Open palms

 

The above picture keeps running in my head constantly as I go through my days. So I drew this. What does this mean? And why am I thinking about this so much?

There are usually only 2 scenarios in life - holding so tight that the fingers and palm start hurting, or just opening the palm, releasing whatever the fingers and palm were holding on to so tightly. Which one feels better? 

The answer is easy, but so difficult to straighten the fingers.

Though we know that an open palm sets us free, most of us hold a fist knowingly or unknowingly. The tighter we hold, the more difficult it gets to release. 

But just like everything else, there comes a tipping point, where it becomes impossible to hold on. The only option left will be to release. We hold on and on and on till it is no longer possible to hold. And in reality it is impossible to hold something as there are gaps between fingers in a fist and the thing we are trying to hold slips through the fingers anyway. 

When the palm is open, whatever needs to sit in our lives will sit and whatever needs to go will go. It is just like a butterfly, it comes closer to us and may even sit on the palm when we are not looking and very still. 

Of course one may argue that there is an in-between, but it never works because even the slightest bending of fingers (meaning slightest holding on) never lets us live in peace. So it is either a tight hold or an open palm 

And this release or an open palm or letting go happens in a unique way with each one. It can never be the same. It can also happen with various intensities. It may be very subtle or very obvious. In any case we will know that we have opened our palms and it feels good 

There is always a path leading us to let-go

I guess this is how it feels to open the palms😛

 

Mind

Lalbagh

Cafe Amudham

There is a story behind the above pictures. A friend of mine shared an incident from her life that had happened many years ago. It was about her father who fell from their house rooftop. His hand and back were badly hurt and the family called for an ambulance. In the meanwhile her father remained super calm, took a few moments for himself and told them he was fine. He did undergo treatment, doctors told him he had to live with a bad back, but in 15 days he was doing his daily chores and walking. This stayed on my mind ever since she told me. 

The next morning after my friend shared the incident, I woke up with a terrible headache followed by nausea. I had planned to meet a friend at 6.30 in the morning. When I woke up around 5 am, I was in pain. I popped a tablet. But it didn't help and I threw up. I popped another tablet to stop the nausea. My friend's story kept coming to my mind and I decided to step out. I left home a little later than planned. I did manage to do all the things I had planned that day. 

The reason I am writing about it is just to wonder about the power of our minds. An easy solution when I woke up would have been to cancel the plan to go out and sleep the whole day. But I knew I would feel low the whole day and I love the morning walks/meeting friends. So I didn't over think and told myself I would be fine and stepped out.

It is also a reminder to think positive thoughts. Imagine what the mind can do when we keep thinking negative thoughts or angry thoughts or sad thoughts or fearful thoughts. It can easily ensure what we think comes true. So better to talk to our mind the way we want our life to be. 

That's my food for thought for September!

Keeping Promises

We had an amazing time last 6 days at work. The highlight and takeaway for me personally, along with so many other things was that I started running again. I have been low on energy physically since last August. I hardly exercised and finally started yoga and walking in January of this year. But I was not able to push myself to run. So I let it be. Finally since the beginning of last week, as part of warm up sessions I started running for a minute or so. This gave me the motivation and confidence I needed to start or at least try to get back to running.

After a hectic week, we had 2 days off from work. 

Day 1 - I had consciously decided that I would wake up late and not do anything. I literally did nothing other than watching TV and some work I had to finish. 

Day 2 - I started the day by stepping out for a run/walk. 

The reason for narrating the whole story is to mention something that happened during the run 

I did my usual 6km distance with a combination of run and walk. Running was not a piece of cake. So I had to figure out a way to make running fun and somehow easy. I used to choose a landmark and tell my mind that I would run only till that point and then switch to walking. The key was in keeping up that promise - to run only till the landmark - not to stop before the point and also not to run beyond the point. It may sound silly that I am saying I shouldn't run beyond the decided point even if I could. But while running it suddenly hit me that everything comes down to keeping up the promises that we make to ourselves and to others. 

Let me try to explain. Promises are made to be kept, whether to ourselves or to others. Just like we lose trust in the person when they break a promise made to us, our mind also loses the trust in ourselves when we don't keep up the promise we have made to ourselves. When I say promise to myself - it includes all the things we tell ourselves, all the self-talk, all our to-dos, all our resolutions, all our goals - all these are promises we are making to ourselves. 

A promise is 

what I am telling myself I will cook,  

what time I decide I want to wake up,

what decide I want to read

what I decide I am going to shop

making that call

talking to someone

preparing for an exam

watching tv

pampering ourselves

not doing anything

choosing to sleep

booking that ticket

- it is everything that we tell our mind every moment.

The key is to follow through. Of course there are external factors that may prevent us from keeping a particular promise, but we cannot betray our mind for no reason. We ourselves cannot be the reason for not fulfilling the promise. An external factor can break the promise, but WE CAN NEVER BREAK the promise. This does not mean we stress or worry about the promises we make. It just means that we need to be clear before we make a promise. We should be able to realize what we are capable of before making a promise to ourselves. 

When we are the reason for breaking our own promise, all sorts of conflicts arise. The mind gets confused when we betray ourselves. And when our mind is confused we start seeing the same confusion in our outer world. So depending on the promise we have broken (to ourselves), we see the exact same thing in the outside world. 

I guess that is the reason we say, what we are inside is what we see in others (in the outside world).

Here's to keeping promises 

Unique

One size cannot fit all!

Today morning when I woke up, I was reminded of this and was telling myself that every morning cannot be the same.

My ideal weekday mornings would be to wake up early and do all my morning rituals, cook, get ready and leave the house. Well it does not happen everyday if I don't wake up early. Today was one of those days where I woke up late with just enough time to cook and get ready. Even though I had a valid reason for waking up late (headache), I was not feeling great about not being able to do all the things I wanted to do. I kept reminding myself that it was ok and that everyday cannot be the same.

