Category: Life

Comfortably Numb

by Monika Dewan, posted in Life, Parenting, Uncategorized

Many of us are small children in adult bodies. Exhausted and emotionally reactive. We are threatened at the slightest provocation or conflict. We are choking on our fears.
Pretending to be strong and in-control by hiding away those fears and insecurities that are killing us on the inside. For the fear of tarnishing our “image” that we have so carefully carved.
However, being misunderstood can be seen as an opportunity to love one’s self more and let people think what they want to!
Sometimes we develop immunity to change and self-limiting beliefs and face difficulty in confronting subconscious fears.
Society seems like a monster as it’s “should” and “must” govern us. We get identified by labels and we live in the boxes.

In trying to become all the things people want us to become, we loose ourselves.

Dissociation and numbing are the coping mechanisms one develops while growing up. “I won’t think about it, I will dodge it. Forget it!”, “I am ok”, “I can handle it”, “I am strong”. We use anger to hide the pain within. We wear different masks. We create our personas.
All these have caused more harm than we realize. Initially not getting that toy car or the barbie doll; missing the position of school monitor or captain; being left out by friends, not being invited to the party. Not getting that dream job or promotion or house, not getting married to that person, not being able to live in the country of dreams. So many things we need to feel sad about and grieve. Instead, we push it aside as “no big deal!”. We teach our children to “be strong” and “take it in your stride”!
Let’s break the boxes.
Trying to run away from suffering is running towards it. Being a hero is not about dismissing the hard feelings. It is about being brave and facing them. It takes courage to own up that grief, rejection, loss, and pain. Controlling emotions does not mean denying them. Acceptance is heroic. Grieving is an act of courage, towards not being comfortably numb to being comfortably conscious and receptive! It takes some unlearning to say “It’s okay not to be okay!” Enjoy the song by Marshmallow

One day at a time

by Monika Dewan, posted in Life

December invariably makes me nostalgic. Every year. This year seemed to have halted in March and seems like “March-ember”!  However, the chilly wind, fog, and silence are the perfect setting for nostalgia to set in.
Today my thoughts are wandering to December 2018 when I jotted down my first poem after twenty-something years. It was so hard. My happiness knew no bounds. I had worked many hours to write a few lines.  Writing a few lines, in that mental state was such a difficult task. I was so delighted.

Why am I sharing this today? For two reasons.

Written in December 2018

First, I want to thank those people who stood with me at that time when I was so lost. Those who supported me in their own way. I appreciate it from the bottom of my heart. The inspiration I got to pick up the pen to write, in the first place in 2018, changed my life, totally. I found my voice. Thank you, my friends, for your loving and caring presence and all the encouragement.

The second reason is the journey itself. We need to reflect on the growth as well. Many times we are so critical about our own lives that we fail to pause and look back at the distance we have traveled. As psychotherapist Tory puts it, “Growth is not always how far we have come but also how far we can meet ourselves in our mess.”

These were not phrases. It was the battle cry! Looking back at the poem I can observe that even a 7-year-old could write better. Yet the journey begins with the decision to start – one step at a time, one day at a time!

Dil mange more

by Monika Dewan, posted in Life

(Inspired by advertisement by Pepsi)

Yeh dil mange more, Ahha!
More sunshine.
More Rain.
More Happiness.
More Gain.
More Profits.
No Pain.
A life safe and sane.
But, life is ebb and flow.
Impulsivness, mistakes, surrenders and the let go’s.
Still we try, to be wise.
Many plans we devise,
We polish our appearance.
Make everything so significant.
We disconnect from ourselves.
We justify the delays.
We ponder and we reflect.
So we don’t get in the same mess.
What are the wounds that we hide?
Oh, what all wars we fight!
Because we keep raising the bar…
We feel never enough,
Although we are!
All the glamour we adore!
Hey Dil, why do you always,
Always want more….Anhha?

Will there be an answer?

by Monika Dewan, posted in Life, Parenting
Photo Credit: Pinterest

That window creaked. The iron bars made the rusty screeching noise as a four-year-old pushed and pulled them. It was powercut at DDA flats Keshav Puram. This corner window was her favourite hideout. Swinging there was her refugee from the world. Wondering if those rusty bars break? Her eyes were hazy with tears. Loud silence prevailed in the monotonous night. She found solace in the darkness. Pitch darkness. No scope for shadows. Even at that age, she knew that some amount of light was needed to create shadows. Shadows were scary. Shadows are always scary!

I am an alien. She usually thought. I don’t belong here. Alien? UFO’s was an intriguing topic of debate among elders. Door to the fantasy world for a child. An introduction to escapism. It was a fairytale. It was so tranquil. In a blink of an eye, she was teleported. The cool breeze blowing on her face in the chilled winter morning. Aromatic flowers in the garden. Sun shone magnificently in the sky. Clouds taking different shapes with the blowing wind. Grass moist with dew. The park had small hills. She enjoyed to roll down from them repeatedly. 

As small feet could not match the walk, her elder brother made her sit on his shoulders as they stroll in the park. It was their custom to sing songs. Beatles… “We all live in a Yellow Submarine…”, “Let it be…” Her brother would sing and those words unknowingly started to mean so much to her. Most memorable time of the day were those walks.

