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Attention VERSUS Distraction: How can we face what we ignore?

There is distraction and there is awareness. Distraction comes in its unlimited forms. Awareness, not so much. According to the Oxford English dictionary, distraction is defined as – “a thing that prevents someone from giving full attention to something else. A diversion or recreation.” It’s amusing and important to note how in the Romanian language, distracţie means distraction at the same time that it can be used to explain having fun – hai sa ne distrǎm. Etymologically, within both languages, distraction is interestingly associated to fun. Which would then imply, why is it not fun to distract oneself? What happens when we don’t ignore or don’t face certain things?

Observer J. Krishnamurti contemplates these existential questions in one of his interviews compiled in Total Freedom. He states:

“Most of us are aware of this emptiness, and we try to run away from it. In running away from it, we establish certain securities, and then those securities become all-important to us because they are the means of escape from our particular loneliness, emptiness or anguish. Your escape may be a master, it may be thinking yourself very important, and it, therefore, we cling to it desperately.”

The global Covid pandemic is a perfect example of being forced to sit with oneself indoors when conflicting feelings of separation come up. One may feel distant especially in times when everything comes to a literal halt. When certain discomforting sensations come up, we either run away from it or distract ourselves with entertainment until even the entertainer can no longer put on the same show. YouTube and Netflix can only do so much before an individual once again sits with themselves in the unknown territory of uncertainty and confusion. However in the midst of all the delusions, there is still a uniting underlying thread. There is a oneness between all beings, at a sub-particle level. Nikola Tesla explains how feeling cut off early on in life resulted in developing introspection which helped him see and understand life much more vividly. When there is nothing stable externally, one can always find and develop the inner totem pole. He states:

“From childhood I was compelled to concentrate attention upon myself. This caused me much suffering, but to my present view, it was a blessing in disguise for it has taught me to appreciate the inestimable value of introspection in the preservation of life, as well as a means of achievement. The pressure of occupation and the incessant stream of impressions pouring into our consciousness through all the gateways of knowledge make modern existence hazardous in many ways. Most persons are so absorbed in the contemplation of the outside world that they are wholly oblivious to what is passing on within themselves. The premature death of millions is primarily traceable to this cause. Even among those who exercise care, it is a common mistake to avoid imaginary, and ignore the real dangers. And what is true of an individual also applies, more or less, to a people as a whole.”

Artwork | @dreamermagazine @framezforyou

A shift in perception happens when one has the time to go into themselves deeper with no distractions. That’s when insights bloom, when we shift what’s out there from a refreshed internal perspective. There is no person out there for that person is you. There is no bird out there for that bird is also you. The wind. The mountains and hills. As the great English lecturer and observer, Alan Watts said:

“We do not “come into” this world; we come out of it, as leaves from a tree. As the ocean “waves,” the universe “peoples.” Every individual is an expression of the whole realm of nature, a unique action of the total universe. This fact is rarely, if ever, experienced by most individuals. Even those who know it to be true in theory do not sense or feel it, but continue to be aware of themselves as isolated “egos” inside bags of skin.”

In the bare and naked stillness, we are forced to face the fragility of it all. That it’s just the ego which creates the division between external and internal. Facing the truth may be uncomfortable at first, but it ultimately provides the strongest foundation. What are ways in which you distract yourself? And how to you come back to your essence?

Why Are Women Who Crave Solitude Misunderstood or Even Seen As a Threat?

Why aren’t women left alone? Why is their need for solitude seen as a threat within patriarchal households? This is still a very common theme of societal and communal pressure for women within the Balkan region, even if they migrate to other countries. Every woman runs head first into this dilemma very early on in life. Her fate ultimately remains in her hands to risk it all and go against status quo. In 2017, a Georgian film written and directed by Nana Ekvtimishvili, My Happy Family, dives deeply into all the pitfalls a woman faces when she tries to detach from family responsibilities in order to make time for herself. The ultimate goal is to get her own place where she can divide her time between chores and solitude. Throughout the film, she wrestles being guilt-tripped into staying by her grown up children, elderly parents, and and a husband who has gotten too comfortable being in the passenger seat. This tale isn’t new for women. It sheds light on the glaring fact that women throughout history have been forced to comply to self-sacrifice through subtle or obvious means. Jungian psychoanalyst Dr. Clarissa Pinola Estés observes the multi-faceted archetypes of women in her book, Women Who Run With The Wolves. She states:

“Compliance causes a shocking realization that must be registered by all women. That is, to be ourselves causes us to be exiled by many others, and yet to comply with what others want causes us to be exiled from ourselves. It is a tormenting tension and it must be borne, but the choice is clear.”

