Happy Place

I have always operated from a happy place. Even when I have been sad, I have operated from a happy place.  It sounds contradictory, but operating from the happy place assisted me in accepting the situation, the sadness and the emotions. It helps me take baby steps to let stuff be.

Always seemingly aimless and too content: that was me.

Why was?

Then I got caught up.  Then a debate struck my mind. Am I content or complacent? It started seeping into my happy place. I suddenly wanted more aims, goals and was caught up in the circle of “I am not doing enough’ with my life.

It took up 2 years and some more.

Was I un happy? No

I was in turmoil. I kind of liked the turmoil. I felt intelligent. I felt smart. It takes more out of me than I want. It makes me crabby. I am snappy always. That’s not what I enjoy.

It’s exhausting.

One night is all it took for me to realize. That’s not me. I like my happy place. I like the contentment I get out of the seemingly aimless life. The happy place keeps my vibration up. The happy place presents opportunities. The happy place is a good place for me. The place is where I am designed to function. That is where I am my best.

So two nights back I realized that it is important for me to be me. 

I have a perfect life. I see no reason why I need to find something missing in it. I need to become one with my happy place and if there is anything missing I will know. It’s how it has always worked for me. It’s how it will always.

Yes, a human being can do mighty things.  I probably incarnated thinking I want an easy life. Who am I to fight my own wish ;) I can add my own flavour to this life only be being me.

Yes – I have a 9-5 job!! But, oh so flexible! Love it.

Yes- I have a typical life. Married at 2 ; kid at 28.  A house ; a car. Perfect. It always kept me happy. No worries at all.

I can now tear this happiness apart or absolutely soak it in. Based on which option drives me.

The soaking is what makes me work. That is the motivation I was missing.

I have come back to my happy place.

Don’t measure yourself against anybody else. Just find your happy place –  not sure who wrote.

My Bitch Guide

Every single person on this planet does it. But every single person on the planet judges every other person for bitching. I am guilty too.

I have gone down the path of judging myself. I have come to conclusions. N I am not going to apologize for them.

-          Yes I bitch. Not about everyone I come in contact with.  Not to everyone I come in contact with.

-          If you annoy the crap out of me. I will show no mercy in bitching about you. I don’t need to.

-          You judge me and I will judge the hell out of you. Judge me behind my back and you are safe.

-          I have migrated from being miss goody-two-shoes.

-          If you are nice to me you will get to meet the warmest Leo ever.  You point a finger at my family, and I will shred your existence to bits and pieces.  Then I am the bitch your mother warned you about.

-          I have a list of people I never bitch about.  They have sacred places in my life.

-          I never bitch out of jealousy. I have mulled over it and yes, I am sure about it.

-          I have the basic IQ to differentiate between a constructive criticism and a bitchy judgement. 

-          There are people I meet in life that have 0 impact on my life and I don’t care if I bitch or not about them. I do it in social settings when the conversation is about them.  It’s out of fun. I don’t apologize for it.

Improvements to be done:

-          I have realized I am talking/bitching about some parameters about a friend/person because I think different than they do.  I will refrain from doing that if I like that person generally.

-          Nishit is an exception to the above rule; he gets to know everything running through my head.

-          I won’t bitch to a person I bitch about.

That’s my bitch-guide.

 

Some call it bitching; I call it verbal release therapy. It’s all about perspective.

All I have an urge to do is pen down. I want to pen down every thought that crosses my mind. It is crazy the amount of processing our brains do. It is so powerful. Our thought our ability to process it.

I am pondering about emotional reactions. Different situations bring out myriad reactions in people.

What touches me to core? 

Molestation: It tugs at something very deep down inside. I am not sure if every female has the same intense reaction to it. I know everybody is against it. I have this sinking feeling every time I hear about it. I feel like I can cry when I read or hear about it. It twists something inside and I want to forget. 

Yes, as a kid /teen / women, I have been molested. I never had to face the trauma of what other women/kids had to go through. I have this urge to run away from that news. I have this urge to run to that women and just wipe off that pain. Because I think it would be worse than how I feel about it. It would be unimaginable. 

Every time someone has made a pass it nailed something inside me. The first time I was ever molested was when I was 10. Yes 10. It is not something that has started to happen today. That is how it has been. It never stopped. All public places gave men an opportunity to make a pass.

