one moment of curiosity at a time

When I started therapy 4 years ago, it marked the end of a period of time when I was posting on social media more. As I do with most ideas that sprout in my brain, I was taking that seriously, learning the ropes of 'content creation,' excited about sharing ideas and facts about subjects I care about, at that time being psychedelics, knowing that the community I came from knew little about it, just as I did and seeing how life changing they could be and definitely motivated by a 'I must yell about this from rooftops' energy.

It also marked another moment, an argument with my mum. Where, in a way familiar to our relationship, I couldn’t contain my anger, couldn’t slow down. Where my voice reached decibels that scared myself. I thought that was my only problem then. 

My lifelong yearning to be mothered better.

My reason for seeking help. 

Not realising that the entire context of that moment was hung between weeks of sharing more of myself online than I’d ever done before. With each post, bracing myself for conflict, more than I knew. That argument was familiar, but the context wasn’t. I was in a vulnerable state, under resourced and unaware of how feelings even felt in my body. Not knowing that feelings are, in fact, felt in the body. I share this story now briefly here, as a preface to my current thought on the matter of awareness.

Which is that, we are at best, only ever somewhat self-aware.

And that this somewhat is determined by so many things. 

For instance, my awareness if often influenced by how well I’ve slept, by my diet, by my moments of connection with loved ones, by my hormones and by when I was last caressed by the warmth of sunlight, by the company I keep, by whether I sense rage in someone's eyes and presence, by how much I'm being perceived lately, by the horrors of the world.

So, back then I took my mental health care plan and fell into the arms of my first provider. A psychologist, I think. A psychologist at first at least, 

and then a therapist

and another

and another...

In the past 4 years, I’ve moved through 7 or 8 therapists, trained in different modalities, with different levels of experience. A strict, older European lady once, then a student psych doing her placement through WSU's clinic and an art therapist at some point too. It wasn’t until I found myself with a graduate Gestalt therapist that I felt like someone was actually listening. I started to feel as though someone could stay with me, emotionally, energetically present, in the spaces where it hurt the most. It's been a challenging process, having to repeat my story over and over again to each new therapist. Each time with a little less hope that they could help. Looking back at that experience though, something happened there that I couldn't predict.

With every word, I met myself, yes. But as I met myself and as I spoke about the ways I've been hurt, voice shaky, sometimes soft with a tender exploration, tears welling in my eyes, other times with a fierceness, a disbelief and invitation for anger to enter the room, I began to see clearly, that my story was just that, a story.

An unfinished story, in which I am the increasingly conscious protagonist. The neverendingly developing protagonist. I know it's just a story because the more I told it, the more emotion and energy I allowed to move through my body, the more I can now retell this story without being brought to tears and without the sharp pangs in my chest. So yes it was through this storytelling that I met little Divya. Through therapy, seeing how much she was screaming from the pit of our stomach up through our chest, using our mouth as a speaker for our pain. Each therapist then, became a landing place more than anything else. A place where our words could fall without defence. Where a cry of frustration could be met with another's heart, modelling how to do this for myself, over time. And eventually, therapy became an invitation. 

Sometimes to climb up a little closer, a little further into my own heartspace. Into the palms of my own hands, which were learning to embrace instead of strangle away my own voice. 

I think about awareness and how 4 years ago I felt aware because that’s as aware as I’d ever been, naturally I feel the same way today but with a bit more acceptance of the truth that I will know better tomorrow and even moreso in another year, than I do now. It's this particular framing which has recently landed me in a pot of gold - the gold being the grace and forgiveness for my own self-criticism. A kind of surrendering to my experience of being Divya instead of trying to submit her into a moral and relational perfection. Not needing to be in control but instead offering myself a curiosity that I've only ever shown others before. I suppose what I do feel in charge of is creating good conditions to support my own awareness. Like being the windscreen wipers of my mind, body and spirit. Becoming a safe space here to explore the edges of experience and feeling, to learn about my tastes and preferences. For extending myself the understanding of being a learning, stumbling, anxious, awkward, loving human being. I’ve especially had to become curious about why I've grown up feeling as if I carry the world’s weight on my shoulders. I’ve had to ask Little Divya to show me where the bruises are still fresh and hold her hand as we cried together. I’ve had to feel my own joy and be okay with looking around and seeing no else’s eyes light up for it, and still believe that this joy was real and valid. 

