A light in the darkness

The life of a teacher is full of challenges. Right from the beginning of the day, she has to plan ways to make students learn what might become essentials in their later lives. Many times, even after doing so much, it yields nothing. The output from students is zero. Such moments are shattering. Finding encouragement amidst such moments is very difficult.  One such moment was when my students said, "It is not a university exam." They never studied for those subjects.  Those are the moments when the leader can work miracles. I am lucky enough to have met one such leader in my life. My principal, Madam, is one such person. She knew how students had mistreated me. She planned out the programme well. I organised an AI workshop for those students and made them present, and the students were excited to do that presentation. Yes, a few of the students found it challenging to present the material; they all did. There could be no better moment than this to see your students trying to

Credit: Noupload, Pixabay My school days had been full of the Nancy Drew series. Those were really awesome days. My reading quest received support from my brother. When I gave my tenth board exam and was at home, my brother would issue these books for me and bring them to me. I read them like my coffee and tea.  I liked the good romantic relationship Nancy and Ned shared. For adolescent age, that painted a very trusting and nurturing relationship. I think that was the best portrayal of love and romance in adolescence. The thing that I liked was how Nancy was always interested in solving the mysteries. In every series, she was involved in a mysterious case, and she was very comfortable sharing her mysteries with her boyfriend Ned. He never rejected her or restricted her; in fact, he always showed interest in helping Nancy solve the problem. In other words, he showed how much he trusts her capabilities and how much he wants her to do what she loves and wants. This attitude of a partner w

I generally take good care of myself and try to safeguard myself against any possible hurts, but as you all know, hurts don't come with prior alarm. It just happened, and that makes our lives miserable. Something similar happened with me yesterday. I was otherwise very good, but then there was a quick turn of events, and everything became blurred and gloomy. My whole weekend turned out to be a waste, but that did something very good. This event took me back to introspect and re-explore some of the issues in my life. This will not be part of my online write-up ever. The second were the emotional symptoms. The devastation took place yesterday night, and when I got up today, I realised something was not so well with me. I tried to explore why I was not feeling the way I used to feel all other days and discovered the following symptoms: A) Social withdrawal and loneliness The first thing we all do is withdraw ourselves from our friends, families, and loved ones because we see them as h

This season, I happened to study peace. As I was looking for peace, I came across forgiveness. When I explored forgiveness, I found many things that I always wanted to remember and follow. So, I started writing this. Today, I happened to see this  post ; it was enlightening.    Hurt is something we do not want. Love is the essence of life. We all want love in our lives. A little deviation from love makes us land in the land of rejection, hurt, and pain. So, as I was analysing these issues, I found that love and hurt always hive together. A little imbalance, and we are right in the hell of hurt. Further, it is always found that the one we love the most is the one who gets hurt the most. This always happens. Consider, for example, that a husband and wife share a love relationship, yet when a loose word spills, hurt builds. Let us look at the relationships among friends. They can do anything for each other, even safeguard secrets. A mismatch of words, and all is over, and all is over only

Unfairness is not uncommon in our lives. Not necessarily that it is done intentionally; many times we become egocentric and only see our own perspective and feel hurt by unfairness.  We are not unaware of the bitterness caused by unfairness and how it spoils our lives. Still, unknowingly, it rules our lives now and then. So, some people have tried to overpower this crippling power. They are no better than those who couldn't override the unfairness. They are not people who simply accept the unfairness and keep walking ignorantly. Rather, they develop these qualities within them to deal with the unfairness presented. A) Control over emotional response These people are aware of their moment-to-moment emotions every time. So when an incident triggers their emotional response, they know something has gone wrong and try to understand it rather than allowing it to obsess them and overthink. Instead, they allow this emotional response to express itself, feel it, and end the process there r

