Pens and Pages

 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, dea...

 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 h...

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...

When I wrote the title of this blogpost the only thing I could think of is water. There would be many quotes on the internet asking you to be like water, to change your shape according to situations. Like water, you can change your taste too based on what you are mixed with. You see, how you connect to different people from varied backgrounds but gel with them like you were born to gel with them, connect with the things that match and simply allow them to be different from you in their own ways without making the difference too significant. That's how I meet people, speak to them, I have different kinds of friends, from almost different worlds, and every one meets a different version of me that way. A practical thought process to imbibe the philosophical perspective of being like water is to have no form, no structure, no significance. I could say these three words, and people may contract wondering how can we have no form, no structure or no significance when everyone wants to be ...

 I need to write this. Because I think I got my mojo back today. It was away from the last couple of weeks. I have been unwell when I was in Guwahati. And then I was in Jaipur and feeling weak. * Life Update: 5th May 2022 No wonder parents keep asking me how is my health when I am away. That's because every time I am home I somehow fall sick and weak. It's almost like a valiant soldier coming back from battling the world to his mother and then trying to lay his head on her lap, saying, "I am tired." * It's either my Bangalore home that puts me back in the driving seat and lets me be in my element, or just the freedom of living alone and day dreaming or dancing around that makes me feel so good. Or it's just that I am doing good work again. Every time I counsel people I love it so much. I feel good for serving humanity, being of use to people. I do feel this is my purpose - to make an impact, one life at a time, and hence, to touch many lives during my time in ...

Diary Entry : 21st April 2022 I had a feeling I wanted to go check out Deer Park Institute in Bir, Himachal Pradesh. I booked the hostel closest to it. I ended up extending my stay for one day and then for another and so on for a week. I am lucky to find a good dorm-mate here. She is 24 years old and a fellow traveler with a backpack. No, we are not tourists devouring each and every place we have to see. We are doing what we are supposed to be doing and that's "be"-ing - simply being. "Il bel far niente" - Italian for the beauty of doing nothing, also called "dolce bel far niente" - the sweet beauty of doing nothing. We are never not doing anything though. We are visiting cafes, working, writing, meditating, talking, joking, teaching and learning. A new discussion arose yesterday and it's a personal favourite enough for me to talk about. In a nutshell: "We want everything that the rich people have but our roots and surroundings are middle-clas...

Falling sick leads to resting so long in bed that you can't help but to take a trip down the memory lane. I am out of living-in-the-now moments. My now is the bed and the pillow and the blanket while my Dad turns on the AC in his room. It's summer for them and winter for me. We are in Guwahati. And I am weak after my once-in-a-lifetime 103.6 degree fever.  (P.S. I didn't take any medicine until the fever subsided to 102.6 and then to 101.4 and finally to 101.2. Since I never get fever easily, and even in covid the maximum fever I got was 101.2, I let my body's natural healing capacity get to work in the unusually high fever. Either that or I would go straight to the hospital to find out the cause. No gulping paracetamol mindlessly to subside the fever when it's something so unusual. Finally I took the paracetamol only when it was the usual 101.2 and to relax the body pains. Don't try this at home alone though. I did this with complete faith in my body and my alt...

 I have been doing some thinking, like I always do. And a lot of life consists of reminding yourself of your own roots, on why you started some things at the first place. This not only brings clarity on what you are supposed to be doing but also brings back the motivation you may have had lost in the way. Here are a few things I considered while leaving my job. It's time to relook at them while making my decisions. 1. Is this going to matter to me in 5 years? Anything or anyone who would not matter to me when I turn 35, does not belong to my life. It may mean fair-weather friends. It may mean meaningless job opportunities. It may mean that pancake you want to have or that drink you want to avoid. I want to be asking myself - Is this going to matter to me in 5 years? If the answer is no, then I pass the offer. If the answer is yes, I go ahead. For instance, going home at this time of my life is crucial. Practicing my healing services on Dad by hook or by crook is crucial. He needs t...