Hello!
I hope you’re finding strength within you to cope up with this pandemic & its consequences everyday. Last week was slow for me. For a couple of days I just stopped doing anything at all. We’ve all had plenty of such days this year. How do you get through them? (Disclaimer: today I’ve written quite a lot. Hope you enjoy!)
Learning & Questions for the week:
Thinking, Fast and Slow
I found myself be completely fascinated with this book and the simple manner in which the intricacies of the working of our brain have been written. I took some time off from reading last week, so I’m going to continue reading this into the next week too. It is a great book to be enjoyed & understood slow.
Here are some lines from the book & questions from me for you: (keep in mind, this is legit brain research, not philosophy. These lines are conclusions from experiments!)
1) “We are often confident even when we are wrong”. “We can be blind to the obvious, and we are also blind to our blindness.”
I have long realised that all of us have blindspots (and I’m not talking about our vision through our eyes!). Something we have lived with, normalised and probably don’t even realise it exists anymore - even if it is something that we know is not good or healthy. What are you doing consciously to remove any blindspots that you have?2) “Too much concern about how well one is doing in a task sometimes disrupts performance by loading short-term memory with pointless anxious thoughts.”
The easiest way I’ve learnt this personally is when I run. When I get fixated too much on the time, the speed, the steps per second, the distance, and all the other other “measures”, I end up having a bad run. Rather when I focus on the process, observe my breathing, the niggles in my body, the mental push to keep going, I run MUCH better. How do you help yourself get past the anxiety of performance? What part of the process helps you? What pulls you back?3) “You know far less about yourself than you feel you do”
I’ve spent the last few years consciously trying to get to know myself better. The more I find out, the more I realise I don’t know and the more I surprise myself. I’ve also learnt to not get attached the answers of questions like “Who am I?” because it inevitably restricts me from being so much more outside the answer to that question in the context of the present. What are you doing to get to know yourself better? Are there parts of you that you don’t recognise anymore? Are there some that surprise you?
I would love to have a conversation with you about everything above.
DM me on Twitter or IG!
What are you reading? Drop in suggestions!
Mental Wellbeing tip for the week:
Thoughts are just that, thoughts. Let yourself understand that and you’ll be able to objectively look at all thoughts (good & bad) and let them go when you need to.
Emotional is a widely misused word too. If I say the word, what came to your mind? Someone sad? Crying? Angry? Why do we not think of joy, happiness, fulfilment, excitement when we say emotional? We’ve divided emotions into positive & negative, and in the pursuit of shielding ourselves from the “negative”, we end up creating a wall that stops you from experiencing even the “positive” as much as you could. Just like for thoughts, let yourself look at your emotions objectively, feel what you need to, and let it go when you need to.
The first time I met someone from Syria
What came to your mind when I mentioned Syria? Hold that thought.
I had the privilege to come across this beautiful group of kids from Syria. I met them in the city of Hurghada in Egypt. They were refugees who were living there.
They came to me, wondering if I was from India. What followed was a quick 10 mins conversation where they excitedly asked me about Hrithik Roshan, Kareena Kapoor, Deepika Padukone, Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan and Bollywood movies in general. YES, they knew all about it.
As much as I was excited to tell them all about it and click a picture with them (and send it to one of the kids who had a phone!), I felt disappointed in myself when they left. I knew nothing about their country except everything bad there is to know, as shown in media. If they could look for such moments of enjoyment after coming from the situations they come from, why couldn’t I take a moment to look beyond what I knew about their country?
There is more good in the world than we think we know. You have to look for it.
Looking for the good does not mean ignoring the bad. But I wish for you too, that you intentionally look for the good in people around you - the countries you may not know about, the people from different religion, caste, sexual orientation, genders - if you look for it, you’ll be surprised how much love & kindness you can find in the world.
Keep playing the game, even if you lose some times!
Let me take this space to say STOP judging yourself if you aren’t actively engaged in a physical routine or a fad “diet”. You do you!
PS.: My updates aren’t polished to look perfect. You’ll see me fail. I hope you stick by anyway!
My reflection for the week:
Physical activity this week was slow & unfulfilling. I don’t have milestones to show for this week, but I am celebrating the week nevertheless.
No matter what goal I set or milestone I go past, I will start at 0km every time I go out. Which also means, some days will be good. Some days, not so much. But I have to be committed to the lifestyle, not the numbers. Celebrate where you are, celebrate the process - not just the milestones. Keep playing. The fun is to keep playing.
What do you do to push yourself past days that don’t go the way you want them to?
DM me on Twitter or IG!
Vegan “Butter Chicken”:
Here you go! If there is ONE thing I miss about the non-vegan life, it is BUTTER CHICKEN. And yes, there is no butter or chicken in it, so why am I calling it Butter Chicken bla bla bla. Are you going to get stuck on the name or go whip up this amazing recipe and treat yourself to delicious food? Your choice. Go with the recipe, trust me ;)
Snippets from my personal thought journal
I’m figuring out ways to redecorate my room and I’m OBSESSED with IKEA. Drop in any ideas you might have! DM me on Twitter or IG!
The smaller things! I’m so grateful for all the small things I have that help me find tiny moments of happiness in everyday life, especially when your week is just like - Meh! My running shoes, my earphones, my Vegan “Butter Chicken”, my shoe rack that doubles as my working table, all of it - I am so grateful! :’)
What were you grateful for in this past week? I urge you to express it.
Thank you for reading & talk to you next Sunday!
In the meantime if you like this, show some love & tell your friends! ♥️