As I endeavor to find my creative muse, I tripped over some old poems and among them was the following which I wrote at a threshold of growth. It was shortly before I was called to apply to the academic program I'm currently in and I was just questioning my "purpose" and feeling the internal pressure to have to "figure it out"....
SING!
I'm sitting here at the crossroads of my existence
Running out of my creative sustenance
Caught between two polar opposites
With a noose around my esophagus
Runnin' outta time
Goin' outta my mind
Will you be so kind?
To help me find my sanity?
Trapped between 2 realities
Losing the grips of my moralities
I am my own worst enemy
And the key to my serenity
Why can't I
Just fly
High in the sky
No "hellos" or "goodbyes"
Nor bursting laugher or sighs
Trapped between who I am and who I wanna be
It's too hard,
Can't you see,
To manifest my divinity?
It takes too much outta me
To hypothesize
And begin to realize
How to self-actualize
I've forgotten
And spoiled myself rotten
Grown soft as cotton
As I'm trottin'
On this downward spiral
My BEING dull by the confrontation of life.
To be free from this dillusion
And be master of this illusion
I must bring to fusion
The causes of my confusion
I must shed my cacoon for my wings
And let freedom ring
From the corners of my being
BREAK OUT
From doubt
And shout out loud!
At the top of my lungs
As my past is hung
With its neck wrung
Making way
Without delay
For the ideal
To become real!
Not to play some given part
BUT CREATE FROM THE START
My own spiritual chart!
To shed my cacoon for my wings
And let freedom ring
From the corners of my being
I hold the key within me
To unlocking my true reality
To SHED MY CACOON FOR MY WINGS
AND LET FREEDOM RING
FROM THE CORNERS OF MY BEING!
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Friday, June 5, 2009
Playing it safe, being half alive or rocking the boat, being fully alive - which is better?
It's about 6:30a here in SF and I've been up all night, after a long flight back from Chicago, an hour and a half trek from the airport, breaking in my new "perfect pushups" and energized...all because of the following revelations....
After leaving Chicago in a bit of a mentally paralyzing uncertain state about where I stand in my relationship primarily due to my doubts about myself, I was committed to finding some clarity with no clue how. Not only could I not see the metaphorical forest from the trees, but the fog was so think, I couldn't even see the trees. The minute our flight stabilizes, down came the meal tray and out came my laptop. I was ready to journal and reflect no matter how much typing I had to do.
One of the things Riddhi said really hit home to me, "in whatever a person does, if they don't give it 100%, then what's the point? might as well just give it up and go onto something you CAN commit 100% to", that among many things we talked about during our 4 hr drive to Midway stuck with me. As I started running typographic diarrhea of emotion (and pardon the analogy, y'know sometimes when you've been venting or been in a funk for a while there just comes a time you say "alright pal, enough is enough, just give it up and move on?" .. yeah, that's kind of the effect I was going for with that one), I suddenly heard the words of a coach and dear friend of mine saying,
"Parth, we're all just a bunch of conversations, a series of patterns that react based on triggers...someone flips the switch, pushes THAT button and boom we go, conversations come flooding in, the thing is that we've never been taught how to see which statements in our internal monologue are conversations and how to choose which ones to empower."
So true! It's like TV cords is permanently plugged in, the remote's broke, and the setting's on scan (the monkey mind constantly jumping), and we have no idea how to focus in on what's being said and critically look at it cuz we're just comforted by the noise of it. The overarching themes of those TV shows, or "contexts" behind-the-scenes dictate the story line and so the stories begin. Slowly letting this soak in, I find myself fired up by the prospect of writing my own themes for today and this weekend, allowing myself permission to be totally creative.
I recently came across the following article about a young woman whose sentiment on living life fully really resonated http://bit.ly/137Lbv. I can recall that during those moments I get self conscious about what others might think or how I might get perceived, immediately following comes a sense of "I could have, but didn't". During those moments stories like these are inspiring and motivating in bringing me back to creating my own themes/contexts for MY life and for those individuals and communities I want to touch and empower.
Well, game on! And I invite you to play with me. On this Friday, with the weekend fast approaching, what themes would you like to create? What lights YOU up? What gets YOU out of bed?
I've also learned from past teachers who have said that to keep things in existence, present, and clear, we need precise tools...I recently came across http://www.toodledo.com where you can manage life around contexts instead of mundane blah tasks. Some of my contexts include: Expanding My Community (scheduled correspondence to all friends), Expand my Knowledge (articles to read for class, inspiring stories to feed the soul, etc.) and Restoring My Power (lists of areas I'm behind in or have been withholding communication with people). The moment I feel like I'm dragging my feet, I take a moment to read these contexts and those tasks no longer look like things to do, but rather opportunities to build towards something that's important to me.
What will you create? Once you have it, share it with others, and have them share it with you. Lets get inspired together!
After leaving Chicago in a bit of a mentally paralyzing uncertain state about where I stand in my relationship primarily due to my doubts about myself, I was committed to finding some clarity with no clue how. Not only could I not see the metaphorical forest from the trees, but the fog was so think, I couldn't even see the trees. The minute our flight stabilizes, down came the meal tray and out came my laptop. I was ready to journal and reflect no matter how much typing I had to do.
One of the things Riddhi said really hit home to me, "in whatever a person does, if they don't give it 100%, then what's the point? might as well just give it up and go onto something you CAN commit 100% to", that among many things we talked about during our 4 hr drive to Midway stuck with me. As I started running typographic diarrhea of emotion (and pardon the analogy, y'know sometimes when you've been venting or been in a funk for a while there just comes a time you say "alright pal, enough is enough, just give it up and move on?" .. yeah, that's kind of the effect I was going for with that one), I suddenly heard the words of a coach and dear friend of mine saying,
"Parth, we're all just a bunch of conversations, a series of patterns that react based on triggers...someone flips the switch, pushes THAT button and boom we go, conversations come flooding in, the thing is that we've never been taught how to see which statements in our internal monologue are conversations and how to choose which ones to empower."
So true! It's like TV cords is permanently plugged in, the remote's broke, and the setting's on scan (the monkey mind constantly jumping), and we have no idea how to focus in on what's being said and critically look at it cuz we're just comforted by the noise of it. The overarching themes of those TV shows, or "contexts" behind-the-scenes dictate the story line and so the stories begin. Slowly letting this soak in, I find myself fired up by the prospect of writing my own themes for today and this weekend, allowing myself permission to be totally creative.
I recently came across the following article about a young woman whose sentiment on living life fully really resonated http://bit.ly/137Lbv. I can recall that during those moments I get self conscious about what others might think or how I might get perceived, immediately following comes a sense of "I could have, but didn't". During those moments stories like these are inspiring and motivating in bringing me back to creating my own themes/contexts for MY life and for those individuals and communities I want to touch and empower.
Well, game on! And I invite you to play with me. On this Friday, with the weekend fast approaching, what themes would you like to create? What lights YOU up? What gets YOU out of bed?
I've also learned from past teachers who have said that to keep things in existence, present, and clear, we need precise tools...I recently came across http://www.toodledo.com where you can manage life around contexts instead of mundane blah tasks. Some of my contexts include: Expanding My Community (scheduled correspondence to all friends), Expand my Knowledge (articles to read for class, inspiring stories to feed the soul, etc.) and Restoring My Power (lists of areas I'm behind in or have been withholding communication with people). The moment I feel like I'm dragging my feet, I take a moment to read these contexts and those tasks no longer look like things to do, but rather opportunities to build towards something that's important to me.
What will you create? Once you have it, share it with others, and have them share it with you. Lets get inspired together!
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