The Phantom within

There was a little fear within me as I readied to receive feedback about me, and how I came across to my companions, especially with whom I sat for “business” discussions every month. I had been quite conscious about many of the things which were going on in me for quite some time, and were working on some areas too. Now the fear was not about some unknown phantoms coming out of my cupboard, but about naming and accepting the one’s which had been living with me for quite many years, so much so I might have taken them for granted. Now is the time for me to take a good look at them again, and recognize them for what they truly are in my life.

Known devils are better than unknown angels, so goes a popular adage, and how true it is. The unknown phantoms living within me frightens me, and I have to make all effort not to let them get out at a moment when I least expected them. There were some other phantoms which were hiding behind myself, and I was least aware of them – when my companions gave feedback about me, these phantoms came across to me as unacceptable vices on my part. Two of my companions said that others may find it hard to work with me, because of my domineering attitude, and one said that I might find it hard to work with others.

I realize that all of my companions had a little bit of truth, and it would be a great danger if they asserted that they were absolutely sure about what they said about me; I am aware that even my own understanding of my limitations were conditioned by my awareness and consciousness. I felt that my friends were giving too much importance to the feedback given by others, and undermining my own realization of my limitations. The views and feedback of each one is conditioned by their own limitations and perspectives, and it would be next to impossible to separate these views from the personal bias.

But to be aware of the phantoms is one thing, and it is another thing to recognize the phantoms as residing inside of me. There is always a tendency in me to disown the phantoms, or attributing them to someone else, or to find excuses for their presence in my life. I know the same is also true with all my other friends and companions. There is not a single individual who from the very start embraces the phantoms without any reservation. All of them have their own excuses and limitations, but to name the nameless and faceless phantoms and giving them a space in the reality of our existence can make a lot of difference, and that is what I am struggling with just now.

I hesitate to accept everything that my companions tell me as gospel truth; there are more than enough evidences which say that many of my friends impose on me phantoms of their own making, and in psychology this could be just a matter of projection, and they may not even be realizing that they are doing this, either consciously or unconsciously. Not all phantoms are horrifying, and some of them could even be so very gentle and cool that even an angel may fail in comparison with them. Not all phantoms are evil and blood-mongers, some of them may even love to disappear into thin air, if that would help me to come to terms with the hardcore realities of life and embrace them wholeheartedly. This is time I welcome the phantoms and hug them lovingly.

Know your Strengths

As the financial year is nearing its close, accountants and treasurers are busy trying to wind up their transactions, sales and purchases. They cannot let things to spill over to the next year, which can only put them in trouble. At the end of the financial year, the most important document for the financial administrators is the balance sheet, otherwise called trial balance, wherein they would be able to find out their assets, liabilities, income and expenditure. The whole year in one page, and that is the proof of their financial management, how well or badly they had managed finance. There is hardly anything that they can hide here; it is the fact-sheet of their situation as far as finance is concerned. The income and expenditure, as a matter of fact, very much depend on two other factors, assets and liabilities.

I wish we take a trial balance at different junctures of our life, to become aware of the assets and liabilities. Why should we be concerned of the assets and liabilities? Our concern should be to increase the assets and reduce the liabilities, and only this can assure a better financial management. On the other hand, if the liabilities keep increasing and the assets start reducing, then there may come a time, when the institution may be forced to shut its doors. Income and expenditure should moderated on the basis of the assets and liabilities. It is a two way process: increase the assets and reduce liabilities. It is not enough to reduce liabilities, one should also attempt to increase assets, or else the institution may end up with nothing to live with, though they may not lose anything.

Today I would like to pause for a moment and take stock of my personal assets and liabilities; let me become conscious of them. At every important moment of my life, I decide on the basis of my assets and liabilities. It would be wrong to say that assets are good and liabilities are bad; these are two neutral realities. There are dangers that assets can become my death-knell, and liabilities sometimes may become my friend. The most important thing is that I keep before my eyes these two realities, so that I may discern properly before making any important decision. If I decide anything irrespective of my personal assets and liabilities, then I may have to regret later on. If need be, I should write and keep my assets and liabilities in a place where I make most of the decisions.

