Tag: lifelearnings

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Aware love

I recently was listening to a podcast about an author who has worked with prison inmates. It was beyond my understanding when the author said that he sees people despite their henious crimes. While he passionately voiced that they are good humans behind their criminal labels. His empathy and passion for helping them was beyond the understanding of my intellect. It took a second for me to understand that, it was an Aha! Moment . It took a little while for my brain to process that what people do is beyond who they are. We are not what we do but we are much bigger than that action. What we do is an action and that doesn’t define us. It is a mindblowing concept and I wish I had learnt that eons ago. I wonder how much humility one needs to be able to see that. This thought has been thawing in the back of my mind , thanks to Oprah. 

I clicked this blurred messy image amidst a stormy hail. I felt it explains how blurred my view was!

This morning I was learning the concept of aware love and that was what brought back gushing memories about the podcast. What is that you ask? Aware love is being aware of the person and loving them sans their actions. Seeing that someone’s action is not them but merely a choice they make. Being aware of that reality and loving anyways is unconditional love. An alien concept for many of us I assume as that means being non judge-mental. Seeing through a lens of compassion and yes! We are built to see others that ways apparently!

It was a light bulb moment and I felt the need to pen this down. I wish I was able to see this and understand this concept in the early years of my life then I wonder where I would be right now? That blog for another time.

A step further doesn’t this also mean not taking what others say or do personally, that means nothing is about us? That also means no one is controlling us but our own minds and belief systems? This concept is whooshing inside my head and going through every corner and picking up everything that comes in its way. 

Aware love also means being aware of ourselves and loving ourselves despite the mistakes we make right? It has to ideally begin there I would think. The ability to see ourselves with love despite the mistakes we have made is aware love. If we can start with ourselves it will soon become a second nature for us! 

This sounds too simple – If we are able to observe situations than judge them , we hit a home run .

While doing an exercise on self awareness I realized that my observations weren’t observations but judgements. My mind has been on auto pilot mode that it doesn’t even discern the difference between the two. Saying he/she was so rude to me which is a judgement vis a vis saying he/she said harsh things changes the way the story is written. When the theme of the story changes do does the ending isn’t it? Was this the really meaning of happy ending stories that I perhaps never understood because of the shallow romantic love displayed in movies?

I wish you unconditional love, aware love! I wish you happiness in life!

PS: I am writing after a long time so please forgive my rustiness

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The Italian Grandmama!

It was a bright sunny afternoon and I was on a walk with a friend. We didn’t want to go to a restaurant as we weren’t comfortable with all the pandemic scare around. We walked for miles and talked about everything under the sun. We finally reached a spot under the tree for final bye exchanges and to go to our respective destinations – our home.

Image courtesy – https://unsplash.com/@cristian_newman

While we were busy wrapping up I see a lady walking on the pavement and she is very old. She( I will call her Nonna from hereon) is walking straight for a moment and walks into us the next , feels dizzy and collapses on the sidewalk on her seat. All this happens in a matter of few seconds and I am in shock. I don’t know what to do and I look at my friend for help and she is equally perplexed. Nonna wasn’t hurt but she was dizzy, scared, confused and she wanted help to get back on her feet. I felt anxiety rising inside me, feeling so uncomfortable with what was happening right in front of me.

She looked into my eyes and I was feeling so helpless as she was very old and I was worried for her health and mine. I wasn’t sure what was the right thing to do, the cars stopped by to offer help, the girl from a shop close by came to offer water. Nonna kept trying to get up but just couldn’t even move and she again asked me for help to get up. She didn’t engage with anyone but me and I was so present to that and that worried me even more as I felt responsible for her. She didn’t want to be told to sit or rest and that irritated her visibly , I sensed she felt trapped by her body and us.

So many questions on my mind what if she collapses again and hurts herself , what if she is sick , what if something happens to her. Is it safe to help her etc. I then look at her face she has aged so gracefully and all the wrinkles on her face has so many stories to share, she knows what she wants and all she asked me is a little help. We lock eyes again and she tells me help! I stop ruminating, I stop listening to people around me, I don’t wait for the ambulance to reach something inside me decided to do what she wanted. I offered her my hand and she hung on to it with all that she had, she held my leg to climb up and stand. She stood up and said I want to go. I asked her to wait, the other girl offered her water, my friend found the ambulance but she walked away. Nonna said I don’t know what happened to me but she put on a straight face and started walking

The paramedics tried to talk to her she questioned who they were and responded stating I don’t need help. She refused to engage with them and she refused to soften her gaze , she was in fear but she didn’t show it for a second and walked away with all the energy she had. I stood there sighing relief, regaining my breath with a thousand thoughts swimming in my head wondering will she be ok. The paramedic confirmed he knew where she lived as he saw her just a while ago when she started her walk so he felt she will reach safely. He said we can’t help if she doesn’t want to be helped.

