To those, who in the past, predicted the future

An ode to the all the helpers
That met me along my journey
Read my horoscopes, analysed my charts
Ended all hope, before it could start.

Told me that I would eventually survive
But never be able to really thrive
Never find love or happiness in life
Be someone's mother or someone's wife.

Took all my greatest fears, turned them into ammunition
Set my dreams and desires up for a final cremation
Broken pieces of my heart they danced upon
I didn't even know this was life's greatest con

From runes to tarot to the crystal ball,
In search of that store in the back of the mall
Where hope was sold and the future could be bought
In a mangled mess of soothsayers I was caught.

Till the day He showed Himself, And it took one instant
To know He was watching and vigilant, caring and constant
Didn't need no prophecy of man  to show me my direction
I was always surrounded by divine love and protection

Now wiser and stronger, I know you played your part
Creating darkness and despair that you were able to jump start
As soon as He came, my fears took flight
Thank you for driving me toward the Light.

Choices: Black, White & Grey. Is there really a Grey choice?

Many years ago, in DDLJ, Raj Malhotra tells a hassled Simran that his mother used to say, "Beta, zindagi ke har mod pe tumhe do raste milenge ek galat aur ek sahi. Galat rasta asaan hoga, tumhe apni taraf kheenchega. Aur jo sahi rasta hoga, ho sakta hai usmein tumhe kadi mushkilon ka samna karna pade, bahut taklif mile; par yaad rakhna akhir mein jeet tumhari hi hogi."

So true. Life throws us daily curveballs. Which way we choose to dodge them, catch them or throw them back is a choice we make. Life is full of choices and not making a choice is also a choice. 

I've spent a lot of time discussing other peoples lives and circumstances and while each situation, person, journey is unique the choices are often the same - between right and wrong, between good or bad, between black or white. Add some justifications, circumstantial situations, ifs and buts to the mix and suddenly there's a rainbow of greys. But are these really greys or are they just blacks disguised by our own misgivings which we refuse to see with our own eyes? 

Often burdened with fear or anger, driven by guilt or revenge, we choose to choose that which isn't best for ourselves but what we believe someone else deserves. And then we justify it - so having an affair because your husband does'nt love you is ok; hating and abusing your boss because she is mean to you is justifiable; eating a kilo of chips fills up a vacuum because you are depressed is acceptable; even staying married to a man who is with someone else for ensuring his torture is deemed as reasonable! 

Your inner compass can tell you whether what you're doing is good or bad. Your body will send you messages to let you know whether something your doing feels good or bad. Your conscience knows the difference between right and wrong. With the greys, the case is almost similar - you just know. And life somehow sends you the same situation, in many different forms, until you lift the veil off your eyes and pick what's true for you.

The lesson is simple. There ain't any greys. There's a black and a white. And then there's your choice. No one said it was going to be easy. You just know it'll always be worth it. 

Lost and found

Can you be found if you weren't lost in the first place? Can you find light if you weren't lost in the dark? 

Will you seek answers if you didn't have unanswered questions? Would you continue to have questions if life didn't push you toward asking them?

Would you feel compelled to ask if life didn't throw situations at you that everything you already knew couldn't answer? Would you strive to understand life if what everything you thought you understood didn't make sense anymore? 

Would you seek sense if you weren't plagued by situations you didn't understand? Would you want to understand if you weren't plauged by situations that you didn't? 

Answers to all of these questions answer one simple basic fact of life. That we seek answers to lifes greater questions only when we have to face it's adversity. And that life's greatest lesson is taught only through it's greater hardships. 

If you're lost and looking, be assured that your answers will follow. And that you will be found. After the darkest night of the soul, comes the most beautiful sunrise. 

That's life. 

Forgiveness 103

Today's post will focus on only me. The center of my universe. The vortex of my existence. The only thing that I can control. Me. 

And why is it so important for me to forgive me. 

We are human. We all make mistakes. That's kind of the point of life. To live and to learn. And the only way to learn and grow is by experiencing life, making mistakes, and learning from them. 

