There is an Amazon Prime original series called “Four more shots please” about the lives of four female friends. In the first episode of season 2, one of the girls says, “The path to Self-Love is via Self-Hate”. Quite a thought-provoking dialogue! It got me thinking about my own journey and lessons learnt on my spiritual path.
Sharing my journey on a blog feels like I’m revealing too much, but then again, I see so many people across all age groups, grappling with this concept, that maybe reading about my journey might help them a little bit. However, this isn’t going to be a sob fest! Apologies for the length in advance since my mom keeps asking me to give examples!
Stage 1: Validation – In an Indian family set-up, family members rarely speak about their feelings with one another. For example, in the west parents try to explain the reasoning behind most actions to their kids like don’t go near the stove as you will risk burning yourself; whereas Indian parents will just yell “Step out of the kitchen at once”. That’s it, no more explanation, so if you listened, you were labelled as an obedient child. I do believe that this does hamper the curiosity in a child since it is met with hurtful feelings including shame of being scolded at. Anyways, so growing up I honestly believed that I was the only one with feelings and the rest of them merely responded to the way I behaved. It was lonely as I did not really understand what the hell was going on and how was I supposed to behave, so I turned to seeking validation from others. This was the time before social media when even having a mobile was a big thing. Validation did not mean compliments only; it would even simply mean obtaining a reaction at times. All I wanted was for to be accepted by others. Since my normal behaviour got no response, I would do things differently than others just to be special and in hindsight I was quite a weirdo! I even had a short phase of walking like a man! LOL
Stage 2: Self-hate – Well hate is too strong a word, however I did feel something was totally messed up with me! Obviously, I did not receive approval for my weird behaviour, and this led me to some sort of depression. In my teens, I was a funny looking overweight nerd kid. I wanted a change of scenery, so I convinced my parents to send me to a boarding school in India. What a crappy decision but I don’t regret it since I learned a lot. There, I was not only mocked by kids but by elders too. My dormitory matron told me that I had legs of an elephant! To a 13-year old girl, that was devastating! And to top it all, I also communicated telepathically with intangible objects. What baloney right? Ironically these intangible objects seemed like the only sane people around!
Stage 3: Self-assurance – I practically ran away from that school and went back to live with my parents in Lagos. I also shared my weird ability with my mom, turns out she does it too! So at least I got the confirmation that I wasn’t crazy. She introduced me to spirituality and at age 15, I read the “Autobiography of a Yogi”. That book gave me confidence and taught me that this ability is just a side effect of the spiritual path. I tried to discuss spirituality with some of my peers, but I was completely shunned out. Since I did not want to be treated as an outcaste by the few people I called as my friends, I kept spirituality all to myself! Point to be noted, like most teenagers, my friends were those who gave me validation in the material world; not really a strong foundation for friendship. On the other hand, spirituality became my anchor in life and to this date it is still!
Stage 4: Self-love – Spirituality made me aware of my feelings & thoughts. I knew how I wanted to be treated, however I was still dealing with a lot of difficult people. Then I stumbled upon the concept of types of traits of people, like sociopath, psychopath, narcissist etc. I did some seriously detailed research on this. I related to all those quotes about toxic people in your life and blamed them for everything. I started identifying people to decide whether this person stays in or out of my life. I behaved however I wanted to, and if those people did not fit in, I cut them off. I ended up cutting a lot of people out of my life, however I still wasn’t content.
Stage 5: Boundaries – I was non-confrontational, so I couldn’t respond when people said mean things to me. Also cutting off people did not seem like a sustainable solution to me. It was a wake-up call when one of my closest friends, body shamed me while I was sharing my other troubles with her. It hurt me way too much as I was unable to comprehend how someone so close could behave like that. It took a while to realise that no person is black or white, everyone is just grey! The shade of grey just depends on how you are perceived by that person. The direction of light source has an impact too, which is nothing other than circumstances of the situation. I realised that no blood relation or friendship is immune to unpleasant situations. I realised that setting boundaries in every relationship is a must. Also disapproving intentional or non-intentional unpleasant behaviour at its first or second instance itself is utmost important. There are still so many people in my life who think it is okay to behave with me the way they do because I did not stop them earlier. Well what to do, we live in a society and I haven’t renounced the material world yet! LOL
Stage 6: Empathy – This is by far the most important stage, since most people think that the previous stage is the final stage. So how did I stumble on to this stage? Well I wasn’t convinced with my way of dealing with relationships since it mostly involved being judgemental of others. One of the fundamentals of spirituality is unconditional love to all! How is this even possible when you are judging others and intuitively guarding yourself from the possible behaviours of such people? I had started doing a lot of inward work on my spiritual path which involved watching my own feelings and actions. I was also keenly observing the interactions between people around me with an unbiased opinion. I started seeing the cause & effect of all actions. The fundamental reality is everyone is doing the best they can, and a lot of their actions are impacted by their environment, then who are we to judge? And finally, the most important realisation; there are toxic relationships/ circumstances, not toxic people! So even my existence too is toxic for some people! Since I’m on the path of Truth, majority of it now is unintentional! For example- Simply the material things I possess may turn another person green. So now what do I do? While I most definitely maintain a distance from relationships that are toxic either way, I deeply empathise with such people in my thoughts. Empathy for me key for unconditional love!
I won’t say that my behaviour is idealistic, however I’m still trying my best. People who have read my previous blogs may understand the change in me and my writing. I would also like to highlight a few additional lessons I learnt while observing others.
- Most people are experiencing a mix of the stages simultaneously. For example, some people do practice self-love in the form self-care, however they still seek validation.
- Social media has become the platform for validation. I have limited presence on social media, and I only became active on Instagram last year. I too love the validation received there, however my self worth isn’t impacted by it.
- Disclaimer: this point is only applicable to personal relationships. The victim card is something that deeply troubles me. It is not to be confused with just blaming others. It is when a person presents themselves as a victim to others to gain sympathy. I say this with deep empathy that such people only want love but confuse it with sympathy.
Does this all mean that I only hang out with people who are sweet natured in general or on the spiritual path? On the contrary, I enjoy the company of people who aren’t people pleasers and atheists or nihilists. Both types of people are extremely aware of their feelings and actions. One of my closest friends is a classic example of the former category. Sometime back, he informed me that he was in a causal relationship with a school friend with whom he had recently reunited. However, it was only after some time that he got to know that she was already married, and he was party to infidelity out of sheer ignorance! Although he did not end that relationship immediately, he now makes elaborate plans only for his second wedding even though he hasn’t been married even once! He expects karma to take revenge on his first marriage. Point is, he is aware of his actions, does not bother being victimized and understands that there might be repercussions. This awareness itself makes his life more fulfilling for him.
The latter category of people who identify themselves as atheists or nihilists are people who have given all kinds of philosophies a serious thought. It is these kinds of people who make the most disciplined spiritualists. Conversations with them make me unlearn a lot of conditioning I have gone through.
My takeaway for people is not to propagate spirituality but it is to find your own relationship with yourself. Faith is just an anchor. One of the best advices given by Japanese poet Matsuo Basho, “Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Seek what they sought.”
Insanely Spellbound 