Mindfulness Challenge

Source: thepathway2success.com

Few days back I finished a 21 day mindfulness challenge. 

I always wanted to do a course on mindfulness, having read so much literature around it. So when the 21 Day Challenge was organised free, thanks to the Wellbeing movement - I jumped in and joined on the 9th day. 

I could not do all the 21 day prompts - because I realised that many of the activities were something I picked up as part of my DIY in the last few years & have been doing it off and on. I focused on stress / anxiety release, focusing on breath and a few others - which were in the  form of guided meditation. I have been using the app CALM for 10 years listening to London English so it was a good change to listen to Sumati in Indian English & she has a beautiful & soothing voice which envelops you as you put on your headphones.

From a framework perspective,

Everyone is clear on What ? (Mindfulness & Meditation is needed to be calm). How ? is where everyone struggles. How to be mindful. How to do deep listening ? How to control anger ? How to be more compassionate?

The 21 days challenge clarified 3 things to me:

One, it establishes the fact that it’s not 1 thing, it’s an essential ingredient in everything. Morning Walk, eating, bathing, listening in addition to the mindful practices like meditation to release stress / anxiety or meditation to focus on breath. 

2nd, With so much literature / videos / opinions we should not get overwhelmed (I was) - start small & do it. I will do some of the 21 day activities but 1 thing I have taken up as a challenge is for the month of June - every day I will do a 10 mnt anxiety meditation in the evening after work & before I go to sleep.

Lastly it helps us understand that mindfulness is not a magic wand - we have to practise it daily and every moment till the last breath. 

Even at 87, the Dalai Lama gets up at 4 and practices.

How old are you ?   

Postscript: I liked this simple article which captures many of the things we learnt in the last 21 days. https://www.thepathway2success.com/12-simple-ways-to-practice-mindfulness/

Where the crawdads sing

It’s a beautiful story which follows an abandoned yet defiant girl, Kya, who raises herself to adulthood in a North Carolina marshland, becoming a naturalist in the process. 

The storyline of Kya growing up in a marshland all on her own, observing birds & animals, noting and drawing them or collecting feathers, shells which line up her house in marshes echoed with my vision of learning. 

One of the main reasons for sending my children to Rishi Valley school was to be surrounded by nature - not as exotic as the marshlands of Carolina 🙂 but equally interesting with all kinds of birds & reptiles around them. 

What I liked is the power of observation and deep observation over a period of time which was the natural thing most of my earlier generations did and survived on. They could predict natural phenomena like rain or ripening of fruits or crop yield just by observing weather patterns. Our understanding of nature came from living with it. As we moved to the city we moved completely away from nature & got detached from the soil. 

The movie is also classified as a murder mystery which runs parallel to Kya’s journey - there is a beautiful twist which came as a surprise to many of us. After seeing one goes away thinking it’s a true story. But it is not a true story but an adaptation of a bestselling book by the same name. 

But these 300 year old marshlands are in danger, see the video here (https://www.pbsnc.org/blogs/science/vanishing-north-carolina-wetlands/ ) 

Very similar to the mangroves in Andaman where few islands have already disappeared and many more will go down under if the sea level rises. 

Read this beautiful article on migrating birds at the edge of Mumbai & the danger they are facing due to over development. https://mumbai.citizenmatters.in/chanakya-wetlands-in-the-pink-or-on-the-brink-50727

Being a caregiver - 2

Venice - Some day Soon :)

The weather in Bangalore is at its best now which is just before the monsoon rains come in. From where I sit, I can feel a cold breeze, the sun is not yet up but there is light and if you observe closely you can see the intensity change very slowly. Birds of all kinds are the most active flying, chirping, searching for their food & animals not seen by us but foraging for food under bushes or trees. Sometimes I hear the koyal kooing. It’s a beautiful medley of nature in the midst of a concrete city.

He is in artificial sleep thanks to tranquilizers and is unaware of what’s happening around him. His caregiver is busy preparing for the awakening of her patient so she can feed him, give him medicines and put him back to sleep. His walking is like a toddler if he can stand he rushes from point A to point B so that he finishes his task and comes back, in recent days this also has become rare. Food is fed and he is sponged & clothed like a mother would do a child.

When the day ends and I walk outside alone I often wonder - Is this really worth it ? Is this life or imprisonment, a stage where death is more welcome than cure. From being independent and head of family you have become a cause for all possible pain and discomfort to the family. What is there to look forward to apart from the day when you breathe your last? 

Will I go through it? Will I have a choice in this matter ? Human mind grapples with these questions which are quite pointless. Or Does it help you define your point of view? Having a cancer patient at home, stories of cancer survivors and otherwise come to us every day. In one of the stories I heard, a lady after being detected with cancer - she refused any treatment and said she would rather make the best of the rest of the days left than be in bed. She famously said to her son ‘I would rather make that trip to Venice which I always wanted to do and die in a year than lie in bed for the next 3 years’.

