Our Roles, Relations & Why We Suffer

The frustration of feeling dedicated fully in all relations

This post is an example of the conversations I send out to those who kindly joined me here: YogaSaar

One of the humbling privileges of working privately with individuals is the precious conversations we have:

”I go to work – manage and deliver to subordinates and bosses quite efficiently. I come back home and as a parent, I feel completely out of control, snapping at my kids – their optimism & humor feels a burden to me – all I see is their naivety, they don’t understand life as much! My parents live with me, I can’t make them unhappy at this age so I try to choose what they approve of. I am also managing my spouse’s relationship with my parents. It keeps going – I try to figure how to feel balanced even at home, not to react as much, and yet it just happens”

Reflections I offered during our session:
Yoga is a game of identities – are we aware of where we are operating from? Awareness brings heightened sensitivity. Do we allow the space to understand and deal with that? How can I sincerely have any amount of ease in all my roles? Where am I over-delivering and over-compensating – in my dedication to serve all my identities? Can I allow my kids to have their own journey and be with them in that?

Next time you feel overwhelmed say :”Thank you Mind, for showing me the complexities of all my roles through the overwhelming feelings I have. I got this from here – I need some space, now that I have heard all that you are saying, so you can rest now!
I pull back all energy from where it was excess and shine light in spaces where I wish to be more present, with slowness and ease. I reconnect and recalibrate in all my roles with more presence and awareness and space to Be with. I take the time, even if it makes my mind uncomfortable. I am willing to Do less.”

YogaSutra 2.3 – The root cause of all our suffering are 5 kleshas:
1. Avidya – is like a veil over our eyes, it is our projection of past impressions, so we see things as other than what they really are.
2. Asmita – is the identity we operate with. Here lies the frustration with different identities intersecting – work, daughter, mother, wife – Who am I really? Buying into the idea that I am actually one of those is a klesha.
3. Raga – attachment to a comfortable/preferred outcome, what I would like to happen (in each of the identities above)
4. Dvesha – aversion or trying to avoid something from happening, what I dislike.
Abhinivesha – fear of the outcome
Any time we operate from one of the above we struggle, we suffer. Right action has an underlying peace to it, even if the choice is difficult to act on.

If you would enjoy my writings through the lens of yoga I will be thrilled to have you in conversation. I write regularly but inconsistently. Please add your name here: YogaSaar

If you have never worked with me before, I offer a 3 session orientation package of private yoga therapy at 15plus% discount to discover if you want to continue. Online available and has been effective.
Write to me if you want more information, sign up only if it supports you.

Free virtual seminar with follow up 8 week series (included) on Woman's Health & Well Being through all stages of life on Saturday March 25, register here:
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Until next time, may you be gentle in your being and sparkling from your soul.

Much Love & Gratitude,
Pragalbha Doshi E-RYT500
http://www.yogasaar.com

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Lingering on the Rim

Photo: Manish Doshi, Oceanside Labyrinth in Maui, Hawaii “Am I at the Center or am I at the Rim?”

Experiences on a continuum,
spirally back at deeper levels
alive, raw, intense
Much greater trust
each time around

We keep
doing this
continually,
push the edges
towards authenticity
while keeping the peace,
protecting our sensitivity,
our strength misunderstood.
It is often awful
yet so so stunning
how we keep going.

After digging deep
now sitting on the rim
of another level of depth,
enjoying the breeze,
holding the expanse above
in my awareness,
there is no turning back.
Right here right now
being on this planet,
breathing new life
into every sense of
Being, Knowing, and Perceiving.

Fear and I play peekaboo,
not wanting the encounter
when I venture to dig deeper
seeking a calm quiet inspiration
to be led,
through it all.
Enjoying the gifts
of where I am,
which may be over
this very moment
or may linger on
for a bit more.

Today I wish to give a special mention to 2 blogger friends “The Chatter Blog” & “Dreamwalker’s Sanctuary” They are a tremendous positive inspiration and influence on my trajectory of writing and being through life experiences, since the beginning of my blog journey. The above poem is a confluence of my responses to their posts. If you haven’t yet visited their work, please do.

Of Tunnels, Life & Illusions

The light at the end of the tunnel is not an illusion, the tunnel is.

We parked our vehicle on a tiny street lined with closely spaced homes. We walked along to find a tiny opening between homes. It was this path filled with sand that led to the ocean.

There was no guessing of the expanse to which, that tunnel on Earth opened up. It felt like a magical portal. Especially because we walked through the tunnel before sunrise, so it was dark until we saw some light when out on the other side. The pictures of the tunnel were taken on our way out, so you can see the light coming through the roof made of branches.

