Author Archives: Rashmi Dixit

I open my mouth to say a word,
I pick my brush to paint a picture,
I move my lips to sing a song,
I tap my feet to do my dance,
But then I hear a voice say to me…
Think!…Do you need that expression?
What will people say? Think Think
And lo! the expression is gone…
It left a niggling feeling of void,
I wonder if this feeling I could avoid…
This niggling, turns to anguish sometimes,
The anguish to anger, then I say things,
I shouldn’t and do what doesn’t resonate…

I wish for a genuine self expression,
I wish it for me, I wish it for you,
An expression that defines me,
An expression that defines you…
I wish for a genuine connect…
A connect that refines me…
A connect that refines you…
You ask me the meaning and
you give me your Judgement,
A Judgement that defiles me.
A Judgement that defiles you…
I put on my mask and you put yours,
I won’t touch mine and you too don’t.

Lets be polite, let us all say yes…
The “Yes”sometimes I abhor…
I know in my heart i can take no more.
I can feel the words restraining me.
Then I restrain myself, in the mediums,
I restrain myself, in my thoughts…
I allow clouds of Judgement on my self,
I get tired and allow myself to be swayed,
Then I wonder what would’ve happened
If I had stood my ground and stayed.
I could have brought my uniqueness
I could have brought my genuine expression
To this world I could have given more…

I have always wondered about, what is it for me to be a Woman?
I have as a youngster felt ashamed for being a girl… boys seemed to have a different kind of freedom, which I couldn’t. My family was not prudish but that was the way of the society. No girls would be seen on streets after dusk, and if they were, there would be judgement around that. As a girl I have always felt judged, what kind of clothes was I wearing? How was I laughing? How did I looking? How did I talk? Was I walking proper? Was I aggressive? As if I was constantly appraised. Growing up was tough as I started to become more aware of my being a Woman. Everything seemed hushed up, girls would talk about their experiences only in private and very trusting company, so friends became essential. If you didn’t have friends it was emotionally traumatic, as there was no sharing of growing up experiences. I could thankfully make a few good friends and hang around them for motivation.
Ours was a government colony, supposed to be safe, yet there was not a single time that you went out and eve teasing wouldn’t happen. It was so much a norm that it became a way of society’s approval of you being a girl. It was almost like if you weren’t eve teased you had to find the reason for it; it usually meant working on your looks. The society’s thought process seemed warped when it came to women. Women had to be a certain way to fit into the Society, they being in large numbers did not matter, They just had to fit in to a certain standard to be good women. Most of these standards were set by women themselves. So She couldn’t be seen with a boy, without being scrutinized, She couldn’t laugh loudly, She couldn’t be too intelligent and challenging, She had to be this sweet doll who was just appropriately intelligent. Then once she had achieved this she had to seek approval from everyone in the family, society and school, consistently. There couldn’t be one wrong move.
I saw this everywhere I went, and this went on to become a cause of my metamorphosis into an aggressive, slyly rebellious teenager. I was just wanting to compete with boys, and be like them. I would fist fight with them, rebuke them and undermine them at whatever opportunity that I got. There was no point, no objective other than trying to put down men in general. I grew up with simmering loathing towards men, this kept on being fueled by the news reports of rape, dowry and other abuse that women were being subjected to.
At a certain point in time I started to hate my country where this duality of Rape and Sita went hand in hand. People who worshipped Durga ill-treated their girls, this was beyond my understanding. What penance were they talking about when they walked miles to a Goddess temple to fulfill their wishes of a son. Common sense was something that seemed completely missing in the system. Praying, doing rituals, fasting, wearing traditional clothes and jewellery that hurt was important if you were a married woman. All superstitions had to do with your son or husband’s death. Everything about God was about fear, and a woman had to exist for the wellbeing of the men in her life.
In many families men had to be served food first and women in the family would eat later. They had god men who would not allow women to come near their vision. During sat-sang women would get last seats away from the stage, where the so-called pious god men would take their positions.
We still have temples where women are barred from coming, there a mosques where women can’t enter, we have churches where women can’t be a priest.