Stills from Georgian film “My Happy Family”

In a later instant she explains how women have to face how they’ve been conditioned over generations to limit themselves. To not take up too much space, while in the presence of others and also when she’s by herself. She makes the comparison of cleansing one’s perception of oneself to decluttering a space that has been filled with an unhealthy amount of debris. In this case, gendered- psychological debris. She asserts:

“In Eastern European fairy tales, brooms are often made of sticks from trees and bushes, sometimes the roots of wiry plants. Vasalisa’s work is to sweep this object made of plant matter over the floors and the yard to keep the place clear of debris. A wise woman keeps her psychic environ uncluttered. She accomplishes such by keeping a clear head, keeping a clear place for work, working at completing her ideas and projects. For many women, this task requires that they clear a time each day for contemplation, for a space to live in that is clearly their own with paper, pens, paints, tools, conversations, time, freedoms that are for this work only. For many, psychoanalysis, contemplation, meditation, the taking of solitude, and other experiences of descent and transformation provide this special time and place for work.”

Historically, very few women throughout various cultures have experienced what it even means to have time for oneself. For centuries, it was a relatively an unknown concept. The pressure not only came from men, but from other women in her environment. She is often hushed or deemed crazy for even mentioning such unspeakable things. Therefore, if a woman decides to risk it all, she will most likely have to risk literally all things: family, home, acquaintances. Dr. Estés writes, “For generations, sadly, the mother who wanted to engender esteem in herself and her offspring needed the very qualities that were expressly forbidden to her: vehemence, fearlessness, and fearsomeness.

Though her soul requires seeing, the culture around her requires sightlessness. Though her soul wishes to speak its truth, she is pressured to be silent.
Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés

Nana Ekvtimishvili’s film, My Happy Family, does a wonderful job at providing a lens into a woman’s world and all the trials and tribulations she must face once she questions her position within the dynamic. Especially when she persists to follow her soul’s calling. At times absurd and devastating, at times humorous and ironic. It conveys all the feelings which arise simultaneously while walking the fine line between having one arm in a cage and the other arm as a wing. When a woman is left alone, she is finally seen for how much she is needed. How everything comes to halt without her consciousness, and how she is fundamentally expected to carry all the burden. The film, as well as the observations of Dr. Estés, provide a myriad of ways for people to challenge status quo. To question societal expectations and blind conformity. To create a space where each can explore and develop their innate talents independently while still balancing family life.

The Tree & The Spiderweb: How Nature Provides a Mirror to Our Innermost Being

When life hits us with an unexpected wave, when we’re thrown into tumultuous times completely off guard, our immediate instinct is to clamp up. The body stiffens. Our reaction goes into fight-or-flight mode. Our breathing accelerates and the palpitations kick in. It is not only the human condition to enter survival mode, it’s part of the journey of being alive, period. Every specie, every plant experiences the same tale in its own distinct way. However, humans are given the opportunity to observe nature in its limitless possibilities to reflect and borrow whatever lessons may come out of a storm, in the literal and metaphorical sense. It is curious to observe how humans have often looked up to trees as a sign of power since they stand their ground irrespective of scenario and time period whilst other creations in nature, like spiderwebs, are often perceived as fragile. It only takes a swipe of a broom to destroy a masterpiece made out of silk yet it paradoxically survives through a powerful rainstorm that could knock down a tree. What if nature provides infinite possibilities of survival in order for us to discover and hone in those aspects within ourselves? That there are times to stand tall and remain rooted in one’s territory, but there are also moments in which life provides a calling to become ever expansive and flexible as a spiderweb.

In a book published by Dr. Paul R. Fleischman, Cultivating Inner Peace, he explores the psychology and wisdom of Ghandi, Thoreau, the Buddha and others. There are underlying key moments in which all the teachers had to learn from the greatest teacher of all – mother nature itself. He states:

“Nature is a stern guru. Those who are not simultaneously knowing themselves as they study nature will be shaken into rude awareness of the great dark truths of the natural world and of their own psyches. Just as nature is the realm of light and beaches and bluebirds, it is the realm of the shadow winters, storms, cold, and death. Immersion in the natural world doesn’t provide a sanctuary from human suffering; it augments and clarifies the deepest origins of distress. When that augmentation is a step toward confrontation and resolution, it is also a step toward inner peace.”

Dr. Fleischman picks up an important aspect within the human journey which is that we are not only the brightly lit and the grace of a bird’s flapping wings. But that we are also the tectonic plate shifts and avalanches. That we are everything simultaneously and it’s up to the individual to look within during each moment to pull out what would best fit the current condition. That’s where one receives clarification, which is often unsettling. Equilibrium is developed by learning to balance the immeasurable, and often unseen aspects of ourselves.

A Brazilian intellectual and writer, Rubem Alves, also reflects on the interconnection between the soul and nature in his book, Ostra Feliz Não Faz Pérola. The title of the book roughly translates to – a happy oyster doesn’t create a pearl. It’s a beautiful compilation of introspective bite-size passages in which he goes into various topics like the limitations of passion and the mystery of sight. Throughout the book, there’s an imbedded thread which ties them all – how nature provides us with hardships and pressure to give us a chance to develop a treasure chest of lessons. He writes:

“Ostra feliz não faz pérola. A ostra, para fazer uma pérola, precisa ter dentro de si um grão de areia que a faça sofrer. Sofrendo, a ostra diz para si mesma: “Presciso envolver essa areia pontuda que me machuca com uma esfera lisa que lhe tire as pontas…” Ostras felizes não fazem pérolas…pessoas felizes não sentem a necessidade de criar. O ato criador, seja na ciência ou na arte, surge sempre de uma dor. Não é preciso que seja uma dor doída…por vezes a dor aparece como aquela coceira que tem o nome de curiosidade.”

