Note to Self: A reminder of hope

This year came with a pressure of beginnings, the exact same pressure you will feel towards the beginning of everything new.

The biggest learning of this year for me was gratitude, I am grateful for all the difficult times.

Every time when I was in the turmoil of existential crises or anxiety and I felt down on my knees, every time it felt like there was no recovering from things, I got to a place where I found new ways to cope up and new ways to find hope.

I am proud that I did not give up. When life gets difficult there is one thing it teaches us, and that is patience. Sometimes when life puts you on your knees, It's important to be on your knees and not rush, “Think-StepBack-Regroup-Move” is the key for the great year I had.

There is a study that shows that the more our emotional centers that get activated by a negative event, the more likely an individual is to remember specific details linked to the emotional aspect of the event. A person is more likely to remember the appearance of the gun, and perhaps less likely to remember more mundane details like a street address. Researchers say this technique of preserving bad memories may have evolved as an evolutionary tactic to protect against future life-threatening or negative events.

In today's world while we are always on high alert, thanks to the rigged NEWS and social media systems, we tend to stay on high alert, overloaded with information which is mostly insignificant, and that burns our receptors for bad feelings, while it is already a struggle to recover from negative experiences, we have to put more efforts on enjoying the good ones.

We tend to use social media to feel connected, the more we use it the more disconnected we feel and the more disconnected we feel the more we use it. And this becomes a major reason, why every one has a Fear Of Missing Out.

I am grateful that in bad times the learning and practices kept me sane, when I went off track they helped me. All the meditations and the mind work.

But it will be unjustified to give all the credit to it. The credit also goes to my friends, mentors, Family and my loved ones, who never looked at me any different no matter what situation I was in life.

For the people who love you, you are defined and loved for who you are and not by what you have accomplished.

We have somehow evolved to start from not trusting a person to knowing them and then trusting them.

However, it should best to get to know them, give them the benefit of the unknown, get to know them and then decide if they are worthy or not. I came across a lot of people who might not be as involved as most but I trust them that in places of celebrations and situations of crises they will always show up.

People who came around :

I always got entangled by the feeling of loneliness, I learnt that loneliness is actually a myth, for most of us, if not all. We always have people around us who are always one ‘ask for help’ away from moving mountains for you.

The feeling of loneliness did not make me question myself, it made me revisit my relationships and decisions, practically with every single person I know and love.

One of the most important lessons was “asking for help does not make me a small person” when you need help asking for it is the hook that is going to bring you out from the ocean of loneliness and troubles.

Not shying aways from Reality checks but embracing them :

We in today's world have such fragile ego, that we tend to dislike feedback and reality checks, we are either trying to impress or demean.

We don't encourage brutal feedback and truth about ourselves, we tend to live in our own world where everything is just perfect and when someone shows up and brings you closer to the harsh reality, we run away, more with the feeling of dislike for that person, serving and saving our fragile ego, and picking up the pieces.

Counting the wins on the way:

For obvious reasons when we look back in time we remember the mistakes that we make in our life, and success & achievements lose significance but a mistake always stays as a mistake.

I know how much courage it took for me to take my first steps this year, I remember saying “c you soon” to my mom at 12 at night moving out of the house for my first solo trip. The first step I took towards my blog, bought a domain or the moment I realized it's time to change jobs and took the first step towards it.

For a long time I did not believe in Ripple effects, but I got insight about how literally everything we do, adds on to be everything we are today.

I encourage you to celebrate all the small wins as well. No matter if it's as small as improving your typing, or being able to run that extra mile.

Stop worrying about them:

One of the biggest things that came to life for me was that we seriously invest a lot of time in thinking about what people are thinking, what he/she is thinking.

We take less actions and spend a lot of time thinking about what could have been better on that date or the friends day out . I challenge you to notice yourself for a week and identify the amount of yourself thinking about things that could have been differently or better. Rather than thinking about what could have happened, we should think about what we could do.

Its you:

I realised that most of the time its us, yes ourselves, who is so hell bent on pulling us down, I had a personal realisation that no matter what I achieve, it always depend on me and how I want to handle the situation, no matter its life threatening situations or basic situation, how you react decides your growth out of that moment.

I was recently put in a situation where everything seems to go wrong. To be honest I am still in the situation, writing this blog thinking about everyone and everything going on in my life, Thinking about everyone, who is going through something in their lives.

I noticed how my mind stops playing from our side and the critic becomes the captain and starts taking over every positive thought, every ray of hope I started to see.

I accept, its difficult to live in tough moments.

The only way I find the will and courage to get up every morning is simple, I wake up with gratitude and hope.

To be honest that gratitude and hope is just enough to carry out the whole day and I feel drained by the end. What's important here is to keep the fire alive.

Dive deep into your sense of gratitude and see the small things you are thankful for. Everyday I spend 2-3 minutes thinking about all the good thing and people I have been blessed with, its not going to change anything but it will help you finding some good every day.

I am not saying that I will find answer to every question life throws my way, but I am certain that I will keep finding the courage to keep trying, and keep looking for it.

This too shall pass.