Hi everyone, welcome back! A few weeks ago, I examined how our parenting style and expectations from our kids are making them “Career-Ready” instead of “Life-Ready”! This week, since I am completing 2 years of writing my blog; instead of examining a belief, I wanted to talk about the three things that are on my mind – Gratitude, Hope and Meditation!
As I write today’s post, my heart is filled with deep gratitude and hope. I am grateful to every single one of you who take the time to read my post and special thank you to those of you who take the time to also let me know that you enjoy reading it! Although I have thoroughly enjoyed writing each post especially because I pour my heart out into words; yet, I still can’t believe that I continue to write after 2 years. When I started, I didn’t really know much about what I wanted to do with my blog except write about the fear filled beliefs which were responsible for all the anxiety that I ever experienced in my life. And the reason I wanted to write about these beliefs and wanted to share my writing with the rest of the world was because I had started to get a glimpse into the kind of internal peace my shift in perspective was leading me to. And that peace, although fleeting, felt absolutely AMAZING – something that I had not felt in a very long time and I hoped it will do something similar for whoever was reading or at the very least give them something to think about!
Folks, I believe, there are three common threads which run through entire humanity – our need to be loved, our instinct to push fear away and our desire to be happy. And these are the very threads which not only make us human but connect us to each other. They make us more alike than different as humans. So, the issue never is that this human being does not have the need to be loved or does not push fear away or doesn’t want to be happy. The real issue is that we hide that we all feel these things and have these needs, just like any other human being!! We try to pretend that we are perfect but those who portray perfection are more broken from the inside. They just don’t have the courage to accept it!
But there is hope! A lot of hope, actually!! And the way you get to that hope is through writing and reading/listening, being thankful and meditating. Although it doesn’t matter what you write about but maintaining a journal where you just put your thoughts down has incredible healing power. Another way to bring hope into your life is through reading/listening to articles/talks that resonate with you. And you will know what resonates with you as soon as you read or hear it. You will feel at ease and feel so much peace inside! And what you like to read or listen to will be different for different people based on where you are in your level of consciousness and what it is that you need to learn to continue to grow as a human being.
Another way to invite hope into your life is by being thankful for the things and people you have in your life today. Gratitude has amazing power to shift your perspective from despair to hope. Gratitude shifts your perspective because instead of focusing on the things that you can’t achieve or the people who you don’t like or the health that you don’t want; you start focusing on the things or people or anything else that you already love in your life and when you focus on something, you are able to find more and more of those things. So, try counting in your mind or maybe even writing down the 5 things you are grateful for today in your life. If you are going through something challenging in your life today, you may find it difficult to find things you are grateful for but there is always something, so dig deeper!
The last thing through which you can invite hope into your life is through meditation! And I am not kidding when I say that meditation has saved my life and my sanity! I know meditation seems very intimidating to most people and a lot of us may have tried it and already given up on it – maybe after a couple of times; however, what I know now after 8 years of meditation is that there is no right or wrong way or a technique to meditation. Because we all focus so much on others and their expectations; meditation, to me, is simply getting to know myself again. Getting connected to my own heart which hides all my answers about life and my reason for being here at this time on Earth!! And your heart holds your answers…are you ready to explore?
