Chasing growth

I’ve had a long hiatus from blogging. The reason I couldn’t post regularly anymore is because I sensed a feeling of stagnancy in my writing. I felt that I was writing about the same stuff, time and again and had nothing new to offer to this community. The break was needed and a lot of things happened in my life during this period of 4 odd months that I was away from word press, with the exception of my monthly recaps. I feel much better now, mentally and I consider that a huge plus considering my frame of mind in the last 4 months.

My initial purpose of starting this blog was to write about my thoughts and feelings freely here and gain some mental clarity in the process. Today, I’ve come back here to do the same thing. I’ve had a nagging thought going on in my head for a long time now and I desperately wanted to stop pondering over it. I tried drafting this post multiple times in the last 2 weeks but just wasn’t able to get my thoughts together. It’s Sunday today and I have all the time in the world to complete this post and bring a closure to my thought process on this topic.

Let me start with a question. How close are you with your childhood friends now? I guess this question is relevant to the people who have crossed the major milestones in their lives (school > college > job > marriage). As we grow older and shoulder more responsibilities in life, our priorities changes at times and we aren’t able to sustain the same level of connection with our friends in the same manner as during our teenage or young adulthood days. Some may accept this change quickly and move on with their lives. Others may wait endlessly for things to revert back to good old days and refuse to come out of their comfort zone. The sooner we realize that each and every person we know is capable of change, sometimes into a completely different version of them that we no longer connect to, the better it is for us to prioritize our own growth.

For the longest time, I was upset and hurt at these people who left without a trace, who went from talking about every random thing in the world everyday to finding it difficult to hold a conversation, who only contacted me only when they needed to get some information or work done, whose thought process or ideologies did not resonate with me anymore. There were times when I could see my close friends in pain and agony because of their mindset and negative beliefs and I felt absolutely helpless as my words or actions were of no help to them. It made me feel incapable of providing support, emotionally drained and mentally exhausted. I blamed myself for not being a good friend, not being there for my closed ones when they needed me the most, not being able to help them out of their misery. This also took a toll on my mental health as I felt guilty of not being a good friend or even a helpful human being and I blamed myself for leaving such people in distress to concentrate on my own well being.

However, in the past couple of months I’ve realized that you don’t need to change your core nature, your beliefs in the pretext of helping others. The ones who seek help, will figure out a way of dealing with their troubles (if you no longer serve the purpose) and connect with those who make them feel better in their own right. You shouldn’t blame or bash yourself for not being the one helping them or be upset with them for reaching out to others for support. While they are away figuring out their lives, it’s imperative that you concentrate on your own and make sure that you make yourself a priority.

We spend most of our life in our head, amidst our thoughts. Naturally, we need to ensure that our mind is the most positive and encouraging place to be. Feed the thoughts that foster your growth, keep the negative thoughts at bay, nourish them by being grateful towards our existence and thankful for all the opportunities that have led to our growth in life. There is no one way to lead a happy life but we can figure out the things that definitely don’t add value to it.

Recently I saw an amazing keynote speech by Hal Elrod, #1 international bestselling author of The Miracle Morning. He discussed an amazing rule that he swears by to keep his emotions in check.

He calls it the 5- minute rule.

According to it, when things go wrong, it’s okay to be completely negative–but not for more than five minutes. With this rule, Elrod learned to set a timer, moan, complain, whine, and express every negative emotion he liked during a period of five minutes, and then took a deep breath to say three remarkably powerful words:

Can’t Change It.

“It’s simply an acknowledgement that I can’t change what’s already happened, so there’s no value in wishing it were different,” he explains.

With this, I’ll stop thinking about ways to change the external factors in my life or regret my past actions. I’ll work on taking complete responsibility of my life and make sure to do everything to improve it’s quality. It makes no sense to blame our circumstances for everything that goes wrong as it doesn’t provide any solution or help us with the way forward.

Accept it, own it and hustle harder.

Move on

“You must make a decision that you are going to move on. It wont happen automatically. You will have to rise up and say, ’I don’t care how hard this is, I don’t care how disappointed I am, I’m not going to let this get the best of me. I’m moving on with my life.”

– Joel Osteen

Day 22/30

I woke up today feeling irritated and frustrated. In the past couple of months, I have gone through 2 specific incidents with regards to my career and personal life that haven’t panned out in the way I want. You wait for a long time for things to work out your way, to encounter something that lights your soul, to experience something that sparks joy. After an excruciatingly long wait, the Universe decided to give me a glimpse of those things. Everything looked perfect on the face of it, it looked like my wishes have been answered, finally! But, turns out it was just a sample or in technical terms, a trial version. The outcome of these experiences are inconclusive. While I’m waiting for the end to be positive, somehow my mind keeps saying that it might not be so.

I’m frustrated but I’m done being frustrated. I’m done feeling like this. I’m done allowing rejections of any kind, to get the best of me. I don’t want to get into that phase of life where nothing and no one make sense anymore. Where I keep blaming my stars for everything wrong that’s happened in my life. Where I stop being grateful about the good things in my life and only concentrate on the ones that didn’t turn out as per my wish. I’m done.

While I’m horrible at the art of moving on, I want to fight back these negative feelings till the last ounce of mental strength and energy. How am I planning to do it? By taking care of myself and showing up for myself, each day, every day.

