My Life Doesn’t Suck – It Just Feels Like It.

February 15, 2021February 15, 2021 ~ OmAkashaYoga ~ Leave a comment

Needless to say the current state of affairs in the world have reached unpreceded levels of what-the-fuckness. We keep telling ourselves: “It is going to be OK”, but really I want to ask: Is it though?

Pre- Covid times, I had to worry about my own fuckery ( to an extent), but is it me or since the pandemic hit, there seems to have been a shift in universes, and all the wrong that was present has been brought to the forefront and you just can’t ignore it anymore. Everything is twisted. People say 2020 was one of the worst if not most challenging years, like we had nothing to do with it, but I kind of believe 2020 was the climax of our collective karma brought to an eruption. Yeah, you know what I’m talking about between police violence, racism, climate change, pandemics, universes shifting force fields, flying rats, zombies (just checking you’re still with me). Being stuck indoors because of lockdowns and government guidelines is forcing us to realise the extent to which our mental endurance can be tested and also how very wrong some of our priorities are and have been for a very long time. The ever present feeling of movement, action, traction, reaction in our daily lives kept us in an occupied mindset; feeling like we were actually doing stuff.

However, remove the motion, and replace with nothing else but working from home, for example, or home-schooling your kids at the same time, that sh*t would drive anyone beserk. Add to that the existing underlying mental health conditions of each one of us, diagnosed or not. It’s just bonkers how much of a battering our mind is undergoing. Might as well go stand in boxing cage with a gorilla, trust it would probably have the same effect.

I know I’ve been experiencing drastic melt-downs way too often over the past few months; my poor colleagues have seen the best and the worst of ALL of me ( and not in a John Legend way either). I mean, who wants to break down in tears when asked the question: “Are you OK?” no one really, but it happens; sometimes you just can’t answer that question without putting on your brave face, so there go the gates of River Cry, plunging into the abyss of Wailing.

We are humans, we’re not robots ( and I’m pretty sure robots probably have feelings too, because I say so!) . But seriously, what we are going through is HARD. There aren’t the usual niceties of daily life to hide how f*cked up stuff can be. My biggest realisation since 31.12.2019 is that I give too much to my work; it’s not even my passion so I don’t even have the excuse to say I LOVE MY WORK, nah, it’s just because I carry childhood trauma; I taught and nurtured my own self to be this insufferable people pleasing weird chick, workaholic, not wanting to disappoint EVER in any situation; so when I started my professional life, my work became my life, because that’s how I identify myself, and benchmark my success mostly. It wasn’t a problem for many years, and it turned out to be a weapon of mine because it made into this high achiever. It wasn’t a problem until it was. I slowly started experiencing depression, feeling worthless, anxious about anything and everything. Then one bad relationship drove me down the alley of seeking for counsel in the end, and I decided to take a sabbatical to go travel………then Covid-19 kicked in when I was India loving life, being OK, repenting and what-not; so my travels got cut short, and I came back to gloomy old London in March 2020 ( and the rest is history straight out of a sci-fi movie with flying rats, universes shifting, zombies).

Stuck indoors and working from home, like most people doing longer hours because let’s face it: 1). what else is there to do? and 2). I’m already home, so I don’t have the physical separation of buildings, having to take trains. So I just work, and work, and work. So yeah, my mind is taking the biggest battering ever. Mental Health Marathon: it’s a f*cking parkour with sharks on steroids in murky waters if you’re asking me.

It really does seem like my life sucks and is absolute sh*te, and has been for such a long time. And this becomes my reality: entirely fabricated, true, but it becomes my reality. I watch myself going in spiral mode, anxious at every email popping up in my inbox, OCD traits are kind of sprouting, and for sure panic attacks feel like they’ve become my best friend. What to do then? I say to myself “My Life Doesn’t Suck, It Just Feels Like It”. And when I can’t take it anymore, I take a time-out, close my eyes, close my ears, and try breathing. I also reach out to my close ones to let them know I am not OK and I don’t know what to do.

If you are suffering from ongoing stress resulting in depression, anxiety, panic attacks, lack of appetite, substance using, REACH OUT please. There are people who care about you, I promise, whether these are friends, family or strangers on a help line. You’re not a burden, you never will be; you deserve to be heard, so don’t try and be brave and handle your sh*t on your own, just reach out. There is strength in asking for help, and there is help out there, so please don’t suffer in silence. Check out the links below for help.

And please look after yourself: remember what makes you happy, play music, buys yourself a drum, draw, or sit down and breathe. You will be OK, we will be OK. We’re not prisoners of our fabricated lives.

MIND: https://www.mind.org.uk/

SAMARITANS: https://www.samaritans.org/

Why I Didn’t Celebrate My Birthday.

December 10, 2019March 24, 2020 ~ OmAkashaYoga ~ Leave a comment

Or at least, not in the way that most people understand the word ‘celebrate’ anyway.

Today is my birthday, I hit 32.

Like I said to my sister, “Tatty-too (thirty-two)”. Yesterday, I actually had to get my calculator out to make sure of the age I was actually hitting, once you’re past your 30’s you kind of start amalgamating the years and stop counting; what counts is the decade now, we know we’re adults, there’s not much else to prove apart from showing that we’re not total douchebags deprived of hope.

Anyhow, today’s my birthday, I woke up wishing to my own self a ‘Happy Birthday old girl’, I am not even kidding. In the mist of waking-up-why-I-gotta-work haze, I had a little warmth in my heart, just at the thought of me making it to another year. Maybe, that’s what you call being content.

