On Feminism…finally

I have spent the past year reading every book and article I could get my hands on, on feminism, women’s rights, its history, achievements, downfalls and whatnot. What this has brought me, more than a master’s degree, is a deep insight on what has made us women, women. And what continues to shape us and what keeps us from fulfilling our identities. I spontaneously used “we” and “us” instead of “I” and “me”, as what I believe is that everyone is into this and everyone, one way or another has an obligation to be more aware, more alert and more conscious towards actions, remarks, comments (or the lack) that in a way degrade women. I believe awareness towards this can make the world a better place. Everyone is entitled to try and make the world a better place, for men, women and children even with the least bit of effort. I do not want to act boastful or critical of other’s opinion but my point is it is irresponsible of women to shush and laugh through sexist comments even in a vain place as Facebook is, just to seem “cool”. What is wrong with being “cool”? Everything! It is the new form of shutting up and cheering the abusers. “Abuser” is a big world, I know, the better suiting term would be “Ignorant”. Try at least to be a bit more aware and if you are share it with others.

Living beings

One of my first skeptical thoughts on mindfulness and the whole “living in the present” concept was and sometimes still is, that why should I even try stopping the thought stream? Aren’t human beings supposed to think?

On the seventh day of my stay at the Vipassana meditation retreat, three years ago, I had an enormous emotional distress, I could not breathe and my heart was beating literary out of my chest. I went to the teacher and not being able to talk after being silent for an entire week, burst into tears. Later I found out this was a normal incident to most of the first time participants on day seven. She advised me to lie down in my room and breathe deeply imagining that all my anxiety, negative thoughts and emotions evaporated from the palms of my hands. I did as she said and needless to say it took not more than a few minutes for all the negative feelings to disappear leaving me with an indescribable peace. The few remaining days went by smoothly and indeed very enjoyably, it was as if a big burden was taken off my chest.

I did not realize how this worked until this evening as I was watching an Eckhart Tolle recording to get some ideas for this page, I heard him advise the same to everyone who is trying to stop the constant mind blabber especially at night and before sleep.  His advice is to shift the attention away from thinking and ask yourself if you can feel the energy inside your hands. You will then feel a tingling on the palms of your hands which you could then shift throughout the whole body, the arms, the legs, etc. Before you notice you have calmed down the mind. The point is to feel that you are actually alive, to experience that aliveness not in your head but in your whole body. That is, trust me, an extraordinary experience.

No doubt human beings are supposed to think, you cannot live without thinking, analyzing, plotting and making decisions but what if all along you forget to live? Moments will pass, minutes, hours, days and years without us realizing that we are, above all, living beings. That’s the point I have discovered so far. 

Coming Back to life II

I failed to keep my promise on re-starting my blog back in September. I guess the baby that it was, needed some more time to develop but to be honest I was holding back writing about the things I wanted to write about. The voice in my head kept saying, “some matters better be kept personal… bla bla.”

Now, since I am trying to get rid of that “voice” I will finally start writing. What I intend by “getting rid of the voice” is the stream of thoughts that judges, manipulates, lies and tricks the true essence of me as a human being, constructing an ego that would in return separate me from life and from fully experiencing it. I have long realized that living with constant thinking would keep me from tiny little beauties in life, even from taking a deep breath once in a while. A lot of this might sound showy, talking about Mindfulness, the new spiritual trend but it’s not. Mindfulness as far as I’ve learned and experienced is about living in the present moment. An effort towards stopping the constant blabber and just being… this is a long story. Stay tuned.