Tag: love

  • Judging self into misery

    Judging self into misery

    When we internalise our struggle to the point of believing it to be so unique that it cannot possibly be grasped by anyone else, we give it a power of magnitude beyond the experience itself.

    Misery intensifies the more we dwell on it.

    When we live inside our heads, we convince ourselves that our struggle and our pain defines our courage because if only ‘they’ knew what we were dealing with while still showing up, they wouldn’t judge us the way that they do.

    We judge ourselves harshly long before we give the world an opportunity to judge us.

    We then take that self-judgement and treat it as a truth of what we think others think of us.

    Then we treat others based on that assumption that we made from the self-judgement while blaming them for judging us.

    Crazy, right?

    That’s what holding on to pain or misery does.

    It distorts our grasp on reality because we only find what we’re looking for, while we ignore or dismiss anything that conflicts with that.

    It’s not as confusing as it may sound.

    If you go to the grocery cupboard looking for a can of tuna, you’re not going to notice if you have enough rice left, because you weren’t looking for rice, you were looking for tuna.

    Same with life.

    What you focus on is what you’ll find, and that’s why you won’t see what others see if you’re busy judging yourself or waiting for justice, because they’re looking at your life very differently.

    That’s how we create self-fulfilling prophecies in relationships, or we create anxiety about what we need to deal with in life.

    Step back.

    Take a deep breath.

    Break the routine.

    And surround yourself with people or an environment that helps you to regain perspective beyond what is weighing you down.

    That’s how we reconnect with hope and with joy in life.

    It always starts with you.

  • To be loved

    To be loved

    To be seen… Beyond the facade. To have the essence of who we are, known to those we trust and hold dear.

    To be heard… Not only when we cry out, but also when we speak gently of the troubles in our heart.

    To be loved… For more than how we make others feel, but to be loved for what we need in return, without having to claim it.

    In that order, because a voice without an identity is not a voice. It’s only a whisper in the wind.

    A face without a voice is only window dressing, or a trophy. And not a complete being.

    And love… Love without a reciprocal embrace…an embrace of what we hold within, as well as what we willingly give, is an empty love that taints towards bitterness, rather than beauty.

    Love beyond lust or infatuation is rare. True love is never abandoned.

    I see you.

    I hear you.

    I love you.

    Three of the most valuable gifts you could ever give.

    But, you cannot give what you don’t have.

    For this reason, you must first see, hear, and love who you are, before you will be able to share it with another.

  • Torturous love

    Torturous love

    And so it is…love and torture have always been stablemates.

    Sometimes, without warning, someone enters your life and challenges every assumption that you ever made about what’s possible.

    What you thought you deserved was limited to what you were capable of achieving up to that point, and maybe just a quiet desire to acquire some peace beyond it.

    Until they see in you what you thought was your own delusions, and you see in them what you thought were only your dreams.

    Once you connect with that truth, nothing can convince you that anything less is what you must settle for.

    Settling becomes a vulgar thought, and fulfilment becomes incomplete without them.

    When that happens, the distance between love and torture grows, and you find yourself stretched between the two, with only shards of sanity to prevent you from being torn apart.

    Those shards will tear at your dreams and taunt your delusions until their embrace is secured.

    Until then, life becomes a dyslexic dance with insanity, and love remains elusive.

    (From the archives)

  • What’s your legacy?

    What’s your legacy?

    Live to love, to laugh, and to leave a legacy.

    It is only through truly appreciating who we are, that we will be able to leave an imprint of love in the hearts of those we cherish.

    Until we connect with that gratitude of self, our efforts will put smiles in the hearts of others, while our own faces carry smiles that barely reach our eyes.

    Without such gratitude, our laughter will be nothing more than an attempt to release, in that moment, the heaviness that we harbour within.

    And our legacy will be one of sacrifice and martyrdom, teaching our loved ones to sacrifice themselves in the service of others, while not teaching them how to connect with the sweetness of such service.

    Material success is only a blessing if it uplifts, rather than enslaves.

    Wealth that enslaves is the wealth that strokes our ego but deprives us of the joy of human connection, or denies us the bonds of beauty that feed our souls.

    Laughter should not be sourced from a business deal that outwitted our opponents.

    Such laughter will mock us in our later years when we realise that our fascination with wealth was merely a drop in the ocean of joy compared to the joy that we could have achieved in investing our incredible talents to brighten up the faces of loved ones, or even strangers.

    Wealth is a means to an end. Don’t get so caught up in the means that you completely lose sight of your end.

  • Turning pain into beauty

    Turning pain into beauty

    Shortly after I published my novel, An Incomplete Love Story, I remember asking if I finally had permission to post romantic, or mushy stuff. The responses were entertaining and generally positive.

