Honouring The Divine Masculine

There’s an unspoken truth we’ve turned a blind eye to. Which I’m not prepared to remain quiet about any longer. I’ve personally witnessed the destruction this lie has amassed and I’ve seen many spirits break as a result.

The lie I refer to is the way in which we’ve been taught to regard men and the standard in which we’ve upheld them. By “we” I mean society at large. I am not a feminist or fascist in any way or form. My advocacy has always been about truth, authenticity and conscious living. My personal belief is that men and women form part of the same energetic frequency with both masculine and feminine energies. But we’ve been taught to differentiate and prescribe certain roles and responsibilities on to men, exacerbated by antiquated stories of men saving damsels in distress.

We’ve all bought into the bullshit, and hyped it further with sayings like “cowboys don’t cry”. We’ve placed the responsibility of providing financially squarely on the shoulders of men. We defined success for them as a way to measure up. We’ve defined the meaning of a “real man” according to a carefully crafted script. We’ve negated their emotional wellbeing and suppressed their innate ability to nurture or comfort because it wasn’t the “manly” thing to do. We’ve given them the responsibility of taking care of our emotional wellbeing and blamed them for our unhappiness. We’ve used religion or posterity, loyalty and obligation as control mechanisms to get them to conform. We’ve scoffed at their desire to be vulnerable because boys don’t cry. And “real men” don’t behave like sissies. And what we’ve done is create very angry and very sad men who feel isolated, scared and depressed. But they’d rather kill themselves than ever admit their truth. And so they do. The recent spate of suicides by men bears testament.

So what are we doing here and why are we doing it?

The simple answer is conditioning.

As an Indian woman I’ve seen many men aspire to become the vision that was set out for them by their parents. Often this vision had absolutely nothing to do with who they truly were, but they executed that vision to satisfy their parents. They negated their truths out of duty and obligation. I’ve also been a witness to men who wanted to express their pain and yet had to suppress it, which suppression translates into anger.

It’s time we create a new context. There is no men versus women here. It’s men AND women working together towards a collective consciousness. That is the only time we can move forward as a species. These gender specific roles are an illusion. We are all exactly the same. Honouring the divine masculine means honouring parts of ourselves as women. As a collective. There’s no differentiation. There are NO templates to follow that govern how men ought to be.

Beloved masculine, today I invite you to hold a mirror up and take a stark look at yourself. Begin to embrace the real truth and not the bullshit you’ve been fed about how you’re supposed to be. Recognise the courage it takes to be vulnerable and break down those barriers to love. Speak and own your truth. Know that your power is inherent and doesn’t need to be wielded forcefully. Understand that you don’t need to win approval from anyone. Understand that love is not conditional upon what you can provide or who you need to impress. Understand that you have the power to create your own reality. Own the fact that you CAN choose yourself and your happiness. Most importantly, break down the stereotypes and free yourself. It’s okay to exhale.

I honour the divine in You, as part of Me.

Banishing Silence: Stepping Into Truth

At the age of 19, I was raped.

For 17 years, I kept it a secret, only telling a select few, until last year when I decided to write about it in my autobiography. The details of the incident are discussed in my book, but to me are inconsequential. The bigger issue for me is why I remained silent. Why women continue to remain silent.

Over the years, I’ve experienced sexual harassment verbally, physically and digitally and only recently elected to openly discuss these issues. Why? Because, for years, I was filled with shame, guilt, embarrassment, fear of judgment and ridicule and more importantly, the belief that I would be considered “less than” by any man who wanted to be with me.

It’s a generational pathology to simply do what was always done. And for decades women have been taught to smile and be silent out of fear of judgment and shame. We live in a society that teaches women to shrink, and to be ashamed of telling the truth. But for me, the moment anyone invalidates someone else’s truth, they dehumanise them. I had to learn, that when people start the rumours, when they judge, when they re-tell my story disparagingly, when they mock or ridicule or try to shame me, it’s never ever about me.

Writing has become my solitary place where I’m paying the most attention. It’s a place where my heart is wide open and I am the purest version of myself. It’s also where I am told to be silent, because truth is very inconvenient. I’ve always known that my silence never served me, and since beginning this journey of  truth telling, I accepted my life is the amalgam of brutal and beautiful and I needed to own that, unapologetically, if I was to make any difference in this world.