Objectively, sitting here and imagining that this can happen I would like to follow her principle. It makes sense to prioritize experience over survival. 

But as John Lennon famously said ‘Life is what happens to you as you are busy making other plans’.    

Postscript: She made the trip to Venice & lived for more than 3 years. She was living not surviving. 

Being a caregiver

On A Good Day

One of the toughest jobs being a caregiver is to understand the unsaid. How can you get a cancer patient to voice what’s going on in their mind? The only question in their mind is When? In most cases death is the only finality which one reconciles to unless a miracle is on cards. Yes they do happen but you need to want it.

I had 2 lived experiences, one which is over and one which I am living through.

In baba’s case he had surrendered his care to ME & I became a primary source & decision maker. So at least the line of control was clear and the larger aspect was that he was willing to try everything possible to heal himself - from kiwi to coconut water to some herbal medicine. Super positive and disciplined about everything. At that point it looked normal but looking back I can realize what it would have taken to have that mindset. As I reflect back, one thing which worked was that we were a TEAM and worked towards a common goal.

In my current experience I am not a caregiver directly but being a small house experiencing what she is going through. Unlike baba here it’s complete anarchy and revolt, he does not want to take medicines or food. Is abusive towards his caregiver and adamant to go to the toilet at night resulting in him falling in the bathroom and developing a clot in his brain. She has lived through all this treating him like a child and offering all possible options of food but in the end he might just eat a spoon and she will have the leftover even though we will tell her not to. Despite the treatment she continues to get, she is soft spoken, does not raise her voice and accommodates him in all possible ways.

Not sure how she manages it but even from a distance most of us are at a stage where we avoid getting into a discussion on food or medicine as it leads to shouting and screaming at her.

From his perspective - he is hovering between sanity and insanity. I never knew the power of the subconscious but seeing him smile, talk about his childhood and cousins and incidents just shows what’s hidden inside the brain and when it will lay bare without us knowing it. Scary - but his locus of control is his caregiver and he punches it with all his might. Till he can that is.

My sense of right or wrong get’s grayer as I toss and turn both perspectives. My own frailty and shortcomings tints the glass further making further viewing a tough going.

But then we have to walk, time stops for no one nor can we.

Everything the Light Touches - Janice Pariat

It’s a BIG book - 700+ pages & the first question you have after reading the book is the question, Is she a botanist? And the answer to that is No, which is more fascinating because I haven’t learnt so much about plants before reading this book. 

2 large sections of the book are about Goethe & Linnaeus - both are philosophical botanists, and their way of looking at plants as a whole and not as a specimen or a classification. I got the philosophy but I found the whole thing a bit long and arduous to read. Yes, it brought out the 19th century poet's obsession with plants and how he looked at every individual plant or leaf as one leaf and not as a shrub. With drawings he explains that the same plants growing in 2 different places will grow differently. One growing under the shade of a tree and the other in the open.

I could relate to it especially my new connection to sustainability and visiting our farm in Solan. Also reading about cultivation & farming and talking about it in the climate challenge, hearing stories about people who have left their corporate job and then started farming and in the process how they connected to the earth / soil. How they are trying to lead a slow life which looks deeply & lives mindfully. 

The central premise of the book is interdependence between beings - humans, forests, animals (biodiversity). How we existed so peacefully  and in balance with nature and how that balance was disturbed by science, development & I guess by greed / desire to control everything and understand everything so we can use it to our advantage.

Growing up in the 70's / 80’s & even early 90’s we were still living in an Indian way - our food habits, thinking was balanced. I always referred to baba’s generation as a generation of scarcity and our current generation a generation of too many choices. While I also enjoyed the hyper choice & the blinkered view of ‘focusing on discount’ and less on the question ‘do we really need the t-shirt, in the last 5 years I stopped buying and kept only what I need and not what I can afford.

Reading the book also gives a small peak into Meghalaya culture / traditions and tribal life and their beautiful & musical connection to earth. Come to think of it - this may be the first book I have read on North East, the only other author I recollect is Anjum Hassan which was a decade back I think. There is so much less written about the North - Eastern part of India that it is an enigma to many of us. 

I can also connect to my Assam days where solutions to all health ailments were found in plants, shrubs, seeds, fruits grown around. In fact just a few days back I was telling my cousin if she can send me some dried thankuni leaves which are very good for the stomach and she said they are not available & grown in our homes. We have migrated to artificial and manufactured medicines which have side effects. (Found this interesting article Thankuni - Health Benefits, Uses and Important Facts https://www.potsandpans.in/blogs/articles/thankuni-health-benefits-uses-and-important-facts - Was pleasantly surprised that someone wrote about this obscure plant)

Read the book to re-establish your trust in nature.