The positive psychology movement has created a monster. This is the false positive persona. I am better than you because I am not broken.  The facts are that we are or have been broken, all struggling and nobody has got it all figured out. The more vehemently we practice our ohms, our yogas, our namaz, our positive psychology, the more clear it becomes just how broken we really are but choosing crutches to get by. And I say here, drop all the robes, the masks, the pretenses and love what is broken.

Adler, the most known thinker around positive psychology and Patanjali, the great yoga guru had more in common in our new age world than perhaps either realized. Adler felt that the need to be superior to another was actually a sign of mental immaturity. Somehow a person who wants to prove their superior strength, ability or looks were stuck in child state–and desperately needed the unconditional love that was denied in childhood. Desperate to please and meet the approval of authority figures, the adult child looks for approval–performance is one way to subconsciously gain the love of parents and family.

Patanjali didnt use a conceptual story in words. Instead he spoke in how the body feels using the language of poses. Yoga poses tell the story of the psyche and ask the body to release the emotional pain of rejection (hunched shoulders), fear of survival (tight hips) and all the other ways that the body holds stress.

The greatest benefit of humanism is that we can accept our shared suffering and learn to cooperate to then have a relatively stable and peaceful society. Or, must we in our immaturity blame our neighbour for our suffering?. It is true that we lose out on some opportunities because of other people, however we also gain opportunities because of them.

In the same way, our sorrow, our broken parts have value. Our broken parts tell us our limits. Whether our pain comes from health issues, family, people, money, childhood, we have a gift that we can use to decorate our life with. Our limits not only tell us about ourselves but also about other people. How people react to our broken self tells us about how broken they are. We live in a self oriented world and we are often alone. Maturity demands acceptance of the human condition and becoming okay with it.

Positive psychology tells us that this is not so bad and that our attitude can bridge the separation from other people. Positive psychology tells us we have choices-but, we can only execute them to the extent of our mental maturity. If in childhood we were over controlled, we were not allowed to think for ourselves, if every choice was done for us, if our mother and father made us into their projects, we will struggle to make independent choices. Positive psychology teaches us the value of letting your children be, to not turn them into perfect little anything and to let them make mistakes. Mistakes are not about failure, mistakes are about learning what works and what does not work.

A long time ago, I stopped expecting to live a perfect, mistake free life. I realized that I like making mistakes. I like living my own life. I like having dirty dishes that I wash after I read an interesting book and think through a fascinating idea. I like having hair that I never have to dye. It frees me from trying to get approval. I like not having to have perfect skin. I live my life as if it belongs to me, but I respect people who take interest in my journey and support me in pursuing my dreams.  I love my hairdresser who totally gets me and gives me the most amazing haircuts that are NOT about presenting me as a pretty girl, but as myself.

I don’t know if I will ever win the lottery or become a millionaire. I don’t know which disease will kill me. All I know is that it won’t be the disease of living a lie.

Positive psychology is not afraid to make mistakes, because mistakes are the necessary price of action. Positive psychology creates leaders and losers and those roles are interchangeable. But, perfectionism creates people who can only do what they are told to do and they are so busy getting it right, that they miss out on their life.

The price of finding myself was steep. It cost me a lot. I am still reeling from all the stuff I had to get rid off, to dig out the person that was trapped under the ruins of a socially acceptable life that did not fit me.

So, what’s positive about that? There are two ways to live life. One is to go around and find the life that fits you and get it. I did not find it. In the world I came from it was unthinkable to support a woman to find the right life for herself. I was asking for too much. I was expected to cut out all the pieces that didn’t fit in the world, instead.  It meant living unconsciously. I tried it but could not pull it off. My mind would think and I would explore. I was  curious. Bullying only made me want to run away. The other way to find the life that works is to make it yourself. That is the most authentic path–and Carl Jung would agree that the true path is the one that makes you, more you, instead of diminishing you and making you invisible. In this kind of path, you need to make decisions. You can’t hide behind other people. You have to know what you want. You will need to figure it out yourself.  That sounds scarier than it really is.