I don’t know who she is , I don’t know how she is but her face is in my prayers everyday. I hope Nonna is fine and safe, I hope she is living happily. I hope she doesn’t fall again in this unstable world! I hope I learn to be as strong and bold like her if I reach her age because what she did needed a different level of grit and commitment to self.

I wish you well my Italian Grandmama, Nonna..

The Window to life

A part of my home which I have never taken for granted- the window! It’s my window to the world. Now that I work from home I hover around the window all the time , my favorite place in my home is my window because it connects me to the world , to people outside it in a way I can never explain.

I have seen so many people so far but some stuck to my memory. Like the girls who happily danced on the street because they didn’t care and because they enjoyed each other’s company.

The lady who takes her smoke break and is in Nirvana the whole time in her drag, she forgets the world around her.

The lady whose spa is closed now because of Covid and is restlessly doing everything possible to ensure people walk in. Be it the poster or trimming the plants around her small spa keeping herself busy

The garbage truck man who comes in at the same time every singe day and completes his job effortlessly that I am left wondering it is so easy!

The service man who finished his assignment and decided to sit on the sidewalk and finish his lunch and he did that while he flipped through his phone

The couples who pass by occasionally holding hands, expressing love, clicking pictures because they are lost in one another

The humans who walks his/her dog, some are so much in love with their pet and some are so much in love with their 7 inch screen they hold

The homeless man who was relentlessly cussing and flashing his middle finger at every passer by, I thought he was so bold!

Night

The sun, moon , the clouds who pass by me every single day.. reminding me that this too shall pass!

So many more.. they keep me company though they are not with me. Is that why they say do good even when no one is seeing because someone is always seeing you? You never know who is watching you, so always put on your good shoes because you might be making someone’s day somewhere!!

How are you “feeling” today?

Source – Gottman institute

A question that had a template response in my head, and my standard response is I am feeling good. When a doctor asked how are you feeling? Utmost I would come up with I am feeling sick. Yes limited vocabulary syndrome( I just made that up but let’s assume that’s what it is called) is what I have struggled with all my life. I can write but I cannot talk. The past year has been an eye opener for me and I learned that good and bad are not necessarily feelings. Insecurity is not a feeling, feeling blamed is not a feeling and I was totally agape! These are mere interpretation of how we are feeling. We might be feeling sad or angry behind the facade of insecurity. The primary feeling behind anger is frustration/ fear and I never knew this, I promise!! What was this? Why didn’t I learn this all these years were the questions on my mind. Coming from a conservative family that didn’t believe in communicating feelings I didn’t know what that meant or felt. I mean that is most of Indian population I would assume. The word feeling had no meaning or purpose in my life. It was much later when I was asked how is that I can’t emote when I can write it struck me that I was stuck in a whirlpool for many years. Did you ask how didn’t I drown? Well I had drowned but didn’t even realize I did.

It took weeks to digest this fact and been months since I am trying to express how I am feeling from the bottom of my heart. Since all of us say good most times it wasn’t helpful for me to hone the skill as others never connected with me. I finally figured that it worked when I talked to a handful of them whom I either didn’t know or know too well because in these scenarios they are trying to know you 🙂 .

There is a tool that helped me with learning how to name my feelings and I wanted to share the same with you. Its called the feeling wheel because all of us deserve to express beyond the auto pilot “good”. Until we communicate the other won’t know- no rocket science but yet something we dabble with as humans, right? . It is so crucial to share what we experience inside of us which no one can magically understand( that was my expectation for years hence this line :D) . I hope this helps you. It’s ok to be behind in expressing because it’s better late than never. Incidentally today I am ok not being able to express because I am aware of it. It’s ok because I have accepted that and acknowledge it and am willing to learn more as day goes by.

Psychology says the moment we name a feeling it loses its power over us! Awareness is the first step. Don’t you agree?

Love and Light

There may be no tomorrow!

