Aware

Are you aware? Do you feel when things shift in your personal atmosphere or are you asleep?

Clueless?

I've heard there's varying degrees of awareness, that most of us are still asleep. Some of us are waking up, others are fully cognizant of what they're doing and what impact their words and actions have on themselves and others.

And yet others have no clue at all that any of this 'mindful stuff' even exists. Everything is completely out of control for them and they're just reacting to it all.

I'd like to think that I'm somewhere on the 'upper-in-between' level.

Not quite there yet, still a bit reactionary but better at keeping things together.

I don't really meditate that much, I often fall asleep you see while that's happening. But, what I have been doing is observing more, biting my tongue in most cases unless it is absolutely necessary to say something. Observing my reactions and questioning why do I 'do that'? And so far it's been a very interesting discovery.

I believe when you show people what irks you, then they only do that very thing even more to annoy you. It's the messed up part of human nature that I will never understand, that sadistic part in all of us that gets a kick out of hurting someone.

It's all ego you see. When my ego is hurt, I will defend myself at all costs, even if it means hurting you in return.

But I've also realized something about myself - whenever I'm hurt or offended I cower inside, I retreat. In the past I would just stay there, nowadays I reflect and see what's hurting me and then I try my best to let it go.

If it's a friend who has said something unkind then I leave them alone for a bit. If it's an uncomfortable situation I just let it be for a while. I find other things to occupy my time, I'm quite good at finding stuff to do. I think everyone should be aware of how their words and actions impact on people. In doing so, more often that not the situation rectifies itself. In some cases, the wrong party realizes their mistakes and apologizes.

So I do think that we all can make an effort to be more aware of how our actions and words affect those around us. It's not impossible, for some that is.

For many unfortunately, I don't that will ever happen. Most people have a clueless, expectant attitude that it's their right to be blunt, sarcastic and abrasive.

To me however, that could never be right.

I believe in diplomacy.

Something unfortunately, many people including some of my friends, lack.

Fear

Fear.

It has kept you in line for decades. You have questioned every move out of fear.

It is the picture frame through which you stare.

You make every decision with fear as your guide and council.

An entire lifetime of fear and the anxiety of fear.

A whole life of towing the line, always being the good daughter. Always being in the shadow of your sibling.

Never expressing your emotions to anyone.

An entire lifetime of being stuck in the middle of your mother and your husband hating each other.

Ignoring it and sweeping it all under the carpet to get the chores of the house done.

The house and responsibilities became your prison. And now, it's all you know.

Never questioning why to see if perhaps your way of thinking is wrong, that maybe there's another truth, not the one that you are telling yourself. Maybe there is in fact a more balanced truth, one that is closer to reality.

But you can't see it, it's too late.

Anxiety and fear dine with you at every meal, it kisses you goodnight and wakes with you in the morning.

Fear is all you know.

And if it is one thing that I have recently learnt from all of this, is that I will not live in fear.