good, you may say, because we are expressing ourselves and feeling what we feel exactly. But that doesnt tend to diffuse the emotion. The one thing we need to do? To talk it out to the concerned person. But there kicks in fear again. Because we dont like confrontations, or conflicts or rejection or depreciation.

 And it comes back to those fears! for example if i tell my boss off, it way lead to conflicts and rejection and that leads to Fear of Rejection, and i fear i might be rejected! so its only reasonable for me to want to bury it deep down , but risk lugging a huge baggage.

But, emotions are feedbacks. They let us know what we are feeling  and if we ignore the feelings, we are ignoring a very significant part of our lives.

What can we do to address the situation then?

Journalism! That seems to come easy to most people. Where you sit down everyday, at the end of the day and reflect and pour out your emotions. Anything and everything that bothers you. You're taking the first and most crucial step of addressing and acknowledging the existence of the problem. And instead of ignoring the problem, you're reflecting over it.

But if that isnt enough, you'll need to somehow find an avenue to express your feelings to the person concerned. Because, they are your emotions and they are making you feel a certain way, in a way that you're feeling. Of which the society has taught us well enough, to find somebody else to blame. we can get all gung ho about yelling at the person and express ourselves to people, as if they are responsible for what we are feeling . But, technically  no one can make us feel the way we do, unless we give them permission to.

In some cases, having a mature honest exchange with an individual on how you choose to behave on their behaviour works. Because sometimes, people violate their boundaries on us. but if we dont let them know, why would they change? Because they dont realise they are trampling on other peoples boundaries!

Thats exactly what we need to understand. How to express our emotions and feelings in a matured, grown up manner. We need to understand that it is healthy to express our feelings!

And if i could inspire anyone to apply this in their daily life (includes me) i'd be honored!

For I, need to first, start recognizing and allow my emotions to take over me! To understand that it is OK to be vulnerable.

The moment I manage to do so (in personal life), i'll write a huge blog about it.

Till then, cheers!

joy #2 :-)

* diskoooom*


I've had a long long long long day.. It started smack at 6am nd had started working just about then. Right up to 8pm. Coming to think of it, I wouldn't have felt this exhausted if I had to sub culture algae, or fumigate the entire laboratory, or extract lipid from th darned lil creatures or even murder all my algae's. Instead I had meetings to discuss algae, nd algae management.

*Groaaaan*

I had the impression I was a people person until I met 'em algaes. Such darlings that they are. Give them nitrate, phosphate, potassium, water source, a little bit of human excrete ( co2 I mean) and they will be the happiest little things every on th surface of earth. How not to love em?

But no, I've got to hire people to look after my algae ( which in turn looks after us - I'll be doing free marketing for my company if I continued on this). These people whom I've hired need to be taken care of again in turn. We start off with backlog issues, graph charts, data interpretation, process flow, data calculations, good lab practices, standard operating procedures, and it went on until we decided algaes aren't the only ones who needed to eat.

And it was 8 by then :s

More than hunger, (both my stomach and head) I was thinking of my joy for the day. Wrecking my head if I had any.

I managed to tell my boss I was starting my MSc program ( I was very very worried on how I'd break th news to him, bordering obsession, but, on th contrary he was very happy I finally decided to continue studying!) I did feel a lot relieved but, not joy.

The company general manager bribed me with my favourite yoghurt ice cream (J.co's makes the besssst )but then again, no huge joy.

I found my joy much later, in the hotel room ( Swiss Inn 703, Batam :p)
Joy #2 ? Standing under a heavy hot water shower (and by hot, its real hot) for 5 minutes, without doing anything else. Just standing there. 5 minutes into it, i ended up feeling much lighter like as though the hot water has removed all my burden.

Nothing beats a hot water shower after a long day! And its one of the reasons I love Batam!

;)

joy #1 :-)

# 1, watching first standard kids on the first day of school.

Its Wednesday today, officially the 3rd day of the schooling schedule back here.

And in my rush to work today morning ( I rush everyday, because I simply can't see why I should spend all the extra time getting ready when I can utilise th time by sleeping :p ) I saw this small girl walking into her school block, and she seemed very familiar. I snapped out of my frenzy rush and smiled ever so widely, while trying to remember who she was. She seemed so happy and was holding another kids hand, walking with a skip in her step.

With a huge wide grin plastered on my face, I continued driving ( frenzy rush mode back again, hod's can't go in late to work everyday ;-) ). And suddenly, I remembered who she was! It was the same little girl I saw on her 1st day to school.

She had th blue-white pinafore on, a short fountain like double ponytail, big huge black pottu, a pink school bag bigger than th owner herself, matching pink water bottle sling across her shoulder. She was staring at the school, wide eyed, both hands clasped on her dad's legs ( cutie-pie found clinging onto th leg easier I'm assuming)

Confusion was written all over her face. She appeared almost afraid, among th thousands of other new kids in school. Not like the others looked any different.

