Chemistry

 

I AM BASIC

There I was happily walking down the beach on a beautiful summer morning, listening to my favourite music on my headphones, when a broken glass pricked my leg and I looked down to see blood trickling down my foot, I started crying and cursing the person who had thrown the piece of glass on the beach and  slowly walked to the nearby chair, sat myself down to tend to the wound.

Both the glass and the chair are non living objects. The living presence in the situation was me. Then why did I think that the glass pricked me and I sat on the chair. That was when realization slapped my basic butt. When my own actions cause me pain I blame it on the object and when my own actions cause me comfort I take the credit for it.

Being the only girl child born in between 2 boys I always expected special attention. Whenever my mom made one of my brothers’ favorite sweets I would throw a tantrum. When dad carried my younger brother in his arms I would wreak havoc in the middle of the road to make him pick me up. When my elder brother quarreled with me I would hurt him then cry my eyes out and run to my dad for a hug. After all these years I look back to realize that the emotion behind my actions of basic attention seeking techniques was neediness and jealousy. My painful thoughts of my needs being deemed second to my brother’s needs fed my insecure emotions and the emotion engulfed my thought processes feeding my ego creating an unending loop.  The pain that engulfed me was because of my own actions but the objects of my outbursts were my unaware family.

This is how my thought processes work for all my negative emotions, Be it fear (when I watch a horror movie and blame it on the movie for being scary), Be it Anger (when I leave late to office and blame the traffic), Be it Disgust (when I stand near the garbage truck and complain about the stink), Be it Rage (when I try to share my feelings with someone who I know will never understand and blame them for not understanding), Be it Loneliness (When I chose to work abroad and blame it on the pandemic), Be it Envy (when I chose to compare myself with others instead of understanding my own uniqueness). 

I realize now that each emotion behind each thought amplifying that emotion is like the snake game that I used to play on my Basic model Nokia phone. The snake (my emotion) feeds and grows after each feed (my thoughts). The snake keeps growing until it bites its own tail and dies likewise my negative emotions is transformed into this enormous monster that feeds on itself, unaware of impending death. Death of my soul, death of my positivity, death of my reasoning, death of my humanity, death of my inner light. 

Life throws at us a lot of experiences both good and bad. Some are self created and some are happenings around us. We have no control over the latter but our reactions to our self created hell are in our hands. So how do I deal with such deep rooted emotions that come up without my knowledge to engulf me causing immense pain? I should become aware of the basic painful trigger that causes the emotion to take root. I should learn to name each emotion when it shows up and try to stop my thought process magnifying a simple basic incident into a full blown traumatic event. I should accept that it was me who hurt myself on the piece of glass and not the glass that hurt me. I should realize that it is me that feeds the snake seeking my own dooms day. With each life experience I should learn to update & upgrade myself to become a better version of myself rather than remaining a Basic model. Shouldn’t I?