Twenty-eighth Mandala – Behind the veil.

Behind the veil and web of intricate thoughts and stories, I tell myself, lies my deeper truth.

The intricate web of stories and false beliefs I created to protect my deeper vulnerable self from disappointment, shame and ridicule from protective shield became a prison.

If I can go beyond the superficial layers of desires and values that I believe to be mine,  can I uncover what really lies at the core of my own life?

The process of uncovering the truth is a life project. It requires courage, patience, dedication and faith to navigate through the moments of weakness and doubts. Piece by piece I reveal the true colours behind so much darkness, I untangle little pieces of deceits and pretence and a different picture starting to appear.

“If I had the power to live the life I wanted to live, well beyond the boundaries of what I know to be realistic, almost like if in a dream where even the most trusted law of physics does not have to count, what life would I create for me? Would I fly without wings? Would I travel the world fearlessly?  Would I believe myself as a worthy and lovable person?  Would I find happiness in who I am more than in what I do?

Would I fly without wings?

Would I travel the world fearlessly?

Would I believe myself as a worthy and lovable person?  Would I find happiness in who I am more than in what I do?

Would I find happiness in who I am more than in what I do?

What life would I live?”

Twenty-seventh Mandala – A Borderline Undefined Mandala

A Borderline undefined Mandala.

It is a different Mandala or maybe not. I’m not sure if it is different in a good way or not, but in this journey I’m trying to accept all of them, to bring all of them to the light: the ones I love, the ones I feel connected with, the ones that I understand and the ones I’m not sure I fully understand or that leave me a bit perplexed or unsure.

I’m sharing all because this is a journey where every effort count, every step even the smallest one has a significance in creating my big picture because all my “successes” contain the myriad of small failures and hard work before them.

In this Mandala, like in this journey of self-discovery and self-coaching that I’m journaling through Mandalas, there are different at times contrasting patterns, different stages connected and at times opposing or hiding from each other.

Like this journey sometimes it seems I have a clear sense of direction, an empowering vision of the arrival line, other times out of the blue I find myself lost as if around me a scary forest populated by imaginary unknown beastly threats has appeared, sometimes it feels like I’m expanding beyond my usual self and a deepening reaching the most secret part of yourself. It is a continuous flow like in a river at some points almost calm and shallow in other becomes agitated deep but always moving. And around these continuous flowing of ideas and changes, some very small others more important, walls are starting to crumble. Some walls are still quite high and strongly in place, but the small changes that I’m in my life are starting to bring them down and the lights are starting to filtrate and bring luminous sparks in what used to feel like a very dark night, the dark blue almost black of the sky is fading into lighter tones of blues.

 

 

 

Twenty-sixth Mandala – A greyscale Life Mandala

From white to black and in between a scale of greys.

From light to darkness, all that is in between is also part of who I am.

Life sometimes is a rainbow, but sometimes is made of different tones of grey, but beauty and appreciation can be found even in the darkness and in the greyness if I learn to live and befriend them.

There can still be beauty in what can appear to the naked eye as the ugliest or most boring landscape.

I often fail to accept all parts of myself. I repeatedly try to ignore the darkness and the various tones of grey, naively pushing them away from my awareness for as long as I can. But they cannot be ignored for long and the longer I avoid to face them the harder is the struggle when the time comes to face them because my own life will not allow me to hide them away forever. Some time ago I learned to pretend to be different in a desperate search for approval and integration. The reality of who and how I am cannot be denied for long eventually the effort to hide from myself becomes too hard and a vicious circle of numbing and self-loathing starts. I forget that to be whole, I need to reunite all parts of myself including the darkness without letting it destroy the light and the colours that are also alive in me. I often forget that there is a sense of freedom in being open and accepting that my life is imperfect and that perfection like control is an illusion.

Recently, I sat with my darkness. I had a liberating and hard conversation with it. It was an intensely private and painfully embarrassing honest conversation. I brought my dark and grey corners into the light and for once I let go of all pretences.

Now, for me, maybe, it is the time to just relax into the now as it is, to accept that maybe full clarity and meaning is not possible right now, to learn to love my life as it is right now and only focus on being fully present.

Maybe soon it will be the time for start a search for a more fulfilling and colourful life.

Sometimes I need to accept that my best is not so inspiring and it is still ok.

The Guest House – Poem by Mewlana Jalaluddin Rumi

“This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.

He may be cleaning you out
For some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from the beyond.”

Eighteenth Mandala – The Mandala of Shadow and Light

I forget how dark can be.

I forget how painfully real can feel the mental suffering when destructive voices cover everything.

I forget the power of the fear and of the desire to fade, to run and hide away where nothing can touch or be touched.

