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The other day I got to briefly catch up with my third grade teacher. I had run into her husband at a workout class and he invited me to meet up with him and my teacher at a nearby restaurant. it’s funny how life works, how time ebbs and flows and reunites us with the people that helped pave our path. This particular teacher always thought I’d be a writer. Sometimes it helps to go back to the people who knew you before life happened, before you started conforming and losing sight of what makes you YOU. As a child I filled diaries, etched pages with my memories, with my thoughts and inner most feelings. I lived life through those pages, my fonts changing with my age, the feathered stroke of my pen turning to angry flicks in high school. I fell in love in those pages, grappled with my eating disorder, memorialized where I was during 9/11. I learned how to hold grudges, how to forgive, how to own up to mistakes. I mourned the loss of a classmate, the ink smudging with my tears. I shed all my secrets in my writing, I allowed myself to let loose the lies I’d accumulated to protect my ego. I allowed myself to breathe. But somewhere along the way I started second-guessing myself. Is there any worth in the way I arrange words? Will anyone want to listen to what I have to say? Will sharing my stories help someone or only expose my flaws? Am I a writer or just someone who writes?

All I know for sure is that I learn best about who I am through my writing. I am able to sort through my thoughts, to make sense of the noise in my head. When I write I feel connected to something greater than me, what some call a “higher power,” what some call “God.” To create is to heal, to create is to connect with Source, to create is to find purpose. Maybe my teacher thought I’d be a writer because she could sense that I found some sort of purpose through my writing. Maybe she believed in me before I could believe in myself.

Teachers come in different forms. In the heartaches of a broken relationship. In the loneliness of a fractured friendship. In the shared connection with a stranger. I am grateful for all the teachers in my life, for their ability to see me through a different lens, to point me on my path, to support me in my dreams. I am grateful for all life has to teach me. And I am grateful that I have my writing to help me learn and grow.

I feel like I keep searching for something, but I don’t know what I’m searching for. It’s like the feeling of walking into a room and forgetting what I was going to get. I had a reason for going in there in the first place, but all of a sudden I can’t remember what I was looking for. That’s how I feel every day lately. I’m searching aimlessly. I’m craving direction, guidance, clarity. I’m coloring in the lines of the shapes that are handed down to me but I feel like there are other shapes I’m missing. I’m doing the motions but where am I going?

 

Over the years I have come to believe that the answer lies within. I know this intellectually. The problem I still face is that despite knowing this intellectually, I do not yet understand it emotionally. And I believe that is the key –being able to feel, to realize, to accept. There is no guidebook or black and white lettering to tell me the HOW, which is what I desperately crave. I keep wanting someone or something to lead me, to give me the bulleted steps, to hand me a manual and say this is how it is done. But it’s something I believe now is done with the heart, not the head. My head thinks it can figure anything out. It prides itself on analyzing thoughts and behaviors, grouping patterns together. My head believes that things can be solved as long as they can be seen, felt, heard. Sensed. My heart, on the other hand, this is where I falter. My heart relies on something beyond the senses. A discovery within that I have not yet learned, because I am so used to learning with my head. A process of feeling, allowing, accepting, surrendering, revisiting, unraveling, unpeeling. These are the steps I need to take, and the things I am searching for. This is the journey I am on.

There are times when, at an utter loss to do anything else, I find I must write.

So often is this the case when issues arise concerning my other home, India, because while born on American soil, my heart bleeds a mixture of Indian and American blood.

 

My father’s oldest brother, my Uncle Ashok, passed away after a long struggle with COVID-19. I understand now the feelings of helplessness family members grapple with watching their loved ones fight against such an isolating virus. I understand it on two dimensions—the helplessness of not being able to be at your loved one’s bedside coupled with the helplessness of hearing the news of loss from a distance that spans an ocean.

 

I will never understand the bravery, the courage, the inundation of emotions that must have consumed my father and his family when he made the choice to settle in America with hopes of giving back to those he loved . What I do understand is the way my father’s heart still lives in India, his home country, the way his smile relaxes and his whole body lightens when his feet touch Delhi clay. Because my heart also lives in India, my smile too is echoed on the faces of those with darker skin than I, my body too lightens as the scents of spices, masala, chai, cumin, turmeric, cardamom waft through the air that is composed of the same matter as the air I breathe in Mississippi. It is like when I was born my roots embedded themselves in both countries—India and America—and so I still feel the tug toward my Eastern home, I still feel a sense of displacement when I am not there.

