It’s one of those random Tuesdays at work, it is 11am, your coffee wasn’t quite spot on, the colour of the tie that you’re wearing is a bit off, the suit has creases on it but, you say to yourself (our inner monologue with ourselves/reader), you know, spotlight effect, who gives a f*ck, nobody’s looking at you anyway.
Then suddenly you get a notification – The sneakers that you wanted to cure your injured leg and do long distance running, they’re now on SALE. You jump onto it, you’re like, oh wow how lucky am I, that’s so cool. Then the next thing becomes lets see when the delivery is, can I pick them up, will it get delivered this week or tomorrow, do they do Amazon prime? After that gets abated and you’re like, oh shit, it’s 1pm, all my meetings keep me so busy.
And then suddenly you realise, Oh the coffee shop has a happy hour from 1 to 3pm on weekdays. You ask yourself, am I craving coffee?
I should drink coffee, because I need it for the meetings afterwards. Well okay, cool, we’ll go down, on our way we should ask others on the office floor, Do you want coffee? So two or more colleagues tag along. The water cooler chat, like hey mate, how was the weekend? How are things? Are you having fun, also, I’m not going to follow you up on that investment allocation error, I sorted that out. The smile on their face, kind of is pleasing, okay, you innovated something, that’s cool, that’s one of the main goals.
You come back and you’re like, oh, meetings went by so quickly, now it’s 5pm, and your body starts telling you it’s gym time. I know, you’ve been b*tching away from it, you need to go to the gym, and you’re like, yeah of course. We need to do something for ourselves not just slave away existence, so you go to the gym.
You have a hardcore session, you’re halfway there, the set timer gets missed a couple of times. You think to yourself that I’m squatting 100% of the body weight, but then you’re like, oh who cares, if it’s 95%…so you do your gig, and then head out.
As you walk out of the gym, Domino’s next door, you’re like, okay that Domino’s has amazing pizza…your abs get hard rock and say, f*ck, yeah, we fucking deserve it, we’ve worked hard for it.
And as you’re in this fifth catharsis of the day, you see those rowdy kids who ride these e-scooters and bikes on the sidewalk. And usually they agitate you…Suddenly one of them just slipped in front of me, and I became worried, I forgot everything, everything unnecessary stopped in my mind…
I rushed towards the youngin and picked her up, helped the bike off her…and as I held her elbow, I felt a reassuring calm sensation…and she looked at me, and said…‘Thank God you’re here, these things are very risky, the city is very slippery, uneven and hilly’.
I was like, yeah you’re right…She replied…‘Well thank you for helping me’…and as she said that, there was this rejuvenation and sense of fulfilment that went through my body…Which made me reflect…
Your know what…It was the pizza was which was supposed to f*cking do that…the coffee was supposed to do that…the gym was supposed to do that…But it’s related to being helpful to somebody else.
I became grounded..I had a spring in my step..the balance in my emotional state and at the same time… You realise your mind is such a b*tch, as a coping mechanism instantly your mind goes, yeah bro, I just told you, that’s why we work out..
Then the penny drops…something like this…Oh shit, this b*tch (my mind) is ruining my life, for example without that incident…my mind would have run me like this, day in and day out, everyday till 10pm…till I’m worn out…chasing something new…rather than just stopping and seeing what actually fulfills me…
This realisation is called Self-Awareness, that’s you becoming aware of yourself, you start watching your thoughts, which gives meaning to bodily sensation through interaction with the life around you (also known as Emotions). Emotions are broadly mislabelled by the mind, that I need coffee, that’s going to fulfil me, but it’s not coffee, it’s essentially pointing out the ordinary unconsciousness which contains desires, aversions and reactions when you’re not ‘truly’ present.
Mind you, there’s a flip side to this phenomena, and that side is a lot more personal, hard to express and very close to my heart compared to the happy go lucky things mentioned earlier…It goes like this…
It is one of those sort of days where you’ve been Working From Home (WFH) for a couple of days…Its been a good day, however, for some reason there is a subliminal unease…Then some unexpected adulting comes up…the mechanic called, saying ‘He needs two grand for the rego (car registration) renewal service’ and you’re already suffering the rising cost of living pressures.
