Jiddu Krishnamurthy says that there are really only two emotions in the Universe: Love and Fear.
When I first read that, I scoffed. What about the 87 different emotions painstakingly laid out in great detail in the Atlas of the Heart by Brene Brown, Mr. Krishnamurthy, I thought. That book makes perfect sense to me!
Over the past few years, I have had the opportunity to dig deep into myself and ask where are many of my negative emotions coming from. I have felt feelings of deep insecurity, FOMO, anger, resentment, betrayal, bitterness, hurt, and just plain and pure fear.
Digging deeper is not easy. My throat catches, my breath stills, emotions beat against my brain like a never-ending tide, red-hot anger sweeps over me, and drowning in all these emotions is far, far easier- I willingly swim deeper inside a vortex of negativity with each thought and dwell where all my actions have unbeatable justifications, there is no possibility of any blame coming to me, and I feel only blemishless, pure, untainted victimhood. Climbing out of the vortex requires first and foremost a stilling of the brain. For me, this is only possible when I write. Yogis and mahayogis describe the use of breath in stilling the brain- this hasn't worked too much for me before. My monkey brain leaps too fast for me to catch hold of my breath. Writing, on the other hand, forces the monkey brain to slow down for my hands to catch up to my head and that slowing down then helps my breath to take over.
Digging deeper requires the willingness to change. I know several people who refuse, who cannot imagine that there could ever be a different perspective and are afraid of being "proved" wrong- who are so attached to their truth because to be otherwise means that they might have been wrong about other things before and that can shatter the edifice of their life.
Digging deeper requires me to forgive myself. This has taken time. I have realized that if I cannot believe that there is forgiveness to be had, there is no way I can acknowledge my mistakes. So I will always be in a state of denial and more importantly, in a state of fear that my mistakes will be found out. To be able to forgive myself is to be kind to myself. I have heard all my life that I should be kind to others. I had never realized that showing kindness to myself is extremely hard. I think women especially are taught not to be kind to themselves- it is some sort of badge of honour to show that you treat yourself like shit: the last to eat, the person who wakes up first and goes to bed last, the person who doesn't take a break, the person who needs to be everywhere, doing everything, all the time, every time. Just like charity, kindness begins at home- if you can't be kind to yourself, you can't be kind to your kids or to anyone else.
Digging deeper requires me not to accept platitudes: Easy answers are fairly quick to come to mind. They also push the onus away from me and on to some external factor which is out of my control.
Digging deeper requires me to work through the signs of my body panicking- this is the sign that I am truly reaching the truth. When my heart starts beating faster, my eyes tear up and breaths start coming in gasps. This is the sign that what is true is actually deeply frightening. What started as anger, bitterness, resentment, betrayal, jealousy, envy and any number of negative emotions is actually deeply rooted in fear.
For me, fear of abandonment is the deepest fear of all. It manifests itself in various types of ways, it comes up in several avatars and underlies nearly every strong negative emotion I feel. It doesn't have to be abandonment by a particular person/s: it could be society (whatever way I define it in whatever situation). Fear of abandoment also shows up as fear of not having a legacy, fear of missing out, fear of being forgotten, fear of being passed over, fear of not-counting.
So, J Krishnamurthy was right: Fear is a root emotion of everything negative. By the reverse logic, I suppose love is the root emotion of everything positive. Love for a person, community, land, memory, things makes us feel all the positive emotions Brene Brown lists.
Today morning, I had a moment of visceral negative emotion. A group that I work with closely didn't include me in a research project in a field that I have been working in for a few years. I was upset last night going to bed when I found out, and I woke up upset. When describing this to RK, my voice broke, tears welled and I sobbed.... all the while thinking, why in the world am I so upset? Surely, this is not anything to get so carried away by!
Then I realized the reason- It is intimately connected to what I am considering doing next in my life: Here I am, thinking about doing a midwifery degree, which, from all descriptions, looks like it will be an intense study of 4-5 years. I am struggling with fears of losing out, of having these past years of work be forgotten and my contributions overlooked. I am worried that life is a zero-sum game: that if I gain something new, I will need to lose something else.
My fears of abandonment manifested as feelings of betrayal and anger against a completely different object because of this context and what might have been a pinch instead became a gigantic ball of hurt.