There is a terrible myth that the safe path is indeed safe. It isn’t. Say you settle but if you force yourself to fit in, there is always frustration and if you want any kind of happiness, you need to be yourself, so sooner or later, you will want to breathe. I never wanted to be a victim. I didn’t want to be that person who complains all the time about her life. I like creative pursuits, and if I am busy crying all the time, then how can I do anything, unless I get other people to do my shit? Writers are highly advanced and interesting complainers.

In actual fact, all paths have challenges. Safety can be sad and independence can be lonely. So why is it that I am here, but you, my friend are there?

Robert Frost may have expressed the dilemma well. But the truth is that the road is never a straight line and it never connects like dots do in coloring books. We never know where our choices will lead us. As time passes, I find that the idea of the linear path is a myth. Because isn’t life more about living in the moment, rather than a series of choices? How can we know what will await us at 30, 40, 50, 60?

Hafiz, knew something beyond the intellect when he said, ‘This place where you are right now, God circled on a map for you, our beloved bowed here before you arrived.’

We think we are in control and that we have something to decide. We ruminate and cry, but our destiny is already written in our cellular memory. Our story was begun  aeons ago. We are blessed if we are able to witness it without prejudice of our ego who judges us far too often. Can we change our story? Yes, I believe we can, but we have to first embrace our truth, only then can we choose differently.

The truth is that our mental unconscious beliefs and programs are choosing our life. The path is the whorl, and our job is to witness the labyrinth of  choices we make because of the beliefs we hold deep in our being.

And if you really want to make something out of your life, you have to be willing to be broken open.

I have had 7 careers. No wait, add the hobby careers–the score comes to 14. Then if I add all the courses I took for fun…the number would be around 20. The reason is that I am terrified of becoming unemployable. I like to keep my options open. The pace of knowledge creation in a hyper connected world is so fast, that any new knowledge becomes redundant in weeks.

Physical convenience has so far been confused with happiness.  We assume that If we have more stuff, we are bound to have more of everything else–such as emotional connection, love and family. I am not so sure that owning things is the only way to have fulfillment. Despite more people than EVER before in history getting post secondary education, there is a real scarcity when it comes to reflection and depth, because google does it for you. It seems that jobs are shrinking and educational demands for the shrinking jobs are getting higher and higher. Large numbers of people globally suffer from never good enough i.e., Imposter syndrome and loneliness. There’s more general convenience and wealth, but it doesn’t feel like it matches the deficit in security and human connection.

If you have read until here, you are probably thinking, but whats the point?

Joy is present only when it is truly felt. It is not an outcome of a self aggrandizing achievement. The kick from posting your coolness on facebook, the pleasure from snagging that cute girl for a one night stand, or winning the lottery, or getting a 4.0 GPA doesn’t last–because that kind of trip puts MORE pressure on the self and a greater sense of spiritual separation from others. Successful people therefore are NOT necessarily happy. They may have a sense of self importance, but since when did importance create joy?

When people who constantly feel not good enough, look at their selfie or the mirror, they dont usually feel joy–o look thats my face. They look at what’s missing.  I remember looking in the mirror and wishing my cheeks were flatter. Or my hair was straighter.

I can’t begin to express the joy I felt when one day I looked in the mirror and instead of looking at my physical flaws, I saw me as a person. Someone I could be proud of.

My sense of okayness did NOT come from my finances. It did not come from my size or if I looked young. It didnt come from my intellectual abilities. It wasn’t about some gorgeous hunk whispering “I love you” like Salman Khan, making me feel worthy.

No. The sense of okayness came because of the stand I took for my values. It didnt matter if my eyes were wrinkled. or my skin had freckles. What mattered was that I was me, still here.  Otherwise the post modern world takes us all and crushes us, kills our spirit, makes us apologetic for feeling awful about being rapidly taken over by computers. I still sell my time and skills, I have no choice, because entire financial system is about selling either time or product and we all have to sell something. Whether or not I sell something, I still have to buy. Because of the layers of leverage in the system, regardless of whether I sell something. my data is worth something…my email has some value, my computer stores some cookies–plus I am connected to the network. Whether I make money or not, for an Internet company I have value–this value is why blockchain technology is going to make a lot of money for some people who get it.

