Winding 2018, Hear My Whispers

Yesterday marked a closure, right here right now I am soaked in that which is emerging. I have completed 14 months as apprentice along 6 women under The She Stands Tall Project, founded and led by Rekha Kurup.

I am now called a Shakti Moon Women Circle Facilitator but my presence does not hold onto this appellation, for “that which” showed up during these 14 months have taught me and are teaching me, the path is inward and this dance asks of a balance within without.

My space is flooding with gratitude, words, whispers, sounds, musings, movements and stillness.
“All that is” is ever present.

2018 was an unlikely year; a year of losing it all; a year of emergence, a year of emerging shadows and a year of union with my beloved. A year with agonizing moments of doubts, confusions and ungroundedness. A year of showing up vulnerably.

My passion, my vision and my calling to journey with women have led me where I stand today.
My focus, beliefs and values on the work that I am called to do is more than ever grounded in roaring that “leadership skills will not take women further”, for none of these move women in spaces safe enough for them for show up to and for their selves, their stories, their journeys, their wounds , their trauma and their bodies.
 

The more women own, reclaim and story their experiences as Truth, the more we will move the structural dynamics of this world and this is how transformation will happen.  This is the work that each one of us is being called to do individually and collectively
Reclaiming our self-relating for this is the beginning to reclaiming the collective reclaiming of relating.

My words may not make sense to many but know that this is the simplest I can whisper.
 

I am the Eternal Alchemist and I say this with the weight it ripples for I know the depth of my descend, things have not always been easy but I am here and I am choosing to swirl my story to you.

In coming weeks, Nyame Dua will be revealing a whole new journey of sessions, circles, facilitations, conversations, creative works, body works and hosting facilitators.

My work is grounded in midwifing myself, individuals as well as collective’s journeys. I bring my journey, my resonance, my experiences along with the different modalities that I have experienced and that I am trained into.
 

I pause to acknowledge my beigness for being present in this moment. Know that as you read those words, I will be standing by your side, whispering “all that is”.
 

What has changed for you in 2018? What has shifted?
What was released? What did you embrace?
 

I am pausing to acknowledge Rekha Kurup, the phenomenal grounds works that she is leading in India, Mauritius, US and beyond. I invite each one of you to reach out to her, to connect with her works @ shestandstallproject@gmail.com.

I pause to celebrate myself. I pause to honor this life within my life. May my act of honoring remind you to honor yourself, for this is your prayer for being here.

It humbles to leave you with the words that were roared loud yesterday during my initiatic graduation. You are many to have been part of this journey, you are many to write, to pause, to question and to query.

May these words whisper beyond my knowingness to each one of you.

Love from my heart to yours

Meghanaiyegee Venketasamy

Graduation Rhymes and Rhythmes, Wednesday 26 December 2018

“I ground myself in honor of this land, of the woman who has birthed me, of the women and men whose lives were invested in rising my island to where it is today.
These words roar my story, my journey within as an apprentice of life, Great Mother, Goddesses and She Stands Tall, Rekha and the sisters.
 
I am one of those who sleep within the darkness of the womb.
 
14 months of death, shedding, uncovering, co-creating, birthing, love, pain, hate ,openings and deepening.
This has been a journey of descend.
 
While I thought that I had made it through, little did I know that I would be taught to swallow my tongue, my words, my voice  my title, my structures, my skills, my everything, my vision, my goals, my so-called purpose
I have lost it all.
 
But on this journey, running away from my own presence was no more a choice.
Sisters on this journey held the mirror strong and tall for me
 
Today, I stand here naked, for none of “what, who, why, where, when, and how” I was last year, is here
 
There is no other way to whisper my journey to me, to you and to us, than you witnessing “me witnessing me”
 
I invite you to witness me
Witness my voice, my roar, my glow, my steps, my voice, my moves, my grooves, my hair
Witness “all that is” through me as I witness “all that is” through each one of you
 
I am the eternal alchemist but I am also beyond. I am this and I am also nothingness.
I am teaching myself to remember and re-member to embrace “my nothingness”.
I still brew and my churnings are wavier than before – for I am the container but I am also the cauldron of life, the life that grows, deepens, dies and rebirths within me.
 
Within my stillness “all that is” whispers, leads, guides, nurtures and ushers me onto the next step.
 
Within this stillness, I am reminded of my union with my beloved,
I started off this apprentice journey with this ingrained belief that danger is omnipresent
Right here right now, I have been gifted to experience love to a depth that I was not aware of I could carry within.
I am wide open and this is newness, this is uneasiness , this is an unlikely gift. This is the gift of love bestowed upon me, for to support this world, Great Mother whispered “My child for this, you will be taught love through ways and sways until you get smitten and using that love to live will be the only choice to your life.”
 
It is not always an easy share to carry and I am not always grateful but I am walking there
 
For this is the walk of a woman who is paving her way home with Great Mother besides her.
This is the summon of the entirety of my journey as a facilitator, that of ongoingly learning to hold space for myself, my light and my darkness
My shine and my shadow, My bright and my gloom
 
For I exist within both, for this is how I will journey with the world now onwards, as the shadows emerge, we will re-member every unacknowledged part of our self. And as the re-membering happens, we will become the alchemist that we were born to.
And for the alchemist to strive and survive, love is the only food for her soul
 
Intensity is my name and my life has been in reclaiming this intensity that I am.
I am Meghanaiyegee, the goddess of thunder, the rainmaker, the wicked laughter, the orgasmic presence, the sacred bleeding, the juicy hips, the wise one, the whisperer
I am the one who whispers to you
I stand in my entirety, uneasiness, newness, I am committed to stand tall
I swirl acknowledging my wholesomeness, my amazing beigness
See me, hear me, feel me for I see,hear and feel you
I am a gift to this world and I chose to ongoing gift my voice, my steps, my sways, my strides, my light, my shadows, my entirety to this world.”
 

The dance of “within without”

For every outward movement, there is an equal inward movement.
For every outward growth there is a correlated deepening of our roots.
For every outward focus there is an inward focus
For every within, there is a without.

This is the dance of life, the mating of our external and internal world
 ushering us further ahead.

For every step that we have able our self this year, it was supported by a correlated deepening of our roots. Yet most of us live and will live life unaware of that which has deepened, that which has shifted and that which has served its purpose and that which is waiting to be harvested.

Where do you stand right now? What do you see? Who do you see? What do you feel? What do you hear?
Maybe you do not like that which you see, feel and hear but can you allow yourself this space to just be and not blind off.
How has this year been so far?
How has growth been? What did you learn? What did you harvest? Do you know that none other than you can harvest your ripeness? Do you know that you are the one to drink your juiciness?
 
What did you explore? If not, then what is you holding back? Who is holding you back? What are the beliefs, fears, stories and narratives?
 

Know that any act of holding-back hold hinders growth from happening and is often mirroired back as pains in forms and shapes.

What if for once, your year’s debrief, is less about what others saw of you but more about what, why, where, when and how you experienced! What if for once, you hold yourself in such a way that this is just about you and less of what this world sees of you!

For any growth that has happened, unseen, unheard, unfelt by this external world, are you aware of the correlated inward growth? What has been alchemized to allow you to grow outwardly? What beliefs have shifted? What stories have been reclaimed? Do you stand in a space of stillness or is it still sore and paining?

These questions carry their weight and I am inviting you, me and us, to create space this week and beyond, to dive and walk our self through this simple process of seeing, hearing, feeling and acknowledging oneself.

I invite you, me and us to move through a simple exercise known as the “Dance of “Within Without” Flow Exercise.

Feel free to share this exercise with friends, close ones and colleagues and  I will love to hear from you if you have given it a try.

The Dance of “Within Without” Flow Exercise

Step1: Take an A4 size paper, divide it into two equals by drawing a line, label one half “INWARD” and the other half “OUTWARD”.

The dividing line symbolically represent your upward fertile soil, the cracking space where the “INWARD” starts manifesting in the “OUTWARD”. Just above the line, the half labelled “OUTWARD”, this is the space where the young sprouts show up, life shows with the potential to growth and harvest. The half labelled “INWARD” is your cauldron of churning and brewing.

Step 2: Start with one outward movement at a time, what was it? I may call it growth, change, transformation, shift.

Maybe it was a new job, welcoming a lover in your life, a trip, saying “yes” to an opportunity.

Draw it upward, whatever shape, color, you feel it is and carried.

Support this step by bringing forth all the questions that were asked in the beginning of this write up.

Step 3: What has shifted to enable me to move outwards. What in the inner deepening of this outward movement.
Take your time, this is no exercise to rush through
 
Step 4: Harvesting – what is awaiting for you to harvest? What lesson, what piece of wisdom, what acknowledgement? What celebration? Friends? Network? Emergence of shadow self?
 
Step 5: Planting of new seeds. Only when you have consumed your ripeness, then the seeds shall emerge.
Nurture yourself with your own wisdom, teach yourself with that which has emerged. Whisper to yourself and do not rush.
Let this process last as you long as you are yet to reach that of inner contentment within. Once you reach that state, then ask yourself, “what do I plant now? Where do I want to be next? What is next for me now?”
 

But why would you invest of your self and your time in such an exercise?
 

Know that groundedness is present when one is consciously deeply rooted in one’s roots. And as we move grounded in our roots, we start tapping into this knowingness that balance carries is in truth a dynamic flow, ever shifting and changing as nature. It is up to us to reach within for our equilibrium and this is an ongoing process. Know that to be deeply rooted in our roots, this asks of us to acknowledge, the unseen, the unheard, unfelt and unembraced within us. Know that sprouting happens only when the roots have grounded themselves deep within our fertile soul.

For every outward movement, there is an equal inward movement.
For every outward growth there is a correlated deepening of our roots.
For every outward focus there is an inward focus
For every within, there is a without. 

This is the dance of life, the mating of our external and internal world ushering us further.

Be kind and gentle towards yourself, it has been a shifting year. The intensity will no more ease way forward.
 
Love from my heart to yours
 
Megha Venketasamy

Image source: Jeremy Bishoo, Unsplash

Post © Megha Venketasamy, 2018. All rights reserved.

Terms of Use and Sharing: Feel free to use the Share on FB or Reblog for personal, non-commercial or educational use with all links intact. If you are an organization, institution or individual seeking to use this material for promotional purposes, please ask first. If wanting to include this information, and/or the ideas explored therein into your workshop materials, teachings or written work, please cite this article and author accordingly. All information provided on this post is non-liable and is not intended to replace professional legal, medical, psychological, psychiatric and/or financial counselling

For every expansion there is an equal contraction

The law of gravity says “for every expansion there is an equal contraction”.
For every beam of light there is a beam of dark that balances the equation. For every up, there is a down. For every act of opening, not matter how tiny or wide it is, there is a close off.

For every stepping into the light, there shall be an equal emergence of the Shadow-Self.

I have spent the past year opening in ways that I have not even dreamt of. My confessions:with each act of opening, I have had closed off my butterfly wings and with moments of hibernating and hiding.
 

