Be Your Own Mother!
All of us know that a mother is a symbol of pure love; when a child is unwell, she pours her heart and soul in healing her child. And as the famous Hindi movie dialogue goes, ‘inhe dawaaon se zyaada, duwaaon ki zaroorat hai’! So, we all agree that mother care works!
But as we grow older, we are often reminded that we are no more babies and though the love of our elders still exists, the physical care and attention doesn’t seem to be around the way it used to be. How we wish we could receive it at all points in life…Isnt it?
Let’s agree that a part of us still wishes to cling to mama’s ‘pallu’ even now, because that’s where we felt most secure and safe as children! This indicates that with each passing year, we have depicted a chronological difference in our ages, whereas mentally we remained babies! And since over the years, the need to get mothered has been growing in us, we expect other loved ones to mother us! But when we don’t find anybody matching ‘mama’s’ standards, the voids get larger and even larger.
Unfortunately, we are poor learners; our mothers were, infact, doing a job of training us to take care of ourselves when we grow older (because for all probable reasons, they cannot be our caretakers all through their lives!). She was teaching us Self Love!
What stops us from becoming our own mothers?
When contacted with a physical ailment, some people heal earlier than others. We have also heard of cases where diseases like cancer have been completely cured. Have you ever thought how these miracles occur? More importantly, why is it that only a small proportion of people can deal with such challenges bravely, whereas most of us either blame the weather or (worse) people for our illnesses! Needless to state, the doctors’ doors are always open for us! But I wonder when we will open our hearts for ourselves.
Its time we realize that the highest and purest form of medicine is self love. Nobody but you can heal yourself. Illness is a movement towards wellness; indeed, it is the body’s way of communicating that it needs your attention.
Know Your Body!
Your body has its own intelligence; every cell of your body vibrates with energy and is filled with consciousness. The only thing you can say is yours in the physical realm is your body because you are born with it. Have you ever wondered how this beautiful mechanism works on its own? Neither does it require any charge nor batteries to perform its functions. Yet, every organ does its job so magnificently. It knows exactly what to do, when to do and how to do what it does!
Just imagine the lungs taking some time off from the respiratory function? Or what if the heart says that it needs to go on a holiday because ever since it was born, it hasn’t taken a break! Pheeew, so much is happening nonstop! The body doesn’t ask for anything in return, it has been endlessly serving us from the time its taken form. Can you empathize with the magnitude of demands the body has to fulfill? It is indeed a massive task done with utmost precision and perfection.
How many of us really thank our bodies for the service it gives us? Not many, because we are used to taking our bodies for granted. We may not be able to undo what has been done for years but we have the freedom to incorporate appreciation towards our bodies from now on….
Body listening as a regular practice!
Take your attention to your body and be with the silence of it. You are doing Body Listening! You will realize that every part of your body communicates to you. Your eyes might say that they want to remain shut for sometime or your knees might want a gentle massage. (Well, my stomach has communicated that it doesn’t require tea anymore. I trust my body’s intelligence and have obeyed for my own benefits.) Similarly, you may receive different messages from your hands, ears, head and heart.
Be patient as you move from head to toe and spend few moments on each part of your body. As you do this, please pay your gratitude to every organ for the work it does to keep you healthy. Do not forget to mention ‘I love you’; watch the body respond to these feelings. You will have tears of joy in your eyes and will wonder how you could miss noticing your body for so long!
It is fine if you hear nothing. With practice, you will have sharpened your sensitivity to understand your body, and more importantly, to listen attentively. Enjoy the experience!
Caution: It doesn’t matter how fat or thin you are…remember you are working towards Project SELF LOVE…In this journey, all that matters is what you think of your self including your bodies. Appreciate the roundness or leanness of your body because there’s only one YOU in this entire universe! If you don’t do it, nobody else will...
As you connect to your bodies, take your attention inside your bodies. In the words of Ekhart Tolle, author of ‘The Power of Now’, “through the inner body, you are forever one with God.” This is where your Being resides.
The body that you can see and touch is only a thin illusory veil; underneath it lies the invisible inner body. There is a very deep beautiful silence that you will witness, and the more you are in touch with it, the more appreciative you become of life. You will realize that there is life in every single cell and will feel the tiny sub-atomic particles vibrate throughout the body. The more consciousness you direct in your inner bodies, the higher your vibrations and the more positive outcomes you shall attract in your life.
Then it won’t matter how fat or thin you are; all that will matter is loving yourself. This will be your union with your own divine self. Love your bodies, both inner and outer and you will love life. You will succeed in Project Self Love. Wish you all the best!
Loving Self
Naz
Friday, August 29, 2008
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Relationships as viewed today!
We have always focused our energies and attention on the world outside. Our sensory receptors pass on information about the sensual pleasures to our brains and create attachment to the worldly pursuits. This pattern eventually takes us away from our own selves and disconnects us from our own beings. In the course of time, we become addicts to something or the other, be it a situation/ condition or worse a person…the outcome being misery for self and obviously the other/s.