My sensitivities around the subject increased upon my daughter’s birth and I started to voice my opinions, she became a strong reason for me to change status quo around me. The mediocrity, “its ok” and the duality once again came crashing at me and I stood at a point of choice every time I spoke or I did not. Because my girl was watching me closely, I was becoming a role model for my daughter. I wanted my daughter to live, live a more wholesome life filled with exploration, magic and love. I couldn’t make that available to her if she saw me chained by my own dichotomy.
In my daughter’s birth, I was born again. I was born now to challenge patriarchy and question every statement that challenged my ‘Being Woman’. It was strange but my transformation started changing the world around me, suddenly I had a constellation of friends who had similar thought processes. I started working closely with Women’s Leadership and their relationship to self. I was able to forgive much more, understand much more in my new birth. I could let go of friendships and relationships that sapped my energy. I could free myself and be more of who I really was. I could see how my own patriarchy and warpedness was affecting me. I began to see my daughter as biggest challenge to my soul’s journey and its growth, she became the Divine voice of a Woman. Her questions created new awareness and new confusion, her questions shook the core of my being and they still do.
My second birthing happened when my Son was born, Sometimes I saw myself being torn between my two children. Both being apple of my eyes how could I give them a balanced parenting, where they learn to respect each other as equals? This was not an easy question to answer and I continue to struggle with it. There are days when I find my centre and days when I am completely caught in the typhoon of their arguments. I have realized, that the only way I can ‘be’ with my children is by constantly expanding my awareness. I can see the school, society and family affecting my children’s relationship with each other as well as the opposite sex in general.
To get more informed I started reading about countries which have worked on this equality and have been able to do something about it. The most impressive came out to be the Scandinavian countries. I started harboring a desire  to live in such a country, where equality of sexes was a norm. The Delhi rape case and the other rape news reports had started getting me scared for my Children’s safety in the country. I was becoming aware of the simmering sexual suppression that was harboring in the Society. At this point I wrote my article – ‘Double X and rape’, which talked about the two Indias that exist. I wandered in my internal world endlessly with questions that remained un-answered.
How do I create a system that supports growth of children without emotional suppression? How do they see both girls and boys as equals? I was constantly in my typhoon.
During my course of work with Initiatives of Change, I met a Woman Change Agent from Norway, Gudrun Brovig Silde. She and her family were staying at Panchgani for past one year. Interestingly she had three daughters who had done most of their schooling in Norway but were now studying at a Local school near the Asia Plateau. My curiosity about instilling sexes equality in culture brought me into a discussion with her. Her daughter Joannah who studies in the eighth grade also joined us in the discussion. It was interesting to get her perspective on difference in both the cultures as she experiences it. She told about how in India she feels watched all the time and would like to dress in clothes that cover her. In Norway she would dress anyway she felt like and would feel comfortable. Also in school in India a girl and boy can’t be friends, it is taken as a taboo and hence creates an uncomfortable environment. In Norway the Society and the Government takes utmost care not to differentiate between Girls and boys from a very young age. They encourage friendship amongst girls and boys, which creates a healthy and respectful environment. The thirty minutes or so spent with Gudrun and Joannah talking about how they feel as women in India, added to my insights. I am not sure what needs to be done, or what needs to happen. I don’t know if the change will be radical or gradual. All I know is we all need to feel safe in our own country and be friends with our brothers and sisters.
Seeing a woman without full clothes on road should not make it a valid reason for her to be raped or even gaped at. A laughing woman cannot be labeled loose. A woman walking with a man doesn’t make them a couple having sex. The judgements that we make of ourselves as women and others have arisen from a plagued patriarchy. This will have to go if we have to sow seeds of ancient wisdom, which existed before time, where there was only one sense prevalent, the common sense.

I have always believed depression to be a powerful experience that can transform us into a more empathic human being, a more humble leader, and a patient listener.  The scale of the depression that we experience may range from occasional bouts of sadness, fear, hopelessness to a more severe long term experience of some deep sorrow or prolonged anxiety. Sometimes the long term hopelessness, anxiety and sorrow may need clinical intervention through therapy.

In my work as a leadership facilitator and as a coach I have seen that almost all people are inflicted by sadness and fear as they are by joy. One of my observations has been that people in general do not want to accept their sadness or fears as much as they are open about sharing their joy, of course it may vary upon personality of people. Most often Sadness and fear are labelled as a negative emotions, whereas Joy is labelled as positive. This labelling forces us to get away from sadness and focus only on joy, it is like I want only light and no shadow. But one cannot exist without the other. Accepting my hopelessness and sadness allows me to express it and heal myself, but if I shun it and do not allow its full acceptance or expression, then I create a space of corrosion in my mind and body. Whenever I am not aligned to how I feel a little part of me corrodes. To be in full acceptance of sorrow is a difficult preposition, as every morning we are expected to rise and shine and project happier parts of ourselves to be accepted by others. However if this pushing away of self emotions continues, we fall into unaware depression and we don’t know what has hit us. To become awareness of triggers of sorrow holds several gifts for us.

In this article I am sharing three gifts that depression brings. They are not always in order but just for ease of understanding I am giving a certain order to them.

One Gift that Depression brings is alignment  and awareness of our Needs and Values, What are we needing that we do not have in our life and how can I make that available to myself. What Values of mine are not in alignment? How can I relook at them and create my spaces with conscious choice?

The second gift is the gift of ‘Self love’. How can I love my own company? Who am I? What energises me? What are the ways in which I like to express myself? How much do I love myself? Can I live without external validation? If so, then do I need self validation and how do I get that? What are the gifts in me that I want to share with the world or not? How does the universe, the trinity reside in me? How am I my own creator, destroyer and sustainer?

