I don’t need a shoulder to cry on. Na, any shoulder is too hard and uncomfortable, and any bosom muffles the cries, and brings in the worry of wetting them thoroughly with tears and snort. I prefer to cry into my pillow, blanketed by the warmth of my comforter; or then in the shower where the tears are cleansed away and all the emotional toxins flow into the drain. Crying is emotional cleansing, healthy, required and leads you to a zen-like state, as long as the crying is not calling to attention others in order to garner sympathy.

I am not saying that crying on a shoulder is bad, or wrong, or weakness. As long as the tears flow they take away weakness, anxiety, stress, hurt, betrayal, or whatever other emotions that clutter the nooks and corners of the body; the crying will lead you to feeling empowered by the hollow and emptiness.

The body is a beautiful, imperfectly perfect home for the self, journeying through lessons and experiences it has scripted, or co-authored before arriving into the womb. It is the temple of the soul. At birth, our self, goes to sleep so that the mind-intellect-ego trinity uses the body as the ship through life. The self awakens from time-to-time to bring to conscious awareness nuggets of wisdom as rewards for having passed the tests of the lessons. 

While going through the lessons, the crazy triad happily fill the nooks and corners of the body with disturbing emotions, as they consider those emotions to be their best party-buddies. It’s an interesting vicious cycle of triad inviting negative emotions, negative emotions inviting more of their friends, and all of them having a party that leads us to depression, fear, anxiety; and all other troubles. 

So, a good cry actually releases all these party-buddies, and has the mind-intellect-ego silenced by the deafening calmness that stems from hollow and emptiness. When the hollow and emptiness floods the body, the self awakens. The more you are habituated to the joys of having the awakened self surfacing, the longer it remains with you, communicating with you, inspiring you. The source of all creativity is the self that is on this journey. The self is the divinity that has chosen this human experience.

To experience zen-like stillness even in the midst of chaos, its important to embrace the 7 principles, within you and around you. Emptying yourself, detoxifying the body and yet living in a cluttered outer space will always lead to cluttered-emotional relapses that block you from awareness of who you are.

The triad of the mind-intellect-ego fuel themselves with all that is conflicting and complex. They find simplicity boring. They prefer to wander through entangling woods of emotions that creep upon each other for survival. The self, on the other hand is attracted to all that is simple, where acceptance is effortless. The more hollow and empty the body, the more freedom for the breath to detoxify every cell, and bring freshness with every inhalation. Oxygen is the fodder for every cell, and where there is no free flow, the starving cells multiply, creating dis-ease of all types. 

The journey to simplicity can begin from within and extend to the surroundings, or begin from the surroundings and burn away all the emotional clutter within, so that the body is healthified. Make your body a ‘Kanso’ body so that you are immersed in uncluttered simplicity, in order to express yourself with clarity. I find my simplicity when I eliminate all the emotional clutter with a thorough cry. So, when I cry, I really cry with every cell of my being wrenching out the toxic emotions and other toxins from every part of the being. I cry till I feel so light that I could sway to the harmony of emptiness. In this state every issue gets resolved. 

Crying alone will let you express yourself completely. It does not matter how you look, how you sound, or what does anyone think or say about your emotional outburst. It is all about you, and bathing your inner world. It is about exclusion of the unrequired emotional clutter created by logic or temptation. It is about bringing the white noise of the breath that silences the conflicts, judgements and discriminations. Crying a 100 per cent, letting go of all the pain, leads you to enjoy a Kanso body of hollow and emptiness. Such a body allows the breath to voice creative inspiration that it transmits to the self.

The cleansing crying needs to nobody, and it is not a cry out for attention. It is to simply release the clutter that is creating a disturbance within. It is to release those emotions that trigger hormonal storms that causes a tsunami of emotions. Beneath the gigantic waves is the calmness of the deepest oceans. To dive deep into the abyss and experience the treasures, the diver has to wait for the choppy seas to calm itself. So, also to meet the self, the tsunami has to recede. 