So, this is a breakthrough: if I am feeling such intense feelings of fear about midwifery, and the journey it will take me on, clearly there is something here that bears further examination, of myself, of my perceived place in society, of my perceived role and stage of life.
On one hand, is familiarity, things that I have built by myself and where I am beginning to do some great work. But on the other hand, is a growing boredom. I have to admit that my brain is built for taking on the challenge (and stress) of novelty. Once I figure out something, I don't take a lot of time to do it and then I back to square one, wondering what to do with my time. My training and default avatar of a researcher also means that a lot of my work is mental. I feel the need to work with my hands... and not in a lab either.
Logically, and heart wise, I feel ready to take on this new direction. But fears lie much deeper than logic or even desire. Fears stem from the lizard brain, the primordial part of us, where our basest nature lies.
Fear can only be conquered by acceptance and love. I accept that I am afraid, that I fear oblivion, that I won't be seen as "serious" or "committed" to my current, socially acceptable, comfortable, settled way of life. I also probably will get lots of questions from various people about why I want to do what I intend to do. I myself no doubt will question my own sanity several times. And I will be starting from scratch- for the 5th time in my life: the first time didn't count as I was just starting my adult life in my 20s and decided to study Virology without having any idea about what it was; the second time was after we came back to India and I started work as a childbirth educator; the third time was when I decided to start a business; the fourth time was when I started work as a diagnostician in probably the most challenging period possible- during the Covid pandemic.
So, if this is my 5th time in 44 years, then I am averaging one identity-shift every 8-9 years. Really, by now, it's par for the course for me to reinvent myself every few years, it's actually become the norm.
But as I grow older, reinvention feels scarier... am I being biased by sunk cost? am I just tired of starting from scratch? Am I really starting from scratch though? If I am being honest, I have been working in public health as a diagnostician and will begin working in public health as a nurse/midwife. So, actually, one might say, I am actually deeply committed and serious about the same field.
Anyway, enough placating. And enough reflecting for now. No doubt the days ahead will bring further emotional upheavals. The main thing to know is that fear is a constant and I welcome it as a friend. Only then can I hope to understand it and transcend it.
Monday, April 27, 2026
Sunday, April 19, 2026
Striding Forth (Cautiously) Towards a New Phase in Life
These past 10 years (no wait.. ELEVEN!! Mind-boggling!) in India have revealed aspects of myself that I neither knew nor would have bothered to find out had I stayed on in the US. India has a way of ripping apart facades (and like every other place, putting in new ones). I have learned that I need to keep learning new things, doing things with my own hands, and occasionally feeling fear and feeling like I have triumphed over fear, to keep myself engaged and energized. Otherwise, I drift into ennuii and existential crises and have terrible moodiness. I also start devouring books without rhyme or reason, mostly to keep thoughts at bay and to fill up time.
I have felt ennuii multiple times, but more so over the past year. This happens more frequently as I become more efficient- by delegating, mentoring, putting systems in place and sometimes, plain disappearing, my various projects start running by themselves and junior people grow, start taking on more responsibilities and life becomes smoother.
Age and experience have also taught me to be less tightly wound and more philosophical about occasional perceived slowness of pace, retreats, and backfoots.
With all this knowledge and wisdom, the amount of time I have on my hands is increasing, which means I am getting awfully bored and feeling very directionless. But how to articulate this? For months I was irritated with myself- how ungrateful, how dissatisfied and how unaware of my own privilege was I acting by feeling like I didn't have enough, when I actually have so much? What right do I have to feel stressed when I have nothing concrete to feel stressed about? I am at a stage where my kids are on the brink of independence- I should be focussing on enabling that, not wallowing in some inexplicable, nebulous fugue state.
Over the past two weeks of staying in rural Australia, I have been able to get to a point where I can articulate this better. Where I realize that the lack in my life is not something concrete but internal. That I need new challenges and new directions. The old ones are familiar and while there may be occasional hiccups, they feel like roads already traveled.
