About Boundaries

When suggestions are heard as criticism
Followed by gaslighting & defensivism
Criticism could be offered as suggestions
Followed by choice for personal decisions
It is often effective
To speak in languages native
To all that internal wiring
Sparks that have grown old & tiring
Need a lot of space for nurturing
The grounds of self-loving & caring

My internal dialog when this came up to be posted for this week:
“Really is this what you want to post? You have better thoughts, better words, better works to share! This?”
Am I sensing judgment for what truly came out of nowhere and is clearly asking to be the one today?:
“Well, does it even make sense?” “I think so… hope so…it is written and ready to go!”
So here it is. I don’t know why but this needed to go today from my universe into yours. I would be humbled to know if it spoke or made sense to you.

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No Matter What

Photo by Myself

You are annoyed with me
Because I insist on Love
No matter what

No matter what
I love you too
From the distance
We are both Comfortable at

I wondered about these words that clearly chose how I would resume back from my month long blog break. I questioned if this was the best inspiration or wisdom I managed to wring out from all the living I did this past month.

September mostly turned out to be a family oriented month with few milestones and celebrations that I enjoyed with fulfillment. I am also aware of all the growing up that happened for me inwardly while going through life that spilled out into the world.

It is perhaps known to all who commit to their personal and spiritual growth that the immediate signs of our evolution is reflected very clearly in how it affects our relations. The About page of my blog is when I first realized that I am now(then in 2015) able to see myself beyond all the definitions of the relations that I have soulfully invested myself in. Yet, after writings and writings on the skillful ways of relating to myself and others, I am deeply humbled at how repeatedly I face my own patterns of how I live in illusion of what some relations are, instead of what they really are.

I forever lived with the belief that Love sustains all, Love can bring any transformation, Love prevails all, Love heals all …I so badly wanted some of my relations a certain way, full of genuine love and kindness, that I was blinded to the art of healthy boundaries. I had to learn something I thought I was done learning so long ago. I questioned the integrity of my Love. I asked myself – after getting hurt so many times from the demands of transactional relationships, after so many awakenings and poetry, etc. what is it that value you want to show up with for anyone? The answer was still Love. I felt relieved for not losing that one thing that I based all my life on.

My mistake was to not allow the spaciousness that Love is. To not allow space for myself for the Love to bloom in nourishing ways for myself, along with those I insisted on with so much Love. They are literally annoyed and angry with me that I am not annoyed and angry at life exactly the way they are. I had to learn the lesson fresh, crisp and clear that no amount of sacrifice of my love and care for myself, is enough to make the other feel loved and cared for.

Some relations are the stickiest tests of our ability to stay in integrity to our core values of Being. They are an opportunity to me to cultivate the value of Love no matter what. Nobody needs to be held hostage to my definition of Love, just like I do not enjoy being hooked to any drama and games in the name of relations. Love with capital L is unconditional, devoid of any conditions of how it should look like in daily life. It can be as true and pure, even from a distance of time and space, if required.

Loving Note to my dear Blog Friends : Thank you for being here for me as I truly used this break to enjoy free blocks of time along with some joyful busyness. Each time I return to this space, it is with utmost gratitude in my heart. I look forward to making my way to your works that I missed.

Also I wish to humbly share with you this link for a Stress Reduction Virtual Workshop that I co-presented for Brown & Toland’s Physicians Group. The workshop is now added to the library on their wellness page and available for free public access: https://www.brownandtoland.com/wellness I would be honored to know if you were able to take the 45 mins to watch it fully.

Taking a Break

On a Lighter Note …
Photo by myself

Don’t be disappointed
If someone doesn’t understand you

Just don’t go looking for milk
In a hardware store!
(~unknown)

P.S. Dear WP friends, on this lighter note, I am taking a blog break for the month of September …to go to all hardware stores… oh no, not really 🙂 …actually to spend time reintegrating myself, reorganizing life, spending time with family, do some housekeeping around the blogsite. I will perhaps not be able to stay completely away, so might come visit your work every now and then 🙂 Infinite gratitude for your support for Infinite Living.

Note: I had used the quote above in my post on May 30, 2017. It felt good to go on this break with it. I look forward to coming back regrouped and refreshed, perhaps hoping to have touched upon some spaces of lightness and fun!

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.