This is from our trip to Oahu, Hawaii Islands in February 2021. The experience of being here felt so much like life itself. There is so much intricate and exquisite beauty available that we are actually immersed in when we go through the seeming dark tunnels – light keeps leaking in the form of exact people and guidance pouring from all directions. The sand keeps the feet engaged mindfully (I walked barefoot here), there are occasional pricks to make sure I am present to where I am and also heeding my direction.

Intense times
Life itself
Shapeshifting
Dig my heels
To stay standing
And oriented

Dropping
All things head
Into my heart
So I don’t
Lose myself
In the fluid reality
So I do
Find myself
In the flow easily

Guiding Light
So present for me
In the seeming
Absence of it too
I honor the seeming
Dark spaces
They are actually
Healing forces gathering
Fuel for my
Expansive Being
All that is exactly needed
For ease, joy & well-being

I am amused how this post turned out to be a combination of pictures, a bit of prose and the poem. The poem is what I wanted to post and the rest just tagged along, tugging in my mind to go with the poem. I was happy to see it all seemed to connect well – hope you enjoy this mixture of a post and the poem itself. I am curious to know which part spoke to you most.

What are you really looking at?

I felt moved to repost this inspiration first published on August 22, 2016. It has come back to me to help me look at my own deeper wounds and how I am doing at allowing the light to bring healing. I have had a long unconscious tendency to overlook all that is hurtful and gloss it over with positivity and love. Until the lies to myself stop working, I am forced to face the truth. I am grateful to find the capacity for greater deep dives in the crevices of my wounds than ever before. 

“Peeping through the leaves” by Atanu Chakraborty

There’s an empty glass of water sitting on the counter. It is broken. It is holding together but it has been shattered and has cracks going all direction. I look at it and see just that and nothing else …a piece of broken glass.

If you try to think of a situation or event in life that might have shattered your intact way of being …what do you really think of ? A situation that has cracked your core and wounded you open in places? Or something that has been bothering you very much since yesterday or last week? The broken glass probably doesn’t really represent anything to you. Life is perfect …except that this person, yesterday or last week, did not behave well, had a wrong attitude, did not do exactly like you expected or even deserved. My glass is as intact as ever. Now if I somehow make evident to this person that he/she has wronged me, I can get on with my perfect life … 🙂

I glance up out of the window behind the counter. There is this big vibrant sweet gum tree, always standing tall majestically, un-wavered through the winds and seasons. There are 2 men cutting off overgrown branches. The ones that were weighing down on the core were being fell to the ground. The idea made me feel light. They then raked off the fallen leaves and branches, leaving the ground clean and green again. A lot felt cleared on the slate of my mind. The sky was in better view now that the tree was trimmed.

Looking down at the broken glass again, sunlight now reached through the window and pierced through the broken glass …as if pouring through the cracks …filling them up, making it shine like never before.

I closed my eyes. Trying to imagine the healing golden light pour through my wounds and cracks. The glass became all gold but a dull one …no more cracks. Instantly I erased it and opened my eyes. If I am healed of my cracks I better look lustrous, I do not accept dullness!! …Ohhh do I accept my cracks?!!!

Are they caused by blows caused by other people or person? No, I do not play that blame game in my life. Did I allow those to be caused to me? Was I never strong enough to stand up to myself? That self-judgment doesn’t feel good and hurts me. So I am not going to relate to that broken glass in any way!!!

How many times do we try to mask and escape this way? In day to day life, what are we really looking at? Is it really the person yesterday that has made your life miserable? Or is there a deeper patterning at work here, a deeper healing  that we are denying ourselves? Healing of our health, and also relationships, with ourselves and the most significant to us. So, all that is bare and there, is there to nourish us.

Be brave to see the cracks, the deep wounds, let light enter through them, seal them and heal them. Let the glass hold the gold of clarity for you to drink from it. A crack in the roof of a deep dark cave lets the light in …imagine the exhilaration of seeing your path clearly, when you encounter that crack. What chipped the roof to make that crack, all the trauma that it endured, is just the drama that can become your story, that you might tell one day.

Be wiling to see your cracks …not as some external object or person. Sometimes we have shown such enormous endurance towards something un-imagined, or even unacknowledged, we don’t dare to look back at it …making us cranky at the most trivial though. Sure it is very human and also helpful in the healing process. But really if you see what you are looking at and what you are trying to escape, it becomes a true digesting of life events …tantrums, tears and all that are a part of it. Let it flow!

