Pens and Pages

When I stepped out of my cocoon last year, I wanted to create a beautiful life... for myself and for other people like me - smart, intelligent, but unhappy, unfulfilled, unsatisfied, their potentials never tapped into, their hearts smashed every time they typed on their laptops and looked at the clock. Time passes by for them and nothing happens. Or everything happens but just by the clock. Money buys them expensive shoes but where was the time to step out? Every conversation was a game of poker where you bet or you call but you can never fold. It's been a year now. I fear I may have failed. I didn't create the world I promised myself and my invisible readers. What am I doing? My life only got worse. There were places to go to but where were the expensive shoes? Fear, trapped me in an invisible cage I carried with me everywhere I went. My neck strangled by a stranger's hands of expectations. How could I stand up to his expectations when I can't even stand up to my own?

 When I first thought of starting a new blog / website / newsletter, I had thought I would write perfect articles with all the self-healing tips I have learned in life. The perfect articles never came, because I am not perfect. And let me tell you a little secret, having met and observed different kinds of people from up close, I can comfortably tell you that nobody is perfect. Not even your role model. You will know when you know them in person. It is different when I am counseling clients, because I see them for they are, what they have gone through, what they could become if they leave the beliefs that are limiting them or contracting them, and tell them how they can become that. With some healing techniques, I facilitate them to shed some unnecessary and harmful beliefs right away. Every client is different. Every life story is different. Every root cause is different. And I have the natural gift and some learned techniques to figure out these stories, find the root causes, deal wi

 Two years back, N made a daily Zoom call where a few people would get together and chant a Consciousness mantra in the morning before we start our days. I did that for about a month and then caught Covid, got hospitalized and forgot all about the group. A year later, I checked my whatsapp messages thoroughly to find the group still active. I joined one of the calls. Only N and another person was there in the call. N had her hair short. "Why did you cut your hair short?" I asked without any point of view. "Just like that. A new style." "I think the stylist didn't cut it properly." "I cut it myself, actually." But something was wrong, The haircut somehow didn't make sense. She looked like she lost weight too. I asked her again. She said that in a few cultures, people cut their hair short when their husbands die, and even though many people asked her that but I can trust her that it wasn't that at all. Her husband too had cut his hair s

I have always believed that Love and Relationships are different things, often misunderstood to be the same. If love is a feeling, an emotion, you can love anyone you wish to, and from a distance too. You do not expect anything in return so whatever you receive is a gift, a bonus, a dessert for your meal. Love inherently is unconditional and non-judgmental. Something close to divine and inexplicable. Can you think of how you love your friends and never judge them to be anything less than perfect no matter how they are and how different they are from you or your other friends? And then comes infatuation. Oh, that feeling when your mind is on Cloud Nine! The start of a heady love-affair. The butterflies in your stomach. How you think of them almost all the time. How all the love songs suddenly make sense. And how, even if it is the umpteenth time you have a crush, you can't help but see your crush as no less than human embodiment of perfection. Sometimes, we love this feeling of infa

 <How I deal with anxiety, uncertainty, overthinking and life> <What if your choices and decisions are not final destinations and life sentences?> I was never really a victim of anxiety until 2018. Three traumatic episodes from three different spheres of my life had fallen upon me together at the same time, then. One of them was something I finally confessed to in 2020 on my Instagram and felt a huge burden off my chest. Writing in general and on social media helps this way. The sheer fact that when you write something, someone sitting miles away from you can relate to it, have gone through something like it or empathize to it, not only gives validation to your emotions but also a sense of meaning and purpose to your life and experiences, a sense of pure human connection. But because it wasn't one trauma after the other, but three together, I had picked up some paranoia and anxiety as a symptom then. These are things I started working on from 2019 with a therapist and a

 Only someone who observed me as closely and for long as my mother would know how I deliberately put myself in difficult positions to get a desired outcome. When I was in my fourth year of engineering, and already placed in a job which I would eventually join after college, I still tutored students of class Xth on Physics and Math as early as 7.30am in the morning on Sundays. Our neighbours were surprised to see a young girl who should be enjoying her off days, waking up early in the morning to tutor kids, but both my Mom and I knew it was a choice rather than a need. The money I earned from tutoring helped me buy things for myself like the guitar I never learned to play or the expensive lunches at Mainland China more often, while my other classmates ate at Dhabas and Canteens and Dominos and KFCs of the city. The preparation I had to do for each class I taught made me relearn the concepts of Physics and Math, and made me better in communication- something I knew would eventually help

What does a backdoor mean to you? In matters related to computers, a backdoor is something that breaches security measures and accesses private data without your permission- some means hackers would use. In matters of real estate, a backdoor is a door at the rear end of a house or building. Leaving it open would often mean keeping the house insecure as one would seldom be guarding that end unless when close to it. Leaving it open would also give one the chance to run away from the backdoor when someone uninvited unwanted is at the front door. So, what does backdoor mean when it comes to your life goals? It's something on the similar lines- Every time you devise a plan B, you are creating a backdoor in your life and leaving it open. Your life goals could be anything - that career option, that job offer, that relationship, that marriage proposal, that transfer letter, anything significant, and anything that makes you wonder how it would turn out, anything where the future is uncertai