How was your Christmas? “Like India”

Hello everyone it’s been a while since I was last tapping the keyboard with a blog post. I’ve found myself with the feeling of lull after the Christmas buzz and wondering if I am ready to say anything of use to you wonderful lot. You see, when I write, it has to be words that I hear with my heart. If my head is in a different place to my heart, nothing comes. Nothing. I do try. I sit and think, but sitting and thinking just doesn’t bring the words up for me. Not thinking is the way to go and as so much of the hard stuff has been with me for the past 6 months or so, I guess you could say that I’ve been well and truly in my head. Heart led decisions (internal spirit led), well, not so much.

Does this mean it’s heart time again? Well, maybe, so that got me to thinking about heads and hearts and how quickly things and thoughts can change and I found myself asking the question. How can I combine the two more easily and be forever balanced in the two spaces? How can I make the space one? 

Today, after some reflection, I managed to find a place that was both head and heart, and this post attempts to help you find that place too.

Suddenly I was transported back to India, 20 years ago. I don’t know if you have experienced India, or read about it, or know anyone that has been there. So I will tell from what I know. India cannot be easily explained or described, it is a country that cannot simply be visited, it is experienced. This got me thinking about PDA and how I could see the parallels between the two. India brings out all of your senses. Rises them to new heights. You are awakened by the feelings that are provoked when you step out into the wondrous land. The smells are familiar yet different, the sounds louder and clearer than anywhere else you have ever been. The colors explode before your very eyes, the taste buds tingle, knowing that the ground underneath your feet is a million miles from where you know you are safe and true. You can turn and look at true beauty feeling love, and a mili second later you turn the other way and you see darkness and hardship,  you know poverty and feel upset. You can feel 100 emotions in a moment and question everything.

PDA for the observer, can take you on those sensory adventures too. You can find yourself turning from one experience to another in the blink of an eye, you can feel unsteady and uncertain, but you know that something magical is happening at a deeper level. Feeling huge emotions that swing from one end of the emotional scale to the other, moments pass between what you feel think and know, but lifetimes leave their mark in your memory and growth. As if all the lessons of life are coming in at you at once and someone out of your control is there pushing the switches and keeping you up to speed.

One minute you are taking in a beautiful view. Photo worthy, memory making, blissful and heartwarming. The next, fear grips and uncertainty takes it’s place, someone has spun you like a spinning top and you have no idea where it will land next. It’s fast paced. It’s quicker than you want it to be. Blink and you miss the good bits, try to resist the switch and you get further sucked in. Whizzing round this way and that, happy and sad all at the same time. Trying to control what’s not your job to make sense of, wondering if you can surrender to the yin and yang of it all..

“Just like India, I know that I can turn on my heel from the not so good to the amazing, but the amazing just would not be amazing if I didn’t see the not so good”.

I’m thinking that many of you are just on the other side of Christmas and at this time, so many yins and yangs have been brought into your experience. Were you able to go with the opposites? Did you find them? It’s common for us to concentrate more on the things we fear or the things that conjure up feelings that we would rather not be feeling. It’s frustrating when we know this but we cannot find a way back to focus on the good bits. It’s easy to not see the hard bits as just as important as the good feelings. I think the answers to peace lay within the two. Just like India, I know that I can turn on my heel from the not so good to the amazing, but the amazing just would not be amazing if I didn’t see the not so good. This helps me to see both in one whole way, as two sides of the same coin and I hope that somewhere in my words today, it helps you to see them too.

I would love to go back to India one day, in my heart and my head at the same time. And I am beginning to see PDA under this light too, hopefully in time, my whole life. So, when I am asked, how was your Christmas, I will just smile and say, “like India”.

Cheers for reading. x