Rubem Alves explains that a pearl cannot be created without some friction. In order for an oyster to create a pearl, it needs a grain of sand within to build the tension. While suffering, the oyster is given the opportunity to find a way to alchemize the pain, in this case the grain of sand, into something greater than itself. The same way happy or comfortable oysters cannot create pearls, is similar to how comfortable humans don’t find the need to create something which comes from the screaming depths within. Often times, it’s in moments of discomfort where one is challenged to step outside of the ego to enter an unknown territory of curiosity, flexibility and adaptation. Sometimes one needs to act as a tree, sometimes a web, a light breeze, or a lighting bolt. Whatever element is observed externally is also fundamentally embedded within, whether one is aware of it or not.

Family Secrets: Do We Continue Hiding or Open Up to Find Healing?

Shhh, asta rămâne între noi. Shhh, this will remain between us.

Every family comes with its secrets. There are some which may be deemed little white lies. But then there are some which affect the very foundation one builds their entire life upon. Is there a middle ground? Which secrets do we keep? Which do we open up about? Why do we keep secrets from family members in the first place? Secrecy is often related to shame, fear or a matter of survival. Ones which stem from the past. In the present moment, we have the opportunity to question the very notion of normality. We have the right to question how social paradigms have shifted and how certain discussions can be placed on the table rather than remaining hidden in the pits of our hearts. In an article published in Aeon Magazine, Karen Vallgarda writes in Keeping Secrets – All Families have Secrets, from the Innocent to the Deeply Sinister. Are There Good Reasons to Keep Them Under Wraps?

Instead of shunning family secrets, we might therefore use them as a lens through which to take a closer look at the family and its complicated relationships to wider society. In our engagement with the contemporary public, we might need to think harder about which secrets are worth keeping and which ones are not, and perhaps most importantly who is entitled to reveal which secrets and under what circumstances.

In a later instance, she quotes author Dani Shapiro, who states in her podcast Family Secrets:

Secrets fester in the darkness. They grow larger and scarier, and they have the power to shape our whole lives without our even knowing it. But if we shine light on those secrets, the most extraordinary thing happens: we realise that we are not alone.

Secrecy about certain topics or themes within the human condition is reminiscent of the painting technique called pentimento. It’s when an artist changes their mind mid-creation and as a result, paints over the initial design. If the viewer is deeply observant, they’ll be able to notice what is presented is slightly adjusted and different than the initial vision. Hiding one’s truths is very similar to this process. There are people which will sense that something is a bit off. That what meets the eye is an idealized version of the true nature of events and family structure at large. When we hear a common phrase like, asta rămâne între noi, it gives us the opportunity to inquire why certain topics are still repressed and to go deeper into it. Are we withholding for public appearance? For societal approval? For keeping the peace? For safety? Are we still living from past conditioning or are we willing to open the door for a new wave of true camaraderie?

An example of *pentimento –* Picasso’s *Old Guitarist* painting

Beneath the man’s leaned over head was initially a woman

When one has the courage to open up and be vulnerable, it then acts as a mirror to those around you. If they do not agree with your choices, then it reveal their standard. If they do agree and show support, that also reveals their standard. What’s important is that the first match is lit. There will be ones who will want to blow it out but it also creates an open space for others to share and spark their own flame as a form of empowerment. As Vallgarda asserts:

Instead of unequivocally condemning secrets, then, we might recognise that, although some are harmful, others are useful and, perhaps most importantly, a secret can be enabling and suffocating, protective and oppressive all at once. What we need to ask is therefore: whom does the secret protect? Does it undergird asymmetrical relationships of power, does it challenge them, or does it do both at the same time? And to confessions: whose truth was established as the truth and what did this do? Once we move beyond the confinements of the cultural imperative of disclosure, secrecy and confessions will prove to be a powerful lens through which to examine how the emotionally charged micropolitics of the family tie in with the macropolitical currents in any society, past or present.

Kintsugi |The Art of Embracing Our Scars

Should we hide the broken parts of ourselves or confront them with compassion? In Western European art, especially since the Renaissance forward, the concept of perfection was heavily instilled within the psyche. That everything should be shiny and well put together. That never, under any instance should we show our vulnerabilities, let alone our scars. However, art is a reflection of life. Some choose to face the full scope of the human condition, whilst some may feel ashamed to. When certain circumstances test our spirit or shatters our soul into a million pieces, there’s this tendency to either suppress the full extent of the pain or hide the scars as if nothing occurred. However, within the Japanese culture, imperfection is not something to be swept under the rug. Instead, it’s something to highlight. Kintsugi, an ancient ceramic process, is the physical embodiment of transcendence. It reminds humans to embrace and find beauty in our scars.

