bph: 2023

Keep It Super Simple

Keep It Super Simple - love this saying!

Tryinggggggggggggggg 😊

Staring at the clean corner in the house, after cleaning up and wondering how long it will remain that way.

Watching sunrise, sunset, moon and just the plain sky.

Walks.

Meeting relatives and friends.

Walks with friends.

Temple visit.

Cherishing the teas, coffees and hot-chocolates at home.

Adorning our little Christmas tree. We got a small Christmas tree this year. My first tree and I was super excited! We set it up in the living room, adding home made decorations everyday. We got few basic things that are useful as gifts for maid aunty, cook aunty, driver uncle, gardener uncle and wrapped them in newspaper with names on it. It was fun to arrange the gifts below the tree and to make the Christmas ornaments and hang them on the tree to make it colourful.

Keep it super simple!

Colour colour

Coffee

Masala tea

Happy Happy 2024 😍

Walkon

The magic of walking!

I want to call it magic because, well, it really feels that way to me. And I feel that if one gives it a try, they will also feel similarly.

Let me explain.

Walking is one of those SIMPLE activities which is so easy to do and has millions of benefits. I am not referring to the health aspect as health benefits are just the side affects of walking.

Walking can be our best friend,

Walking can make us think clearly,

Walking gives us our 'me' time,

Walking can be alone time in the middle of people, so we are not cut off from reality,

Walking helps us in living in the moment,

Walking helps us assimilate our crazy thoughts,

Walking helps us pause from the hectic life without having to take huge breaks,

Walking rejuvenates us very easily,

Walking gives us lot of good energy,

Walking aids us in focussing,

Walking can take away our frustrations/sadness/tears/anger,

Walking can soothe us just like a parent rocks her/his baby (if we let it),

...........

When I say walking, I mean walking few steps anywhere outside the house with hands free - no phone, no music.

Walking helps us connect with nature as wherever we walk, there is at least a bit of nature and we can all agree that nature in any form is powerful! So stepping out for 15 minutes and walking those few steps is all one needs to live a peaceful life. If one is hurt or not well, trying to take few steps with help may also do wonders till one recovers.

The universe actually shows simple ways to live a simple peaceful life. It is upto us to make use of it 😍

Let us walk this journey of life merrily by walking 😃

Sun set

Try

Try is all we need to do!

This is an amazing mantra for everything in life. Life is full of everything. Right? It has sweetness, sourness, bitterness, spicyness... And there are no immediate solutions in life, the solutions come, but at their own sweet time. But we all want instant solutions, instant gratifications, instant EVERYTHING! Sorry, life doesn't work that way at all. Give it time, have patience and life will be smooth - how do we do that? How do we wait patiently for something we have no idea about? There is a simple solution - it is the mantra - TRY TRY TRY - and - FORGET about it - only then can we see the magic unravel 😍😍😍

Honestly, there is absolutely no guarantee about anything in life. We know that, but still want to ensure that our future is certain - it is a paradox right? How many of us are comfortable with the word 'uncertainty'? 'Secure future' is what majority of us aim for!

To easen up our lives the only thing we can do is trying - try and then move on. That means, we try and not bother about the result. I am referring to the smallest of small things here - not the big goals. Here are some examples -

Try to wake up early tomorrow, if you can't, forget about it, try again the next day.

Try to call someone you want to talk to, if they don't answer, forget it, try again another day.

Try to clean the house, if you can't, obviously you had some other priority task (even if it is watching tv or sleeping - these were valid reasons and you needed it at that time), try again next day.

Try to eat healthy today, if you can't, try again tomorrow.

Try to meet a friend, if it doesn't work out, try another day or another friend or just meet with your best friend - yourself!

Above may be silly small things, but once we master the small things, we start applying them naturally to everything in our life.

We really need to remember that

(1) trying is the only thing that we can do

(2) it takes time and effort for the trying to become a reality

(3) we try for one thing, but we may get something else (that is usually better than what we tried for)

(4) and most importantly, we try and then forget about it - if we don't forget about it, then we keep waiting for the result, we keep looking into the future, we get frustrated because we remember how many times we tried, we carry grudges, the list goes on.

So forgetting helps in not giving a damn about the end result and just enjoying the process.

Forgetting helps in trying every single time as if it was the first time and hence with fresh energy.

Let us TRY to make our lives a beautiful journey 😍

I was telling my little one about something that happened today 26 years ago, and the immediate response I got was a sad expression. I told the exact same thing to my other kid and the immediate response was excitement because it has something that he loves even though it was related to the same event. It reminded me of what I keep telling them -

There are always 2 choices in life - we can either choose to do something happily or choose to do something sadly.

We can choose to treat life as fresh, beautiful and magical or choose to look at life with sadness and pain. This is true for every single person in every single situation.

It is upto us!

It can look like just a bunch of dried up grass

Or it can appear as a golden glowing grass
that enhances the beauty of the whole area

Being in awe of everything 😄

Good cheer

The all-time popular holiday season is here - end of an year! Invokes a smile in most people when one thinks about Christmas and New Year. Joy is the highlight of all festivities everywhere in the world.

