Death and Rebirth

20-Feb-18 Mysore, India

There is a flower in the garden of the place where I live. It is a beautiful white rose. The first time I saw it, it had bloomed perfectly. It was wide open and bright white. I wondered how come I haven’t seen it before? Am I that blind? Almost every day after that, I walked the garden path towards my room and looked for her, and appreciated her. One day, after maybe a couple of days of not looking, I glanced and the rose was gone. I first thought someone must have picked it (what a sin! being the only flower at sight) but then I looked closer and I saw that she just had died.

Days, or maybe weeks after, I see her again, as beautiful as before. And then I got it: It is just a process. The rose blooms, without caring if any body is there to witness. It releases its fragrance regardless. It is up to us, to me, if I want to notice her or not. Then, as a natural process, after a certain period of time, her life as we know it comes to an end. She can’t live forever, can she?

At first I was missing her and felt a bit bad that the rose was no longer there. Weeks later I see her bloom again. She grows again, and when she does I’m making sure to notice it. She won’t wait for me – if I happen to miss the process, it’s my own fault. She will be herself and will keep on doing the very same thing over and over again: being beautiful and exalting the garden with her presence, and then disappearing, probably so that we can appreciate her more whenever she is there. Showing us that there is nothing permanent, not in nature, not anywhere. And that it is perfectly OK.

This simple rose anecdote had very much resonated within me. It had made me realize that this process I’ve been watching for weeks now outside in the garden, it’s actually also happening inside of me. It’s my own mirror in a way. I’m dying… and taking birth… over and over again.

When I’m alive, everything is perfect. I’m happy, I’m into the moment, I’m able to enjoy and be grateful to life for allowing me to release my essence. It’s not so important who is there to witness it, but what it’s important is that I am being myself. And it’s enough. But when death comes, the full garden that surrounds me suddenly feels a bit empty and a bit darker. Nothing in it has changed, except for me. Or wait… actually, I take that back. If I’m different, the whole garden is also different. Maybe it’s been just a bit hard to accept, to be OK with the fact that I will keep going through this process without ever knowing what is out there for me, once I am ready to come out to life again as a brand new flower. It’s the unknown that is scaring the shit out of me. Sometimes I’m ready for it, naively maybe, but sometimes… I don’t know how I manage. Even writing this and reliving my words is making my chest hurt. It is a physical pain. Dying is very physical, but beyond that, it’s the real death – the death and letting go of the mind, of the ego who wants to control every part of my life.

Dying is necessary. It’s a painful but necessary thing. Otherwise, I would remain the same person – forever. Imagine that. But… Ouch. I didn’t know I had to die these many times, plus the ones to come, and that it would be so hard to let go of what no longer serves me in the Now. Saying this makes me feel like a fool – who doesn’t want to get rid of rubbish? But I guess letting go of the known – that which has been with us for our whole life – it somehow still feels like a loss.

It’s maybe like breaking a foot and using a crutch to walk. It is ok at first, but there will be a time when the crutch has to be let go off. If you don’t, you’ll limp for life. If you do though, it will feel at first as if something is missing, as if you are not ready yet, you’re lacking support. You don’t like it (mind), your body walks funny and probably doesn’t like it either, but your foot itself is screaming: Let me be! I’m ready! (soul). But no, most of our lives, we learn how to walk with the crutch and that’s all there is. We even forget there was a time that we didn’t need it. We claim it as absolutely necessary in our lives that we end up making ourselves crippled, because of the fear of pain, of healing, of the recovery time that it all takes. It is a natural process but yet, we are so scared of it. We unconsciously try to avoid at all cost. Or well, at least I do, even when I think I don’t.

So, for all the deaths I’ve had these last years, and for the ones to come – I hope I keep remembering the rose story. There is a time to bloom, and there is a time to disappear, to retreat into oneself and to gather nutrients. This is the time of transformation to happen, it is the key for growth. So that when the time is right to be born again, a beautiful rose will live. A fresh flower, with no regrets, with no resentments, with no past, with no future. Just a rose, here/now, perfect and beautiful, for whoever wants to rejoice in her freedom.