You have already spent the day arguing about insurance premium rises with health, home, life providers…and suddenly you realise…Oh, it’s already 5pm and the dry-cleaner’s going to close soon…I need to rush out the door…When half way out the door..You get a Teams call where your colleague says, ‘We got a regulatory notice, we really need your help’.
And you say something like, okay, what can we do about it…We don’t control what happens to us, we control our reaction, and our narrative…So tell me colleague…What would you like to happen? Then I listened to her, and by the time I put the headset down, the dry-cleaner’s are closed for the day…I was like, F*ck my life (FML)…I don’t know if it was the cold or something else…but I started getting these intense shivers with intense body aches…It was so weird…It’s one of those sort of feelings when you (my inner thought process/reader) ate something bad, or you’re coming down with intense fever symptoms…or…you’re getting like a panic attack…I said to myself that I’m usually good at differentiating those things…this was funny in a way..funny that nothing is wrong in material world but I’m crumbling inside..
And your immediate response goes like…Lets grab a pair of warm socks, run to the bed and while pulling up the duvet mutter something along the lines…
‘F*ck this world, we are sleeping now, we don’t give a shit that there is an open mic/stand up show today’…we’re gonna stay in and then you lie down, and you’re intensely trying to sleep…but you can’t sleep…and you keep on time-traveling, and you don’t have the ability to stop the flooding thoughts that are coming in your mind, and you’re like, I’m already hurting, and I’m tired, is this fever? Or is this something else? You take two paracetamols, and lie down again.
But whatever you do you can’t calm yourself, and then you say, is this for real, like, and then you’re like, okay, what’s my go-to thing in such events, it usually starts with me asking myself..Am I present? For the microsecond that you feel present, you go to the hippie chick’s and pop psychology’s default solution: Start focusing on your breathing…
I can feel that this time it was very hard to hold and release my breath at five second intervals. Which by the way is my go to approach when I get anxious beyond normality. I forced myself to stay in the 5 second inhale, hold, exhale, hold cycle…while reminding myself remember..we don’t control what happens to us, we control what we tell ourselves about it..You close your eyes, and you try to go inside of yourself, while repeating…What is going on inside me? Where do I feel this? Why do I feel this? Where does this come from? Call it spirit, formlessness or belief. You listen to the voice from within…For me..it sounds like…’I know you’re tired, but come this is the way’ – Rumi.
And suddenly, you teleport to your inner fantasy world…For me there I see a giant stage and the curtain lifts slowly like a scared veil and behind that is a platform, and you see there’s somebody who has their back turned towards you, slightly younger, slightly recognisable but not quite visible…I was like great, some cocky piece of shit, stuck in my head…
More importantly, the teenager or kid has this thing, like this revolving platform, it’s hard to explain…the minority report sort of gig, like a sandbox thing where you notice ironic things…a controller or dial on the left which says ‘Past’ and one on the right which says ‘Future’…It is like a life map…I see that he (teenager or child) can move the dial, at will effortlessly, like he has jedi mind control abilities to infinitely scroll through my life’s footprint.
He’s randomly playing around with it, and he seems to know what he is doing..not even more..he knows what would engulf me more in my existential timeline.
He starts shuffling towards the past, and then….I hear my mothers voice, ‘Adnan, why are you so complex, your sisters are normal and fine’…
He shuffles quickly to another point in time…then I hear my ex-girlfriend, saying…‘You’ve read so many books and philosophies that you’ve gone mad…knowing too much can make you mad’…Me replying, ‘I agree that is also a philosophy about someone’s pursuit of knowledge’’…
Then he (teenager/kid) shuffles the sandbox back to the past, like to my schooling days, the voices in the hallway from teachers that…‘His dad’s a pretty good doctor, he’s going to be a trust fund baby and mostly lazy as sh*t’.
Fast forward to the day in Year 8, when…I got beaten down by three high school boys who wolf whistled one of my sisters and then getting beaten again by my dad for unnecessarily engaging in conflict…
Then he moves the panel to the future, moving a bit forward to university days…When I left home at 16, my eldest sister saying ‘You’re going to die alone, because I deserve it’..where I go something like, ‘Okay, thanks sis, love you too’..