But at the same time, just like everything else (everything that is good usually has a hidden/subtle downside to it), festivities can make one jittery or any other emotion possible.

We have heard the proverb - one man's joy (gain/junk) is another man's sorrow (loss/treasure). While it may seem impossible to see a downside to a particular good thing, it is so important to be aware of it. I am definitely not saying that we have to look for a negative side to everything good. Definitely not! But just to be watchful of not letting our joy be a sorrow for another person. Yes, we can argue saying that it is not our problem if someone else is hurt or has issues. But as social animals, it will help in developing a kinder generation if we are aware and sensitive towards others. I won't go into the detials of how, as it totally depends on the situation/people. But we are smart enough to figure out!

As another year comes to an end, let's bring good cheer wherever we are, wherever we go. It is not easy, but let us try to pull in as many people as possible into our happiness bundle. Let us make an effort not to leave anyone behind. Yes, we cannot force anyone to feel a certain way, but isn't joy/happiness/excitement/cheer contagious? At some point it will rub off on others.

Independent

There is no denying the fact that we are social animals. So, no matter how much we tell ourselves that we do not need human company and want to believe that we can survive alone, it is not practical. Our grandparents/parents lived in joint families (at least in India) and in ancient times, people always lived and travelled in groups.

Somewhere during the modern growth of human civilization, we have been fed that being independent is super cool. Of course it is and we have to be independent and not depend on others. But at the same time, we have to be mindful when we talk about being independent. Independent does not mean that we don't need people or that we don't care for people. The real meaning of being independent is also to show vulnerability when the need arises; to know that it is ok (in fact essential) to seek help if required and to help others when needed. I feel that these days, independence is easily construed as being aloof or indifferent or unconcerned about anyone/anything.

The thin line that exists between so many traits/behaviour/qualities have to be understood in our own lives to make our lives simpler.

Can anyone deny the joy of meeting people, talking to people, caring for people and the relief/solace of receiving care or love from others when needed (like during sickness)?

I feel that there are a lot of illusions we form in this world. The first step is to recognize them. And I feel that this is one of them!

My two cents 😌

All are independent
but together 😍

Replace

We have heard about an idle mind being called a devil's workshop.

But what do we do when a mind is restless. There is always so much going on in the external world that our internal mind is bound to become restless. What does restless mean? A mind can be restless even when everything is going great in the external world. As we all know mind is very tricky. A restless mind is solid proof that happiness/peace/bliss is not at all dependent on how our life is; it is not dependent on whether things are going great or things are going haywire in our outside world. It is totally dependent on ourselves.

Why does restlessness even arise? It doesn't matter, because most of the time we may not be able to figure out any reason. So let it be, let the mind be. Restless is just one of the emotional state we go through along with millions of other states. And any state of mind is a result of all the thoughts that pass our mind. I have realized that there is one simple hack that will help us deal with any state of mind.

Replacing any negative thought with an opposite positive thought.

Replacing any thought that makes us sad/crazy/restless/etc with a counter thought. It may sound overwhelming at first, just the thought of replacing so many thoughts can sound crazy. But it is just one thought at a time. We are not unhappy or restless all the time, so it is only during the low times we have to replace the thoughts. Also, with time, it will come more naturally to us. It can be fun as well to see how easily we can change our mood just by replacing one thought. This hack, indirectly helps us in living in the moment.

There is no harm in trying, so let us try it out and see if it works everytime 😍

Replacing a lower thought and taking action is even more effective

Turning complaints into gratitude!

We can either see the dirty water or choose to notice the beautiful flower

Making the best out of every single situation - it is possible

Inner light

There comes a time when we find walls on all 4 sides, surrounding us, without a single window. So, firstly, there is this danger of running out of oxygen, secondly, how long can one live without light. How does one find oxygen and light?

It might sound a bit of an exaggeration here, but what I mean is, there are usually phases in our lives where we feel an overwhelming set of emotions engulfing us. No amount of external factors help us. The one and only way is to light our inner light.

What in the world is this inner light, what is this looking inward, which I am sure all of us keep hearing. It definetely sounds very enticing! So this year during Deepawali fesival - the festival of lights, I fell sick. Deepawali is one of my favourite festivals (💭 I say this about all festivals🙊). I love this festival because I love gifting and lighting diyas all 3 days. This time I bought plain diyas thinking we could paint them and then light the diyas. I spent the first 2 days sleeping. When the physical body is not ok, the mind also becomes low. So to put it in simple words, nothing seemed ok. Finally on the third day, I slowly got better.

Looking back, I am wondering what helped me. May be the fact that I made an effort to get better. That was the first step. There was no shortcut, I had to go through the pain. But something inside me pushed me to get better. I guess that is what an inner light really means! We all are on our own individual journeys and only our inner strength can light up the path we walk on. All of us have this light inside us. Once we realize it, we figure out that initially the light is very very small/dim. But as we keep focusing on that light, it gets brighter and brighter and eventually the light gets so bright that our path becomes super clear!

Just like one candle can help light millions of candles, our inner light can help spark or even light someone else's inner light. Similarly someone else's light can help spark/light ours - what this means is that we can definetely take motivation from external factors, but in the end our diya can be lit ONLY if there is a wick inside us. So it is upto us.