As women, we are taught that certain things are “unbecoming of a girl” and when we cross the line, there is a hefty price to pay. We weren’t allowed to speak about contentious issues like rape, abuse or sexual harassment, and we couldn’t be smart and draw attention to our intellect.

But silence either makes us too tender or too tough. This metastasizes into either ass-kissing and people pleasing, or conversely, aggression and anger. We become as sick as our secrets.

Fear of judgment, shame and guilt, is a nefarious act that holds us captive from speaking out. This tyranny of impoverished thinking has kept us prisoners in our own minds. We don’t speak out, because we want to be “normal” and accepted but we end up with the truth seeping out sideways through depression or addiction. We need to open our mouths more often to let the truth exist outside rather than allowing our bodies, minds and souls to rot by keeping it inside.

Offering my experience to the world was a form of truth-telling in a way that changed the trajectory of my life. My silence gave other people the power to decide my worth and plan my life for me. When you’re living in the echo chamber of your own mind, you cannot have discernment. When I chose to speak my truth, I did so for posterity’s sake, to change belief systems and give my daughter and the generations to come permission to do the same. No one will determine my story, only I will. My voice will change the world. If it makes you uncomfortable then it’s working. Truth sounds a lot like hate, for those who hate the truth.

In an era that promotes universal facades and pretence, telling the truth starts a revolution.

Insurgent women, it’s time to rise up. Be less concerned with judgment and more concerned with redemption. The time is up for remaining silent.

An Open Letter to Indian Men

Disclaimer:

This post is guaranteed to offend someone and in that event, I invite you to take a long, hard look at yourself and consider why you find this offensive – perhaps there is some truth to what I’ve said, and if so, that’s the first step in changing patterns of behaviour that are harmful. Secondly, while this is directed to Indian men, solely from the standpoint of being an Indian woman, this does not preclude men from other races who adopt the same attributes.

**********************************************************************************

As a published writer, opening myself up to public commentary and judgment is par for the course. It’s something I signed up for when I committed my life to my craft: to live my purpose as a conscious writer.  I know I am not here to win points. I am here to create awareness through my writing by sharing candid and authentic stories of hope and redemption, based on what I have experienced in my life. This is the only reason I reference my past – not to focus on negativity, but to provide relatable stories that anyone can resonate with and be inspired enough to believe that life can change and get better.

Recently, a newspaper contacted me wanting me to highlight my story and journey with depression. I shared my story openly, and received some amazing feedback from so many wonderful men and women, who felt inspired and hopeful to overcome their own experiences. I’ve had a few people – men and women alike – tell me that I saved them from suicide, which for me was the biggest affirmation that I am living my essence and my soul’s calling.

That opened itself up to lots of interaction with a lot of different people. I received messages from broken Indian women, who are held captive by depression because they’re in abusive relationships with Indian men. The stories shared with me filled me with horror – stories of violence, degradation, humiliation and emotional abuse of the worst kind. It left me emotionally and physically depleted because I am totally ill-equipped to deal with this and all I could do was lend a comforting ear.

Over and above that, the brevity within which Indian men slid into DM’s on every social media platform that they could find me, to strike up random non-related conversations, ranging from complimenting my looks and my legs; to asking for my number; or pretending to need writing work done then asking for my number – culminated in this post. I realised that I may not be able to do anything for these women who are beaten down, but I can use my voice through the written word.

Indian men: many of you were raised in homes that predefined the role of a man. You were led to believe that being a man means negating your feelings and emotions and ruling with an iron-fist. You were raised in a society that promoted ‘manliness’ over sensitivity, relegating the latter to a solely female trait. You were taught to believe that you had to have a partner who was submissive and you had to be respected because you were born a male. Many of you were told that men don’t cry. And as a result, your emotions got suppressed and you became hardened, and suppressed sorrow can only turn into rage. Rage that gets taken out on those you love.