We are not alien to the fact that most relationships are the targets of obsession with patterns/ habits which are self generated and self destructive in nature. It wouldn’t be wrong to state that we depict symptoms of obsessive compulsive disorders where relationships are concerned. There is so much of attachment to our ideas about what is wrong or right that we not just fail to view the others’ perspective but also completely disregard that their ways could even exist as a possibility! Above all, we claim that our actions are inspired by our love for the other and that is why we are in such a state where we can’t live without the concerned ‘object’ of obsession. Now what would you call such a behavior? Isn’t this pure hypocrisy!
A few days back, I was into a conversation with somebody who was on a complaint trip towards life and to break the pattern of mind traps, I asked her if she loved herself. Her instant reply was ‘of course!’…’U could even call me a ‘narcist…I have only one life and I do everything to enjoy it!’ Hmmm….this statement set me thinking that if one is really enjoying life, then where is the scope for complaints?
Another friend, married a month ago, called me to help him ‘save his marriage’! I asked him my favorite question…if he loved himself and his reply was in affirmative, indicating that it is his self love that’s preventing him from loving his wife!
Understanding Self
It is vividly clear that in both cases, the concerned people have mistaken something else to be self love. So, for the sake of convenience, let’s first understand what self love isn’t.
Selfishness x
Self centeredness x
Pride x
Ego x
Superiority complex x
Inferiority comple x
The above mentioned traits are the other extremes to loving self.
What then is Self Love?
To understand this, let’s know what constitutes self?
Self comprises:
- My Thoughts (the language of my mind)
- My Emotions (the language of my body)
- My Feelings (the language of my soul)
It’s been long since we first took ourselves for granted; only to stop paying attention to self and start condemning who we are. For example, so often we toil in feelings of guilt for having done something our conditioning has taught us never to indulge in…let me be more specific…sex! Consequently, we feel miserable and when one feels miserable, how can one be in love with self?
Similarly, there are so many things that we believe we should or should not have done. If you take an account of your day’s activities, you’ll notice that your critical mind has created a systematic log of acceptable and unacceptable behaviors for each day, which doesn’t make you feel so good about yourself.
It’s important to know that just as we feed our bodies with the food we eat, we also feed our minds with the thoughts we harbor. When the food has gone stale and doesn’t suit our bodies, we encounter a situation called food poisoning. And then follows the medical care and rest required for recuperating completely.
Have you thought that there could be something like thought poisoning too? What medical care would you give to a person suffering from such an ailment? The irony is that almost everybody is suffering from this disease, but none wants to admit that they are mentally ill. Instead of getting better, we are getting worse…can you imagine the extent of damage caused to our minds due to our ignorance! Don’t you think if we do not take an account of the situation NOW, we could get insane?
Indeed, very soon we’ll be prisoners of a diseased mind which constantly harms itself and the body it occupies because every such thought creates a corresponding emotion in the body and settles there (till it finds a release). To me, this situation is alarming! And to you?
Think about it?
We have always focused our energies and attention on the world outside. Our sensory receptors pass on information about the sensual pleasures to our brains and create attachment to the worldly pursuits. This pattern eventually takes us away from our own selves and disconnects us from our own beings. In the course of time, we become addicts to something or the other, be it a situation/ condition or worse a person…the outcome being misery for self and obviously the other/s.
We are not alien to the fact that most relationships are the targets of obsession with patterns/ habits which are self generated and self destructive in nature. It wouldn’t be wrong to state that we depict symptoms of obsessive compulsive disorders where relationships are concerned. There is so much of attachment to our ideas about what is wrong or right that we not just fail to view the others’ perspective but also completely disregard that their ways could even exist as a possibility! Above all, we claim that our actions are inspired by our love for the other and that is why we are in such a state where we can’t live without the concerned ‘object’ of obsession. Now what would you call such a behavior? Isn’t this pure hypocrisy!
A few days back, I was into a conversation with somebody who was on a complaint trip towards life and to break the pattern of mind traps, I asked her if she loved herself. Her instant reply was ‘of course!’…’U could even call me a ‘narcist…I have only one life and I do everything to enjoy it!’ Hmmm….this statement set me thinking that if one is really enjoying life, then where is the scope for complaints?
Another friend, married a month ago, called me to help him ‘save his marriage’! I asked him my favorite question…if he loved himself and his reply was in affirmative, indicating that it is his self love that’s preventing him from loving his wife!
Understanding Self
It is vividly clear that in both cases, the concerned people have mistaken something else to be self love. So, for the sake of convenience, let’s first understand what self love isn’t.
Selfishness x
Self centeredness x
Pride x
Ego x
Superiority complex x
Inferiority comple x
The above mentioned traits are the other extremes to loving self.
