🌿 Surviving workplace toxicity: A Journey to Inner Calm
I needed to breathe today.
It’s been heavy at work again—layers of expectations, noise, and emotional static. The kind that doesn’t just stay in the room but follows you back home, sinks into your bones, messes with your heartbeat, and tightens your chest like a grip. The kind of stress that doesn’t show up on routine ECGs but exists—silently altering your autonomic rhythm, inflaming your thoughts, triggering low-grade fatigue that medicine can’t fix.
So I packed lightly—just me, my ektara, a small Bluetooth speaker, and drove away. I took the road upward from Bagdogra across the tea gardens, gentle and quiet, the town’s noise thinning out behind me.
I turned off from the highway, taking a narrow trail that veered into a cluster of tea workers’ huts. I knew this way by heart. Past the crumbling dispensary for tea-workers that probably hasn’t seen a patient in years, I walked a bit further, the red soil with grass under my sandals. The monsoon clouds hovered lightly above.
And then, there it was.
My place.
The gabion wall—a bench made of rocks bound in wire. Still strong. Still quiet. Still waiting.
🌿 A Place to Heal
Here at Singhia Jhora Tea Garden, the world feels different. The green here isn't just color—it’s medicine. These tea bushes have seen lifetimes. The air has a scent that’s part earth, part leaf, part forgotten stories.
As I sat, catching the wind, I felt my body easing into stillness. The noise from work felt far away. My glasses fogged up just a little with the air’s coolness, and I smiled—softly, to no one in particular.
There’s something about this spot. It doesn’t judge. It just allows.
🧠 The Medicine of Silence
From a medical point of view, I know what’s happening. My sympathetic system, usually on overdrive from the constant fight-flight signals of workplace toxicity, begins to back off. Here, parasympathetic activation kicks in—my heart rate slows, breathing becomes deeper, cortisol levels drop. No pharmaceutical intervention. Just a shift in geography. A shift in energy.
I believe that stress—especially the kind born from hostile environments—is more dangerous than we admit. It rewires you. It shrinks your joy response. And over time, it shows up in the body—gastritis, hypertension, even immune suppression. I see it in others. I feel it in myself.
But here, I begin to unfeel it.
🎵 One String. One Note. One Voice.
I leaned over, picked up my ektara. Its single string is enough. One note, one vibration—that’s all it takes to change an inner rhythm. I strummed gently, letting it hum against the gentle afternoon breeze.
The sound was earthy. Pure. No scales. No accompaniment. Just that one vibrating note against the vastness of green.
And I started with Bangla folk songs close to my heart—amar haath bandhibi, paa bandhibi, mon bandhibi kamone... The ektara strummed steady, one note circling like prayer beads, and my voice, initially tired but true, swirled gently around the tune. The breeze carried it softly, mixing with the rustle of leaves and the low murmur of distant tea workers, plucking under the sky. Somewhere between those drifting sounds and the rise and fall of melody, I could feel the pressure—the toxic load of workplace chaos—slowly untangling, breaking apart, and dissolving into the air like steam from a hot cup of chai.
Later, I connected my Bluetooth speaker to my mobile and played the tanpura in D major scale, resting in the lower octave. The soft drone settled into the air, and soon, its gentle hum blended with my own voice. At first, I was humming an old bhajan, something familiar and comforting. But gradually, the words faded. I closed my eyes. There was no rhythm, no tune—just breath, just sound. The breeze changed direction, as if guiding my tone, and I found myself humming freely, wordlessly, resonating a deep, slow 🕉️ from somewhere deep inside. It was as if the wind, the tanpura, and I were all part of the same note. It felt deeply calming, almost medicinal in its silence.
I was singing out into the open, no one to impress, no one to correct. No one to judge.
This was more than music. This was resonance therapy. My breath found a pattern. My body swayed a little. I was cleansing myself in a way that no hospital ward ever taught.
🕉️ The Spirit Within and Around
Spiritually, this space feels like a living temple. The trees, the mist, the distant hills—they all feel like part of something higher. Something that listens without interruption. Something that receives without judging.
Out here, I remember that I am more than my workplace designation. I am more than my anxieties. More than what they think of me. More than the burnout. More than the tension I carry in my trapezius muscles.
I am simply presence. Breath. Vibration. Life in its simplest, truest frequency.
🌄 After the Song
By the time the sky began to turn lavender, I had already lost track of how long I’d been here. My stress felt smaller—like a cloud heaviness was lifted off from my heart.
I didn’t find answers. I didn’t need to. What I found was peace. And in that tranquility, I found myself again.
✍️ Om Shanti 🙏🏽
If anyone were to ask how I manage the toxicity of work, I wouldn’t offer advice. I’d offer a key. A reminder:
Take the turn.
Find your gabion wall.
Bring your music.
Give your nerves the rest they deserve.
Let your soul rise.
Because sometimes, healing doesn't happen in hospitals. Sometimes, it happens in the hush and solitude of nature, with one string, and one quiet heart.