The light will always lead you to solace …if you allow it to enter you …pierce through you …seal you and heal you and shine you!

The Fear-quake at 3am

Photo by myself

3 am Fear-Quake
Seismic activity
Not plates colliding
More like
River revolving
Not flowing
But like
Pouring
Out of the
Heart cave
To form a whirlpool
In the belly
Richter scale
reading registered
Incessantly in the brain
Momentum of thoughts
Keep pale awake
Heavy eyes
Floods they make
Pulling the river
Reversed
From belly to cave
Heartbeat
Aftershocks
Desolate search
Breath rhythm found
Richter Scale broken
Blank
Lost
Quiet
Grief
No river
Anymore
Cave open
To the ocean
Of Being
Belly becomes shore
For the waves
Of breathing
Vision ships
Awake sleeping
Powerful release
To all turmoil within

Humbled by Honesty

“Brutal Honesty can bring out your vulnerabilities. It is worth it when the result is peace of mind.” I wrote this to myself in 2013.

It had seemed the most challenging year of my life, as I was going through a ravaging health crisis. These words came to me as I was unwillingly about to enter yet another agonizing treatment phase. It was more than unpleasant for me to surrender to becoming completely dependent on others, until I regain strength, yet again.

“Do I really want to do this?” I checked in with myself. Without a pause came a YES! I sensed into how I was feeling, and it was PEACE. I felt so vulnerable to myself even. Because it meant I would be going ahead with the treatment, that too willingly. Saying Yes to an impending suffering by choice seemed like brutal honesty to myself. Why can’t I just deny it and be comfortable in ignorance? I thought. Because I felt the trust, that it was going to be worth it. And it totally was.

It has been deeply humbling how this lesson comes back to me, on repeat, wearing different garbs, cracking me open in every vulnerable spot in my being, everywhere I live in fantasy, everywhere I have a need for some things be a certain way. Though by now, along with it feeling Brutal, I feel a lot of Gratitude. For the Gods of Clarity are inherently kind with the revelations, in my experience.

I have found myself supported in utmost possible ways, before a shot of disillusionment hits me. Resources, divine and worldly, are made available to me in perfect design. I am at times lost in awe of the grace with which I am held and guided through the seemingly unexpected, as much I imagine I could slip down in the pain of another castle of made up reality crashing down.

If we are willing to read closely, there are signs along the way. Only in hind sight are we able to connect the dots, regarding any situation and our own role in it. I am amazed at how much I protected myself from the emerging uncomfortable clarity every single time. Not realizing how many mental justifications and worldly definitions, I keep living with regarding people or situations, that are not really serving anyone truly.

I would go into mediation on a rising sun, an object of meditation as instructed by my teacher Chase Bossart, and see myself sitting in a cave looking at the sun rise only partly, refusing to come out in to the wide open space. While discussing with my teacher I said “there are things I do not want to see, I am not ready for that clarity” That is one instance from couple of years ago.

In the recent months I have shared poetry about being Awake at Dawn, and yet not willing to open the curtains to enjoy the early morning light, wanting to take care of baby Me a little while more. I had been wondering to myself for quite a while why I wouldn’t want to see the light of the day, stay hidden in my cave.

Sunrise on Kauai

It makes me laugh at myself (I will do that only lovingly), at how each time I am shocked at how unexpected something that follows is. I am aware this will keep happening until I clear my own emotional geography at the deepest level that brings me these experiences. It will happen again to show me my ability to step up, in my vulnerability, and integrity. I take full responsibility, and it humbles me. I will keep moving through life with as much kindness to others and myself. This process empowers me and teaches me to live more as myself in the truest sense.

Here’s what I have discovered until now. If there is inherent peace to a decision, it is worth it. It is actually a gift to everyone that you live in fear of hurting. It is up to them to find their truth or not. Fear is a Lie, I heard several times from Dr. Dain Heer’s teachings, and yet only now I realize the extent of how much fear existed in me because of some lies I was allowing to continue. If the lies are not your own to yourself, if they have been coming from other people, they are not going to be happy when you make choices for yourself. This can be painful for those who are as if born with the vow of keeping others happy. Often forgetting themselves in this quest for gifting happiness.

All of this keeps getting much more easier, with quicker recovery from the hits of reality, more surrender with faith to the Divine Guidance – whichever way you tune into it, more courage to make tough choices, with literally miraculous ways and people showing up for you.