 

My Uncle Ashok will be remembered for his gentle humbleness, his easy humor, his compassion and dutiful and loyal heart. I think fondly of trips to India as a child, seeing Ashok and my other family in the airport. I think of chai in cups and hot matthis, the salty and crumbly snack my grandmother made. I think of rooftops on buildings with my cousins, flowers in cracked pots and Delhi fog blurring the horizon. I think of my Uncle the first time I tried pan from a roadside stand, its bitter leaf staining my palm. I think of his sideways hugs, his large framed glasses, his soothing voice and the unmistakable resemblance to my father, the unmistakable resemblance to myself–confirming our place as Anands in this world, a name which stems from the Sanskrit word for bliss.

 

And so, Ashok Anand, it is not with sorrow but with bliss that I remember your life. It is not with pain but with joy that I celebrate your soul passing from this life into the next. And it is not goodbye, but rather “see you on the other side”, where no amount of ocean or miles can separate us from one another.

 

For so long I’ve abused you,

misused you,

poisoned you.

I didn’t trust you,

and I lost my right to listen to you.

You tried to teach me and tell me when things weren’t right,

But I kept infusing you with vices to make you silent.

I’ve broken you down by working you harder than you were meant to go–

Denying you food and water,

abusing chemicals to silence your begs for fuel.

I didn’t want to feel the soreness of my muscles telling me to rest,

Or the way you whispered to me to slow my steps.

I didn’t listen to your wisdom to just

listen to my breath

And find the wisdom hidden

between the inhalation

and exhalation that’s so intrinsic.

I sped the beating of your heart

To make the calories fall off

And keep you alert throughout the night,

to ward off anything that might

try to creep in unseen by light.

I squeezed you,

held you in hands so tight,

Tried to make you disappear behind

Bones that broke

because I didn’t give them enough:

I kept pushing you through five-mile runs

In shoes with holes that scraped my heels

Leaving blisters

–signs that maybe I should just heal.

Instead I kept pushing through

Thinking band-aids could confuse you;

I stifled your voice,

I didn’t listen when you told me you had enough,

When you didn’t give consent

for the stuff

I poured down my throat;

When you gagged and choked–

I just kept pouring more

To try to make you understand:

I couldn’t listen to your demands.

I numbed you with anything I could find

(Clear liquids were a good disguise);

Sometimes you didn’t know to fight

Until I’d already swallowed

and made the call

To blunt your shout to hear you out.

You wore the battle scars

On knees and teeth,

Trying to find some easy way

To deal with the pain.

“No pain, no gain”—

Indeed, I gained shame,

Collected words like “vain,”

Told I am the only one to blame.

 

Lord, I am drained.

 

I see my hands:

Hands that heal

The broken bones of other bodies

The bulging discs and radiculopathy

Hands that lend themselves

To fragile men

And women weak

From conceiving.

My feet have left

Footprints in sand,

And lands across the Atlantic;

My legs have marched

For things I believe:

Peace and freedom and equality.

 

How can I keep neglecting these?

 

I’ve watched you grow

So I know I can too.

I can learn to stop abusing you.

See your scars as proof I’m strong,

Fill your head with words and songs

That touch the spirit that you house.

For you are the thing that protects

The divine within me—

The universal intellect,

The love that connects.

 

Dear body, I’m learning to accept.

 

 

 

I just celebrated my 31^st birthday. It’s crazy to think that it’s been ten years since I celebrated turning 21, because I remember my 21^st birthday like it was yesterday (to an extent). A Tuesday night in Nashville, dinner at, of all places, Chili’s, begging the waitress to card me when she failed to. Gigi’s cupcakes, then off to our favorite bar, Sportsman’s, where I attempted to complete a list of shot to do’s that, at the time, seemed so innocent. How things have changed.

 

As I sit here, I recognize there has been this pull in me to write something raw. I know exactly what I have to write about, what the universe is asking me to say, but I’ve avoided putting it out there for so long because my pride and ego are tough mother f-ers and they usually end up winning the battle. But as I sit here about to enter into a new year, I sense this freedom that will come when I write the words I’ve been wanting to write for so long. And for someone who feels that she’s created her own prison, freedom sounds absolutely divine.

 

I am in recovery from addiction.

 

To some of you reading this, this may explain so much. To some of you, it may come as a complete shock. To some of you, you may automatically change the way you think of me. I am ok with all of that. Addiction is something I’ve struggled to understand myself, so I can’t blame anyone else who has trouble understanding it. It is a disease that causes one to be full of denial, to lie when honesty was always a core value, to hide, to manipulate, to hurt loved ones, not intentionally, but because admitting addiction is one of the hardest things to do. Especially when you’ve spent your life trying to prove to the world that you’ve got things figured out. Remember what I said about ego and pride?