Sleep Chaos

Photo by myself

Clarity exceeds capacity
Calmness becomes chaos

Dreams keep awake
Sleep alive with dreams

Life itself pulsating, Allow it
To draw you out from within

Float away into the day
It will carry you back

To a good night’s sleep
When you give up the need

Truth & Love

Photo by myself

Truth is a beautiful love language
Love is a beautiful truth

Neither is what we think it is
Without the other

Truth is a beautiful love language and love is a beautiful truth – this came up as my comment in response to this post by Fearless Free Soul, a beautiful poetry and inspiration on this theme.

*This is a scheduled post. I will return back to respond to your thoughts on it in a day or 2 after it is published.

With Love

Photo by myself

Give IT time …with love
Give what IT takes …with love
Give IT fiercely …with love
Give IT all …become love

Give IT space …with love
Give IT up …with love
Don’t give up on IT …just love
Watch IT come back …with all the love!

Sometimes the IT is Love itself, and Love itself keeps unfolding for what it is for us. As I was wondering if I wanted to post anything on the theme of Love on this post-Valentine’s Day Monday, I was moved to revive this post that I had published on February 16, 2017. So I made it into the image above. I hope you like it and look forward to your thoughts on it.

P.S. My dearest blog friends and readers, I might be delayed in my responses and happy visits to your work, as I am traveling the whole week. Yet I will be very much and as much possible present here with utmost gratitude for you taking the time to read and comment.

Trust through the unknown

Photo: Myself

These delicate stalks peeking out from a gap in a fence as if called out to me. As I stood there for seemingly long, in admiration of the beauty and contrast, a lot was being said to me. I listened in.

This was more than a week ago, when I went on a last long walk around my neighborhood, before we went into shelter in place to stay safe from Covid19.

These are uncertain times of many unknowns. Everything is so transient, all that we cling to as normal and accepted, and also all that we are wishing away.  The air today seems filled with gloom, a shift from a fast moving energy of chaos and confusion in previous days. Just like every big shift that shakes the ground of reality we walk on, we hope that this is temporary before everything goes back to normal soon.

There are many including myself who are able to relate to the personal and visceral experience of every habitual way of being gotten stripped off of everyday living. It came with different experiences of loss or tremendous change with respect to our health, relations, or finances. We coped, survived and then thrived as we discovered the power of gratitude for what is present, what serves in the moment, acceptance and continual surrender to new normal ways of being and living. Peace, joy and amazing new avenues of life became available unlike ever before.

These are certainly times when we are called to appreciate the luxury and preciousness of every single thing available to us on a day to day basis. This experience of having to go out of the comfort of habit is now a collective experience and not lone parallel journeys in the midst of dominant normalcy in society.

It gives a first hand experience in how much kindness, empathy and compassion make a world of a difference. It is bringing to the forefront how pity, sympathy and indifference hurts the heart, soul and spirit of  tremendous courage. It is painful, it is messy, it is calling us to tap into our human resiliency, to trust our hearts, to have faith in a higher power and to peer into the beauty of existence.

Something always finds a way to bloom on the other side of it all. Always. Anchored in this trust, I join the flow of uncertainty into the unknown. I stay present to my capacity and limitations to carry this trust and space of peace in my heart, allowing the waves of all other human emotions to pass through when they do. Wisdom of teachers, their work, my personal practice, support from family and friends is available for me.

New amazing normals emerge, miracles and possibilities await to become evident, lot of our imagined and un-imagined dreams magically come true. They do.

Wishing you health, healing, happiness, joy, ease, gratitude and peace _()_

P.S. I am now offering virtual sessions for breathing, meditation, guidance, listening with confidentiality/witnessing. Complimentary offers available.
Please reach out through http://www.yogasaar.com

 

How long was I gone?

Did I go on a long break?

Photo by myself from a personal retreat in 2015

I have been on this unintended and unplanned break from this blog space. Sometimes I thought I knew why I was away and sometimes I wondered why. It feels more like being in response to the Greater Continuum of Life. It is surrender to where and how I am called to be, on a daily basis.

I am so grateful for the loving kind inquiries on my well being and whereabouts. You, my friends from this blog world, are as real a contribution to me as any other. You truly nourish the soil on which I find my ground to be Here.