“With every act of self-care your authentic self gets stronger, and the critical, fearful mind gets weaker. Every act of self-care is a powerful declaration: I am on my side, I am on my side, each day I am more and more on my own side.”

– Susan Weiss Berry

There are many different ways in which one can indulge in self care activities throughout the day. Don’t be fooled by the name “self care”. Though these activities are meant to make you feel better, most of us will easily trade it with lying around and doing nothing. These activities require you to “take action” which is easily one of the most difficult tasks to do when we feel under the weather.

Here’s a list of random self care activities that one can choose from. I won’t make big promises and write down huge self care goals. I’d rather follow them for sometime and share my experience after a month or so. I wish you a happy and healthy state of mind. You deserve the best, you deserve to be happy!

I am my hope

#60/100

“Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.” 

― J.K.Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

There was a time when I endlessly waited for happy things to take place in my life. I believed that I was stuck at the same place without any respite. My life seemed dull and eventless. I truly believed that I was a victim of the situation that I was in and waited to be rescued by a prince in shining armor. I couldn’t see any way out of the situation and was unhappy with the way things were progressing in my life. I hated my job, the crowded local trains, my work, my profession, basically everything that accounts for a fulfilled life. I thought that I was living my life for other people and didn’t indulge in any activity that truly made me happy. I somehow couldn’t find a way out and my future seemed very bleak at that moment.

But….

I don’t feel like this anymore. I am truly happy with my life now. I have time to work on all the activities that make me happy. My work is the same but it doesn’t frustrate me anymore. I’m in the same profession yet it doesn’t drain all my energy. I do feel sad and upset at times but am able to bounce back to my happy self soon. What has really changed?

The old me truly believed that the situation she was going through, the bad ones, the frustrating ones, were her reality. She couldn’t find happiness in the present nor had any hope for the future. She wasn’t able to disassociate her future from the present. She believed that happiness exists in the big events and the small ones are either insignificant or don’t last long. She was on a constant wait for her life to change for the better but didn’t know how her ‘better future‘ looked like.

So what changed now? I know that my present situations have little or no control over my future. I consider myself limitless, I don’t feel tied down by my current circumstances. I find happiness in the tiniest things, they could be as basic as making homemade chocolates or shopping for stuff online. I feel an immense sense of gratitude for everything that I have and count my blessings. I hold myself responsible for my life. I know I have the power to change it for the better, anytime, every time. This has helped me build my hope for the future. In all the self help books that I’ve read till date, the most prominent hack for a happy life is to find happiness in the present. I always found it difficult to find happiness in my present life when everything seemed going downhill. It felt absolutely impossible to like a job I absolutely hated. One day I just happened to watch a good show and it filled me with immense happiness. The show was great, but I longed to feel that happy always. That’s when I decided to revel in my happiness, find it in as many things as possible (be it big or small) and live a fulfilled life.

Ever since I’ve started looking at the bright side of every incident, my life changed. I don’t feel trapped by any situation. I take a deep breath rather than being frustrated by any inconsistency and think calmly to find the best possible solution. No matter how difficult the situation is, I know that it’s not my reality or future. That helps me look at my life as a spectator and pick the option that makes me most happy. This has made me realize that it’s not that difficult to stay happy if we put in a little effort each day. Happiness is liberating and I want to be happy and positive in every situation I face in life.

Twist of fate

When it comes to life, we spin our own yarn, and where we end up is really, in fact, where we always intended to be.

–Julia Glass

#24/100

A guy hears gun shots. He runs for cover in the woods, trying to save his life from the robbers who caught him sneaking on them. He can hear his heart thumping and breath getting heavier but he needs to continue running to stay alive. After running for a while he reaches a dead end, the robbers vivid footsteps can be heard clearly now as they draw closer. Realizing that the end is near, he slowly turns around to face the robbers. He closes his eyes to 3 robbers with pistols in their hands waiting to shoot him. He hears a “bang”, a gunshot has been fired. Does it take this long for the gunshot to hit me? He opens his eyes to see the robbers on the ground writhing in pain. The police arrives just in the nick of time to save him.

Haven’t we come across such thrilling scenes in movies numerous times? We are in total suspense till the end of the scene with the hope that the good human is rescued or saved after all. And in most of the cases, that’s exactly what happens. When I saw Ned Stark’s head being ripped off in Game of Thrones, I couldn’t believe my eyes. This isn’t how it’s supposed to be! The good guy should always survive. That was the first time I saw a realistic portrayal of life. After watching numerous movies and shows where the a bad situation somehow gets solved at the right time, my mind seeks a way out in my real life scenarios as well. We always wait for every complexity to magically disappear from our life at the right time.

I cannot say that I haven’t come across certain miraculous situations in my life. We have the tendency to keep waiting for everything to be perfect to finally celebrate our life. But that doesn’t have to be the case, always. Life is too unpredictable to wait for the right time for us to start enjoying it. No matter how our past and future is, we can definitely find one thing each day to be thankful for. As we start focusing on finding things that make us happy than stressing about things that don’t, a lot of our obstacles in life magically find a way out. I’ve always believed in magic as a kid. I still believe in it, deep within. We all have magic within us. The magic to change the way we look at life. I truly want to believe that I am and can be happy despite the manner in which my life unfolds in the future. The choice is always with us. Let’s pick the one that makes us happy. 🙂