When I started writing again this year, I felt as if something needed to change. It was not so much that something was wrong, rather that I had once again gone through a phase of personal evolution over the last couple of years. It was becoming more and more clear to me how language shapes not just the way we think and feel, but our reality.

As most of you know, I’m am an MBI coach and in one of her initial lectures, Martha Beck asked us the number one reason why people commit suicide. What was eye-opening eight years ago, today feels like common sense.

Language is the number one reason that people take their own lives. Some of us may be familiar with the example of how two people can look at the same glass of water and see two different things. It’s all about how we communicate, not just with others but with ourselves that creates our perceptions.

This brings me back to what I began with. I feel that I want to speak and write clearly, simply and concisely. So far so good. What caused me to skip my last two blogs was the fact that I also feel that I need to be more forthcoming personally. Dare I say it, show more vulnerability. Faced with this rather too-close-for-comfort predicament, I decided to skip writing altogether and you all witnessed my flight response. And also my freeze response… it’s worked out rather nicely for me, that as a coach I can empathize with all manner of clients.

On a serious note though, I hope you’ll come along as I step out of the shadow of ‘we’ and ‘us’ and move into my own light. I know it is a scary prospect to show up without any masks, but it’s scarier still to not fully live the truth of who we are. For those of you waiting in the wings, let’s do this. Together. It’s time to write a new story.

 

Best
Afshan x

 

 

 

 

 

 

I feel that today’s date holds a certain significance, although I’m not sure what that is. It could simply be the sequence of numbers that’s causing me such childlike excitement. Whatever it is, shallow or deep, let me explore it, if for no other reason than to mark 22/2/22.

Since it’s only February, I was wondering what my words are for this year. Ease, lightness, clarity have been the favourites for some time but quite unexpectedly sovereign, agency, and volition have recently surfaced on my radar. I can truly say I have no idea from where. These are not topics I have been consciously considering.

My first thought was, I really need to stop watching the British Royal Family fall apart on YouTube 🙂 On a more serious note, and in order to make sense of this, I decided to look at the definitions of each of the three words, compare the correlations and see what comes up. The words that stood out to me the most were: ‘powerful, supreme, majestic, unlimited’, and, ’self-determination’, ‘ownership of thoughts, actions, behaviour’, and finally ‘means or instrumentality by which something is done’.

Almost immediately a Rumi poem came to mind.

Love is not condescension
Never that,
Nor books, nor any marking on paper
Nor what people say of each other.

Love is a tree with branches
Reaching into eternity
And roots set deep into eternity
And no trunk!

Have you seen it?

The mind cannot
Your desiring cannot
The longing you feel for this love
Comes from inside you.

When you become the friend
Your longing will be as the man in the ocean
Who holds to a piece of wood.

Eventually wood, man, and ocean become one swaying Being.
Shams Tabriz, the secret of God.

( One Swaying Being, translated by Coleman Barks )

Sovereign, agency and volition sound almost synonymous at first but not quite. They are, however, connected. We all wonder about our purpose, the deeper meaning of our life, our legacy. None of these questions can be answered unless we first realise who we are and what we are capable of.

It is through the recognition of our own divinity that we reach for the sublime but it is equally true that the divine looks to us to become a ‘means’ or an ‘instrument’ to channel the infinite into the finite. Only through free will, self-determination and taking ownership of our actions do we root deep into our own power and thereby lay claim to becoming sovereign.

 

 

Best
Afshan x

I’m hearing Adele’s voice as I’m writing this. What a year 2021 has been! Judging by the number of verifications I had to go through to log in for my blog, even my website was suspicious of me. Who was I? Indeed after a year long absence, even I’m wondering the same.

I’m literally at a loss for words. You know how it is when you meet someone from your childhood that you haven’t been in touch with and you find yourself trying to recap your life story to them in the half an hour of your visit? What gets said, what remains unsaid…

I still find myself, every now and then, asking if this is for real. I suppose it had to be this huge a shift considering every member of the human race was involved. I don’t think any of us have come out of it the same. Some are more aware of the changes than others.

So what was this past year about and where do we find ourselves in its wake? As our structures fell apart, so did a lot of illusions. We saw clearly that many of the old patterns and ways of doing things were redundant. They were no longer serving us. Whether we examined our education systems, put in place centuries ago, to check if they were still delivering on their promise of turning out well balanced, well equipped young adults ready to take on the challenges of life, or on an individual level, reconsidered our personal goals and whether they have brought us the happiness we’d hope to achieve, 2021 provided some much needed clarity.

Here’s the big question: where have we gone wrong when, despite being more advanced as a human race in every way possible, we are more anxious, more disconnected and more unfulfilled than ever before?

Standing in the debris of past mistakes isn’t the easiest or the most pleasant but it is crucial to understanding how we need to move forward and towards what. Only what is real remains standing with us. Our collective delusions have crumbled.

Daniel Abdal-Hayy Moore, a Sufi poet, speaks of the concept of fanaa’ and likens it to jelaal, the hard-edged sword of Shams, annihilating everything until only the truth remains.

As all illusions fade, we are able to see things as they are. Nothing more, nothing less. What better way with which to navigate a new life.

 

 

Best
Afshan x

 

 

 

In each loss there is a gain, as in every gain there is a loss, and with each ending comes a new beginning.

– Buddhist proverb

Two faces of the same coin. I seem to say that more and more. Our intellect works through duality, through contrast, where one exists in contradiction to the other. While this type of understanding has brought us to present time, it has now also served its purpose.

2020, the year of awakening, has brought both chaos and clarity. In its wake, we are left to question our very fundamentals; our priorities, our relationships, what we need in order to enjoy a comfortable life. And flowing deeper, some of us found ourselves asking, who are we, what do we stand for, are our lives an accurate manifestation of our desires? Or have we been pulled off course by an unconscious collective current.

These were difficult questions and it took courage to go there, especially when the answers brought more anguish. But feeling through the dense fog of pain we found our way to an ever growing light, leading us to healing. In losing those dear to us, we found ourself stripped of all our delusions of control. Standing naked in our fragility, we were offered front row seats to view our own mortality. Yet this acute vulnerability rendered the most precious of gifts, an invitation to awaken to the divine within us.

Coming face to face with the transient nature of life, has compelled us to reassess how we were living our own. For me it brought up the idea of responsibility. I know that ‘family’ and ‘career’ are focal themes for many of us but in trying to do our best by these commitments, we often fail to address our own personal needs. I had to ask myself, perhaps for the first time, if I had lived with a sense of responsibility towards myself. The answer, while bleak, was also a much needed call to arms.

Another theme that came up was that of home. So many of us are ending the year largely without having seen extended family or in some cases, even members of our immediate one. This brought up a myriad of emotions, ranging from heartache, nostalgia to longing. We have moved through multiple nuances of the word ‘Home’ searching for what lies at its heart. Beyond the comfort of our houses, past all that is familiar, surpassing even our nearest and dearest, where is this yearning carrying us? What does ‘Coming Home’ mean to you?

Whatever has challenged us this year, has also served to elevate us to the next level of our personal and collective growth. Though the contagious nature of this virus may have isolated us, it has also unified us in the truth that we feel strongest together. Our very life force thrives in being part of a greater whole. And the well being of this greater whole lies in each of us realising that we are one.

Change is upon us, whether we want it or not. All that remains now is how we choose to navigate it. Let the losses that we have borne this year give us clarity and wisdom to create a new beginning. For only when we know better, can we do better.

 

 

Best
Afshan