Daring to live

This is an extract from Theodore Roosevelt’s speech. And it touches me greatly. It gives me a place to stand when I fail. When I’m weak and uncomfortable in front of people whom I fear would judge me. And this is being vulnerable. As Brene Brown says “Vulnerability is not knowing victory or defeat, it’s understanding the necessity of both, its engaging. It’s being all in”. 

The risk of being judged, the risk of failing is what I make a choice to take.  Not to wait until I’m perfect. I’ll never be perfect. So I don’t want to waste my time waiting to be perfect which can never happen in human experience. I’m walking into the arena of talking to my loved ones on difficult conversations, connecting to people everywhere however uncomfortable it is, instead of sitting on the sidelines and giving advice. 

I’m daring to be judged and fail. At least I’m in the arena. Are you willing? A daring morning 😃

Letting go to live

There was this man who went along with a group to climb the Everest. An avalanche separated him from the group and he was left alone in between from where he had to dissent to reach to safety. At that moment he said “Oh God, help me” and as a miracle he saw a rope which he could use and started to climb down using the rope. He was so afraid that he didn’t want to see down at all. 

It was getting dark and at one stage he couldn’t see anything and again he shouted “Oh God, help me”. Then a voice said “My son, leave the rope and you’ll be safe”. But the man said “The rope is the only thing that’s saving me now. I’ll fall and die if I leave the rope”. Then God said “Trust me son, leave the rope and you’ll be safe”. But the man didn’t listen and he kept holding on to the rope the whole night and died on the rope due to the extreme cold condition. In the morning when seen, the distance between him and the ground was 2 feet. He just had to trust. 

This is how we too live without trust, not letting go. Holding on to the beliefs that we thing are right, holding on to the house that we are emotionally attached to, holding on to how right we are, holding on to money, holding on to wanting success, holding on to so many things that we don’t need at all and if let gone, will make us lighter and free. How long do you want to hold on to that and die?  Let go. 

A light morning 😊

Adult Children

Being a life coach, I get to speak to a lot of people of different age groups. Young children (actually children) and also Adult children(like you and me😃).

Speaking to young children I’ve heard them say “my parents say whatever they say for my good and they are right” even when the parents have rebuked them saying “you are dumb” or “you can’t even do this much?” Or “so silly of you”  or any small criticising remark reaches as a truth to the child. Even if it’s a joke, the child takes it seriously. This is because they love you to the core. And whatever comes out of your mouth is etched in their minds. They just can’t stop loving you. But because they feel that “I’m not good enough to please my parents who are doing so much for me”, they stop loving themselves.

This is what happened to you too when you were a child and that inner child keeps still asking for that love and acceptance from the Adult you. Notice, you may be following the same parenting style of your parents if you liked it or against it if you disliked it. That doesn’t work. Your children are different from the way you were. You also need to learn by trial and error. And they too need to make mistakes and learn. Allow them to learn and you too learn with them.

A learning morning to you 😃

Love is me

And believe me, becoming love is one of the profound journey that I’m enjoying being in. Of course like anyone else, I started to find that ‘one’ who is my love. When that one didn’t want to be the ‘one’, I started to turn my attention to the ‘one’ who is always with me and never leaves.

Yes, that’s me myself. I’m the ‘one’ that I’ve been searching. And when I started to constitute myself as ‘Love’, I started to discover that I can just be someone who can love and is lovable. Instead of focusing on one kind of love, I started to see many other kinds of love that I never saw before.

And now I see abundance of people around me who love me for who I am. And I’m so moved with how I see my parents and friends now that at times I regret being so myopic about finding the one.

And now I don’t need to find the one. I am the one. 😊

Blind truth or life??

I agree everyone has the freedom to believe in whatever truth they want to believe. But have you stopped and asked yourself if that truth is serving you in taking your life forward or is that truth being a barrier for you? If past experiences are the basis for the present truth that you believe, then how is it ever possible to create a whole new future for yourself? Experiences from the past should always and only be the basis for new questions. And always the treasure should be in the question, not in the answer. 

And the question would be “What do you think?”. And look at the present circumstance and ask if the truth from the past experience helps you overcome the present issue or would it aggravate it. If it helps then follow that. But if it is aggravating and creating new complications, then relook and discard the truth and talk to someone to discover new truths. 

To just share an instance from my life, when I had to decide on divorcing, which I didn’t want to and held on to the relationship for 5 years, my truth from the past that didn’t allow to set him free was that “Divorce is bad. And that means I’ll be looked down upon by the society”. And after 5 years I woke up to this truth and saw that truth was not serving me in my present situation. My spouse didn’t want me in his life and it just didn’t work to pursue him. It took away my peace of mind and I was not living too. Then I had to bring in a new truth in place which I did with support from my counsellor. I discovered a new truth that “if I love someone, the best gift I can give is freedom”. That set me free too. 

That gave me a solution and a new future to live into. So you have an opportunity to experience a new life and new living and a new yourself.  

Have fun in living 😃 and discovering new truths.