The beauty of the space I have been in

Photo by myself (unedited) : Crater lake, Oregon – the incredible clarity

I found myself letting go of all particular ways of how I spent my time of the day. It led me to venture into new avenues of life and become more consciously present & engaged in the familiar avenues of life. It gave me clarity on exactly how I am a contribution to my relations, my intention, how my purpose is getting shaped. I kept wanting to be back here in time, I had so much to say, yet no urge to write.

My ability to allow life to come to me and follow exactly as guided from within, has deepened more than ever. I finally feel no judgment over what looks productive, or not, in the world out there. The choice of simply Being, living life without the pressure of Doing, is coming more easily to me. I found myself in a profound wave of contemplating, clearly seeing, digesting and integrating all aspects of my life and being, towards a sense of coherence. It is unfolding in incredible ways. It is amazing.

I feel the process of grounding and the blooming of ease & joy alive in me. There is no rushing about this process. It is slow and luxurious. It yields abundantly with the time and space it provides me to grow and just Be. 

Blog Anniversary

Photo by myself

My first blog post was dated October 5, 2015.  All this time seems to be magical and unreal. I entered this space not knowing what blogging meant, what it took and what could be done with it. I simply needed a place to rest the force that was pulsating within. A trusted friend suggested WordPress, dear husband set up this site for me in one day and I posted my first poetry. The name of the blog, the description of About page – all of it came without any thought or plan. I put my fingers to keys and the words simply came. The description on the About page feels so innocent and newly, deeply meaningful to me today, as I celebrate 4 years of being here, on October 5. 2019.

It took a while for this space to change from a scared place to a sacred space for me. The love and understanding I received from interactions here, wrapped around my heart and helped me thrive.

That was a time when poetry had become a living breathing part of me. Poetry doesn’t visit me anymore as of now. Poetry, as if lovingly conveyed to me that it was time for me to visit life in a different role. I had felt a lot of grief when I thought poetry was leaving me. I even wrote a poem named “What if poetry never comes through me again” (https://pragalbhadoshi.wordpress.com/…/what-if-poetry-neve…/). I did write some more poetry after that as the flow trickled to a stop.

I love the richness of this yet another new life that I am living and also look back at my poet self fondly. Poetry knows the perfect time to come through again.

I trust the process

Photo by Manish Doshi

I am in the process of integrating all parts of me into one self and embarking on this training ground for compassion, kindness, love, acceptance and courage to live with the truth of my being. It does take me through difficult bends, unskilled as I am – they are lessons I am supported and guided through.

Comfort is not a requirement, and joy is guaranteed in choosing alignment with universal humanity.

I now allow all different realities of life unfolding into one beautiful, magical, miraculous tapestry of life and its expression waiting to be channeled through me.

I would love to hear your thoughts my dear friends. I will find my way to your work and get to as much as I can. I truly missed you all. I will post next when the inspiration strikes me again! 🙂

Letting Go?

Photo: Manish Doshi

Letting go of results does not mean denying the gifts of your labor. It means letting go of the idea of what the result looks like. Goodness comes in ten thousand and different ways. We fixate on having it come a certain way.

Be open to receive what’s coming to you. We shut ourselves off from what is coming to us. We do that with our busyness or often with feelings of unworthiness. Always filling the spaces available to us with ‘doing’ and ‘trying’.

We then go into judgment of self, and rest of the world. That is a sure way to find a million upsetting things in our life. Things, not even in our immediate life, upset us. We go about finding glory in all the suffering we endure in all our pursuits.

There are so many things that need not define our life. There are so many pre-organized structures that don’t really work for us. We seem to think it is comfortable to make ourselves fit into them. We imagine it would be our success to show growth within those structures.

There are some given structures that are nourishing to us. Those that give us certain joys, stability and security. Those are our gifts to receive from, and find our worthiness through them. There are some areas of our personal growths that need the freedom of creation.

Be willing to create, express and offer exactly what you want.There are no barriers in the space that is not restricted by definitions. Most things come to us in ways we haven’t ever thought about them. Don’t lock yourself up in finite ways of achieving things.

Keep your self-reflection with kindness and compassion. Have a willing contribution towards your pursuit. Let go of the idea of how it should be coming to you. Letting go of results does not mean denying the gifts of your labor.
This post is a contribution to ForgivingFridays of ForgivingConnects! You will find this blog very inspiring.