What then is Self Love?
To understand this, let’s know what constitutes self?
Self comprises:
- My Thoughts (the language of my mind)
- My Emotions (the language of my body)
- My Feelings (the language of my soul)
It’s been long since we first took ourselves for granted; only to stop paying attention to self and start condemning who we are. For example, so often we toil in feelings of guilt for having done something our conditioning has taught us never to indulge in…let me be more specific…sex! Consequently, we feel miserable and when one feels miserable, how can one be in love with self?
Similarly, there are so many things that we believe we should or should not have done. If you take an account of your day’s activities, you’ll notice that your critical mind has created a systematic log of acceptable and unacceptable behaviors for each day, which doesn’t make you feel so good about yourself.
It’s important to know that just as we feed our bodies with the food we eat, we also feed our minds with the thoughts we harbor. When the food has gone stale and doesn’t suit our bodies, we encounter a situation called food poisoning. And then follows the medical care and rest required for recuperating completely.
Have you thought that there could be something like thought poisoning too? What medical care would you give to a person suffering from such an ailment? The irony is that almost everybody is suffering from this disease, but none wants to admit that they are mentally ill. Instead of getting better, we are getting worse…can you imagine the extent of damage caused to our minds due to our ignorance! Don’t you think if we do not take an account of the situation NOW, we could get insane?
Indeed, very soon we’ll be prisoners of a diseased mind which constantly harms itself and the body it occupies because every such thought creates a corresponding emotion in the body and settles there (till it finds a release). To me, this situation is alarming! And to you?
Think about it?
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Loving Self
Self love is the biggest virtue one can gift oneself. Research indicates that over 90% of the population don’t love themselves…reason being, that they don’t know what self love is!
We have had many books talk about this contemporary issue and those of you who attend self development trainings are not foreign to this terminology. However, this is not a concept that can be taught, it’s a feeling one has to experience!
Being a Corporate Trainer and having facilitated a host of workshops over past ten years, I too thought that I understand what loving oneself means, until recently, when I fell ill at a meditation retreat. It was only then that I contacted all my inner powers to heal myself. I knew then that the other name for self love is self healing. Needless to state, being in love with self is such a feeling that cannot be expressed in words.
Most of us are sleep-walking and are blind to our respective purposes that have got all of us together on this planet. However, being a victim of our patterns, we may deny that this is true about us, but deep within this is the reality of every person. Only when we accept the reality, can we see beyond and reach the solution long awaiting us. Once we get in touch with this wisdom, there is no looking back…it’s the end of misery. My sincere urge to all is to look within ourselves, really deep to get in touch with the divine light safely lit in the center of our hearts. The wisest thing to do is believe in such a possibility for which you will have to break away from the shackles of your concept of security.
The question next is ‘How’? The answer is very simple…first and foremost it requires you to keep an open mind towards learning other ways and accepting that you need to look afresh at the existing situations. You are sitting with a heap of problems on your head, the burden of which is getting on you and it is time you offload them….do you want to offload?
If Yes, I will take you through a journey of understanding self, the destination to which is loving oneself …so we move from US to LS…If you think you are ready and it is your divine call to explore the beautiful being you are, you have hit the right blog. I welcome you to the paradise of love, pure love, divine light and bliss….come along…
Love & Light
Naz
We have had many books talk about this contemporary issue and those of you who attend self development trainings are not foreign to this terminology. However, this is not a concept that can be taught, it’s a feeling one has to experience!
Being a Corporate Trainer and having facilitated a host of workshops over past ten years, I too thought that I understand what loving oneself means, until recently, when I fell ill at a meditation retreat. It was only then that I contacted all my inner powers to heal myself. I knew then that the other name for self love is self healing. Needless to state, being in love with self is such a feeling that cannot be expressed in words.
Most of us are sleep-walking and are blind to our respective purposes that have got all of us together on this planet. However, being a victim of our patterns, we may deny that this is true about us, but deep within this is the reality of every person. Only when we accept the reality, can we see beyond and reach the solution long awaiting us. Once we get in touch with this wisdom, there is no looking back…it’s the end of misery. My sincere urge to all is to look within ourselves, really deep to get in touch with the divine light safely lit in the center of our hearts. The wisest thing to do is believe in such a possibility for which you will have to break away from the shackles of your concept of security.
The question next is ‘How’? The answer is very simple…first and foremost it requires you to keep an open mind towards learning other ways and accepting that you need to look afresh at the existing situations. You are sitting with a heap of problems on your head, the burden of which is getting on you and it is time you offload them….do you want to offload?
If Yes, I will take you through a journey of understanding self, the destination to which is loving oneself …so we move from US to LS…If you think you are ready and it is your divine call to explore the beautiful being you are, you have hit the right blog. I welcome you to the paradise of love, pure love, divine light and bliss….come along…
Love & Light
Naz
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