Image : unsplash kelly-sikkema

I woke up this morning to a plethora of messages on my phone. I didnt know what was happening and dug into all my messages to learn that my best friend from college is no more. I was numb and shocked, to be clear we were rarely in touch after college. We tried to meet and let the relationship flourish but life had other plans and we grew apart. In my defense I would say Life happened and we went our ways. 
After hearing the news of his death this morning I felt nothing changed and memories are all stored in our bodies. My heart is so heavy as I feel so sad that I was in my own world for so long. This jolts me into reality that life is so short, not even our next breath is guaranteed and I have been making fancy plans on how my future will be.

I have been living and trying to balance with one leg in the boat called now and another in the boat called tomorrow. Right now,I am left wondering what is life really? birth-life and death? Thats all?  I know we will all forget this happened some day but I hope this learning stays with me till the end of my life. Events have a power to change lives and I hope this news does that for everyone whose life he touched. Abhi was a happy go lucky, mischievous guy all our college life, so strong yet so fragile and I was his friend yet his mother in many facets. I feel sad that I couldn’t bid him a bye 😥


I feel I have lived my whole life in anticipation of a better tomorrow. I am so heart broken and am here to remain myself and tell you that life is short:

if you have that friend you haven’t spoken to ,say hello!

if there is someone who you have taken for granted tell them how much you love them,

if you have been living for others then start living for yourself

if you have been living in the next moment remember there may be none.

Live like there is no tomorrow because in reality there maybe none!

Thats what I have relearned this morning. 

Live Love Laugh

Bindu

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What I learnt in the past few weeks Courtesy -COVD19

The last few weeks have been stressful and it only gets worse by the day. Innumerable Whatsapp forwards, each publication chasing readership numbers and news channels wanting higher TRP. Media is making their own life interesting and ensuring ours is exactly the opposite- Fearful. Every day I would wake up and google for “Corona update” and then read all the news and feel fear bubbling inside me. Finally, I decided to put an end to this pandemic in my life, remove it from my head. I haven’t looked up the news in the last 48 hours and it feels so good.

I am not being ignorant, I have accepted that there is something tiny(in size) compared to us in the world capable of wiping us off the planet. I am aware that it can harm us and I also know what it has been doing and many channels already shared the future projections. I am certain I will get an update on my timeline when there is a breakthrough in the vaccination. For now, I am enjoying my time and these are my discoveries/learnings:

  • I am more in touch with family and friends, I feel the bonding which was missing for long. I think social distancing took people away physically but brought them closer in our hearts. These are times we should be thankful for technology no?
  • It is another reminder that life is short. One second we are all in Lala land and another there is a virus which can destroy us. So life is short irrespective of the coronavirus. If we don’t love ourselves and our loved ones now then we will never. 
  • Awareness that life is all about “change” deepened for me. It’s all about ups and downs, whichever direction we go in we have to return to the other way and in reality, nothing is permanent and it shall all change. The only reality is Change. 
  • I decided to make reading positive reinforcement books/articles a part of my daily life and I am enjoying the process. My current read is Be Here Now – Baba Ramdass
  • I discovered that my word now is “pause” something I haven’t dealt with elegantly all my life as I am in a rush to finish things. Now I decided to lose the rate race and win the moment!
  • I started appreciating life and myself more. 

I am learning more and enjoying the pause even though at times this situation is unbearable, I remind myself this too shall pass. I hope and pray that this pandemic instills a positive attitude in people along with hygiene. My heart goes to all the people who have lost their loved ones, I wish that hadn’t happened. I wish strength and awareness to the rest of us to let go of fear as fear kills faster than Corona does.

I wish you well! My prayers:

May everyone be free from Suffering,
May everyone be Healthy,
May everyone be at Ease,
May everyone be Happy

Love and Light!
Bindu

What is growth?

A question I have dabbled with in the past and continue to now, what is growth? Is it the balance I manage to accumulate in my bank account? Is it the place I live or the clothes and bags I own? Is it the car I drive? Is it the friends I made or the places I explored? I feel everything defines growth in different ways for each one of us but this morning I realised what it might be for me.

I was talking to my grandma over the phone and she asked me to keep myself warm and wear a sweater because the weather is cold. It was a simple , obvious advise which I loved hearing and smiled at myself after I ended the call. This is growth, why you ask?