Indian men: many of you were raised as misogynists, considering women as second-class citizens, sex-objects there for your glorification and people of lesser intellect and strength.  This is why you continue to objectify women instead of seeing us in God-form and equal. This is why some of you can confront a woman through social media, commenting on what she looks like, rather than what she is looking AT or trying to achieve. Many of you violate women based on your internal deficiencies and illnesses. The way a woman looks, dresses or carries herself is not an invitation for you to proceed – violently or otherwise. And, ‘single’ does not mean ‘available’.

Indian men: many of you perpetuated the cycle of dysfunction that you were raised with, modelling the role of your own father who was absent or conditioned from his personal experiences and childhood.

Indian men: this is the cycle you will continue with your children – sons who become hardened and angry, and girls who learn how to become doormats.

But, Indian men: cycles can be broken. A new reference point can begin. It starts with you. It starts with talking openly and honestly about stuff that men are told never to speak about – feelings and emotions. I’ve witnessed first-hand the amazing transformations of so many Indian men, who were once plagued by cyclical dysfunction, but who were brave enough to transcend it and pave a new way for himself and his children and the generations to follow. We need to shift into a new way of thinking and Being in this world. We simply cannot operate as the generations that came before us. It is self-evident that they fucked it up. We have to begin afresh and create a shift in consciousness by returning to innocence and purity.

Indian men: my invitation to you is this. Change how you view the world and yourself in it. Let go of preconceived ideas and ways of conditioned thinking and indoctrination. Stop regarding men and women as being separate. Instead, consider all of us to be the same thread stemming from the same tapestry. Teach your sons and daughters that gender specific roles are an illusion – anyone can do anything at any time. Indian men, start believing that a house is made a home by both parties and that domesticity is not confined to a woman, neither is raising kids nor cooking. Understand that women can be the fiercest opponents in business and are capable of running our own finances and getting shit done.

Indian men: understand that violence of any kind is an explosion of the pain that is internal. Deal with the pain and not the trigger of what set you off.

Indian men, the time for restoration is now. The world needs more comforters, nurturers, peace-makers, truth-tellers and game-changers. Indian men, it begins and ends with you. What you do today can alter the course of generations that follow, which collectively is the change we need to see in the world. It’s time to step up and be about something.

Rising Strong – My New Take On Getting Older

My 36^th birthday is looming and with it, the newfound excitement that I have for getting older. Yes, you read right. I am excited to be getting older.

For many years, I dreaded my birthday for different reasons, most important of which was the realisation that my lost youth could never be recaptured, as I inched towards “middle age”. That idea meant I had to finally step up into this whole ‘adulting’ concept, something I’ve waged a war against for many years. I do it grudgingly, and most often, badly. These days, I’ve learnt to embrace being a grown up and with that comes many privileges.

The last three years have been amazing for me from a growth perspective. Some of my toughest life lessons were the catalyst for such a deep awakening, so much so, that I still shock myself with the enormity of what I’ve managed to manifest in my life. This year, reflecting on my 36^th year, I realised that I spent over two decades worrying about what people thought about me. And now, finally, I have zero fucks to give. Zero. I am so happy! I don’t care anymore about fitting in. I don’t need to please anyone except myself and I don’t need to conform to society’s idea of who or what I should be because no one knows, except me, the truth of who I am. Therefore why ask permission? Why ask for direction from people, for places they’ve never been! It’s no one’s job to know who I am becoming. That’s my job. So I don’t take on their fear because I choose to be brave about my life.

When I was 18, I entered a beauty pageant because I thought that would make me feel better about myself. Midway, I lost the lines to my speech and had a real life “drop the mic” moment and ran off stage. I don’t think I ever got over the judgment I thought I faced amidst the hordes of people who witnessed that, neither was there a bigger affirmation that I was not good enough. That narrative stayed with me and intensified over the years and needless to say, I created that reality of judgment and the perception of not good enough was revealed to me because that’s the literal way the universe works. And, for two decades that’s how I’ve lived.

Now, at almost 36, I am finally unbecoming. It’s only taken 36 years. I am finding my way back to innocence, purity, childlike joy and wonder and wide-eyed hope. It’s taken 36 years to return to myself instead of being what the world told me to be. With each year, I become more and more of who I’m meant to be. I embrace the fact that I’m a grown up and nobody is the boss of me anymore. I don’t need to audition for life because there are simply no more judges in front of which to freeze.

