Friday, December 22, 2017

Adios 2017! Welcome 2018!

Image Source: Loi Pinel
Life is a long journey and each year is a milestone. So, we are almost past the milestone of 2017 and just about to hit the milestone of 2018. As we are ready to set foot into 2018, there are things I want to remember in 2018. I really want to mug up the list so I won’t keep forgetting and here goes the list:



Image Source: Pininterest
Give a little more credit to myself:
I have a problem of not giving myself credit enough for anything I ever do. To confess the problem is the first step towards fixing it. So yes, I have to agree that I need a little more of self worth and self appreciation. Whatever I do is always lesser for me than what someone else does (even if it's the very same thing or may be even actually lesser). So yes, I've got to change my scales. We all have seen that poster of a cat seeing itself as a lion in the mirror. My reasoning faculties have always contested that what good does it do to lose the sense of realism and seeing yourself as more than you actually are. But this year I make this conscious decision to be that very cat. After all, it is about believing that you are more than you appear to be; it is about believing in yourself. And come on, the world will not fall apart if I give myself a little more credit and a little more appreciation. If not me, who will?   





Image Source: Mother Nature Network
Stop blasting and start pouring:
I have a problem that I have a lot of aggression in me and I don't even know where it comes from. I have fire inside of me. It’s a tendency I have no control over. I get hysteric sometimes when things do not seem to be working and I lose all the calm and poise. And even when I am not hyper or rude or aggressive, sometimes people mistake me for being so. Sigh! I need some voice modulation! Sometimes, my intentions are like so benign but my tone of voice will not leave its headiness. I feel so envious of people who can make the bitter lashes sound like honey laces. I am just the opposite. I can make the pleasantries sound like harsh and corrosive. So this is what I have to work on. And this is one hell of a job for me to stop blasting and start pouring.



Image Source: Huffington Post
Knowing when to stop:
I am blind to fine lines. The fine line of respecting others's opinions and taking them as a sacrosanct gospel, the fine line of readjusting my priorities for someone and toppling the entire list upside down, the fine line of  the desire to maintain cordiality in relations and forgetting my own dignity in the desire to do so, the fine line of believing and foolhardy worshiping. I even forget the fine line of me being me and someone else being someone else. I mean I am not a magician who can fix things for people. I can try to help but I cannot heal on someone else's behalf for them. It’s not my job to work on someone else. My job is to work on myself. I have learnt and I am learning and I will keep mastering the lesson of knowing when to stop in the incoming year.



Image Source: startupvitamins.com
Doing what I like and keeping it simple:
I have a hidden flare for making things sound more complicated than they really are. We all have heard of this I guess "log kya sochenge ye bhi tum hi sochoge to log kya sochenge?" And I am so one of those people who thinks on everyone's behalf. Why should I concern myself with all that burden of what he/she/they/you think about me or my life or my choices or my idiocies or my whatever? More than 90% of times we are not even a subject of people's thoughts while we are making ourselves the villains/clowns of their minds. And here people like me ask ourselves a hundred questions even before posting our thoughts online. So, the mantra has to change with the changing year. Keep it simple and do what I like to do.





Image Source: Sacompassion.net 
And lastly,
No Judging of my own-self and being kind to myself:
I cannot say it better than Marianne Williamson has said it already. And here is what she says,
"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?'
Actually, who are you not to be? 
You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. 
It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we subconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we’re liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."
We should never let our skewed judgments stop us from doing what we want to do. And this is what I want to remember in the coming year. The quote by Marianne Williamson that I shared above was shared by a college senior (whom I never knew personally) on a bulk mail years back saved long in my inbox and here is the beauty of it all: I don't know how big or small the impact may be. But the words do make an impact. I don't know how many of the people in that bulk list read the mail, I don't know how many thought it through and I don't know how many drew inspiration from it. But here I am who still remembers this quote and finds it a beautiful piece of inspiration. So, if I am not getting a lot many likes/comments/reposts on my written word, it doesn't matter. What matters is may be someone out there has drawn some inspiration from my words, and even if it is just one, it counts as the real impact. And this holds true not only for words but for every other material and immaterial contribution as well. 
So, the coming year shall be about less judgment and more kindness.





Thursday, December 7, 2017

*Self-Love*


Image Source: Huffington Post

Lately I was watching the movie Diana inspired from the life of Lady Diana. There’s a dialogue in the movie I instantly fell in love with. It was when Diana suffers a break-up with Dr. Hazrat Khan (A Pakistani Heart Surgeon) after trying her all to make it work. She lets herself be wallowed in misery and sorrow until she collects herself back and makes a decision to go on a trip with Dodi. It is at this point her confidant Sonia asks her if she is fine and if she is not making this decision out of her loneliness. The response of Diana is what struck a chord with me instantly. She says, “I don’t feel the need to be caught anymore; because, I am not falling anymore. I am flying..”

It must not be without a reason that love is always fallen into! A free fall with a faith that our beloved will catch us.
And when that beloved fails to catch us? …                                              
Well…It leads to heartache, pain, sorrow and misery…Does it not?
Would it not be amazing if we could love ourselves so much that we would be capable of flying?...So if no one is there to catch us in our fall, we’ll simply fly in the parachute of self-love…
So much we have been programmed to keep searching for love outside, we have actually forgotten to look within and nurture the self love which is the source of any other love.
I loved the way a strong idea is entangled in the subtlety of this simple thought. “I don’t feel the need to be caught anymore; because, I am not falling anymore. I am flying…

May all of us fly in self-love! <3