 

There’s a million ways I could go about telling you this fact about me: I’m an addict. I have a disease. I’m addicted. But I choose to say I’m in recovery, because the other labels don’t sit right with me.

 

Here’s the thing: words mean something to me. I grew up playing with words, using them to paint my feelings, using them to figure myself out. Words mean a lot to me. So for me, personally, I am Asha. I am not a label. I am not what you think when you hear that label. I am so much more, and my story is so much deeper, and there is so much more beyond those words, those labels.

 

The truth is, my life has taken turn after turn that I never expected. It’s like I got in the car with a destination in mind, but somewhere along the way someone else took over driving, and before I knew it, I ended up in towns I never expected to land in, on roads I never thought I’d travel. It’s been frightening and exhilarating and quite frankly, confusing as hell. But I am making my way back to the highway, back to where I always intended to go.

 

I’m learning to appreciate the journey, and to let go a little of the destination. I like to have a destination—it gives me security, stability, something to work toward. But I don’t want to be so caught up in where I’m going that I lose out on all the scenery on the way.

 

So back to that statement, the one I have dreaded putting out there for so long. I am in recovery from addiction. There’s so much to this story, so many details I can’t share right now, but just writing it feels freeing. Owning up to the roadblocks I’ve encountered feels liberating. Acceptance means coming to peace with what is. My ‘what is’ isn’t what I’d choose, but it happened, and it affected those I love, and it nearly drove me insane. But out of this pain and turmoil, out of the confusion, the victim mindset, the why me, the anger, the pride, the denial and withdrawal, the isolation, the misery, the times I cried out for someone, something to save me—out of all of that has come surrender. And with surrender has come so much more.

 

Rumi said, “the wound is the place where the light enters you.” If that’s true, I’ve got a light as big as the sun entering me. At times this wound has felt too much to bear, that there would be nothing to cover it up, that nothing would help me heal. At times I felt so much despair and hopelessness that I didn’t know if it was worth fighting. I wondered if I should just give up, succumb to this fate. But if I’ve learned anything, it is that I am a fighter. And that it’s the darkest nights which allow for the brightest stars.

 

Part of why I’ve held back from admitting this is the fear of what others would think of me. I fear what my family halfway across the world will think. What past mentors, teachers, friends will think. What all those strangers who saw me at my worst in addiction will think. We’re living in a world where more people understand addiction, where it is not such a taboo subject. But at the same time, stigmas still exist. And I can’t blame those who view addiction as a malady they are grateful not to have. Before I came to realize addiction was part of my life, I viewed addicts as less -than, as people without willpower, as failures, as the homeless man with a brown bag under the bridge. Now I realize the error of my judgments. That even the homeless man with a brown bag under the bridge has a heart and a brain and a story and a life. That addiction does not discriminate. That some of the kindest, bravest souls I’ve met are those in the rooms of recovery.

 

Without addiction, I’d lack the sense of surrender that I’m finding every day. This painful existence has led me to reconnect with a power greater than myself. I grew up learning about God. I learned about the Christian God in church, the one who sent Jesus to save me from my sins. I learned about the Hindu God from my father’s family in India, the one with many different manifestations, the one that came alive in chants and in the colorful traditions of an ancient faith. I learned that for me, these Gods are the same. I learned that, for me, God is found within each one of us, deep in our truest self, the light that connects us to each other, the thread that binds our souls.

 

My addiction has taught me that we are all equal. I always prided myself on my visions of equality. That I belonged to a multicultural family—I thought in a way this made me superior. That I could understand diversity and inclusion better than others. I wrongly believed that I was less prejudiced, less biased, less selfish. In the throes of addiction, I learned through my flaws that no one is superior. That our imperfections, our mistakes, the things that make us human are what connect us. Our vulnerabilities, the things we fear about ourselves, our deepest secrets—these are the things that, when brought to the light, expose our humanness and make us relatable. When I let down my guard, when I tell my story and my truth, when I take off my masks and let others in—this is when I find peace with who I am. This is when I add value to life. When I find purpose and meaning in my journey here on Earth.

 

Don’t get me wrong. Addiction comes with mistakes that I wish I could take back. There are probably hundreds of people I owe apologies to. I’ve made some of these apologies, and to those that have heard me and accepted me and forgiven me, I can’t tell you how much it means. It has taught me forgiveness in a way I never knew before. To those who I have yet to apologize to, please know that from the very bottom of my heart, I am immensely sorry for the pain I have caused. For the confusion and elusiveness of my actions. They say in recovery that one of the best things you can do is to make your life a living amends. This is what I intend to do from here on out, in my actions, in the things I do, in the way I live my life.