This is why I am re-looking with new eyes at an old desire: to study to become a midwife. I had thought about this intensely while leaving the US for India. The timing was just never right. Now, as the kids grow up, and my interest in primary care practice increases (along with experience), I am drawn to the idea once more. I could probably also get into medical school- either in India or abroad- but not sure why I would want to. I mean, I already have a doctorate. I also have mixed feelings about the attitudes taught to medical students regardless of country (this is certainly true in India, somewhat true in the US. Not sure how it is in Australia or other parts of the world): one of condescending superiority. As a non-medical person working in the health field, I come across this often. I deal with it when personally experiencing it by batting my PhD back at them. But I have observed this in shocking ways in India with others and cringe from it.
The midwifery idea is more congruent with my own personal philosophy- support, hands-on work, giving space for another's personal preferences, valuing another's mindset and personal values, compassion, and quiet action. My life right now has a lot of the so-called "higher order" activities- leadership, management, mentoring, organization-building, systems-thinking. What I lack is higher order embodiment- using my hands and mind to actively do and improve.
What I hope to gain from completing such a course of study is access to serve in rural clinics in India and abroad. To be able to run a practice and touch someone's life for the better. To use all my learnings in building an organization and managing it, to think critically, to innovate locally and rapidly, to be nimble and flexible in operations, to grow local talent and instill leadership in young people, but in this new setting and role.
In India, the course is a combined one in Nursing and Midwifery. However, I do not like the servile attitude taught to nurses in these programs. Nurses are taught to be subservient to doctors, to have their innate leadership abilities tamped down initially and then ostentatiously and artificially "built up" through nurse leadership programs. I could be wrong, but this is my impression of it. There are also strong caste and religion- ties to nursing as a profession. I am not sure if I want to wade into these murky waters. Some of this subservience is also present in the American landscapes.
The courses in Australia and New Zealand seem much more straight-forward, "clean" in their attitudes and nurses do not act servile or subservient- they consider themselves equal to doctors. This allows for fantastic community-oriented programs run and managed by nurses and tremendous opportunities for growth in rural programs.
I also have considered if I should do only a midwifery course or a combined nursing and midwifery course. The latter seems better for future work in rural primary care. However, the combined programs are also 4 years long, compared to 2 or 3 year midwifery specific programs. I am 44 years old now. I would ideally like to start practicing before I am 50!! There are conversion pathways in Australia and NZ for registered midwifes to become nurses. I need to understand better if becoming and practising as a midwife first for a few years before becoming a nurse is better or just getting both done at the same time is better.
I also should find out how to leverage all my learnings thus far into this next phase- surely my experience and talents should atleast be able to get me some sort of scholarship or assistance in the coursework and later.
All this thinking reminds me that the best research into a new phase of life is actually conversation and discussion. Maybe in the next two weeks, before returning to India, I should reach out to some people and talk to them about all this.
Thankfully, RK is as supportive as he has always been throughout our lives together, not to mention perceptive and clear-thinking. I can't help feeling that my parents would also approve of this (while being a bit bewildered as to why, perhaps... but understanding the motivation and desire, nonetheless). As for my kids, I hope what they learn from these attempts is to be open to reinvention. Freedom of thinking is the greatest asset anyone can have ("emancipate yourselves from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds", as Bob Marley says) and I hope they actively pursue the same in their own lives.
I have felt ennuii multiple times, but more so over the past year. This happens more frequently as I become more efficient- by delegating, mentoring, putting systems in place and sometimes, plain disappearing, my various projects start running by themselves and junior people grow, start taking on more responsibilities and life becomes smoother.
Age and experience have also taught me to be less tightly wound and more philosophical about occasional perceived slowness of pace, retreats, and backfoots.
With all this knowledge and wisdom, the amount of time I have on my hands is increasing, which means I am getting awfully bored and feeling very directionless. But how to articulate this? For months I was irritated with myself- how ungrateful, how dissatisfied and how unaware of my own privilege was I acting by feeling like I didn't have enough, when I actually have so much? What right do I have to feel stressed when I have nothing concrete to feel stressed about? I am at a stage where my kids are on the brink of independence- I should be focussing on enabling that, not wallowing in some inexplicable, nebulous fugue state.
