That Demon – Anxiety

I have experienced anxiety all my life but I never could label that feeling and I didn’t know what that meant till recently. I had to do a lot of reading to find out and name the experience and learn how to address it. This morning I woke up with a lot of anxiety and I thought it’s time I shared this so that if any of you reading this is in my shoes knows what to do. For me anxiety is racing heart, whirlwind thoughts( negative of course) , sweating , I feel limp accompanied by heaviness in the chest area. I feel it’s all over and I am sinking!

This is the most difficult time because all that I know and have learned goes out of the window. I get into a loop – a vicious cycle. Are you wondering what to do if one experiences this. To begin with if there is a loved one around or a friend who knows you well educate them on anxiety. The benefit of this is when the time comes they are there by your side just silently because that’s when we don’t want to hear “how we could be calm or have done something better or how it’s simple and we complicate it”. Basically prepare so that you receive no unsolicited advice 🙂

Secondly, move .. move your body. Walk, run, dance, work out because it helps shift the energy and hence shift the mood and hence shifts the anxious feelings too. If you can step into Nature there is no better cure, it’s magical how Nature can calm us down with her grounded energy.

Thirdly, breathe and write. Do the 4-7-8 breathing to calm yourself, it does it’s magic . Then write all that comes to your mind. I call it feelings dump until I have nothing to write. Recommended word count is 750. It relieves a lot of pressure off the monkey mind, try this and see the difference for yourself.

Fourth, do something you love. Maybe listen to music, eat good food, Chant mantra, cuddle your pet or your loved one( cuddling can cure anything in my opinion as touch has the power to heal) , read etc etc

What not to do: stay in the bed, stay in a dark room( have you heard demons live in the dark:)) , Don’t express this to someone who doesn’t know or understand the severity of anxiety because they can negate you in a second and push you deep down into the dump. It’s ok if someone in your family doesn’t understand, find a friend or a therapist or a group who does and share it with them because they know and understand and will never say, oh you are ok! Just take it easy!

I meditate and am a goof ball but this happens to me once in a while and I find it difficult too. I think that’s ok because I am human . Always remind yourself that this too shall pass and tomorrow is a new day filled with new opportunities.

How are you “feeling” today?

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

Do you love what you do?

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Work is worship is a saying I have grown up listening. I wonder if that implies that worship means “love and passion” too? In this world where most of us are operating in an autopilot mode where we don’t even know how we reached our destination, do we pause to think what passion means for us? Do we love what we do is the question?

If you don’t love what you do, you won’t do it with much conviction or passion is a quote by Mia Hamm.

A research says happy employees are more productive . Happiness is what we all look for in life .So I got on to search for my answers to questions like did I love my previous jobs? I did well, and I am confident that my past employers will hire me back but the question remains was that my passion?If yes, then why am I not with them anymore?

While all these thoughts were running on my mind, I stumbled upon a YouTube video of one of the mini-celebrity(mc) aka social media influencer who had organized a meet for her fans. And one of her followers asked the mc how did she manage to look so fresh and happy despite all the traveling, shooting, early mornings, late nights she has been doing. The celebrity’s life was an open book evidently thanks to her vlogs, so all knew her schedule, and that question piqued my curiosity, and I was hoping she wouldn’t name a product and endorse it at this point in response. To my relief, she didn’t let me down. She said I love what I do, it’s not my job, but it’s a part of me. So all I am doing is living my life, and I get paid for it. She sounded genuine and looked very happy(The video I am referring to is the one by vithya hair and make up)

TED and other motivational video channels share similar thoughts, and their talks are very inspirational, but they sound surreal to me . Most people I come across everyday are zombies like me jumping from task to tasks, dawn to dusk and on a repeat the next day.

I wanted to know the story of passion from real people, people who are around me whom I see every day. So I asked some who gave me the vibes that they love their job. I came across someone who quit her well-paying corporate career and started her own venture on coaching as she felt that is what makes her happy . Another friend of mine left a high flying job to build a start-up catering to the wellness industry . He had something very powerful “ he wanted to make something that makes a difference to our lives , something that adds value and voila! A software was born from the need” . There are many more super heroes without a cape around me and all I had to do was look around to spot them .

Follow your passion it will lead you to your purpose – Oprah Winfrey.

