A Step Back, A Leap Forward.

It took me more than a month to muster the courage to blog again. I have been having trouble trusting my internal dialogues. Intermittent with cackling of sarcastic laughter and tirades of self-defeating thoughts, my brain has been kept busy night and day.

The past few weeks have been filled with trying moments. I finally experienced the 'fight or flight' rush first hand for the first time. I have always considered myself brave. However, these last few weeks had reduced me to a shriveling blob of emotions. I just wanted to crawl into a cave and stay there until all my troubles had dissipated into thin air. I didn't care about the lessons to be learnt. I didn't give two hoots about the wisdom awaiting beyond the silver lining cloud. I just wanted to be left alone with my own insecurities and fears. I was afraid to let them go.

However, my caring lecturer and new friend, Dr. Wan Kader, didn't urge me to simply snap out of it. Neither did he try to coax me to leave my fears in the cave and come out alone. He just waited for me to take my time deciding what to do with my fears. He listened quietly and attentively when I found my voice again among the chaotic emotional and cognitive mess I was in.

How did I get to be that way? I don't know. What kept me awake at nights and restless during the days? I don't know. All I know was that I needed help. I need to be rescued but I needed someone I trust that can help me. I waited for the right person to show up before I extended my hand to ask for help. Please save me. I'm drowning in my own thoughts and emotions.

The marathon group counseling retreat was both daunting and exciting at the same time. I allowed myself to regress because I know that I needed to do that in order to progress. And so I did. I came away from the retreat feeling tired from the lack of sleep but I felt brand new. I have found myself again. I didn't die from the drowning experience. Instead, I learned to swim.

When I arrived for the retreat, my biggest issue was trusting again. Somehow, there was a link between how badly I took the betrayal of two old friends and the passing of my soul brother, Mad. My cathartic moment revealed that my trust in Mad didn't die with him. I can still continue to trust him. He's still trustworthy.

I also realized that during my drowning period, I had disconnected myself from people around me... those that I can still trust. Those who still care and love me. I'm grateful to Allah for the timely intervention I received from Dr Wan Kader. I almost lost everything while mourning what I thought I had lost.

Now, I am determined to be the beacon of light to those who are lost at their torrential sea. I will make sure they won't crash their ships and that they make it safely home to where they belong. I will continue to share my trials and tribulations with others, even as a small lesson to be learnt. Everything has value and meaning. Everything....

Trust Me... If You Can...

George MacDonald said, "To be trusted is a greater compliment than to be loved."

Over the past few months, I have been feeling so overjoyed at being reunited with many of the people I consider as friends, that have, at some point or rather, been a fellow traveller along this journey I call my life. Most of them I have known even before I entered adolescence. After more than 25 years have passed by between us, fate has arranged our steps to lead to a crossing of paths again. Those close to me will vouch how much I treasure old friends. I believe that friendship is like a well aged cheese. The taste get better and stronger with time.

Ralph Waldo Emerson also said, "The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand, nor the kindly smile, nor the joy of companionship; it is the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when you discover that someone else believes in you and is willing to trust you with a friendship."

It is in my nature to trust and think well of people. The longer I've known them, the deeper the trust I have in them. This is because, to my reasoning, if I have known someone for the majority of my years on earth, they are as good as my brother or sister. I should honor and cherish that friendship as I would my blood ties with my own siblings. I would rather be proven wrong for trusting and thinking well of someone than to be proven wrong for distrusting someone and thinking badly of them.

Frank Crane said, "You may be deceived if you trust too much, but you will live in torment if you don't trust enough."

But in a span of a few weeks, two of my old and treasured friends have betrayed me. One, abused my trust. The other, didn't trust me. I can't begin to describe how much that hurt my confidence in the goodness of mankind. Now my nights are filled with tiresome and disturbing dreams that echoes these betrayals. Is it a coincidence that they both went to school together? That they were of the same skin color? Has the breakdown in their marriages caused them to be so hurt and hence hurtful? Am I being a bigot or a racist for having these thoughts cross my mind and contaminating my reveries?

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "Our distrust is very expensive." "Self-trust is the first secret of success."

