Communicating Consciously

Speaking from the "I"

Why are you crying like a girl?
How will you survive this world if you’re so sensitive?
Why are you making a mountain out of a molehill?
Why do you need to talk about your feelings?
Aren’t you a man? Why are you overthinking this?
Can’t you just get on with it?

As a young boy, I heard these statements often, usually delivered with a pat on the back, as if they were meant to prepare me for the "real world." Coming from my elders, these words shaped my understanding of what it meant to grow up. So I did—internalizing the belief that to be a man, I had to shut down my emotions.

Talking about my feelings made me feel like I was losing my manliness so I turned to spirituality, hoping it would help me bypass the need to confront my emotions. Instead of processing them, I swept them under the rug of "spirituality."

Years of conditioning hardened me. Eventually, I found myself unable to cry, even when I wanted to. The result? A mess of unresolved emotions and an ever-growing anger.

Anger, I was taught, was acceptable for men. After all, movies romanticized the angry young man as the ideal. So I embraced it, thinking it made me more masculine, more desirable. But in reality, it only distorted who I was and led me to do things I never intended.

I assumed that’s what being a man was supposed to look like—that’s what women were drawn to.

Now, a decade into adulthood, I’ve lived the "real world" my elders spoke of. And they were right about some things: life is hard, conflicts are inevitable, and challenges need to be faced head-on.

But what they didn’t tell me—or maybe didn’t realize—was that their version of manhood, which involved never crying, never opening up, and never showing vulnerability, might have helped me grow a thicker beard, but it did far more damage to my mental health.

When this realisation dawned upon me, I realised that the weapons that were carefully given to me to fight the world were perhaps faulty and created more harm. The thick skin and the anger as my shield created a battlefield within me. I found myself stuck in the middle of conflicts, difficult conversations, and troubling events without having the tools to get through them. The manly way of dealing with things—moving on and saying, "I feel fine"—didn’t do any good.

A long-awaited breakdown, which felt like a cathartic expulsion of intense, stored energy, made me fall flat on the floor of my house (literally and figuratively).

I felt exhausted, drained, and submitted myself, not to any new idea, but to dropping out of all the old ones. I let go of the desire to be a man and chose to be a human instead. I wanted to choose the path, the life, where I could share a part of me with the world and not limit myself to myself.

In hindsight, I am grateful it happened. I felt like my eyes opened up for the first time. These eyes looked within and saw anger, guilt, rage, jealousy, worry, and fury—many of their close friends and aides sitting comfortably and playing carrom within the bylanes of my bloodstream. They had become so confined within me that I almost thought that’s who I was as a person, almost to the point of acceptance.

I signed up for a workshop on conscious communication. It concluded yesterday, and I write this newsletter sitting at a friend’s house in Nainital with a smile on my face. The workshop was carefully crafted to address all the communication issues (with self and others) I struggled with. Taught through the language of immense love and care, I got to learn a lot about my needs, my desires, past trauma, empathy, listening, boundaries, and conflict resolution, among many other things.

Workshop at Bodhigram, Dehradun

I got a safe practice ground to experience and experiment with various tools of communication, which gave me a real visual of how it might be to apply them practically.

The past five days were transformational, to say the least. I almost feel cheated and robbed of having lost so much time not knowing the honest truth of dealing with the “real world.”

Perhaps there is no "real world" to deal with. Somewhere, deep within, every individual is trying to deal with their version of the real world. Emotions and feelings are inevitable, regardless of gender. Conflicts are natural, healthy, and important, and so are disagreements, arguments, and fights. Crying is human, so is feeling angry and feeling needy.

Writing about the workshop just a day after its conclusion feels like an attempt to summarise my experience before I forget things, but deep within, I am aware that such experiences blossom with time, and it is wise to let them take their time.

I don’t write this as a participant of the workshop giving a testimonial. I write as a man who has just found his way back to himself, the self he was supposed to run away from and hide, just by virtue of being a man. This is the beginning of something beautiful, and I can feel it in every cell of my body. As I look within myself, I still see anger, guilt, rage, jealousy, worry, and fury sitting within, and this time I greet them, and they greet me back. They’re not my enemies after all—they’re me, and I am them. It is okay to have them, and it is okay to take time to deal with them.

Perhaps the answer is empathy—towards myself, others, and everyone around me. Empathy, not forced empathy. I realise that I am imperfect as a man and as a human, and that is exactly what makes me a perfect man and human.

I feel freed of the chains of masculinity and the "shoulds" and "shouldn'ts" of the ways of the world. As I step into the battlefield of the real world again, I realise that it’s not a battlefield after all—it is a laboratory.

I see myself at different stations, playing around with test tubes of my truth, feelings, vulnerabilities, and emotions. As I walk around, I see how it is a matter of experimenting and constantly evolving. There are no weapons that I have to carry here and nobody to fear or be ready to fight. I just have to constantly be empathetic toward failed experiments and celebrate the successful ones. I have to allow others to visit the laboratory and share my experiences and experiments with people. I see others experimenting in their laboratories too. Perhaps it is time for all of us to look into each other's spaces and realise that, regardless of age, gender, or other parameters, we are all just trying to make sense of the different experiments we’re going through. I believe that we need to share our research.

We need to listen. We need to talk. We need empathy.

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At the workshop, there was space for participants to offer their gifts and talents as well. Prompted by a dear friend who wanted to co-write, I offered a facilitated space to write. Amidst the workshop on communication, I also facilitated my mini workshop for an hour on writing and creativity.

Creative Writing Laboratory at Dehradun!

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I invite you to reflect and write on the following prompt:

In case you wish to write about something different, please go ahead.
The invitation is to write and enjoy the process.

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As a feature of all my newsletters, I share one song, one book, one plant-based meal, one film/video that inspired me, and some photographic updates from my life.

• Song: “We” by Neel Adhikari got me hooked this week! It was also a part of my most favourite TV show of all time. Any guesses? :)

• Book/Newsletter: I finished reading The War of Art. Helped me to understand the layers of resistance in the creative process. It’s a nice and light read.

  

• Meal: The meals at Bodhigram, Dehradun were nourishing, healthy and super tasty. I overate almost every day. No regrets at all!

  

• Film/Video: I didn’t watch anything the past week but a documentary that was repeatedly recommended was The Wisdom of Trauma. I am excited to watch it sometime this week. Have you seen it?

  

• Photograph: Here is a visual treat from Bodhigram, Dehradun and around!

  

  

  

Hope you have a brilliant day and week ahead. Thank you for reading.