That the idea of perfection exists only in the mind, whereas nature shows us time and time again that everything in the universe exists in a constant ebb and flow. Impermanence is life. That there is there is no death, no breakage, no loss without a lesson being gained. Kintsugi is in many ways a physical manifestation of the wabi-sabi philosophy. In Christy Barlett’s anthropological analysis, Flickwerk: The Aesthetics of the Mended Japanese Ceramics, she states:

“Not only is there no attempt to hide the damage, but the repair is literally illuminated… a kind of physical expression of the spirit of Mushin… Mushin is often literally translated as “no mind,” but carries connotations of fully existing within the moment, of non-attachment, of equanimity amid changing conditions. …The vicissitudes of existence over time, to which all humans are susceptible, could not be clearer than in the breaks, the knocks, and the shattering to which ceramic ware too is subject. This poignancy or aesthetic of existence has been known in Japan as, mono no aware, a compassionate sensitivity, or perhaps identification with, things outside oneself.”

The breakage, in whichever way it may fall apart, gives the person an opportunity to put them back together again. It will not be the same thing because it’s not meant to. Each crack comes with a transformation. One can make peace with the scars by fully confronting them as a reminder of survival and finding empowerment once again. The human spirit survives numerous shatters throughout a lifetime and it’s up to the individual to alchemize themselves into another piece – one with even more depth. Barlett continues:

“A characteristic feature of the use of lacquer to repair ceramics is the fact that, in addition to the wholly practical function of restoring the functional usefulness of cherished ceramic artifacts, lacquer simultaneously also serves as a medium for the artistic and aesthetic transformation of the flawed object through intentional inclusion of the damage. Hence, when restoring with lacquer, the intention is not to render the damage wholly invisible, but rather to use the injury as the central element for the metamorphosis of the damaged ceramic into an object imbued with new characteristics and with an appearance that exerts a completely different effect. As a general rule, the repaired artifact acquires far higher value and enjoys greater appreciation than it had in its previously undamaged state.”

Every human being experiences their share of tragedies. Some may have a thousand tiny fractures, some may have two or three profound life-altering cracks. What’s important is not to compare one another’s dishes, but to learn and grow from each laceration. Instead of stigmatizing or hiding them with shame, we can learn to share, embrace, and gain wisdom.

On Loneliness: A Conscious Observance, A Biological Wiring or Both?

Loneliness. It’s something we all face. Some run away from it. Some don’t want to admit it. Some use distractions. Some enjoy it, but not for too long. Some feel it even stronger when in the presence of many. But what is this sentiment which we all grapple with? Why do we feel it even when technology is supposedly meant to connect us? It’s important to have this discussion, especially since there’s been a fragmentation within the community, with many living and working across the globe. It’s important to have this discussion because irrespective of how many WhatsApp messages are exchanged, we still have to deal with the person in the mirror – ourselves.

In his book, Total Freedom, the enlightened observer and lecturer J. Krishnamurti walks us through the cycles humans tend to gravitate to when faced with the feeling of loneliness. How running away from the feeling itself accelerates what one is trying to avoid in the first place:

It’s an experience of being completely isolated; a feeling of not being able to depend on anything, of being cut off from all relationship. The “me”, the ego, the self, by its very nature, is constantly building a wall around itself; all its activity leads to isolation. Becoming aware of its isolation, it begins to identify itself with virtue, with God, with property, with a person, a country, or ideology; but this identification is part of the process of isolation. In other words, we escape by every possible means from the pain of loneliness, from this feeling of isolation, and so we never directly experience it. It’s like being afraid of something round the corner and never facing it, never finding out what it is, but always running away and taking refuge in somebody or something, which only breeds more fear.

Albert – Joseph Penot, Le Repos du Mannequin, (1862-1930)

His passages will often leave you with your eyes squinted. Having to close the book and one’s eyes in order to process. It’s the unraveling and untangling of the noodles that make up our brain. He makes us observe that the one feeling is the feeling itself but simultaneously beyond it. That the observer is what is being observed yet vastly beyond it. That the thinker is the same thing as the thought yet again way beyond it. It’s like having a bird’s eye view, where one is simply aware of every single motion that passes our mind and body. Instead of immediately attaching to the feeling itself, leaving room for a macro view allows us to see ourselves apart from the multitude of experiences one has. He states:

You cannot do anything about it. Whatever you do is an activity of escape. That is the most essential thing to realize. Then you will see that you are not different or separate from the hollowness. You are that insufficiency. The observer is the observed emptiness. Then if you proceed further, there is no longer calling it loneliness; the terming of it has ceased. If you proceed still further, which is rather arduous, the thing known as loneliness is not; there is a complete cessation of loneliness, emptiness, of the thinker as the thought. This alone puts an end to fear.

