Yesterday evening was special. It was a Wednesday, I went to the weekly Toastmaster's meeting and gave my Project 2 of Competent Communicator manual. Though I messed up a bit and wasn't satisfied by myself but as a friend said, 'You're too hard on yourself!' So, I'm going to cut myself some slack and bask in the glory of giving a considerably good speech, getting the 'Best Speaker Award' for the evening and receiving all the love being bestowed on me for a while. Here's the draft of what I spoke:
"I’m on my way back from office. It’s 11PM in the
evening. No, I don’t work in afternoon shift. My day very well began at
8:30 in the morning. In spite of all these efforts, my manager still
feels that I’m not putting in sufficient amount
of effort. To top it all, it’s a Saturday, I’m stuck in Hinjewadi
traffic and I’m terribly hungry. My Mom calls. I’m reminded of home. And
of course, the home cooked food. She said: I’m going for a meditation
vacation to Rishikesh. And I want you to come along.
Amongst all that hustle bustle, meditation would
be the last thing I’d excitedly say a yes to. But out of what she said,
only one word made sense. Vacation…..and I so needed one!
A very good evening fellow Toastmasters and dear guests.
So, in the month of July, I went for this
vacation to Rishikesh. I don’t know what my friends expect of me but
they had blatantly assumed that it would be for some wild river rafting
or a camping trip. What happened just after I mentioned
that I was going for a meditation retreat to Rishikesh, gave me….my P2
speech. :P
Some of the reactions that I faced were:
“Whaaaaattt?? Have you really gone down the way of meditation?”
“You? You of all the people would keep your mouth shut and meditate?”
There was another friend who even told me, “You know what, meditation is only for hippies and freaks. It’s sheer nonsense.”
But post the vacation, I’m glad, I could go
there. Not because I got to click posy pictures with Ganga, the holy
Ganga flowing in the background and boast about it on Facebook. I mean,
yeah, that’s one part of it. What else are vacations
for?
But apart from all of that, I did what I went
there to do. To unplug, unwind and energize. Of course, there wasn’t any
magic potion that helped me do all of it in 5 days. But an entire
structured process to help me come out of Monday morning
hangover, with all due respect, to help me tackle my manager, in a much
calmer way though. All in all, it helped me wash away my office
diaries.
No surprises. Our work lives are stressful. Eight in 10 of us are stressed at work. A moment of silence for those unsung heroes of our generation who do
not wait for Friday-s. It’s so so easy to be consumed by the details of
our lives, to be impressed with the
technology of our own society, to get lost in the business and busyness
of our ways.. But it’s like, when we move so fast, we miss so much.
And apart from all those trivial things, I had
another specific reason. I had recently lost a loved one. And the pain
was extremely excruciating. The moments of remembering and missing them
felt as if I was diving through a black hole of
no return. And I was time and again reminded of it when I was at the
retreat, cut off from social media and just being with myself. But the
first step of stepping out of that darkness began with reclaiming those
few moments of silent inner connection every
day. It was all about reminding myself to let go of the things I cannot
control. Those few minutes to find peace within.
I’d always thought I was too hyper to meditate.
Of course, calm is not a state that we usually experience every day. But
what I learnt was, mind is like a muscle. It responds to consistent
practice. During those five days, I used to..err
I was made to sit in a guided meditation practice for between 10 to 15
minutes, two times a day. As directed, the goal wasn’t to control my
thoughts. It was in fact to stop letting them control me.
And, it wasn’t like I went there and in the
first round of meditation felt, “Eureka! I’ve figured life out?!” But
slowly and gradually, what I felt was, meditation is about emptying
yourself. Paradoxically, meditation is not about gaining.
It’s about losing. Losing much of all you’ve been holding onto. And at
any rate, it’s liberating.
If you think, just like I did, that you can’t do
it because your mind is too busy or you don’t have time for this,
welcome to the human condition. No one really cares if you have 17
children and five jobs. Everyone’s mind is out of control.
It if weren’t, no one would ever need meditation. And I’m sure you have
five minutes to confront that voice in your head..
Just sit. Focus on your breath, and when your
brain loses focus, you start over, and over and over. And I believe, if
as little as five to 10 minutes of your day can change your life, start
today!
Of course, this all was rosy enough when I was
learning this art in a posh hotel with Ganga flowing by the side and it
was a vacation. I don’t expect you to go home, lock up yourself in a
room and start to meditate but yes, if you relate
to even a bit of what I said, I’m sure you can try and sit and just be
with yourself for 5 minutes of your day.
Join me! Unplug, unwind and energize."