From Osho’s Zen Tarot

“Thousand and one are the hazards of the journey, many are the pitfalls – and the seed is secure, hidden inside a hard core. But the sprout starts towards the unknown, towards the sun, towards the source of light, not knowing where, not knowing why. Great is the cross to be carried, but a dream possesses the seed and the seed moves. The same is the path for man. It is arduous. Much courage will be needed.” – Osho.

Writings in a New Moon

Jul 24^th 2017 0.00 hours

New moon is here. I have been expecting it for a while. Unconsciously I knew it was going to be special somehow, although I didn’t imagine how. I buried some very special crystals on the ground last night and will leave them to take some grounding and loving energy from Mother Earth until they are ready for their purpose.

I woke up today at 6am with this huge, immense pain in my lower belly. My period arrived and to begin with, I was a bit resistant about it coming in a New Moon because in the last years it had been beautifully synchronized with the Full Moon.

I think with all the travels and time zone changes, etc., it started to move slowly until it turns out that it now begins in a New Moon. According to what I’ve read and heard, this should actually be the period of ovulation, so basically, I’m switched.

I had a strange dream where one of my best friends who has known me for about 25 years, expressed something about me that I did not agree with. I wanted her to change her opinion about me so I wrote her a message explaining her why it wasn’t like that and also making her feel guilty about it. When I woke up, I realized that the thoughts I was having while writing this message in my dream were actually confirming what my friend thought about me there. It got me thinking all day: Where does the dream stops and where does “reality” begins?

Despite the tough start of the day, the rest of it went quite well as I did my best to take it slowly and stress-free. But in the evening when coming home, I had a reminder. A reminder for something very important that I have to do, and was about to let it go and “forget” about it. I was ‘this close’ to ignore it and keep on with my comfort, avoiding any sort of chaos that could come certain decisions that are necessary for my own growth. It was a huge revelation, not because I didn’t know it, but because it came in the perfect moment.

I then had to be reminded that New Moons are Moons for New Beginnings. New Moons are an opportunity to grow, plant your seeds on very steady ground and take care of them until the time comes for them to bloom. New Moons are for INTENTIONS…

And yes, they are challenging too, because if you go through them unconsciously, then unconsciously you will plant unwanted seeds. Or you will be asleep during this very important manifestation time.

I sincerely ask today that whatever is inside of me that does not serve me anymore, find its way out… so that the wishes that are really deep in my heart can find their way in. ❤

Thank You to the souls and events that helped me open my eyes today in this special day, inspiring me to remain true to myself, no matter what.

KNOW THY SELF – A Vipassana 10-DAY Silent Meditation

19-Apr-17. Tiruvannamalai, India.

It’s been a year and a half since I’ve been looking to experience a Vipassana course. Finally, this year the planets aligned. First time I heard about it was by watching an old movie called “Doing Time, Doing Vipassana” which documented the effects this technique had in many of the inmates of a high security prison in India.

I took the course at a new centre in the holy city of Tiruvannamalai in the state of Tamil Nadu, in India. My friend Courtney invited me and without hesitation I said Yes. Now it feels as if I came out of that centre ages ago! It was quite an experience. I passed through so many phases in there – every single minute was different from the other and I jumped constantly from wanting to run away to wanting to practice the technique very seriously so that I didn’t miss anything important.

But before I go any further I just want to give a little introduction…

Once upon a time there was a prince called Gautama Siddhartha who dedicated many years of his life to find himself. He knew there was something much deeper, which he was missing amongst the luxurious life he was living. He was searching for the divine, the creator, the God inside of him. Apparently he had been trying for a few lives already.

So this time he left everything behind to try many sorts of different ways – some of them quite extreme – and realized after all that even though these techniques helped somehow, none of them brought him close to what he wanted to discover. So, he decided determinately to stop them all and come up with his own way: He sat on a tree in the city of Bodh Gaya to meditate and observe the sensations in his body, and committed to himself not to leave this tree and not to change his position EVER until he had reach enlightment. And so at the age of 35, he did. And this is where the technique of Vipassana has its origin.