Honesty as a conquest is worth it, don’t doubt your own knowing of anything. The peace is not short term. The Peace felt in the Truth is addictive. Life unfolds like you never imagined it to be.

Life Waves

Photo by Arnav Doshi

The process keeps going life beside
you yearn for a bit longer respite
A sense of having found a ground
maybe for a day and yet again slip down
Another layer being called to shed more,
then called to show up and Be more

Allowing lower energy mind games to penetrate
to become like others around to be able to relate
Showing how attached still to comforts of certainty
then suffering for not being your own self worthily

Feel and sense the divide happening
Grief of as if current reality leaving
Comes with having to keep going
while still staying in your Being

Cusp of opening up from the guardedness
feel the transition and rawness
The waves keep coming yes
you hope you can let go…
Maybe this is how it looks like always
you simply learn to breathe better in calmness

PS : This poem was composed sometime last year from my response to one of Sue Dreamwalker’s post on her profoundly inspirational blog Dreamwalker’s Sanctuary. I realized I had never published it.

Layers Illuminated

Photo by myself

My original fear, I forever lived with it. I have spent enormous time looking at it, understanding it. Allowing healing to come.

It comes in layers and layers, tough work this is. Work of this lifetime, scraping down through the bottomless pit. Peeling, shedding, newly forming. Visible and invisible outwardly. Is healing ever done?

It became evident with clarity, it had literally been eating away at my heart, mind, body
and existence. It made me so gravely ill at times.

I am on the other side of it now, the most than ever before, if not completely. I am aware of how it works. I am now able to enjoy spaces of no words, no requirements, no neediness, no projection of outcomes. Trusting all that needs to flow through.

The choices come to me. It is what it is. Grateful for the reminder to me that I Am doing some actual work, that I Am brave.

It is so easy to often feel small compared to the robust human pursuits and accomplishments around. They are all so valid. I forget to find the same worth
in the pursuit as a seeker, to celebrate where I am. Who I am.

Yet I do cherish and indulge in the joyful spaces of nothingness that I often land in.

Love is the way, the only way and always the way. Hate, judgement and separation only creates suffering. Our own choices that we make right here on this planet, our perspectives shape our reality. When we see the death of our perceived reality, feel the pain and rawness, experience rebirth, rise to the guidance of spirit, we then know the difference.

You become the one whose mere presence anywhere would shine the light to this truth. Doesn’t matter who sees it, they feel it and they don’t know what just made them uncomfortable. For it takes a certain journey to know it for what it is. What reality in all truth and love looks like.

I am in deep gratitude for those who really support and empower my process by showing exactly how it is done, own the light and shine it. Their words and radiance illuminate me. I am in awe of their self awareness. They model not only high positive regard towards life but also towards themselves. Give themselves a significant space in this fabric of life. They are a huge inspiration to me. I find all the escapes and excuses not to shine. To stay in the shell. Yet the force is relentless in how it pulls me out and into the Light. So I trust the process. I trust the process.

This post is a thought process that has come from my responses to some posts by Amy on her blog Heaven On Earth. The energy coming through her photography is absolutely that kind from beyond. Each and everyone of her picture is stunning, a pure glimpse of Mother Nature in all true love and glory . My words in the last paragraph are for Amy absolutely, for she has been a tremendous inspiration and support to me always.

Arcane Truth

Fractal Mirror

I am thrilled to share this Poetry in Collaboration with Amber from DiosRaw. When Amber invited me to write poetry together I doubted myself. Yet with her gentle loving nudge, I decided to give it a try. It was a very beautiful experience to engage in, with the brilliant lines she would send me, and I would add a line to it. It was a truly immersive experience, and that too in the very topic of Truth! What a gift, thank you Amber for this unique experience and opportunity! Here it is, the lines in italic are mine, that follows each of Amber’s lines:

Absolute Truth arcane masked in plain sight
Seeking soul Suffering heart Existence blight

Befuddled by the many vandalized paths to know our birthright
Seemingly battered, finding & losing, losing & finding our own Light

Ridiculed unaware by many, revered by few diverging paths of haze
Assured yet doubting our way through the maze

Breaking into the comfort of the unknown eternity to set the soul ablaze
Oceanic waves of the heart to swim through that often rage

The house of mirrors of the cosmos, reflecting Truth in the stirring of the chemical universal pot
Particles settling, soothing clarity descends, buoying up the Light of Truth sought

The Truth may not be as you conceive, before you wake up in the lessons of nets caught
The truth is in all that you perceive, after you wake up to the knowing in your gut

Alerting to soul growth, Truth beckons from the depths of bodily and psychological pain
Returning to self core, Truth awakens to the expanse of the universe and wisdom innate

Truth is the Reality, all else is ignorance, deception, distraction, distortion, limitation and indoctrination and the elaborate mystery we imagine life.

