Month: May 2014

Brownness

Zen and Habits

Sanjay Sabarwal

Deserve-our-gratitude-grateful-quotesEnd of a work day, and I am counting down to when I go home and…work out?!  It’s a strange world that I inhabit now.  From meditation, to writing to trying to connect with loved ones on a deeper level, I am now on a journey that I never thought I was capable of taking. I do smile inwardly when I think of the parties I did as well the cross-country trip I took from LA to New York, racking up 6 speeding tickets along the way.  That same Sanjay also did Americorps in Lexington, Kentucky and made some lifelong friends.

There is plenty for me to regret, tons of mistakes I could unmake, remove the hurt that I inflicted to undeserving people. And then I take a breath, and look around me. The quietness of the office with me the only one here reassures me. It tells me that this too shall pass. Each moment is but a compilation of the past, and perhaps a possible future, and I have spent too much of time reflecting and living in the past instead of just being.  Here. Now. So I look up, and I may not be the best version of who I want to be, but I am damn sure trying to not be the worst.

And for now, that’s just good enough.

Brownness

Monday Breath

Sanjay Sabarwal

Monday-Blues-1As someone who has been on a kick of enjoying each day as it comes, as moments to be enjoyed in the present, today seems especially intent on kicking my ass. Rushing to work to do paperwork for a new hire, I managed to unhire that person in about 5 minutes, received a resignation letter from a new hire), realized that the last 2 short stories that I submitted to my critique group are utter shit, and felt sluggish and fat.  for not working out for 7 days (my jeans ripping a huge hole when I sat in my car did not help at all)
For a giant, anxiety choking moment, I felt like a true failure. I berated myself for not doing my job well, for pretending to be a writer, and becoming an obese slob. Oh how I ranted and lashed out at myself for not doing all that I was meant to be, and then I piled on for not doing Anki and Lumosity for severals weeks, and then the moment expanded to 10 minutes of pure self-pity. There was so much I was not doing, and not getting to, or letting it slide by. On and on it went, until I took a deep breath, and said stop. Enough.

A mini meditation for a minute brought me back to the present, to the now. Not to what I was not going but what I was. I was alive, breathing, still married to a beautiful soul, had the luxury of time to sulk, could delete/edit the words, could learn, had amazing friends and people in my life who filled me with such joy and thankfulness that I had to smile at that lousy moment. So instead of it becoming a hellish Monday, it just became a blip of regret. I still had the rest of the day.

And at the end, that’s all that matters.

Food For Thought, Myself, Writing

Not Always So/Empty Hands

Sanjay Sabarwal

Almost every day, I get the urge to blog. Yet it is not always so that I write. I  can’t remember how many blog posts  I have written in my head. I often wish for a machine that could just transcribe directly from my brain on to paper. I am pretty sure I am not the only one to fantasize about that.The worst is when I get ideas for a stories or essays, and in that one magical few moments, I can see the entire thing already completed. And then the next moment, poof, it’s gone. Sometimes my brain is smart enough to jot the idea down in my phone, but after a few days when I look at those words, it’s like they are gibberish. Yet the urge to write keeps striking, and so many days have gone by that it no longer made sense to wait. So even though life is not always so, today I am going to attempt to make sense of some of my thoughts.

So much has happened this past month. A good friend recently put together a great event called “The Empty Hands” tour.  When first approached about it, and after listening to the video that was created, I knew I had to attend. The concept was simple. A listening party at a generous friends place along with mini stories about gratitude, love, and forgiveness. The concept riveted me. Nimo Patel (formerly of the desi hip hop group Karmacy) has been living in India for almost 7 year now, and although he thought he was done with music, his experiences at Manav Sadhna struck the creative chord. I am going to admit, the old me would have dismissed all this as hokey and too New Age crap, but Nimo’s sincerity is not only infectious, it is inspiring. It is rare to find so many like-minded at the event who gave them time, attention and love all in the name of being better.

I cringe at the my inability to share the joy and admiration I felt to be part of that event, yet here I am trying. I am learning that is it not always so that life will be as one pictures it. It is not always so when the day will go as planned or the people in our life will treat us the way we wish to be treated. All we have are moments of the present to enjoy what’s out there. So New Age Sanjay says  that while sometimes it may feel or look like you are holding nothing in your hands, that is they are empty, but often than not, they carry our hopes and wishes as well as gratitude.