Food for the Soul

Fruits, Vegetables, Green tea, exercise…what not! We try to give good nourishment to our bodies for maintaining a healthy body. However busy we are, we try to give some time to take care of our physical health so that we can be active and perform our daily activities well. Similar to body care, there is something called ‘You’ inside the body which also strives for some food to recharge itself. We can call it as ‘Food for the Soul’.

Each one of us gets recharged mentally by doing different things. These are some of my thoughts which can help us to strengthen the inner self-

Gratitude: Feeling thankful for whatever we have gives a positive outlook to our life. There are many people out there who don’t even have the basic necessities. Instead of cribbing for what we don’t have, it’s better to realize the value of what we have.

Love thy Self: Have you ever thought like this? ‘There is no one in this whole universe who is 100% like you’. It means there is one and only one ‘You’ in this world. Isn’t that so special? So love yourself for whatever you are and stop hurting the self. Talk to yourself appreciating for the positives and work on improving the negative ones. No one is perfect. So just Love yourself for whatever you are…One can love others and enjoy the life only when one loves oneself first.

Smile often: Do you know who the most beautiful person is? The one who smiles whole-heartedly like a baby. A Smile is positively contagious. Don’t you smile involuntarily by looking at a happy baby? Or a smiling person? Smiling and Laughing changes your mood instantly. So next time when you are dressed up, don’t forget to wear a Smile too… :D .

Time for your Passion: Everyone has their own passion. Though we are busy in our daily routine, allocate some time for your favorite hobby. It can be art, music, gardening, cooking, writing, volunteering for a social cause, reading, traveling etc., Anything of your favorite…Just do it. Trust me, it just rejuvenates your mind and gives new energy.

The Power of expression: We have so many thoughts and emotions running inside our mind. For some or the other reason, we may restrain from expressing them. This can cause Stress and negative emotions like frustration, depression. So whenever you feel any emotion that you don’t want to expose to others, just sit in a lonely place and vent out your feelings. This gives a lot of relief and frees your mind.

Life is a long journey and we carry our body and soul through many situations. We may not control the situations , but we can definitely mold our mind positively to face them. So always feed your mind with positive thoughts to nourish your soul. Just tell yourself ‘All z well’ :D

PRESENT, A 'PRESENT'

“Life is so full of care….

There is no time to stand and stare”

               

Yes we are all busy and in a hurry. We have worries about our past, plans and expectations for the future. But may be somewhere in this process, we forget to actually live in the moment.

                

Life is all about living :P. Yes, this phrase is very true if we really mean it. If we are mindful about every little thing we do, then we can enjoy the life to the fullest. Many of us wait for the weekends or vacation time to relax and enjoy. But by being mindful, we can even enjoy the boring things that cannot be avoided in our day-to-day life.

We wake up every morning with hundreds of thoughts in mind; reaching the office on time, giving the best for the presentation, last day to pay the bills etc., and all this thinking happens while getting ready, having coffee, going through the news and having a quick breakfast.  Actually, planning for the day is a good thing. But losing the moment is not necessary.

Enjoy your coffee fully…take in the swaad of that aloo parata fully :D…listen to your favourite songs in the traffic to boost up your morning. All this may sound simple but trust me…these small things make your routine lively and interesting.

It’s not just about the chores, but also about different experiences. When you are at work, being mindful makes you more productive. When you are with your family or friends, being there fully gives a lot of joy. Doing things with a whole presence of mind, body and soul brings completeness and boosts your happiness. Life is a mixture of both ups and downs. Experience both of them fully. Because one day, when we look back, we will have many things to cherish.

So all that we have is the PRESENT MOMENT... Mindfulness is the secret of happiness. :)

CONNECTING DOTS...

Everything in this world is connected. We would have heard this statement and related concepts like ‘butterfly theory’. All such theories say that every single event and every single thing in this world is connected and are related.

             

“Vasudaiva Kutumbakam” means that the Earth is all one family. Have you ever thought about our connection to some unknown people or events? Of course, in today’s world, we are all connected through internet. But imagine how exciting it is to know that whatever we do will also affect somewhere someone in this world.

                

Edison wouldn’t have known that his experiments inside the lab would change the future of this entire Earth. We recognized his invention and hence read his story on how he invented the electricity. This is a realized event. But imagine we may not know the reasons for the events we experience in our lives. Even simple acts are related to someone unknown in our lives. For example, we eat food which is grown by some farmer somewhere and we use things which involve labor work of some unknown person. We work in our offices for some client and through that you indirectly serve an unknown customer on time. So nothing goes in vain and every small act of us is justified in one or the other form in this world.