Learn to let go

I have not come across a human being who doesn’t have regrets and resentments. They are just there in our environment and we are passing them on to our children just like we are passing on pollution. Would you  want your child to loose out on a wonderful future just because of this resentments and regrets that you are harbouring? If you are wondering, does your resentment have so much power to kill your child’s future, the answer is YES. 

I’ve seen many children impacted so badly by the resentment and regrets of their parents. And the child expresses anguish and helplessness and doesn’t know how they are responsible. They have ended up blaming themselves for their parents resentments and so stop believing in themselves. And a child who doesn’t believe in self doesn’t get to create a happy future. Do you want to leave such a legacy for your children?

So my dear friends, let’s learn to let go of our resentments and regrets of our life. Be it a dream that you couldn’t fulfil, or a shameful experience or someone molested or a angry parent or being beaten or not being cared for or any unwanted experience of your life. Let go such that we can give our children a healthy environment to nurture their dreams. 

Write down all your regrets and resentments and acknowledge them with love and release them, giving them a loving cremation by burning them. 

Let’s make this world a healthy place to grow and evolve.

Free to be free

Every year this day, we automatically celebrate Independence Day. The day that we got freedom from the British whom we see as foreign people. And collectively we call ourselves Indians. Right? And a Gandhi, a Bhagat Singh or a Subhash Chandra Bose stood to get that freedom. And today we are living on the fruits of that freedom. However, to think of it, do we really have freedom? As a country, or as a family or as an individual?

Freedom of expression, freedom to be happy, freedom to be sad, freedom to love, freedom to share, freedom from fear, freedom to choose, freedom to listen, etc., Think on a personal level. Do you have the above without being stopped by the conditioning you’ve gone through? Can you think of fulfilling your dreams without bothering how the society will think of it? Will you give freedom to your child without thinking about pleasing your relatives or neighbourhood? Would you freely shout out your frustration in the middle of your college get-together without being  gripped by the chains of shame or need to look good?

As per dictionary, Freedom is ‘the state of not being held prisoner or controlled by somebody else’. But aren’t we all controlled by the standards of how we should or shouldn’t be dictated by the coconut or culture or how others think?

So If we can’t be free to do the above, we haven’t attained freedom. Freedom from the need to please others, freedom from past sufferings and embarrassments, freedom to love your spouse without doubting, freedom to allow your children to fly without fear, freedom to trust your friends and freedom to have compassion for all fellow humans on the streets.

So this Independence Day, let’s work on to practice ‘Free to be and Free to act’ and create freedom in and around ourselves. Let’s discover the world of freedom together 😃

Our resistance to life

We humans have a weird but a beautiful mechanism called the brain which through its neural network forms the mind that we experience. We have fixed ways of thinking due to the fixed neural pathways that are formed. And to change that needs extra effort and practice (conscious) which goes against the existing pathway. Hence the resistance.

But resistance takes away more energy and wastes time. If we need to grow, then we need to let go of the resistance and learn to live with changes (uncertain) that happen in and around us.

So when a loved one leaves, more than they leaving, what hurts is the unsaid communications we had between us. The promises that were broken leave us incomplete and not wanting to trust again.

Or when the behaviour of your child changes, what bothers more is not the change, but the need for you to change yourself to deal with your child effectively.

So change shows our own insufficiency which we don’t like to see. Until we can’t be at home with our imperfections, we can’t stop resisting. And that delays our growth in life. Choice is yours. 

Point of View

I’ve been knowing this since a decade. But knowing this has made not much of a difference. It just added to the knowledge I know.

It was only when I started to respect my parents views and opinions that I started to see this. And listening to and considering others view doesn’t mean that we need to agree or do as that. It only means that their view is also valid as much as ours. Now, I can respect my parents and my near ones views and learn from that. That’s expanded my understanding of life.

Even my partner who’s left without closure may be right. I can now have compassion for him. Maybe he sees me as a threat to his already created life? It’s not very easy to consider this. But really ave me freedom and peace of mind when I could start to see it from his point of view.

So start to listen and consider others views also as valid.

Enjoy the long weekend listening to your loved ones. 😃🙏

Silent observation

Since Last week I’ve been practising observing my thoughts, feelings and my body sensation. And I’m observing how much of my anger I’ve been harbouring about others in the name of ‘I should accept others as they are and not judge them’. So even though I observe my judgement and I feel angry, I’ll discount that and make it wrong. I’ll say to myself ‘it’s wrong to judge and be angry, so let’s accept’. Now I’m observing that, this is leaving me more angry inside. And I also have a heavy burning feeling in my chest.

So since a week, I’m acknowledging these judgements and the associated anger without saying to myself that it’s wrong. Just the way it is. And being ok to have those judgements. In fact I’m saying ‘Hi’ to that judgement 😃. And saying that I’m sorry for not noticing u properly till now. And I feel free.

Don’t you also feel sad or upset when you are not noticed and acknowledged? And you’ll do more of what you are doing to somehow be noticed. Right? That’s how our so called negative emotions are also. So learn to notice and say Hi to them without any hard feelings.