Most people dont realize what they are doing when they join free platforms like facebook etc. They have no idea that they are making a few people extremely rich by giving them their data. They have no idea that companies like facebook or google, are going to make millions and billions of dollars over the next few centuries, because people like you, you, and you decided to sign up with a free profile to show off in front of your friends and keep in touch with people you don’t even like.

So here we are, the hardworking middle class. And there they are the millionaires. What’s the difference?

I personally know people who had business ideas at least as good as facebook. Why did facebook make it? there are hundreds of wise pundits analyzing these things,’ Why Apple and not RIM?’

Because, “Everything changes, nothing is without change.”…..Gautama Buddha (2664 years ago).  It is not about you, and also not not about you. Suffice that you are an observer, and it is your choice how you observe. This is our existential freedom.  So quit looking for yourself in the identity creation of a post modern consumer world. You will just chase a shadow that takes you to Neverland to the lost boys.

People who stay comfortable with change. People WHO DO NOT ASSUME that today or tomorrow can be, should be, will be the same as yesterday….are the wisest people on Earth.

Homework: Write the above quote a dozen times. Think of the last time, something unexpected or unpleasant happened and how you felt and acted. Were you afraid? angry, out of sorts, grief struck?. That most painful, most vulnerable place of total horror is where your greatest wisdom–your lotus blooms from. So stop running away from the discomfort. Stop being afraid of it. Let it remain sticky and messy. But don’t let it define you. 

Career Advice for the coming years:-

Your job is not to create and maintain a perfect life with a great job. Your job is to flow with change. Say yes. Take that trip. Take a course. Spend on professional development. Talk to people you meet at work and keep connection alive. It isn’t just about the job, but about you keeping yourself engaged in your career. The way technology is evolving, individuals are turning into mini corporations.

The evolving truth of our post modern life: You are always out of a job. You are always in transition. You are always aiming for a better career. There is always a better job. There is always a better competitor. Individuals need strategy, the same as a business.

To answer the question, Which Career Is Right For You?…..They all are. Anything you want to do is right for you. If you cant motivate yourself, than no career is right for you.  Your desire is the key here.

About me: I am a meditation coach, who believes that mindful living and mindfulness meditation holds the answers to the discontent of post modern life. We do not need to varnish the truth or rely on the charismatic lies of sociopaths to solve our problems. Complaining and venting wont help–unless someone pays you to do it, it is not skillful. What helps us face change is developing the deep resilience that comes from mindfulness practices. You deserve peace, even in the face of flying shit around you.

Visit http://www.saimameditation.com and sign up for the newsletter for developing resilience when facing change with meditation tools and techniques.

He was a simple man intellectually. A dreamer. A bit artistic.

I was a complex person, with many sides and facets and nothing about me was as it seemed.

But both of us were romantics. I could create dozens of stories in my head and he could watch stories all day and all night. We were actors and thus we could create fantasy out of anything.

I was his Sheherzade. I captured his heart with my stories, my craziness and my imagination. I knew he loved me. But I?

‘You never loved him,’ a friend whispered after the divorce. Not loving him didn’t mean I wasn’t broken. I was broken. Amputated. Snapped in two. Disconnected. Not myself.

But it is true, I never loved him. The man I loved never existed. Who I loved was a hero in a bollywood romance. Salman Khan playing one of his devoted lover roles. But I wasn’t the kind of girl he chased in the movies—a domestic doe. I was the kind of girl who runs away from marriage and family.

I was a girl who didn’t belong with her society. I was a girl going through the motions of normal life.

I did all the socially expected and desirable things, yet through it all, through the exciting bits, love letters, presents and kisses, the degrees, jobs and pregnancy, my heart was empty. My heart belonged elsewhere….it flew with Jonathan Livingston Seagull, it cried with Ghalib, it wrote with Parveen Shakir, it danced with Meera who was so in love with Krishna, she forgot to be a wife.

Later, when all my various attempts to find happiness in the world of men and things had failed, Buddha’s smile came into my life. My closest friends and exes brought him to me. A bowl. A book on Zen. Allan Watts. Buddha statues. A Buddha picture. I think deep down anyone who has loved me has known that my true love isn’t them. Every time someone transgresses the invisible wall, I feel so suffocated that I will do anything to find my inner space again.