 As we have discussed, unjust hurts or pains. Some of these unjust pains leave the marks of deep hurts that require forgiveness to heal. Deep hurt is something that penetrates your soul and shakes you like a milkshake, turning life upside down. Deep hurt is offensive and makes us sick. Smedes (1984) pointed out 3, with which I also agree. A) DISLOYALITY When a relationship is being shared, we vow to each other to keep the promise of being loyal to each other. This is the building block of every relationship: trust. When this trust is broken, it pierces like a dagger into our souls, causing us to feel a crush that is beyond bearance.  As I was discussing this issue and analysing the various situations I have faced with disloyality, two perspectives came to mind. One in which I am disloyal and hurt others, and the other in which someone else was disloyal with me. I never thought of this in this manner before. This insightful perspective helped me gain emotional intelligence.  My hear

As I was pondering over pain and how it has transformed me, I learned a very good lesson. As life brought challenges and I met failures in my life, my outlook towards life was blurring every now and then. It was impossible for me to trust that something good could happen to me now. I was shattered and broken.  This was the time I met my God. I started looking away from my failures and setbacks towards God. This transformational shift in my thought transformed my victim thought into a victor thought. It instilled in me new hope and channelled my thought process towards a positive outlook. From there on, I never took the path of negativity. I always try to keep my thoughts on a positive track, even when life says you are a big fool. I say to myself,Let us see what comes out. This positive outlook has been very helpful to me in making my life look beautiful and good.  Today, when I look back on all these pains, I feel they were all important for me to shape me into what I am now. Now I em

These unjust pains can be felt in many ways. I will channel them under a few headings.   a) Some people think that we deserve to be hurt.   Sometimes people hurt us on purpose. They want us to feel the pain because they think we deserve to be hurt. Life has bitter and sweet ways to make you realise this. I happened to take this lesson the hard way. I was very outspoken in many ways. One such incident brought serious confrontation to one of my seniors. This sent a fire of rage among all the seniors, as I was the youngest person in the unit. They started to boycott me because they thought I deserved it. Since it was enacted in disguise, I was unaware. I trusted everyone and used to ask for help from them, and they used to mislead me. One such incidence brought me to a situation where I was on unknown streets searching, and they all just said to ask the other person. That was the day I realised that there is no one but yourself to fight for you. I trusted that person so much, but that

 The second dimension of pain is the unjustness one feels when hurt. Merriam-Webster online English Dictionary  defines unjust as characterised by injustice; being unfair. Many times we are hurt not with the intention of harming but because we perceive it as unjust, and that hurts. As I was writing this, I was reminded of one of the incidents that left a deep impression in my mind. In the place where I was posted, two of my senior madams were of the same commissioning batch: One was posted as matron in charge, so she availed herself of all the facilities of a manager—no long duties, no night duties, no ward duties, etc.; the other one was posted as a general duty matron; she has to do all the duties assigned by this matron. So, on my first night duty, I saw this person bringing the report book to the matron, throwing it on her table, and going off. It appeared so weird to me, but I kept quiet. As my days advanced in that place, I heard so many things from this senior madam, showing h

As I was trying to understand this personal pain, I came across many ways people have tried to address it. Shneidman coined "psychache" (1990s), Orbach termed it "mental pain" (2003), Mee called it "psychological pain" (2006), and others named it "emotional" or "psychic pain" (2010–2011). Smedes (1984) made me understand that one of the integral components of pain is human beings. Pain is an uncomfortable experience that steals our peace of mind. It fills us with all negative feelings like anger, anguish, and hate, crippling us to feel peace and continue life. I was scrolling through my YouTube channel when I happened to see a child with a very ugly face. That boy has a tumour on his face. What was his mistake? He did nothing, but people feared to associate with him and talk and laugh with him. This made him hide himself, and he never came out. This is also a psychological or personal hurt. Nature is the source of this pain. Can we forg

As I have clarified what personal pain I am talking about in this section, I am directly hopping on to personal pain as presented by Smedes (1984). Smedes says in her book  "Forgive and forget"  that something can come from anywhere and anytime. She begins her discussion with a personal story of her own. So, here I will also describe this personal pain from something similar. My mother is very caring, and many times she goes out of her way to help others without thinking about herself. She used to take care of our neighbour's child in the same way. One day I happened to overhear the mother of this young child saying that our neighbour does not help me at all. That was like a piercing dagger in my heart. I just cannot tolerate this for my mother. I fought with my neighbour for that:How  can somebody comment on my mother's most caring nature like this?" For me, it was impossible to imagine someone ruining my mother's image because their needs were not met. Thi

