How are you feeling?

I was talking to a friend a couple of weeks ago. She narrated a story about her old work place. She worked in a gas station and handled difficult customers all the time. People would be impatient. They would get mad at other customers at the gas station. Then, they would express all the anger at her as she managed the place. She was helpless and couldn’t do anything other than apologize. Yet, they would demand her to talk to her manager. She would promptly make that happen. The story is not about my friend who worked at the gas station. It is about the lady who was her boss. Let’s call her Katie. I don’t even know of her. Whenever an angry customer went and spoke to Katie she would call my friend and talk to her. Here is the twist, Katie each time there is an irate customer, calls my friend. She asked her, how are you feeling? Was it a lot? I hope you are doing fine and after listening to her completely she would then proceed to resolve the issue. This hit me like a thunderbolt.

When we are stressed no matter what causes us we usually dump it on others. Angry at work? Dump that on spouse, angry with spouse well kids can take the bait, angry at customer? There is an employee who faces it. We don’t pause for a second and think well! This is so hard for me to hear second hand. How difficult must it have been for the person who experienced it? How are they feeling? Are they ok? In most cases I am pretty convinced that we will beat ourselves up when we do a mistake. We stab ourselves repeatedly and when someone is bleeding what they need is first aid and not another stab!

I was so much in awe when I heard about what Katie did and it changed something in me. A switch that was turned on internally is how I can best explain it . I told myself to be mindful of the people I meet every day. I will strive to be a better human. I may err but next time when I do I will be aware and maybe gentle .. Give myself and others grace perhaps. As humans what we need is to be seen right .. I wish you luck with this practice too 🙂

We humans, at times…..Sila Nerangalil Sila Manidhargal- Not a movie review!

Such a heart-touching movie. No! I am not reviewing the movie but sharing the lessons I learned from it. The movie says one person can change things in others’ lives, knowingly or unknowingly. I think we impact people unknowingly, and we may not even remotely know the depth of it. In this movie, a man’s death changes lives.

I learnt that it’s important to listen, respect others, but listen and listen and listen, because we won’t know what others are feeling or need until we truly listen.

I learnt that anger or harsh words aren’t needed to express ourselves. When we are angry, we tend to scream, as we feel the other person is far away. Since we don’t feel heard, we scream so the other person listens clearly, but in reality, we are hurting ourselves and others. I remember the saying that “anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die!”

If we are doing something, we need to do it completely or give our 100%. Skimming and doing things for the sake of it or to impress others doesn’t help anyone, not even ourselves.

We need to respect our elders and culture. Yes, as a younger generation, we may know a lot about technology, but the elders have seen life. If not for anything, we need to value and respect them for their extra time on this planet.

What others think or say doesn’t matter. It’s important to live in a way that keeps us and our loved ones happy. Materialistic things don’t take us far, but values do. Show off is vain.

Ask for help! Asking for help is the best thing we can do for ourselves and our loved ones. It’s not needed to remain strong and put up a facade, it’s okay to let the guard down and ask for help! For men especially, you can burden your partners to unburden yourselves, and they will only feel empowered and loved.

When we haven’t made a mistake, there is nothing to worry or stress about. It’s the best time to chill and relax. Sometimes, no one will believe us even if we scream at the top of our voice. Not everyone will understand us. Even God has haters, so it’s best to live life with a clear conscience. There is nothing to prove.

Being vulnerable, saying sorry, crying, being authentic is the real way of living. Arrogance won’t take us anywhere.

Always leave a person in a better space than you found them. Say goodbye fully and completely because we don’t know if there is a next time.

We are all connected in ways we will never know. We breathe the same air, we walk the same streets… we are more than we know.

I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. If you haven’t please watch this movie with the loved ones and the ones you don’t love at the moment because love is the only end!

Love and Light

Bindu

Featured

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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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.

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

It’s now or never!

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Image courtesy- Google

I just heard the sad news about the demise of someone I know, whose laughter still rings in my ears. It got me thinking, how fragile are we. Controlled by this breath and with no control in our hands. While we believe we own everything but in reality we have nothing. Not all that we earned, not all the accolades and not even our own body. It all belongs to this earth, and we go wherever we do with nothing accompanying us. Will we carry memories I wonder? Will happy memories keep us alive up there? How I wish someone could answer this for me.If not that, I will be content to leave this planet with no regrets, is that too much to ask for I wonder?

