Going Deep Into The Mental

A script for my Miss Cakap Banyak Diary @ Jan 28

Happy Chinese new year and happy holiday if you're still on holiday.

This is going to be a special episode of diary, I am going to talk about something a bit serious.  In fact, not only serious but it's borderline...disturbing.

But like many things, you need to disrupt, make a mess before some good can come.

Well in this case I hope I am heading to that direction of bringing better things to come.

I want to share with you today, and admit to myself today that I have issues.

What issues?

The thing is, I myself don't know the whole of it - I just know that deep inside me, buried under all my surface composure of being the energetic, talkative, friendly person that we see outside -- there are a bunch of stuff that are bubbling in deep water.

Sometimes this shit gets so hot it comes up to the surface and make an unpleasant mess and then goes away.  When it surfaces, it gets my attention for a bit, I'd self reflect and make a note of the problem.  Sometimes I keep a diary of the incident and my thoughts, sometimes I make a conversation with a friend on the matter and get an insight from another person's perspective - that always helps.

OK so you are watching and thinking, what the fuck is she on and on about?

Basically, in the wake of some recent and not so recent, but recent enough string of events of both, at professional and personal capacity where I was in the middle of unpleasant conflicts.  To be more specific, I would name myself the catalyst of the conflicts and disagreements.

Now isn't that a pretty way of saying that I have discovered what an asshole I have been.

(side effect of having started watching The Crown on Netflix, you get all proper with your English)

 But ya seriously, I have spent some time thinking and asking myself how and why did I end up here - a certified asshole.

The usual suspects came to mind - my ego and my insecurities getting out of balance.   Being able to pin point the source, the root of what cause my behaviour to get out of hand, is a good start - but just that alone won't solve the problem.

I look around at other areas of my life, and lifestyle where I feel much out of balance and not where I like it be - my incessant restlessness and the desire to control things, and people.  Much as I know I have improved ever so slightly in past years, it is still far from healthy.  I want to do better.

We are at most times, the cause of what happens to us.  Our beliefs turn into behaviour and our behaviour manifest into our reality.

I have problem letting things be, my mind is an overheated oven all the time.  When I fall sick I have a lot of difficulties resting and healing.

Someone whose sense I trust, told me yesterday - that she can see that I have a front, this thing that I do to control my own emotions.  Means my interaction with the outside world, is a controlled front that I have subconsciously created for myself and for others.

Basically this means, I have received signs and warnings from a series of incidents that are calling for me to pay attention, pay a lot more attention to my mind.

Honestly it feels a bit scary because I am already a walking overheated overthinking machine, now I have to THINK MORE?

No, I now have to LEARN how to THINK the right things, for better mental health.

I want to get to the inside of my mental, and find the root of my deep issues - the real source of my deep set restlessness, my obsession with being in control of everything, my disability to let things be, let it flow.

So, laying the headline of the problem is a start.  I don't quite know what I will do next.  I have some ideas and I am nervous.  I want to learn mediation, I want to make time for a silent retreat this year - I hope soon.

Thank you for listening and watching.  If you have thoughts about whatever I just share - anything at all.  You can write to me, comment, private message.

I wish you peace and joy.

The floor beneath my ass

FB post @ Jan 24

I sat on the cement floor in the first bedroom to cool down. This was my bedroom for all of my high school years in Taiping, all to myself after my sister left home to work in the city. In this humble single story house in Taman Air Kuning, only one room in the entire house was tiled - the living room. My dad is not a fancy nor a fussy guy. Even back then, in my clueless tender age, I knew this was not the best looking flooring. But I never minded it, we didn’t have no air-con through all the years - this cool cement floor has accompanied and provided me a cooling place to read on hot days. 

I have vivid memories of my idyllic school holiday afternoons and where I spent countless hours on this less than attractive bedroom floor, reading many copies of old Readers’ Digest, and other books. With curtains drawn and the floor fan, I could lie here for hours without leaving the room; traveling to faraway places in the pages I feast my eyes on. Those innocent years, stresses of life were of a different kind. Never will I be that again. 

On this very floor was the first time ever I place a pair of earphones in my ears, listening to my sister’s copy of Natalie Cole’s Unforgettable album. 

Today, after an hour or two of air-con in the living room (my dad installed two units of AC in this house two years ago) watching Netflix on my phone, I took a shower and returned to my old room and decided to read a bit. I sat on this floor again to cool down, with a novel...and got transported back in time to my childhood. But this girl who enjoys reading on the cool floor is now much older and her soul bartered with less innocent stresses of life. 

We don’t know for how long more we will keep this old little house here. Now there’s talks of moving the old folks to the city where my sister and I live. But before any of the major changes to come into form, it’s lovely to be cooling my hot ass on this ugly but adorable floor, reading a book.

Accepting the terms, what ageing is

Funny how life is like a mystery and detective novel, where one gets the explanation and answers to an earlier unsolved mystery many pages, chapters down the book.

I was quite miffed about my mom's non reaction after having sat on the front row of my Cinnabar Rouge concert, on opening night and on the same week of our birthdays, April of 2017.  I was waiting for days and weeks for some comments from her about my sparkling and dazzling career milestone.  Nothing.  Much later, I heard from sister that she uttered something close to the effect of "Your sister is such a brave thing, to be able to sing and dance in front of so many people."

Three years later, it took yet another...post festive season sibling row (me and brother) self-reflection for me to come to light...