An observing day to you 🙏😊

Love to suffer

I saw this need for suffering and resistance to heal in many people around me. The pain or suffering gives them a purpose to live. To the outside world they’ll say they want freedom from that pain but internally they’ll find reasons why they can’t come out. Till now I thought I was open to healing and I’m not in this bracket. 

But today I’m face to face with the truth that I’m no different. I may have come out of many tragedies and sufferings in life. But all that was to prove to myself and the world that I’m strong and capable whereas inside me I feel the opposite. 

Some days back I had written about my choice to love my partner irrespective of he moving away. And I was proud of myself. But today I’m realising that all that was a lie and just a feel good factor. Within me, I want to suffer in the pain of being unloved inspite of loving him. And I saw that I’m thriving in this suffering blaming him in my mind and feeling like a victim. But outward I’m telling myself “See I’m so powerfully handling myself and still loving him”. So many lies I’ve been feeding myself with that I never saw the truth that I actually am angry on him and no love left. 

Yes, I’m seeing that I’m just protecting my image of love to myself and others. Today, I’m dropping my facade and accepting my feeling of anger and victim hood just the way it is. Nothing right or wrong about it. 

I’m feeling free as I’m writing this. It took a lot of courage for me to put this in this blog opening my ugly side to the people I know. Thank you for reading. 

Resistance causes persistence

Notice that whatever you don’t want is what you get most of the times. Simply said ‘Whatever you resist, will persist’. So look at your life and start to notice what all you resist. Traffic, scolding parent, nagging spouse, or rebellious child, etc...... how much ever you resist, you notice they never change.

I notice I resist the laziness my son shows and he continues being that way. I don’t like he being clumsy and distracted. And my dislike seems to increase that behaviour in him. Is my dislike (resistance) causing him being that way? Maybe !!!!!

And so, the more you’ll resist, the more they’ll be that way. Would you want to Stop resisting and have peace and freedom in your life? Choice is yours.

A peaceful day 😊

Relationships and Life

Relationships, as we understand, comes from the relatedness we share with anything. It could be a living being, a thing or an abstract. We focus so much on our relationship with other human beings only that we don’t realise how our relationship with other abstracts like time, past, present, integrity, gravity, language, etc.... is impacting us.

Many of your challenges will get resolved when you get this. My relationship with money used to be that “too much money corrupts mind”, and so “so should have only enough money to survive” and so that’s how I lived.  I would have money but only that much money where I don’t need to struggle. I never would have abundance since that would take away my peace of mind.

So because of these conversations, money occurred like a necessary evil to me. And hence money never found itself comfortable with me 😊. Then I realised that these conversations (which are not real) about money affected the flow of money into my life. I could give up those conversations and create freedom with money. That started to help me take actions around finance. where from sufficiency, I could reach having abundance around money.

Start looking at your relationship with each one of these. It may give you the much awaited answers to your life. To start with ask what’s your relationship with money, with time, with now???? A present morning 😊

Me and my silence

About a decade ago, I had a family with 2 children and an intelligent man as my spouse. Also both of us had jobs(according to our qualification) that paid us well. As per the standard of the society, this is a normal happy life. Right? And I had that. But I was still irritated, angry, unsatisfied and felt unloved. 

Then came the biggest blow of my life. The event that turned my life’s track. The death of my daughter and in laws in an accident. This event had the power to cut me away from life or awaken me to life. The choice was to me made by me. That’s when my journey to discovering who I am started. Yes, I chose to wake up to life. In that process, another blow was waiting in the corner for me. My spouse wanting divorce from me. Even there I had a choice to become a victim or have the power to give him(and myself) freedom. I chose the latter. 

I also chose to quit the well paying corporate job to work with adults and children to enable them to discover themselves. 

And every choice I made was the result of the silence within. The silence where conversation with self became possible. Where I could meet myself. 

Today I have myself and my son and I’m a life educator. According to the standards of the society, this may be an average sad life. But I’m so peaceful, happy, content and satisfied. 

So for self, success and silence (within) go hand in hand. And my life is for my sake. Not to look good to the society. Dow whom do you want to make choices? 

A week full of choices 😊

Succeed to fail

We are all so wired to success as a high paying job, a house and a car and a happy(smiling) family. But people who have reached here know that this is not success for them and doesn’t make them happy. So then what’s success actually? Thats different for each of us. Just listening to people is success for me, teaching to children may be success for another, baking a cake may be success, just having time for self may be success for someone. Success need not be big things. So are you interested to know what’s success for you? Then ask yourself.

But notice where you search for the answer. You search your memory where knowledge about success is stored. But that was told to you by the society or your parents or your friends or due to peer pressure. “It Is a very competitive world”, “we have to be updated with recent news”, “Money and position are the measures of success”. From where did we get all this that you are so gripped by these? We even facilitate only those who produce results and not the ones who think differently or those who take risk and fail. And we still forward messages telling others to take risk and think differently 😃. So where are you looking for the answer to what’s success? Discover. 