There’s a conscious psychological aspect to loneliness which one can observe but there’s also a biological aspect which helped us survive throughout humanity’s evolution. In a video on loneliness produced by content channel, Kurzgesagt, it explains:

Your body cares about your social needs because millions of years ago, it was a great indicator of how likely you were to survive. Natural selection rewarded our ancestors for collaboration, and for forming connections with each other. Our brains grew and became more fine-tuned to recognize what others thought and felt. To form and sustain social bonds. Being social became part of our biology. You were born into groups of 50 to 150 people which you usually stayed with for the rest of your life. Getting enough calories, staying safe and warm, caring for offspring was practically impossible alone. Being together meant survival, being alone meant death.

In a later instant, it goes into how the body automatically feels what is called, social pain:

For your ancestors, the most dangerous threat to survival was not being eaten by a lion, but not getting the social vibe of your social group and getting excluded. To avoid that, you body came up with “social pain”. Pain of this kind is an evolutionary adaption to rejection: a sort of early warning system to make sure you stop behavior that would isolate you. Your ancestors who experienced rejection as more painful were more likely to change their behavior when they got rejected and thus stayed in the tribe. While those who did not, got kicked out and most likely died. That’s why rejection hurts, and even more so why loneliness is so painful.

Under the regime, there was a paradoxical closeness with one another in order to survive since there was nothing on the market at the same time that one was in utter fear because one never knew who to trust exactly. Anyone could be an informant. Often times, the closer you knew someone, the higher the danger. All was relative. Although it’s in the past, it still affects the previous generation to this day. The truth is every human being has to deal with the feeling of loneliness especially since many have moved to big cities around the world which further highlights those sentiments. However, it’s important to understand that at one point that exact feeling which we try to escape from actually helped us survive during our evolution. It’s also gives us the opportunity to sit with the sentiment and see how it is one of the thousands of feelings we get to experience in a lifetime. It may be painful in the moment, but it is quite marvelous to observe the vastness of it all.

From Self-Sabotage to Self-Care

In the States, the self-care movement is picking up speed and is stronger than it’s ever been. Especially in California. However, it is safe to say that there is still this resistance when one first hears the words, self-care. There’s this strong hesitance as if we’re all trying to process what it even means to take care of ourselves since we’ve traditionally been conditioned to sacrifice oneself to keep up appearances, a job, for the sake of the family, religious practices, for the sake of this that and the third. It’s also crucial to note that we are direct descendants from the previous generation which needed to completely sacrifice their very notion of self in order to survive under the regime. Therefore, the concept of self-care brings up misunderstanding or complete confusion. However, the body can take only so much until it speaks what the mind often tries to avoid – to stop and reflect.

Hungarian-born Canadian physician and trauma therapist, Dr. Gabor Maté, published a mind-altering book, When The Body Says No, which dives deeply into the cultural and systematic self-sabotaging cycles that are apparent around the world and speaks of the importance of redeveloping and reconnecting with our bodies rather than fully depending on medical institutions. He writes:

“There is no true responsibility without awareness. One of the weaknesses of the Western medical approach is that we have made the physician the only authority, with the patient too often a mere recipient of the treatment or cure. People are deprived of the opportunity to become truly responsible. Mind and body links have to be seen not only for our understanding of illness but also for our understanding of health. In healing, every bit of information, every piece of truth may be crucial. If a link exists between emotions and physiology, not to inform people of it will deprive them of a powerful tool.”

He explains that many cultures not only carry trauma from their own lifetimes but the wounds from previous generations and how important it is to develop awareness and re-parent ourselves in ways previous generations simply did not have the access to:

“Parenting, in short, is a dance of the generations. Whatever affected one generation but has not been fully resolved will be passed on the to the next. Lance Morrow, a journalist and writer, succinctly expressed the multigenerational nature of stress in his book Heart, a wrenching and beautiful account of his encounters with mortality, thrust upon him by near-fatal heart disease: “The generations are boxes within boxes: inside my mother’s violence you find another box, which contains my grandfather’s violence, and inside that box, you would find another box with some such black, secret energy – stories within stories, receding in time.” Blame becomes a meaningless concept if one understands how family history stretches back through many generations.

Dr. Maté’s work is a beacon of light in health because it gives us an opportunity to sit with each of our stories. Instead of minimizing or shaming, or worse compare each other’s pain, to instead learn how to express them since each body has its own history and buried griefs. It also makes us aware that many diseases stem from our bodies screaming how it is in literal dis-ease – a body not at ease with itself. To process how we’ve been conditioned to ignore or repress our emotional, spiritual, psychology or physical pain’s because that’s what previous generations were taught to do. He states:

“Emotional repression is also a coping style rather than a personality trait set in stone. Not one of the many adults interviewed for this book could answer in the affirmative when asked the following: When, as a child, you felt sad, upset or angry, was there anyone you could talk to – even when he or she was the one who had triggered your negative emotions? In a quarter century of clinical practice, including a decade of palliative work, I have never heard anyone with cancer or with any chronic illness or condition say yes to that question. Many children are conditioned in this manner not because of any intended harm or abuse, but because the parents themselves are too threatened by the anxiety, anger or sadness they sense in their child – or are simply too busy or too harassed themselves to pay attention. “My mother or father needed me to be happy” is the simple formula that trained many a child – later a stressed and depressed or physically ill adult – into lifelong patterns of repression.