“Any act of opening whether through writing, through a new business venture, intimate sharing with family or opening to a new love – chances are you will experience the closing of your wings. You may have to hide. Feeling will emerge, hidden feelings. Crawling fear will come knocking on you. This is a visceral phase.”

 

Hide.Slow down. Rest. Sleep. Cry. Eat properly. Exercise. Meditate. Pray. And Cry. Salt Baths. Yoga. Art Therapy. And Cry Harder. Nature. And Cry Harder Louder.
But come what may, Stay Open!!

I have had an intense year with three massive trips, Bangalore in April, Joburg (my soul land) in June and I volunteered for the Parliament of World Religions in November and amidst this, I have opened my heart to love to a depth that was unknown to my self.

12th November, I returned home with a badly congested chest. Last week, while flowing through that which has emerged, I thought that it was just the end and I had figured it out. But right here right now, I am contemplating how “for every stepping into the light, there shall be an equal emergence of the Shadow-Self. I have closed off for weeks, using every possible tools that I know to support myself with the grounded intent to shift.”
 
 

When the Shadow -Self emerges, most facilitators will say “face the shadow”.

I whisper,

“face the Shadow but stay open. It is easier to close off but stay open. Stay open in fears, stay open in anger, stay open in sadness, stay open in confusion, stay open in lost. Staying open will ask of you to be more than just present to your feelings, emotions, fears and shadow. Staying open is about allowing oneself to move to that space of knowingness that one’s safety is present in all spaces and circumstances especially when one’s heart is wide open.”

I know it feels torturous. I know it is hard.

But know that danger-reversed is “omnipresent safety of one’s heart.”
This in itself is an act of reclaiming self-love, for self-love is nothing but an act of consciously choosing to stay open with the knowingness that sacredness and safety is omnipresent.

I know we are many out there who are choosing to stay open. I also know we are many struggling to stay open when closing-off runs in our veins.

Stay open and know that this “Staying Open” will shift and deepen your discernment and teach you when to dive deeper and when to leave.

I know this is no easy walk but I know we are many to choose to walk along this path. I choose to believe by so doing, we are in truth playing a key role in shifting the system that we live in. Generations to come will be Receivers of this love that we will leave behind.

To you who are choosing to stay open, to you who are struggling to find your way through, to you who believe you are doomed, to you who pain, to you who love, to you who are you.
 
I see you. I hear you. I feel you.
I am deeply humbled by your path.
 

Love from my heart to yours.

Megha Venketasamy

Image source:Vinicius Amano, Unsplash

Post © Megha Venketasamy, 2018. All rights reserved.

Terms of Use and Sharing: Feel free to use the Share on FB or Reblog for personal, non-commercial or educational use with all links intact. If you are an organization, institution or individual seeking to use this material for promotional purposes, please ask first. If wanting to include this information, and/or the ideas explored therein into your workshop materials, teachings or written work, please cite this article and author accordingly. All information provided on this post is non-liable and is not intended to replace professional legal, medical, psychological, psychiatric and/or financial counselling

As I churn so I alchemize

Today, I celebrate men, women and myself for closing the first twelve months of pacing with Whispers of Faith.

I have spent the last twelve months explaining the symbolism of black and gold in Whispers of Faith

“As I churn so I alchemize”

My naivety thought she has understood it all until two weeks ago, a wave of massive churning and brewing dragged me deeper and I am gently emerging now. To be honest, I am in a limbo; I have no clue of the next. And I am choosing to be vulnerably open and honest about it, for I believe if one person allows her/his self to be seen, heard, felt, this will ripple across oceans and lands and we will be many to rise to our vulnerable space.

Hear the whispers of that which has emerged for me.

My Shadow-Self decided that it was going to her moment of glory. I was dragged, shaken, stripped off and broke open. I kicked hard, projected on my closest one, tried everything to hang on and to control that which I was feeling. Truth be, I had lost feet and this happened within days. While I was wiggling, my chest was heavily congested and I decided not to go for medications for I deeply believed and still do, that this situation was beyond medications.

While I say this, I do not advice anyone to do same unless you have a sense of your body and you know your own limit to withstand that which churns and brews within.

This stride stopped until listening was the only balm.

“As I churn so I alchemize”

 My Shadow-Self brought to surface that which has led the entirety of my life until now and this was deeply intertwined with my lungs gasping for air.

“Danger is Omnipresent”

The surfacing of this core belief, had me stepped back to review my entire life, how I have moved cautiously, how I have played small despite all. The fact that I am still alive, that I somehow managed to move ahead in life, is a miracle.

I feel and I believe that I am no less than a Miracle. I say this from a deep space of kindness for myself and while I say this I know we are endless out there with lurking shadows awaiting to be heard, seen, embraced and acknowledged.

To the external world, I am a confident woman, someone who is not afraid to take stands and voice, but my own shadows whispered a story of “fears, self-judgments and a belief of danger being omnipresent”.

My chest is breathing freely right now as I walk my way to reclaiming this core belief that has emerged. I do not see the next and right here right now, I believe that "Courage is the Willingness not to Know".

Can you allow your self such courage?
Being willing not to know, yet knowing that the way through is through one's shadows. 

What is the path?

Carl Jung devoted his time and researched on the “Shadow Self”. We all carry repressed ideas, instincts, impulses, weaknesses, desires, perversions and embarrassing fears within- these form part of the unconscious mind and is referred to as Shadow Self. This archetype is often described as the darker side of the psyche, representing wildness, chaos and the unknown. Carl Jung believed that these latent dispositions are present in all of us, in many instances forming a strong source of creative energy.

All we deny in ourselves—whatever we perceive as inferior, evil, or unacceptable—become part of the shadow. Anything incompatible with our chosen conscious attitude about ourselves relegates to this dark side.

The personal shadow is the disowned self. This shadow self represents the parts of us we no longer claim to be our own, including inherent positive qualities. These unexamined or disowned parts of our personality don’t go anywhere. Although we deny them in our attempt to cast them out, we don’t get rid of them.

We repress them; they are part of our unconscious. Think of the unconscious as everything we are not conscious of.

We can’t eliminate the shadow. It stays with us as our dark partner. Trouble arises when we fail to see it. For then, to be sure, it is standing right behind us.

What Happens When You Repress Your Shadow

What happens to all the parts of ourselves we sweep out of view?

Whatever qualities we deny in ourselves, we see in others.

In psychology, this is called projection. We project onto others anything we bury within us.

I am way simplifying everything but it carries a depth like none and this sharing will unfortunately not suffice to womb it all.

Where does one start? What if you were to uncover that part of your unacknowledged self?

Sharing one of my exercises

Watch One’s Emotional Reactions

We tend to project our disowned parts onto other people.

One of the best ways to identify our shadow is to pay attention to our emotional reactions toward other people.

People in our environment might be aggressive, arrogant, inconsiderate, or impatient, but if we don’t have those same qualities within us, we won’t have a strong reaction to their behavior.

If we’re paying close attention, we can train ourselves to notice our shadow when we witness strong negative emotional responses to others.

“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”- Carl Jung

Whatever bothers you in another is likely a disowned part within yourself.

Get to know that part, accept it, make it a part of you, and next time, it may not evoke a strong emotional charge when you observe it in another.

Focus on what and who evokes an emotional charge in you. It doesn’t matter what the emotion is; it’s a clue you are denying something within you.

And at times, the mirror might be for you to look into, come what may, pause and ask yourself where does this emotion lead you to?

What is it whispering to you? What is seeking to be acknowledged?

And most importantly reach out for support, seek facilitators, professionals and friends who will hold space for you as you go through whatever it is.

My deepest wish of “Shadowing” goes to you, me and us.

May our shadows rise to teach us the dance of our own ecstasy

May our shadows whisper so we may re-member the entirety of who we are

There no light without dark

There is no projective without receptive

As we churn so we alchemize

To many more years of whispers within without

Love from my heart to yours

 Megha Venketasamy

Daughters of Patriarchy

It is often said that Athena, the Goddess of War, The Patroness of the City, had no mother and she was born out of Zeus alone. Athena leaped from Zeus's head, fully grown, armed, and armored, and she would spend her entire life proving that she was worth being called Zeus’ daughter. Athena’s mother Metis, one of the Titans, a daughter of Oceanus and Tethys, would hardly ever be mentioned through centuries of human history.

This account is not conflicting for the ancient Greeks believed that children were descendants of the fathers, while mothers did not contribute to the creation of their children.

This account is intertwined with the patriarchal system that we live in, a system where daughters are called, named and labelled as their “father’s daughter”.

This account tells my own story and that of many daughters of this world.

I was raised as my father’s daughter. Every moment of glory, every act of bravoure and every tiniest demonstration of wittiness were and are still being imprinted with my father’s name. From the beginning I have been referred to as “his daughter”. I have spent years proving that I was worth being called “HIS DAUGHTER”. My mother’s presence within my presence has been shadowed and despite my sense of self, I never questioned.

This récit ripples across the globe across culture, traditions, faces, names, colors and races.

Post one month to the 2nd Biennial Conference of She Stands Tall in Mauritius, I am gently emerging from my caving, pausing to soak within my words and I hold space for this truth:

I am just one of the daughters of a system whose mother has been denied of the acknowledgement that her daughter’s cells are made up of her, that her daughter’s beigness is imprinted with her beigness, that her daughter’s intuitive and cognitive intelligence descents from her legacy.

Patriarchy survives by placing authority and legitimacy of belongingness and lineage upon fathers. Most Women of our patriarchal system are ignorant of their matrilineal. Most Women of our patriarchal system operate as Athena from their head, we thrive and we strive to be proud objects and subjects of and for our fathers. Most Women of our patriarchal system have hardly any sense of identification with their mothers except from self-sacrificing, emotional care taking, over giving and submissiveness.

Most women from our patriarchal system invest and will invest in becoming unlike their self-sacrificing and over-giving mothers. I have spent years thriving to be something unlike “HER”. I have spent years running away from my body disconnects and my rhythms. And I know aware that we are endless on the same stride.

Weeks back I caught myself through my descend :

“Where is mother within me? How come I find no references of her within my system? When did this alienation happen? How did it happen? How has she lived this imposed disconnect for years? How painful and hurtful it is to be overturned from your legitimate place of the Wisdom Keeper, Magic Whisperer and Soul Healer in your daughter’s life?”

The act of being referred to as our “Fathers’ Daughters”, by default relegate our mothers to less of importance in our life. Many of you may not concur with my words, yet we live in a system that has rendered women to less of human, our references for beigness and success are attached to our fathers, while our mothers are symbolism of sacrifice, giving and caring.

 I am slowly growing into awareness of the wisdom that women from my lineage and beyond carry within. A wisdom that we daughters of patriarchy have been denied of. This denial is connected to the disconnects that our mothers are born of and from.

I have committed to go home to my mother, I still have no sense of how to live with this unacknowledged, un-embraced and untouched part of my self. I feel and I believe I am now walking home to my sacredness, readying myself for the 2020 Biennial Conference on the Lands of my ancestors surrounded and led by the Nayar.

