Broken Hearts- Not Very Well

Dear friends, after a serious dip in the ocean of spirituality, back again to the surface to face physicality. Take a chill pill and keep chugging! we’ll get to the other end soon! At least that’s what I want to believe!

This post is based on all true stories, names and context has been changed to respect privacy.

As I got to the end of a busy clinic day, a sense of relief perfused my body and mind! End of the day is a moment to either rejoice, a successful day coming to a close and ticked off on my calendar of life. Or a reason to thank the divine to bring a difficult day to a close. Either way it is a win-win situation. I was thinking in my head today is going to be a day to rejoice.

There goes my phone, maybe I said it too soon! Before I finished the thought, my phone was ringing, “Hi Navjot, your 4:30 appointment arrived 15 mins late. As per the organizational policy we need to reschedule. What do you want me to do?” “I will see her. Let her know I only have 15 mins. I will do what I can. She had a baby a week ago and has three little children and no help, so it may be difficult for her to get here. I will accommodate her.”

I ushered her into my office and on the way I asked her, “How are you?” “Not very well” she replied with tears brimming in her big, beautiful eyes.
Once inside the room, I could already see what was driving the woman to the edge. The three little kiddies, minus the baby were all over the room into everything. I pointed to the chairs in my room and said to them. “Alright, all of us need to help mummy, so that we can check if your little sister is doing well. You guys need to have a seat for a little bit, until I check your baby sister.” So they checked themselves into the chairs for a minute and then back on the floor again. Finally the woman stuck a couple of them into the stroller and buckled them up. And gave the oldest her phone to watch a video, as there was no room in the stroller.

I asked her, “Is the dad helping out a little or not?” She looked at me now almost bursting into a cry. I said to myself, you put your finger on a spot that hurts the most.

“I am not very lucky with men, Navjot. The first one gave me a baby and went away. The second one gave me two babies and went away and now this one. He is just waiting to get his immigration papers, to run away to another woman. He does nothing and is creating an environment, so that I would throw him out! No more men for me Navjot.”

“Agreed! No more men for me too? I am not lucky with men either, good for you, at least you braved it to the third one, I didn’t even get there. I called it quits after the first one.”

As I said this she broke out into a laugh with two tears still sitting on her on her cheeks. “Navjot, you are funny.”

“I am happy to see you laugh!

“Are you going to give him his papers?”

“Yes! What is the point in just keeping a physical body, especially one that is not constructive? I am better off without having to deal with this conflict and start afresh!”

“I agree you are smart.”

Her tears almost wrenched my heart and I said to her “I am sorry to hear that you are having a hard time?

“I am not the best person to give you advice, but we have social workers and maybe they can help. I don’t think anyone has a magic solution to this problem. Maybe there is no real solution to prevent men from falling in and out of love with women. It just happens. We need to learn how to deal with it without letting this make us dysfunctional. It is painful but we do have the ability to change how we think about this.”

Maybe the key driver for the relationship in her case was not love. It was the need for material resources that she controlled. It was a barter, not a relationship. Is likely, as soon as the need is met, the relationship will end. Because the need that powered the relationship is no longer in existence.

I think all relationships that happen along a steep power gradient need to be wary of this dynamic in their relationship. Power means, anyone controlling resources that someone else can use to achieve their goals.

To the best of my understanding, real love is very rare. Only once In a while, I have seen those couple’s, who are really living with their true soulmate. Most try to achieve a level of compatibility to function together. Some are able to do it effectively enough to have a meaningful relationship other’s, can be anywhere on the spectrum from no compatibility to full compatibility.

Unless you have tested your mutual compatibility, adding a baby (another person) to the mix can be even more challenging. On the contrary, lot of cultures believe that a baby cements a relationship! I am not sure of this?

This is a fairly common phenomenon among the Indian diaspora, where immigration is used as bait by parties on either side of the line.

In this case, the woman was smart and understood that ongoing anger and bitterness means more damage to her. But often I come across people who actually take this lengthy recourse of settling scores with each other. Their little children actually become the mute victims of this dueling.

Here is my thought on this issue, science and spirituality both agree that no person is bad or wants to hurt or harm the others. Science says there is but one basic need of all humans, to be cared for and to care for (research based). Swami Vivekananda says the same. No one is evil, everyone is good, we need to work on this assumption. Swamiji, I love you! But SV is my first love! Love this affair with spirituality!

Thinking along these lines is helpful to look at the systemic causes of some nasty human behavior and then it becomes easier to accept flaws in other people. I think when we are able to see systemic causes that feed into non-constructive behavior. Then we should be able to identify our share of responsibility in contributing to those systemic causes. Each one of us has the power to change how things are, sitting mum on that means endorsing it. Just my two cents worth of wisdom on this issue.

This unleashed a race down the memory lane, and brought to my mind some soulful moments of my practice. Where I just watched these women in pain and helped them cope with distressing truth of their life—that they had been either cheated by someone or they had cheated someone.

“Dear divine shed your light and break the haze,
Help us see how ugliness we create,
Bestow courage to call out ourselves for the mess we made,
Seeing the evil within, animosity will fade.”

Next we will go on to………. I want a paternity test!