The main goal… is to Wake Up.

Having said that… This is my story, day by day.

If you’re not interested in my daily struggles its more than fair, so I’ve put a summary section at the bottom 🙂

• Day 0 – Arrived to the center.

I have 2 roommates and the rooms look pretty decent. The beds are like hard rocks, but I think I’ll be ok (how bad they can be?).

A little introduction and guidelines were given to us before we started.

So far so good… I can’t wait for the silence to start.

• Day 1 – Early start, bell woke us up at 4am.

4.30am: First meditation. The technique so far is observing our breath: watching how it goes in and out of our nostrils…. over and over and over again.

7am: Breakfast

8am: More meditation (zzz). What have I gotten myself into?

11am: Had the quickest lunch ever and went back for a nap. By then, I felt as if a whole day had gone by already. Is it really just 11am? We’ve been meditating for 5 hours already!

1pm: Meditation for 4 more hours (oh my God) with just a couple of 5-10 min break.

5pm: Tea time, which is basically our “dinner” made up of a fist-size of beans and tea.

6pm: Meditation for another hour followed by a discourse video about the technique explained by Goenka, the man who has been distributing these courses all around the world.

8.30pm: Half an hour meditation. Isn’t there enough already?

9pm: Individual questions, if any, to the supportive teachers who are just sitting there meditating with everyone, holding the space I suppose.

9.30pm: Bed time (yay!). Finally I’ll get to rest my body from sitting for hours. Oh no, wait… we have stone beds.

Gosh. Was that just 1 day?

• Day 2 – Why do I do this to myself?

I had a dream about my dad, a quite significant one. It’s the second one this week, the first one happened a night or two before coming here, and that one was even weirder. I think they are actually trying to tell me something. I’ll keep an eye…

Skipped breakfast and lunch – which left me with only beans and tea for dinner. The worst is that I don’t really care – I just want to leave. But everyone talks so highly about it! I don’t get it.

I miss food, friends, my own time. I feel like I’m in a freaking concentration camp.

• Day 3 – My period arrived (great).

… so I’ve been lying down most of the day. Skipped a couple of hours meditation and lunch.

Desperation, boredom. Is this all necessary? The day has been eternal. A day here can easily equal 3 of the ‘real world’.

Tea time has become my favourite time of the day. Too bad drinking a tea doesn’t last that long.

• Day 4 – They will teach us Vipassana today (finally).

Probably that’s why I woke up feeling much more alive and positive.

I catched myself smiling a couple of times. Maybe some divine support finally arrived.

I started taking some Moringa super-food powder so maybe it gave me some energy too. Within a few minutes everything can change of course.

The whole day has almost passed and no Vipassana yet. It can’t be true… I’ve been doing the very same thing for 4 days already! Ok relax; you have somehow survived, isn’t it? Lets wash some clothes, that’ll keep you busy.

Moon is almost full.

• Day 5 – Started the day happy and positive.

Vipassana was taught to us last evening and so now I have something else to get entertained with during the long meditation hours.

I have so much energy today – someone give me a laptop to do some work! Or maybe some Rocket yoga? (I wish)

I broke the rules and started writing a bit. I also found some candy on my purse. I will break it down so it lasts for the rest of the 5 days.

Few hours after trying the new additions to the technique I started to get bored again. Is there something else coming? Is this it?

Towards the end of the day something good happened. I had an insight about what could be one of the main miseries I struggle with in my life. Misery is a word you hear a lot in here, since we are trying to get rid of that. Although sometimes it feels like we hear it a bit too much.

Today has been the first day I don’t feel like running away the whole day. Just maybe a few times a day, which is already an advantage.

Full moon day & half way through.

• Day 6 – I had a strange dream about my brother.