One can not heal unhealthy patterns without first being aware of what is healthy or unhealthy in the first place. We’re dealing with centuries programming of what was culturally accepted and societally approved. Not only within the Romanian collective, but as a global issue, which is placing higher importance on mind over body rather than observing the correlation between the two as not two distinct and separate beings but one working in sync.

Dr. Gabor Maté lecture on his book, When The Body Says No

Komboloi: A Meditative Practice, One Bead At a Time

You pass by a park in Romania, you’ll hear it – tac tac tac. You pass by an elderly man sitting on a stoop in a piaţa (city center), you’ll hear it again – tac tac tac. The sound of beads being counted or twirled around one’s finger. Commonly known as, komboloi, each pair has a story to tell. It’s very common among men to compare and share the stories of their origins since it was common to pass from one generation to another. Each is made in their own unique way although amber resin and coral are often preferred. Etymologically in the Greek language, komboloi means – in every knot I say a prayer. Although the beads are used more as a way to pass time, concentrate on the present or used in horă dances, it is important to note how beads throughout many cultures were used as a meditative practice. Many also use the beads as a way to quit self-sabotaging habits like smoking since the process alleviates the nervous ticks of needing something in between one’s fingers.

These beads go by different names throughout many cultures. Sometimes called: mala, japa, rosary, begleri, or sacred beads. In essence, all have been used as a way to remain present with one self. To process one’s thoughts. Repeat a mantra. Say a prayer to each bead or simply count. In an article, The History of Mala Beads:

The significance of beaded jewlery has been a part of humanity since the beginnings of our time on Earth. At the very southern tip of Africa, in a cave known as Blombos, nassarius shell beads were discovered to have been strung on a chord and worn as decorative ornaments. These beads are believed to be from around 70,000 BCE and have provided archeologists insights into technological advancements and the comprehension of self – awareness in early humans.

Each piece has a certain amount of beads. The most common Komboloi to have comes with a set of 33. Mala beads, common in India, Nepal and Southeast Asia, are traditionally composed of 108 beads. Both derive from cosmological principles and the ancient practice of numerology. For example, mathemeticians of Hindu Vedic cosmology believe the number holds the basis of creation. A number representing the universe, the wholeness of existence, and ultimate consciousness. It also holds astrological significance since there are 12 houses in our birth charts and 9 planets. The multiplication of 12 and 9 makes 108. One, by itself, signifies unison while 8 sideways represents infinity. The number 3 is also a very packed symbol. It resembles the mind-body-soul triad as well as the birth-life-death cycle. In Tarot, the Empress card which is part of the major arcana is associated with the number 3, which signifies abundance and a strong inner voice. The development of a strong inner voice is important to observe since many use beads to repeat mantra to each bead one counts.

In an article, How Sacred Bead Rosaries Are Used in Various Spiritual Traditions, Dawn Boiani writes:

A key component of Buddhism, as well as Hinduism, is meditation: the act of consciously attempting to alter the way your mind works. If fixations are inherent to human nature, then to remove fixations and become enlightened is against our nature; and therefore, to overcome it and ascend, we must consciously clear our minds and shape them by our will and spirit, not by our innate tendencies to bicker and grumble and moan. Prayer beads are used to count breaths during a meditative session, to avoid exhausting oneself by meditating for too long, and to prevent you from concentrating overmuch on how long you’ve been meditating. Meditation refers to the quieting of a human’s chaotic mind, and the act of attuning a silent, patient mind to the greater universe; make yourself aware of your flaws, dispose of the desires that cause them, and become Enlightened. Easier said than done, and according to Buddhist traditions it can take hundreds of lifetimes to accomplish. The first rule of meditation is patience.

Whichever way one uses komboloi beads, it’s important to realize that it’s no longer just for men but for anyone to use. Traditionally it was expected that only men use them, especially older ones. However, it’s modern times now and it’s fair to observe that everyone has their own worries and need for presence especially in a fast-moving technologically driven world. Beads are a great way to contemplate, strengthen awareness, meditate or simply slow down the pace of fast-moving thoughts. It does take practice and patience, but just like we take things one day at a time, we can also take things one bead at a time.

Family is Family, But What if it’s an Unhealthy Dynamic?