I forget the guilt and the blame.

I forget the lack of understanding and compassion I can feel towards this fragility of mine that I seem to be unable to really believe and accept.

I forget how dark can be when a night like this is far away.

I forget how, in these moments, small ordinary troubles feel impossible to face.

Doubts that nobody can solve for me reappear, would the medicines I don’t want to take be the solution?  Is it silly this stubbornness of not wanting to take them and manage the problem differently? Am I actually managing it or lying to myself?

These days are like this. I know that they will pass and the sun will shine again, that I will feel again pleasure and gratitude for the many blessings in my life and I will think I am overacting, that nothing was really wrong with me, just a bit of silly sadness.

Life is made of shadows and light, sometimes the shadows appear without apparent reason because they are the production of the mind and it is difficult to understand and accept that they are real even if not true. I’m learning to sit with my shadows, talk with them and wait until they will be blown away, knowing that they will come back to leave again, wondering if anything will ever really change, but continuing to looking for a path, mine.

The light is starting to shine again, even if a bit timidly.

At the centre of the Mandala, there is a pulsating heart, tears are breaking it, hope that things can change is weakened by the shadows which surround the core trying to expand towards the centre. But the heart continues to beat and faith to exist beneath all those dark shadows.

Insomnia.

 

My insomnia is a sickness of the heart. It is the sadness that I escape during the day, but that I cannot escape during the dark hours of the night, when everything around me is silent, naked and suspended. It takes me by surprise while my guard is down and I am most vulnerable, it shows its ugly face in my dreams and it wakes me up in the dark and in the silence that feels overwhelming and desperate in its absolute hollowness and absence of distractions. It wakes me up, it makes me restless and edgy but without the will to do something valuable with myself too often I end up trying to avoid it by feeding my silly “addictions” that helps me temporarily to numb the feeling, to silence the obsessive thinking. Everything can become an addiction and turn into poisonous and destructive habits, including reading, when it takes over the necessary rest, or eating when is mindless and extreme.

During the day, I escape the sickness by immersing myself mindlessly in the busyness of the daily life activities: some apparently important and other menial and boring. They make me feel better than facing the frustration and sadness of living a life that is not meeting my deepest and truest needs and wants that are instead left unheard and untold, locked in the deepest corner of my heart.  It takes courage to bring the deepest needs and wants in the open air. It takes courage because if I let them out I know that I might have to change my life, break my false sense of balance and safety and possibly let go of something I have built for years without any guarantee of success or happiness. And for now it seems that I am not so brave at all.

So I keep going during the day and barely surviving the nights. I add one day after another to the life that is gone, to the life that is at my back and that is now already my history, and at the same time, I take away a day at a time from the time that is left of the life that is still in front of me, for me, to live. And in this way, I waste my precious time, which is the only treasure I really have and that I don’t even know if it will last another hour, day, year, another decades or more. This is a fool way and the night sickness is trying to wake me up from my numbness, from my mindless living, but I still stay deaf to its messages.

My night sickness is the expression of the deepest sadness of my true self who is calling for my attention, for me to be courageous and make the changes that can free my spirit from this vicious circle of mindless tired daily living and insomniac nights.

My night sickness is a call for purpose and meaning above security and safety.

Sleep will continue to desert me, peace and joy will not come to me, if I don’t listen to the wordless and soundless scream of my spirit that tells me to follow the path of my heart, which is different for everybody and which nobody else can show me, because I need to create it for myself.

(04/03/2016)

Seventh and Eighth Mandala: the Monkey Circle and the Inner Garden Circle.

Last week I ended up doing two drawings.

The first one was a bit of a strange, difficult experience, the result was not having a positive effect on me and because now I understand it reflected the state I was, which was a blurred state where “my Monkey mind” had taken over, for this reason, I called this first circle “the Monkey mind”. It represents the vicious, descending journey into negativity which spiralled out of control and narrowed progressively my …experiences and awareness of my outside and inner world. I didn’t colour it because when it became clear what it was about, I had to take a step back and distance myself from it. Once I realised what it was about I had no more time for my Monkey mind.

Then I started the second drawing, it was a healing exercise, where I let the colours and light grow and expand progressively, from the first timid small flowers at the core to the progressively bigger and bolder in colours of the external flowers. It is the inner garden that is waking up and growing from the soil in small buds, due to become courageous and amazing flowers after a long winter. I can see that the same is happening in my garden where the Peonies, like last spring, are timidly coming out from the soil, where the first little blossoms are starting to grow on the only apparently death branches of my cherry tree and of my rose bushes. It is the miracle of life: birth, life itself and death.

Maria

(20/03/2016)