Moving to Manchester university days, saw a girl being held up to a knife at a random bus stop, I pushed the guy so she can run away and getting chased by muscle and knife bro for several blocks while frantically trying to dial 999…luckily didn’t tell dad this time..Well belief says…“Stick to justice, even if it kills you” (Umar Bin Khatab)…Before I could recover from reliving that horror story..He quickly spins to present day Sydney news..With a thought arising ‘Tell that to the Pakistani who died in the Westfield Bondi Junction attack’…perhaps he also believed the same.
Fast forward again, investment firm days in London – the chatter the office floor and meetings openly saying that ‘Curry boys don’t go far in this industry without drinking and proving their worth being one of the good ones’…I am so enmeshed in these memories like quick sand, in a split second…I automatically started reliving them…
The journey through emotional mind maps, fast forward again…me pleading to my ex-fiancée…‘Why are you pushing me, we engage by dialogue, we do constructive, productive civil conversation and we don’t physically push others in arguments…where are your manners’, and her reply, ‘What are you going to do do, Are you a real man?’…I replied…‘I am a real man, that’s why I won’t repeat what was normalised in your childhood or personal life, which promotes physical aggression and slavery to your narcissism as a relationship’…
The child flipping the screen again where the ‘future’ and unlived concerns take over…I recall one of my uncles got married quite late in life, he has like five children, but two of them are disabled, F*ck my life…Also, that promotion that’s coming up in the next year, the firm wanted somebody who has three PhDs for impression and face lift…What can you do…
I started getting a chronic headache, because all of them make me relive the pain and are enticing in some regard…it’s all ego, glory, jealousy, frustration, judgment and victimisation…mutated manifestation of primary emotions i.e. fear and desire.
…and I’m trying to watch that kid, the more I try to watch that kid…the more enmeshed I get into these thoughts…I start mumbling…Hey you, you’re not real…I keep repeating that you’re not real…like people frantically repeat in a horror movie where a demon is facing them…I can see my tone moving from denial to exasperation…
Hey…Stop…Listen…Stop…Listen it hurts now…I want you to stop, listen…I have a good life…I have worked really hard to get where I am…listen I had a master’s degree at 21…My parents call me everyday…Listen…I’m becoming better everyday, I’ll have stopped giving a shit about dating too…listen I’ve been told by people I make them better…
Listen this is unfair…I f*cking helped somebody today…and the moment I said this, the teenager/kid jitters…His grip on the sandbox loosens and he pauses for a few seconds…I uttered my deepest prized achievement in life…Listen I have friends who tell me I saved them from committing suicide…the kid stops spinning, he just stops for a moment and I said, listen…listen…let’s talk about it…
As I get closer, and I recognize this familiar persona and realising who it was…I hugged him from the back, kept holding him, and I say, it is okay…you’re real, you’re real, bubba…I see you, I see you, just calm down for a bit…I know it has been hard…I see you and I can feel his abnormal heartbeat through my my wrists…and then I whispered (my final prayer so change it to whatever imagine it to be)…Which translates from Arabic (الله نور السموات والأرض) to English something along these lines…God is the eternal (sacred) light of essence that shines through all living things…and the moment I said that, he lifted his hands from the panel/sandbox time my life’s time machine…
Instantly, I started becoming calm, and I said it one more time…I see you and then he (teenager/kid) turned around, and hugged me, and as I see that face…I bursted into tears…I wept so much that my tears started dropping on his shoulder…I looked him in the eyes and said…I’m here…I’m here for you…you’re valued…you’re loved…I see you…everybody sees you…you matter, it’s okay…WE matter and can live a meaningful life by contributing to others.
And the deeper you hug that shadow/inner child in the fantasy world, you realise that your pillow is soaking wet…the pillow with half of the duvet is really really wet in the outer world…and when you open your eyes, you’re just hugging yourself…and that fantasy world platform…is pointing to the ‘present moment’ in my room…me watching myself…
My inner and outer world simultaneously showing the same thing…without a single thought in my head…just raw consciousness…gratitude of this present moment…and you’ve come to the now…you’ve become…your shadow, unconsciousness, ego, Inner child and a valued dimension has become one with yourself…as there was only ‘one’…the other is imagined…
It’s the lego collection of pain we all gather through day to day life…some for developmental purposes and some due to unfairness of human existence…some seeped so deep into the unconsciousness that we feel possessed by it…Not just that we also starting living a lie that we in fact are that daemon or shadow.