After my marriage ended, I felt like someone had ripped out my heart and its place there was a constant aching emptiness, in time the aching left, but the emptiness never did. It is my truest companion. It was the gift he gave me. So, when someone comes along validating me, praising me and wanting to spend time with me, it feels wrong. Just plain wrong. Anybody who has been through an abusive relationship can probably relate. That part that’s broken can’t feel anything except self loathing.

All phenomena is empty, devoid of substance, Buddha said. It was true, but I needed to know that for myself before I sat down on the meditation cushion, exhausted from chasing happiness in form.

Nothing I achieved fulfilled me.

Nobody’s love filled the emptiness inside.

My literary companions’ words were the only solace in my life and then there was Buddha.

The truth was that I had been living someone else’s life. A conditioned life. A normal life because it was safe to be normal. A life based on the exteriority of me. That life had nothing to do with me.

I lived the life of my parent’s child. I lived the life of my husband’s cute wife. I lived the life of my employer’s reliable employee. I was my best friend’s eccentric friend. I don’t think I was actually me until the time I started to meditate and connect to that part of me that was the real me.

But the real me wasn’t loveable. I wasn’t cute. I wasn’t funny. I was a pain body that had not learnt as yet how to stop hurting. Very few would want to love this emptiness. But I learnt to love her, bit by bit. I let her, the real me, enter my life. First with baby steps, then bolder, I stood up and became the authentic me. It was a slow love affair, I took my time. The causes for depression can be very complex and span generations and each step that leads to freedom can be herculean. I accepted my face. I accepted my hair. I accepted my body. I accepted that my body changes.

The other day, when I did something goofy, and the most interesting man in my life laughed spontaneously from his heart, my heart stopped. My body trembled. I knew it had gone on too long. I had to run before he saw the emptiness behind the smile. I don’t know what he would do. Whether he’d run or bring me closer. All I knew is that my emptiness wasn’t as empty as I need it to be to be emotionally safe.

Self-help is full of good advice. Learn to love again. Let go of the ex. Let go of the pain. Go with the flow. Self-help gives trashy advice. It is cliched. It is a $19.99 lie. Somebody’s making a living from telling how you ‘should be’. It doesn’t work. It makes people guilty about not being cool or happy.

Here’s the truth. If you’ve been hurt in the past, chances are you will get hurt again. If you’ve broken up over an issue, chances are you will go through that again. The only thing that can change is how you conduct yourself when it happens. We are trapped in karmic cycles that are near impossible to break without serious effort and coaching. The things that changed for me during the healing journey were very small. My victories were so tiny. The next time someone tried to force himself on me, I was able to kick him in the crotch.

The next time someone wanted to marry me so he could move into my house, I broke it off.

The next time a married man came on strong, I was able to freeze him with one look.

And finally, the next time, there was no next time, but only a deep sense of now.
But all this came about because of the emptiness. The emptiness is my source of strength. It is my vaccination, from the disease of wishing things were different.

When I see the covered up shadow figures on streets, I feel upset and dare I say it, almost violated, because my spiritual heritage is being used in, what I think, in an inappropriate way. It is being used to further a social and political agenda, that I do NOT subscribe with. I do not and can never believe in racial pride or one-upmanship. My spirituality is too sacred, too private and I feel too vulnerable about it to ever want to use as a political device or support its use as a political tool. I like how the pope is wearing his faith–he doesn’t say, ‘if you are catholic, then you must care about the environment.’ He is saying, ‘since you and I are human, it is high time to care about the environment and stop using the religion of Christianity as a political device. ‘

I wish such advanced thinking could spread into the Muslim diaspora. Instead of harping on their self identification and therefore victimization, if true leaders emerge who stand behind issues of grave importance, e.g., ‘non-violence or peace is important to us and we will chastise all imams who preach racism and bigotry as essential to being Muslim.’

