Friday Findings

A: I found it Mummy. I did it. Thank you so much.
Me: Amjad! I didn’t find it, why are you thanking me?
A: I am thanking myself, I found it myself.

That was for me the light bulb moment of the day.

When did we unlearn to thank ourselves?

To give you the background of what happened.
Amjad was trying to find the specific fire truck toy and he couldn’t. He came to me for help while I was cooking, and we searched it together for a full 5 minutes.

We found everything else behind the sofas, under the carpet, tables and every other piece of furniture. We found some broken leaves, some dried food not eaten and hidden behind the sofa, lots of other toys, we also found some dead spiders and some alive screaming and running away in horror at our sudden uninvited arrival or rather raiding at their homes, basically everything else except that fire truck.

‘What shall we do now, oh no my fire truck, its lost! Come on Mummy let’s search more. ‘
‘Amjad, I have to go now and cook our lunch, you can continue searching.’ I replied and came back to my mid-day work break and continued my survival chore of cooking to eat.

While I focused on mashing potatoes and keeping an eye on him from the kitchen door towards our living room, I saw him coming with a beaming smile and the specific fire truck in his hand.

‘I found it Mommy. I did it. Thank you so much’, he said while looking at his toy. It was then he explained to me that he was thanking himself for doing it all by himself.
My instant and reflex thought was ‘oh you don’t say thanks to yourself.’

While the words sit restlessly in my mouth, my brain asked me Really? Since when …
I have no idea since when, I decided to eat my words and share his joy: clapped and congratulated him.

Deep down I knew others won’t, he will eventually unlearn to thank himself and wait for others to thank him when he did something good, wait and wish for credit to be given where it’s due, to be appreciated, to be acknowledged just like we all do.

Another thought brewed up then: Our resentments or disappointments in others are because they haven’t appreciated us or acknowledged our efforts or given credit to us
Or
Are they because we have forgotten how to thank our self, acknowledge or appreciate our own efforts at this experience of lifeing and by that I mean not the boastful egoistic acknowledgment and gratification of ego with an ‘I, me and I’ but a humble, honest, genuine thank you, I see you, I appreciate you, I know its hard , you haven’t done it before.

Let me know in the comments, as you read this , What brewed up for you ?

Trust your inner sensors

When you are sitting in the nature observe it too !
How everyone is just busy and happy doing their things.
Bees buzzing around, birds flying and  chirping, wind  blowing , some flowers opening at sunlight and then closing again at sunset.
The climbers and vines finding their way through the walls and support using their sensory receptors , their natural springs coiling around the wires sometimes multiple times as per the support needed by their delicate stems until they are  stronger and ready to move to next wall.
And here I am untrusting my natural inner sensors who are constantly telling me who I am, 
That I am strong, I am worthy and I can do it,  that there is Allah’s support available, just close your eyes, see through the inner eye and coil around your rock and support system that trusts you,  supports you and nurtures you!

I was looking outside and getting lost while all I have to do is adjust my compass and look inside , because that’s what I always do !
I always look inside for my way though, that’s where I find my answers and support.

Dont change your course because it works for others, what works for them might not work for you. You know what is best for you and how you do things.
Trust your sensors , do it your way.

#fromadaydreamersdiary
#talkwithsana
#indianwomenwriters #indianwriters #muslimwomenentrepreneurs #womenwhoread #womenwhowrite #womenwhothink
#womensupportingwomen
#muslimahwriters#muslimauthors

How do we preserve the Self and all the hard work done on it.

Working on your self is a never ending process, There is never a moment when you can say hey that’s enough and I no longer need to work on myself any further, even maintaining a status quo needs work otherwise all that hard work will be gone.
Accepting your self with all your realities is hardest thing.
I am saying here Realities because the  faults or error that you see on your physical self are so relative to your perception, your thoughts at that moment , experiences in life.
But once you have passed that self acceptance test, comes another test.
When you are in self care mode, happy in being yourself, sitting relaxed with your guards down , someone might just say you something that you feel those shards of words digging deep into the skin..hurting so bad. All that self work feels lost, gone in those moments, doubts creeping in from the wounds.
I kept reflecting for long what happens in those moments and this is what I came up with as an answer.

Preserving the Self

What happened in those moments is we were not ready to see us / ourselves from their eyes. The way they saw us , their reactions, how they spoke of us was not what we have prepared ourselves for , all this while.
We were preparing only to face our own critical eye.

So how do we prepare ourselves for these situations.

Preserving the hard work on Self.

When the weather inside us is cool , calm and we are at peace within our selves.
Suddenly a remark, an unpleasant reaction from someone who caught us offguard jolts us completely !
All the self acceptance work done so far seems gone down the drain in that moment.
So when are your guards down, When are you most vulnerable?
You are most vulnerable and with your guards down among the people you trust and love, in familial and friendly settings.
Anything which comes from these people affect us directly,
One of my friend commented : We cant control everything and we cant prepare for everything.
She is 💯 percent right , we can’t control everything but what we can control and definitely prepare , is our reaction to it when it happens again, we can choose to not get affected.
We can choose to understand what someone is saying and is hurtful to us, might be the projection of their fears, their insecurities,their realities and experiences.
We have made peace with ourselves and we will not let it affect us.
But if it’s repeatedly done , a boundary needs to be setup and it needs to be respected.
Nobody should be allowed to transgress it.
We need to inform the repeated defaulters that this topic shouldn’t be further brought up again or we will not like to discuss it period.