Nevertheless, shadows are scary. They are self-reflection. They mirror our own insecurities. It takes a great amount of courage to look at our shadows (self). Being alienated is so painful. Many times one cannot related to where he or she belongs to. Sometimes, without realising, one can live alienated to self. For the concept of self is quite complex. Nature grounds. Feeling of belonging, an identity, image of self. Music is meditation. It’s an expression.

Dysfunction sinks in the subconscious when we are children. We became what we see. All of us felt like revolutionaries at our teenage. Trying to do things our way. Trying to defy society, however, eventually, gave up to the will of our elders as we grew older. 

Today, as I sit to do this shadow or inner work. Those shadows are as scary at 44 years as they were at 4 years. I realise, I still need to be a rebel. Not outwards but inwards. Rebel to my social conditioning. Examining each thought as it rises. To discern how much of me is actually not me but what people desired me to be. It is hard work trying to break the pattern. To sincerely try, that, I don’t give my children the same dysfunction I inherited. And I hope I am not too late. 

Its the journey of unbecoming! Concluding with lyrics from Beatles song (Thank you, brother, for introducing me to soulful music.)

“And when the broken-hearted people
living in the world agree There will be an answer, let it be.
For though they may be parted,
There is still a chance that they will see…
There will be an answer…….. let it be!”
(Beatles-Let it be (link below))

Flavour of Patriotism

by Monika Dewan, posted in Life, Patriotism, Uncategorized

Life keeps tossing challenges at us every day like a ping pong ball. Ping…pong… I can visualize it right now. 🙂
What has ping pong to do with challenges?

Well, today I am writing after a long time. These days usually I have to write reflection as I am going through therapy for my PTSD which is usually very heavy stuff to share.

However, today, on the Independence Day, I reflect as an Indian. Many times we want to do great things for our country. We are filled with patriotic flavour, especially on these days when we celebrate the Independence Day or Republic day or when India wins the World Cup! We as masses are swept in this wave of ecstatic patriotism flooding through everything we do. We go wishing everyone, sending messages on social media, the color of dishes, dresses, the decoration theme of the entire nation is tricolors. Sadly, the wave recedes with the same intensity with which it arose. Within a day of broadcasting the celebrations, the news surges with the usual crime, fraud, corruption, rape, and murder headlines. The wave that seemed to have immersed the entire nation in patriotic flavor dries as if it never prevailed.

So, where is the gap? Personally, I feel we need to be mindful of what we do and how we live to be a real patriot. People who do or have done so much for the country, are the people who live from an awareness of what role they have in the country.
This quote always stays in my mind, I don’t know who wrote this, I often quote it during my lectures.

“Do what you can,
Being who you are.
Be a glow-worm,
If you cannot be a star,
Be a pully,
If you cannot be a crane.
Be a wheel greaser,
If you cannot drive a train!”

It dates back to 2017. Having been bedridden for a few months due to spinal cord injury. I thought I had lost it to life. I lost my job and missed my usual routine. All I dreamt was to walk on my feet, day and night. After spells of crying and helplessness, one day I decided. I gathered all my will power and committed myself to my healing. I got acupressure treatment, yoga, and physiotherapy. My entire focus was on getting back on my feet. I was dreading a life on a wheelchair. Those were the days that changed me in and out. As soon as I was able to walk I started the walk in the park. Initially, I was giddy and could take only one or two rounds of a park. It took me six months to be able to walk as average people did. As I was going through a rough patch in my married life, I was also emotionally unstable. I started going to Sukhna lake for a walk everyday. It took me 1 hour and 25-35 minutes to walk from end to the other and back. Within 3 months my stamina increased. There was an event walk-a-thon( a walk for cause) for awareness for organ donation and as I started walking with the youngsters of college and school, in no time I was at the other end. To my amazement I was the first one to reach the end in almost 15 minutes and was awarded a certificate. I was feeling so proud of myself on my “achievement”.
So very delighted!

As I reached the other end towards the parking, I saw a man who had just one leg, doing push ups. He was wearing a Tshirt with national flag. All my pride was humbled in minutes as I saw him workout with so much difficulty. I have always been an introvert, but that day I gathered my courage to talk to this man. IMG_20200815_163534

I walked to him and introduced myself. I told him I was school teacher and asked if he could tell me what happened. He told me that he was a national Table Tennis champion and while saving a child in an accident, he lost his leg. Now, he represented India in para games, regularly bringing laurels in international table tennis events. He had been awarded a gallantry award and numerous prizes. I would always remember meeting Mr. Mukesh Kumar that day. While it humbled me, it instilled in me, a zeal to do what was in my capacity, giving my hundred percent. This reiterated to me, that living with awareness is true patriotism. Jai hind!

IMG_20200815_163549

My apology as a parent

by Monika Dewan, posted in Life, Parenting, Sad, Uncategorized

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created by Monika

12 July, 2020
Dear Childen

Subject: Your mother’s apology for deficit parenting.