Preachers who are Muslim, often focus on beliefs and quotations, rather than values and common ground. Teaching like this can only work to create a shaky moral ground for those people because they never face a challenge of being in a multi-cultural world–they need to be protected their whole life from the real world. The moment there is real challenge, such type of teaching fails, because it doesn’t create true faith. It is a mask of purity worn on top of inner sickness.

In the last while, there has been a rising phenomena of the black burqa, the tight head covered hijab and the niqab–a facial mask. Some even go as far as gloves on their hands, ostensibly because it is a requirement of the religious faith. That is not true. Hijab, Niqab or Burqa are cultural artifacts. There are so many different shades of muslim culture. In some cultures, gender discrimination is high. However, the idea of the religion was to elevate the status of women, not to downgrade them even further, unfortunately many muslim cultures don’t respect women, so women have to dress in a protective way.

I’ve lived in Vancouver for 15 years. I have taken buses at 2am at night. Stood on street bus stops. I have said whatever I felt like. I have raised a son who is comfortable with being all of who he is and claiming his space in a multi-cultural society-without losing anything of our original identity. I have worn skirts and I have worn big huge kurtas and saris, trousers and suits. I have worn a chadar over my head often–because it is so cold and scarves work. Nothing has ever created negative attention towards me. I have prayed in many different spiritual and religious centres, nobody has questioned my choices or whether I can be in their spiritual centre. I’ve been received as a fellow spiritualist. I love the open society and I find that my core values are mostly reflected in Canadian society.

The only time I’ve ever been made uncomfortable about my personal choices or who I am, has been among people who equate dogmatic belief with faith. Whereas belief and faith are not the same thing at all. Belief is about control, faith is about trust. They come from different areas of the spiritual heart. One is about protection, the other is about vulnerability. One gives guilt, the other expands you into growth.

Advertising a spiritual identity through a dress code in a free and open society is consumerism. It is branding…..here’s an example from a non-muslim context about what I mean.

The other day a dear friend of mine mentioned how a monk in downtown Vancouver called her over as he was gifting bracelets. She believed him and took a bracelet he offered. Immediately he wanted money. When she said, ‘sorry I thought you were gifting it, and I don’t have cash right now’–he grumpily took the bracelet away. That was exploitative of the brand image, ‘buddhist monk’. A con man exploited the teachings of the Buddha to make some money.

I care about my inherited values. They are inviolable. They are not a dress code or a name. My values are faith, gratitude, equality, honesty, justice and kindness. I can choose to call them Islam or not choose to equate them with a religion. I don’t have to make that choice ever. It isn’t important. The values are more important than the way I dress them up.

Some people will say, what option do we have, other than choose, given that Fox news and the mainstream media, keeps lumping ‘Muslims’ as people out to get the rest of the world?

One option is to create anti-racism awareness campaigns. The other option is to do nothing, i.e., become invisible and accept it.

There is a third option.  Stop seeing yourself as Muslim, start seeing yourself as human first, Canadian second and embrace the others that you see around you. Articulate your values. When people know your values, they can trust who you are as an individual. I firmly believe that is more important than one’s accidental birth religion or culture in post modern societies that are formed on ideals of equality, justice, honesty and faith.

Each individual is unique in their personal connection to God and it is their choice if they seek a religion or not. If there are foaming in the mouth angry people as Fox News describes, it won’t matter what Fox News says about them, they’d see it as an opportunity to recruit people. Fox News and republican/conservative agendas are plain stupid. I have faith that the large majority of people can see through that anyway and Muslims don’t have to worry about it. Even the pope and vatican supports Muslims!. When the Ahmed incident happened, the whole planet supported Ahmed’s right to make a clock and be treated like a normal child.

That’s so cool-and it proved the point that a free society works. But then, this whole incident was take up by the political islamists to push their hijab wearing rights and anti-racism campaign. I am okay with that also, some girls love their outfits a lot. But, what I am not ok with is aligning myself with right wing Islamists.

I speak for those people who care about values, not about dress codes and religion. We may be a tiny minority, but we are here.

We care for the real questions of concern of our times. We want those courageous leaders who can make a real difference, not this democrat vs. republican or conservative vs. liberal vs democratic, race based political posturing, in which the real issue–the environment and education are shoved under the carpet.