I am finally allowing life to live through me and I am finally listening to the call of my authentic self. That for me is the greatest gift of getting older.

Let Go and Let Come

“When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.” ~ Lao Tzu

Letting go is a simple concept. Like dropping a pen. It is, however, by no means simplistic. It is not passive. It is far from lazy or giving up. It isn’t merely saying “whatever” to the world. Letting go is wisdom and enables the flow of love and energy to move across freely.

I am the kind of woman who thrives on extremes. I love control. Letting go, goes against the grain of my neurotic patterns. For me particularly, during times of loneliness I want to move left or right. Over the last few years I have learnt the art of sitting in the middle and feeling what I feel.  It has been an incredibly difficult process of grasping and clinging and only after a while, easing my body into peace.

Most recently, I’ve had to address the aspect of letting go in relationships. Very big process for me. I had a major lightbulb moment when chatting to my friend the other day who mentioned that I am literally too intense and have no idea how to be light. I mother and smother and suffocate. Big, big moment of profound truth. When these things happen, learning is immediate – if you are open to being honest and actually paying attention. The common denominator with my failed relationships has consistently been my role as a “mother”, and my desire to have the love evolve in the way I want it to.

So my recent reflections had to be about the detachment that is necessary where love is concerned.

Detachment here is not about letting go of the relationship, person or love itself but rather the expectations and preconceived ideas that I carry into each relationship. I pride myself on being an awakened woman but relationships always challenge my shadow side, pointing out the work I need to do.  I’ve had a relationship blueprint that I thought I should follow: meet, date, kiss, talk, love, kids and families meet, move in together, ring, happily ever after. This became a plan for me that is actually totally limiting. I have such an issue with loose ends and undefined and indescribable situations. I have this compulsion to know exactly the type of situation I am in so that I can apply the aforementioned plans.

How limiting is that???

Am I not able to love someone and let the relationship speak for itself?

Fortunately, with insight, expectations can change and therefore the resultant experiences.

Today brought a new context. A big, scary one that if I didn’t document here, would fade into my thoughts. My writing cements my commitment to myself and forces me to level up. I cannot profess to be authentic if I write it but don’t live it or vice versa – that is my role as a conscious writer.

Going into a new relationship without any idealised thoughts of what it could be or how it SHOULD be allows for the union to develop organically rather than forcing it inside a box of my own definition of love. I want to love the man I am with because of the person he is without the expectation of him loving me back. To let go and let come means being able to enjoy the moments because there are no guarantees in life. This kind of love is not easy. It forced me personally to sit and call my demons by name – those frightful companions called “I am not worthy” and “I am alone” that rode shotgun with me everywhere I went. I had to learn that these feelings are mine to own. I cannot become anxious or fearful and look to a partner to heal me.

Letting go means respecting my partner’s journey. It means that the relationship cannot be forced. Love must be approached as an offering, acknowledging the sacredness of the feelings we have for each other, regardless of action, choices or results. Letting go creates the space for beautiful new journeys.

I am learning.

Become A Life Adventurer

We are all raised with traditional dogmas that some of us – if we are really lucky – get to unpack as we get older. Growing up, I was supposed to honour the traditions that Indian women are raised with – selflessness, timidity and an unquestioning belief in the methodologies used by my ancestors. The questioning of these methodologies and ingrained beliefs were never obvious, it was more a desire to be more and do more. As a result, I defied convention in often cataclysmic ways. What appeared to be royal fuck-ups to others, became the unfolding of my soul. The beginning of this adventure was always quietly forming, appearing as restlessness and rebellion, all the while waiting until it was ready to emerge. As the emptiness grew, the desire also quietly unfurled.

So many of us play with the seduction of safety. We hear the waves of turmoil rise and relent until we hit rock bottom and our courage gets rekindled. As a result of living through this courage, I have learnt to trust the promise of beginnings that are aligned to my life’s desires. My spirit of adventure has been awakened and I have found a new ease in risk. My soul literally senses the world that awaits me.