Every single event might have its effect on another event either directly or indirectly. Every phase of our life, every event in it has a reason. We realize the happy moments in the form of success but sometimes may not understand the reasons for bad ones. We may not understand the reason behind it right now or sometimes never. But still, everything happens for a reason. Trying to understand the reasons will only increase the anxiety.

Just hold faith in this universal chain of events and embrace every minute, event and phase of life responsibly. Because in the end, all the dots will be connected to form a meaningful picture :).

IT’S ALL ABOUT CHOICES

The choices we make define our ‘Life’. Is there anything called ‘right’ choice or ‘wrong’ choice? Well! I believe the right or wrong is always decided on situations but the impact of those choices will be there on our lives.

Suppose there is a person who holds a PG degree, whose passion is Bharatanatyam and who is from a middle class dignified family. His parents are getting old who need to be taken care of and he receives an offer in US with a salary of a million bucks per annum. Now he has to make a choice whether to take the offer or not. What will he do? Which choice of his is right?

The answer is simple. Each one of us is brought up with certain values and we are moulded by the situations we face in our lives. We develop some core values which define our choices and thereby deciding our way of life. These core values act in every situation as the foundation and we build our choices based on it.

For instance, this is how a person might make choices based on different core values

Family: If the person’s core value is family, then his first priority will be his parents. So he makes a choice whether to take the offer or not keeping his parents as the ultimate priority. He may decide not to take the offer and stay back to look after his parents or he may decide to take them along with him.

Money/Career: For a money-oriented person, the offer itself is a great news and he celebrates this event the most. He immediately takes the offer first and then think about other things later. So in this case, he may not give first priority to other things in life because his core value is earning money.

Passion: In this case, his passion is dance. So to make a lifetime choice on whether to leave for US or to follow his passion, he will choose his passion. He will choose to make a great life out of his passion and then prioritize the other things.

There can still be different possible scenarios based on one’s core values like society, fame, purpose etc. One’s decision is said to be right or wrong based on one’s core value. For a person who values his family the most, may feel it a wrong choice to accept the US offer. But for a person who is career oriented, may find it right to take the offer. In general, if the individual core values meet with that of a group of people (or Society), then it is called a good choice; if not, then it’s a bad choice. Again it’s our choice whether to also care about the society. It’s as simple as that.

“They say life is from B to D...from ‘Birthday’ to ‘Death’. But what’s between B & D? It’s a C- ‘Choice’”

So now, if you feel that you lead a satisfactory life, then your core values are strong and clear. But if you have more regrets than happiness in your life, then maybe you have to recheck your core values and try to analyze if this is what you want in your life. Because core values lead to better choices and thereby a better life.

             

THE ONE WHICH NEVER CHANGES…

Is the CHANGE itself. What is that one thing which has been the same through all these years in the entire Universe? It’s nothing but the change. The only catalyst to this change is the ‘Time’.

Be it the big bang of this universe to the evolution of life on Earth, be it a land on which a person like 'Lord Ram’ ruled in India to the present politics, be it the pigeon couriers to the Mobile phones…everything changes with time. Nothing is constant, whether it is good or bad.

There can be good or bad consequences with the ‘CHANGE’. When humans evolved, Earth was healthy and eco-life was balanced. Now, we humans have ‘DEVELOPED’ so much that we think it’s good for the human race to invent many technologies and progress. But there is also a parallel consequence of losing the ecological balance of Earth. It seems good and bad is always balanced. For every good thing, I feel there is a proportionate bad thing happening around. Or maybe everything is just a perception?! and there is nothing called ‘good’ or ‘bad’?! Well…it’s kind of complicated. To keep it simple, balance exists everywhere and in everything.

Like there is a law that mass can never be created nor destroyed i.e. always balanced, I would say that good and bad experiences in life are also always balanced. We start from our childhood, then youth, middle-age and old age. In this process of changing the phases of life, we experience so many emotions, situations, accidents, meetings and partings. Like each and every event of life will be balanced with a proportionate one, we can also see that nothing is constant except the ‘CHANGE’.

So, if you are right now in a depressed state, don’t worry because this will not be the same throughout and change will enter with time. Everything in life will be balanced with changing events along with time. We can only cherish our memories, save our experiences, and take further steps based on them for the future with a hope. So just don’t worry about anything because at the end, everything will change for that right balance in life.