Coffee With Rajendra - A Conversational Psychotherapy Experience

It sounds relieving - to hear a friend say that they have moved on - from a breakup or from some painful experience. We feel a sense of assurance - that our loved one - has come to more sane terms with life when he is not in the grip of overwhelming emotions or stressful situations, and looks more prepared to take rational and practical decisions in his/her life ahead. But, does moving on really solve the problem? When we move on from something, we emotionally distance ourselves from it. Attachment is reduced and exposure to associated triggers no longer evokes our emotions to intensity we used to experienced before. We were in the middle of a muddy lake from where no horizon was visible, and now we are resting at a bank from where we are able to look at the reality with a more wholistic perspective. We have either solved the problem that was causing the pain, or we have developed numbness, or we have just become master at censorship - carefully ignoring certain parts of ourselves whic...

In a hierarchical relationship arrangement, power is diverted from within one relationship to restrict the flow of connection and commitment in another relationship, forming a sort of "gate" within which the flow is coerced to conform. When the natural flow of connection or commitment is smaller than the width of that gate, everything is fine. Three arrows depicting flow: blank is for connection, dotted is for power, lined is for commitment. Problems arise when the natural flows are bigger than the gate. They won't shrink on their own, much as we might wish they would, so they continue to push back on the gate. The restriction might stifle or eventually kill the new relationship, stunting its growth in the way a sunshine-loving plant growing under the shade of a big tree becomes stunted. But if the flows are too powerful, they will eventually crash through the gate, often causing great damage to the relationship that the power originally emanated from. Monogamous, one-tru...

I first came across the word creep in class 10-11. Girls of my class used this word to refer to someone who did not have any personal relationship with them but whom they wanted to communicate more clearly and directly with them, and behave in a manner that gives more consideration, respect, and space to their boundaries.  I came across the word again in the story 'Not So Casual Sex' - written by Divya Prakash Dubey, recited by Amol Parashar - wherein the girl who matches with the protagonist on tinder asks him if he is a genuine person and not a creep.  Watch on youtube  [5:41]. I also saw the word in bios of many people I came across on my tinder app. In Civil Engineering, a creeping crack in a concrete slab is a crack propagating very slowly over years. There's song too titled 'Creep', from a band named Radiohead. Here's the cover song sung by one of my favourite singers, the lovely Haley Reinhart with the band Post Modern Jukebox. I came across the word agai...