Owning My Scars

A few weeks ago, I posed for a photo session with my brother. The plan was to just capture pictures as I was getting ready to attend an event – we had a few shots of me doing my hair & make-up, spritzing on my perfume, screaming at the kids to keep it down… the idea was to keep to the theme on capturing expressions of regular activity.

A few days later as I saw the pictures, many of which I posted, I came across two particularly special ones that I couldn’t bring myself to post on social media – at least not then. I looked at them often and every time there was a different emotion and feeling. There were also those other feelings of anger when memories around the cause of the scars surfaced.

These pictures started off with me fastening a delicate anklet and then went on to show the suture marks on my ankle, the spot on my shin when the fracture had compounded and pierced the skin, the incision on my knee, and the one where my toe nail was healing… scars from trauma, some accidents others intentional…. scars…

Over the weeks, I kept thinking about the scars that I had accumulated over my lifetime. There were scars from the scald on my thigh, a burn on my arm, 4 incision scars on my belly (3 C-sections and 1 open appendectomy), stretch marks, bruises, jellyfish bite, chicken pox memoirs, pinch marks from childhood, suture points, fracture wounds… and then the darker remnants of a body that resisted and defended itself from violence.

Then there are those scars that have gone beyond skin, bones and tissue to sear into the depths of my being – those scars that have made an impression on my mind and soul. Those are the ones that we don’t always see – those are the very ones that I myself don’t always see or even pay attention to.

They are the scars that heal slowly – I’d like to believe they’re healing surely, too.

They are the scars that form the little stitches in the hemline and embroidery on the fabric of my self. The beads and sequins that form the shimmer on the ‘who I am‘ design  and ‘who I have become‘ pattern of me.

I’d love to say that the scars have faded and so has the pain. Well, it has for many of them. But some don’t vanish that easily, you see. They remain where they are and show up in photo shoots that develop into pictures that highlight their intricate beauty that gets a ‘wow!‘ even from me.

I love my scars! Every single one of them holds a story. Some stories of grit, determination and unfathomable awe. Other stories of joyful births, of motherhood and of unconditional love. Whichever way I look at them, there’s nothing to hide! These marks tell a story of a woman who has lived a life for forty whole years and has a body to show for all those years – with marks of failure and over-stretching, marks of endurance, suffering, pain, injury, grit, resilience, love and sorrow.

They’re all there and I own these scars. They’re a map reminding me that I may have fallen down eight times, but I’ll get up nine. They’re a reminder that for all those gorgeous dresses that I’ve worn over the years, these scars… I wear them like my own designer label – that stunning dress, my best attire… like a dress made of hellfire.

Standing up for Me

A few days ago I was challenged. I was challenged for expressing my anger and upset. I was challenged for my audacity to stand up for an unfair blame. I was challenged with anger and angry abusives. I was challenged by being questioned for my sensitivity to a remark that apparently I should have allowed. And I was challenged for not accepting the anger that was directed at me for showing my non-acceptance of that abusive behaviour.

I was challenged for saying ‘NO’

So let me be honest here and say that the incident began as meekly as most arguments – arising from a ridiculous matter – but seeing it take milliseconds to escalate into a barrage of verbal assault was nothing short of abnormal. There was a serious dysfunction at play here – and matching it with any shade of normal attempt at pacifying was just not available.

I was agitated – physically and emotionally – and I was shocked. For a brief moment, I couldn’t understand what was happening until I started recognizing a pattern – that was using every trick it the book to abuse the hell of me and attempt to ridicule, insult, humiliate and make me look lesser – and validate whatever the f**k was going on in that person’s head. (trust me, we don’t want to go there .. not yet)

And suddenly, even though I could see this pattern and a trained part of me was telling me that it wasn’t about me, the ugly truth is that it was very, very hard to be neutral and demonstrate all that big-hearted compassion we all strive for in face of it. It was near impossible to get past the immense hate balls that were being thrown on me – when the argument wasn’t even about me to begin with. Simply put, it was easier to retaliate and give back in the language the other person seemingly understood.

But every time I tried to calm myself down and breathe in some quiet – believe me I tried – I was dragged back to perpetuate the scenario over and over again and refused my time to disconnect and get out of that space – leaving me no opportunity to even slip into a corner in my head that was meant for ‘peace of mind‘

Surprisingly, though, I found myself remaining rooted in my values and upholding the boundary that was being ruthlessly violated in those moments.

So here’s what I did.

I called out the behavior. I called out the crap that was absolutely unacceptable to me and I very clearly said that I was NOT going to accept it any more. I refused to lift my head and look at the person in that state and I told them exactly why I was not going to look at them. That I wanted no contact until that person spoke decently, respectfully and maturely.

