“See what no one else sees. See what everyone else chooses not to see, out of fear, conformity, laziness. See the whole world anew each day!”
Tag Archives: self love
#NO
I am a big fan of Renee’s articles on the Feminine Woman. I came across an article about people pleasing. Do check out the link below
This is what I have been practicing for the past month. The art of saying, “I don’t think so.” I did the little exercise on that article and had to do a little self reflection. All our lives we have been drilled to believe that if we don’t please someone, we might end up losing them. So we learn to be the “Yes” man or woman. But interestingly, each time we go out of the way to please someone. We end up with the opposite result. By pleasing them, we are hoping they would return us the favor or stay with us. Interestingly, neither happens. Take a moment to remember a decision you made where you had to go out of the way for someone. Especially, at your expense. How did you feel? Did the person last?
No. Never.
Now, remember the times you said No to something you didn’t want? How did you feel? Did you lose the person?
Interestingly, we feel more empowered. Stronger. In control. Worshipping our inner bitch is important. At the end of the day, when you please yourself – you save money, time and a potential headache.
Every decision we make, we must reflect if we are pleasing someone or we are doing it out of our own accord. If a friend, calls you out to go for a movie. Are you going to please your friend out of fear of losing her? Or are you going because you want to watch the movie as well? If your reason is the first, you are probably going to lose the person any way. If you learn to serve yourself, you can serve others. If not you end up being an empty bottle. Nothing can fill that void. Nobody wants to be around a void.
Personally, I feel every child should learn the word No before they can even say Mama.
#Learning to say NO begins at the sales counter
Cosmetic companies and bad boyfriends are pretty much the same. They lower your self esteem. Convince you need them. And, make you pay for it. Today, something interesting happened. I wanted a vegan daily cleanser for my face. I am a big fan of Himalayas products because they don’t test on animals. I knew very well what I wanted before I got to the shop. A sales lady hijacks me. She tells me bluntly “No offense. You have terrible skin. You should try this product instead.”
She lures me to another counter and promotes this other product which is priced double. Her sales pitch begins. I decide to listen to her anyway despite the fact she just cut my self esteem into half. I have a habit of making friendly conversations with sales people. I found she is from Kerala as well. I continue talking to her. She then nails her pitch with these fatal words, “My daughter uses it. I can guarantee you it works!”.
I find myself in a dilemma where lots of others find themselves. If I were to reject her, what would she think of me?
Recently, I read this book. “How to get in touch with your inner bitch.” We often find ourselves saying yes to things we barely want. Buying things we barely need. Saying yes to a guy we would never date. Saying yes to a bad job offer. Saying yes to an obnoxious colleague. Or that bad boyfriend.
We don’t want to make them feel bad. My, my what would they think? Let’s play nice instead. And so, we find ourselves sitting on a mountain of shopping bags, being in a relationship with a guy we have no spark with, falling asleep at our jobs, being a slave to that obnoxious colleague, and promoting that boyfriend to a husband who in turn is going to end up being an ex husband with an axe.
How do we feel inside? Just awesome isn’t it? Being nice is soooo nice. Right!
All this could simply solved with one word. NO. Or like what this lovely book taught me. “I don’t think so.” If only we say no. We wouldn’t have that ex husband chopping at our door at 1 AM. Think about it!
I know I have terrible skin. But to trust a complete stranger who tore my self esteem into half and buy a doubly priced product. I don’t think so. Besides, shouldn’t I know what’s good for my face? Cosmetic companies do that a lot. They convince you that you aren’t good enough. Then, tell you their product will make you good. And, we buy that crap. We buy that crap from a total stranger who just labeled us as not good enough. What’s worse? We trust them. That’s not nice. So why should we play nice?
In the end, I listened to her sales pitch patiently. I completely understand she was just trying to sell me something. I looked at her and told her, “Nah. I know what I want. I rather buy the product I came for. Thank you.”
We still had a friendly conversation after that. It didn’t change anything. She didn’t like me any lesser. The foundation of our friendship built 5 minutes ago was still standing strong.
There is an inner bitch in every one of us. Call it a gut feeling. When you are torn between two roads, listen to your inner bitch. Cause, she is always right. It is better to listen to her than say yes and kick yourself for the rest of eternity. It’s not worth it. By the way, do that to cosmetic companies. By you saying no to their crap, you are saying no to their claim of you being not good enough. In other words, you are good enough to know what’s good enough for you.
If you want to practice saying no, go to a sales counter. By the end of the aisle, you’ll be pretty damn good at it and you won’t have to end up with that ex with an axe!
#Little box of wishes
Write down all your wishes. Even the crazy ones from childhood. Put it all in a little box. Take one out each day and make it happen. The one that wants to come to make it happen with you, is the one you’d enjoy spending the rest of eternity with.
#Program
What if I tell you. Beneath the flesh and blood, we are robots. We were programmed to act and believe a certain way. No. I’m not talking about free will. I want you to take a journey with me. Back to your childhood. Back to when you were a clean slate. As a child, you were perfect. You could love, forgive and love again very easily. But adults decided to program you to survive in the real world. Now, these adults had good intentions. Maybe, not all of them. But you needed to be programmed nevertheless. You were assigned two Adults. These adults were the only sources of knowledge to you. You learnt to see the world through their eyes. And, you would do anything to please them. In return, these adults will smile at you. That smile meant the world to you. Pleasing your adults meant everything to you and it gave you a warm fuzzy feeling in your little heart. These adults had a name for that feeling. They call it love.