Lately, I've been thinking about how it feels as though we treat each other like we're in our final forms. I think about my days in school, how the fear of mockery and being 'weird' or different, kept me from a free exploration of this self, of sensation, of experiencing life instead of needing to know who I am and proving myself virtuous. Growing up became so much about being fed others' beliefs and values without the support or encouragement to chew them over and decide on what to keep. In my all girls high school experience, I recall very specific days with the air of competition about who was more mature. Friendships breaking down because at some points I was deemed not so enough. Being 14, 15, in a race to maturity seems crazy to me now, though I can still remember the feeling of important things being on the line if I didn't try to keep up in this arbitrary game. I've been thinking about that because I realised my inner critic often tries to treat myself as if I was in my final form, even now. As if I'm not constantly learning, as if I've never changed.

In my last 4 years of therapy, so much has been uncovered. My wounds, my family dynamics, my roles as a daughter, a sister, my identity as the stubborn one, my mental gymnastics and the layers of turmoil I've made myself comfortable in. All of this work has culminated into one particular feeling that has emerged in this past year.

I am, in fact, an individual. You see, I've been raised under funny circumstances. Inside the walls of my home, a collectivist experience. The 'we' goes ahead of the 'I.' Though concurrently, always trying to; needing to, differentiate myself here.

At home I have been the loud, free (I thought), wild, stubborn limb of the collective, with all the frustration, love and argumentativeness of an Indian family, with a dose of codependence or enmeshment or dysfunction. Opinionated and never afraid to speak my mind. In fact, far too often invited to speak my mind, caught between being parentified while also being treated like a child.

But outside of these walls?

A strange culture indeed. One in which my young brain wanted to fit into. Outside, I've been bubbly, but rather soft-spoken, timid even, waiting for cues, assessing reactions, warm and mostly smiling, sometimes enough to be told I'm being fake, observing, anxious before knowing the word, playful but quick to go inside my shell if I felt I did something wrong.

It's a little hard to explain, but for most of my life I’ve truly been under the impression that we’re all the same. That our differences are superficial and that our shared humanity is so glaringly obvious. While still true, just not as true as I thought.

Since being around 11 or 12, once I began connecting the dots that the worlds outside my own existed in a way that I could learn about, I became cognisant of the sheer extent of suffering in this life. I spent my teenage years reading and researching about animal abuse, from dogs and cats to dolphins, whales, chickens, elephants, moon bears, pangolins and more. So many more. I was researching child abuse too. I remember the first time I was allowed to go to Penrith Plaza on my own, with the little money I'd collected. The freedom of being unaccompanied, thrilling. I never thought twice about why I, as a 13 year old, would go straight to Dymocks to buy autobiographies by survivors of severe child abuse.

Flicking through the echoes of stories, still today burned into my brain. I’ve spent hours researching religious abuse and sex trafficking. Fixating on large scale problems, being buried under the weight of empathy and disbelief. I spent a lot of energy in turmoil over how wars and murder are even possible. Trying to understand.

But I think I get it more now. That in fact, we are all individuals. And that there are enough individuals at war within themselves that they wage war in the world too. Wage war against other people, against the land and the seas and all the sentient beings of this world. They wage war against everything because softening to their own grief would be a death that they aren't equipped for. They spend their lives killing so as not to die. Because their imagination has been so deeply wounded that they no longer see possibility beyond who they've been and the violence they've accepted as their truth. They continue living they way they know best - at everyone's else's expense.

All of this creating a sort of cognitive dissonance for me, needing to continue existing within the reality of being young, of being a child, wanting to have friends, to be liked, to not have to face my own loneliness, to belong. Navigating the harsh politics of friendship groups, racism, testing loyalties, dramatic betrayals. All without the space, role modelling or language to process any of it, topped off with the competitive pressure of actually participating in the education part of the education system.

Never enough moment to pause.

So I write these words now, not as a finale. But as an offering of slowness to my self. Just as therapy has been. A gift of reflecting on how the threads of my childhood remain sewn into my skin and how the clots of my blood are kept as a reminder of where my pain continues to live. This work is love in movement. Love of the world I find my self in everyday as my consciousness awakens with the first purrs and rays of sunlight flowing through my windows. This is love for the girl who was unmothered just the right amount to result in an ever yearning 29 year old, not yet a strong independent woman, but a strong dependent one. These words are also a promise, as I intend to share more of myself online again. A commitment to turning this light of curiosity towards my own heart again and again.

x