 A discovering morning😃

Your mind and You

This is so easy to say right? It’s like telling a fish to conquer water or telling a wild animal to conquer the forest it lives in. And that looks absurd. How can a fish conquer water? Does the fish even know water is separate from it? I don’t know. Should ask the fish right??😃

Likewise, Are you different from your mind or are you your mind? Are you controlling your mind or is your mind controlling you? Tough questions right? When I started to just enquire and look, I heard many voices in my head conflicting each other or supporting each other. When I looked further I heard two voices prominently. My mind (conditioned) and one more voice. Let’s name it my conscious. Ok? Then I started the practise of moment by moment noticing what my mind was thinking. I called it the chattering of my mind. Then I saw whatever my mind was saying, I (my conscious) started to question from where it’s coming(source of that thought) and what emotion I am feeling with that thought. If the feeling was empowering, then I would listen to that, else discard it. I also started to notice that it became difficult when in a dilemma, I would either resist my mind or submit to my mind. I thought submitting was acceptance. Recently I discovered that was just compromising. 

Regarding what’s acceptance, I’m still discovering. Will share later. 

How about u and I starting to notice those voices? Maybe you can then make them your friends? 

A noticing day 😃

You and conditioning

Continuing from what I posted yesterday about our belief regarding happiness and sadness, I see that, every other thought that I have is not my thought at all. It’s something being told to me since my birth. So every single thought that I have is told to me. It’s not me. But I defend these thoughts as if they are mine and while defending, I miss on actual life happening in front of me. I miss on relationships because I focus on defending and fighting for my thoughts. How absurd isn’t it?

So It’s our beliefs that create the reality for us. These beliefs take the form of superstitions that control our life’s. The more you say it’s not a superstition, it continues to be a superstition and controls your life. The moment you accept it as a superstition, then it no longer is a superstition and it’s grip on you loosens. That’s when you win and can create a new reality devoid of the belief. Start to recognise beliefs as beliefs and not reality for you to see new realities that you want.

And once you can get that those beliefs and thoughts are not yours, you can stop fighting for them and start to value relationships more than those thoughts and beliefs.

A real morning 😊

Happy to be sad

I’ve learnt to value my fear, my insecurities, my anger and my weaknesses. Because it’s by valuing and facing these and going beyond, that I could see life, love and aliveness. So friends, don’t shun them or escape them or try to get rid of them. Love them too, for they are the bridge to what you are looking for.

And crossing that bridge of insecurities requires you to face them, acknowledge them and love them the way they are. And when you do that, even the so called negative emotion will stop troubling you. It’s like inviting yourself to be happy when you are sad. Weird right? I discovered this when I realised that I can be sad because I know what happiness is. Means I’ve been happy many times. Then why not experience sadness that way only and be grateful to life. So let’s learn to be happy to be sad. That’s our humanity right? (Maybe That’s what we call as crying to your hearts content).

So You are perfect the way you are. Even with flaws. By the way, who labelled them as flaws?? Ask yourself this. And once you get the answer, take a walk with your flaws and chill.

A chill morning 😃 (it’s very chilly and cold outside too)

Re-membering self

I’ve heard youngsters saying to parents out of irritation “please let me be myself”. And they get so pissed off when you tell them what to do. This is a place for that teenager to discover herself/himself. You and I probably did not have this courage with our society. And so we became a product of everyone including ourselves. But the real you is somewhere down in the basement of your conscious and so have forgotten that. Give yourself that time to re-member (becoming a member of yourself again) and enjoy with that you all over again.

So Re-member. You and I were born as an empty slate. Then the family, society and relatives influenced our mind and programmed us to believe what they believed. And they thought what they believed is the truth. Now you think that what you believe is truth. “Finding yourself”, is to be informed by the beliefs but know that you are not those beliefs and to uncollapse yourself from the programming and conditioning that you’ve gone through. That’s re-membering.  That requires willingness. Are you willing to re-member yourself with yourself?

A willing morning 😃

who am I?

We all preach this to each other. But when it comes to loosing something, I’ve noticed I become panicky and don’t trust this. But I’m clear that whatever I’m entitled to, will anyways come to me and whatever is not for me will eventually leave me. Gaining and loosing is an integral part of life. It’s time to accept this wholeheartedly.

Knowing this is not making much of a difference to me right now. I’m still sad as my partner is behaving like a stranger with me. It hurts. I’m still afraid of whether I’ll get him back or not. So what if he doesn’t come back? Asks my mind and I say nothing will happen.  I’m having this dialogue with my mind. And at one point I accept that what is so is that, right now he’s not accessible. Tomorrow is another day and it’s uncertain. Anything is possible. I have no control over it. All I can control is who I am being on the face of this situation. That’s my word to myself. I’m love and compassion and adventurous. So here I am loving him as before. 😃

An accepting morning 😊

Fact or fiction?

More than often, we tend to collapse our feelings with the actual fact and tweak it to make it the way we want to think about it. And then we add some thoughts from our past to make it more dramatic. As a result the fact or ‘whatever happened’ doesn’t remain just as that. It becomes something different with our feelings and past thoughts added. And the drama starts in our own mind and in reality. Wow. A great recipe to complicate our life’s, right??😃.