Love from my heart to yours

Megha Venketasamy

Image source: http://annieandaunt.blogspot.com

Post © Megha Venketasamy, 2018. All rights reserved.

Terms of Use and Sharing: Feel free to use the Share on FB or Reblog for personal, non-commercial or educational use with all links intact. If you are an organization, institution or individual seeking to use this material for promotional purposes, please ask first. If wanting to include this information, and/or the ideas explored therein into your workshop materials, teachings or written work, please cite this article and author accordingly. All information provided on this post is non-liable and is not intended to replace professional legal, medical, psychological, psychiatric and/or financial counselling

A Woman’s Body - A Contested Terrain

What is beauty? Do I look beautiful? What can I do to look like her? What do they think of my looks? These are some of the questions that I believe have plagued the minds of most of us as teenagers, young and aging women on countless occasions.

Winding down through the intensity of last Saturday’s women's circle as we swirled through “beauty and beautiful”.

“Mirror Mirror on the wall, tell me what is beautiful? Who is beautiful?

Am I beautiful? What is about me that makes me beautiful?”

None of us, women present could specifically defined “beauty and beautiful” but still it was and it is easy to name, call, shame and point “unbeauty, unbeautiful”.

The notion of beauty , beautiful and attractiveness is synonymous with one’s body image; how we view ourselves and how we think other people think of us in terms of looks or appearance. As a society, I believe we have undermined, if not looked down patriarchy’s role in influencing body image. Patriarchy strives to exercise control by defining what beauty is, controlling the mobility of women, exerting violence and constructing social norms that impact on women’s lived experiences.

“The female body is a cultural artefact defined and redefined over time in response to broad cultural and historical transformations. Historically, the body has taken on a tubular and slender form in eras in which the female mind has become more politically, economically and socially independent. One need only reflect upon the popular image of the 1920s flapper and the 1970s fashion models to observe the validity of such an assertion” – Hesse-Biber, Howling, Leavy and Lovejoy (2004).

 

Women’s bodies are not neutral entities, there are so many external factors that act upon them and eventually dictate the way of life of women. A woman’s body has come to be recognized as a contested terrain in contemporary societies, where battles for control are. The war on women’s bodies ranges from acts of extreme violence to bills targeting ‘indecent dressing’ to attacks on women wearing mini-skirts. Along with being bombarded by messages about their bodies on a daily basis, women live in fear of violence and this is a strategy to control women’s ability to think, feel, move freely and act independently. The new age spiritual wave that focuses on internal beauty while shaming physical adornment carries the same patriarchal imprints.

The struggle for independence and liberation for women has not been easy, especially due to the external forces acting on the female body. Society has always used direct and indirect levers to control women’s bodies in one way or the other. So even the greater equality of opportunity for women in recent times has resulted in a cultural demand for women to be thin – political, economic and social gains have coincided with increasing pressure to lose weight. A woman who climbs the corporate ladder is stereotypically expected to look a certain way so even ‘liberated’ women still end up having to conform to a certain ideal. Someone has to have some kind of control over it.

 

As the stories emerge and the narratives roar, it pains to face that that which we have believed to be unbeauty and unbeautiful about our selves and others, were nothing than just imposed social constructs. There is no such constant as beauty and beautiful and there can never be a defined spectrum to beauty and beautiful. Most of us are drowning deep, gasping to reach that beauty, as defined by the system that we live in. I stay present to this awareness daily, embracing one part at a time, one disconnect of mine.

To women who will read me, your relationship with your body, your sex, sexuality and intimacy did not messed up overnight, there are beliefs, agreements and values poisoning your inner fertile soil.

To men who will read me, I pause and I wonder where are you in all this? What has been imposed? What is it that makes you feel beautiful? How bad do you pain?

 

This reclamation can be a really uncomfortable edge for most of us, as we are forced out of old ways of thinking about and seeing ourselves, and into the unknown territories of new, richer potentials of being.

 

Love from my heart to yours

Megha

Post © Megha Venketasamy, 2018. All rights reserved.

Terms of Use and Sharing: Feel free to use the Share on FB or Reblog for personal, non-commercial or educational use with all links intact. If you are an organization, institution or individual seeking to use this material for promotional purposes, please ask first. If wanting to include this information, and/or the ideas explored therein into your workshop materials, teachings or written work, please cite this article and author accordingly. All information provided on this post is non-liable and is not intended to replace professional legal, medical, psychological, psychiatric and/or financial counselling

What if our privileges could birth inclusiveness?

"My name is Meghanaiyegee Venketasamy born and raised in a family of tamil speakers. This ancestral inheritance privileges me over others. I am tagged “colored woman” and this tag privileges me over other women. I have been to school, to university and have been part of international fellowships – this parcours privileges me over other women. I am part of local,regional and international networks and this belongingness privileges me over other women."

I have privileges, some born with and others I have acquired. You have privileges, we have privileges, some born with and others acquired.

Privilege is defined here as a special advantage, immunity, permission, right, or benefit granted to or enjoyed by an individual, class, or caste. We all have privileges, be it financial resources, acquired knowledge, linguistics inheritance, community belongingness.

Privilege is when we think something is not a problem, because it is not a problem to us personally.

My conversation will discomfort and this is my grounded intent.

People of my community will rather have me speak to them than having to listen to a woman unlike me. The pieces of stamped paper that I hold grant me access to stages and by default, men and women will rather honor me than some other woman they tag as “disqualified by default”. My skin color, my hair and my name give me access to spaces in this world, where I am embraced and welcomed. And I am also aware of spaces and instances where I have been asked to and I will be asked to dim my self for my difference is not welcomed.

 This pattern is ever present. Most of us are either not aware of this pattern or we are purposefully choosing to act blind. I see amazing women and men leading campaigns and teaching but when I pause to look at their team, at the structure of their work and at the language in use, it is strikingly disturbing to note the lack of inclusiveness in terms of colors, words, stories, men and women.

My legitimacy as a woman facilitating and leading other women is often questioned and this is linked to the coloredness of my skin. Nonetheless I am lucky to be colored for my black sisters’ paths are no easy sway compared to mine. The ever present supremacy of one category of humans over another is a dis-ease spread across the globe. And if feminism is about including then we as feminists can no more afford to play such a disconnected game. Ignoring this dis-ease does not make space for healing.

 

It is painful and hurtful to question our self whether despite our grounded good intentions, we have not been including. I am on that path and every day I allow myself to become present to how I can include voices, ripples, rhythms, rhymes, stories, wisdom, knowledge and words of women and men from different instances and spaces through the works that I do.

Are you aware that you have privileges?
What are your privileges?
How can you tap into your privileges to create space for inclusiveness?
How can you use your privileges to catapult this world to the next level of awareness, consciousness and connectedness?

 
My journey as a woman facilitator through the She Stands Tall Project grounds me through this purpose. As I allow myself to stand tall in my ever changing beigness, I also own responsibility for using my privileges to embrace those who look, sound, speak, see, hear, feel and experience unlike me. This is Power.

In one month, Mauritius will be embracing 28 women from across the globe including Mauritian sisters, for the 2nd Biennial Conference of The She Stands Tall Project, a one of it’s kind conference where the space will witness and birthing of a container holding the likeliness and unlikeliness of each present.
 

May we move into awareness of our privileges and may this awareness support us
to include us, you and me.
 

Love from my heart to yours
 
Megha Venketasamy

PS: for more details on regarding the conference, please write to us on shestandstallproject@gmail.com  and megha.venketasamy@gmail.com

Post © Megha Venketasamy, 2018. All rights reserved.

Terms of Use and Sharing: Feel free to use the Share on FB or Reblog for personal, non-commercial or educational use with all links intact. If you are an organization, institution or individual seeking to use this material for promotional purposes, please ask first. If wanting to include this information, and/or the ideas explored therein into your workshop materials, teachings or written work, please cite this article and author accordingly. All information provided on this post is non-liable and is not intended to replace professional legal, medical, psychological, psychiatric and/or financial counselling

Conscious Men...

Saturday 21st July, we held our first « menstruation » circle guiding women through their inner navigation system, as we moved to the closure of our circle, the words emerged and they whispered “Conscious men”. These words stayed with me all through till this morning as my own descend led me to that which I am about to whisper back.

Yes, women, we are many to have a hard time to say, to state, to acknowledge, to honor and to embrace the fact that there are “conscious men” out there. Yes, women, we have been rising from our demeaning states and still walking through our woundedness and most of the time we speak from that state of woundedness. Yes, it is not easy. It still hurts and we have every right to be angry, mad and to be paining.

 

But this will not change the truth that there are “conscious men” rising and doing their inner works.

Maybe it is time for us to change the way we see, hear, feel, experience and define consciousness and conscious men.

Consciousness has more to do with waking up to owning one’s stories. Consciousness is about owning responsibility for how we feel, why we feel it and what triggers us. Consciousness is being aware of what we put out in the world. Consciousness is grounded in intentions.

 

There are conscious men rising and we have to acknowledge this truth – “Patriarchy has not done less harm to and unto men. Our men were taught and are still being taught to shut off from their inner navigation system.”

Do NOT think it is easy for me to say this. It is an uneasy stride on my keyboard right here right now. But still, I chose to whisper for I see, hear and feel my fears, my stories, my woundedness and I honor them. I am witness to my struggle through my stride, still I chose to whisper for this is my commitment to consciousness.

We, WOMEN are DESPERATELY TRYING to HEAL our SELVES, so ARE MEN.

Conscious men are not meant to be like conscious women. We were designed, crafted and synergized to complement each other.

Please do not go out in the world expecting to meet men who will complete your sentences like your sisters do; or bring you your favorite food like your sisters do ; or even have the kind of conversation that blows your mind.

I am not saying it is not possible but there is distorted romanticism – built around conscious men – that veils us to this truth that conscious men are like us; they have been torn apart, they have lost it all and they are healing their way through, they are learning to allow their selves to be rewired and this is no easy path.

Conscious men will go and hide at times, like we do. Conscious men will even try hard to have outer dimensional conversations like we do. Conscious men will screw it all at times like we do. Conscious men are not less or better than us, they are merely mirrors of that which women seek.

 

I say this for everyday, I witness myself going through my cycles and I often pause to acknowledge and honor not just myself but all connected directly and indirectly to and through me, women and men.

As I close off, I must confess that this my SHIFTIEST 2018 lesson so far. I stay open and I am choosing to allow myself to learn from my self, my stories, from your self, your stories, from our selves and our stories.

 

Love from my heart to yours.

Megha Venketasamy

Photo Courtesy: Tim Foster, Usplash.com

Post © Megha Venketasamy, 2018. All rights reserved.

Terms of Use and Sharing: Feel free to use the Share on FB or Reblog for personal, non-commercial or educational use with all links intact. If you are an organization, institution or individual seeking to use this material for promotional purposes, please ask first. If wanting to include this information, and/or the ideas explored therein into your workshop materials, teachings or written work, please cite this article and author accordingly. All information provided on this post is non-liable and is not intended to replace professional legal, medical, psychological, psychiatric and/or financial counselling

The intent of bringing women in circles

This World shivers when women gather; This World retaliates when women gather; This World mocks when women gather; This World curses when women gather; This World discomforts at the gathering of women.

