Everyone’s a shipwreck
You just have to pick one and learn to row.
Talk about ideologies, i recently had this insane luck to start off my spiritual journey. Right the moment when I thought i had hit rock bottom and i needed answers from the universe.
Right before India was shut down and the lock down was announced. Actually the day before the lockdown took full effect. Just enough to pack my clothes and leave home, for my parents house.
Just the night before i saw the most ugly, violent side of my husband, a side i never knew I would see in this man. He almost locked me out of the house at 11.30pm in the night, pushed me to fall down at the door then almost locked me out.. he was drunk and full of rage. He then proceeded to let me in but to come into my room and pull down the only photo frame of us in the house that was hanging over my bed.. smashing the frame to bits.. and then coming back again to pick up the smashed photograph, only to burn it inside the house, with a full frame till nothing was left.
I’m digressing, but i was convinced then that this isn’t the guy i married. The guy who i fell in love with. I was afraid of him. I was afraid of what he could do. He scared not just me but our dog too.. who refused to come out from under the couch in my room the entire night there after..
I doubted myself every day. Everyday for a very long time in that house. Because:
He said i was a liar.
That i go back on my words.
That i made his life miserable from the start.
That i abused his mothers, his family.
That i caused him all his financial troubles.
That i didn’t see his pain.
That i mistreated him and took him for granted.
That i made him move out of his family house and then didn’t pay half the rent of the house like i promised.
That I financially burdened him.
That I disrespected him in front of our friends.
That i broke him morally in public.
That while he was under massive financial burden, my shopping bags didn’t stop getting delivered home.
That i am a liar and a cheat.
That I didn’t honour this marriage and only gave him pain and misery for 4 years.
That i treated him like our maid servant and woke up everyday to find new ways to make his life miserable.
That he hasn’t loved me from Jun 2018.
That he had finally had enough and had found the courage to stand up for himself and decided to end things. That this was his final stand and it was unchangeable. No one could make him digress from his decision. That his word was final.
I never in my wildest dreams could have imagined that I would be this person. That I could finish off a person with words. That I would bring such extreme bad luck and become a spirit breaking train wreck who just wanted to destroy another human’s life. Never.. never ever.
And the more he repeated these words, the more i began to believe them. I thought ill of myself, i over apologised for things i did not cause. I over compensated in guilt, confusion and fear of losing the only person i loved. Because and only because for some reason he decided for the both of us that instead of working on things, he wanted to out of this marriage.
He went as far back as to say things like –
- Had he dated me over a year, he might not have asked me to marry him.
- That his family had already rejected me after meeting me for the first time but he only took a stand to marry me.
- That is was his mistake that he rushed into marriage.
- That he hadn’t intended on proposing but a then friend of mine had pushed him into doing so. And so he did.
There might be ways to hurt a man. But these are exactly the ways you hurt a women. You stab her emotionally where it hurts the most.
All the previous stated reasons didn’t hurt me as much as these did. Because he went back on his words or lied in rage, and those were ok by me.
But i was an emotional wreck back then and I just sucked it all in. All the hate, the negativity, the pain, the hateful words and absorbed them like a sponge. Because i heard them so often i believed them to be true.
Without analysing what was really happening to me, to us, to him. Without acknowledging what he was doing and where he was hiding his flaws and shortcomings and projecting them as problems in me…
So i met my guru right then. And he said to me all the things the world had to offer to me as answers to my prayers and questions through my learning to practice Sudarshan Kriya.
Here are the first words of wisdom i received from The Art of Living:
When our mind gets stuck in past spoken words, past actions etc., we loose sight of what is important.
Since those words and actions cannot be reversed, we need to ask ourselves: “Do we really need to carry their burden?”
“Don’t focus on anger, focus on the reason of anger.”
For example, Women become moody due to hormonal imbalances / PMS. So its important to keep sight of the larger picture and not feel bad.
We need to get to the root cause and not focus on words or actions of the past as they cannot be undone.
There is nothing called “the perfect life” or “perfect marriage”. Everyone is a shipwreck, you just need to pick the one you will live with.
Like in the case of my husband:
Despite knowing and acknowledging the fact that I don’t mean harsh words spoken in anger. That in rage i used to say mean things, if he chose to focus on words and hold on to the past actions and interactions, then that is his grey area. It means his judgement and morality is also lapsed. He can’t identify right from wrong and isn’t a balanced human either. And those around him are ill advising him and he is not able to overcome and overlook the same.
So since we attract the energy we seek – he isn’t able to realise that he is holding on to so much negativity that he is not able to let good things happen to him. Or the good things that did happen us to us during the course of our marriage.
When you don’t know what to do, or how to react in a situation with someone and they only seem to be getting bitter, its best to move away or to move on from the same.
All you need to do is be sure of the fact that you gave 100% in your present to make things right so that you don’t doubt yourself later.
Remember that an argument is not formed form one side’s actions alone. Two people have to participate in the same. So if someone claims you are the only person at fault, don’t consider it to be the full picture.
Wisdom is to be able to acknowledge your own fault and see things in a balanced manner. But we need to leave things to Karma also sometimes. If sometimes things are meant to be then they will be.
Both parties need to be able to acknowledge and make changes or take actions. It is never only one person’s duty. And it is wrong with toppling oneself with too much guilt or anger unnecessarily.
Just sincerely acknowledge fault and apologise with 100% honesty and move on.
Because giving 100% but in the right direction is crucial, else it is as good as banging your head on the wall.
Don’t be apologetic about having polar opposite values from someone. Especially in your marital relationship.
Opposite values are complimentary with each other.
In absence of one, the other wont hold any meaning or importance. If all day was only day, then night would not have any value.
So life also cant be all good or all bad. But we have to accept it, because if we can’t get though either states you are presented with, then you won’t cherish or relish the other or life would be too irritating or monotonous.
Remember that our lifeline also goes up and down on a graph, and when it becomes flat- it denotes death.
Don’t overthink the bad or the intent behind other people’s mistakes.
Think of how you feel when you make a mistake, and then think of how you feel when someone else makes a mistake.
If you forgive yourself in seconds as you understand you didn’t mean to make a mistake, you need to learn to give same leeway to others as well.
When we become negative:
We loose the power to change someone. Maybe my husband might have been trying to change me for the past four years but has had negative intent or negativity inside? Which is possible because my husband has always had a controlling streak and ability to hold on to contempt. Hence he has fragmented himself to his current state.
The secret of marriage
Never hurt a man’s ego. (which I did)
Never hurt a women’s emotions. (which he did)
Never speak badly about parents. (which we did in private)
If you focus only on each other and walk then you are bound to walk into each other and collide, and consequently go separate ways. (also why we did)
But if you can overcome the things you shouldn’t do and focus on common objectives and move parallel-to each other, then you will move in the same direction till infinity.
Just work with the realisation of the secrets and:
1. Don’t take each other for granted.
2. Priorities things.
3. Don’t put off actions (smallest) till tomorrow or too late, they have the power to impact somebody’s life.
4. Don’t procrastinate.
5. Get out of comfort zone.
6. Don’t limit yourself.
Love:
Give unconditionally, but also learn how to receive graciously also. Balance both.
If you are both mature enough, then there is no end to marriage until both parties decide to part ways out of mutual negativity.
Saying:
”Because everyone is a shipwreck, you just have to pick one and learn to row. As changing the boat you’re standing in wont make a difference. You will events have to learn to row. ”
What it means:
Where ‘shipwreck’ is the metaphor for ups-downs and imperfections in life, ‘boat’ is the metaphor for marriage or a relationship and ‘learning to row’ is the metaphor for working on things together rather than giving up and moving on to next one.
