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 😃