My Dear Children,
I wish life would have been like a Sci-Fi movie, required ‘customised’ software would get download in parents brains the moment a child was born. A software; tailor-made and customised as per the needs of that unique child that was born. A software that would instruct the parent’s brains to handle the child as per his instruction manual effortlessly. And believe you me, the world would be a better place in no time!
Today research has proven that the behavioural issues, mental health issues and many unsuccessful people have childhood issues as the root cause.
In Indian society, the child is supposed to bind and cement the marriage. How ironical that a relationship that two married adults and their families can not “fix” is expected to be cemented by a small 2.5kg bundle of love who doesn’t even know who he/she was!
At 24 years, I was holding in my arms a bundle of joy… I was a mother at that time when I did not fully understand what parenting meant. Then again at 30 years. Looking back is not easy for me today.
Dear children, as I go picking up my scattered pieces I realize that the residue was piercing you. The fragments of me exist in you. With all my weakness as an immature mother, I tripped time and again. With no formal parenting education, all I could do was to experiment with my instincts to give you what I considered the best. When I became a mother I did not know that it is in this role my best and the worst comes to play. I have at times collapsed under the pressure of maintaining our existence, work and attending to your needs (physiological, emotional, mental). I have many regrets. I “could have” and “should have” are many… However today I am writing this apology for having not come up to mine and your expectations and for having not known better. However, with the new realization (acquired as a result of my facing my own mental health issues and traumas) I promise to be more mindfully present for you. Will try to rectify my parenting deficits. This life is a journey and the cycle will continue in each generation. Love grows when we let go of all the grudges and build trust and acceptance. Thank you for being my bundles of joy! May God bless you as you continue to grow into wonderful human beings.
Love
Monika

I

by Monika Dewan, posted in Life, Poem, Poetry, Sad, Uncategorized

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I see shadows big and thick.
They walk, dance and sometimes trip.
To me, they are featureless with no expressions.
To me, they are flat with no emotions.
To me feelings are intriguing and deceptive.
To all the chaos, I am susceptive.
I lack depth and rigidity.
I lack that intensity.
I wonder why I am shallow? Why all my feelings are hollow?
Is it my numbness or have I changed into unfeeling and biased dame?
Why I have to wonder what I feel?
Why do I need to pause and gather my thoughts?
Why I need time to recollect me and retrospect?
Why I am not spontaneous, even to my own self?
It makes me wonder, what’s the way I exist?
Am I a stranger, even to me?
How can I know, what I feel?
How can I discern my own perspective?
How can I decipher my mystery before I mingle into history?

Mute

by Monika Dewan, posted in Life, Poem, Poetry, Uncategorized

grayscale photography of man standing under the light
Photo by Tiziano Pedrini on Pexels.com

Expectations from you ever soaring.
Detachment is what is expected.
Comply not defy.
Life is a game.
Why is then sensitivity insane?
Why is it a weakness?
We are taught to be spectators and just stay.
To be simply convenient fillers.
Be the pawn in the game!
An insignificant nobody!
Too ordinary.
So, they attain sadist pleasure.
Reduces one to nothingness.
The society reigns.
Thus, he call it quits,
Exits the ring broken.
Mute.

खामोशी

by Monika Dewan, posted in Life, Poem, Poetry, Uncategorized

IMG_20200605_124406

मेरी ख़ामोशी आइ पास मेरे,
कुछ बोली मुझसे,
मन की गिरहा टटोली उसने,
सतह: पे कुछ उभरी तसवीरें,
गहराइ मे झाँनका तो मिले लम्हे

कुछ गुमसुम और कुछ सहमें से

इनहें था कभी संजोया,
मोतियों की तरह,
सपनो को पिरोया,
फिर इंतज़ार किया खुशियों का,
क्यों मेरा आज
है मौहताज उन लम्हों का?

समय की फ़ितरत ही है, जैसे बेवफा़,
इन लम्हों को कुछ बहका-सा गया,
काल वक्त ने युहीं इतना मुझे हसाया,
आज यही वक्त बेवज़ह ही रुला गया।

लो कर रही हुँ मैं बीते लम्हों को आजा़द,
सुन अपनी खामोशी के संकुचित सी आवाज़,
अब लौटके जाना नहीं मुनासिब,
परछाइयों से निकलकर, नई दुनिया होगी हासिल ।

Seeking Simple Pleasures

by Monika Dewan, posted in Life, Poetry

images (16)Why do we call life a battle?
Why do we have to strike?
Why do we call ourselves warriors?
Who do we have to fight?
Life can be simple, beautiful yet plain,
Where we enjoy the play in sunshine and rain,
Where we can extend our hand and reach out to our friends,
Where we don’t inflict pain, in our self-defense.

Why by comparison, be a skeptic?
Why, is our reason rhetoric?
In our uniqueness, let us be free,
May you be you, please, let me be me!

Sometimes I think this fight has been planted in our heads,
To make us feel like warriors, to propel us with impetus,
Why in all this we, always believe?
Between us exist no war, neither any victory,
Here, we are all travelers,
Just seeking simple pleasures,
We all have to depart someday,
So, let us celebrate our  today!