This lead to my next question purpose? I google searched the exact meaning of purpose as assumptions at this stage was a bad idea. So it goes like this

“ It is the reason for which something is done or created or for which something exists. Purpose also means to have as one’s intention or objective.”

The intention is a magic word. After pouring over books and videos I learnt that the super heroes start their day with an intention to serve their purpose with work, family, friends, and themselves that day. An intention to deliver the best in whatever they do. And if what we do is our passion and we have the right plans everything falls into place automatically. Finally, I admit I am at peace with this discovery.

The very thought of getting paid for what I love to do and be myself makes me happy. This reveals to me that I never knew what was the meaning of making passion my work. I loved my job or the company or the boss but it wasn’t necessarily my passion. A passion that makes me want to jump out of bed every morning like it’s a festival, a purpose that will help me drift into sleep smiling does sound blissful. All these leads to a happy “us” and in turn spreads the happiness and positivity to everyone around. There is so much we can gain by following our passion.

While all this sounds good, the hard truth is everything is in our hands. Even if we skim through books and read a zillion of them until we act on it, it remains a book or a blog on some website. So here are some questions that may help each one of us find answers to the question, do we love what we do.

Do you feel excited to wake up every morning and sometimes get sleepless at the thought of the next awesome day?
Do you feel satisfied when you go to bed every night?
Do you have a hundred reasons to be thankful for in life at any moment?

If the answers to all the above questions were an affirmative then congratulations, you nailed it obviously. If no, its time to find out what is that will help you answer the above questions with a simple yes.

Anything that strikes a chord with our being is our purpose. So what are you waiting for?

I wish you luck!

Bindu

The clouds

I saw mountains covered by clouds one morning and got thinking . Clouds , Aren’t they like our thoughts and emotions ? They move constantly . They have the ability to make us believe there is nothing beyond them . Hadn’t I seen the mountain range earlier in Sun I wouldn’t have ever guessed that there could be another island beyond those beautiful clouds . Our eyes believes what it sees and doesn’t question most times especially when it is right there in front of us . Similarly when we are in stress , anxiety , negative emotions we can’t fathom that there is life beyond that . We are stuck . We stare into the problem and make it bigger and forget there is horizon beyond. We don’t want to think anything beyond the problem and we believe that it will stay with us for life though we know life is all about impermanence(subconsciously ) . Be it the weather , traffic , relationships , health or practically anything .While the reality is that the cloud moves , it makes patterns , it reveals sun and blue skies , it unveils beautiful islands and mountains . What is needed to see the beauty? Patience says my mind. Patience to look ahead and wait . Belief that they are clouds and are temporary and they will move and make way for better views . Trust that this theory won’t go wrong even if we shut our eyes and refuse to believe because Nature’s rule never changes . There is day after night.

I wish you loads of patience in life

Stay happy!

Bee

Negativity is a spammer

A thought occurred to me , what if we consider negativity as a caller ? So many of us make sure we check unknown numbers on true caller before we respond or most times we don’t pick calls from unknown numbers . what if we train our mind to store negativity as a unknown spammer and choose not to pick it ? I wonder what will happen? When I was in Vipassana a few years ago I remember what the teacher told me . She mentioned that Buddha says when someone gifts you with negativity , anger , unhappiness or any not useful emotions tell them thank you, I don’t need them so I am not accepting it. Its basically not taking anything personally . I know it aint easy but it isn’t impossible either . Was wondering how our lives will change if each one of us will follow that one simple advise .

My mind as usual went into the thought mode. For example , in a peak traffic an annoying person does all that he/she can to block us but instead of loosing peace of mind and loosing perspective for the day what if we could say I am not allowing you to spoil the peace in my head as I reserve my energy for myself and do what we can do best – say breathing(consciously) ,or listening to music .

Or at a restaurant or office or at home , most times we end up being a part of anothers baggage and they easily pass the buck to us and we unconsciously end up carrying it with us . If its a bad beginning to a morning ,it can cause ripples and will ensure everything in the day is ruined , like the dominoes effect . So what if we chose to say, thank you but I dont need your baggage as I choose to spend my time on myself today , on my family today or on a loved one today . Basically what if we agree not to take anything personally ?

Bindu Gopinath

Food – Life – Travel

Tag: #lifelessons