I've intertwined this blog entry with quotes about trust. This is my way of healing myself from this pain of betrayal. However, in reading what Cardinal De Retz said, "A man who doesn't trust himself can never really trust anyone else", I've come to a realization that it's not my problem if people have trouble trusting themselves and in doing so, they cannot bring themselves to trust others. They are the ones with trust issues. But, why does this burden my heart so terribly?

Samuel Johnson said, "It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust."

Is this enough to heal a wounded heart that has been speared by the lance of distrust? Is it worth my while to keep on trusting people? How much is too much trust? How little is too little? Is there any way we can guard ourselves from betrayal without cutting ourselves out and depriving our spirits from the nourishment of a refreshing friendship?

From this experience, I've come to understand that the quality of the friendship cannot be measured by the length of it. Because the years spent apart may have a role to play in changing the person we once called a friend and turning them into perfectly familiar strangers. I don't know those two friends anymore. Their appearances may have aged through time. But they are no longer the friends that I grew up with. The friends I knew have ceased to exist in these two people. I don't know them anymore. And I don't talk to strangers.

"Trust only movement. Life happens at the level of events, not of words. Trust movement." - Alfred Adler

Yada-Yada Sisterhood Part 2

I'm being politically correct when I use the term Yada-Yada Sisterhood. Actually, our meetings are called Perjumpaan Vagina Monologue by its members. But somehow, when some members of the opposite sex hear this, they cringe as if its a dirty word! Why is penis not a dirty word? Isn't the vagina a part of the woman's anatomy as penis is for man? Even Oprah had to improvise by calling it "Ve Jay Jay."

Well, as far as I am concerned, these men can cringe all they want. Because the honest to goodness fact is that the vagina is their entry passage into this world. And here is the latest edition to MANkind.


Ahmad Shahiman Bin Ahmad Fairuz.

This time around, our meeting did not have tea and scones. It was in the labour room of a hospital. Wa, my soul sister, had just given birth to her second son. Laton and I joined Wa to celebrate the wonders of motherhood. Now, the score is 2 all between the three of us. Two miracles each. And we agreed that the one who will deliver their third child will preside as the president over our meetings. The first meeting was held on 01.01.08 and the second one was on 08.04.08. Both dates fell on a Tuesday. One was to celebrate a new year. The other was to celebrate a new birth.

Women carry within them the miracle of kinship. Silaturrahim. A connection via the womb. This connection makes an unbreakable link. For this reason alone, women deserve respect. We are the mothers of human race.

On Becoming a Person: Carl Rogers

Carl Rogers (1902-1987)

THIS IS ME.
What is most personal is most general:
I have almost invariably found that the very feeling which has seemed to me most private, most personal, and hence most incomprehensible by others, has turned out to be an expression for which there is a resonance in many other people. What is most personal and unique is the very element which would, if it were shared or expressed, speak mostly to others.

Life, at its best, is a flowing, changing process in which nothing is fixed:
In my clients and in myself I find that when life is richest and most rewarding it is a flowing process.
To experience this is both fascinating and frightening.
Life is guided by a changing understanding and interpretation of my experience.
It is a process of becoming.
I can only try to live by my interpretation of the current meaning of my experience, and try to give others the permission and freedom to develop their own inward freedom and thus their own meaningful interpretation of their own experience.

- by Carl Roger, written in 1961.

Wisdom of Fritz Perls

Frederick 'Fritz' Perls (1893-1970)

"The Prayer"
I do my thing and you do your thing.
I am not in this world to live up to your expectations,
And you are not in this world to live up to mine.
You are you, and I am I, and if by chance we find each other, it's beautiful.
If not, it can't be helped.

An Hour to Live, an Hour to Love

I always enjoy book stores. Somehow, a sense of peace and serenity always wash over me with a secret hush whenever I'm surrounded by rows and rows of books. My paradise of tranquility.

Today, as usual, I stole a moment to walk into a quaint little bookshop right in the hustle and bustle of city life. The cool air-conditioning in the shop slowly dried the mild afternoon sweat off my forehead. My eyes began to wander hungrily over the many titles of magazines and books galore. My head tilted left and right, scanning the covers for topics that might peak my interest or steal my attention.