I personally never pursued spirituality for spirituality’s sake, but being a life adventurer has culminated into a selfish service, where my quest for defying convention has allowed me to live my dream of being a writer and growing my own spirituality in a way that makes sense to me. We didn’t come here to live someone else’s life. Being a life adventurer is about living deliberately and creating consciously. As a writer, I get to plant seeds into people’s souls that would eventually give them new thoughts and hopefully the choice to live a new life.

This new year don’t make resolutions that are not sustainable. Instead show up every single day out of your comfort zone and run with those divinely inspired invitations to be even more awesome than you presently are. Life is an adventure. Dream big. Where you are is never who you are.

 

Being Brave

The most repeated phrase in my holy text is, “don’t be afraid”. Even now, even after all the big moves I have made. Fear it seems, is the predominant reason for any of us to remain stuck. We all have fear. Fear is necessary in some instances and serve to protect us. In other instances though, we cannot allow fear to govern our decision making or let it prevent us from making breakthroughs in our lives.

We spend too much of time wishing and hoping. Wishing things could change or hoping for a miracle. Fear prevents us from listening to our internal whisperings and longings to be brave and do something different. Those whisperings end up becoming a roar if ignored, and most often that roar happens when you’re lying in a heap on your bathroom floor. Why do we need to wait for rock bottom in order to make that move? Surely the drama is not needed? I speak from personal experience here. Meltdowns happened because I ignored the inner voice and then landed on my bathroom floor bartering with God to make the pain go away.

For twenty years I heard a voice telling me, “You’re meant to be a writer”. I ignored the whisperings until it became a white noise that I got so used to hearing, I lived by its rhythm. Five years ago, that voice was screaming at me to be different, to make a change. I was so unhappy doing what was the “right” thing. It was also terribly inconvenient as I was a single mum with two kids and being a writer was scary. One morning, I woke up and resigned from my corporate career that made me miserable. I studied journalism and got to writing. I was not impressive. I garnered no attention. I got lots of rejection emails from magazines and editors who were not interested in my work. I was a novice writer and made no money from writing. But my soul was screaming. It was doing a dance of joy every single time I put pen to paper. And so I pushed through. And then my blog got noticed and one editor decided to publish me in her digital magazine. Then another. Then another in print. Then another newspaper. Now, five years after those rejections, I am published on many platforms, have a day job as a writer and am now busy with the manuscript for my first book.

Being in a state of flow has allowed me to sit with my fear but not be reduced by it. I have walked away from marriages, relationships, jobs and people that no longer serve me – some of them amidst harsh criticism and judgment. As women we HAVE to be brave. We have to train ourselves to listen to our inner voice and trust it. I know the amount of energy that is required to be true to myself and what that actually means. Therefore I know how hard it can be. I know the struggle of the unknown. But I REFUSE to allow women to shrink themselves. It is not okay to remain in bad marriages or relationships or careers thinking that you will not survive with the alternative. You WILL survive being alone. You WILL survive as a single mother. You WILL survive with less money, doing something that makes you come alive. You need to trust yourself and believe in your inherent strength and divinity and light – something that is in ALL of us. Not some of us.

The thing about rock bottom is, you are forced to get real. And the truth hurts. Badly. But that is how life lessons go. We always know exactly what to do. Always. Our heart and heads are often not aligned, but our feelings reveal the truth. That is the indicator of what is right and wrong in your life and where changes need to be made. We get too comfortable in the realm of “not knowing what to do”, but we always know. Always!

Sometimes that knowing, means you have to risk everything and yes, some people will hate it. Some people will never understand or forgive you. Some people may walk away from you. You may walk away from the situation, whatever it may be, with a battered heart. But remember this, if you are afraid to be true, the alternative is to stay stuck in the same bullshit death swamp that you’ve been stuck in FOR YEARS.

And that is not living. That is existing. It’s time to be brave. The time is now.

On Being True

Can we be true to ourselves even if that means failing another? That is a question that I have been plagued with. The more I choose to love myself and vote for myself first, the more complex it becomes for everyone else. This act of juggling and choosing to serve me or serve others leaves me exhausted, with a dire need for peace. I don’t have the answers so I am trying to sit with what is, without trying to hide it or fix it.