Mind is a strange thing. It can get perturbed at the smallest to biggest of things - a small change in the routine, a change in the lifestyle, a change in the environment, a new thing coming in, an old thing going away, the feeling of not knowing, the uncertainty of things - the mind usually craves for a known certainty with no change all the time.

This was my mid week reminder today 

The ever changing sky/clouds

An outing once in a while

One day is like this

Another day is like this - binging on cake, bagel and coffee

Same plant, together, yet at different stages

Everyday cannot be a full moon night

Moon rise on a different day

😍

Choice

I keep telling my kids that there will always be 2 choices or 2 options in life for every situation/instance. 

They are 

choose to do it happily

OR

choose to do it crying/complaining.

And I have started telling myself the same too. We have to do it anyways - whatever it is - whatever the mind is telling us to do - whatever life is throwing at us, we have to go through - but we have the option of doing it or going through it or seeing it happily or by crying about it. 

Isn't it true in every situation, every scenario, everytime and with respect to everything in life?

It is our choice - our way.

An instance happened last week that proved my point. I had decided to be a certain way for some reason. But I was feeling so restless about it because I was not happy. I jerked myself out and chose to do that particular thing happily without caring about the external factors. I felt so relieved after this. 

We can find ways to do any task happily if we are willing to try. There can always be a positive spin to everything or at least most things in life if we give it a thought.

Let us choose our way of looking at things which in turn defines our every moment.

Happy choosing 😍

2 paths

4 windows to look through
each with a different view

Choose to see the freshness

Choose wisely 😊

Choosing to walk or drive to have our coffee 😀💥

Toughest choice 😛
Chocolate or Butterscotch ? 😋😆

Ephemerality

"Diamonds are forever"

"Don't lose it, it has to last for a looong time"

"Nourish it so it lasts longer"

"You have changed"

These and so many more have been ingrained in all of us since childhood. Everything in life - from living beings to non-living things are supposed to last forever 

But, a big but, nothing CAN last forever! Change is inevitable, no-change is against nature. Our practical mind knows that everything has to change, that we change, people change, things change, humans die, machines stop working, 

but,

our heart does not want anything to change, our heart wants everything to stay the same forever.

To throw a positive spin on the word change, life gets interesting mainly because of this change! Think about it for a second. Maybe we find it easy to accept the physical changes we see, because we see the physical changes as growth. But there are so many other changes we go through emotionally, mentally, spiritually, philosophically, psychologically - which are also growth.

If we can start seeing change as growth we can change the way we look at everything and everyone. The kind of relationships we have with our friends, children, parents, partners, co-workers, relatives - goes through change because each one of us are growing and may be at different paces.

Our relationship with all types of non-living things like our car, house, laptop, phone, every single thing we possess is also changing because we are growing.  

So anytime we seek permanency, let us remind ourselves about our growth journey which may help in accepting the ephemeral (impermanence) of life.

Right time

 It's almost midnight. Just feel like writing down my thoughts before sleeping. I have no idea what I am going to write today. 

I woke up at 5.45 am to step out for a walk. But exactly around 6 am it started raining. I contemplated taking an umbrella and going for my walk, but finally decided against it. I had so many household chores to be done at home, so I started off around 6.30 am after having my coffee. I did yoga/kriya for about an hour. Felt really good (as it had been many days since I did). Later I saw one of the flowers in my balcony had bloomed. I had my second cup of coffee with pineapple cake that my little one had baked yesterday.

I am not sure why I am sharing all these. Lets see where it goes 😂

Ok, then I fell asleep last night 

It is the next morning  and yes, I am writing after my amazing walk 

Yesterday was an interesting day. So I wanted to jot down my thoughts here, but as mentioned earlier I wasn't clear about what I wanted to write. Today while walking I knew 

Mom and I went out to meet my aunt and uncle yesterday. Had been planning to visit them for many days, but it happened only yesterday. Everything in life happens at a particular time frame. It hardly happens at the exact time we want it to. Isn't it? Life can get tough/frustrating/dull/rough/crazy (whatever we want to call it) mainly because of this TIMING!

Ideal scenario would be to have everything we want immediately. We do EVERYTHING possible to make sure it happens immediately. But life is smarter than us. It makes sure that everything happens only at the RIGHT time! This 'right' time can be a few days, few weeks or after a few (or many many many) years! That is the reality right? There is no beating around the bush about it. 

Whether it is about 

- meeting someone

- picking up the phone to call someone

- traveling somewhere

- learning something

- finding a job

- changing a situation

- changing our emotions

- changing the way we feel

- growing

basically about everything, every situation. Though I am calling it the RIGHT time, when we are in the situation we hardly believe 'it' to be the right time. In our mind, 'immediate' is the right time under any circumstance. But we see it again and again that there is no other option than to wait for it to happen naturally.

A flower will not bloom until it is ready, we cannot rush it by adding extra water/sunlight in a single day. We wait patiently by adding little water daily. It is exactly the same with everything in life. The only thing we have to learn to do is wait for things to happen naturally and not rush it by worrying or being sad. Of course we put in the effort just like we water our plants everyday - every single day! There is no shortcut, we have to do our work EVERY SINGLE DAY without waiting for the results to be seen the same day. 

Let us not fret about anything! Things will happen at the right time! TRUST LIFE ❤❤💗

Sun showing his face in between the clouds 

Birds showing up

Aunt's house

Blooms at the right time!

Though I wanted to publish this post yesterday, I couldn't
It had to be done today

The sun won't show up when we want him to
But today I got to see the sun-rise after many weeks

Rain or shine
I will be fine
😂
Because
The time is right
😉