More importantly, in the face of abuse, I found myself refusing to ASK for basic courtesy and respect – instead, I demanded it as a basic right that I was not going to throw at the discretion of someone who clearly did not value another person’s sense of respect – let alone, self-respect.

In short, I bloody well stood up for myself.

As I’m looking back to that day, I can again confirm that I have no regrets about what I said. Yes, it was anger that prompted me to say the things I did, but I meant them. I meant it when I called out the behaviour and I meant it when I said that I was done with that relationship if staying in it meant that I had to put up with immature insanity. Caring about someone does not come with a defacto ‘Get away scot-free’ card that allows you to be abused and mistreated. Neither does it come with any clauses that ask of you to be mindful of being considerate but have your own respect and boundaries violated senselessly.

Many Indian families (even my grandmother) have this rubbish idea they use to have their unruly, misbehaving kids get away with bad behaviour – they often refer to their children as having a harsh tongue but a soft and loving heart. A bigger pile of BS, I haven’t heard in this context. Nasty is nasty,  rude is rude, being mean is being mean – and these people were unfortunately raised with the idea that their bad behaviour was pardonable because their parents believed in the goodness of their heart. Good heart, I agree, because I know this person, but no – it does NOT give anyone any permission to be so rude, mean and harsh and cover it with any other band-aid psychobabble.

Uh-huh – sorry – might have been there, might have done that, might have given folks the impression that it was OK – but the buck stops here! Not happening again – ever!

And just as surprisingly, I was told one thing that made me sit back and think over the days that followed.

I was told that I had changed.

At face value, my change might have been one that said, “Hey! She’s not putting up with my tantrum like she used to! She’s changed! I don’t like this version of her.”

So I thought about it.

And the more I thought about it, the more I peeked into my heart for any feelings of remorse or guilt at how I had maintained myself. I questioned myself over and over again to see if I had missed something and if my anger was, in fact, misplaced and unjustified. Was I wrong to have voiced my dissent? Was I wrong to have stood up for myself? Was I being a hypocrite with all my ‘spiritual’ take? (Yes, I was called out for being a goody-two-shoes with all my meditation crap & for having you folks read and like my blogs/ article – yes, you guys came in too!)

And no matter which way I looked at it, I felt no guilt, remorse or fear. I felt grounded and calm. I didn’t find me justifying to myself (or maybe I did at some point, I don’t know), but I recognized that I was speaking from a place of calm and deep-down genuine love for this person. I hated what circumstances had done to this individual’s sense of balance, self-worth and to some extent, I hated this new person who I really didn’t recognize – I guess change affects everyone either way – but regardless, I was not ready to trade in my changed status of self-respect and self-worth for anything.

I remember being mocked at for saying, ‘I valued those who value me‘ and this sentiment inferred as if I were only thriving on the adulation of those who put me up on a glorified pedestal. Yeah, that would be fun… only, I’m not that famous yet (but I’ll leave that invitation open). But here’s the thing, why, WHY would I want to hang out with people who would not value me? Why would, why should anyone??

Little by little, I started moving away from the ‘what just happened‘ phase and started easing into the understanding behind why and how I had changed.

Some years ago, I recall sharing with a dear friend, Mubeena, about this so-called wisdom that people were saying I had. I remember telling her that I questioned this wisdom, because I wasn’t entirely sure it was mine entirely. It was wisdom that I had read in books, scriptures, articles, courses, seminars, conferences, and such experiences and then at various times through applying life experiences to understand the karma of it all and, then, maybe somewhere somehow it became mine. That day, Mubeena held my shoulders and said that she believed it was mine. I hugged her for being my friend and left the inquiry for another day.

This morning as I was watching my tea infuse (I think I mentioned in a previous blog how this tea infusion time is my mental space time), it dawned on me out of nowhere that this wisdom I was trying to apportion was, is, collective. No one owned it. It was for everyone.

I realised that awareness and enlightenment come to us in various forms – written text, spoken words, experienced moments – and yet, what we make out of it, how we embrace it makes us who we are. At the end of the day, me moving myself outwards and upwards was my responsibility – as it everyone else’s for themselves. Whether they chose to see it and shift was their business, me choosing to shift was mine.

That is how and why I had changed.

The books I read, the teachers and mentors I followed and learnt from, the philosophies I subscribed to, had all slowly seeped into my behaviour – my way of being – and were now reflected in my responses, so different to the reactions of the past. Don’t get me wrong – I’m no saint and I have my fair share of reactions (ask my children!), and I’m your contemporary woman with contemporary tragedies and catastrophes, but I had changed.

And, best of all, I am happy and proud of what I have changed into. If this is the kind of example I am working on setting for my children, if this is the kind of grounded woman I aspire to inspire in others, if this is the soon-to-be-40 year old woman I am turning into…

So be it.