What has come up for me in the last few weeks is that it’s not even the pain that consumes me, it’s the fucking shame. Shame about the pain. Shame about the choices. Shame about the reality and the perceptions. It takes self-loathing to another level and is completely counter-productive for my growth and development. I have to become unapologetic about my behaviour and choices whilst knowing that this will be too much for some people. That I will be too much for some people.

A part of me knows that those people, aren’t my people. I know for a fact that my too much is exactly enough for the right people. For those who want more. Therefore, I cannot become less.

Yes, I’ve got these life experiences and perceived failures that many cannot and WILL NOT profess to have. It is dealing with a past depression that could have killed me. It is dealing with multiple failed relationships – often in close proximity to each other. It is making very fucked up decisions, the repercussions of which, are felt to this day.

But guess what, these are also my superpowers. I’m the canary in the coal mine. My experiences, my sensitivity, my telling of the truth is what allows me to sense danger that others cannot. So, instead of being silent and trying to extinguish my fire, allow the same fire that almost killed me, to be the same fire that I will use to light up the world.

Closure is an act of sanity for me.  It is something I choose to bring to the table of my own healing. I don’t see this as failure. It becomes an earnest quest for answers that often uncovers life changing truths. These truths will only set me free.

I know for sure that whatever this is, I will get through it, because I already have and continue to do.

 

 

Living With Integrity

​I’ve been mulling over the concept of integrity over the last few days. More than just HAVING it, how many of us actually LIVE with it? 

I know for a fact that I like to think I do, but I don’t. Not consistently anyway. And it’s hard but necessary to tell that truth.

Living with integrity means more to me than its simplistic meaning. Often my spirit is nudging me in one direction and I bypass that feeling and go in the direction that puts myself last. And havoc gets created internally as a result. Can I live a life that involves being true to myself fully without worrying about what people would think? No. It seems I cannot. And therefore I lack integrity.

When my life turned a corner, I promised and committed to living with the full expression of who I am, actively participating in life after wanting to die for so long. But like most women, I suspend my deepest desires and needs in service of what needs to be done. That is not living with integrity.

I’m not the same woman I was even a year ago, fortunately. I’ve learnt that only by owning who and what I am, am I able to step into life fully. But I’ve bought into this distorted hype of what society deems beautiful and correct and loathe my aging process. I used to hold it in reverence, marvelling at the gift that wisdom brings with age. Now I look at myself and see mounds of fat. I am not living with integrity.

Recognising that there are issues to work through is one thing. Taking the action necessary is where the hard work begins. Starting over begins by looking inward. Paying attention to the inklings and murmurings. The universe applauds action not thought. Real providence comes from knowing what is the truth of your life. Where everything you do and say every single day shows the world who you are.
That is living with integrity. 

Dream Big

It took me a long time to learn that my own thoughts create my world. The only path that is right for me, is the one that is lit by myself. So I have learnt how to dream big. Dream beyond the sphere of my own limited thoughts and aim for the sky, making whatever I do an expression of the infinite beauty that I possess.

To some this sounds pretentious. But it has nothing to do with having an ego. It is about stepping into and staying in my own light and in my own peace. Something that is a tall order for a lot of us.  Dreaming big means leaving the preconceived ideas of how life should be. It involves the courage to show up and be seen, for what we truly are. In life, in love, in work and in relationships. It is not a victory march. It’s often a cold and broken hallelujah. But if you make the commitment and dream the impossible dream, the world will not grind you under, it will lift you up. This is how magic is done. By hurling yourself into the abyss and discovering it’s a feather bed.

Twenty years ago I had a dream. I wanted to be a writer. I wanted to be impactful and share my voice. I was timid and restrained – held back by what I thought was the “right” thing to do and be. I wasted years of my life trying to conform – putting off the desire to dream big until a few years ago when the internal noise became so loud that I heard nothing else. Having fought to be who I really am means that I know first-hand what it feels like to have the dream come true. And so, even when it’s highly inconvenient – even when it feels CRAZY – I will listen to the voice, and I will obey it, knowing I am a spark of the infinite. The journey has been incredible. Seeing my name in print in different platforms, hearing people tell me that my writing and authenticity has inspired them, evoked a feeling that propelled them to move forward and step into their light…it’s breathtaking to watch and feel.

Whatever IT is. Do it. Today. The universe inspires action not thought. Dream big.