Of late I have had this realization that we human beings are all so optimistic. We do not believe in pessimism at all. Before you analyze that statement I made, I will explain this further. We are all planning our future. What we will do next year or in the next five years, how we will settle for good in x years, how we will focus on life in x years and so on. We are busy rushing away with the present as we are looking forward to that tomorrow which may not even exist. How are we so confident then? Are we all in a kind of coma? We know we might not survive the next second yet we are ok to fight with our loved ones and sleep angry. We don’t have an expiry date yet we plan what we do after we retire. We let go of everything we have now for that tomorrow that doesn’t even exist. No one in this universe can assure us of the next moment, yet we do what we are good at, living for tomorrow. If this isn’t called optimism then what is?

The sad news, accidents, calamities, deaths shudder me. There are so many talks, messages, forwards, posts on social media which scream at us that this is the only moment yet we are in a race inside our mind and are willing to gamble all that we have for an unknown tomorrow. Does tomorrow exist? Why are we programmed this way? Why don’t we live the now and live it to the fullest being aware that tomorrow might not even be there? Why can’t we be with our loved ones to our heart’s content now? Why do we plan to live to our heart’s content “x” years from now?

Does life have a way of making us realize? I recollect reading a message in which the lord of death Yama comes to the wealthy man to take him away, and he had millions of rupees, but none of that could buy him a second. I repeat, the money couldn’t buy him even one second.

That brings to my quest, In a fragile life like ours, shouldn’t we enjoy every second of it with people we love the most? Listen to them, speak to them and love them to our heart’s content? Express all that we should now and not wait until tomorrow? Live life like there is no tomorrow? I wish we all can…

This very moment, I want you to know that you have touched my life in some way or the other, else you wouldn’t be reading this. I hope and pray that you become aware of this reality that all we have is now. Like the saying goes its now or never.

Happy Living!

Did they live happily ever after?

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Then they lived happily ever after; I loved this phrase growing up as that is how the fairy tales ended. That sentence was so positive and full of hope.For me, it meant the beginning and the end of a love story which indicates there is only happiness in the journey called life.

I grew up believing that everyone will have a person assigned to their name and then they will live happily ever after. It took years to understand how delusional that phrase was. How it could impact young minds and how it can coax them into believing that life with a partner mostly is all about happiness and all those hunky dory things.

The theory conveyed by fairy tales has been backed up by countless love stories aka movies which state the same concept in a million ways and hypnotize most into believing that the idea of happily living ever, after all, it does exist.

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So by the time one decides to date or be in a relationship the expectations are set, isn’t it? I began thinking why didn’t the author say it was a beginning of a new life and that life is all about ups and downs and it’s about tackling it together. Is it because we do not like hurdles and no one likes the truth? Well! I know it’s a fairy tale and not a reality now, yet its something we are repeatedly told in our growing years. Pardon me! No one warns us stating “don’t believe what I read out ” right? They read us stories with so much passion that we end up believing that a life like that exists.

I wonder if the naiveness to believe this phrase still exists in the kids today or will they say let’s get to the chase?
Will they end up dreaming about a life that doesn’t exist? A life which is based on fiction and doesn’t last anywhere in the world.

Is that why relationships lose their charm in days, months or years? Because we do not prepare for the reality called life? Is it possible that these stories are dictating lives of some generations?

I know daily soaps play a crucial role in the lives of many women but aren’t they a visual representation of what we read and someone’s fantasy again? Will we start outgrowing our imagination and reclaim our lives soon? Will we ever become aware of what Love is?

Jiddu Krishnamurthi questions, Is love pleasure ? or desire or remembrance? Or Is love attachment to a person, a country or an idea? He wants us to think and answer them obviously as it concerns us. The basic definition we grew up learning indicates that all the words he chose explain what love means for us.

It made me think and become aware that how we are all preconditioned as humans. On what love is and how we can define it, thanks to all that we read and watch. How we live in ignorance instead of enjoying the bliss called life? Very few are blessed to find a partner who understands this and engages in life. Have you found yours or would you like to become that partner now or would you like to live in ignorance? The choice is entirely yours. The good news here is, awareness can fix anything so alas! they lived happily ever after is possible if we take up life in our own hands by being present to it.

Wishing you love and happiness always 🙂

Love

Love, an emotion that causes pleasure and pain to a deeper level , I always wondered what is it .. Love surely is confused with attachment at most times , so what is Love ?

Is love the absence of hatred or is it all about balancing it out ,

Is love all about receiving or is it just about giving ,

Is love the first few months of courting or is it something that lasts a life time ,

Is love meant to fade or is it meant to remain ,

Does love end or is love living happily ever after ,

Is love being understanding or is love what we don’t understand ,

Is love what the mind says or is it what the heart feels ,

Is love all about hiding or is it about sharing ,

Is love only him and her or is it about everyone ,

Is love all about expectations or is it acceptance .

Bindu Gopinath

Food – Life – Travel

Tag: love