For example, when my son said that he didn’t want to go to school, I got angry and anxious, not on what he said. But the meaning I put to what he said. And the meaning I put was, that maybe he’s acting like this because I didn’t give him enough time and I’m an incapable mother. Guilt also came up. I started blaming myself and the drama started in my mind. For some time I indulged in that drama. After some time I asked myself is this what my son meant or I’m only making up that meaning. The best way was to ask him and I did ask. And the answer was so simple and nothing to do with me being a mother. He was happy with me but unhappy with something happening in school which when we spoke, we resolved. So simple right?

So Just separate the fact from your feelings and thoughts and you’ll make your life simple.

A simple morning 😊

Trusting love

In my last blog I shared how I’m learning to love just to love irrespective of other person receiving it or reciprocating to it. Today I’m seeing what may stop the other person from receiving my love. One way to look at is that they are not understanding my language of love. They may not be able to trust that someone can love without expecting too. Start to see that we have stopped trusting completely. If someone does something for us, we suspect that they have an agenda.

 And if someone is nice to you, you can’t take it on face value many times. And if a close family member scolds you, you get angry rather than getting their love. It’s because they love you that they scold you when they fear something is not working with you. So the language of love is different for different people.

And so when people in your life love you in a language you don’t understand. For ex., mother scolding you is her love, father stops you out of love , husband or wife preaches out of concern...... But We end up seeing the tone and words used rather seeing the love behind that. Let’s start to discover the love behind everything with our loved ones and learning to trust when anyone speaks lovingly to us.

A trusting day to you 😊

Love just to love

So no matter how fully equipped you are in life, there are things that make us realise that we are still not fully prepared for those uncertainties in life that can take us off guard.

Right now in my life, I love someone very dearly and it was going very well when suddenly he didn’t want me anymore in his life. However strong I claim I am or being a counsellor I know how to handle such situations, right now I’m vulnerable and I’m happy to be so since I’m human and I don’t need to be strong and happy always. Also I don’t need to have all answers too.

So I have questions. 😃. Like, should my loving him depend on whether he loves me on not? Or should I love him only if he behaves in a particular way? Does he not wanting me means there is something wrong in me? Or How can he behave this way? Or Is he worthy of my love?

Oh god..... questions are valid, but is it a must that I need to find answers? I’ve realised that having questions is enough. Answers not required. And I can still make a choice. A choice to be someone I love to be. To love him irrespective of how he is or how he behaves. If he doesn’t receive my love, he’s the looser isn’t it? I still get to love him and I’m at peace. So I’m right now there in that space of love and compassion for him.

I chose to share my life here so that you may find something for your life. If so do share with me.

A compassionate day to you 

Integrity

“Without integrity nothing works”. 

Just like a house cannot and I repeat cannot be constructed without a foundation, life will not work without integrity. Integrity is the foundation of a life that works. I’m not saying you cannot live your life without integrity. You will live, but you will not live the way you want. There will be no workability in your life. 

Just like gravity is a must to have a workable physical condition on this earth to live, integrity is critical to create a condition of workability in our life’s. 

The basic level of having integrity in our life is to honour and respect our own word or promises to our own self and others. Simple things u can start with are,

Do I go for morning walks as I promised myself previous night?

Am I eating healthy as I promised or am I getting tempted?

Am I honouring my word to my child to spend time with him/her?

Did I call back my spouse as I promised or did I think she/he will understand?

Etc, etc ...............

How about spending this week becoming aware of this and acknowledging your broken promises to people in your life and to yourself??

A week of workability to all 👍

My morning 🙃

Today I woke up sad ☹️ feeling not wanted and unloved. I’m filled with doubting my own capabilities. Initially (at 5.15 am) I didn’t want to go for my walk. One voice in my head told me let’s not go today since I’m feeling low. Then another voice in my head said, ‘more the reason that you should go for walk so that you’ll feel fresh’. So now I was in two minds and I had to make a choice. Then I remembered my promise to myself that I’ll go walking everyday. I chose to honour that word and promise and went out for walk.

Even though I’m still not as excited to start the day, I’m glad I didn’t give in to my reasons and I honoured my word. At least that guilt didn’t get added. Also now I’m able to see that ‘I’m unwanted and unloved’ is all my own mind telling me and that’s not true. Even doubting myself is my own thoughts that if allowed can grip me for a long time.

Now, I choose to look forward for life standing in the present moment and experiencing the joy (also the sadness) right now.

A pleasant and a present day to you 😃🙃

Life and You

What a wonderful expression of word, commitment and choice. I completely connect to this poem.  Taken from the collection of poems by Rupi Kaur, I wanted to share this with you all. I’m sure all of you will connect to this in your own way. 

When it comes to listening to life, I remember the arrogance that I was 10 years back refusing to let go of my righteousness and then life gave me a blow. An accident in which I lost my daughter and in laws. Then I woke up to life and started listening and learnt what’s being responsible. I learnt how my use of language impacts my life and living. And I started to speak responsibly with myself and others. 