Woke up super sensitive and dropped a tear or two, but after a while that feeling left me and a sudden good feeling took over. My humor was notoriously good compared to previous days.

The painful chanting during breaks and meditation don’t seem to bother me today. Must be that my ears are immune already.

For the first time I managed 45 minutes without moving a single hair of my body or having any discomfort. Took a 5 minute break and had another hour of that and then again 1 hour and 5 minutes (yes, every minute counts).

I was excited, but after a bit I got bored and didn’t want to do it anymore. The last hour of meditation of the day, I had to actually be dragged out of my room (argh).

It was a good day after all. I re-discovered something that I already knew but that somehow it was made clear again today; and this is that doubt is really my biggest enemy. It doesn’t allow me to move forward… And this is a big one for me.

• Day 7 – Not many significant or strong thoughts today.

… except that I’m looking very much forward to the finish line. Although teachings say ‘No clinging’, so I’m trying to live by the moment… Omm.

We started using individual cells to meditate. They are ok. At least I can rest my back on the wall, for a change. But – no fans! Luckily the heat has been quite bearable today. The Earth is finally giving us a break.

Today I stayed a little longer after the last meditation to ask a question. I asked how does it come that by just observing our sensations we will suddenly become free? My main concern really, and specially after having worked with a different approach the last month, is that I believe that if we just observe our sensations but don’t look at whatever is coming with them, we then cannot liberate ourselves from it. Is this totally wrong? I told the supportive teacher that I didn’t feel any different after all these days of practicing the technique. She replied that I didn’t need to – that the most important thing is that I remain equanimous. I am super confused. Something is missing for me.

I can still see a full moon on the sky! It’s been 4 days already. What a beautiful gift.

• Day 8 – I notice a calm and quiet mind…

But I have questions. How to remain equanimous? Does it mean I should have no preferences at all?

Still 3 more days to go. Patience my dear, patience.

I noticed today something different at the end of the day. I think I am finally getting that the point isn’t just to notice the differences of the physical sensations of the body, but it’s about understanding that every emotion holds within an internal sensation. And as Goenka said, what we become addicted to is to the emotions, not to things or people, but to the emotions that those things or people trigger in us. So in a meditation I observed that when a certain thought aroused, pleasant or unpleasant, instead of focusing on this emotion, I immediately went inside to the sensation that was coming up with it (pain, pulsations, tingling sensations or whatever that might be). I identified it within the body, observed it and worked on maintaining that emotion – which was lying behind the sensations – completely equanimous by not feeling any craving or aversion towards it, but simply balancing it without allowing it to make me react or alter other parts of me – for good or for bad.

Whether if this is the right way or not, I feel I achieved something finally!

• Day 9 – The full technique was given to us.

It is a cloudy day – the first one that I don’t want to die of asphyxia.

I got to sleep a little bit better today and I can really tell the difference.

During the whole time here I’ve been having these sudden big smiles on my face, which have been showing up while recalling certain memories of events or people I love.

Today the smiles are not about memories. They are just a significant enjoyable feeling of knowing that we are almost there.

• Day 10 – Final day.

Last few meditations and bye bye J The silence is broken, which is the only thing I am actually disappointed about. But this is just my anti-social side speaking. Apart from that, I am freeeeeee! (or not).

Overall

Those 10 days at the center were for me mostly a torture. A constant thought in my head was repeating over and over again: why are you doing this to yourself? What did you get yourself into? Why, just why?

One would think that meditation could only be a torture if you really do not want to look at yourself, if you are not able to sit and watch your thoughts without wanting to run away from them, or if you are scared to look deeper and find the root cause of your suffering. Maybe at a certain level all of those are true for me, but my main enemy during this time in there was boredom. I was truly really very bored.

The first 4 days all you are taught is Ana Pana meditation technique, which is basically just watching your breath – how it goes in and out of your nostrils. This is it. For 10 hours a day you just do that. I honestly don’t know how I made it up to the 4^th day. After that they gave us more little by little. It was like feeding a baby: first giving us only mother’s milk for strong foundations, then some other liquids and puree, and only after, the solids came. I felt exactly like this, a baby in its growth stage.

