I’ve always felt comfortable when indulging in extremities, whether it’s how I experience life (with unbelievably high highs and, impossibly low lows), how I work (either all too much or not at all), or how I eat. Oftentimes, I feel the need to push my body to its physical and emotional limits, just to become aware of exactly how resilient it can be, which two out of three times ends up with me calling a friend and pleading them to distract me from how faint I feel after running one too many kilometres.
Last week, in another one of these moods, I decided to quit coffee. (Warning: This whole debacle lasted a whole 4 days). For the past two years, I’ve been consistently drinking a cup (sometimes, two) of coffee a day. I’m not one of those who need coffee first thing in the morning, but if I’m expected to perform at even a subhuman level, I most definitely reach out for that cup.
Speaking of extremities, two years ago, as a result of several (but not all) bad (read: anxious) coffee-related incidents, I would tremble with uneasiness at the thought of having a sip of cappuccino.
How I went from panicking at the sight of coffee to owning more coffee brewing equipment than most people would find necessary (maybe even acceptable) took a while of unravelling but in the end, like any form of introspection, it brought me a teeny-tiny bit closer to identifying my way of thinking, and, in turn, to my way of being happy (move over, Deepak Chopra).
Day 1 of the Say No To Coffee Campaign, I went through a roller coaster of emotions. This roller coaster however, skipped the adrenaline filled journey to the top and instead, started right at the vertical drop when all I could think of was “I’m going to die”, “I feel sick”, and “This is a very bad idea”. I could visualise my obituary already – Vaishnavi Behl, Friend, Sister, Unemployed, Deceased due to an 18-hour Cappuccino Deficit.
Two years ago, I would react the same way to drinking a cup of coffee as I did today in the absence of it and I’m certain that living alone in Paris has something to do with it. Every night, I would prepare ingredients needed for the next day’s breakfast, and every morning, I would launch on the same pattern – run to class without having had the time to cook anything – get out of class midway to slam a shot of espresso and pass by a bowl of cut fruits and cereal that I could have had had I woken up in time.
It took me months to realise why the same coffee that was previously causing full blown panic attacks was now making me feel good, and weirdly confident, maybe even…optimistic. The physical sensations remained the same-the racing heart, the heightened focus, the chirpiness, but something more significant, my response to them changed, and that made all the difference.
What I tried to do with my fear of coffee, was face it over and over again, which without doubt is easier than facing most other more consequential fears, but it was a start. It set me off on a beautiful journey of doing things that scared me over and over again until it didn’t anymore and most times, I would find just enough resilience to survive whatever it is that I needed to, and sometimes even discover something meaningful in the process.
Things continued to not going my way, but I began to realise that I never needed them to. Every time I was brought face to face with the whimsical unfolding of life, I found something within myself that knows how to deal with it if I let it. I guess what I’m trying to say is that as hard as it is, it’s worthwhile to try to step out of your head, and see things the way they may actually be, and the few times that you succeed, I can promise nothing will feel better.
Illustrations by Karina Acharya.
okay chalo 