    The most common question I get is whether it is based on true life, or is it fiction. Suffice to say it’s a dumbed down version of true life, because as they say, life is often stranger than fiction.

    Besides, where would be the fun if you knew for certain what in the novel is true and what is from my imagination?

    There are people reading this who still cannot believe that I am capable of romance. The bewildered look on their faces will always be a source of entertainment for me.

    Don’t allow the opinions of others to limit what you allow yourself to explore as self-expression, or as life goals.

    Here’s a piece I wrote a year ago.

    “It is my grasp on the subtlety of beauty, or the hints of romance that breathe between her pauses and between her aches that horror has imposed. My subject of beauty focused on the horror, while I, in my romantic notions, caress with care the breaths and the pauses, seeing in her the divine where she only sees the pain.”

    Perhaps this will find its way into the sequel of my novel.

    Perhaps the sequel may never be written.

    Time will tell…since time holds the secrets to many joys that I hope to encounter in life.

    When reading the above snippet, don’t only think of someone else. Consider that this may be how someone sees you, while you’re focused on the heartache and pain from your past.

    And that’s what is important. Sometimes we’re so fixated on the pain, that we don’t realise what beauty it has unearthed within us.

    Until we do, we’ll always honour the pain, and neglect our beauty.

  • Release the bitterness

    Release the bitterness

    I often wonder how much good is denied to the world when love stories remain incomplete?

    We often see quotes reminding us that the next great discovery could be in the mind of a child labourer stuck working in a field.

    Similarly, how much beauty is wasted when treasured bonds are abandoned for reasons other than what exists between them? Beauty of which the world is in desperate need.

    Just as beauty is born of love, so too is bitterness born of loss.

    I wonder what of the troubles of this world is caused by broken hearts, rather than wilful greed?

    It is the sense of loss, or inadequacy in the eyes of those most cherished, that our worst behaviour comes to the fore.

    But there is value even in that.

    If not for still holding on to hope, such an expression of rage or harm would not have any purpose.

    It is only when we still have hope of our pain being consequential that we choose to share our discontent with the world.

    Therefore, it is not the raging lunatic that is most hurt, but the silent one who has no hope of being seen.

    Sometimes their silence is the build up to the storm of destruction that they need to unleash in their final attempt to be heard.

    But often, it’s the abandonment of dreams that perhaps the world really needed.

  • That empty bench…

    That empty bench…

    The saddest scene for me has always been the abandoned park bench.

    It echoes with profound intensity the pervasive isolation that too many experience, but too few reveal.

    There is a shame that is carried upon the broken wings of abandonment that anchors us in that space between wanting to create beauty in this world, while believing that it will always be unreachable for ourselves.

    So we birth the martyr within, presenting it as the selfless lover without.

    Being sure to distract others with affection, so that no one notices how achingly we stare at those empty benches.

    Those benches that once bore the hopes and dreams of togetherness.

    Those benches that once were claimed as sacred spaces.

    Those benches that remain available to the next loving embrace between its arms, knowing that once the lovers move on, it will remain, rooted to that spot, waiting to be embraced and abandoned, again.

    Photo credit : Adobe Stock


  • Live, and let die…

    Live, and let die…

    Sometimes, our setbacks in life can feel as if our world is coming to an end.

    In many ways, it does spell the end of a lifetime for us because we reach points where everything that we know to be true comes under question.

    Major life events like health issues that compromise our quality of life, divorce, death, or even losing a job all carry with it an impact that could easily derail all our hopes and dreams for the future.

    Choosing to hold on to the hurt, or the pain, or the sense of loss from such experiences doesn’t change the reality that it brought with it.

    Instead, holding on denies us the opportunity to grow from such experiences, and to continue to build that life that we set out to achieve.

    But what is there to learn from bad experiences?

    More than the lessons that it taught us about the shortcomings in decisions that we may have made, it is only in the presence of pain that the depth of joy can be appreciated.

    It is only through loss that we learn to appreciate what can be lost when we have it.

    When we experience loss or tragedy, or even disappointment and betrayal at the hands of others where we have no control over the outcomes despite our best efforts, we must recognise that it is a moment of grounding that will reshape what we take from life from that moment forward.

    If we’re not aware of the good that we can take, we will remain invested in the bitterness of the experience as we convince ourselves that remembering is the only way to protect ourselves from feeling such pain ever again.

    No. Remembering beyond the lesson learnt doesn’t protect us from such pain in future, it simply holds on to the pain of the past and denies us a future without it.

    Embrace the good, learn from the bad, and appreciate the present.

    Photo credit : Adobe Stock