Finally when I had to raise my son single handedly, I learnt the power of choosing. Choosing life the way it is and loving it that way as it is. I found peace and joy. But before that struggle I did. A long struggle that gave me the strength to stand the other blows of life. 

Do share what comes up for you as you read this poem. Have a thoughtful day. 

Failed success

Whenever I ask myself or others as to why they don’t take risk in life, I’ve heard only one reason. That is fear of failure. Everyone including me feel I can’t handle failure and no one likes to fail. We all know this. Right? And we all feel that, that’s the reason we are not successful the way we want. But is this really how it is? Consider for a moment that it’s not failure you and I are fearful of. It’s Success that you and I are fearful of. What? Really? 

Yes. You and I are fearful and afraid of being successful. Because if that happens, then you will see your own power and capacity which you are afraid to see. And once that happens, then you need to sustain that and it needs effort, which is uncomfortable. 

So better be where I am and tell myself that I’m afraid to fail. That’s very easy and I see myself doing that every moment. I’m yet to discover a tangent to break off from that loop. If you have discovered, please post here. 

A successful day to you 😃

My feedback to self 😉

I don’t know what to share today. I’m thinking I should share something appropriate or something that others will like. If what I post is not good, then what will people think of me? So I’m wondering how my life is controlled by what others think even though they don’t say anything. What they think about me takes the centre stage in my decision making. How absurd right? And the most funniest is that what others may be thinking is also my thinking. Oh god!!!! This is stressing me out. Can’t I only think of what I mean to myself and what I think? I can. And that needs effort and practice.

And if every human beings starts to think for themselves, wouldn’t the world be a more authentic place to live in? Wouldn’t we stop looking good for others? Wouldn’t that reduce stress in us and make us happier?

I’m starting that practice. Would you join me in this?

Enjoy the weekend that’s in front of you and feel blessed. 

Intention

We all have millions of thoughts that run in our minds every minute but very few we become aware of. In those that we become aware of, some are important for us which we think more number of times. And very few become our priorities.

 They could be thoughts that take us to the future or that push us back to the past. The ones that push us to the past will either make us worry and suffer (if it’s a past failure) or take us on an ego trip (if it’s a past success). 

 The ones that take us to the future become what we call as goals or intention or dreams. When you start to articulate them in language and share with people, then intention starts it’s journey towards reality. And when action is added, it actually manifests in the physical reality. 

And you have a choice to choose which thought you want to choose to give importance to. That which takes you back to the past or that which pulls you into the future. 

Happy choosing 😉

Happy to be sad 😃

I was watching the movie ‘Inside Out’ yesterday and realised the importance of both joy and sadness. Joy has no value if sadness is not experienced. Being together with someone has no value if you don’t know what’s it to be alone. Each state that we experience has its own beauty to it. That’s what makes life beautiful. But why is it that we suffer when we are sad or alone? It’s not because of sadness or being alone, it’s because of what we tell to ourselves about ourself and others that makes us suffer. Sentences like ‘I am not worthy’, ‘I’m incapable’ or ‘No body loves me’ make us suffer. Even though  none of this is true, it occurs so real to us when we are sad. 

So what we need to give up are those conversations. Then even being sad would be fine for you. At least I’ve started to be ‘happy to be sad’ 😃. Isn’t that amazing? 

A happy day to you all

Humility

The Pandavas or the five senses go through the struggle in the forest or go through the trials and tribulations of life, and then develop the compassion, strength and the need for unity to win the ultimate battle. The Kauravas are indulged in their wilderness of physical and mental realm. And hence have no learning of themselves. They think that they are tricking the Pandavas, but the truth was they were tricking themselves. Shakuni’s actual intention is to destroy Kauravas right? If you relate your ego to Shakuni, whom is it destroying? Being with you it’s destroying you. Dhritarashtra,  your desires push you to destruction of self. Bheeshma, Drona or Karna, your conscious is helpless even though they know you are on the wrong track unaware of the reality.

So wake up and have a straight talk with your Shakuni to shut up. Do give a listening to the Bheeshma in you. And stop expecting only happy and desirable situations to happen. Welcome and embrace breakdowns too in your life. There’s lot of learning that’ll humble you and teach you humanity and humility.

Have a day full of humility. 😃😇

Forgiving

In my experience, this doesn’t work. Just like being patient for another fosters expectations, forgiving another for the fear of loosing them also fosters expectations. It hurts more when you forgive another just because you may loose them if you don’t. And that’s highly inauthentic. 

Now forgiving someone who has not valued me is an act done for my own peace of mind. If I carry the resentment, then it’ll burn me only. The other person will not even get to know what’s happening with me. So holding on to the anger or hurt or resentment on the other person will only stop me from being alive and happy. So it’s self harm. And it’s absurd to harm myself for someone else’s behaviour. 

So I’m taking on to forgive everyone around me for my own peace of mind. That gives me power. What would u choose to do my dear friend?