Storms are created by the perfection we seek. When things do not go our way, we believe is the wrong way. While opposites attract, they can distract the peace within, as the mind-intellect-ego create the assumed theories of perfection – ‘the perfect job’, ‘the perfect home’, ‘the perfect vacation’, ‘the perfect marriage’, ‘the perfect relationship’. By the way the only perfection in reality exists in imperfection. 

Dynamism exists in imperfection. There is purpose in imperfection. There is much peace in embracing the asymmetric.  The symmetry of the body exists in its asymmetrical moulding. The body is made up of the left and right side, with each side housing different organs that serve their respective purposes. Interestingly, opposite sides of the brain govern their opposite sides of the body. See, the imperfection!

We command perfection based on what we see. Romantic movies and romance novels attract our crazy triplets to create their canvas of perfection, and then dictate it to us. So, while the husband is tired and chooses to chill out, the wife gets exasperated, fights with him; because in the parameter of the perfect marriage, Sundays means doing something together. Saturdays means romantic dinners together. Togetherness is the standard of ‘the perfect marriage’. 

Well, if men are from Mars, then let them be as Martians are meant to be, and if women are from Venus, then be as Venetians are meant to be. Don’t expect the other to embrace your level of perfection, instead embrace their imperfections, to make the marriage, or relationship perfect.  

Perfection is a myth created by one’s perception. There is no reality to the entire concept of perception, because what is perfect for one, is imperfect for another. The husband’s perfect day off is to lounge around and switch off; whereas my perfect day off is going out and doing stuff together. It can be frustrating. The mind angrily questions, “how dare he sleep away the day?” The intellect claims, “He is a selfish man only concerned with his rest, his body, himself.” The ego angrily states, “He takes me for granted.” 

All this chatter amongst the three entertains the emotional clutter, and they join the party. There is angst, frustration, anger, hurt, and all that noisy unsynchronised jazz happening. Leads to the big fight, and there goes Sunday. All created by the so-called picture of a ‘perfect marriage’.

If one embraces imperfection, then there is much joy in lounging around on a Sunday afternoon, which is preceded by a fun morning activity together. It is a win-win situation, because where there is understanding, there acceptance inspires harmony. Fukinsei is the zen principle that brings to awareness the beauty of irregularity, asymmetry and imperfection. 

With the peri-menopause, I realised I was immersing myself to become even more obsessively-compulsive about wanting things in symmetry. I wanted things and situations to be ‘perfect’. I was becoming rigid, stubborn, self-obsessed. All this because my on-time menstrual cycle was anything but on time – it was irregular. The body was still functioning in the 28-day rhythm, the mind-intellect-ego was still working according the cyclic monthly rhythm; but something else was happening. 

Irregularity stepped in and tossed everything into the frying pans of sizzling emotions. The more irregular the periods, the more the perfection I wanted around me. How limniting! How frustrating, till I I learnt about the Japanese principle of wabi-sabi, “flawed beauty,” or “imperfect, impermanent, incomplete beauty,” or “beauty in imperfection,” or “a way of living that focusses on finding beauty within the imperfections of life and accepting peacefully the natural cycle of growth and decay.”

This brought me freedom, and led me to resolving deeply-rooted issues that kept throwing distractions on the surface in the form of demanding perfection. If perfection is a myth and imperfection is the truth, then why be bonded by the chains of illusions when all that is around is in perfectly imperfect harmony.

No two leaves are alike, no tree holds the copyright of symmetry, and yet we are inspired by its magnanimity. Well, the abundant growth of nature, is because they have no set benchmarks of the perfection. They are in fluid state of expansion. The seasons don’t affect them, instead they adapt to every weather change.

Embracing imperfections is freeing the self from attachments. Attachments is created by the logical mind-body-intellect triplets. They find solace in the conventional; they are stuck on wanting things and situations the way they should be as per their created formulae. Relationships, should be in certain ebb and flow, as per the projections of what they see. The ‘shoulds’ command them. However, the zen principle of ‘Datsuzoku’ is based on “freedom from habit or formula,” which leads to freedom from attachments.