In the past I would have told her I know what to do or scoffed or lectured her on how I know how to keep myself warm with all arrogance in ignorance but today I realise love is not only about saying I love you. Its about taking care of small things and sharing small things with our loved ones. I realise no one in this world will pause and tell me wear warm clothes than my loved ones so I dont want to take that for granted. I know that I am blessed to have someone tell me that I have to take care of myself. I started valuing it and I think that is growth. 

Growth is being a better person than I was yesterday or a minute ago. Growth is being aware and trying to put that in action, Growth is wanting to be a better person for self and the others.

Does this mean I will give up buying things or getting angry? Well No! I am human and I will do all of that but these small moments of gratitude and presence of mind to accept what is coming my way is what I am grateful for.

This is my realisation a few minutes ago and I wanted to share that with you all. You never know who needs to read this today and realise the value of that they already have. Sharing my learning , I hope you pause and enjoy the small things in life and I pray I continue to do the same.img_1485

Thats a pic of me as a baby, I dont know why I chose that for this blog but yes I have grown 😉

 

Love and Light 

Bindu 

The Sink

I know , what a title right? I got this thought over a week ago but have been toying around with the idea;then was in procrastination mode , if I should write about this or no was the feud. I finally decided to blog:) . So the hero here , I mean the Sink is the kitchen one for me , well! It could be the one in the powder room or bathroom , doesn’t matter really .. When bollywood can come up with movies with random names like toilet …..etc  why not us right ? 😀

So what I was trying to say is I realised that the Sink is like our minds , it can get dirty in a minute or should I say a second… I clean the sink and become happy looking at my work and before I admire it any further either i put another dish into it or someone at home will and it looks dirty again . So I realised my dream of keeping it sparkly and clean will remain a dream forever . Just like our mind , if we dont watch and don’t feed positivity it will get negative and become toxic in no time . So it becomes very critical for us to keep the cleansing process ongoing be it every time we see it or every day and every night so that it is clean when we visit it in the morning . Who doesn’t like to wake up to a clean house in general be it the bed or sink or bathroom , how about we think the same for our mind ? Think positive through out the day, catch ourself loitering in the negative land and steer it towards the right direction. Look at the positives in each situation . Meditate or do something in which we give our 100% (be it running or cooking or reading , this is for people who dont connect with the word meditation ). The best will always remain sitting and focussing on our breath and last but not the least be thankful for everything we have . I know we feel we dont have all that we want but what we fail to see is what we have and appreciate it . Things like the roof, the food, our health , limbs , air , water , friends, family , tv , radio, car , bus , cycle etc etc . I mean we have a zillion reasons to be thankful for and keep our mind clean and stay happy always . A positive mind is a happy mind , a happy mind leads to happy relationships , happy relationships leads to a happy life .

Now do you realise where the sink led me to ? Well! I am thankful to the sink for teaching me this 😉

Stay Happy!

Bee

Why to stop judging?

I have been noticing one trait with lot of us from the time I have known myself . We are conditioned in a  way that we judge and we are constantly judging people around us , people in our lives without the knowledge that we have all become seasoned judges . How sad isn’t it? Do we even realise the kind of impact that will leave on another’s mind? especially a kids? No! we don’t. Why? because we are not even aware of the blunder we are busy committing day in and out . Thankfully we don’t go behind bars for being not so nice in our thoughts or behaviours with our family and friends and the best part is at most times the victim doesn’t even know he is suffering until a certain stage. All this because we judge . Our spouses, friends , families , kids , colleagues , etc etc etc I am not even going a little far and discussing politics or current affairs , thats unbearable 🙂

While all these thoughts have been juggling in my head for a while now , today I decided to put them here . What if one of us stop judging and stop accepting being judged ?

Just because I don’t think like you, I don’t become any lesser than you .

Just because I don’t do all that you like ,I don’t become a bad soul.

Just because I don’t do all that you want me to, I don’t become a fool.

Just because I don’t dream all that you do, my dreams don’t become void.

just because I am not like you ,I don’t become a nobody.

Just because you don’t see me for what I am , I don’t cease to exist.

Just because I am not a part of your world ,I don’t become an alien.

Just because you think you are right, I don’t become wrong!

Just because you don’t see the good in me , I don’t become bad.

Just because you think you are smart, I don’t become dumb.

Just because you want me to be you , I won’t become a clone.

We are all unique and no two people are same on this planet  . Lets please stop judging , categorising folks around us and accept them for what they are and who they are. Just because we don’t see the good , they don’t become bad