A peaceful day to you 😃

Patience as a virtue

However, for whom do I choose to understand is also critical. If I choose to understand for the other person, then there also comes an expectation that the other person also should understand at other times. But when I understand the other for myself (my peace of mind), then I don’t get into the loop of expectations. Over a period of time and events in my life, I’ve realised that my only job here is to keep myself happy and joyous and also learn, glean and garner virtues that help me be that on the face of others behaving how they want. So irrespective of how my loved and others behave, I choose to be patient because it helps me learn. Not the other way around.

Patience is a virtue that helps u. It may help others around you as a byproduct. That’s a bonus.

A day full of patience to you 😊

Struggle v/s suffer

I forget the above whenever I face a breakdown or a situation which saddens me. How much ever I want to think of the above, I end up struggling. But I don’t suffer. Yes, struggle is different from suffering. I’ve discovered that struggle gives me the strength to face the situation and learn what I need to. But suffering leaves me weak. It drains my energy whereas struggling gives me the energy and courage to think and act just like a caterpillar gathers strength to fly as a butterfly after the struggle of coming out of the pupa. Caterpillar struggles but doesn’t suffer. It’s a choice I make to make the struggle difficult for myself and suffer.

I choose to use that struggle to jump to my next journey. How about you? A strong morning 😃

Mystery or History??

So if you were the deer, where would you see? If you look for guidance from the past, then it’s depending on history. If you look into future, it will be a mystery. Now what then? Would you rely on history or mystery? I would look around. And first become clear with what’s so and my feeling about it. If I want to be afraid, I will be for sometime.  Then I would ask myself as to what would work in this situation. Fear would always be there. But it’ll not help now.  So what would take me through this situation? Looking around and finding a path to move and trusting myself of my choice would be my way out. If I walk a while on the path I chose and see that it’s a wrong path, I’ll come back and start again. 

Is this how we deal with situations? Or we just keep making things right or wrong, good or bad and worried. That’s takes away the power to make a choice and trust ourselves with that. So my friend, look at what works. Not what’s wrong or right. 

A working morning to you 😊

Gratitude

I always ask myself ‘Am I at home?’ And is my home worthy of living. My home could be my body or the abode that my body lives. I take care of both to bring integrity there and to be responsible. That’s the way I can show my gratitude to the privilege I’ve been bestowed with. I regularly clean my physical home and also my mental home. I go to the doctor when my body needs attention. This way I respect my body and take care of it. I eat quality food which nourishes my body. I exercise to keep my body in workable condition. Because health is a function of participation in life. Are you being responsible and grateful for all this? 

If not time to begin. 

A grateful morning 😃

Is love true??

This is such a wonderful question to ask which shifts my view from being a victim to being a learner. Many circumstances in my life I could shift by asking this question. Even now there’s a situation in my life that can make me feel sad and angry and spoil my days. My partner who loved me a lot suddenly is saying he doesn’t love me. This shattered me for a while. But then I asked the above question and started to see what am I supposed to learn. I’m seeing that I need to learn to love unconditionally irrespective of what my partner says or does. And still I being happy and joyous loving him. Is that possible? I’m slowly seeing that possible. I am able to love him more and love myself too. I’m amazed at the amount of love and compassion I have for him and myself. Today I feel privileged to be able to love this way. I thank my partner for teaching me this. Love him more for this. 

I know this seems crazy but it’s worth the life I live. I’m so grateful to life and to myself for giving me this learning. 

So start to see any circumstance around you this way. Life will uncomplicate itself. 

A learning morning to all 😃😃

Life is a conflict

Today I want to share with you how I’m experiencing life. How I’m experiencing joy, happiness, love, sadness, anger, everything equally. I felt guilt today morning because I didn’t make time to be with my son. So I spoke to him a while ago and asked him if he also felt sad. He said no. I didn’t know how to respond. Didn’t know whether to be sad or happy. Did I want him to miss me? I should be happy that he’s able to manage himself without me isn’t it? (He is 14 yrs). As  I am typing this I’m relieved.

I’m discovering how I want people to think the way I am thinking. Isn’t that absurd? But when actually somebody says something that I was thinking, I feel sad that I’m not the only one thinking that way. Oh god, aren’t we complicating our own thinking? Then how can we be peaceful when we are not ok with anything around us and within also? Any comments ?

Your answers are welcome. Want to know the diversity in thinking that we are.

A wondering morning 😃

Communication is key

On the journey of our growing up, we were taught what is right and wrong, good and bad behaviour. But very few adults told us why it is good or bad and right or wrong. And so we started to live by those rules blindly as if our life depends on it. And also teaching our children the same. But look again and answer for yourself  what, when, why, where and how of these rules. Then we can have our children reason it out and understand for themselves.

So it’s ok to be ok many a times. However, what we need to be careful about is how we are impacting our friends and family. So it’s perfectly fine to not live by the rules rather than forcefully doing them and feel stressed. However, it’s also necessary to be responsible how this act of ours is communicated to others. With what experience are the concerned people left is critical. So if you can communicate to them that you need your me time, apologise for the broken promise and reduce the damage leaving them complete, then that would create Love. Else the above behaviour would be construed as arrogance. So know the difference.

 A communicative morning 😃

To do or not to do!!!!