The truth is there is no perfect family. There are bright days and there are some days where one is left in utter confusion. However, there is a difference between a healthy one which is open to growth and empowerment and one which disempowers and leaves the members within the household with deep wounds. What makes it even more difficult is when what’s often being discussed or publicized in media, commercials, greeting cards, or Instagram posts is the sensationalized version of family happiness. As if we’re all cardboard cutouts of a Coca Cola billboard. The fact is some relationships aren’t healthy to begin with, prior to even introducing children in the picture. It’s important that one notes this and also speaks up on a dynamic which is dysfunctional and fundamentally wrong even if the one speaking up is usually castrated or treated as the scapegoat of the family’s larger issues at hand. Remaining silent in order to keep the peace stems from the intergenerational traumas of previous generations which did not have the option to question or transform. Addressing the problem is not disturbing the peace, it’s disturbing the illusion in order to find peace.

Art: @maniacodamore | Inspired by: @lauramakabresku

When one is in an unhealthy household, one finds themselves struggling between fact and fiction. Reality and illusion. There are also many phrases one hears which places an enormous amount of guilt on the observer of the issues. For example, it’s very common to hear sângele apa nu se face, which is equivalent to the English phrase, blood is thicker than water. There is also the common phrase of, no one loves you more than I do, which further complicates and adds another layer of complexity. First of all, love is not quantifiable. It’s either promotes one’s well-being or it degrades one’s well-being. The second issue is that it promotes that love hurts or that love should hurt. It falsely tries to persuade that unhealthy love is true love and to continue fighting for something which will eventually be a losing battle. Some have grown up in homes where severe depression, domestic abuse, verbal abuse, intimidation, threats and manipulation, just to name of few, were the norm. We also can not fully blame parents since they as humans have learned unhealthy patterns from the previous generations before them. So how can we find some sort of balance?

In an article published in Psychology Today, What Distinguishes Healthy From Unhealthy Forms of Love, Dr. Berit Brogaard brings up British psychoanalyst’s John Bowlby’s attachment theory:

People with a secure attachment style maintain a healthy proximity to other people. They are not afraid of closeness and intimacy, and they do not depend on it in a pathological way. People with an insecure attachment style, on the other hand, avoid closeness with others or their whole existence depends on it. Attachment theory was first developed as a theory of how children respond to different parental behaviors and how this response pattern affects their relationships later in life. Bowlby argued that in a healthy environment, a bonding process occurs between child and caregiver during the first five to six years of the child’s life. The caregiver is in a position to recognize and satisfy the child’s emotional needs. When adequate attachment between child and caregiver is lacking, the child grows up with an impaired ability to trust that the world is a safe place and that others will take good care of him or her. Childhood abandonment, unpredictable parental behavior, unrealistic parent expectations, and physical, verbal or emotional abuse teach children that their environment is not a safe place and that the people they encounter cannot be trusted.

Our caregivers are the first relationships we see and experience when we first come into this world. Whether one is born in a safe environment or an unsafe environment, both face the same issue of not having the choice of what one is introduced to. There’s also this common notion of, if a parent provides basic needs: food, shelter, heat, then one should be thankful because asking for anything more would mean they’re ungrateful. But if we were to apply those same offerings, then hospitals, orphanages and prisons also technically do the same. The main focus here is – love. How the deprivation or withholding of love has much more complex long-term affects than the other basic needs. Alice Miller writes in her book, The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self:

The function all expressions of contempt have in common is the defense against unwanted feelings. Contempt simply evaporates, having lost its point, when it is no longer useful as a shield—against the child’s shame over his desperate, unreturned love; against his feeling of inadequacy; or above all against his rage that his parents were not available. Once we are able to feel and understand the repressed emotions of childhood, we will no longer need contempt as a defense against them. On the other hand, as long as we despise the other person and over-value our own achievements (“he can’t do what I can do”), we do not have to mourn the fact that love is not forthcoming without achievement. Nevertheless, if we avoid this mourning it means that we remain at bottom the one who is despised, for we have to despise everything in ourselves that is not wonderful, good, and clever. Thus we perpetuate the loneliness of childhood: We despise weakness, helplessness, uncertainty—in short, the child in ourselves and in others. The contempt for others in grandiose, successful people always includes disrespect for their own true selves, as their scorn implies: “Without these superior qualities of mine, a person is completely worthless.” This means further: “Without these achievements, these gifts, I could never be loved, would never have been loved.”

She continues how unresolved issues and stored pain can come up as unexpected triggers at later times:

These people have all developed the art of not experiencing feelings, for a child can experience her feelings only when there is somebody there who accepts her fully, understands her, and supports her. If that person is missing, if the child must risk losing the mother’s love or the love of her substitute in order to feel, then she will repress her emotions. She cannot even experience them secretly, “just for herself”; she will fail to experience them at all. But they will nevertheless stay in her body, in her cells, stored up as information that can be triggered by a later event.

