Sa Ham – I am She (2017 series) – 10 (The Battle that Isn't)

Today is Mahaashtami. In the myths, the battle enters its fiercest stage. Nine forms of Durga emerge and weapons that Mother carries astound. Today is also the day, Kali does her work with the tough demons.

Yes, fight fiercely when you are attacked, when your life and lives of your loved ones are threatened. Fight when your assets and livelihood are threatened. Fight when you can’t move freely and can’t access what you need to.

But what if in your mind you are always in a battlefield?

Friends can cheat you. Family members can injure. There are no loved ones, only threatening possibilities in the horizon. Your work relationships will turn sour. When you trust very little and mistake the smallest infarction as sign of a life-threatening assault. You are afraid of people, spaces, and even the change of weather. You have no allies, only possible enemies. You struggle to control markers as in your mind you will lose if you don’t. In your mind, you are always struggling for survival.

When psychological fear is mistaken as a predatory threat.

You are highly anxious. You are constantly scanning your environment for changes. When you are not afraid of people, you are afraid of your health. You scan your body for symptoms and signs that it is failing and that you may become seriously sick.

Such a preoccupation confounds your brain and when the actual predatory threat occurs, your weapons are dull from overuse and your strategy weak because you have been fighting for long.

Fighting battles is also knowing when there is a battle and when it has ended.

For some folks, what I have described above has become an extreme behavioural trait. You may know them. I do. However, the above is applicable to all of us in certain events/areas of life.

Some of us fight battles in our mind about losing money and assets, anxious every other week about ups and downs of financial life. Some fight battles against age, scanning mirror and other people’s feedback on vitality of your appearance. Some fight battles to stay famous. Some fight battles with spouses and partners to keep them in control. Some believe they have to fight a battle to be acknowledged and get what they want. Some fight their children to control them and keep them in the nest.

Some cannot relax while talking to a stranger or friend. Some cannot relax when travelling. Some cannot relax around food. Some are afraid of their emails, some of letters. Some shop as if they are going to a battlefield where shopkeepers are potential cheats who will cheat them of their hard-earned money. Some cannot sing, dance, write, paint without the fear their art will be threatened or destroyed by one negative review or a shrug of the shoulders.

Some give up soon. Some fight as if it is their last battle. Some fight everywhere.

Check if your battles are required. Is there a predatory attack that will physically harm you or your means to livelihood? If there is, activate your resources, set your body to alert and fight.

And when it is over, remember to tune off, and rest.

If there is nothing that threatens your life or access to food and shelter, decide to respond differently. Emails, letters, messages cannot harm. A negative review or a disinterested audience cannot hurt. A person more skilled than you in an area will not threaten your survival. Shopping is a game that you become skilled in, not a battlefield. Workplaces won’t kill you usually. If you have to be snuffed out, a friends get-together is probably not the place where it would happen. If you are fighting aging, exactly what are you afraid of?

If you care for quality of work or purity of a knowledge form, then preserve it, work on building it, remove contaminants. I find it amusing when folks overreact to possible breaches as if their life depended on it, their adrenaline rushing, voice raised, body tense and alert.

A flute plays in the canyon of our life, through and over the forest of what we can see, filling this moment with notes that curve, rise and flow. The green of the forest brightens into lush and a stream bubbles along. The caterpillar edges over the leaf. A flower bud sways with the morning dew. The earth holds, the sky wombs.

Step in. Twirl into. Celebrate.

You have won the battle in your mind.

You can read other posts of the Sa Ham - I am She (2017 series) here:

(1) Akaalbodhan

(2) Dashabhuja 

(3) The Battle

(4) Unconditional Love/Heal from Shame

(5) Identification

(6) she is She

(7) Battles are in our Mind

(8) Land Dreams to Earth

(9) Equation with Money
(10) The Battle that Isn't

(11) La Que Sabe/The Woman who Knows

(12) No Visarjan/Sa Ham