Detachment is not cutting off to the extent of being apathetic. It is all about allowing each one to go through their own journey of life individualistically, independently, and yet enjoying the fruits of co-dependence. Detachment allows us to enjoy every moment, as though life has presented us a surprise. Attachments take us away from experiencing wonderment, excitement, and joy of sbeing surprised. Attachments makes us expect from people and situations, as expectations is based on the formulae that must lead to the other side of the equal sign. Detachment has no expectations, no formulae, but is all about being in this moment, in totality, experiencing whatever it has brought to you; be it nothingness, or memories, or action. Just doing what you need to meditatively, mindfully. 

In this state of detachment you embrace shizen, the zen principle based on naturalness. You feel free to be yourself. It does not matter if people think you are too fat, or too thin. You look pretty, or could have dressed up better. When you embrace yourself, for who you are naturally, then your imperfect body is perfect in your own eyes. Yes, peri-menopause is difficult. The body is undergoing a lot of changes. While the self knows the natural aging process, the mind-intellect-ego battles it. It is scary for the triad. While they enjoyed every stage of life till now, the fear of aging dominates and they do not allow you to be okay with yourself. They worsen every symptom of the peri-menopausal body, with the emotional storms they unleash. 

Well, if you simply embrace the natural progressive movement of the body, then nobody’s opinions can affect you. There is no pretence, there is no mask, there is no scope for the battle. The hormonal imbalances triggered by emotional storms, or the imbalances triggering emotional storms, is all part of the process, and not a part of the self. You observe the drama, watch the performance till the curtain call, and get going being who you are, come what may.

Being natural, brings out the beauty of the understated. There are no frills and no over the top thrills. There is no want to make a statement, because there is an awareness of being a statement, as is. The presence of your being inspires others, without the need to make efforts to make an impact. Neither do you have to sink into depression, nor rise in mania for others to notice you. Your austerity, is your power. Be who you are, rather than what others expect you to be, for the joy of expectations only last till their fulfilment. Don’t be chained to what others expect you to be, rather be true to yourself, minimalistic, inside and out. This is the zen principle of ‘Shibumi’.

Accepting your elegance, takes you deeper to discover the wisdom that exists within you, the Shakti that you are, the abundance that you belong to. The insights to every lesson of life lies within the expansive space that defines your presence, within you and around you. You do not have to wait for revelations from around you to release you from ignorance, or boredom. Revelations empower the intellect to create judgements, biases and prejudices; which expand the ego’s  belief in its distinctiveness and superiority in comparison to other’s; enhancing the conflicts generated by the mind. The profundity of the being is an abyss of wisdom. Austerity leads you to awareness of the subtle suggestions made from the depth where your Shakti resides. The zen principle of ‘Yugen’ is based on the awareness of the subtlety of synchronicity. Coincidences is the pleasure haunt of the trinity that bask in the glory of rigid formulae building. Profundity is the paradise of the self, the soul.

The voice of wisdom can only be felt in a space of silence; tranquillity unravels the harmonic rhythm of the breath, which carries messages from the Universe. The fertile ground of intuitiveness is energised calm. The zen principle of ‘Seijaku’ explains that the essence of creative energy surfaces on the sea of calmness that flows through the body. Creative inspiration blooms in calmness and withers where cacophony of sounds stir the storms of emotions to life.

Being zen is being calm in minimalism. The self or soul is devoid of all emotional clutter; for clutter is the pleasure pursuit of the mind-intellect-ego. Every storm, leads me to de-clutter all that is within; whether by crying or punching the pillow, or screaming the shower, or through art or journaling. The more I unclutter my insides, the deeper travel, the more closer I am to my Shakti. 

The futile mistake that we all make is identify ourselves with every emotion, rather than be in awareness that every emotion comes to go. The closer we travel to our Shakti, to our wisdom, the more courage we have to dive deeper into the ocean of wisdom, the less powerful the threesome that believes they have the right to dominate our journey. The self or the soul is the captain of the ship. Hand over the steering wheel to the self, and then every storm shall come to pass, just like that.

The vicious circles of mind-intellect-ego dominance – emotional turbulence – hormonal imbalances; can only take you into an endless spiral of depression. To break this circle go deeper into the self, by first embracing your imperfections, your naturalness, your simplicity, your austerity, and they will lead you to the depth of your being.