Of course there was hardly any visible reaction from my mother towards my display of talent in the concert.  She would have been overwhelmed and too distracted by her increasingly crowded mind.  Alzheimer was coming onto her.  I was oblivious to it all then.  She wore dark shades on the front row, having just been out of a single eye cataract operation - she would have been super disoriented and in discomfort.

With so much noise in her head, what dazzling commentary could I have possibly asked of her?  Only if I knew better then.  I was self-absorbed and clueless.

It's all clearer now.

I am still coming to terms with this now not-new thing about mom.  I think I am doing well.

Dad is still mostly quite the alert and active one, and he too is learning lots in coping with all the changes.  Bless his soul.

FB post earlier today:

My earliest memories of my parents’ relationship is that they argued a great deal. So much so that it was the norm in the household for me - listening to the bickering. But there was always food on the table, money for school bus and allowance for me. As I grew up and observed more families of others, many I’ve envied and many more I’m glad weren’t mine; I learn that in life our job is to make the best with what we have. My parents belong to the generation that fix things instead of throwing away things (my dad just had his cheap 7-year-old electric floor fan repaired); and they endure things. They’ve stay put in their marriage that has clearly changed in so many ways since they fell for each other all those decades ago. I can’t say if I have more respect for their tenacity or more sympathy, perhaps a bit of both. 

Comparing myself to them, I see a person who’s so ingrained in her own orbit of beliefs and system, I cannot see myself making room for another soul in this planet of mine. 

Now in their seventies and still bickering, however, I see how things have shifted a little. Mom’s on set dementia is progressing steadily. She’s ever more reliant on dad being her driver, person bringing home packed food (knowing that they are eating outside food every meal really pains me), etc. Just watching them at home for over a few days, I get updated a great deal on how things will unfold soon - or so I think. It takes great effort for me to stay emotionless seeing the change in my mom’s condition. 

I’ve never been a family person and I don’t plan to pretend to be one soon. However, I do feel deeply about the call of service as a daughter to offer kindness, understanding and support to my folks in this golden age. Still a long way for me to learn, I just hope I don’t learn too late.

Sitting with my Sage

He who came to my aide and bring light to the personal drama, personal mind storm:

"Just let it go.  Ego is great to drive us to achieve something, but horrible when used in hindsight.  Then it becomes that silly little brat, sulky brat.

You have guardian angel, what would Sitting Duck say...

Be happy for others' achievements, we sometimes feel the need for acknowledgements when others get it, but are most hard in ourselves because we see all with a critical eye.

In a night of hubris, of fanfare, sometimes it seems like it's the world.  

The most important thing in the end, is - are you happy doing the thing you do?

But sometimes we see a lot of hubris, and mistaken it for happiness - that's why it's important to set a goal."

Me: Must remember to come back to home ground.  I tend to get drifted off by all moments.

"It's difficult to fight the feeling when you see a crowd of hubris. It's easy to get confused amidst the flash and glitter.  I step away, and continue doing what I enjoy, not forgetting why I do what I do. "



On Fame 

"Well, we all want acknowledgement.  Especially as we come to a certain age.  Thing is it can come from many sources and in many forms.  We just need to find the honest source that suits us.
And in the end, it is the pursuit of happiness whatever it maybe, so why worry what source gives you the most happiness?

Maybe it's a bit self-serving but it keeps us happy?"

Me: Isn't most things self-serving though?  It's almost like survival? 

"It is, the survival of the self.  The self is most what we make of it."

Me: The Self! Buddhism comes in.

"Buddhism tells you to eventually, even lose the self.  But in order to lose it, you must first honestly discover it.  You cannot lose that which you do not know.

And the self is a construct, it is the best version of what we chose to be.  What we are by nature, isn't always the self we want to be.  Buddhism teaches one to first rise above our primal instincts, to covet, to want, to need, to struggle, to suffer.

And once you achieve that, you let that go as well.

无为，无我。"



:) Thank you Sage.

On this note, I forgive myself for being swept away in the moment and lost sight of my true anchor.
And I allow space to question myself from time to time.

Sitting with my ugly side

I woke up this morning and discovered layers of myself, facets of myself that I hadn't noticed before. Ego, insecurities and dissatisfaction that I didn't know were there before.

OK, the feelings and the analysis are still raw.  I still need time to sit with these findings and cool down - not to get ahead of myself.

What about all my quiet solitary nods to self that this is a good life and I love so much of what I have, and is grateful?   Were those not real?  I wasn't lying to myself was I?

Deep breathing.   Had to be enforced.
Because the feeling of hurt and pain (where did they come from, I am asking) oozed out of my tear glands and lungs felt as real as a pillar of cement being bumped on my throat and chest.

Recalibration needed.

Start from the ground up.

I've verbalised so much about the unaffectedness of me with the subject of fame, ask me again.

Much to rethink about what my relationship is with ego and insecurities.

Right now, the waves of hurt and pained feeling just lashing at me.  I am just glad I have the space and time to be alone to sit here with them.

The 10-day silent retreat suddenly feels very urgent.

My wisdom - whatever is here now - tells me to take a moment to let this all settle before I jump on anything.

Not that scheduling for the retreat is in anyway detrimental, just as always, a matter of time management.

Guess I've always thought I am the kind of person who walks on the sunny side of the road.  All this traveling down, I have not noticed all the rotting garbage along the side walk where my eyes don't meet.

This is the day - the wake-up-and-smell-the-garbage day.

The head is aching from everything.

At least my heart is still beating and I am hungry for food...time to feed.

This too shall pass.