Women discomforts at the gathering of women.

What is about women gathering that creates so much fuss?

Any act of bringing people together in a moment in time grounded in intentions, carries the potentials to break through. Such acts serve the path of any individual on his/her way to grow a touch more aware of his/her beliefs, stories, discomforts, patterns and selves. This is what we term as CONSCIOUS AWARENESS. When one BECOMES CONSCIOUSLY AWARE, then one STARTS LIVING CONSCIOUSLY and CONSCIOUS LIVING IS CONNECTED TO CONSCIOUS CHOICES. This act SHATTERS the TENTACLES of our PATRIARCHAL SYSTEM. We FRAME these instances as SHIFTING and TRANSFORMING.

WOMEN WITHIN WOMEN CIRCLES

At the core of bringing women in circles lies the intention of activating the innate connectedness that women have shared from the beginning of time. There is nothing new to women journeying in circles – our great grandmothers did it and ancient communities knew it. The patriarchal system that we live in has invested energy, time and fears in building women against one another – shaming, naming, slutting, belittling – you name it.

Women Circles create safe spaces to allow women to move inwards to see, feel, hear and listen to their stories, beliefs, values, wounds, woundedness, connectedness, disconnectedness, relationships, life and world. Women Circles teach women to embrace both their light and shadow selves.

Women Circles teach women to ask this one vital question “Where is the soul?”

 

This world shivers when women gather; This world retaliates when women gather; This world mocks when women gather; This world curses when women gather; This world discomforts at the gathering of women.

So Be it!

 

Women Circles move women in spaces to reclaim their stories and cast spells unto their selves so that they rise to reconciliate with this world. This is the power of circles, this is the power of words, this is the power of consciously crafting and sealing agreements with and within our selves and the external world.

Our world carries undermining, harmful and belittling agreements for and against women, colored people, indigenous people and minority groups.

Women have a key role to play in reclaiming, reconciliation and peace building. Yet this process cannot happen unless women stand within and through their stories and start their inner reclaiming, reconciliation and peace building. The activist that I am, have chosen to invest of my self, my time and my resources in bringing women in circles.

 

When women come together, the space will by default align itself to make shifts and transformations possible. Intention matters and so does the one who facilitates.

We need structures, strategists, scientists, economists, politicians, healers, mid-wives, artists, creators, rainmakers and peacemakers to shift this world. But we also need women who will vulnerably show up and by so doing hold the mirror for other women to start their inward descend.

 

More than ever, we need grounded conversations that allow women, men and children to open up to their selves.

I look forward to hearing from you, to reading you and to co-creating in rippling whispers about the "inner descend". 

Megha Venketasamy

Certified Women Circle Facilitator, The She Stands Tall Project

Photo Courtersy: Karl Magnuson, Unsplash.com

Post © Megha Venketasamy, 2018. All rights reserved.

Terms of Use and Sharing: Feel free to use the Share on FB or Reblog for personal, non-commercial or educational use with all links intact. If you are an organization, institution or individual seeking to use this material for promotional purposes, please ask first. If wanting to include this information, and/or the ideas explored therein into your workshop materials, teachings or written work, please cite this article and author accordingly. All information provided on this post is non-liable and is not intended to replace professional legal, medical, psychological, psychiatric and/or financial counselling

Relationship is the place of growth

My sister reminded me of yesterday, 17th June - my mind, heart, my soul and my entirety are elsewhere.

I got religiously married on 17th June 2007. Two months prior to that date, I cried a lot, my being was saying "NO". My insights kept whispering that I was about to "put myself into some thing less". But every one whispered "that's how girls feel-just scared, you will be fine."

I would bond myself to a man who was not and is not bad but his own issues from his past were far beyond his self. And I would end up providing for us in all the sense as long as that relationship lasted.

Three years through this marriage, all the signs and symptoms would speak of wrongness and dis-ease and it would take me nine months, early January 2011 to figure out that I was in an abusive relationship. Ongoing instances of daily abuses ever present in my life at that time. Any form of abuse that does not move to the physical state is hard to detect, I was on that path.

I would brave the tides, believing we could heal our way through. Endless times, I choosed to believe and trust these words “things will be better and I will change” and all through, my instinct would scream “Run away! Go away!” To the external world, we were the happiest couple, warm and welcoming hosts but no one knew what was happening behind closed doors – my fears, my doubts, my archedness, my hopelessness, my tiredness and his demons.

It would take me one year to build my internal muscles and walk my way out of this relationship. In 2012, I paved my way out and I kept quiet all through, I hardly spoke about what I went through and what I was going through for my safely became my priority. I knew before hand that I should not expect support from my family. But much to my dismay, I was nurtured and supported by my siblings like none and I am still.

My mother’s delusions got shattered and she is yet to move on but my love for my self and her, grounded me in my choices and I keep going for I suddenly became my priority.

My ex-husband slashed back and he found the easiest way, he crafted stories about me. Still I kept quiet because my safety became my priority.

I choosed to write about this phase of my life for I am utterly and deeply grateful for what I went through. I do not wish anyone to go through what I went through, yet I will not bargain any part of my path. So hear my whispers now:

1. We attract that which we are at any given moment in time

I was a giver, I had no notion of boundaries and I ended up attracting my perfect match at that moment in time.

It feels almost sadist to say this but this is how this world works, whether we believe in it or not. Our wounds, our past, our inner dis-ease play a huge role in attracting that which carry the potentials to either break us down or break us through.

He needed to be fed and I was willingly willing to feed ongoingly . So I fed him in all the sense for three years until I started waking up gradually.

Waking up, asked of me to look into my own wounds. When I woke up, I would then spend months looking at my own father's wounds and wounds that I had connected to men from the beginning of my childhood.

So this phase of my life taught me and is still teaching me to peep into my self before blaming the world.

2. Sense of Safety

Most of us, women and men grow up in unsafe homes, abuse has become part and parcel of our lives. With normalization of abuse, we end up with a distorted sense of safety, we teach ourselves to navigate through unsafeness. I was there. I grew up in an unsafe home and I ended up in an unsafe space when I got married. I taught myself to navigate through for this is what I saw my mother doing. But it is wrong!

Safety is safety and there is no disguise or distortedness to sense of safely. Our guts know it, our intuitiveness know it. Run away when it is UNSAFE.

 

3. No one change except for his/her self

From the beginning of any relationship, if we stay open enough, we are given glimpses, signs and symptoms of what we do not align with with the other person. Still many of us choose the naïve way, we choose to stay. We stay believing that the significant other will change for the sake of this relationship.

No one changes unless he or she has had a shift within and provided this shift has brought awareness to his or her self.  While we may choose to stay despite mis-alignment of core beliefs,values and lack of safety, we better not blame the other person when things get heated up.

They showed their true colors from the very beginning but we decided to believe in them changing over time.  Change is a personal journey, change comes through awakening. No matter how we feel for others, we have to come to understand that each one of us is to walk his/her path and we cannot save our loves ones, regardless of the depth of our feelings.

4. The gap that we try to fill in when we get into relationships

The entirety of our lives will be spent in relationships with us trying to fulfill a gap that we carry within.  What are you trying to ease and feed through relationships?

Are you seeking validation? Fear of abandonment or rejection?

Do you believe that someone else is responsible for your happiness?

Is your feeling of unworthiness making you cling to something without you, even if that thing is toxic?

Do you feel worthy when you serve others in relationship? Is this how you derive your sense of worthiness?

Relationship is the place of growth. Hurt, love, pain, gain, win, loss, warmth, cold, they all play a key role in unleashing our wounds and moving us closer to our truest self.

No relationship is and will ever be devoid of triggers, pains, tears and confusions. But there are some basics; safety and intuitiveness remain at the core. And one’s intuitiveness is the compass, come what may, heed to that inner voice. Our intuitiveness hears, sees and feels it all.

RUN WHEN YOUR INTUITIVENESS ROARS - JUST RUN, A DOOR WILL OPEN.

 

May your relationships serve the purpose of opening you up and May you allow yourself to heal

Much love and Blessings

 

Photo Courtesy: Karl Magnuson, Unsplash.com

Post © Megha Venketasamy, 2018. All rights reserved.

Terms of Use and Sharing: Feel free to use the Share on FB or Reblog for personal, non-commercial or educational use with all links intact. If you are an organization, institution or individual seeking to use this material for promotional purposes, please ask first. If wanting to include this information, and/or the ideas explored therein into your workshop materials, teachings or written work, please cite this article and author accordingly. All information provided on this post is non-liable and is not intended to replace professional legal, medical, psychological, psychiatric and/or financial counselling

That which conspires when we take a step towards our fullest self

My decision to fly to Bangalore whooshed in early March 2018, my entirety was kicking, churning and brewing. I listened. I understood that I had to be India as I neared my birthday. And I listened.

Why do I make this conscious choice to listen to my body?

What difference does it bring to my life to listening to my body?

How does such a choice mold shape life?

What is the impact through and unto the wheel of my life?

Over the years, both my ongoing training as a meta-coach and on women spirituality have taught me and are still teaching me the way to grounding back into my body. The intelligence that my body temple hosts cannot be described but rather lived, experienced and ultimately transcended. I journey with fellows through the same path that I choose to journey with my self.

I have learned and I am still learning how my mind-body-heart-soul-energetic-emotion system works, learns and transforms via the way that we feel, see, hear and experience life through our bodies and how we ended up incorporate meanings into our body.

Our bodies carry the rhythms of the ancient ones, waiting to mold itself unto itself.

There comes a point, when listening is the only choice we have.

I landed in Mauritius on Wednesday 2nd May and since I have been resting, immersing deeper into and through the whispers of my trip. I listened and I am still listening to my mind-body-heart-soul-energetic-emotion system. I am gently emerging from my powerfully shifting and transforming Bangalorian trip. “Whispers of Faith” carried me on it’s wings through and through. My current state, a sweet drunkenness, I swear can dwell right through this drunkenness for weeks and months.

I have much to share, to hum, to celebrate, to honor, to acknowledge, to remember and to re-member. Right now right here, my heart feels like whispering this one truth to you all.

When I felt compelled from within to birth “Whispers of Faith” in September 2017, I never had plans of having “heart conversations” around the whispers. I simply followed through what my entirety was kicking me towards to back then. When I was planning my Bangalore trip, I had no plans of hosting a book sharing session and least to even speak of and about “Whispers of Faith” but Spirit decided otherwise, through my mentor, teacher and Sister Rekha Kurup and I embraced it.