The last gift of depression is the ability to expand. You are in process of physical and mental expansion, your body and mind feels like its going to burst, but all it is breaking is your comfort zone, your old beliefs, your ideas of self and world, your identity of who you believe you are. It is time of destruction that is causing you all the pain, the Shiva in you is dancing the dance of destruction, a Tandav happening inside of you. Remember when all this is happening the seed of your new reality is ready to sprout, in your destruction you are entering your new consciousness, new understanding of “Self” and through “Self” your understanding of world has expanded.

To allow the destruction and mourning of that death to happen and to be open to observe and accept it creates humility and an urge to learn more and grow more. It energises the younger student and child parts of us, that are so keen, detached and observant. These parts are bereft of conditioning and judgement that ties us down and becomes an interference in our learning and growth.

When I look at the title I wonder, if I could have a more appropriate one to catch a readers imagination, but then I decide to let it be. The ‘Wounded worlds of survival’ evokes pain and fear in me, that I wish for the reader to connect with. In this article I wish to bring the importance of being able to see our individual and collective wounds. To be able to accept layers of wounds hidden in our psyche that manifest in our behaviors in a way that it seems like we a plugged into a system that runs us without our knowing. We have unconsciously created survival mechanisms to continue living our lives in our own small bubbles, always playing small, scared to disturb our equilibrium and praying hard that nothing goes wrong in this tiny bubble. We wake up to realities only when they hit us hard on our faces and we have no clue, what to do? and where to go? And sometimes feeling stranded in a lonely Island. There is a numbness that has creeped into us that keeps us moving on, oblivious to the pain and emptiness that exists within and outside of us. Sometimes we do get a glimpse of it, but we have learnt to ignore it. It feels like we are on some sort of anesthesia. Anesthesia that allows us to keep our eyes open, without really seeing, it allows us to keep our mouth talking without making sense and keep our ears hearing without listening.  We all live in a world that seeks connection at a deeper level but our condition doesn’t allow us to create space for it. We see ourselves sad and we immediately want to fix it, we see our excitement and we want to curb it. We all have a desire to laugh out aloud at the edge of our insanity but when we see someone actually do it, it can scare the shit out of us. We have disconnected ourselves from self and others for the fear of, who we might become if we allow humanity to show in its complete form in us. Will we be judged, ostracized, or even killed?

We have so many wounds around being who we are, that we have learnt to numb it all and just carry on with our survival. We have become insensitive to the happenings around us and the world.  When we move towards becoming alive to our part in what is happening around us, it will make us more human and more connected. Rather than blaming people, situations and systems.

We live in a world that has been wounded by our human race. We in our quest to discover ourselves and survive, have made grievous mistakes. These mistakes need acceptance and forgiveness. We have let ourselves believe that we are the greatest race on this universe and also created differentiation in the human race itself. We have plundered lands to gather and hoard more for ourselves and our children, while we took away from the others, their lives and their rights to dignified lives. Our fear of death took us to war and created more of death. Our fear of scarcity took us to building dams on every free flowing abundant river and cultivating every fertile piece of land to fill our coffers. Yet there are deaths around the world due to lack of nutrition and food.

If today you decide to pause for a moment and become aware of how we play a part in creating a world full of differences, I think that will be all. We don’t really have to “do” anything, we just have to become fully and bodily aware of how I am responsible for creating the world that I live in. Our world, of course has its light side but also to find courage to stay in the shadows, without complaining and blaming the government, powerful people or world. Just staying and seeing ourselves in relation to what is happening around us, experience the pulse and the throb of the wounds that exist and notice its impact on us. I think that is all the seeing and honoring that the wounds need.

Knowing that all is well and we have to move away from just trying to hoard and survive, will start making our lives more fulfilled and connected. The self absorption that lures us to be smaller than who we are. It keeps us away from seeing the abundance that is still there in spite of all the wounding, and that will naturally help us move towards the light from our Shadows. Shunning our collective wounded shadows will keep us numb and lifeless, creating more of wounding without awareness.

Simple questions of ; What are you doing today? Where are you working? For who are you working? Towards what are you working? How is your work playing a part in the bigger scheme of things? How does it impact Earth and Communities? What are the similarities between hunting and hoarding and your work? How do you survive? What are you ready to forgive in you around you? What are you ready to live with? These are questions that will help us come out of our “zombied” working bodies and to become more aware and reflective beings on consciousness. It will help us see our patterns that come from how we have experienced wounding of self, our families, our ancestors, our nation and our world. It is time we honored all the wounding, see it for what it really did, in all its darkness and move towards purposeful lives, that really matter to us. Play a bigger role that is our Dharma, towards self and the future of humanity. I dream that we co-create spaces of respect and honoring polarities that we exist in, and not shun that is uncomfortable to us. Accept all parts of ourselves and not exile parts that are tender, soft, outrageous and wanting connection inside of us. And when we push them to the brink they will show up in our society and will be staring at our faces wanting acceptance.