Tag: being single

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This being me… whoever that is

It was many moons ago but I remember the conversation like it was yesterday. I was on the phone with my sister, asking her what I should text this guy I had gone on a date a few nights prior. I was asking if what I had planned to text him sounded good (I guess a mix of witty, cute, sweet and yet not too sweet, that shows I like him but not too much, etc, etc). This wasn’t unusual in my circle of friends where we’d be hanging out and someone would ask if their planned text message was good enough to send or if they should say something different. On that day though, instead of her usual response, my sister surprised me and asked “Why do you think I would know better than you?” I didn’t think much of what she said at the time and went on with my quest for the perfect text. 

But in the past decade or so, her words have come to me at times and more so recently.

As the etched words of Bob Dylan on my necklace remind me “All I can do is be me, whoever that is” 

All these efforts for self-love over the many years had not really driven this point home as well as recently when I went to a Byron Katie School of work. And while there, sitting with myself, questioning some belief, I started to realize how incredibly relaxing and freeing it is to let myself be. Whatever comes out. 

I recently met a guy I like and as we were texting back and forth, I found myself thinking if the text I had just sent him was good. What if he misunderstands it or thinks I am too much of something or not enough of something else and likes me less. And it hit me, perhaps for the first time that the words that I had just texted, was ALSO me, however perfect or imperfect it may be to him. Obviously when I sent it 30 seconds ago, it seemed good enough to me and yet 30 seconds later I am not so sure. 

The title of Byron Katie’s book “A mind at home with itself” gave me this idea…..  What if, god forbid, I accepted my mind? The crazy, monkey mind that has fear and anxiety- causing thoughts in it…. Of course I don’t like my mind when it gives me self-deprecating or fearful thoughts. And yet, what if I accepted it? I mean, these thoughts are running through my mind anyways and hating on them and trying to ignore them doesn’t work for me (It may work for others but not for me). Resisting them and hating on them doesn’t make them go away. They circle right back again. Yet, questioning their validity with kindness makes them slowly lose their grip on me and evaporate and not circle back as strongly. 

I remember an episode of the TV show “Friends” where Chandler is getting ready to go on a date and the group’s advice to him is “Just be yourself, but not too much yourself”. That’s the kind of advice that can subtly drive me crazy. A part of me thinks I am too much, too open, too nice, too independent, too needy, too naive, too a lot of other things. 

So in this journey of self-acceptance, I have realized that when I am sitting here thinking of the perfect text and writing, deleting it and re-writing it, that I should just send what I am thinking as corny or dorky or whatever as it may sound cause that is ALSO me. Sometimes my words are witty and funny or whatever is acceptable to myself and sometimes they are not and yet it is all a part of me. And someone who wants to be with me, will inevitably see all of it. 

It feels so much more freeing and relaxing since I have adopted this. The minute a self-doubting thought comes to my mind about what I said the night before, I think it was THE ME at that time and it was supposed to be like that.  And if I turned this guy off because he didn’t like what I said or did, then he wasn’t meant to be. I’ll be sad to not see him, but I will get over it. After all, if I don’t like my own company including my own thoughts, how can I expect someone else to like it? 

And I know as clear as I feel about what I am writing here today, that next month, I may totally be driving myself crazy over what I said and how I should have said or done it better. Hopefully if that happens, I can come back and read these words that my sane mind is writing right now and remind myself that it is all ok because all of it is part of me and this being human. 

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Insecure or Confident?