People forgive us for hurting them. And we extend the same kindness to others. Often the hardest part in the process of forgiveness, is the forgiveness of oneself. 

 We often judge ourselves with and by much harsher criteria than we judge others. We hold ourselves responsible for all our lives' situations, more so for the not so happy and favourable ones. We expect more of ourselves, and inadvertently we only let ourselves down. 

Except that we don't. Mistakes are the causal effect of the souls journey through life. And in making them, experiencing the pain and trauma and repercussion, we grow, learn, pay back Karma owed. Of course if you made the same mistake twice, it's a choice and not a mistake, but that cycle is also for a greater learning. 

When you evaluate life through a pattern of lessons learnt, as opposed to mistakes made, it's so much easier to forgive oneself and thank life for the growth through the experience. 

Forgiveness of oneself is the ultimate expression of self love. When you forgive yourself you truly accept yourself, love yourself, respect yourself and believe that you are worthy of love and respect. That's why it's so hard.

From the very beginning love has been conditional - based on achievements, appearances, and complete, 'if your ableto do just that one more thing.' With no space for error. The confusion between conditional affection and love makes it so much harder to love ourselves inspite of the lack of a reason. The lack of love makes self love, and therefore self forgiveness that much harder. 

Accept who you are. Accept your choices. Accept your mistakes and your learning. And forgive yourself... It's the only way to truly love yourself. 

Forgiveness 102

We've all met people who believe that they have been wronged and they are so hurt and damaged by the experience, that they refuse to forgive the other person. This post is dedicated to everyone who is holding on to a grudge or resentment toward another person.

The first step toward being able to forgive someone is recognising that you actively need to do so! And no matter what the situation is if you don't believe that you should, it's unlikely you'll find it in your heart to do so. You may not believe you can just yet, all you need to do is simply believe you want to and need to. 

Top 3 Reasons why it is so important for your to choose Forgiveness:

1. Forgiveness is not about other people. It's about you. Whether or not the other person deserves to be forgiven, you deserve to be free from resentment and hate. Holding on to anger and hate is like 'drinking poison and expecting the other person to die' - and you really don't have the space for that in your already stressed out existence. 

Choose life. 

2. Another extremely selfish reason to forgive derives from the Law of Karma. 

None of us are made perfect and we all make mistakes. Life teaches us to learn and grow from our mistakes. But our mistakes, more often than not, affect other people, hurt the people we love, or cause pain to someone. 

If you believe you deserve to be forgiven, then surely you need to forgive. That's the Law of Karma. You reap what you sow. 

3. Forgiveness is the start of your own healing process. The act of forgiveness generates so much goodwill that you begin to heal yourself - as the layers of negative emotions and thoughts that have been stored are released, the mind and body both are filled with kind and loving energy that allows you to heal and grow - physically, mentally, emotionally. 

Take a moment to think of all those people you hold something against - recognise the divinity (whether you believe it to exist or not) within them, and forgive them, whole heartedly. You don't have to best best friends again, or be married to each other again, or even speak to each other ever again. Just forgive them and bless them a life of peace and happiness. 

Set them free. Set yourself free. 

Managing Irritation

There is something about a Monday morning that not only gives you the blues, but God help if your the beneficiary of a stream of general irritants and delays that would seem a lot more benevolent on normal days - they get amplified and the angst gets glorified. I'm a very irritable person, with a short temper (which is now changing!), especially when there are so many factors, people, and situations, that I have absolutely no control over, but continue to somehow affect most of my waking moments. 

First there's traffic. The bane of the commute. Waiting endlessly at stop lights, incessant honking that quickly drives away all the peace collected over the weekend and then the added joy of missing a turn while you were on your mobile phone reading emails to catch up on time before you get to work. Hold that thought.

Then there's time. You do everything possible to get to bed early on Sunday so that you have time to plan and start your Monday a little bit early. But life so does not go as per plan! You sleep in, you cant wake up, you skip breakfast, your burn your shirt, you miss your bus or train, you skip breakfast - all in the frenzy to get to work on time, to start your day and week on time, so that the delays dont flow into your life right at the start and stay there the entire week. Then you miss your turn cause you were busy checking email to optimize your traffic time. 

