My Rebirth

Seems a bit dramatic, right?!? Well, in my case it kind of is. Let me explain... Like I mentioned a few days ago, an intense pull for change was happening and I needed to make sense of it. As I continued to drive north on Highway 1, I was able to sit in silence and feel what was happening and how I wanted to react to it.. Do I want to doubt and ignore, or ride the waves? This pull was happening and there was no way that I had the energy to pull away from it, so I surrendered.

During my time with Riz, he pointed out that it all comes down to choices. Have you ever asked yourself if you chose this life? Did you choose your parents? Did you request to live this life in a previous life? Did you choose your life partner before your birth? You may have your answers, but how do you know they are true. Will we ever know if we chose this life or not? No, probably not, but we do have a choice in what to believe.

Growing up, I used to always question why I was given this life. Why was I separated from my birth family? Why am I different and why am I suffering?

Like most, I was told to play the cards I was dealt. Looking back now, playing the cards I was dealt allowed sorrow and pain to slip in because I didn't have any control over what cards I picked. Nobody asked me what I wanted in this life, so I was left with how to make the best of what I was given. I didn't know how to do that so I was lost.

It wasn't until Riz asked me, "How would you feel if you did choose this life and your circumstances?" I sat there for a moment and I felt a shift of weight within my heart. What if I did choose this life before my birth? To say that I chose this life or not cannot be proven, so why not take control and say that I did choose this life of being an adoptee.

The shift within opened me up to so many more possibilities. If I did choose to be adopted in this life before my birth, then that gives me the power and control to use my experiences as I please instead of falling victim to the confusion and pain of what was given to me. I am not saying that my confusion and pain just suddenly perish and became non-existent, but now I seem to have control over what I do with the confusion and pain that comes with being an adoptee. To say the least, I felt empowered!

Riz followed up by telling me that I was a storyteller in my past lives in one way or another and that I wondered what it was like to be adopted. It all started to make sense to me. I chose to live this life to find out what being an adoptee is all about, so now that I am experiencing it first hand, I am here to tell my story.

Huh, come to think of it, I guess I have been telling my story all along through sharing my film and now this blog. :)

Now that I am home safely and getting ready to move on with my life, I am confident to say that I feel settled and comfortable believing that this life is what I asked for and I have no reason not to tell my story. Who knows, my shift with may lead to a shift in my physical world very soon.

Coming across this photo a few days ago confirmed to me

that I am on the right path.

Adoptees Connect

Please Don't Tell Me I Was Lucky to Be Adopted  Shareen Pine took the words right out my mouth. Her article that I included above is an article that spoke to me on so many different levels...

"Adoption loss is truly multi-generational"- Shareen starts off with a conversation that her daughter had with her friend about how she also feels like an adoptee because she lost her birth grandmother. I have always thought about my future children and how I wanted to create as much truth about their past as I could prior to me having them. I mean, the thought of my children was a major influence as to why I wanted to begin and complete my search for my birth mother and family. I wanted to be able to give to my children what my adoptive parents were not able to give or didn't know how to give. I wanted to provide names, pictures, answers, a story for them to pass on to their children.

What I didn't realize, was that is goes much farther than what I want and how I feel. Shareen acknowledged how her daughter felt and that is something that I never considered before. There is not much I can do now since I do not have any children yet, but I realized that no matter how many pictures or stories I tell them about my search and what I was able to find out, they are still going to experience the same loss as me... no relationships and no contact with birth family prior me. I think that Shareen's daughter is very wise to see herself as an adoptee in her own special way because besides me and my children's father, they will have no connections or ties; they too may feel a loss as I do.

"Adoptees are often so busy trying to prove that we're fine..." -This is how I would self soothed myself when I felt broken and lost not only as a child, but also as a young adult. My response to family's concerns up until recently has always been, I'm fine or Ill be okay. I didn't have the strength or the comfort to really express myself until I started counseling in college. A big part of not expressing myself was that I didn't have the language to do it. I didn't know how to talk about my feelings. I didn't know how to not feel guilty. I didn't know how not to worry about what people thought or how I would make them feel if I yell out, I hate being adopted. I didn't know that it was okay and that it was absolutely normal to have these feelings because I was constantly being reminded to feel lucky and grateful. I would speak the words of feeling lucky and grateful to others without them having any meaning behind them. I could feel myself forcing these words out because that is what people wanted to hear and expected me to feel. I allowed others' expectations to override and bury my truth.

"Can you imagine being the only person in the world you know you’re related to?"- Right!?! This is really an odd and confusing feeling, especially being around family and friends who are all biologically connected and related to one another except to me. I didn't really get this feeling until my little brother was born. All I could hear was how much he looked like my father. Looking back on that now, it was really a weird experience and odd to be around those conversations. I felt left out. I would always wonder if my parents attention would spark at that moment and think about how I may feel. I was hopeful that they would turn to me and ask me how I felt or even acknowledged that that is a conversation I wouldn't be a part of.  We all remained quiet.

"...Or why they told me that my adoptive parents saved me."- I have heard it all. My adoptive parents saved me, my birth mother loved me so much that she had to surrender her rights to raise me, your life is so much better now, you probably would have been a prostitute or better yet, dead in the gutter because that's what Indians do to the female babies. Talk about a lot of shit to hear and try to make sense of as a young child. For some reason, it did always amaze me how these possible truths came from people who have never been to India, never lived in India, and don't  know shit about my birth mother and her truth at the time of my birth. It took me all the way up until just a few years ago to accept that these people wanted to feel like saviors and that they wanted to feed their ego. Their words were so inaccurate after I found out what my truth was that it now makes me laugh at how stupid they all look now.

Even till this day, I think about what my life could have been like if I were to stay with my biological family in Goa. Never once do I think or feel that it would be worse or better than my life now.

To close this post, I would like to say thank you to Shareen Pine and her daughter for speaking out and sharing their truth. Validation is so important in adoption and I cannot begin to express how much I have learned from their words.