Over the past two weeks of staying in rural Australia, I have been able to get to a point where I can articulate this better. Where I realize that the lack in my life is not something concrete but internal. That I need new challenges and new directions. The old ones are familiar and while there may be occasional hiccups, they feel like roads already traveled.
This is why I am re-looking with new eyes at an old desire: to study to become a midwife. I had thought about this intensely while leaving the US for India. The timing was just never right. Now, as the kids grow up, and my interest in primary care practice increases (along with experience), I am drawn to the idea once more. I could probably also get into medical school- either in India or abroad- but not sure why I would want to. I mean, I already have a doctorate. I also have mixed feelings about the attitudes taught to medical students regardless of country (this is certainly true in India, somewhat true in the US. Not sure how it is in Australia or other parts of the world): one of condescending superiority. As a non-medical person working in the health field, I come across this often. I deal with it when personally experiencing it by batting my PhD back at them. But I have observed this in shocking ways in India with others and cringe from it.
The midwifery idea is more congruent with my own personal philosophy- support, hands-on work, giving space for another's personal preferences, valuing another's mindset and personal values, compassion, and quiet action. My life right now has a lot of the so-called "higher order" activities- leadership, management, mentoring, organization-building, systems-thinking. What I lack is higher order embodiment- using my hands and mind to actively do and improve.
What I hope to gain from completing such a course of study is access to serve in rural clinics in India and abroad. To be able to run a practice and touch someone's life for the better. To use all my learnings in building an organization and managing it, to think critically, to innovate locally and rapidly, to be nimble and flexible in operations, to grow local talent and instill leadership in young people, but in this new setting and role.
In India, the course is a combined one in Nursing and Midwifery. However, I do not like the servile attitude taught to nurses in these programs. Nurses are taught to be subservient to doctors, to have their innate leadership abilities tamped down initially and then ostentatiously and artificially "built up" through nurse leadership programs. I could be wrong, but this is my impression of it. There are also strong caste and religion- ties to nursing as a profession. I am not sure if I want to wade into these murky waters. Some of this subservience is also present in the American landscapes.
The courses in Australia and New Zealand seem much more straight-forward, "clean" in their attitudes and nurses do not act servile or subservient- they consider themselves equal to doctors. This allows for fantastic community-oriented programs run and managed by nurses and tremendous opportunities for growth in rural programs.
I also have considered if I should do only a midwifery course or a combined nursing and midwifery course. The latter seems better for future work in rural primary care. However, the combined programs are also 4 years long, compared to 2 or 3 year midwifery specific programs. I am 44 years old now. I would ideally like to start practicing before I am 50!! There are conversion pathways in Australia and NZ for registered midwifes to become nurses. I need to understand better if becoming and practising as a midwife first for a few years before becoming a nurse is better or just getting both done at the same time is better.
I also should find out how to leverage all my learnings thus far into this next phase- surely my experience and talents should atleast be able to get me some sort of scholarship or assistance in the coursework and later.
All this thinking reminds me that the best research into a new phase of life is actually conversation and discussion. Maybe in the next two weeks, before returning to India, I should reach out to some people and talk to them about all this.
Thankfully, RK is as supportive as he has always been throughout our lives together, not to mention perceptive and clear-thinking. I can't help feeling that my parents would also approve of this (while being a bit bewildered as to why, perhaps... but understanding the motivation and desire, nonetheless). As for my kids, I hope what they learn from these attempts is to be open to reinvention. Freedom of thinking is the greatest asset anyone can have ("emancipate yourselves from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds", as Bob Marley says) and I hope they actively pursue the same in their own lives.
Wednesday, March 25, 2026
Grappling with the Cryptic .... initially... and then ending with something else altogether.
My dad used to be a big fan of the Cryptic crossword. My cousin Sinduja had learned how to crack them- she had picked up the skill from watching a number of her aunts and uncles, including Appa, and would somehow effortlessly crack The Hindu, the Economic Times, and the NYT crosswords.
Not so me- I couldn't figure out how any of these people would know just which words to unscramble or synonimize or chop off. So I stuck to the Quick.
After following Cracking the Cryptic since the days of Covid (which has all sorts of puzzles, not just Sudoku), I started becoming a little more open to the idea of using more than just vocabulary to solve a crossword. I tried my hand at the Deccan Herald cryptic, staring at the previous day's puzzle with the next day's answers, only to be absolutely stymied at the logic behind it.
