Bold Beautiful

BOLD and BEAUTIFUL


Two powerful words!


These two words have been stuck in my head since last few weeks. What does being bold mean and what does being beautiful mean? 


Makes me wonder if bold means having no fear, being courageous, brave, overcoming the fears in a graceful manner? 


And being beautiful means having absolute confidence in ourselves, trusting ourselves, being peaceful and that sense of calm and confidence and trust in ourselves radiates as outer beauty? 


Life is full of ups and downs, but being fearless, confident and at peace is what defines the path we take from any point. Fear is what stops us from doing things we really want to do. And confidence is all it takes to do anything we want to do. Being peaceful and calm gives us the courage to be confident.


So let us just try to be bold and beautiful in our own way every day and see how it goes :)


I guess we can be whoever/however we want to be 💓


Change

 I am starting off with pictures today. 












Above pictures were taken in a span of one hour,  5.15am to 6.15am, at the exact same place. Even though I was not standing there for one hour, it was hard not to notice such gorgeous colours when I have a huge window opening to the sky. 


This makes me wonder how the same sky changes so drastically in just one hour. Every single minute the sky changes colours. Everytime I see the sky it reminds me of how everything has to change and how nothing can remain the same. Nature is telling us every minute to accept change gracefully,  isn't it?  And we all have heard that nature is the biggest teacher of all. 

After this I was doing my yoga today and I was able to do Halasana complete pose on my own for the first time.  This has been one of the poses that I have been scared of doing since many years (along with many others,  headstand being the top most on my list of scary asanas). I have always felt I would topple over. Since a month I have been trying to do this very gradually. And here I am today. Every single day I tried to change my leg position by an inch - yes that's what it takes,  to do anything. 

Inch by inch on a daily basis is what it took for me to achieve the full posture. So what I have realized is that every bit of change matters,  every inch of body movement matters,  every single conscious thought is what it takes to change our attitude/thinking. We cannot change our nature or thoughts or attitude or whatever it is we want to change about ourselves in one day!  It takes time,  but consciously changing one thought,  one small thing at a time,  and one fine day we turn back and see how far we have come!!

Another huge myth about change is that Change is bad!! 

Very few of us accept change as a blessing right? Unless we see an immediate gain following the change (for example a job change with a raise/better role), how many of us welcome change with a big grin? 

"You have changed so much" - every time I have heard this sentence from a friend or family member,  I have always felt sad. It used to affect me a lot. I used to try hard to explain how I have not changed. Few months back,  I heard one  motivational speaker say that everytime someone says "you have changed" it is a great thing, because change means growth. That which doesn't change does not grow. And things which donot grow, dies. 

I found these words very powerful as they are so true, though we may not accept it immediately. Old is gold, some things shouldn't change - all these are true, but that 'old' would have changed in ways that others may not see, 'some things' also would have gone through changes that people may not notice immediately. 

If we can start perceiving "change" with an excitement, with curiosity,  with hope,  then it will be so much easier to embrace the change. And once we embrace anything,  there's nothing to fear! 



The Magic of Learning and Relearning

We know we are not ok, when the uplifting posts on social media or messages from loved ones that are supposed to motivate or cheer us make us feel even lower. We know we are not ok when we do not do the things that we know for sure cheer us. I am just giving random examples here, but we know when we are not ok. And it is ok to feel low, be sad, dull, let all the emotions pass through us. But it is equally important to bounce back. For how long can we be remorse, because honestly sadness and low energy are contagious. And the least we can do to help others is not lower their energy. 


It is a tough phase for EVERYONE in this world. And when our close friends and family members are going through a hard time, the least we can do is to cheer them up (if possible). Very few of us are able to help others physically in the current scenario. And that adds to the helplessness. But to even be there for others emotionally, we first have to be in a good state. 


I was in a rut this week and this time I did not fight it. I just let it flow through me, but it was not easy. I had to snap out. And luckily for me exercising does the trick. Even though I knew the trick, I had not been able to get myself to exercise since few days. Finally yesterday morning I just stood on my yoga mat, and started moving. And I added a new exercise to my routine. So what this new exercise did was it made me concentrate as I was doing it for the first time after I learnt. And because I was concentrating, my mind was active. And yes I finished one hour of my exercise and I felt normal again. 


I realized that learning a new thing helps activate our mind which is so essential to keep us going. For example, we cook daily which can be monotonous and boring, but the day we decide to try a new recipe, our mind becomes active - finding the new recipe, figuring out the ingredients, making sure we are adding the correct proportions etc. This is exactly similar to every single thing in our life. We do not have to go learn a new subject from college. It can be as simple as trying a new asana in yoga or a new place to run (I started running inside the house with my kids and got my running thirst quenched 😉), or learning a new song or learning about any new topic of our interest. It could be anything as long as it makes us feel good. 


IT IS ALL IN THE MIND!!


Let us take care of ourselves (without feeling guilty!) so that we can take care of others (emotionally/mentally/physically). 


Here's to a healthy world and to healing everyone! 



My happy place


Growing new plants and watching them grow every single millimeter everyday


My 15 year old pepper crusher that makes me smile everytime I use 


Learning to draw and color