It’s amazing, is it not. A few years back, my phone would be popping and flashing and ringing and notifying me every minute of a so-and-so wishing me a happy birthday – my Facebook page would be littered with emojis and memes, and stickers and exes wishing me to stay beautiful ( I would obviously secretly or openly cussed them out, but that’s another blog). As the years went by, the popping-and-flashing-and-ringing-and-notifying-every-minute would reduce, as would the feeling of being young and famous. And today, I count the notifications to have been a handful.

You know what else comes with age, aside from contentment? Wisdom. And knowing, for sure, ‘Less is More’, or that it is all about ‘Quality and not Quantity’.

I know that the people who have wished me to be happy today, truly mean it because they have taken time out of their real-life-sucks-you-dry-mothereffin-deadline-boss-is-on-my-back schedule to wish my little old self a Happy Birthday indeed. What matters is what’s happening in the real world, outside the matrix, human beings made of flesh and blood giving you hugs.

So when I get asked the question of ‘What are you doing tonight’ and the answer is ‘not much’, don’t be surprised.

I bought myself a San Miguel, a pack of red grapes and cheered to myself and my late father, face-called my mother and told her I’m coming home soon. And to see the look on her face was worth every hard working year I broke my back for Mr. Boss-man, because I am an adult now, and I adult good. I don’t need an extravagant party, I am actually quite good at this minute with what I represent in Life, so I’ll take that with me. Yeah, maybe I’ll go to the cinema this weekend, and who knows, get popcorn or something, go crazy. You’re probably thinking what sorcery is this…

Nothing fantastic, nothing glamorous, you might even be wondering what type of celebration this is, surely the one of a depressed mind; start analyzing my choice of beverage, and lack of cooked dinner.

I’ll give you a pass and thank you for your concern. I’m OK today, and most of all I am grateful. I’ll take that win.

You can be OK too. So there you go, no answer, I don’t even believe there was a question, but you’re welcome.

A Positive Nature In A Depressed Mind?

November 11, 2019November 12, 2019 ~ OmAkashaYoga ~ Leave a comment

So today at work, one of my colleagues said to a client that I was one of the most positive people in the office. I could not really hide my reaction and raised a dubious eyebrow, like I don’t have a poker face unless I want to prank someone you know; I wear my emotions on my face 24/7; it’s like a live stream of Panda’s Emotions En Direct!

Anyhow, I digress. My colleague’s statement stayed with me, and ultimately pushed me to start this blog. I got home pondering and hammering this one question in my head: “Can you be positive and be depressed at the same time?” Hell, I even Googled it to see if there were other people out there like me asking the same question. All I found was “How Positivity Helps You Through Depression” and other, let’s say, useful articles but not one was really answering my question.

It has been a couple of years I have been suffering with Chronic Depression, yes yes the dreaded words. This year though, I hit a very low point in and effectively sought out help; had a breakdown in front of my GP – bless her I don’t think she’d anticipated her day to be faced with the Tragedies of a Thinking Panda in the dirty south east of London. I crumbled in front of a stranger, said my mind had been going a thousand miles an hour and I needed help; the allocated 10 minutes appointment turned out to be the golden hour of Realization.

I undertook CBT for a few weeks, was reassured I was not crazy and what I was experiencing was Depression and Anxiety. To keep up with my meditation and exercise as often as possible, drink water and hang on to a healthy routine as best as I could. I mean, the level of support you get through the NHS is not premium service, far from it. You’re basically equipped with a starter pack, a pat on the shoulder and off you go honey, call us when it gets bad again. Don’t get me wrong, it is helpful, 100%; you need that pat on the back, you need that “You’re going to be OK”; and there are other mental health programs available such as speaking to psychologists and therapists. CBT, and the lady helping me through those sessions, basically enabled me to make the first step towards that happy unicorn land, on a rocky road like Dora and her backpack. It’s just a road you need to be ready to take on, and it usually starts with asking for help.

That is why when people refer to me as potentially one of the most positive individuals in the office, I kind of bug and hesitate. Are they really referring to the lady who spent the entire weekend in her gown, in her bed, watching Netflix, knowing very well the day was passing her by but could not feel bothered enough to go for a walk or coffee down the road? That same lady who would avoid gatherings with friends, can’t be bothered to answer to messages, and who honestly has developed an unhealthy obsession with cat pictures?! Me?

So either we need to raise the bar in the office, or I am actually positive despite the array of depressed feelings I go through? Is it possible to have a positive onset in a depressed mind? As contradicting as this can be, could it effectively be possible?

At work, or with my friends, I’d crack jokes, make people laugh; I do my best to praise my peers’ strengths, help them do better and make them believe they can actually achieve their dreams; not because it’s the nice thing to do, but purely because I genuinely believe in the ability of others to reach their objectives and their version of their better self. I mean, my line of work being HR, I have a tendency of fixing situations and emancipating people as best as I can? I’m not a doctor saving lives, but the little I do makes people’s lives maybe a tad easier… I hope.

So how do you explain that this same uplifting, yoga enthusiast, meditating, zen panda would find herself glued to be a bed-for-an-entire-weekend, heavy hearted, can’t be bothered and undecided bear.

A Positive Nature in a Depressed Mind; do I hide my depression too well, or am I actually this very positive person who’s struggling with her Life for what has been a very long minute? I mean I feel like a slightly less murdery version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, more like a borderline crazy Mary Poppins in the kingdom of Wakanda type of girl at the best of times.

So, really, do you think it is possible to retain that forever eluding Positivty during Depression, still? Do you think it is feasible to be mindfully in two places and those two aspects to run concurently whilst being totally contradicting to one another?

Here we are with the first article of One Thousand Thoughts in a Panda’s Mind.

I have no answers. You’re welcome.