I'm embarking on a new goal and part of my mental preparation is reading more meditation books and more yoga practice.
The last couple of months was trying for me. And this May, I'm decided to take a social media hiatus. Although the accounts I follow inspire me for the most, and that I've gained new friends over the course of living my social media life through that platform, I opted to take rest. I feel like I needed to realign myself with my goals and focus on self awareness and care.
I found it difficult to survive these difficult times. I know it's ironic to believe nor rely on astrology to gauge luck or misfortune, but I think the pig is getting its win on this monkey.
There are numerous losses for me, and the year is not even half-way done. Every little thing seems to take insurmountable effort just to have it done and time seems to be slipping away from me everyday.
This May, I decided to be off of the only social media I have stayed with for long. Although it also inspires me in a way, having social media around prevents me from working on myself and towards my goals. I wanted to take time to recognize that I'm broken.
And there, as easy as it may seems, I have admitted to myself that I'm broken. I don't know how, I don't know why yet, but I'm prepared to look inside and have the right answers.
I knew I'm broken when every other time to sit seems to be a drag. Every other challenge now drains me. Days prior to May, I would end up crying because I have no more strength to carry a smile, nor to exchange a horrible experience with a learning. It was all too difficult.
At the end of the day, I was looking forward to a yoga practice, or to a good night's sleep.
Today, I'm writing this while waiting at a very long queue to see my amazing doctor. You see, I have been so healthy that I never had to see him at all, where, I used to be here 5x a week. The difficulty of the mind also manifests itself to the body. Did you know?
So, well, I got sick starting the last few days of April. With all of the struggles, I'm not surprised my immune system was compromised. Been here sitting for 2 hours now with an embarrassing sounding cough, but trying to make sure I endure.
I was reading A Path With Heart by Jack Kornfield and at about 13% of the read, I was so excited because the author was talking about meditation and this topic has really made me fixated on what he had to say.
There was a section on how to sit, what sitting can offer us, etc. I get to the section of "Healing The Heart".
There was a story about a young man in his twenties where he had agreed to have his leg amputated to his hips because it would save him from the spread of bone cancer. At first he was broken and very depressed. He was introduced to arts so he started painting his emotions, how he saw himself. It took him a long while to heal slowly. When he started feeling better, he started seeing other patients who were also at the hospital.
He went to see a singer who was depressed because she had her breasts removed. She wouldn't even look at him, but he had put on some music and he removed his prosthetic leg and started jumping, dancing and snapping his fingers. When the lady singer saw him, she lit with hope and said: "boy, if you can dance; I can definitely sing!"
This moved me. I've long learned to make others happy when I'm sad because it takes my mind off romanticising my pain and take joy in giving joy instead.
But this isn't why I wanted to write. This is, for me, the real reason why I had to pause and focus on myself.
This single-legged young man had a chance to revisit his old drawings and there, he had a drawing of a broken vase, as himself. There was a long black line of a crack.
When he saw this, he said: "oh, but this image isn't finished yet. You see, the cracks is where the light comes out." And he draw yellow along the cracks.
Like him, I want to come out of this broken-ness and see the light behind the crack. I truly believe we all have that capability within us.