What do I mean by my personal assets? These are the things that I am really proud of; these are my good qualities, capabilities, talents, potentialities. For example, if I am aware that I have a potentiality to organize things and events, then when I get an opportunity I would not let it slip, but make use of it to reach out to others. On the other hand, if I am not good in singing, and decide to give lead in singing, then there would only be pandemonium. This is what is implied in one of the Indian proverbs, know the depth, before you put your foot forward in the river. It is possible you may not get an opportunity to pull out your legs after you mistakenly put your foot in deep waters.

Let me sit quietly today, in a place where I may not be disturbed by anyone for some ten minutes; let me take a dip into my inner self, feel myself as I fully am, with all my strengths and weaknesses. Let me go back in life to the earliest moment I can remember and move forward up to this very moment, taking note of the instances when I had shown signs of possessing great assets or liabilities. Let me pause there and assimilate it in such a way that it soars to my conscious self. It would be dangerous for me to embrace the assets and throw away the liabilities. I need to embrace both of them and grow in greater awareness that both of these can help me to live a meaning-full life.

The Lingering Chorus (M6)

It is not easy, let me admit, to give a decent burial to some of the most painful memories that haunt me night and day; let me not project as if things are so easy that I can overcome the lingering memories at the snap of a finger. If that were the case, then several men and women need not have sought to end their lives at the nadir of their moral conscience. We might call them they were losers, cowards, and were too frightened of facing reality, but it would be injustice if we were to think of them so. To us they may look so, but would they have ever thought of themselves so? But today we could reflect for a while on why it takes so hard for us to really bid goodbye to some of the painful memories? What keeps us holding on to them, even when we know for sure that they do not help us to grow at all? We had presented two ways of addressing this problem is by embracing the shadows, and by letting the memories fade into oblivion by making them copyright to the whole world. Here we will explore yet another way of care-fronting these memories, which have become part of our selves, as if our second nature.

In psychology we would often associate each of our emotional states to particular trigger mechanism, and most often we are not aware of these triggers; they may be persons, events, and even nature, or surroundings, or senses. For instance, certain persons may trigger particular emotions in us, and as soon as we see the person, we may be transported into that emotional state, whether positive or negative. As soon as I see a person with red shirt, my blood may become warm, my heart beat may increase, because that person with red shirt reminds me of someone else, who had left a deep scar in my heart. If I am not aware of these triggers, I will have no way of controlling them, leave alone mastering over them. We may even misjudge people, for no fault of their own.

I have come across women who, after going through an acute experience of betrayal by men, refuse to even talk gently to other men, because of the notion that every men they met reminded them of those betrayers; for them all men are betrayers. Therefore it often happens that after being ‘ditched’ to use slang, by someone, these persons may not have the courage to start things anew, because all men may ultimately ditch them, or at least that is what they think. I have seen young women who refused to get married because they had drunkard fathers, and thought that all men may ultimately end up drunkards! We may think that these are baseless and unreasonable conclusions, but the fact is that they are not arriving at these conclusions willfully, but something in them prompts them to such baseless conclusion. If we begin to probe them, then they will realize that they had been unjustly biased and prejudiced.

The fact is that these people did not realize that they were reacting to the triggers, and not objective facts. So if we are able to discern the triggers, and find out what triggers me to what sort of conclusions, then I may be able to judge for myself if my conclusions are realistic or baseless. In fact these triggers are the keys that open the floodgates of my swinging moods. If I am able to point out to myself that all men who were red shirts remind me of the man who stabbed my heart, then the next time when I see a man with red shirts, I could tell my mind that ‘this’ is not ‘that’ man. And that realization may prevent the floodgates of emotions to burst out, and you may be in a much better position to handle the man. What happens here is a simple psychological role-play; you have accustomed your mind to thinking that every man with a red shirt should be the culprit, and so, when you see a man with red shirts, your mind reminds you that this man is that one, and that immediately takes you to the past memories drenched in pain and agony. You then try to retaliate for the wound created in you, by treating the man harshly and even cruelly for no fault of his! But it is within your power and control to reverse the role play.