 

There is so much more to speak on with this subject. And I intend to. I’ve opened the door, and to be honest, I’m scared as hell to be this bold. It’s taken me time to be brave enough to put this out into the open, but as I’ve meditated and thought on this over the last several days, I know in my heart that it is what I am being called to do. If, in my vulnerability, I can offer hope to one other soul, then this has all been worth it.

 

More to come. In the meantime, know that we all struggle with something. My battle is not one I’d choose, but I’m learning to deal with the cards I’ve been dealt with, and I hope to make meaning out of some of my darkest days. Know that by loving yourself and accepting where you are in life, you have the power to change heartache into healing. You have the opportunity to connect to something greater, to shed your skin and emerge transformed. Be brave and courageous and fight for what you know to be true. Surrender to what is, and be bold in your actions. Life is a journey that is meant to be enjoyed.

 

 

 

 

Yesterday I spent twenty minutes researching the best French fries. (By Google’s standards, Arby’s takes the win—I don’t know about you, but this one really threw me for a loop.)

I don’t normally eat fast food – I’d like to say it’s because I naturally favor healthier and fresher foods, but the reality is it probably has something to do with all that emotional scarring I got as a kid from the embarrassment of having my mom order McDonald’s Happy Meals ‘hold-the-meat’ style. (Growing up vegetarian in Mississippi in the early 90’s ain’t no small feat to overcome).

I knew that if I was going to face some childhood fears, those fries better be damn worth it. You see, I have this fear of being rejected or judged by every and anyone. My family. My friends. My co-workers. The woman handing me my fries through the drive-through window.

My fear of being judged or rejected stems from my own insecurities. And the lies and questions I tell and ask myself about my worth: “I’m not good enough.” “What’s wrong with me?” “Why does nothing ever work out the way I want it to?”  

The trouble with holding onto these beliefs, aside from the fact that it can be a barrier between my mouth and steaming, hot, salty French fries, is that when I hold onto negative thought patterns, I create resistance.

And when I create resistance, I block positive things from entering my life.

So the fear of judgement from the drive-through worker handing me my fries creates a resistant vibration that I send out into the world. The next thing I know, they’re handing me someone else’s order, I spill someone else’s coke all over myself and stain the white tee I’ve so boldly (thoughtlessly?) chosen for work, I see my ex’s father’s friend’s car look-a-like in the nearby gas station and all of a sudden I find myself drenched in empty calories, crying in the parking lot of a fast food joint, wondering why these damn fries aren’t doing their job of filling this void inside of me.

Things can derail quickly.

Here’s the thing. We have a choice in how we choose to proceed in moments like these. My gut reaction is to call in sick to work, drive home, crawl under the bed, put my phone on silent and binge some Friends. But Joey Tribbiani is not going to fix what’s bubbling underneath the surface of all this mess.

When I take a moment to breathe, I recognize there is power in feeling. The tempting thing is to numb. Numbing holds off the pain for a bit. But when I allow myself to feel, forgo the anesthesia, I get to grow.

There’s a reason we can only see the stars in the darkness. Why Rumi said, “The wound is the place where the light enters you.” Why caterpillars have to spend time alone in their cocoon before emerging as butterflies.

We need struggle to challenge us and build us up, we need the sun to disappear before we can wish on falling stars. We need space to feel, to transform.

When I feel, I feel deeply. When I feel, I sometimes think I won’t be able to handle it. I’m a runner. I run from pain. I try to escape by moving across the world, by throwing myself into a new project. I think that by running, I can leave all the emotions behind. But those emotions add weight to my shoes, and my running gets harder, and my muscles get tighter, my breathing narrower, my steps shorter.

I’ve been learning to slow down. I’ve kind of been forced to.

And in slowing down, I’m beginning to feel again.

I feel the weight of all the emotions I’ve pushed aside. Just as I know that training hard builds strength, I know challenging myself with the weight of these feelings will create growth. I take a deep breath, and as I exhale, I let go of all that is weighing me down: fear, grief, uncertainty, confusion, anxiety, anger, resentment, worry, helplessness, more fear.

I exhale these things out into the world and as I do, I feel the lightness of my body. I can run faster, but I choose not to run from things anymore. I can jump higher, but I keep my feet on the ground. I can breathe easier, and I do.

I breathe in what I know to be true in the midst of these feelings: that my worth comes from deep inside me, the place where my soul shakes hands with God. That when someone rejects me, it bears no weight on my own value and worthiness as a human who has and will continue to offer unconditional love. That when my heart feels like it may drop right out of my body, there is a force greater than me holding it up. There is a plan in place that is beyond my wildest dreams. My only job is to surrender, to let go of the need to fight and control, to give up the need to have things go my way.