And then suddenly, there it was... a little, thin book, propped quietly on a high shelf, with a very interesting title. I couldn't resist picking it up immediately. My fingers yearning to feel the touch of its beautiful jacket. I ran them over the embossed lettering. "An Hour to Live, an Hour to Love" by Richard Carlson and Kristine Carlson.

I gasped. I quickly turned the book over to read the many reviews listed on the back cover. And then my heart stopped beating for a moment. A stillness descended upon me. I felt the nearness of truth. Of love. My eyes fell upon these words...

"On their 18th wedding anniversary, in 2003, Richard Carlson (author of the bestselling Don't Sweat the Small Stuff) presented his wife, Kristine, with a short manuscript called An Hour to Live. He imagines he has an hour to live and poses questions originally asked by spiritual guide and author Stephen Levine: whom would you call? what would you say? and why are you waiting? Uncannily, the text foreshadowed Carlson's death three years later, at age 45, of a pulmonary embolism. Though he had no chance to make that last phone call, his wife (and the reader) already knows his feelings for her and their children. We also know what was important to him, which boils down to the old chestnut: no one, on their deathbed, ever wishes they'd spent more time at the office. Included in the book is Kristine's tribute to Richard, called An Hour to Love. Both pieces (only 50 pages and padded with Richard's favorite poem and blank pages for the reader's own answer to the key question) are heartfelt—and oddly unengaging. They tell the reader how wonderful the Carlsons' marriage was, but don't show why. We are left with a lovely ideal—too ideal for readers to relate to. (Jan. 15) - by Publishers Weekly."

"Richard Carlson, so beloved to many of us, writes to his own true love from a place somewhere between life and death. The love with which he writes to her, and the love with which she answers, provide a teaching for all of us: on life, on death, and on the existence of a spirit that transcends them both. - by Marianne Williamson, author of A Return to Love and The Age of Miracles."

I felt my eyes well up with tears, my throat tightened and my heart crying again. The remembrance of Mad. He was so loved by many, too. A very wise old man once asked me the same question. "If you only have 24 hours left to live, what would you do?"

I couldn't afford to purchase that book just now. I forced myself to return it in its place on the high shelf whilst promising to myself that I will be returning to that quaint little shop to make that precious treasure mine. My girls have already negotiated their turns at reading it. I end this writing for now. I shall make my next entry after I have savored the deliciousness of reading "An Hour to Live, an Hour to Love".

My Bucket List

"Edward Perman Cole died in May, it was a Sunday afternoon and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. It's difficult to understand the sum of a persons life, some people would tell you it's measured by the ones left behind, some believe it can be measured in faith, some say by love, other folks say life has no meaning at all......Me, I believe you measure yourself by the people who measure themselves by you. What I can tell you for sure is that by any measure, Edward Cole lived more in his last days on earth than most people manage to wring out of a lifetime. I know that when he died his eyes were closed and his heart was opened......"

This was the opening line to this movie. To say that watching this flick had a profound affect on me and my attitude towards life is a great understatement.

I have one such list. Except that I didn't call it my Bucket List. I simply refer to it as "The things I wanna do before I die."
1. Perform my Haj.
2. Go to Mekkah with my family.
3. Repay all my debts.
4. See God's earth with my family.
5. See the 7 wonders of the world.
6. Learn to speak fluent Arabic and French.
7. Have a fantastic relationship with my daughters.
8. Live a simple but fulfilling life.
9. Learn psychology to the highest level.

And the list goes on. I believe more things will be added and some will be stricken out or checked off from the list.

Some may see the morbidity of it all. But I believe when we know how we want to die, we will discover how we want to live. Some people feel that this movie is simply about a list; a list of all the good things in life: places to be visited, people worth cherishing, values to which to cleave... and friendship. Well, everyone is entitled to their own interpretation of the meaning of this film. The Bucket List is about the importance of living life as if each moment might be your last.

Live everyday of your life as if it's your last and one day you'll be right.