Unraveling The Un-Unravelable

Like a million other people, my story can also be best described by this very common old line ‘So anyway, there was this person. Until one day there wasn’t. And nothing was ever the same after that.’

We often find ourselves stuck in situations, stuck feeling something that cannot be expressed. Amidst this, we overwhelm ourselves seeking the answers to how could, why me, when will, what if? The problem, however, is that the answers to these questions are not always comforting, which leads to overthinking, and we end up creating an un-unravelable web of thoughts for ourselves.

 I often find myself in a similar state, a state of despair. I am not even sure what I am stuck into, I am simply overwhelmed by a feeling, a feeling that is difficult to let go. It’s not a big deal though, everyone struggles to let go of some or other feeling, everyone perceives situations their own way, everyone makes their own choice. Making choices, however, remains common amongst everyone. Every moment we breath, we keep on making choices. Getting out of bed, working, communicating, entertaining yourself, all are choices one makes throughout the day. Similarly, ‘having more strength’ is above all a choice to have more strength. I feel if one realizes this, in the moments of despair, they can choose to look at the bright side.

But what is this bright side?

It isn’t easy to stay calm when you lose someone or something precious, especially when you least expect it. In such moments our thoughts get clouded by confusion and disbelief, what’s left is sadness and a tiny bit of hope. To seek comfort in such times, we tend to cuddle desperately to hope, as in the process of losing, hope is what we lose last. But what if you lose your hope as well? In that case, what’s left is a big void. A void is nothing, but an empty space created by things moving out so that new opportunity can move in. These new opportunities then again bring back the hope. I feel this cycle of hope and opportunity is called the bright side. I understand that when one is hopeless it is difficult to identify the opportunities, it is difficult to choose happiness, but ‘The sooner you start looking for something, the sooner you will get to it’.

While walking alone on a road, we always either stress over our past or are weaving possibilities about what’s coming next. If we somehow make ourselves realize that all we have is this current moment, we might make better choices for ourselves. Our current moment is mostly an outcome of the many truths we believe in, and most of the times the truth we cling on to depends greatly on our own point of view. In my experience, sometimes all we need is a different point of view, and it becomes easy to choose happiness. Lately, I am working hard on changing my point of view about certain things.

Know Your Money

 People often debate on the subject whether money buys happiness or not. Money may or may not buy you happiness, lack of money surely buys you misery. Irrespective of the source and amount, an incoming cash flow always gives some sense of joy to everyone, however how one handles this cash flow varies from person to person. No one’s crazy in the way they handle their money, some spend a lot, some save a lot. I certainly am no expert in suggesting what to do with money; I just feel one should know their money. I believe tracking your money flow organizes you in a certain fashion. You may already have enough money, or you might have just started earning, if you are able to understand how you should behave with your money, you can make better choices about using that money, eventually it will start giving you some sense of accomplishment, which helps you move forward. If nothing, at least you are sorted on financial front, you are doing something to improve your situation. One way to stop being hopeless is to start acting upon thoughts. Since money will always affect our lives, choosing to track your money could be the simplest way to start fixing yourself. Whether it’s money or any other aspect of life, at some or other point you would know that you need to do something, but due to any possible thought you might not act upon it. ‘Knowing what to do tells you nothing about what happens in your head when you try to do it’. Start taking actions the answers will follow.

Learn to walk alone

 ‘Your closest friends are the ones you can have a relationship with about nothing.’

The people we surround ourselves with, their actions, and our relationship with them has a lot of impact on our mindsets. A healthy relationship cultivates a healthy mindset, while a toxic one will keep your mind occupied with unnecessary thoughts. One way to build a healthy relationship is to accept responsibility, the responsibility to fix your own problems and maintaining healthy boundaries. Never try to solve all the problems of others nor wait for the other person to fix your problem for you. People often try to nourish their bond by solving problems for each other so they can feel good about themselves. Instead, one should just provide the necessary support so the other person could solve their own problems and come back feeling good about themselves. Your relationship shouldn’t be about being the single source of nourishment, rather it should be a bridge to all the different sources of nourishment one finds in multiple parts of lives.

To build strong boundaries and keep the relation healthy, it is good to willingly say and hear ‘no’ sometimes. Conflicts are not only normal but sometimes very essential to build a strong foundation in a relationship. People tend to avoid conflicts to maintain the peace, but conflicts are not problems that you solve, they are paradoxes that you manage. I feel the best way to manage conflicts is to have depth in your communication. People often prefer silence over communication; communication helps exploring hidden emotions, while silence just promotes assumptions. Assumptions born by silence generates fear and uncertainty in a relationship. I feel no amount of open mindedness can tackle the power of fear and uncertainty. Always prefer to communicate rather than choosing to remain silent, and if you feel you have grown apart beyond repair, then learn to let go. At the end you’ve got to be able to do without people and they should know it. After a certain point, willingness to let go is always better than staying stuck and unhappy, in some bizarre way it makes the relationship more secure.

See You Again

Over the years, I’ve realized I have a habit of visualizing scenarios in my head before they even happen. I felt if I understood the consequences of different upcoming scenarios irrespective of how far-fetched they may be, it would make the reality a bit easier to deal with. However, some lessons have to be experienced before they can be understood. Dealing with permanent absence of someone was one such lesson. In the past few years, I have both borne the burden myself and shared the pain of my close ones while dealing with death. Death always seems far from life, until it isn’t, and no amount of strength is quite enough to deal with the reality. Healing with loss doesn’t happens on a schedule, the only way to deal with it is to give time to yourself to catchup with the reality. Interestingly in this process of healing, I realized that we keep on fearing death like events, but death is what gives meaning to life. The sole reason why life is precious is because we cannot relive it, and this is what makes the current moment so special. Ironically it was someone else’s death that gave me realization of how to live. Earlier I used to confine myself due to the fear of what would the world think of me, now I am trying to appreciate and understand the depth of little things, while helping myself to express in better form. It still hurts though, not mainly the absence, but the flashbacks related to them. I however like to believe if we can be the things that we loved the most about the people we lost, we can somewhat reduce the pain. The point is life can be hard, it can give you pain, we just need to be still with it, eventually it fuels us to do the work left to be done.

Keep on melting the ice

As per the studies, earth experienced five ice ages in its life span. Imagine how extreme conditions would have been that the whole planet froze, warmed up and then froze again. One theory that came close to explain this phenomenon was that there were extremely cold winters and not that hot summers, this means that the heat in summers was not enough to melt all the layers of ice and the extreme cold winters formed more ice layers over the previous ones. What I like to take away from this phenomenon was that in our lives as well we need to keep on resolving our internal conflicts. We need to take actions by making choices and get ourselves fixed before moving on to the next problem. If we do not address our inner conflicts and keep moving on, then our minds will also saturate and become frozen like our planet. Keep providing the warmth your thoughts need to keep your mind flowing with positivity before it starts freezing again. You will always have your downs, but you need to cherish those little happy moments life throws at you. You can’t always keep feeling sorry for yourself. You’ve got to keep going on.