Sometimes in our desire to fix, we lose sight of the simplest pleasures: singing off key with the windows rolled down, how the sun feels on our skin after a week of rain, thinly sliced potatoes deep fried and mass produced.

Give thanks for those things that fill you up, but know that you’re already whole, and no one (and I mean NO ONE) can give or take that away from you…

…Even the woman handing out French fries at the drive-through.

 

 

 

There have been many times over the last several months when I’ve wanted to write. Writing is my release—the place I go when I am angry and sad and vulnerable and where I go when I don’t know what to do with all of that. Where I find connection with something deeper inside me; where the loud voices of the world become dim; where I exist simply as me.

 

Lately, the world has been shaken. And recently, I have been shaken in my own life. So much shaking –it is no wonder the words must come out of me now.

 

I picture a bottle of coke, one that has been shaken and tossed around, maybe rolled around in the backseat of some old car. When it opens there is no warning—only an eruption, like everything that has been tossed around is finally ready to release. It’s messy and goes in places you don’t want it to go. It fumes like a volcano, liquid running down the edges and gathering in puddles. The noise—an unforgettable spew of fizz and gas and air.

 

This is me, about to unleash.

 

It is August 2020, and in the eight months that have emerged from a dropping ball and fireworks and resolutions, I feel broken. The world has been riddled by a virulent pandemic that does not discriminate, but which has fueled the flames of division and fear. My country feels fragile, uncomfortable, foreign. Tension is palpable from the coast of California to the tops of the mountains that stand tall in the Carolinas. In all my effort to understand love, I am left feeling like something is amiss.

 

I try to understand other perspectives, other points of view. I try to let go of the biases that have colored the lens through which I view the world. But what I cannot understand is the ability to see another human as inferior, less-than, worth-less. And, I admit that I cannot say I have never treated someone else this way—for the flaws of humanity run deep in my veins, too. Along the way I probably felt more entitled, more worthy, more deserving. I am learning, too.

 

In graduate school I saw firsthand that beneath the color of our skin, we all look the same inside. The veins and arteries that lead to one heart follow a much similar path as the veins and arteries that lead to another. The nerves that course through the spinal cord and brain and find their way to muscles act the same way in one arm as they do in another. I imagine the energy that supports life is much the same from one individual to another.

 

So I guess I find it hard to imagine that someone can look at his fellow being and see them as inferior because of: the color of their skin, how they pray, their last name, who they choose to love, the language they speak, their gender, anything else that makes them “different.”

 

My friend sent me a meditation this morning that called on me to see myself as a flower blooming, and it made me think: if all humanity were red roses, we would miss out on all the other different kinds of flowers that stain meadows and climb up mountains, the flowers that float in rivers and whisper in the woods. If the sunset only held one color, can you imagine? The absence of gold and pink, streaks of lavender and crimson, the way I imagine God dips his fingers in cups of magenta and marigold and mauve, and then streaks them across the sky.

 

How much we would miss if everything was the same.

 

As I sit here watching the same sky as you fade to night, I hope you know you matter. I hope you know you are loved. I hope you know you are just as important as any other. And I hope you challenge yourself as I plan to do, to connect with someone you may normally dismiss as “different.” Find yourself in their eyes, in the stride of their walk, in the way their lips curl into a smile. Find yourself in the way they tilt their head in thought, the way their heart beats faster after a loud noise, the way they push their hair back behind their head. Find yourself in each other, because that is the only way to find what’s real.

 

And then go out and shake things up.

 

Holding the world in a hand made of glass pieces. Jagged edges that catch the sun and send splintering light every which way. Reflections of a past I once belonged to and a future I am creating, glued together by the very presence of what is right now. Yes, let me breathe in warm sunshine and evaporated dew, blisters from walking on sidewalks toasted in the sun. Yes, let me breathe in starlight and the magic of the moon as it rises up from the horizon, sending the sun to sleep. Yes, let me breathe in courage and passion and everything else I need to stay alive. Yes, let me breathe in love. Let me breathe it in and exhale it out into clouds that float to different skies, hovering over different peoples and different places and different times, releasing the same energy that comes from holding in breaths of what is the same love. Let it rain the same in every country, washing away the stains from the day, washing away the glass pieces that broke once upon a time and made up some mosaic that sits on a window in a town I once knew. Hold the glass up to the light and see how it splinters-how the chaos and brokenness and jaggedness creates what makes it beautiful.