Today let me pause for a while and recollect to mind the last time I was flooded with the memories of that one painful moment in my past, and go back in time and circumstances to re-capture what triggered the memories to rush into my mind. It may not be crystal clear as to what had actually triggered the memories, but it will be possible for me to identify it, if I rewind the memory-attack today in slow motion, noting down the exact moment when I burst out. I go a few frames behind and see the situation around me… it may be a person, or an object, or a situation or anything. Once I find it out, then I pay close attention to it, to verify that ‘this’ is not ‘that’ and confirm it for myself, so that I may re-program my mind to say that not every person who wear red shirts is the one who betrayed me. Let me do this for a few days, until I am sure what are the triggers, which drown me into emotions and sentiments that put me down. If I am aware of them, then there is nothing I need to do, because my mind will re-program and lo and behold, I am on the way to free myself from my painful memories!

Embracing my Shadows (M5)

Father Joe Kunnumpuram of Atmadarshan in Patna, India, has proposed a new way of getting rid of past painful memories, which he calls it as Awareness Meditative Relaxation (AMR) therapy, using which one can try to get out of the memories. After going through the therapy I felt that it may not be entirely scientific and psychological and there are a lot of loopholes in the design of the therapy, but what is important here is that a person with painful memories is led to re-live that experience, and feel the pain, humiliation and shame to the maximum level possible, and feel the bodily reaction to such zenith of pain and shame; then they are led to relax their bodies, until they experience a different kind of bodily sensation, and that may make a lot of difference in the way the memories may appear to them. The method that is proposed here is the one of embracing one’s shadows, instead of running away from them. This is based on the common notion that we give power to the people or things we are frightened of. Let us delve a little deep into this mystery, that may help us take control over ourselves.

It is not enough to recognize a shadow in me, or an enemy wandering in the woods of my heart and often frightening me, putting me to shame and humiliation that I feel often annoyed and irritated with my colleagues for no reason. Our journey to freedom surely begins with recognition, but we cannot stop there; that is just the beginning of the journey, we need to move ahead. The second and more important stage is embracing the shadows, until a moment when I cannot see them as something or someone there outside of me, but something that is part of me. I can control that which is in me or within me, but may not be able to do the same when it is out of me. It is important that we embrace the shadows, instead of settling scores with them. The very word embrace carries with it sentiments of empathy, compassion and a lot of understanding. I am not to blame myself or any one else for the painful memories that I am still carrying; not even myself is fully responsible for what had happened. That is how things had taken place, and I or others had no control over it.

Therefore my concern here and now is how I am going to get out of them peacefully and amicably, without picking quarrels with any one for what had happened. No blame game can bring peace and tranquility in my heart and cure me fully of the memories. This part of the exercise concerns me and only me, here I do not need to seek any kind of help or assistance from others. In simple terms, here I am to recognize the memories and tell myself that I or others had no control over what had happened, but now I would like to get out of these of my own accord. This incident has caused a lot of pain and shame in my life, and has become my second self or nature, so I wholeheartedly accept it as myself and incorporate it into my life.

Much of the time we are not able to get out of these memories, because we often see others as responsible for what had happened, and therefore we cannot forgive them. We carry a lot of hatred and vengeance for them, whether they are dead or alive, whether they are living nearby or far away, whether they are in friendly terms or not in talking terms. Embracing our shadows necessarily means that for the sake of my peace, I need to let the other persons go free; but I am not giving them a clean chit, telling they are not responsible for what had happened, but I only let them go, because I want my peace again. This is more difficult in the case of people who had gone through a horrifying incident many many years ago. It may take quite some time for these people to heal all those years slowly and steadily. But if the process begins, we can take it for granted that the journey is half done.

How do I begin to embrace my shadows? Every shadows have their brighter side too. Let me not start with the shadows from their darker side, rather let me begin from the brigher side. If you look at a candle, you will see that there is darkness just below the candle, but just above the shadow, there is light. Let me find at least one good point about the person involved in my painful memory; if I am able to see more than one good point which I would generally admire, then I stay with that quality for a while, when I feel somewhat happy about the person. Let me be clear that I am not justifying whatever he/she had done, nor am I letting that person go scot free; I am only readying to free myself from his/her clutches. Let me dwell on the good quality of the person/s as long as I can, and see how much body feels about the person; sometimes it is possible that the very thought of the person repels me, in which case I will have to let my mind get hold of something that may positively bring my mind to think about his/her good qualities. Let me look at his/her face, speak to him/her, and listen too. Now, let me not immediately jump into looking at the darker side of the event / incident. I finish the exercise there, and you may think that I have not completed the exercise. But that has been done purposely, so that my mind may linger on what I had been thinking about, and it may have an invisible effect on me.