On the first couple of days my thoughts were mainly about running away – 24/7. It really did feel like a concentration camp for me: having men and women segregation (which I personally preferred), being served the same food every single day, getting no real dinner and feeling so hungry every night before bed, having to listen to painful chanting recordings through the horns, not being allowed to read, write, listen to music, or having any other form of practice, i.e., yoga, stretching, running…

Because of all of this, I happened to nap A LOT. Sometimes my roommates needed to wake me up because I was sleeping so deeply I couldn’t hear the bell. Naps were my favourite part of the day too – they took me to a happy place and kept me sane.

All these first days I was really missing owning my own time, missing my friends, my comforts, good food, a few mundane distractions here and there. Yes I know, I’m naming just material stuff, exactly what Vipassana want you to detach from, but hey, they were really very hard days!

The rest of the days I just felt so bored, so out of energy, so desperate, so tired of having so little rest for my body. Every afternoon my upper back was hurting so much of being sited for so many hours, and sleeping in those stone beds did not help either. I felt really tired most of the time and I kept wondering if I would see some benefits at all after these 10 days? The technique is really good I think, but why the extra torture?

The main reasons I worked really hard to stay were because first of all, Courtney was there and without a word she gave me constant moral support and strength to keep going! And second of all for Goenka’s discourses at night, because when you listened to him it happen to all make a lot of sense. Your questions are answered as if he has heard you asking them. And then you get a kick, at least until the next day.

I am not saying the technique didn’t work for me. It actually did. After coming out of the center my mind had the most still, non-moving, non-thinking, non-anything best 2 days of my entire life. The moment I started to think something that didn’t involved the NOW, which means it was past or the future, it took about 10 seconds to effortless dissipate on its own, bringing me back to the beautiful present. This is really all we have. There is nothing about the past that we can fix. Yes, we can learn from it, but thinking about it and going around in circles is not going to help. Healing the past takes a different approach, I believe. And thinking about the future is so so pointless. I very regularly have these inner thoughts about what am I going to say, or how am I going to say it, or how am I going to react when this or that happens. This is so exhausting and generally it ends up taking me nowhere as the situations I imagined & wasted energy in, are never ever as I picture them.

Life is constantly changing. WE are constantly changing, by the second.

Goenka said it simply: we are masses made up of vibrations, and constant change. We have to accept impermanence. It is the most important thing.

So yes, I had a painful time in there, but I too gained a lot from these 10 days. It took me a while, but somehow I had a glimpse of how my mind can be and how peaceful and beautifully calm that state is.

I didn’t practice the technique enough to say for myself that there is another step to this, which I would think there is (obviously). But still I don’t see how vrittis <the fluctuations of our minds> can be eliminated by just sitting with them and observing, without actually actively doing something about them, with full consciousness.

Anyhow, I guess the only way to find out is to experience it and keep trying, with patience and consistency. One of the gold pieces of advice I got in there from the discourses is to stop expecting something special to occur and just accept the reality as it is.

This was also one of my main struggles. I was constantly expecting a WOW moment. If we really want it, it will eventually come, but at its own time. And our job first of all is to pay deep attention to the changes in oneself, little by little, and to take really good care of the practices and seeds we are planting within us. What do we want to achieve? And does my day to day actions and thought match with that? If we don’t pay attention to this, then how do we expect a WOW moment at the end of the day? It all should start from the seeds. It will bloom when it blooms and the way it should bloom. A good seed, with proper water and good care, will give us a good result. A bad seed, even if we give our live to take care of it, once planted it can only give what it has.

My personal suggestion to anyone who is curious about trying this out would only be: Do NOT believe anything I said, and go experience it for yourself. This is and would always be the only way to find out… Go, live it and discover your very own truth.

And remember, this too shall pass…

 

A Year Full of Blessings, Challenges & Lessons to Learn

Nov 1^st 2016

2016 – Definitely a year I didn’t expect. Looking back at to how it was supposed to be, it turned out 360 degrees different.