When one has never seen or experienced a healthy relationship, it’s actually very normal to be triggered by it. It’s often why women are conditioned to be drawn to bad boys or why men are conditioned to be drawn to submissive women. Or if we were to introduce same-sex relationships, why there’s still this power dynamic which one needs to work through since it stems from hetero-normative standards. Everything first begins with observance. Awareness and admittance to past events will naturally cause tremendous turmoil within because no one wants to admit that what they’ve seen in their homes wasn’t healthy love. No one wants to admit to abuse. But the reality is people love from their level of consciousness and consciousness varies. It’s up to the individual to decide whether they want expand it and grow from the pain or perpetuate an unhealthy cycle. Often times, that does come with a loss of certain members or detaching from the dynamic all together until each find’s their own healing if they’re willing. What’s important is that you have the tupeu to be honest, face your conditioning, so you can manifest what your inner child would’ve loved to see and feel.

Dr. Nicole LaPera’s wonderful interview on unhealthy emotional cycles (starts at 05:44)

How Impossible Beauty Standards Are Imbedded Within Language

There’s a common saying that every girl hears early in her life and which impacts her for the rest of it – baba suferă pentru frumusețe. It roughly translates to, the old lady suffers or endures for beauty, in the English language. This tells the little girl two things essentially: that her existence is solely based on beauty while simultaneously teaching her that to be a woman means to endure pain. That enduring pain is in essence womanhood. It also absurdly suggests that even in old age, it’s all one thinks about. Wax your body, baba suferă pentru frumusețe. Always wear heels even if they destroy your feet, baba suferă pentru frumusețe. Take care of everyone else at your own expense, baba suferă pentru frumusețe. Take harassment. Take body shaming. Take humiliation, baba suferă pentru frumusețe. However, this notion of beauty is subjective and it teaches the little girl to bend her spine whichever way the wind blows in order to attain something impermanent rather than developing a strong and deeply rooted spine which does not bend over backwards in order to adhere to social programming and impossible beauty standards.

In an article published by Bitch Media, Be The Monster: Sady Doyle Draws a Macabre Road Map of Female Monstrosity, Caroline Reilly discusses the themes of Sady Doyle’s book, Trainwreck: The Women We Love to Hate, Mock and Fear and Why. She states:

Doyle argues that throughout history, patriarchal social norms have dictated an acceptable set of standards—mental, physical, relational, sexual—that non-cisgender men must conform to. Diverging from these subservient, effacing, purity-obsessed standards causes women to be perceived and portrayed as a temptress, villain, or monster. But, as Doyle argues in the book, even women who choose to live within these narrow confines fall victim to the very same accusations. Patriarchy creates a system of traps and Catch-22s: We have to be pure, but not so pure as to displease men. We have to give ourselves to our children, but not so much that we smother them. We have to be sexual, but not so sexual that it threatens men—and certainly not sexual in a way that excludes them. We have to be aware at all times that our bodies are not our own, but not so vigilant that we seem dramatic or paranoid. We cannot have both power and agency because the things patriarchy tells us we need in order to gain power strip us of our agency.

This is something which every young girl has faced, and only skyrockets when she reaches her adolescent years. Whether it’s your mother, your aunt, grandmother, sister, niece, daughter, or godmother. Roles aside, each has their share of heavy dilemma’s and conundrums whether she tries to fit in or if she tries to escape it and hits yet another brick wall. In another piece, Pretty Uneccessary: Taking Beauty Out of Body Positivity, it points out:

Beauty has always been defined by its opposite. There is no way to excise the concept of ugliness from the concept of beauty, or to permanently keep it from being used against us. The prevailing cultural definition of beauty is rooted in hierarchy, racism, misogyny, ableism, homophobia, ageism, cissexism, and other forms of marginalization. Instead of fighting for a seat at a table so rife with oppression and violence, wouldn’t it be better to find somewhere else to sit?

There has already been an enormous amount of progress within the past ten years due to the rise of social media. For example, social content producers like StyleLikeU does a good job. Founded by mother-daughter duo, Elisa Goodkind & Lily Mandelbaum, StyleLikeU is a platform for radically honest docs-style videos that give voice to role models who stand proudly outside of norms and are comfortable in their skin.

Each video has the theme of women being vulnerable about past pains while removing a piece of clothing at a time. This metaphorically enables the woman to get naked by stating truths while also evoking how she’s beyond the story that’s attached to her body. That beauty is within or in whichever way she chooses to define beauty.

We need to be wary of how certain sayings and phrases of oppression are imbedded and persist within language itself, whether it’s Romanian, English, Spanish or Urdu. This makes it all the more difficult to observe since it’s used as everyday lingo or when it’s brought up, it’s often met with: dar așa se zice (that’s just how it’s said). If we allow even a little bit of leg space, one will find that actually on the flip side of the same coin, another way of perceiving can be introduced which is: așa sa zis (that’s how it been said) which completely gives a new frame of thought. One that comes from the past. A long history which has years of abuse attached to it. Yes, that’s what we’ve been used to hearing. Yes, that’s what we’ve been used to seeing. But we should not fear what one has never seen. We should not fear marking new territories. Baba suferă pentru frumusețe but it could also be baba a suferit pentru frumusețe so the next generation can introduce new possibilities which simply were inconceivable in previous lifetimes.