Glimpses of "Whispers of Faith" in Bangalore

And as reflect back on how my life has shifted since 30th November 2017, from drown in my agony of unworthiness to trapped in my fears of unknowingness and my current sweet drunkenness, hear my whispers

“When we take a STEP towards our FULLEST SELF, that “WHICH HAS ALWAYS BEEN” and that “WHICH WILL EVER BE” will CONSPIRE to keep us MOVING. A step that manifests through a project, through words, through lands, through chants, through “it all”; name it, call it and nail it. The BIGGEST TRAP is that of trying to CONTROL THE OUTCOME of it all – the expectations, the return on investments, the ties and the relations. DOUBTS, FEARS, CONFUSIONS, BREAKS, SHAKES, WAKES, LOSS, GAINS, WAITS, STUCK, STILLNESS, LOVE, HATE, SHAME, GUILT, NAME, GAMES, PAINS and BALMS, they will all PLAY AN EQUAL PART of our journey. That “WHICH HAS ALWAYS BEEN” and that “WHICH WILL EVER BE will stand strong through it all through us, by us, for us and with us, whether we believe or not. There is no turning back, there is no going astray, there is no off-track, once you activate the process of moving towards your fullest self.”

As close off my sharing, readying my self for this week with the intention of unwinding the whispers from India, my deepest wishes of love, light and vibes go  to you

“May you take a step towards your fullest self. Moving towards our fullest self always ask of us to let go of the generational luggage, we fear for these luggage have ended up becoming part an integral part of our faked truth. May you be reminded that “WHICH HAS ALWAYS BEEN” and that “WHICH WILL EVER BE” will guide, lead, protect, nurture, sustain for you, through you and with you. Take that one step towards your fullest self, through a project, through words, through lands, through chants, through “it all”; name it, call it and nail it.”

“Whispers of Faith” will be whispering on new lands in June 2018, more will be shared in coming weeks. Looking forward to expanding in humility and love.

Blessings. Blessed Be.

May Whispers Be. May Faith Be.

Megha Venketasamy

Post © Megha Venketasamy, 2018. All rights reserved.

Terms of Use and Sharing: Feel free to use the Share on FB or Reblog for personal, non-commercial or educational use with all links intact. If you are an organization, institution or individual seeking to use this material for promotional purposes, please ask first. If wanting to include this information, and/or the ideas explored therein into your workshop materials, teachings or written work, please cite this article and author accordingly. All information provided on this post is non-liable and is not intended to replace professional legal, medical, psychological, psychiatric and/or financial counselling

What drives you?

I am slowly emerging from an intensely intense weekend and rushing week, celebrated my “born day” on 22nd April and we had our first heart to heart conversation through “Whispers of Faith” off Mauritius, in Bangalore.

Couple of hours before my born day, an incredibly strong woman asked me this question “Just curious to know what drives you?”

I do not know if what I am about to share will serve you in any possible way but I do know that what I am about to say comes from my truth at this moment in time.

MY COMMITMENT TO SERVING MYSELF DRIVES ME. I took an oath in 2010 that of never letting the limits of the past define me. It has not been an easy path since, for SUCH SELF-OATH ASKS OF ME TO SLAUGHTER MY FAKED SELF AND THERE IS NO END TO THIS PATH.

MY OPENING UP TO MY WOUNDS DRIVES ME. My 2010 oath takes me ongoingly to what I have seen, felt, heard and experienced of life so far. A life that has brought its share of love and wounds. I know that the only way through is to open myself to my wounds and face them. There have been days when I literally felt like I was dying. Along way I have learned and I am still learning that THERE IS NO WRONG OR RIGHT BUT RATHER WHAT AND HOW AND WHY YOU CHOOSE TO HOLD SPACE CONSCIOUSLY FOR WHATEVER IT IS IN YOUR LIFE.

MY LEARNING TO LET GO OF “BEING IN CONTROL”. Letting go of a corporate job, getting on new ventures, moving out of unhealthy relationships and instances- all these shake and fragile our seemingly grounded stability. For years now, my own notion of stability has been on rewire mode. And yes, I have had panic attacks and deep anguish in the beginning, FOR WHEN YOU STEP OUT INTO THE UNKNOWN, YOU EITHER ALLOW YOURSELF TO LEARN TO NAVIGATE THROUGH OR YOU WIGGLE ETERNALLY OUT OF YOUR NEED TO CONTROL.

Back in 2010, I had no idea that my life will shape the way it is unfolding right here right now and I do know that I will never choose otherwise.

MY “TRUSTING” MYSELF. Ask anyone and he/she will answer “I do not trust or at least, I do not trust everybody or somebody or those persons or these persons.” I have learned and I am still learning that “trust begins with oneself and ends with oneself.” TRUSTING THAT YOU WILL MAKE IT THROUGH; TRUSTING THAT LIFE WILL SUPPORT YOU THROUGH YOU, FOR YOU AND BY YOU; TRUSTING THAT LIFE WILL CONSPIRE ON YOUR BEHALF TO GET YOU TO EXACTLY WHERE YOU ARE MEANT TO.

MY GIVING AND RECEIVING FROM MY VULNERABLE SELF. Humans flow when there is a balance in giving and receiving and for this to happen to a depth close to Divine, vulnerability must be ever present, allowing one's self to be seen, heard and felt and then moving through this world from that very vulnerable part. Changes, shifts and transformations peak through vulnerability. I write, I live, I smile, I laugh, I cry, I die, I share, I learn, I connect, I rejoice, I co-create and I whisper from my inner most vulnerable part for this is from where my strength leads; for this is from where our strength leads.

MY SURRENDERING TO LOVE.  I used to think that I am believer but only now I am growing into awareness what “surrendering to love” means. A love omnipresent within and through every animate and inanimate in this Universe. A love nameless, shadeless, colorless and fadeless. A love that destroys, co-creates, feeds, nurtures, preserves and annihilate. MY SURRENDERING TO MOVE CLOSER TO DIVINE WITHIN. Such choices annihilate all that one have ever been and it can be a painful process as one try hard to hang on to past beliefs and truth.

Sufi says

“in the end, your inner gifts are insignificant but rather how you flow and swirl through and within life through your inner gifts is what matters most. Your serving this world asks of you to serve your self first. Your serving your self first asks of you to move closer to all that has been and all that will ever be.”

I believe this is what drives me, this knowningness that life will never give up on me, no matter how broke, broken, hate, hated, doom, doomed, fade, faden, I may see, feel and hear.  

As we reach the end of this sharing, I am just curious to know what drives you! What is it from within that drives you? What is coming in your way for you to see, feel and hear that drive?

Do reach out and let us know what drives you.

Much love light vibes

May Whispers Be. May Faith Be

Megha Venketasamy

Post © Megha Venketasamy, 2018. All rights reserved.

Terms of Use and Sharing: Feel free to use the Share on FB or Reblog for personal, non-commercial or educational use with all links intact. If you are an organization, institution or individual seeking to use this material for promotional purposes, please ask first. If wanting to include this information, and/or the ideas explored therein into your workshop materials, teachings or written work, please cite this article and author accordingly. All information provided on this post is non-liable and is not intended to replace professional legal, medical, psychological, psychiatric and/or financial counselling

"Whispers of Faith" has given wings to my life

End 2017 marked a defining phase in my life, while I thought that I was just risking money and investing time and resources by self-publishing “Whispers of Faith”, little did I understood that I was in truth opening myself to something way beyond me.

Whenever we invest, we expect a return on investment and I will lie if I say that I never expected. Oh, I expected and this expectation drove me mad at one point.

What maddened me most with the launching of “Whispers of Faith” was my sense of UNWORTHINESS. I know many of you have been there and we are endless walking that path right now. It HIT me HARD, after years of BACK-TRACKING and HEALING, I just could NOT UNDERSTAND where my UNWORTHINESS was coming from? How come I SEE,FEEL and HEAR so LITTLE of my SELF? Where did I go wrong?

That EVER PRESENT feeling of being “NOT-ENOUGH” and it CRAWLED under my SKIN for weeks. I stood there watching my UNWORTHINESS kicking, jumping, screaming, going wild – my inner theater has always been VIBRANTLY MOVING. Can you IMAGINE the MOVIES that I have CRAFTED for weeks?

For weeks, post the launching of “Whispers of Faith”, I have walked painfully through that phase. It hurt like none and there were days, when it felt unfair, I have wondered many times, “Why was I being punished this way? Why does it have to hurt?”

It seems weird in my case. Isn’t it? Megha has just launched her book along with her illustrations, then why was UNWORTHINESS LURKING around HER.

I do not know why but I understand now that UNWORTHINESS comes KNOCKING at the MOST APPROPRIATE time. Back then in December 2017, that was the MOST APPROPRIATE TIME. I was at the CUSP of MOVING DEEPER into my own SELF and what was HAMPERING in my way, was my UNWORTHINESS.

That feeling of utter UNWORTHINESS I have felt, its roots traced back in my childhood but most importantly, it took me to the BELIEFS and NARRATIVES that I have been holding on to when it comes to being WORTHY. My WORTHINESS as a WOMAN; My WORTHINESS as a DAUGHTER; My WORTHINESS as a LOVER; My WORTHINESS as a CREATOR and My WORTHINESS as a HUMAN BEING.

We live in a world where BEING WORTHY has been EXTERNALIZED. We live in a world where our WORTHINESS is CONDITIONAL. We have been BROUGHT UP and TAUGHT that UNLESS we DO THIS and ACHIEVE THAT, only then shall our WORTHINESS be VALIDATED externally. We have PARAMETERS and DEADLINES for WHEN to ACHIEVE WHATEVER IT IS. We have stamped EXPIRY DATES on DREAMS. We COMPARE and we ARE COMPARED to others. We FEEL LESS of OUR SELVES facing THOSE against WHOM WE are COMPARED. This DIRTY DANCE that has been ON for CENTURIES.

As I MARCH AHEAD my PATH, life is PURGING ME to take ME to this REALIZATION:

“My BEIGNESS in this MOMENT in time VIBRATES my WORTHINESS. NOTHING, NO ONE, NO ENTITY, NO TEACHER, NO FAMILY, NO MONEY, NO HOUSE, NO CAR, NO JOB, NO TITLE, NO SOCIAL STATUS, NO PARTNERSHIP, NO PARTNER, NO PLACE, NO BOOK, NO RELIGION can and will EVER DEFINE my WORTHINESS. I will ERR, I will LOSE, I will be LOST, I will TAKE, I will GIVE, I will BIRTH and I will ANNIHILATE but NONE of these will EVER DEFINE my WORTHINESS. Being ALIVE right HERE right NOW is ENOUGH.”

 

Truth, this is a tricky thing for most of us to come to a phase where we say this to our self.

When you birth something unto this world, it is considered as an investment for this world. When you birth something unto this world, that creation serves the purpose of shifting you first. I did not have the faintest hint that I was about to be rewired.

 “Whispers of Faith” gifted me one of the biggest return on my investments so far; it bestowed me one of my biggest shift, my sense of WORTHINESS.

While I thought I was giving wings to my words, my words gifted me more life.

I still do not call myself an author but I say that I am alchemist for I know that which I whisper comes from an inner alchemizing process that moved me from one place to another. Right here right now, more than ever I believe in the power of words.

