A light in the darkness

  I never thought that exploring self-care would bring me this far. In my last post, a sensational strand of support brought me to the post,  why it's so hard to ask for help . This sent my brain to work as to why we don't take help when it is available. Jameson's research on the impact of gratitude and self-compassion on asking behavior was something related to my search. In his research paper, he proposed that we do not ask for help because we will have to become vulnerable. Mike Robbins also has similar views, where he says that when we ask for help, we present ourselves as weak. Secondly, he also says that when we ask for help, we also come into the zone of hearing no or being rejected. Further, when we seek help, we have to open some of our own details to the other person, which we do not want to do. Vulnerability is equal to death. Yes, when we have to open ourselves, we feel it is near impossible because that is what we have been trying to hide all these days. Vuln...

For a fortnight, I have been talking about how letting go benefits us. Still, we all feel the resistance to do. When the thing is good, why is there resistance? Letting go leads our emotions to a better world where emotions no longer need to be the leader. Now the question arises: how do our emotions become the leaders? It is the ego that wants to hold on and doesn't allow letting go to happen. It keeps flaring our emotions so that we don't let go and keep feeding the needs of our ego either by venting in the wrong way or acting out impulsively and aggressively. This ego makes us forget to surrender often or try for frequent escapism, which is no way helpful in dealing with such situations.  The more you resist, the more you desire, so don't resist this resistance that is arising. Don't use distractions from this resistance or force yourself to let go. It is not going to work. Just let the resistance be there, and you will be aware that your ego is not allowing you to l...

When I wrote this topic today, everything talked about imperfection. This mental battle between perfectionism and imperfectionism made me understand that we are at the wrong end. Let me clarify what I really mean by this. When you go to school, does your teacher expect you to master everything on day one? The answer is no. For this reason only, assessments are towards the end of the term. I remember my brother and sister joining the drawing class. They are good artists because they have worked on it for ages, and I never did, so I am still imperfect in it.  I still remember the days when I went to do machine embroidery. My teacher first said to make straight, concentric circles without stopping. The first day was, oh! Nothing was going well. Not even one line was straight. This is where we all are. We begin with imperfection. We were three people there, learning. All were my senior madams, and I was the junior most. We all practiced every alternate day. After a few days, my circl...

 We are all familiar with forgetting.  The fight that you had with your friend ruined your friendship. You just want to erase it from your memory. The guilt of not being able to take good care of your parents sucks you up, and so you don't want to remember. War veterans often face PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) and find it difficult to live a normal life. They earnestly seek a delete button to put an end to all raging and haunting memories. There are many such small, yet painful, memories that we do not want to remember. So, we find that forgetting has a pretty good track record of maintaining peace and harmony in our lives. These reminds me of Fredrich Nietzsche words: "Without forgetting it is quite impossible to live at all." School days are another example. Sitting in the examination hall and stressing a lot to remember what I studied on that page to grab 10 marks. In the cultural evening, "I forgot my dialogue seeing the big crowd" is not uncommon....

I still remember my first journey on a plane. I traveled by train from Chandigarh to Kolkata. Then, from there, I reached Dum-Dum airport. All these events gave me goosebumps because I was anxious about how I would do them all for the first time. I had never been to the airport that time. Thinking about doing something for the first time sent currents of nervousness all through my body.  We all have met this friend called anxiety, or let me put it up as nervousness. It means an apprehensive uneasiness or nervousness, usually over an impending or anticipated illness. It is a normal response to a stressful situation. Anxiety is not always bad. A little bit of stress that makes you anxious is inevitable, but that is a good thing. This healthy anxiety pushes you to accomplish your goals and meet the challenges of daily life. This anxiety introduces you to the fears that want to pull you down. Here I will quote Emma Stone's thoughts on anxiety: "Anxiety is something that is part of...

 Today, I will be sharing with you our second hiding place. It is an addition. Author Hugh Mackay opens his hiding niche with these words: "When habits become addictive, they distract us from our inner life." These words appeared very simple, yet something drew me towards them. Though I have explored the habit segment in various ways for a long time, I still wanted to discover something new or unusual about it.Therefore, I sought out quotes regarding the subject as well as information on habits in psychology. I will begin with the  quote : “Habit is a cable; we weave a thread of it each day, and at last we cannot break it.” Horace Mann Indeed, our habits are like cables that we weave and later fail to break. In simple terms, they are repeated behaviors. Like the two sides of the coin, this habit also has two faces. One perspective indicates that it occurs within the same physical and social setting consistently, rendering it more stable. On the other hand, its repeatedl...