In continuation with what we saw yesterday, let’s look at the condition of restlessness that we are programmed into. That’s the condition of having to do something to feel worthy. A human being who doesn’t do much is branded lazy and good for nothing. So many of us fear that.

And so there was a time when I feared myself and would be so disappointed on myself if I spent my day not doing anything productive and would blame myself and feel guilty. All I got from this way of being was health upsets and anger. But then an accident and 6 months of rest changed all that and today I long to be with myself and look forward to do nothing sometimes and feel blessed. Do you also want to wait for some accident to happen or will you choose to wake up to yourself ???

Your morning 😃

Trusting the process of life

We learned to breath before we knew what life is. But we are least aware of that activity that keeps us alive. “Breathing” is that which gives us life. Are you even noticing that? Noticing is the least that we can do to respect that basic function that’s life. Isn’t noticing breathing easier than planning?

And Is it easier to plan or not to plan? In fact we need so much intelligence and thinking to plan whereas we need to do nothing not to plan. So shouldn’t it be easier not to plan?? But how come it’s the other way round for us? So strange. We all want to do nothing. But when there comes a time when all you have to do is nothing but trust the process of life, we can’t sit still.

Is it so difficult to just notice yourself breath and trust yourself??

A trusting morning 😊🤔

Right decision?

Life gives us circumstances where we have to make decisions which at that time is appropriate. Notice, that it’s only after we see the consequence of that decision that we brand it right or wrong. And we judge that consequence right and wrong based on what others say and think of us instead of trusting yourself. How absurd isn’t it?? And more absurd it is that we carry that decision all our life and keep creating our future based on that decision that we said was wrong 🤔😉.

Be compassionate my dear friends to yourself. Stop berating yourself for the decisions you’ve made.

A compassionate morning 😊

How can there be real love?

So aptly said by J Krishnamurthy. Couldn’t have been said better than this. 

After reading this, I’m looking at how I don’t love my mother or father or partner. I love the image of them. And that image is according to my perception and view which is given by my past. Wow, so then whom am I loving? Them or my image of them? And my image of them is again trapped in the past happenings of MY life. Oh god, it’s all about me, me, me. And when I don’t like something in my partner, that’s only something that I don’t like about my past. And so the 2 people in love is not me and my partner but me and my image of my partner which boils down to me and my past. So the love affair is between me and my past. Ufffff..... so what am I into???? 

What do I do now? Who do I be? I choose to be love allowing people to be the way they want to be. And learning to be with who they are and discovering myself in that. Don’t know if this will work. But worth trying. What say???😊

Are you responsible?

Have you noticed how trapped we are in our own small world? It’s like that frog in the well. And we thought ours was the only world. But now because of all the forwarded messages, we now know that there are other worlds like my parents world, my siblings world, my children’s world, etc... Did this knowledge help you to experience their experience and connect to them? We still hurt them and not take responsibility for that right? So can we now wake up to translate this knowledge into experience by asking them how have we hurt them?? And take responsibility? A responsible morning 😃😊

Recipe called LOVE

All my life until now I’ve been searching for love as a thing or an ingredient missing in the recipe of my life. But it’s only recently that I discovered that love is the recipe itself. And it’s not something that is given or taken. It’s a way of being. And it starts with me. I am LOVE. 

Does a bird need lessons in flying? Or a fish needs to learn swimming? So when I got that I am LOVE, I don’t need to give or take love, I am love. I experienced it for myself, then towards others who love me and hate me alike. And that fulfils me. So now I am not the ingredient. I am the recipe and the dish. And I can feel that. 

You too are the recipe. So don’t go fishing for the missing ingredient anywhere. It’s you that’s LOVE. And allow your loved ones to feel that too.  Ready?

Do you know why we delay?

Finally I took action to open this blog and start sharing my thoughts on a larger scale. It’s a small beginning right? I’ve been thinking of doing this for as long as 2 years and only now it’s become possible. But I wonder why would I take 2 years to do something which takes 10 mins? It’s absurd right? But just look. You too would be thinking of doing somethings which you want to do but you don’t take action. Look at how long you’ve been just pushing doing it for some petty reasons. Share here some of those actions which you want to take but something is stopping you. Would love to know. 

What’s meant to be

We all speak about destiny that’s already written. I agree it’s written, but when is it written, and who writes it? It’s you yourself is what I affirm. It’s how you speak about your past and present that creates and writes the future. So watch the words you use to describe your present. Is it creating more of past in your future or creating a new future? A creating morning 😊

Power to create

So wish for the wish that you wish for and god is waiting to hear your wish and fulfil them. God must have created humans and given hI’m the faculty to think and create such that God can relax. Also maybe he wanted to check his creation for efficiency and effectiveness. So he left some chapters as “As you wish”. That’s called evolving in evolution. 

And so it’s now our turn to be Gods and be responsible for what we create, such that the future generation is proud of our creations. Glitches are ok, even they become wonderful creations. Many great inventions have happened by mistake. Isn’t it ?

You are worthy to wish for anything. And create by yourself. Go ahead and use your power.   😊👋