And today, well, she has found her first best friend. Walking arm in arm and chattering away, and probably promising each other a life time of friendship.

I was reminded of my very first day in school. Mom and dad, holding my hands, each one hand. I'm not too sure who was more afraid ;)
I remember my parents waiting, along with all th other parents in th school canteen. Waiting for recess time. The next thing they knew, their lil tot was dragging another lil one, exclaiming to the whole world 'Paa, maa, my best friend Shyam, bye maa' and ran off to meet her best friends dad. Both our parents were taken aback slightly. Deprived from th drama they have been conditioned to ;-)

And naturally it did bring me back to my bessssssst friend in standard 1. Shyamala Sivapragasam.
I remember us being Siamese twins for quite a bit. We played games together, invented even stupider games together and what's worse? Anyone who thought they were stupid, were rendered social outcast ;)

We shared everything that could be possibly shared (drinks, lunch, friends) and even those that shouldn't be shared ( Homework- more often than not she would complete mine, Exams- I would complete my paper early and snatch her paper and complete it for her :-p ) We terrified each other making up horror stories about the school dentist/doctor. She told me the dentist yanked one of her tooth with pliers because it was slightly oversized, (I cried because ALL my teeth were BIG) and I told her the doctor who was administering injections for us , was first burning the needle in hot fire to clean the needle ( she cried  :-p).

And I smiled and felt all flutters inside. Little moments of joys like that makes the soul young all over again ;-)

Thank you kutty girl, for giving me a reason to smile ;-)

The Joys of Small Things

A very Happy New Year to you !!

The month January more often than not holds hopes and anticipation for many. Hopes , of Losing the excess pounds piled up during the holidays, more exercise, more family time, more holidays, finding love, forgetting sorrow and annoying bits of the past year, the list goes on and on indefinitely.

To me, January is Gods little way of saying, there's still Hope. Nothing is too late to be unraveled, to be corrected. And his way of saying, there's always hope , for a new beginning.

Thats perhaps why we always have new year resolutions, stacked neck high up.  Its only natural that we turn a new leaf over as the whole world celebrates a new year. Some argue how new year resolutions dont work, of which i agree completely upon. Ive probably made millions hundreds of new year resolutions till date. Mostly upon my Father's insistence on turning a new leaf (at least ) on New Years 1st day.

He made us siblings write our resolutions on a sheet of paper and bring it along with us to the temple. (8am sharp) The first two hours would be serene (almost like a scene out of a movie, pattu pavadai, jasmine on my hair, big black pottu, eyes shut, lips chanting), and if you saw me, you would probably be under the impression that im a holy, pious, serious child (holds true exactly for two hours) But, after grueling hours of battling the hot sun, sweat, cumulative BO, stuffiness, smoke (anyone attending new year prayers in a Hindu temple will vouch for it), noise, jostling for one drop of holy water, i couldn't be bothered less about manners and let alone remember my resolution sheet.

To make matters more fun (or perhaps Powerful, in Father's opinion)  Father insisted we pray and chuck (his words were, offer) the sheet of paper into the fire thats being lit in the temple. As the paper, burnt, sometimes slowly, sometimes in a flash, or sometimes it just refuses to catch fire, my resolution ceases to exist. I was interested in the temple lunch, getting home and having an ice cold shower and changing into home clothes, and zzzzz.

Im assuming thats where I went wrong. And many others as well. Not the sheet to fire part literally but figuratively. We make resolutions, out of compulsion, to be in the trend of making resolutions, or simply to be able to have a conversation when someone asks whats your new year resolution. (That line has to be January's most used line). Plus most of us make resolutions that require too much specificity. My resolutions for 5 donkey years (all throughout high school) was to Study Hard and score straight A's. Like my resolutions which were never remembered, the A's never happened ;)

The last resolution i made was when I hit 17( study hard-straight a's). And it became a resolution, to never make any resolutions after that. Like all resolutions, this too shall be broken. Speaking to my love a few days before the New Year, we laughed at the  act of making up resolutions, and both of us agreed its a hopeless thing to do, that we dont need to make resolutions only on New Years, it can be short term goals made at any point of the year.

True, as I and many others (who think its a lost cause making resolution) would think. But the romanticism towards resolutions never do die. And the bug bit me. But this year, I didn't write it on a sheet and throw it into the flames. Simply because my resolution wasn't a forced one. It was something that struck me on my way to the temple.

My resolution for 2010 is to Record the Joys of Small Things!

Everyday we smile, guffaw, and feel AWESOME about little things in life ( sometimes a kiss from a child,  and sometimes being able to pee after holding it for what seems like ages ;-) )
And i thought, well, if i could record it all, and be able to re-read how much joy everyday is, it would make me ( and perhaps anyone who's reading it) chuckle, at least a little

Joy # 1, coming soon ;-)