I write the way I do, I share the way I do for more than ever I believe in the power of words.

Whenever you are in this moment in time, know that at one point, the only choice will be that of opening to your self. This is my deepest wish for you as you swirl through these words, may you open up to your self. May you rise to this knowingness that you are worthy and there is no external that can define your worthiness.

“Whispers of Faith”  has landed in Incredible India, some hours back, we will be whispering our magic in Bangalore.

We stay humble. We open up to release, to learn, to connect and to learn.

May Whispers Be May Faith

Love Love Love

Megha Venketasamy

Post © Megha Venketasamy, 2018. All rights reserved.

Terms of Use and Sharing: Feel free to use the Share on FB or Reblog for personal, non-commercial or educational use with all links intact. If you are an organization, institution or individual seeking to use this material for promotional purposes, please ask first. If wanting to include this information, and/or the ideas explored therein into your workshop materials, teachings or written work, please cite this article and author accordingly. All information provided on this post is non-liable and is not intended to replace professional legal, medical, psychological, psychiatric and/or financial counselling

March’s Whispers of Wisdoms: Women led, Women lead and Women shall lead till the end

I am feminist and my feminism plays a key role in how I navigate this world. My definition of feminism comes from my learning of owning my inner feminine essence (something which we all have, men and women). My feminism ongoingly teaches me to honor all lives on earth regardless of all. This very feminism discomforts endless and I am fine with it.

March is fundamental to me and for me, and for the endless women and men who have choosen to use their voice to stand for equality and fairness.

Women leadership has been massively celebrated all through the month of March. Though the celebrations, I sat with my own discomfort.

We celebrate women who are in high ranking positions; we honor women who now have titled status as requested by this society. We celebrate women who have endless pieces of papers. Amidst this we forget one fundamental; women have been leading from the very beginning of time on earth.

 Women leadership must not be rewarded but rather honored and respected.

Women leadership must not be prized but rather space must be created and held for women to perform a role that is true to their natural rhythms and rhymes.

Women led, women lead and women shall lead till the end of time.

 

When patriarchy as an oppressive system took over, it encroached women’s rights to performing to their fullest potentials. With women’s potentials blocked, this has negatively impacted on this entire world and on men. In this dis-balance system none wins.

While we reward, prize and award the few women in high ranking positions, we forget that we are inadvertedly repeating the very patriarchal mechanisms that we are working hard to overcome; we are forgetting those women who will never drive a car or wear high heals, or travel the world, still they lead. They lead like none, they teach and share like none. Their lives symbolize the great march within and they never waited for an external movement to overcome the limits that were imposed on them because their birth certificates are stamped “female”.

It is easier for a patriarchal system to celebrate and honor a few prized women instead of making the conscious committed and dedicated effort to create space for women to step in and lead the way through.

I feel, I see and I hear how my walk through this feminism journey has shifted massively from where I started years back to where I stand today.

I have been broke open, my belief system rewired, my focus shifted and I am learning as a feminist to keep an open heart to being human.

I see men and women bleed because their sense of worthiness has been externalized by patriarchy.

In my activisms and my work as a coach, I feel, I see, I hear, I read endless stories of humans’ whose have lost their sense of self-worthiness because at one point, they just never made it through accordingly to certain norms in this society. In this patriarchal system your worthiness as a human being has been defined as connected to externals.

When something is externalized, we will at one point pause to reward and award it.

Patriarchy ingrained yet another poison in our system “you are worthy provided you have achieved this or that.”

Women are worthy, so are men; worthy regardless of what they achieve in this life. Their very presence on earth defines their worthiness. No awards or rewards or prize can and shall ever define the worthiness of being a man and a woman.

Pausing, remembering, acknowledging, honoring an celebrating the lives of endless women whose leadership we will know of

Pausing, remembering, acknowledging, honoring and celebrating those women who have led and who lead and who shall lead till the end of time.

Women had led, Women lead and Women shall lead till the end of time.

Photo Courtesy: Karl Magnuson, Unsplash.com

Post © Megha Venketasamy, 2018. All rights reserved.

Terms of Use and Sharing: Feel free to use the Share on FB or Reblog for personal, non-commercial or educational use with all links intact. If you are an organization, institution or individual seeking to use this material for promotional purposes, please ask first. If wanting to include this information, and/or the ideas explored therein into your workshop materials, teachings or written work, please cite this article and author accordingly. All information provided on this post is non-liable and is not intended to replace professional legal, medical, psychological, psychiatric and/or financial counselling

If only we allow ourselves to be vulnerable enough to speak of our state openly.

I am about to share one highly sensitive event and my intention of sharing comes from the deep compassion that has been flooding my space since that event.

A close friend of mine reached out yesterday, I had a free slot after my morning meeting and we coincided our time to catch up.

He is in deep swirls of pains and confusions – struggling to find his grounding in his relationship with his wife, along with a one year child. The illusions of “knowing how to navigate through relationships” are dissolving and he is in deep sadness.

I paused and I listened, the coach in me takes over while the connected friend stood by to just listen.

But nothing prepared me for what I was to hear next. My friend bluntly asked me to sleep with him. This shook me hard, a friendship nurtured for years into family ties, love, respect and connection.

Instead of being and feeling offended or hurt, I asked myself what I can learn from this situation and from this amazing human being who is troubled by his life.

This situation was not and is not about me, though this situation was inherently going to teach me much.

MEN are TRAINED HARDCORE NOT to OWN what they FEEL, from the very beginning of their lives; they are TAUGHT and TOLD the way to DISCONNECT from their HEARTS, their FEELINGS, INSIGHTS and INTUITION.

 

And when pressure builds up internally, men SEEK a  way to RELEASE it all. But men do NOT TALK for TO TALK mean “you are MANLESS”; but men do NOT FEEL for TO FEEL mean “you are  SOFT BALLS” and men do NOT CRY for TO CRY mean “you are a SISSY."

 

When we are DISCONNECTED from our HEART, we go HUNTING for “WHATEVER IT IS” OUTSIDE US. We SEEK for SOLUTIONS OUTSIDE us, for we BELIEVE that SOMEWHERE this is SOMETHING or SOMEONE who HOLDS the POWER to FEED us BACK to LIFE.

Being CONNECTED to one’s HEART means to LIVE life with the KNOWINGNESS and CONSCIOUSNESS that we OWN RESPONSIBILITY  in whatever we GO THROUGH, we are ABLE to SEE through the BELIEFS, PATTERNS and GROW in AWARENESS of how our EXISTENCE has been SHAPED and understand that at our CORE we HOLD the POWER to SHIFT and TRANSFORM.

But men are DISCONNECTED from their HEARTS, they are TAUGHT, TOLD and TRAINED to MAINTAIN CONTROL over it all, especially OVER their FEELINGS. Men are inherently NOT ALLOWED to FEEL through LIFE.

 

Disconnected from their hearts, men end up in relationships with women who are themselves disconnected from their bodies. Disconnected human beings ripple out more disconnects.

Making out on and off will surely bring human beings temporary release for as long as the orgasmic vibes last until the vicious pressurious circles kick in.

For those of you will read these words, my point is “sexual intimacy is sacred and beautiful but when the seeking and longing for intimacy emerge solely as a result of our internal pressure, then know the message is simple, there is something else, something deeper that is seeking our attention.”

 

Please pause and ask our self:

How am I feeling right now right here? Where is that feeling happening in my body? What is it that I have worked hard to hide? What is that one pressing issue I am running away from? What sense of emptiness am I trying to fill?  What difference will it make to my life to have a heart to heart conversation in a safe space with someone about that which I am going through?

As for my friend who is still MY FRIEND, he is CALMER, OWNING the TRUTH of his FEELINGS, his CONSTRUCTED SENSE of HAVING FAILED at getting THINGS RIGHT. He is GROWING into AWARENESS that this WORLD will ongoingly DICTATE MEN'S STEPS through lives BUT ULTIMATELY, our HEARTS will CATCH us and this will MARK the BEGINNING of a NEW ERA. As for me, I STAND in DEEPER COMPASSION for men. We SPEAK of WOMEN and their WOUNDS but we FORGET that this WORLD has also WOMBED and will keep on WOMBING MEN. Men who CARRY their own WOUNDS. Such slight AWAKENING helps me GROW instead of JUDGING.

 

Not for once, did I felt like an endangered species during that conversation, for this situation was not and is not about me, but this situation has taught me much.

My boundaries keep teaching me about the power of love and compassion.

May these words serve their purpose beyond my life.

Photo Courtesy: Jake Melara, Unsplash.com

Post © Megha Venketasamy, 2018. All rights reserved.

Terms of Use and Sharing: Feel free to use the Share on FB or Reblog for personal, non-commercial or educational use with all links intact. If you are an organization, institution or individual seeking to use this material for promotional purposes, please ask first. If wanting to include this information, and/or the ideas explored therein into your workshop materials, teachings or written work, please cite this article and author accordingly. All information provided on this post is non-liable and is not intended to replace professional legal, medical, psychological, psychiatric and/or financial counselling

I write as an act of re-membering HIM, ME and all those connected to US.

Since 2010, I committed to heal my self to overcome the inner barriers that are hindering my path. I am not yet done and each day, I uncover one new barrier.

January 2017, these heart whispers poured through me, my fingers flowed on my keyboard, in front of my laptop screen, my entire body was shaking with tears and hurt from missing and healing from gratitude.

Yesterday one of my closest, reminded me of when the article, "I write as an act of re-membering HIM, ME and all those connected to US" was published and today, my heart whispered to share same with you because I believe stories carry the potentials to heal the keeper and the world.

I read my words one more time and this while it feels a deep trail of deepening love with the knowingness that we can all heal and shift our stories by choosing to open up.

May my story serve the purpose of healing my self and beyond.

Love Light Vibes

Megha

I write as an act of re-membering HIM, ME and all those connected to US.

My father was not just a man, He was one of his kind; a mind of his own, a depth that none could understand. Someone from whom I have learned the love for words. This very love I kept running away for years.

To have had him as genitor was no and is no easy legacy, he was not just intelligent, striking, crazily weird but he had his darkest side - a side which me and my sibblings saw.

And to be called his physical carbon copy was no easy weight for me to carry. A resemblance that made sick for years even after his death.

He has been one of the most shifting journalists Mauritius has had. He has had his glory days and his doomed days. And our family doomed along with him, deep in his oceans of Rhum. And it went for years till 19th January 2003 on the eve of his 48th Birthday.

Death does not heal wounds and death does not bring answers to endless questions a child’s heart can carry. So his death never brought justice to neither me nor my sibblings.

When he was here, I would run away from this legacy that this whole world was trying to throw on me and when he passed away, I speeded my pace away from all that could ever have been HIM.

And for eight years, I would numb every single memory of HIM ensuring that no one could ever remind me of who my father was. I was not a bad person and I am still not a bad person but I was simply fighting my way through that which was paining me for years.