Coping with life one day at a time

Writing Bug

The price of wisdom often comes at loss of our naivety ,our innocence, the trust in life and people. I do miss my old self sometimes, but I am more happier and at peace with my current self.
I was so upset at myself for long, for being so naive , so innocent that I actually called myself stupid when I took people at their face value : the face , the emotions , and the concerns they showed me and not the ones they really had.
I still do it though and I must admit I am still learning to cope up with the hurt I do get time to time, but that’s the part of me , of who I am, I trust people easily. Some of them put their trust back , others didn’t, some even use it.
I have learnt that what others do is definitely not my problem , I am only responsible to manage myself to safeguard my heart ,to preserve my sanity. I have stopped reading between the lines. I have stopped analyzing what others actually meant when they threw a taunt, a frown at me or purposefully ignore me to make me feel unimportant.
All this affected me in past, gave me anxiety and nervousness but not anymore.
I still trust people, I still go out of my way to help people, I still am genuinely happy for others, I will forever keep motivating people in spite of any of their behavior that affected me in past or present.
I have entrusted all my actions to Almighty that whatever good I do is for his sake only and not for any human being. I still get hurt but intensity is much less now.
How do you deal with it , would love to know your coping mechanism ?

Say Yes!

Say Yes to Life!

Say Yes to positive affirmations.

Say Yes to new beginnings.

Say Yes to gratitude in life.

Say Yes to the compliments you receive with humility.

Say Yes to your inner self.

Say Yes to self care.

Say Yes to your Soul.

Say Yes to peace in life.

Say yes to the Yes .

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How many of us practice Digital Kindness?

How many of us are practicing digital kindness?
When most of us are online so many hours per day, scrolling through posts of people we know or donot know in our real world.
We are so hesitant  to  complement people  and so very generous in criticizing, disagreeing, trivializing somebody’s concerns , low feelings or issues ! It becomes so easy to be rude, impolite to the stranger when you dont see real faces behind, trailing emotions behind .
Sometimes what we write is also not translating to what we are thinking and doesn’t get perceived in right light by the one who is reading ! I have seen people being so kind and generous in real life but not online,  Why is it so? Dont we deserve kindness in these digital spaces we all are occupying?
Is it true that this virtual world is making us less tolerant of each other, we tend to mute the posts or account we dont like where else in real world we have to adjust and listen to people we dont like or want to hear.
Are we growing more impatient ?
Our attention span is getting shorter and shorter to few microseconds until the next post and next scroll.
What are you doing to practice more digital kindness , to be more tolerant and to keep up your attention span in real world?

Digital Kindness

To all the women out there!

Somebody remarked
You are short !
Another told me
Look at your hands,
They ain’t pretty.
Someone pointed
my feet were silly.
Few told me
I might be cute
But I ain’t pretty.
Some assured me
I can look good
Just that I
Need to weigh
A little less.
From 20s to 30
I kept stressing
How I looked
What I ate
Self-conscious
Self Doubting
Hardly happy
Or Carefree.
Whatever I do
I was never
good enough.

And then 30s struck
With a big blow,
All the stress
Self Doubts
Had transformed
Into disorders of
Autoimmune.
Here I was sitting
Looking back
at that pretty girl
in her 20s
Wishing back
that body ,
hair and skin
Which I never
really liked or
appreciated then.

Last 5 years
have been
Self reckoning
Self caring
Self learning
Transformational
Healing
Forgiving
Appreciating
Gratifying
Learning
Unlearning
Relearning
On my
Self- journey .

Being Happy
With the woman
I am becoming.
Grateful for
Every thing
Little and big.
Feeling Beautiful
And meaningful.
Inside and outside.

Don’t wait for your 30s or 40s
to love yourself
and outgrow your insecurities.
Discard them now,
live truly and enjoy your life !

Simple things in life

When you look back in life ! Good times , Bad times or worse you will only remember the little things that made you smile and happy.

From the most difficult time of my life , I can only remember sipping coffee with my best friend , pouring my heart out to her, our shopping sessions, walks and drives . I remember how my family, cousins and friends reached out for me, heard me out, comforted me and made me laugh..it’s surprisingly annoying that I don’t remember much from the things I was crying over then, those hurtful things that hurt so much in the past.Those painful sleepless nights .

I might have grown over them or thanks to my doggy memory but I am still grateful for all those wonderful memories I cherish now which I thought then was a bad time and my rough phase then.

So whenever you think it’s all bad, there is nothing good happening, remember there will always be something good happening , those teeny weeny simple things in life which you will look back and cherish forever.

Choose your mirror wisely!

7 days of Kindness #wellbeingseptemberseries

Day 2 of #7daysofkindness is clearly dedicated to this little creature who definitely deserves more kindness from me than anyone else I can think of first . The surroundings we raise  these kids are all designed for  adults and what they keep on hearing all day is  Don’t do this , Don’t do that ! Put that back! You will fall ! Shut that door ! don’t open the cupboards , don’t play with it !
So today I just stepped back and thought , Is it really their fault all day ? They are just curious little fellas, out there having some fun . Are we really failing them as adult ? , instead of making their life more fun and happy we just keep nagging and they hear all day is negative words ‘ No , don’t do’ …
So much so  that once I start telling  Amjad no for something. He comes back  with a stern reprimanding  voice saying ‘ No No  Don’t do ! ‘ . Felt like  a mirror being held to my face and I see me through his eyes .
So for today a little more empathy and kindness for this little fella .I let him play with  dirt in the garden , opening taps and getting wet with  water and even munching on these unwashed grapes!

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