Healing & the Emerging Beauty

Photo by myself

I found myself in this tender raw space of being this past week. Outwardly I was functional for day to day life and inwardly I have been sliding down, what I now call, a healing hole. It is a messy, vulnerable experience every single time when that happens. You know the kind of unwellness that you feel and there is actually nothing really wrong in the present times? The kind that would convince you of your loneliness when actually what is true is the wisdom of being present with the aloneness in this process.

I felt assured that I will be guided and supported throughout. There was something within me that was almost thrilled at this opportunity of cleansing and renewal that it usually is. Knowing fully well it comes with much heart ache, tears and discomfort.

It can get pretty dark and lonely in the mind forest where you are clearing away the dense thicket of old beliefs, tendencies and old patterns. Some are so much our comfort zone yet a source of continual Dis-ease. I am not new to this geography of our mind for how we create our reality from all that we allow to grow here.

Just in case that I don’t lose myself fully in the seeming abyss, I made sure I informed few friends that I am feeling the urge to isolate. One soul friend accompanied me into my thickest and reminded me to remain in this human state of suffering only long enough that I am actually using it to clear out the old, and emerge renewed. The realities that we get stuck in, are mostly created in our mind by humans around. It is our responsibility to change that. She reinforced my connection with this Universe, my oneness with the Earth, the sky, the grass, so I could tap into the Infinite source to breathe and feel good where I am.

I found access to a deeper level of myself, that corner of my mind basement that had long gotten neglected. I had to shine the light on everywhere I was conforming at the cost of being my true self. I had to become comfortable to allow the chaos while I clear the space and make the required shifts to reclaim my power. It can feel very disruptive and scary, but then it is all in the mind. The only way out is through.

Photo by myself

I am amused at my arrogance that I feel shocked initially for having to do this inner work yet again. Judging myself for getting hit with this intense a low. As I watched myself continue to slip deeper, I knew I had to surrender to the wave. I slowed down to the fullest. Giving myself full permission for zero productivity. It is surprising how all the necessary gets done with better quality of attention and satisfaction this way.

No matter who is available for us, these are lonesome stretches that we have to be willing to walk through, without mistaking it for being alone, or trying to escape it. Even though it might feel excruciatingly lonely while going through some of it. How we relate to family and society are constructs of our minds. The greatest support from our immediate family is the space for these individual journeys. Drawing boundaries around our personal well being is a necessity.

I marvel in gratitude at how richly beautiful this life is, how amazingly supported we are. AmyRose a divine friend from this blog world sensed where I am through my comment on her blog and wrote this to me, affirming powerfully –

“This journey all of us have been on is far from easy. We all have our good, bad, and then some iffy days. It takes practice acting like you and not how you have been conditioned to behave. You are fortunate you are learning this now, for the energies are creating the opportunities for you to grow rapidly. Always listen to your heart for it will not ever lead you wrong. You will know when you do or say or think something that is not lined up for your highest good because your Inner Guidance will not leave you alone until you rectify whatever it is that rubs your Golden Heart wrong. Be gentle with yourself ….”
(Do visit Amy by clicking on her name above, you will find her photography, and authenticity incredible at the least! She inspires me, guides me through her work and words.)

Today I woke up with a very tender nascent feeling, as if I had managed to crawl back to the rim of the hole and now simply absorbing the light. I decided I will take a break from my every Monday blog post. I felt exhausted and absolutely blank about wanting to share anything. Then the following words popped up as FB memory, that I had posted on my wall exactly 6 years ago today in 2015, when I didn’t know what a blog meant and that I would be called a writer.

I felt charged with aliveness after reading these words, a bold reminder of how I have been here before. That I can restart small and slow. I decided to put those words on the burst of blooming pink flowers as you can see at the top of this post. I thought I would post just that image. Then I realized I do not want to only share the full bloom of the flowers. I also want to share about my experience of having gone underground into the dirt before I could find my own joy beginning to bloom again.

I trust the process always. It only gets better from here.

Original photos used for above images below

P.S. I am truly blessed to have your comments.
I have been feeling a tug for not being able to visit your work as consistently as I would like in these few days. I will catch up on all that I miss, genuinely my loss as I love indulging in all the beautiful works by my friends here. Much Love & Gratitude.