It hasn’t been a flowing and easy year for me. Somehow my relationships this year were just out of control. I had and am still having a hard time trying to understand the reason of it all. I don’t feel I’ve changed that much to make my relationships turned around this way from one day to another. Have I?

Since the very beginning of the year: colleagues, really close friends, others not so close, men, parents, sister, brother, strangers… I’m not exaggerating, this year my relationships have really really sucked! Some have turned out great after touching rock bottom, and some are still finding its way, healing with time and slowly turning around.

I know there are no coincidences, and I know there is just way too much happening: with me, with people I know, with people I don’t know, with the world in general… It’s too much to blame somebody or something specifically. It’s the stars, it’s the planets, it’s humanity finishing with our Mother Earth 😦 It’s Karma and the Universe telling us to slow down & re-think the way we live our lives, the way we treat ourselves and the way we treat others.

Also, this year I haven’t done much yoga. I miss meditation a lot too and I don’t know why I just don’t sit down and get it over with. It’s taking way too much energy from me to do stuff related to what I love the most. Isn’t that weird? How do I change that? How do I go back to where I was exactly one year ago, feeling over the moon for how things turned out to be for me after taking the yoga road? Was that it?

Well no… this is now the real yoga I guess… these moments which make you feel like you’ve failed in everything and you still need to breath in and keep calm. I haven’t been able to do that though. I have had insomnia for the last weeks, not being able to shut my mind down (“Yoga Citta Vritti Nirodah” is what I keep repeating to myself). And after spending hours and hours in bed, going around trying to finally find some sleep, I find myself allowing my head to think way too much, sneaking in during a big part of my nightly hours. I think about the past (terrible idea) and I think about the future. I’m everywhere except here… in the present.

It has not been all terrible though – don’t get me wrong. I have been in wonderful places since the beginning of the year, and have met beautiful people too. Thailand, Bali, India, California, various cities & beaches in Mexico, Cuba, USA… anyone who hears this would say I’m just being ungrateful, complaining about my year when I have had amazing opportunities. I am grateful, and I have had beautiful times I wouldn’t change for anything in the world. Boy, I am blessed.

It’s just that for a few years now I’ve thought that it is not too much about where have you been, but whom have you been with in those places & have you deeply treasured them? What have you learnt? What did you bring back with you? Did you do good to others? Did you nourish your relationships? Could you have done something different? Did you take in the lesson? Did you live fully as if it was your very last day?

Samalayuca Dunes, Chihuahua, Mexico

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It is now December 31^st and I was thinking about writing something about my year, when I found the text written above.

I’ve realized I have passed the crisis of 2016, which basically lasted half a year (!) and thankfully I’m now moving on to the 2017 new energy that always comes with a new year. I’m excited for what is coming. Slowly I’ve been able to think a bit clearer every day and I feel that my relationships in general are finally good again (relief sigh….). I can even see the year with different eyes!

Yes, 2017 it’s a new year, and yes it does bring new energy BUT just as we experienced in 2016, a year can bring in unexpected things and unexpected energy with it. It’s an energy that is much stronger than any individual energy. It is a collective one that weights and carries much more than what we can manage.

So, even if this New Year has promising expectations (damn, I said the word)… I will remember that no matter what is happening for me and around me, I have to create my own year. I have to work with myself to embrace everything that comes, to see the simple things and to be able to look clearly at the opportunities that are presented to me, because even in the worst situations there is always ALWAYS something we need to take out of it.