Now, not all baby robots are lucky. Sometimes, malfunctioning adults are assigned to baby robots. Some baby robots had to work extra hard to see that smile on that face. Sometimes, they get a different response. An angry response. It creates a prickly painful feeling in its little heart. The baby robot fears being abandoned. So it works even more harder to change that angry response to that smile. Now, that smile doesn’t come always. But once in a blue moon, that adult smiles. Slowly, that painful feeling turns to a warm fuzzy one. The baby robot believes this is also called love. But love is not easy to get. It’s like striking the lottery. You have to work really hard for it.
Some other baby robots have it worse. They have to take care of the adults. They want that warm fuzzy feeling so bad. But they come up with an idea, if they give that warm fuzzy feeling to their adults, they might actually get it back. So these baby robots pretend to be adults. Overtime, they begin to learn that love is not about getting warm fuzzy feelings. It is about giving warm fuzzy feelings to others. And, you shouldn’t expect to have these feelings back. It is selfish.
Then, they are those baby robots that have no adults. They have never experienced the warm fuzzy feeling others talk about. They learn to believe it is a myth. A fairy tale. It doesn’t exist. Love to them is like looking through a snow globe. You can see it. But, you can’t quite understand it.
Nevertheless, all these baby robots are being prepared to find what adults call – The Ideal Match.
Eventually, all these robots become adults and they are ready for the world. The healthy robots naturally pick robots that were similar to the adults they were exposed to. Because, they were programmed to do so. They were hardwired to believe love is about respect, security and trust. It was a natural action. They gave warm fuzzy feelings and received warm fuzzy feelings back.
Now, the robots that had to work extra hard naturally picked adults that made it hard for them. Again, it was a natural action. These robots believe all adults are like that. So, when it doesn’t work with one adult, they pick another adult and then another etc. Because, it is not easy to receive warm fuzzy feelings. They were programmed to believe that.
But for the robots that had to take care of their adults, they did something interesting. They developed an X-RAY. This X-RAY is used to find adults that were still baby robots inside. So, these robots can take care of them. I mean, for them this is natural. Love is about taking care, being the mommy to an adult. It doesn’t matter if these adults can’t love them back. Love is about giving, isn’t it?
What about the robots that had no adults? They still don’t know what warm fuzzy feelings are all about? They hear other robots talking about it. They read about it. They even watch movies about it. Sometimes, adults take interest in these robots. They receive this warm feeling. But they don’t know what to do with these warm fuzzy feelings. Could this be what other robots are talking about? Nah. That’s a fairy tale. It can’t be. So sometimes these robots run away. Become confused. They even reciprocate these warm fuzzy feelings with hurtful painful ones. I mean. Can you blame them? They don’t know what to do. It wasn’t in the program.
This now causes an interesting chain reaction. The adults that get fed the painful feelings feed other adults painful feelings. It breeds.
But there is a solution to all this chaos.
What if I were to tell you…
Life is like a journey on a boat. The destination doesn’t matter. In fact, you don’t know where you are going. But, the uncertainty itself makes you excited. Now, I tell you. You can bring a few people on board. But, let me warn you. This journey isn’t going to be easy. You will experience sunshine, laughter and the occasional storms. Storms that could possibly drown you. Would you rather bring the people who are uncertain to travel with you but are highly skilled or bring the ones who are not so skilled but would stick with you through thick and thin.
Life is a choice.
An interesting dream intepretation
Last night, I dreamt of my mother’s home in Kerala. I saw my Aunt in the kitchen making some delicacies. I went in to assist her. Interestingly, this dream was a reminiscence of something that happened in the past. I was a child and I wanted to learn how to make Palada (a kerala dish). I remembered her teaching me patiently. I felt closer to her. Because my own mother didn’t have that patience. She held my hand and taught me to spread the batter slowly. I remembered feeling immense gratitude towards her.
In this dream, My aunt was doing the same. I thought I was doing a good job. Suddenly, she slaps my hand. I feel hurt because she has never hit me before. I feel incapable. Then, she brings me to the window. She shows me a high rise building. The building was numbered 740 much like the homes in Singapore. She tells me there is a library on the 20th floor. I wonder to myself why she is telling me this. She tells me I can go read anytime I want.
I didn’t take this dream seriously. Until, a thought struck me. All my life, I had been self taught. I never had a mentor or anyone to teach me. I always wanted a mentor. Someone to guide me. But, I always find myself learning on my own. Having to pave the way on my own. This dream reflects that. I am going through a pivotal point in my life. Trying to gain independence and stand on my own two feet. Subconsciously, I would love to have a guide. Therefore, I saw her in my dream. My desire to have a mentor. The mentor slaps me and points a library to me. A library is a symbol of knowledge. A place where you can help yourself. My subconsciously is telling me not to be lazy and wish for the cosmos to help me. But to go find my way myself. Because I am best when I’m self taught. Just like the way, I taught myself to sing and dance. The library is up 20 floors. It isn’t that easy to get up there. However, in the dream I felt there will be an elevator in the building. So I have nothing to worry about. As long as I have the will to learn, everything will fall in its place.
THE VOICE 