But since I am a Guardian fiend, I found the crossword blog. It began to give me a glimpse of how cryptic crossworders think. The Guardian also has a Quick-Cryptic crossword for noobs like me and little clues on which specific tricks to use with a handy tool for reminding one what each name stands for and examples of each trick- clearly I am not the only one who can't keep things straight in her head.
So, over the past few weeks, I have been slowly wrapping my head around the Quick Cryptic. It makes me feel incredibly good about myself. I almost feel like I could be one of those codebreakers at Bletchley. It also makes me wish I could turn the laptop to my dad and preen a bit or solve it with him.
Once I feel a bit more confident with Quick Cryptic, I shall try the DH Cryptic again.. who knows? Perhaps I will slowly be able to get myself upto a proper Cryptic by the end of the year! Also, since the Algorithms Lords on my phone news feed only seem to be giving me info on how quickly brains deteriorate after one hits 40, maybe this new hobby will help me keep hold of the few cells left in the old nut.
The benefits of the Cryptic crossword might overcome the mushiness caused by age and C dramas (only one at this time): Pursuit of Jade, I love you! Do not, I beg you, be put off by the Netflix blurb... she is neither humble nor is he disgraced. The blurb is all wrong. It is probably the BEST adventure-comedy-slow burn romance I have seen in years :) After bingewatching 12 episodes in 1 night, I woke up to the sound of the vegetable seller yelling "tarkari tarkari" in Kannada, and I was like, this is the wrong language. I only chose it because of the exquisiteness of this painting on the Netflix icon:
Otherwise, I loathe the cutesy faces, the lipstick and the flying martial arts. But this picture enraptured me and I am glad of it. And also that this show doesn't have the flying martial stuff or the cutesy faces.... unfortunately, lipstick on men seems to be a given for all Asian shows. But Chinese actors are significantly more handsome than the guys on Indian shows on Netflix.
After following Cracking the Cryptic since the days of Covid (which has all sorts of puzzles, not just Sudoku), I started becoming a little more open to the idea of using more than just vocabulary to solve a crossword. I tried my hand at the Deccan Herald cryptic, staring at the previous day's puzzle with the next day's answers, only to be absolutely stymied at the logic behind it.
But since I am a Guardian fiend, I found the crossword blog. It began to give me a glimpse of how cryptic crossworders think. The Guardian also has a Quick-Cryptic crossword for noobs like me and little clues on which specific tricks to use with a handy tool for reminding one what each name stands for and examples of each trick- clearly I am not the only one who can't keep things straight in her head.
So, over the past few weeks, I have been slowly wrapping my head around the Quick Cryptic. It makes me feel incredibly good about myself. I almost feel like I could be one of those codebreakers at Bletchley. It also makes me wish I could turn the laptop to my dad and preen a bit or solve it with him.
Once I feel a bit more confident with Quick Cryptic, I shall try the DH Cryptic again.. who knows? Perhaps I will slowly be able to get myself upto a proper Cryptic by the end of the year! Also, since the Algorithms Lords on my phone news feed only seem to be giving me info on how quickly brains deteriorate after one hits 40, maybe this new hobby will help me keep hold of the few cells left in the old nut.
The benefits of the Cryptic crossword might overcome the mushiness caused by age and C dramas (only one at this time): Pursuit of Jade, I love you! Do not, I beg you, be put off by the Netflix blurb... she is neither humble nor is he disgraced. The blurb is all wrong. It is probably the BEST adventure-comedy-slow burn romance I have seen in years :) After bingewatching 12 episodes in 1 night, I woke up to the sound of the vegetable seller yelling "tarkari tarkari" in Kannada, and I was like, this is the wrong language. I only chose it because of the exquisiteness of this painting on the Netflix icon:
Otherwise, I loathe the cutesy faces, the lipstick and the flying martial arts. But this picture enraptured me and I am glad of it. And also that this show doesn't have the flying martial stuff or the cutesy faces.... unfortunately, lipstick on men seems to be a given for all Asian shows. But Chinese actors are significantly more handsome than the guys on Indian shows on Netflix.
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