I want to live every day and be able to be grateful of at least one important thing in my day, and to be able to take at least one lesson from it, every single day. I wont allow myself to feel sorry or self-compassion, because I learned that this only makes it worse. I will surround myself with strong and happy people whenever I feel I can’t stand on my own two feet. I will reach out for my loved ones and I will make them feel my love for them in every opportunity I can. I will stay out of the Internet as much as I can, I will stop asking stupid questions to Goggle, which only deviate me from going inside and asking my own soul what does it feel… does it feel right? I will live more in the present and stop worrying that much about the future, which I can’t control anyways. I will look into the future – yes, because that’s me, I create a collage every year of things I want to work on and materialize (and many of those things usually happen!); but I won’t cling in to my plans, and I won’t obsess about things not going “the way they were supposed to”. I will live every moment, take it in, and enjoy the people, the places, myself. I will accept me as I am, love me as I am, and love others, because without love we are nothing but ego, and I am ready to move away from mine.

I wish for whoever is reading this, a Happy and Prosperous New Year, full of Joy, Health and Abundant with Love ♥ We are all in this together… Let’s stay together.

 

Life is better… Pictureless

28/Jul/15

Its 5.00 am in the morning and I haven’t been able to catch any sleep at all. I am in Greece, in the beautiful Greece trying to write a different ending to a love story that begun 2 and a half years ago. I don’t really know if this will be an ending though, we both don’t know – I think at least for this life it will. I also don’t know what it is what brought me here again. We are disastrous together, yet at the same time magic happens around us every time we are close to each other. The sky, the stars, the moon… they talk to us, they find a way to communicate with us and make us communicate between each other. I know it sounds ridiculous and unreal, but it is true.

The first time, the warmest sun brought us together in the most magical day in the city of Athens, on top of Philopappou Hill, where all the forces of the universe where working together, moving us in the direction where we will finally meet for the first time, once again.

The second time, a cold spring in London was easily bearable with the warmth that only a happy heart can bring, an unforgettable week which I can call without a doubt one of the bests in my life.

The third time, the stars where dancing above us in the beautiful Mylos in a way that I have never seen before. I sometimes think they were making fun of us, of our nonsense fights… telling us to wake up! to look at the important things and forget the unimportant.

The fourth time, exactly now, the moon witnesses our encounter, shining brightly and beautifully, illuminating Salamina’s sea and finding us sitting there, on a bench in front of the clearest waters I have ever seen, where even at night I could see the stones underneath.

This greek man and I… The same force that brought us together so strongly at the beginning is the same force that probably won’t let us remain this way. I can see this a little bit clearer now, but I don’t care. We don’t care. What we care about is that every time it happens, every time we meet, the moment is perfect – messy, but perfect. It’s funny because sometimes it seems like we were creatures from different species, two different worlds, cultures, beliefs, passions, language, everything. But no matter how many differences and opposite things I want to find between us, there is one important thing – the only important thing that matters, which is that we are the same soul, exactly the same, broken up into two, sent to different places and periods of time, and who where destined to meet again to change each other’s life forever and to be presented by the most scariest thing of all: A mirror – our own reflection in the other, our fears and desires, the worst of us (well, the worst of me at least), everything that most people are not able to see in us, that exactly is what we show to each other, inevitably, E V E R Y time.

However, humans are a weird race. We are prisoners, prisoners of ourselves. We act like if we have our heart inside a cell, and like that no one can live life fully. We are not able to enjoy ever second of the life we were granted because we don’t dare to unlock this cell, we don’t know how to, we are too scared – scared of showing who we really are to the world, scared of doing something that might not fit into the frame of other people’s mind or way of living.

How can I explain? … I will borrow a little story and it goes like this: Imagine that 2 strangers are sitting right now on this very same bench and they want to get to know each other better, BUT they have this picture of themselves, which they have created, and they are so scared to let this picture be destroyed in the eyes of the one sitting next to them, too scared to let them see that the picture has a little scratch, or maybe two, and that it may not be repairable. And instead of turning to each other saying: “Hello, nice to meet you, this is who I am”, they say “Hello, nice to meet you… wait a moment please” while they take their “perfect” pictures out from their pockets and show it to each other…

Yes, I am guilty too. And the worst is that I not only carry my own pictures but also pictures of how I think others should be 😦 Yes, I have several times played the role of the character from this unfortunate story that came from the mouth and the heart of a man who sees who I am and loves me, despite having showed him the very worst of me, the darkest side of my personality – that which even I cant accept of myself – but he does, because he doesn’t give a damn about pictures – he is beyond that.

