Entry 1 –My personal creation story 09/28/2023

I was born an orphan in Glendale, CA. Shortly after my birth, I was adopted by parents who came to the US from other countries. Technically, my mother was born in Fresno, CA, but shortly after her birth, her parents, who came from Mexico but were born in Spain and Italy, returned to Mexico where my mother was raised. My father was born in Lisbon, Portugal.

Each of them arrived by airplane on US soil, having been awarded educational scholarships. They both became teachers. My parents met in the US while participating in their respective programs, married and settled in California. After many years of wishing for children, they adopted me.

My childhood was a mix of unconditional love from my father and trauma, pain and abuse from my mother. At times, I remember some happy events, but mostly when I think of my childhood I remember unhappiness, loneliness, frustration, and anger. For all the love my father offered, it seemed to be overshadowed by my mother’s more intense (Scorpio) energy.

I believe that being abused at home creates the foundation for many to either become an abuser, or it sets you up to be continually abused by others. Whether or not it creates obstacles, depression, anxiety in our lives is a level of degrees. Some people are less affected, traumatized, or influenced by this upbringing than others. But I believe we are all influenced by those around us who repeatedly fill our heads with their own projections of fear and insecurity. Children, after all, come into this life as a mostly blank slate. Everything a child learns and expresses comes from feeling and sensing, as a sponge, the Intergenerational karma they are born into.

For me, the abuse I experienced made me a perfect target to first, be bullied at school. I never had any real friends in grade school. The proof is they are nowhere to be found in my life, and that’s OK. As an only child already, being alone was when I felt most at peace and most creative, never lonely. This love of being alone continues as part of who I am today and I appreciate this as a skill. While at school, other kids would tease me for being Hispanic, for being small, for dressing “funny”, and any number of other excuses for cruelty, and which I internalized over time.

The teasing just didn’t come from the kids, it came from teachers and principals, too. While I never held animosity towards the kids that bullied me over the years, because they were children just like me and I somehow realized they didn’t know any better, I believed the adults should have known better.

There are two particular incidents I recall most vividly. First, my fifth-grade teacher had been physical with one of my classmates, pinning him against the wall. I told my father, who in turn wrote a scathing letter to the principal. Apparently, the principal shared it with the teacher who then attempted to intimidate me, threatening and attempting to convince me that I hadn’t really seen what I had seen and that I should keep anything that happens in the classroom to myself in the future. I did not, and did tell my dad this as well. Nevertheless, I don’t think there was ever any disciplinary action.

The second incident happened at the same school on the playground. A classmate came up behind me, completely unprovoked, and struck me with her fist between my shoulder blades harder than I had ever been hit. The principal saw what happened and her only response was to tell me to toughen up. These are merely two examples of years of this type of treatment. Thankfully, when I told my parents I wanted to change schools, they obliged, though I never told them why until decades later.

Between home and school, I didn’t have a lot of experiences that offered me a sense of value, but at the same time, something inside me knew it wouldn’t always be this way and I would one day live the life I always hoped and dreamed of. I BELIEVED a life of peace, joy and fulfillment was possible.

Ironically, I think the qualities that have most helped me, for which I was constantly criticized, were my constant chattiness and opinionated ideas, my stubbornness, and my unwillingness to back down from my thoughts and ideas.

I learned to argue from my mother, also, and boy did we get into it as I grew up. I realize now I had no respect for my mother. I also realize that she taught me to disrespect her because she never showed me what respect looked like, either toward me, my father, or anyone else. I say this not with bitterness, but merely as a fact.

And while it is a difficult thing to admit, I remember as a small child, lying in bed at night wishing death on my mother, wishing terrible things on kids at school. I hear about the terrible things that are happening today and I can relate to those who bring violence. The difference is I never acted on it. I never believed those things were ever things I would do. I believe that the Universe provides us all with an internal compass, and it is up to each of us to either honor that compass and allow it to guide us, or to ignore it. The latter leads to upheaval, chaos and regrets I never wanted to be a part of. What I really ever wanted was to remove aggression from my life.

One particular afternoon, I was probably 10 yo, we were returning from church where I had just heard a priest go on and on about the “sin” of suicide. I didn’t agree. I told my mother I thought the priest was mean and lacked caring for people who commit suicide. Even at 10 yo I understood that if someone was committing suicide, it was because they were unhappy or sad or depressed or frustrated and that these people needed our compassion, not our judgments and scorn. I also believe this to be the case with those who express these feelings through violence towards others. I don’t condone violence, EVER. I DO, however, understand the need for people who believe they have to lash out to be heard, seen, recognized and what it feels like to have no one listen, see or recognize you.

I have learned that pain and suffering comes from a lack of the awareness of unconditional love that is all around, a focus on darkness versus light, catastrophizing rather than hope. Darkness is the absence of light, but that darkness is frightening to people and can cause them to react in ways that are counter to the love that is always present. We are all given free will to think, believe and react/respond. This is probably one of the most difficult lessons since the world reinforces fear at every turn. Each of us is an expression of unconditional loving. Whether or not we embrace that truth, again, is an aspect of free will.