And as I reached my 27th birthday, everything shifted, my whole life crumbled down and within that space, I made the choice to look at that which was killing me slowly. And out of this phase, came life’s shifting questions “Who am I? What ignite me from within? What is it that makes me soar?

There he came shyly, Koomara Venketasamy, he took his time and he stepped into my space again. This while he waited till I was ready to look, till I was ready to listen, till I was ready connect.

And from there on, it took me three years to mourn his death. From then on, the words started flowing.

He came to bestow me with one of my gifts – the power through words.

Today, I write because that’s part of my legacy.

I write because this is what HE taught me; this is what HIS storms roared to me; this is what HIS eyes whispered to me.

I write to honor this legacy that I have despised for years.

I write as an act of re-membering HIM, ME and all those connected to US.

I write because my heart knows no other ways to sing.

I write because I have learned that there is tremendous healing in words

I write because deep within I know that the world’s magic lies within words

I write because I cannot do otherwise

I write because this is my way of letting HIM know that “I am growing more and more into ME and I will never give up on ME.”

 

Grieving does not happen overnight and it takes the time it takes. It takes years and lives. It is very challenging to mourn death of close ones and it is no easy task to embrace legacies coming from them. I know no easy pathway to this but right now, at this very instance, I know that the legacies carry wisdom. I know we are the Guardians of the Wisdom to be handed over to the next generation of Magic Weavers.

Post © Megha Venketasamy, 2018. All rights reserved.

Terms of Use and Sharing: Feel free to use the Share on FB or Reblog for personal, non-commercial or educational use with all links intact. If you are an organization, institution or individual seeking to use this material for promotional purposes, please ask first. If wanting to include this information, and/or the ideas explored therein into your workshop materials, teachings or written work, please cite this article and author accordingly. All information provided on this post is non-liable and is not intended to replace professional legal, medical, psychological, psychiatric and/or financial counselling

The quality of our relationship with others mirrors the quality of our own self-relationship.

“He is not the way he is meant to be with me”, she heaved

“What is this way that he is meant to be with you?” I asked.

Silence.................., “well, I don’t know”, she mumbled.

I pushed gently, “so please describe to me the way he is with you right now”, and the details flooded in.

“When you say he is not the way he is meant to be with you, it is compared to what?”, I asked.

“Well others, you know how others are and how they live together,” she hushed.

And then she fed me with details and information about that which was happening within.

We are immersed in the month of love but as we speak of love, we have unfortunately built fantasies around what love is and how relationships are meant to be.

There are no one-way rules to be in relationships, there are for sure some non-negotiables that have to be present in any healthy relationship and these are: boundaries, respect, honesty, commitment and communication.

 

And while we roam this world expecting our relationships to be picture perfect, “You are the One who has vowed to serve your significant other till your last breaths and Your Significant Other has committed to wipe your tears eternally.”

Get off that illusionary tree, relationships do not happen this way.

Each individual comes with his/her own personal story, wounds, pains, fears, failures, limited beliefs, successes, magic and awesomeness. A person’s ability and willingness to connect with another, is directly linked to that person’s connection to him/her self and own his/her story. And this is not always an easy path for we live in a world bombed by fakedness.

When we choose to be with someone and feel for someone, it means we have actually choosen to commit to embrace that person’s personal story, wounds, pains, fears, failures, limited beliefs, successes, magic and awesomeness.

This asks of us compassion, ability to hold space and the knowingness that what the other person feels, says and how he/she lives comes from that person’s story, wounds, pains, fears, failures, limited beliefs, successes, magic and awesomeness. But to able to hold space and to stand in compassion for someone else, , all this is linked to our own understanding, embracing, acknowledgement  and owning of our story, wounds, pains, fears, failures, limited beliefs, successes, magic and awesomeness.

You cannot give to others unless you have given to your self.

 

Our relationships say a lot about us. If we are constantly ending in relationships where we feel left out, betrayed, unheard, unseen and unfelt. Then I wonder, “What parts of us are we not listening to? What parts of us have we been running away from? What is yet to be acknowledged, healed and embraced within?”

The quality of our relationship with others mirrors the quality of our own self-relationship. A truth that is not always easy to digest because there will always be persons with whom we will bond easily and there will always be others who will keep triggering us.

 

Instead of trying to box our relationships based on external representations, now is the time to pause and seek what bits and pieces of us are yet to be acknowledged, healed and embraced and while we are at it, how can we allow others to go through whatever they are going.

Centuries ago, one of my most favorite teacher, Rumi whispered this on healing:

"Lose yourself completely. Return to root of the root of your own soul."

The one truth is , as we heal so others heal. For as we return to root of the root of our story, wounds, pains, fears, failures, limited beliefs, successes, magic and awesomeness,  we grow in our own understanding, compassion and acceptance. As we grow in our own understanding, compassion and acceptance, we heal and as we heal, we  grow into something that understands, accepts and holds compassion for others' story, wounds, pains, fears, failures, limited beliefs, successes, magic and awesomeness.

Photo Courtesy: Asaf R, Unsplash.com

Post © Megha Venketasamy, 2018. All rights reserved.

Terms of Use and Sharing: Feel free to use the Share on FB or Reblog for personal, non-commercial or educational use with all links intact. If you are an organization, institution or individual seeking to use this material for promotional purposes, please ask first. If wanting to include this information, and/or the ideas explored therein into your workshop materials, teachings or written work, please cite this article and author accordingly. All information provided on this post is non-liable and is not intended to replace professional legal, medical, psychological, psychiatric and/or financial counselling

Fix it Right Here and Right now.......

My first morning of 2018, I spent it with my friend Chaya. We hit the road at 04.30am, morning walk and swim. Today, I write from a place of high inspiration and deep gratitude with one of Chaya’s photo next to me.

A new year and we are all trying to get it right; they say a “great start means a great year”.

We are many in this frenzy of “fix it right here and right now.”

This blog speaks of a topic that most of us struggle with, to an extent of not living out fully.

A client, Sharon shared that she is at a company and in a position that is no longer challenging her. She wants to move forward in her career but she is frustrated with herself because because she is no more motivated.

A friend of mine is going through a tough phase, the love of his life is getting married to someone else. He really believed that he had finally found the one, and it is hard to him to reconcile with whatever is happening in his life.

My client, Faizah, just started dating a friend’s brother. It’s going well, but she’s having doubts, she is not entirely sure. She kept saying to herself and to me, “I shouldn’t be having these thoughts or doubts because he is a great guy. But still!”

A close one went through a miscarriage last week. She’s rightfully heartbroken, and very surprised by the amount of emotions that are coming up for her with this loss. 

In 2016, I made choices, moved out of partnerships but then I went through a phase of intense emotional release. I was in total denial and deep anger for over 3 months. It just did not make sense to me how I was going through this after years and months of inner works and healing.

There is a common thread in these stories “Why me? Why now? How come? Why Universe, why could not things be easy and loving for at least once? How come I was blind again this time? Why can’t I figure it out? When will this end?”

Our minds have been trained to fix. Our immediate reaction will be to go over the “Why? How? When?” while carefully resisting “what is”.

 

“What is” is the reality that which is happening right now. A reality based on how you experience life, and instead of acknowledging and giving space to “what is”, most of us will dive fast for that future.

 

May be you want “what is” to go away.

May you are tired of feeling that way and you want it to change now.

But when we are in so much pain, our minds will not let us feel all the feelings that come up.

Our minds won’t let us feel all the feelings that come up when we are in so much pain. It will go straight to researching, analyzing, isolating, segmenting, dissociating, associating and doing till it hits a point. Then the mind will try to find the lesson behind and try an action plan to get over it.

 

Our mind won’t allow us to take in “what is” because it’s too busy trying to fight or flee from the emotions into “fix it” mode. 

Pausing to acknowledge and face “what is” is in truth, honoring ourselves by being really honest about what we are feeling or thinking right now in this moment fully, without justifying or diagnosing. 

When I asked my client Sharon, why she feels she needs to be focusing on her career when she is no more motivated, she answered, “Because I’ve always been that person, especially in my family - driven to really feel accomplished in my career.” 

Can you see her attachment to what she’s known herself to be, a specific identity, is keeping her from being honest and real about what she feels right now? 

My friend said to me, “I’m just mad at her. I am mad that she broke a relationship that felt so real and loving. How can she not see that and how could she do this to me?”

He followed that up with, “But does that sound like I’m playing the victim? Does not mean that I am not connected and enlightened enough?” 

Do you see how he starts to let himself feel what is real for him right now in the moment, and then shuts it down to try to be somewhere else? 

I smiled, “Is this playing victim? But are you allowed to be pissed that this is happening because that’s how you feel right now in this moment?”

I asked the client who is dating her brother’s friend what she was actually questioning. She said, “I’m just being superficial and dumb.”

She said, “He doesn’t seem as sophisticated as I thought he would be. He’s divorced and I feel he’s still holding on to some parts of that relationship. Also, at times I feel he can’t meet me at my intellectual level.” 

And each time she wanted to go into how she doesn’t really know him yet, and how she could be wrong, which is true, I just kept bringing her back to allowing herself to admit what she’s thinking.

After she rattled off a bunch of doubts I said, “How does it feel to just be honest with yourself without trying to change it?” 

She said, “I actually feel lighter cus most of these doubts aren’t really true. I feel like I have more space to also explore and just see what happens.” 

When I asked my close one how she’s FEELING after the miscarriage, she said, “I’m just trying to figure out the lesson behind why this happened and what caused it.” 

Notice how she didn’t really answer my question. She didn’t reveal how she was feeling at all. This is normal because facing the emotions can feel so hard.

The first and only step to taking in “what is” is asking yourself, “What am I honestly feeling right now?” “What am I honestly thinking right now?” And allow it fully. Accept it fully. Then we can have space to move forward differently and transform into what we desire. 

Unless we allow our selves to see the picture of whatever we have crafted ,we will not be able to re-craft some new inner sceneries for an elevated new journey.

Is it hard for you to take in “what is”? How do you move through difficult or painful moments? 

Did this blog serve a purpose for you?

I will love to hear from you, do reach out on megha.venketasamy@gmail.com

Love Love Love

Megha 

Photo Courtesy: Chaya Jhowry

Post © Megha Venketasamy, 2018. All rights reserved.

Terms of Use and Sharing: Feel free to use the Share on FB or Reblog for personal, non-commercial or educational use with all links intact. If you are an organization, institution or individual seeking to use this material for promotional purposes, please ask first. If wanting to include this information, and/or the ideas explored therein into your workshop materials, teachings or written work, please cite this article and author accordingly. All information provided on this post is non-liable and is not intended to replace professional legal, medical, psychological, psychiatric and/or financial counselling

What legacy do you want to leave?

I am dwelling in a space where I feel called to set my intentions like never before.

These questions have been swirling in my space for a week and today, I hand them over to us and for us.

What legacy to do you want to leave behind?

What is that gift of your presence that you want to leave behind when you depart this human body?

What and how and who do you want to be remembered as?