I don’t know what age I was…maybe 18… maybe younger, when I heard phrases like “Confidence is the most important thing”, “Confidence is sexy”, “Confidence is the most attractive attribute of a woman”
Whenever I had insecure thoughts in my head, which were not uncommon, especially when it came to how I looked, it would quickly follow by the acute realization that I am not confident since I have these thoughts.
I would sometimes see these women who seemed to somehow embody confidence in my eyes. Most times I didn’t really know them well. Maybe it was at a party, I would see a girl who didn’t seem shy, was beautiful, had a perfect body, or dressed beautifully, or seemed to have an air of detached-ness about her, or maybe a handsome or seemingly “cool” man next to her, looking at her with desire.
Without really knowing anything about her, merely based on her demeanor or looks I would think  “Gosh, she looks so confident. I bet she doesn’t care about what anyone thinks of her. I wish I was confident like that” And of course, having been told how confidence is important, I tried to hide all those areas where I lacked confidence. In fact I didn’t even see it as some areas of insecurity. I didn’t see it as shades of gray. I saw it as black and white. That this person has confidence and I don’t. Either you have it or not.
So, I just learned how to hide it. I learned how to never show my insecurities. I learned to act the opposite of what insecurity wanted me to do. I tried to make friends with confident people. And I tried to be social and outgoing and make it seem like I don’t care about what others think. And I don’t know if I did any of this consciously.
What is ironic is that everyone I chose to be friends with, based on how confident they appeared, when I actually got to know them well, I realized they also have insecurities. And the more they were aware of their insecurities and allowed me to see them, the more I connected with them and the closer our friendships became.
I remember I was talking to a friend who was telling me about how she has felt insecure about this or that in herself and realizing the insecurities makes her feel even more insecure.
This friend is a woman who is an amazing surgeon and one of the most beautiful women I know. She is someone I wished to be be friends with when I first met her in the hospital and saw that same air of confidence in her. She was quite and kept to her self and I took this as confidence and even slight detached-ness which I had come to associate with “coolness”. Little did I know that this was her “shyness”.
I don’t know at exactly which point in time, this big, impossible mountain of misconception about “insecure” vs. “confident” started to slowly chip away. Maybe it was after meeting my teacher, Siri Gian, the healer who taught me how to listen to that inner wisdom, that loving voice that speaks in whispers and for most of my life I wasn’t hearing it over the shouts of the other insecure voices. Or maybe it was in Azita’s yoga classes; a yoga teacher and psychologist who would open the class by genuinely sharing about her own vulnerabilities and emotions. Or maybe it was watching Brene Brown’s ted talks. Or maybe it slowly happened through all of these experiences and still happening as I sit with Homeira, my beloved therapist and teacher every week.
And that mountain started to chip away to this realization; That confidence is not a lack of insecurity, just like courage is not a lack of fear. It is wether we are aware of the insecurity, can accept it, not judge ourselves for it, love ourselves despite of it and look at it honestly and see the unreality of it.
After having talked to many brave women; doctors, artists, lawyers, engineers, dentists, journalists, housewives, mothers, etc, everyone seems to have insecurities around something or other. For someone it is around a body part that they try so hard to perfect, or around money or career or family or children or lack of children or status or partner or lack of it or health or a personality trait or so many other issues.
I know I have many insecurities of my own, but here is the amazing part of this past years of awakening to all of this, that the more I accept where I am, the more I get honest with myself instead of putting up a facade, the more I stop labeling myself as insecure and projecting perfection of confidence on to others, the more I breathe through any insecure feelings that come up and remember that this isn’t real, it doesn’t define me and is merely based on what I have bought in to, the more the insecurities release, shift and transform to real confidence. Not confidence based on having it all, but confidence based on accepting it all.
Thank you all the women (and men) who have bared your Souls with me, putting down the masks we all wear for some seconds or minutes or hours, showing me a piece of your insecurities and helping me heal mine. I am passing it on.

 

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This being single

For the past 12 years or more, since my last relationship of almost 10 years ended, I thought I’d just meet someone and get married like every woman I know. And although secretly marriage and kids scared me but the idea of that woman who is 40, alone, unmarried, no kids, pitied and judged scared the shit out of me.
So in these years of confusion I kept wondering why I can’t, like most of my friends, just click with someone. Why is it so hard?
 And of course every friend or aquaintance who learns that indeed I do want a partner but don’t have one yet, offers advice. “You are probably too picky”, “You probably pick the wrong guys”, “You must not really want marriage subconsciously”. A teacher told me that once I fully loved all aspects of myself the right guy will show up right in front of me.
And so I psychoanalyzed myself. I went to therapy. I kept wondering if I feared marriage. I tried to ask myself if I really wanted to get married. That do I really want children or just think I should have them to fit in? Do I want to have children of my own or adopt? Is a woman’s life defined by motherhood? If not, then what will define me? I tried as much as I could to love and accept myself more and more.
And through the years, friends or relatives whom I would run in to, always asked: “Sooooo, have you found the one?” and the “No” that I would have to say felt like such a failure. That I somehow have to justify it by saying “No, but…..” “No, I am not married yet, but I am a doctor and doing yoga teacher training”, “No, I don’t have kids yet, but I am taking this course and starting meditation classes for my patients at work” or “No, but let me tell you about the last guy I went out with and what lessons I learned”
And I just felt a sense of shame. Every year that passed and I am STILL single I felt more shame. And here is what I learned about shame, that once it builds up, you either go hide yourself so you never have to confront with the shame-causing issue or after enduring it and trying so hard to change the “shame-causing issue” you look it really hard in the eyes and say to it: shame, I see you! I see your pain. I see that you have totally bought in to the bullshit, but if you don’t let it go, it will destroy you. If you don’t wholeheartedly embrace the truth it will literally make you want to jump off a bridge.
And so today after years of this, here is what I have to say.
I am still single. I am still hoping to find the right guy some day. I am still probably picky and still probably making “mistakes” and still not sure if I fear marriage or if want to have kids and STILL probably not as loving and as accepting of myself as I should be.
But here is the thing, the truth, is that I am, with my whole heart, grateful for this past very many years of single life with this quest. The quest to find the answer to my “defect.” The quest to find out why I am single.
This quest has taken me on this amazing, beautiful, priceless journey so far. The quest that took me to meet a healer who taught me to connect to my higher self and forever changed my life. The quest which took me to meet many teachers and therapists and finally made me realize that the best therapist and teacher is that higher Self within my own being. The quest that took me to hours of shedding tears of release and exaltation in Kundalini Yoga classes and learning meditation and mindfulness which has changed my life’s moments to richer and more real.
And to putting myself out there and meeting some great men whose encounters taught me about myself and gave me the opportunity to come face to face with my own fears and biases.
And this quest which has brought me to to this day, a day that I thought would never come in to my life. No, I have not found “THE ONE” if that is even such a thing. But the day where I can practice being brave and writing these words. To look shame in the eye, hold its hands and say, let’s open the door and not hide. A day where I am deciding to be humble with my vulnerabilities and write that yes, I am single and I am turning 40 in a few months and sometimes it can be lonely and sometimes it can be scary but most times when I am not in the trance of the messages I’ve gotten from the society I am actually in love with life and this messy and alive journey of being here.