Someone might argue it is a norm. Yeah everyone gets made a pass at sometimes. But as a 10 year old, as a kid as a teen, I felt sickened every time it had happened. One more nail hit in. All that has touched some part in which is still sore, which still hurts when I see or hear someone else going through it.

It hurts. It makes me cry. It stirs turbulence inside me.

 A Long Life

I am reading a book by Deepak Chopra “Ageless Body Timeless Mind”. Why? The title intrigued me.

My presumptions about the book were wrong. It is not about looking a certain age or trying to or anything related to that. It is about longevity and living longer with a healthy body and mind. 

There is a lot of information about research and statistics related to leading a longer life.  We are in an age where we live longer. A statement in the book “You are reborn at 50”, put my though wheel in motion. How amazing!!! We can easily live to be 80 to 100. I know people who are past 80 and very healthy and going about their business without any dependency whatsoever.

How absolutely fantastic!!! (One of them is my granny and I look a lot like her. So I am secretly hoping I have more of her genes)

I find it exciting because it suddenly lets you imagine a lot of possibilities. Yeah, even if we don’t live long life is still full of opportunities. But the idea excites me. It gives me more enthusiasm and courage to take all the typical decisions I make. 

Buy another house? Why not? It is a typical 30 year old decision. I am not worried. Yeah so I am buying a house, another mortgage. Isn’t it not letting me do other stuff? I don’t care. Till the time I can figure out what the other stuff is. If some other stuff excites me, I will do what needs to be done.

The idea of making “learning” a part of life makes more sense.  How cool it will be to know another language and go and live in that country. (My house today will pay for that living then. Get it? )

 I am not assuming old age comes with ill health. People around me seem to be doing rocking at past 60. My gene pool is pretty fantastic that way. I will work better on my lifestyle.

 Reading more books make sense to me (it always did irrespective)

The generation gap will reduce. Imagine my mum at 100 and me at 80. We both will be old.  But it won’t feel like it does now.  My daughter would be 50. She would be turning into what we today call old. How awesome. We all might be on similar pages.

The transition from this phase to that one is going to be a rocker.

And I know death is not certain. It is mystery and what not. Who cares? I am not going to live as if it is my last day. If it was, I would not know what to do. I am going to live as if I have forever to live. It seems far more exciting to me.

“may you live a long life of health and gladness” – Irish blessing quotes.

 Judgements

I don’t know if I was judged at all before I got married. Maybe I was, but I always heard only good thing. Hence it didn’t matter I presume

I got married one day. N it slowly started to sink in. The world judges you all the fuckin time.

Do you have a house?

How big is it?

Is it well kept?

Do you fight?

Do you look like you are in love?

How long since you are married? Arranged or love?

Do you have kids?

When did you have kids? So soon? So late?

C section or normal?

What does your baby weigh?

Fair or dark?

Good looking or not?

Milestones?

Breast feed or no?

Milestones? Not yet crawling?? Mine does.

Already on solids?

Well behaved or no?

Are you stay at home? Why?

Are you working? How can u do that?

No second house? Why second house? Enjoy life instead

Too frivolous. Invest instead.

Not having a second one kid? Why second?

And from 26 to 31 – I came across one or more of these.

From 0 to 25 I never ever felt judged. Either I was perfect (socially) or I didn’t care or I never heard them.

What about now?

A lot of them have tugged at me.

A lot of them I haven’t given a damn about.

And I want to not give a damn about any that are in store to come.

So what are those that didn’t affect me?

The ones I was confident about.

The ones that I would never choose any other way.

The ones I did because I truly wanted to.

There were some I learnt o give a damn about

My house keeping skills and cooking!!! Legendary. But hurt me at the beginning. I have grown up in a society where girls are expected to be able to do that. I never thought I would not be able to.

I was taken aback!! And How!!

I rewired myself. I went from trying too hard to be too rebellious.

Neither worked.

I stepped back accepted myself. This is who I am. But it is my life and my home. I have a certain responsibility towards it. I assumed that responsibility and gave it my best. Not the best the world expected out of a girl.

That worked. Worked like a charm.

Now I am a parent.

If I thought married girls were judged the worse. I didn’t see this coming. Parents are judged the most. They are judged even beyond the 4 walls of their homes.