Then there's people. You've spent the entire weekend with family and friends (hope fully those that you do like and enjoy spending happy times with.) Come Monday morning there is the people on the train and bus whose aggressive demeanor shakes you out of of your peace zone; there is so much traffic and so many people lined and moving at snails pace along never ending highways; there are bosses and colleagues and teams all waiting for your time and attention over a day of endless meetings. The day never ends and it's barely the start of the week. 

I took some time today  - while I was at work after missing a turn cause I was busy on my phone, and while I was at my desk waiting for my laptop which had to be delivered to me at 10 am sharp but hadn't shown up till almost noon - to just sit and stare at the people around me. All of them in a frenzy, and all of them needing to get their important tasks done. I chose not to react - with either anger or annoyance at the delay en route, the people causing the delay at the point where I needed to get going at work... It was almost as if I was watching the world go by. I just sat, worked with a pen and paper, and stared. 

Then came the miracle. The sanctum of peace developed over the weekend that was destroyed by the traffic, beggars, missed turns and every other possible annoyance, quietly creeped back up and stayed with me for a bit. And as time went by,  and the longer I sat and watched, and I sat and waited, and tried not to get annoyed and upset, the closer it snuggled up to me. At 5:30 pm, while the day should be ending but is no where close to that in reality, i'm still surprisingly calm. And i'm taking my break by writing this post. 

Annoyance and irritability are companions you choose. The moment you decide not to react but to sit and stare and wait, they go away to find new friends. Peace functions exactly the same way. If you choose to hang onto it, it stays with you. 

You don't control what happens to you, but you do control how you react to it. You don't control what people say to you and you have to hear, but you do control what you listen to and what you say. You control completely whether you snap in irritation or whether you choose to laugh at a situation or person. 

That's the beauty of it all. It's actually completely in your control no matter how much you think you cant control anything! 

Forgiveness 101

But I don't want to forgive or forget. I don't want to let go of the way I feel because he hurt me so much. My mother in law made my life miserable; she doesn't deserve my forgiveness. 

I hear this  a lot. And here's the only thing that matters - when you hold on to anger, hate, or resentment, the only person who actually knows and feels and lives this is you, the person who holds onto it. The person who caused you the pain is free, living out his or her own karma and going about his or her own business, possibly oblivious to the fact that you have these feelings within you. 

There's a lot said about being the bigger person and being the first to let go. I'm going to look at this from the point of view of 'I" - the most important person in this scenario, possibly a victim, but that soon becomes irrelevant and what remains is simply an unhappy 'I' - so we're simply going to back to 'I' and 'I' will take the time out to look inside of me and figure out a way to be free from any and all negative emotions.  

Here's a simple step by step methodology. Each step can take time but it's so worth it.

1. Acknowledge that you have the issues that your holding onto. Would help to actually believe that there is an issue inside before you go looking for it

  

2. Try and identify the person (s) and the  exact feeling that you have - and therefore narrow down the cause

3. Don't try and focus on the why me aspect, it's futile! Instead focus on the why me, what was I to learn from it? The moment you acknowledge your life lesson, you'll no longer feel the pain or the anger because you'll soon realise that this person (s) and situations (s) were brought into your life for this purpose

4. Forgive - truly, completely and hope and bless the person (s) involved with an abundance of prosperity and happiness and peace. Take a moment and bless yourself as well.

5. Stay happy and at peace with the outcome - you can continue to be friends or you can part ways. Sometimes people are meant to leave your life and that's ok too.  

Lastly, forgive yourself. While it sounds the simplest, it's probably the hardest to do. We will talk about this another time again! 

Forgiveness brings more peace that you can possibly imagine and creates space for happiness without any adulteration of thoughts and feelings. Imagine travelling through life without a suitcase, being able to go where you want, do what you want with nothing to slow and weigh you down. That would be one hell of a holiday!