Maybe you want to be remembered through your children or through your significant other or through your work or through your family. Regardless of what legacy means to and for you, know that this is your legacy and every legacy matters for they become part of this world and will serve the purpose to fuel love within this world.

And as I walk through this phase, I wonder about so many of us – I wonder about the process that we all go through consciously and unconsciously. This phase is teaching me that it will take more than just well-defined specific intentions to reach that specific destination.

There is an element that most of us do not talk about; something that most of us shy away from for this is probably an aspect that has been misunderstood and demonized from the very beginning of life.

POWER!!!!!!

 

When I say “POWER”, I refer to the innate ability, wisdom, gifts that each one of us carries within. The POWER to CREATE, to CO-CREATE, to SUPPORT but also the POWER to DESTROY and to ELIMINATE.

I know that I am not the only one and certainly that the last  to struggle to owning her POWER. My POWER to CREATE, to CO-CREATE and to SUPPORT. And I stay very much present to my POWER to DESTROY and to ELIMINATE.

I am learning to walk towards HUMILITY instead of PLAYING SMALL. PLAYING SMALL is one thing and STAYING HUMBLE is another thing.

HUMILITY comes from the KNOWINGNESS that there is no SELF-MADE  BEINGS on earth, WE ARE WHO ARE We in this moment in time, for OUR EXISTENCE has been IMPACTED by and through the EXISTENCE of OTHERS (those who came before us and those who are right here right now). This PERPETUAL SYNCHRONIZATION OF LIFE into our EXISTENCE, whether we BELIEVE IN IT or NOT  whether WE ARE AWARE OF IT or NOT, speaks of this INTERDEPENDENCE that EXISTS THROUGH and WITHIN each one of US. This is HUMILITY, this KNOWNINGNESS that our STORIES are INTERTWINED and our PATH is the SAME though we DEFINE it DIFFERENTLY.

 

PLAYING SMALL is SELF -DEFEATING. It is an energy INTENTIONALLY INVESTED to HIDE the LIGHT, the SHINE, the BRIGHT and WISDOM that naturally OOZE from WITHIN. This is TIRESOME and this is UNDIVINELY and UNLOVING.

The other side of the HUMILITY and PLAYING SMALL is OVER-TAKING, wanting it ALL for US. DESTROYING and ELIMINATING with the sole intention of FEEDING our POWER to keep DESTROYING and ELMINATING.

We are many to shy at the mention of POWER. For we never understood that as much it may be easy to be corrupted, we will never move ahead unless we own our POWER. Regardless of how we funnel that POWER, we will be called to balance our actions in future. ABUSE of POWER will have to be settled as much as LOVE through POWER will be rewarded. This is the BALANCE of LIFE.

 

What does POWER have to do with LEGACY?

Intention setting is a creative process and such process summons parcels of our beings unknown to us. Such process beckons our POWER to to CREATE, CO-CREATE, SUPPORT, DESTROY and ELIMINATE.

Such process asks of us to own our inner light, shine, bright and wisdom. The bigger the intentions, the more POWER is activated from within. A POWER that SEEKS to swirl through this world.

Those who have made it through history, impacting the world but first their families, with deep rooted legacies whether they are known  or unknown, whether they were parents, lovers, teachers, gardeners or writers, they did one thing – they owned their POWER. Maybe they never understood it but they OWNED every part of their being that carried the POTENTIAL to CREATE, CO-CREATE, SUPPORT, DESTROY and ELIMINATE.

When you start owning that POWER to CREATE, CO-CREATE, SUPPORT, DESTROY and ELIMINATE, the one thing that happens is you become a CUSTODIAN of and to a LEGACY which will handed from and through you to others. It could well be a LEGACY of LOVE, of HOPE, of NURTURE, of CONNECTIONS, of CONCEPT, of BUSINESS. Whatever it is, to be able leave a LEGACY behind, you have to BECOME the CUSTODIAN of whatever it is first. To become the CUSTODIAN of WHATEVER it is, you will have to OWN your POWER, knowing that while you can CREATE, CO-CREATE and SUPPORT, you can also easily SWAP to DESTROY and ELIMINATE.

 

The equation is simple:

 You can GIVE only what You HAVE.

You GIVE when You are a CUSTODIAN,

someone who GUARDS,KEEPS and NURTURES

 whatever it is.

You BECOME a CUSTODIAN when You OWN your POWER to BECOME the CUSTODIAN

Benazir Bhutto , Mahatma Gandhi , Margaret Thatcher, Martin Luther King, Maya Angelou, Nelson Mandela, , Wayne Dyer and Sojourner Truth  they were all CUSTODIANS. They have probably struggled with POWER but had they not owned their POWER with the awareness that every step of theirs could and would change the world, we would not be the keepers of their legacies of LOVE, TRUTH, FREEDOM, HEALING, HUMANITY and  much more.

What legacy to do you want to leave behind? What is it that gift of your presence would you want to leave behind when you depart this human body?

What and how and who do you want to be remembered as?

Who are you as a Custodian? What do you want to guard, to nurture with the intention of handing over to the next generation?

How can you lead the way through by owning your POWER and staying PRESENT to your innate ability to DESTROY and ELIMINATE?

Whatever it is that you choose as path, at one point, you will be called to balance every investment you made through the use of your POWER. Keep in mind that the only mercy you will experience will be that of you facing the wrongs that you have done. You are the Alchemist.

 

Photo Courtesy: Josh Boot on Unsplash

Post © Megha Venketasamy, 2018. All rights reserved.

Terms of Use and Sharing: Feel free to use the Share on FB or Reblog for personal, non-commercial or educational use with all links intact. If you are an organization, institution or individual seeking to use this material for promotional purposes, please ask first. If wanting to include this information, and/or the ideas explored therein into your workshop materials, teachings or written work, please cite this article and author accordingly. All information provided on this post is non-liable and is not intended to replace professional legal, medical, psychological, psychiatric and/or financial counsel.

Re-Writing our Narratives of Whatever it is

I feel as days stretch, we will no more be able to escape the one pounding whisper “it is time to review your narratives of whatever it is.”

I pause and I scan my path up till now. I see, I hear and I feel how those narratives handed over to me, were in turn validated by my self until I ended up building a huge chunk of life around it.

There is much to say, to state and even more to shatter.

I am about to open my Pandora of churning thoughts owning responsibility to review every words in years to come; acknowledging that this life itself is no constant. One day, I will be asked to unlearn everything that I am about to learn.

 

Here are my whispers

1. Love is not what we know of love

Love is not always some comfortable thing. When true love steps in, this love will take you on an unlikely ride. A bumpy shaky ride that forces you to face your fears, your unworthiness, your limits and your wounds. 

You will be nauseous with this kind love. I am not speaking of narcissistic love, though even these relations have their roles to play on earth.

I am speaking of a love that is so pure that it comes into your life with the sole purpose of moving you to closer to you. And for this inner closeness to come into being, you will have to let go of everything that hinders your path to you.

Know that if ever you were to fall unto such love in your life, then you are a blessed one. When your love mirrors your fears, your unworthiness, your limits and your wounds – know this is the beginning of a whole new journey where you will be taught to you are deep within to emerge.

Such pure love redefines compassion.

2. Compassion does not mean that life will save from your phase

Being compassionate does not mean that life will pause to come to your rescue. Being compassionate does not mean that life will interfere on your behalf to smoothen the process you are going through.

Compassion means that space will be held for whatever you are going through, knowing and believing that you will make it through. Being compassionate means that life stands in awareness that this phase is exactly what you need to make it through and this is your battle. Prayers, Wishes and Humming will talk through with you but life will never INTERFERE.

Life will never INTERFERE until you learn to INTERFERE on your behalf.

This will ask of you to raise one tiny finger and this is enough to keep you going.

3. Alchemize this belief of pain sine-qua-non to learning and growth

We have been brought up in an illusion of stability and success

Change scares us; Change brings to surface our deepest fears. Change announces a new world and we resist this. Growth is scary for this world practices the doctrine of selling “growth equals to pains”, there is no growth without pains.

Our true nature is not aligned to pain, so we try to fix pains, we run away, we hide, we stuff and we numb.

It is our resistance that causes pain. Know where your resistance comes from, know why you are comfortable in this old, know what it symbolizes for you

Know also that you cannot resist change. As much as change can be smooth in the beginning, it will be violent if you have let it accumulate for far too long.

Pain is a result of unawareness, of wanting to fix things, of holding on and of being afraid.

None knows what is ahead but there is a promise from life, when you release that which dis-serves you, the rest will fall in place.

4. Discomforts are not meant to be fixed

Human beings are gifted with a palette of emotions. We have been taught and told about synthetic happiness. A marketed image of happiness which dictates that moment of discomforts are to be fixed and corrected.

There is nothing wrong in feeling discomfort. This discomfort is here to teach you something. It is telling you something. It is here for a reason. Stay with it

Know that nothing is wrong with you. You will feel, you will question. You will doubt. You will compare. You will freak out. You will drag yourself. You will cry. You will be angry.

Until you find your own way through. You will have to rock bottom until your suffocation kicks you to make a choice to reach out for your light. This is being human.

5. Trust your Feeling

Feeling is that space within, when you know that which you know not how –

this Unknown Knowningness.

There is no logic here. No oracle can predict for you. No healer can smoothen your path.

This is about you and your journey.

Perhaps the biggest challenge of any human this moment onwards is to start trusting his/her flow, knowing that there is no logic to this flow.

There will be no instant validation for what which you FEEL. This instant gratification, we have been domesticated into, holds no space as we move forward in our consciousness.

This is about your training into TRUST.

 

6. Whoever teaches you to curse others’ differences, know this is not DIVINE

We have wasted enough lives being scared of that which differs on the surface.

Religious Leaders have played a wicked role in fueling this.

Know that the path we are going is asking us to rewrite the narratives of what being different mean but most importantly to heart our differences for at their core rests the keys to our healing and elevation.

Whatever, whoever, wherever, whichever, however, you were brought up to believe in, know that you will have to let go of that fear of the differences; know that this is no one way to meeting Divine.

And if there exists one way, then that way is that you shredding all that is not Divine within you.

2018 announces itself as a SPECTACULAR year, most of us will BE NO MORE the SAME by 2019. WE will undergo TRANSFORMATION like NEVER BEFORE. WE will be LOST, WE will AGONIZE, WE will  be SCARED and WE will SCARE the WORLD.

But ultimately, WE will FIND our WAY THROUGH, for that’s the PROMISE from LIFE, “WE WILL ALL END UP HOME EVENTUALLY.”

Photo Courtesy: Chaya Jhowry

Post © Megha Venketasamy, 2018. All rights reserved.

Terms of Use and Sharing: Feel free to use the Share on FB or Reblog for personal, non-commercial or educational use with all links intact. If you are an organization, institution or individual seeking to use this material for promotional purposes, please ask first. If wanting to include this information, and/or the ideas explored therein into your workshop materials, teachings or written work, please cite this article and author accordingly. All information provided on this post is non-liable and is not intended to replace professional legal, medical, psychological, psychiatric and/or financial counsel.