In my mother’s case, she had her own story of abuse, abandonment, fear, insecurity that she never learned how to heal, or even acknowledge. This is not an attempt to blame as much as to find compassion and empathy for all of us just trying to do the best we can. We are all equally human with the same capacity for love and hate. Until we all come to this realization, pain and suffering will continue.

It took some years, some learning, some letting go of resentments and anger, but I found forgiveness for my mother. It didn’t happen all at once, or overnight and it didn’t magically make life easier or different. Over time, I could acknowledge I no longer carry that heavy, heavy baggage around with me and it has offered me a significant degree of peace in my life. It is possible but it takes a commitment to self to want to feel happy, rather than right, to want to live with peace, joy and fulfillment badly enough. It took finally being sick and tired enough of feeling sick and tired.

My father once told me “There is never a good enough reason to behave unkindly to anyone, no matter what.” That stuck with me. This from a self-proclaimed agnostic. He was more spiritually connected than anyone I had ever known and yet did not adhere to any religious teachings. He certainly did not define himself as spiritual and I came to know that as humility. I didn’t always agree with his premise of kindness, but over the years I realized this was indeed the case. I came to understand this because my mother would come at him with judgments and insults and criticizing him and he wouldn’t react. He would close his office door and go about his work. I was always welcome. I initially interpreted this as weak, until I came to understand this was actually his superpower.

I believe children are our mirrors, offering us opportunities to see where our shortcomings are so that we may uplift ourselves, learn and become better humans for ourselves and others. As a mirror to my mother, I was unknowingly challenging her to observe her beliefs, question them and adapt if they weren’t making her happy. It was an opportunity to discover what her attachments and habits were that were no longer serving her. She didn’t take that opportunity. While stubbornness may be an inherent quality of my own (Capricorn), I learned to be argumentative and to accept abuse as normal. In yet another entry, sometime in the future, I will describe the opportunity I took to look in the mirror while raising my own children..

Over years I did embark on a search for “something” in a lot of places. I learned about Judaism, Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism mostly from friends who practiced these faiths, but I also travelled and read books. My father, an intellectual, was also a wonderful resource to bounce ideas from. Nothing outside myself satisfied my desire in my attempt to find a sense of direction. What I ultimately discovered is that all faiths are founded in the exact same tenets of love, goodness, charity and compassion.

This made it impossible for me to choose any one religion over another and also showed me that it didn’t really matter which religion is followed, so long as one follows the basic tenets. I recognized I could rely on God directly without any outside religious dogma to interfere.

So, by my early 20’s, through these challenging times in my life, I decided that my initial guidance to simply create my own personal relationship with God was the most appropriate for me and that relationship has grown and deepened over the years.

My belief and faith in a loving and compassionate God has served me well over the years as it has always offered me a perspective of hope that things can get better. There is always a tomorrow which holds a promise of something more.

While Yoga is not a religion, it is a philosophy for uncovering a personal relationship to life, love and the world around us and how we are all a part of something greater, and all interconnected. With this belief, I learned no one is ever truly alone. My daily conversations with God, angels, and the ancestors are the source for my experiences of connection.

Concepts like AHIMSA (non-violence) SATYA (truth) were things I believed were worthy of my time and attention. There is no dogma that I must adhere to in order to prove my worthiness. My existence is the proof of my worthiness. From there, I choose how I express the tenets, how I choose to bring love and light into the world.

The practice of yoga helped me to observe my thoughts and beliefs about myself and those around me. My yoga practice has been the springboard from which I found my own value empowering me to find my truth.

I realized there was a lot of mental/emotional stuff going on as a result of my practice of yoga and decided to dive deeper and enrolled in a Spiritual Psychology program, where I earned a Master’s degree.

Hence LifeSkillsYogaProgram was born. I began to integrate what I was learning from Yoga with Spiritual Psychology, and how it related to not only my physical wellness, but my mental/emotional health and well-being as well.

I thank you for taking this first journey into my blog where I will continue to share my most intimate and challenging moments. I do this not to elicit any sympathy, but to share how I have used my yoga practice, a variety of simple life skills and the wisdom all this offers to move past those earlier difficult times.

I had been walking a path of victimhood and suffering and that, while I experienced as real, I needed tools to be able to overcome if I was ever to live a happy and successful life. I honed skills so that I may live a new life in which I could find strength and resilience from those same experiences if I only could DARE to reframe, forgive and actually embrace as that which could empower me.

Learning never stops and I am still growing and exploring how to refine the skills. I have come to accept that being a human requires a lifelong commitment to self and to always understanding we can always do better, we can always love deeper. If we believe we have learned all there is, we stunt our growth. We can discover we are stunted when we perceive unhappiness, dissatisfaction, etc. These are the seeds of change.

It is my hope, as I share this journey with you, to inspire you to make the changes you wish to see in your life. Any change, no matter how small, can produce great opportunities toward happiness. I encourage you to reach out to me with any questions and, if you choose, maybe even register for my classes at www.LifeSkillsYogaProgam.com.

These classes are designed to offer you a window into the possibility for healing from anything that you believe is holding you back from your greatest joy and potential.

-Raminderpreet

It all begins with an idea.

It all begins with an idea.