But my initial rewiring worked.

Its like when you have to stand on one feet, you shake a bit. But you gain your balance.

I still shake a bit. I still drop the other leg. But I give a damn.

I am happy with the minutes that I can stand steady on one leg.

I have faith in myself.

Faith in myself.
That worked. That works.

(Now I am labeled selfish, stone and so on and so forth.. who cares?)

The quotes on judgement are too judgemental.

Inspired Action

Inspired Action – Something all Loa readers/believers have heard of. “Actions that come naturally to you or Actions that you just want to do”

I understood the meaning of the words in that sentence. But never really knew it or realized it. Just yesterday, while talking to Bitches, I understood what it really meant.

For instance:

I have always been a jhalli / part tom boy. Girl far away from dressing up. Almost close to shabby. There have been times when I have really tried, but I eventually returned to my old ways. During my conversation I realized, that now it just comes naturally to me. It’s something I enjoy doing. (Let’s be honest I am no fashion diva.. or even close to it) . But I am shifting towards being dressed up. I have always loved shopping like any other mortal. But that didn’t mean I utilized all of it. I want to now. I love to dress up and go out. (make-up still eludes me) That’s the difference, even trying on makeup feels like a task and I eventually don’t do it.

So, this simple thing taught me what “Inspired Action” is.

I believe now, that anything we love doing we should look into. It shows our likings and inclinations. It is pretty obvious when I say that. But sometimes the smaller things you want to do, which come naturally to other people, we overlook.

What I learn?

-         Whenever I feel like doing something I should just do it. Weather it fits into the society norms or it is rebellious. Don’t bother. I am guilty of branding people obsessed with looks and clothes as idiots. But if I would not have taken this dressing thing up because I thought a certain way. I would have never known the pleasure it gives me.

-         Give in to your urges.

-         Sometimes just explore. I think if I am not sure how I feel about something I should give it a try. It’s only then I can know what I truly feel about it. There are things that someone / peers /close ones might be doing, that I don’t really feel comfortable with. I don’t need to try that. Or explore that as per my above point. The discomfort  might mean I am not yet ready.

I am going to explore travel. I don’t have an opinion about it. I want to know how I feel about it. It doesn’t excite me too much, but doesn’t make me uncomfortable either. It makes me curious. And let’s face it, its no risk at all ;)

“Anything that gets your blood racing is probably worth doing it”

P.S: This post is an outcome of inspired action : Technically and Figuratively

Wrapping up 2014

So another year passed by.  It literally zipped by.

I just mentioned to my friends, this is the year i grew up. I say that after 31 years???
Well, this is the year i grew up and i realized what part of me grew up. Or what part of me changed.

What was it?

Self realizations. Everybody always has self realizations. This year some of the realizations registered. This year I absorbed the change. I knew what and why it changed.
I was verbose about my emotions, my thoughts. I reflected on them. Something I have never done or never realized that I did. I wrote down every fear or doubt that bothered me. I tried to answer them to the best of my abilities. That helped resolve them or helped me not dwell on them.

I grappled with the change. I still think I dislike too much pondering and analyzing. I love the care free attitude towards decision making.
In all of this there is one thing, I still go with random decisions. Call them gut decisions or whimsical ones. But when i reflect back I realize none of my decisions were majorly thoughtless. None of my decisions now are too thought out either. That's the difference.
 I might go round in circles with a decision, but its still the whimsical one . The one without any rationale. My decisions are not planned out, they are not taken by considering the consequence.
Running around in circles just means I am spoiled for choices. :) Which is a good thing. In fact it is kick ass.
So next time I start to fret over why I am thinking so much, I am just going to be grateful for all the choices I have 
So planned or non planned : its a blessing to have the luxury to decide. To make a choice.

These realizations make life easier. It makes it easy for me to deal with my first world problems :)

Somethings in life are priceless...
Family
Friends
Neha Pallavi (they are not friends per se or family per se)
grappling to be a decent mom
luxury to make decisions
see my intentions manifest
quick answers to all my questions
all the questions that I have
crazy conversations


...for everything else there is master card
all the cute outfits i got this year
my green ray bans
my expensive hair cuts
my denim jacket
my fancy shoes

Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year - Ralph Waldo Emerson