Dr. Brian Weiss says that when two soul mates are reunited together for many lifetimes, the feelings and emotions between them can be SO intense that it might just be too much to take. They come to teach you probably the most important lessons of your life, but that doesn’t mean that you are destined to stay together, and exactly that is the most difficult thing to accept, because we have learned to be attached – but attachment is only human, because the soul knows when the lessons have been learnt and when its time to keep moving.

I ask the universe to set me free – I want to set myself free. Only then I will finally start living my life… Pictureless.

Expectations – yours or mine?

10-Aug-2015

Life is full of expectations… We are full of expectations. People expect us to do certain things, to be certain people, to act in a certain way in public, to do what it’s ‘right’ for society in order to fill their own ideals. We all have them, and since we are little this is what they taught us to look at, and it’s ok! sometimes we need guidelines and someone to shed some light from the distance, but it’s just that… these freaking expectations… they are making a lot of noise around me.

I am not a mother, but I have friends with children. I’ve had the blessing of baby sitting for one of my best friends a few times in the last months. I always enjoy these moments as being surrounded by children who are brought up in some much love it’s so beautiful to see, and I completely love it. But, BUT, I also realized so closely for the very first time what a huge responsibility that is! It’s like suddenly your “me” time is completely gone, vanished, adiós. From one day to another your biggest priority in life is your children and the daily education you give to them, teaching them how to eat, how to behave, how to have schedules and disciple, when it’s ok to sleep or to scream or to play, and when it’s not… when to show their anger, when to show love, when and how to control their emotions… Wow, just by thinking about it I am already exhausted.

But even if I would really want to know how this situation is in real life, I don’t actually know (just yet), so I can’t really talk about it. And if you are wondering what the hell all this has to do with expectations, well,  what I’m just sitting down here for is to try to remember: When was the very first moment in life in which we started setting up expectations in our children, parents, jobs, friends, lovers? even strangers!? And at some point it just gets so out of control that this concept ends up affecting the way we move through life.

I don’t know if I’m just going through a time of my life that will pass soon, but lately the situations that I have been into seem a little bit of a test to me: people around me getting engaged, getting married, getting children, getting dogs, getting a house, getting their life sorted. My dear parents and I having fights because it’s difficult for them to understand my way of living (or probably because I have not been able to explain to them properly). And then getting even more fights when we start talking about my personal life:  “Mom, I might never married”, “I don’t know mom, I don’t even have a boyfriend right now”, “Mom, I’m happy! my happiness doesn’t depend on finding some-one”, “Mom, if I marry, it might not be in the catholic church… I don’t even know if the guy will have the same religion as me and I don’t really care”, “Yes Mom, I am 29 now, but I feel young!”… “Mom, please don’t cry” 😦

My mother is the most amazing woman I know and she has been the biggest key to open many doors in my life AND I love her deeply. But I am scared of disappointing her. First, me getting out of a stable job from an investment bank in London – the dream job for many, the dream city for many more… Ok, that took her time (took THEM time, because my dad was part of it too even if he wants to deny it). And now, with my love life not going anywhere at the moment, and my ideas of marriage and kids and families and houses changing in directions I never thought they will…

I wish that no one ever had taught us about expectations. They are just a slow road to disappointment for the subject involved, but an even more painful one for the part that is setting the expectations on you, either consciously or unconsciously. It’s painful when you don’t want to hurt, but still you have to, unless you want to hurt yourself by not being true to yourself. However, sometimes I do think: Is it possible that maybe I was expecting the same for myself in the first place? Is it possible that I am still expecting that and I will end up hurting no one but myself? Maybe that is it, but I guess I will know when the time comes where I have to make such big decisions for my life. For now they are just ideas, thoughts, feelings of how I think it will be. I am curious of how the reality will turn out to be.