 So, as I have promised to share about the various dimensions of pain we face, we need the magical wand of forgiveness. Now, before talking about hurt and pain, I would like to say that hurt is neither less nor more. Hurt is something that crushes us beyond repair. Smedes (1984) categorised it as personal, unjust, and deep. I also do not put it into hierarchy but rather try to understand them with them. As I was exploring this topic of pain I came across the word "mental pain." I was like ah! For everything we now have started adding mental. This search introduced me to a new understanding of the world of Pain.  I was once driving, and the drive was long. It was almost 9:30 p.m., and I had not reached my destination. I was anxious and fearful too. I remember I was in all my senses, but something happened at that moment, and my vehicle hit the barricade of the road, and I fell and hurt my knee. It was a sharp pain. This is also a personal pain, but physical. We are not discus

Today, I would like to talk about a  meme I saw on the internet. As you see this meme, you will start admiring yourselves even more. How many times have you done this? Actually, I understood it differently. As I was going through the comments, I realised that I had understood it differently. In this post, I will be discussing my own view. When we ourselves are broken or hurt and our children cry of hunger. Do you hide in the bathroom and keep crying? I think most of you will say no, we don't, because the wail of children is more than the mourning within us. Let me navigate you all to another location. This time we are on a train, and you are leaving your family to study abroad. You will not be reuniting with your family for another 2 years. Your heart is full of sadness, and you just don't want to engage in anything but yourself. Just at that moment, the passenger next to you was nauseating. Will you be preoccupied and sad? Or will you attend the passanger? I am sure all those

Photo credit; Bessi on Pixabay I saw this post and the writer's insight on the topic of reflection impressed me. (Prakhyat Rai, the author, gave permission to share the link.) https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.linkedin.com%2Fpulse%2Fpower-reflection-13-year-journey-industry-professional-prakhyath-rai%3Futm_source%3Dshare%26utm_medium%3Dmember_android%26utm_campaign%3Dshare_via%26fbclid%3DIwAR0eyuKnKEXKT7aUNzDsGTfhLWQtXNMhjQWOW-IXMEIf15g_gCN0zRmrr24&h=AT245GeMSAiK0gpKRGUogI60PqnGQqyks-7MfldT5ObH4lDlkRFH_TOaNTvjhvDRYBTGdsmLOhdpBcfkC825oBapqYgYpIsA34Vk8vB4QRRAPgbswpMSrZ9X4au2LIw_OV_c6kD92deQdiHSmqg-7Kxk-A&__tn__=-UK-R&c[0]=AT3T_QVGhuQdIwxBI2F32b6ebzMiAZQjTJJyeS9bzz2dUAZIFrI1pFK4_x3wksTWtqangWuE7uQ8b-GvGo8yNWLtieMWEUiJxQ-kuVLAHjraAyd6cWk1gNv_DTdThdS5Ycy4ekpfJxgFqGZMGfFXkYGjyA This post drew me to one of the most important concepts of reflection: peace and calmness. Fasten your seatbelts and relax, for now we are on our journey to a peaceful self. There might

  Credits: Alexa's I beg you Pardon on pixabay As we begin this new year and since I am working on forgiveness, I felt the urgent need to introduce this topic. I will try to cover as much as possible to enlighten you all as well as encourage you all to forgive, not for others but for yourself. Forgiveness is not something new; we all know it and have probably heard of it. What is it? Some of you will say that it is to forgive and forget. You are right. We all say this: forgive and forget the matter. I happened to read one of the books called "Forgive and forget," where the author says, "“If you forget, you will not forgive at all.” This was the point that attracted me to the book. As I looked deep into it, I came across one thing that made me admire the word "forgive." The author says, "“Forgetting, in fact, may be a dangerous way to escape the inner surgery of the heart that we call forgiving.” For today, I will stop here only on this book because