Did You Know This?
Who Are We, You and Me?
Everything in life is an experience There’s talking And laughing And loving And tearing Everyone of them is also a gift Not just the talking And the laughing And the loving And the cheering But also the tearing up The feeling guilty The saying sorry Aka Apologizing Everything we experience Sadness Happiness Joy Pretending Lying Yes even that There’s an old saying in my language We have to learn to do everything And then lose the ones that do not serve us And everything includes everything Everything that is personal to us that means Not picking up our axe and chopping down trees Not that kind of everything But everything that is ours alone to experience And when we start to look at everything As an experience Even sadness Sorrow Pain Suffering Will have value Worth And make us wonder What this all about Have you wondered that? Have you found pleasure At the end of every experience? It’s like experiencing sweetness in your tongue Even after you eat something spicy Something salty Something sour Even bitter The tongue always brings back A sweetness to enjoy Have you tasted that in your life? If you haven’t done that yet Next time you eat anything that’s not sweet Pay attention to what or how you feel At the end of that experience Just like that There is a sweetness we encounter At the end of every other experience in life Be it sadness Sorrow Anger Frustration Whatever it is Because if you think about it It will dawn on you Why you went through what you did And that will enhance the experience And tilt it back at you In the sweetness scale of things Have you tasted that? This experience of encountering emotions? When you lean into vulnerability When you cry with your soul for its sorrow The soul will give you back as reward A sweetness A kind of satisfaction, if you must This applies to anger as well When you act out in anger For being treated poorly The soul will be happy And give you that satisfaction In yourself So is the soul not you? Is it something apart from us This feeling that we feel for it Which makes it hug us back tight? Perhaps it is! Perhaps what we see as you and me Are not you and me at all We are just actors here on earth Masked and playing our parts And when we do it well When we lean into the act And become the person we represent Then we get rewarded in kind For taking up what we represent in earnest And doing our part to root for it Does what I am saying makes sense? If not, don’t worry about it Perhaps when you wake up in the morning It will come back And show itself to you as well But if it doesn’t Don’t worry just yet Soon it will show itself to you As it did to me Perhaps when you’re also ready To grasp this thing! Don’t think too much about it Somethings in life need to be felt Experienced Let it go And it will come back to you in time Peace ✌🏽
This isn’t a musing it’s a soft exhale from the soul. Shalini doesn’t explain life; she cradles it. Her words don’t rush to conclusions they linger, like the aftertaste of something bittersweet. Every emotion, even the ones we hide from, is honoured here as sacred. Sadness isn’t a mistake it’s a teacher. Anger isn’t shameful it’s a signal. And guilt, apology, even pretending each becomes part of the tapestry that makes us whole. This isn’t about fixing ourselves it’s about feeling ourselves, fully. The sweetness she speaks of isn’t sugar it’s grace. The kind that arrives quietly, after the storm, when we’ve cried enough to hear our own soul whisper back: “I’m still here.”
Shalini, you made emotions feel like characters in a play — each taking their turn, each leaving a little sweetness behind before exiting the stage. I love the way you framed that. It made me pause and think about my own moments that only made sense after they softened. Thank you for sharing this — it lingered with me in the nicest way~