Everyone mentioned in my existential timeline above will have the same poignant stories, scars from childhood, lifelong unhealed trauma and if permitted to share their version of inner child, shadow and unconsciousness…which will bring tears to our eyes…the irony of human existence on the planet.
Everybody in the world goes around having the same experiences and thinks theirs is completely unique – David Foster Wallace
Thank you for taking the journey into my world. This is my humble attempt to show you…how you can deal with the ordinary unconsciousness that manifests with your desires, aversions in day-to-day life, like a constant background noise, and something external happens (usually adverse in nature or perceptually negative), and you get pulled into the deeper unconsciousness or a dream like state.
Remember, the past exists in your memories, the future exists in your anxieties…the only place which is real is ‘here and now’. When you’re more interested in watching your thoughts like a comet flying by, labeling it as blue, red or rainbow instead of engaging in them, you start making progress to be more present.
My go to meditation is asking yourself, Am I Present? When you ask that, you become present. It’s a call to arms to the ‘Watcher’ from deep consciousness to awaken and make you grounded in the present. Being the spectator of your thoughts, disconnects the brain’s fetish with past & future analysis paralysis, allows to identify the source (fear or desire based narrative) of pain in personal life journey and promotes self-acceptance. It is easier said than done, I have known this since I was probably 25 and it took me more than a decade to put it into absorbable words.
I hope you find your final prayer or the portal where you can self regulate, stop reliving the experienced pain and become one with the star dust, tao and consciousness exclusive to you. This visualisation and deeply mining for the split second daily interaction with your purpose (which all of us experience) which allows you to become present…for some it is their students doing well in school…for others it is seeing their children smile…for some it is having their name on a charity hospital or someone’s innovation improving daily life for fellow people…for some it’s building self esteem by sold out concerts…for someone it might be their writing helping someone’s imagination…or even helping others becoming present…
“Inspiration born of a feeling is a grandchild of a judgment and often of a false judgment – and in any event not a child of your own…To trust one’s feelings (blindly) – means to give more obedience to one’s grandfather and grandmother and their grandparents than to the gods which are in us: our reason and our experience” – Friedrich Nietzsche
You are not your thoughts and emotions. You’re the watcher of your thoughts, you are the one who is having them. The day you are more interested than observing or spectating your thoughts without engaging in them, you will uncover life’s profound epiphany - that the greatest power humans have is the ability to choose one thought over another. We all possess the super power of changing one narrative of the past to a constructive one and evolving emotional dysfunction to healthy self regulation.
A healthy pro tip due to technological advancement, take a screenshot of wherever you are, the restaurant, the room, the bus…Yes, you can do that… you know what you’re wearing, just like the images you see in a CCTV and draw the spectator’s chair in your inner world right behind your outer world position. Just see the thoughts like a comet on your head, see what comes up, entertain it, don’t ignore or judge it..just identify it and say hmmm….I see I have a lot on my mind and fear and desires are appearing as ego, glory, jealousy, frustration, judgment and victimisation related thoughts…the moment you do that…you start making the unconscious conscious and leading your destiny by acting in present moment.
For me personally, changing the life you experience is a journey…where you engage in channelling your gifts (thoughts & emotions) into productive reactions and constructive actions to manifest the greatness that’s destined for you.
There is a life-force within your soul, seek that life. There is a gem in the mountain of your body, seek that mine. O traveller, if you are in search of that…Don't look outside, look inside yourself… The whole universe is inside you, do not be lonely…Stop acting so small...You are the universe in ecstatic motion...
- Masnavi and Divan by Rumi
- Carl Harvie for the beautiful gift as a fellow writer for drawing my inner world.
- Sydney Inner West Writers Group – Thank you for the relentless support in helping me transcend boundaries through true creativity.
- Muslim guard rescues girl from knife attacker in London – Dawn
Anyone who has ever taught me anything about themselves. The stories I blog about are half-lived lives of others and shared journeys into dreams. I am a mosaic of everyone I’ve come across, even if only for a heartbeat. – Adnan
