Negative thoughts and a cricket match

One of the best ways to love oneself, I have realised, is to shoo away negative thoughts. They occupy so much of our mind that I would term them as the single most important factor for not being able to love oneself.

So how does one keep negative thoughts at bay? How does one fight the battle against negativity? It used to be very difficult f or me. I ystruggled a lot initially. Not to say that I do not struggle now. But I found an easy way to remove negative thoughts.

Most of our negative thoughts come when we are alone. Or idle. I tried a trick which I have started calling the cricket match trick. Imagine yourself as a batsman for whom the entire stadium is cheering. They want you to hit a six, they want you to score a century, they want you to succeed. And in between a fast bowler comes and bowls a bouncer to you. Since you are a very competent batsman and the whole stadium wants you to hit a six, you go on your front foot and hit the ball straight above  the bowler for a six. 

Now just replace the ball with the negative thought that has been bothering you. Every time it comes to you, go on the front foot and hit it for a big six. The stadium - in this case is the universe - which wants you to succeed come what may. 

Try this out. It really works wonders. I have tried this every where - at home, at work, while travelling in a Mumbai local and every time it has given me success. I could actually see the negative thought being hit out of the stadium for a six. And in came a positive thought in its position. 

Try this out! It'll work.

Baby steps to loving thyself...

As I had mentioned in my first post, Louise Hay’s You Can Heal Your Life played a big role in healing my life. The first thing she taught me through her book was to love myself. It may sound like a simple thing for most of you, but for me it was very difficult at that point in time.

Somehow, I had always put others’ preferences ahead of mine and thus the things that I wanted to do was always pushed to a later that. Something I would do, once life started!

But ‘life’ just refused to start. It had almost reached a dead end. Almost. With my mother’s illness and botched up dream of relocating overseas, I had no hope in myself. That is when I started reading the book and that is when the book started working its miracle. Loving thyself was very difficult, but still I decided to give it a try. The first step I took was to list down the things I wanted to do. Or rather, the things that I thought would make me happy.

This was a really difficult task. Whenever I would get down to list something, I would not be sure whether that would make me ‘happy’. For example, buying a house in Mumbai was one of the contenders. The moment I listed it, I thought to myself – so what? Will that make me happy? Or will I get more worried about the huge loan I will have to take? Something inside told me that it would be the latter.

Thus continued the search for things that would make me happy. After almost a week long effort, I zeroed in on things that would make me happy. And most of those were simple things like learning to play the keyboard, having my own library of books, doing up the place where we lived, spending more time with family every day, carrying myself better, improving my wardrobe, eating at good restaurants, etc. Of course there were some apparently difficult things like saving a lot more for the future, but overall the list seemed pretty doable.

The next step was easier – put a target date to every activity that would make you happy. So I did that as well. Suddenly, happiness did not seem such an elusive topic after all. It was well within my reach! The moment that realisation dawned upon me, suddenly I felt a force within me urging me to complete the tasks.

And before a month passed by, I realised some of the tasks has already been completed. I was beginning to feel happy. I had started to love myself!

So my journey towards happiness continued. Though I have not ticked every item in the task list, most of them have been. And I am a much happier person than I was eight months ago.

Three cheers to loving your ownself. More about that in my next post.

Anger and aftermath ...

I am sorry but I have to change the topic of today’s post. While I had written earlier that it will be about how I started loving myself, a phone call from one gentleman made me change the topic. But trust me, this post will also help you love yourself.

So I was spending a happy Saturday of a long weekend when the phone call came. While I won’t bore you with what transpired in the phone call, it was enough to spoil my mood. It was enough to make me angry and it was enough to almost make the old me (who did not love myself) getting control of the new me (who loves myself).

The few hours left of the Saturday evening was spent in brooding, resentment and other expressions of anger.

How could he say something like this? How could they think like this? I have always been like this and have succeeded, so why should I change? Thoughts started polluting my mind. Refusal to change again put its head up and I got a resulting headache, which is still lingering as I write this post.

I was on the verge of letting anger take charge and pass on my power to the other individual.

The whole night was spent in frustration, resentment and refusal to change. After I woke up today morning, the scene was no better. Then suddenly I started rediscovering the new me in me. I asked myself – am I happy with what I did in the last 42 years? Well, not completely. Did I manage to reach where I wanted to? Definitely, No. Where am I on the Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs? Have I reached the top parts of the triangle (Self Actualisation)? No. I am still grappling with the Love and Belonging part.

Then why am I refusing to change? If I want the rest of my life to be the best of my life, I cannot continue the way I did for the last four decades. I have to let the new me take control. Because I want my new life to be different from my old life.

So the magical change happened again. Just while I was starting this blog, I shot off an email to the person who spoiled my Saturday. The email was not from the old me, but from the new me. The new me who was confident, who liked himself and who did not want to let go of the power through expressions of anger.

And before I finished writing this post, the response from that person came. He was showing signs of calling truce as opposed to the war he was waging yesterday. Signs of victory were in sight for the new me!

I did this because I have started loving myself. I did this because I do not want to get angry and pass on the power to the other individual. I did this because I did not want my thoughts to be clouded by the negativity of the other person.

Here’s raising a toast to the power of loving myself!

Two fortnights that changed it all ...

I THOUGHT I was a very positive person, till I encountered the first real challenge in my grown up life. My mother – who had not been keeping very well for some time – was diagnosed with tonsillar cancer in August last year.

It took exactly 15 days to completely change everything that was happening in our family. And my life.

It couldn’t have come at a worse time. I was all set to make a big career move which meant relocating to a different country, working for a very large corporation and handling a role which would be a dream one. But those 15 days changed it all. I couldn’t do anything that I had planned, dreamt and wanted to.

I was shattered. I was cursing myself. I was resenting being stuck in the situation. All the dreams I had thought of coming true after I would relocate would now continue to remain a dream. Every day started looking like a curse. What made matters worse was the worsening condition of my mother due to side effects of the chemotherapy. Why did this happen to me? was the question I went around asking everyone. What wrong did I do?

That is when a senior colleague and friend of mine handed me a book – You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay. “A book at this juncture of my life? How could it even help me or change me?” was what I asked myself.

Reluctantly, and without any real hope of anything happening, I started reading the book. And that is when the miracle happened.

I could relate to every page of the book. Every incident, every anecdote, every situation seemed to be exactly what had happened to me. And that is when my process of change started.

The first change that happened to me was my love for myself. I realised that I did not love myself at all. I had a very not-so-good opinion of myself! If I saw a good music system in the store which was expensive, I would think this is too expensive for me. It is for someone else. If it was an expensive car, then it would be for the rich and famous! A good house, would similarly, be for the crème-de-la-crème of the society. Then what was it that was for me? All the bad things in life?

Little wonder I never managed to get the best and always had to be satisfied with the second or the third grade stuff.

The second realisation that dawned upon me was that I was always putting conditions to my dream. If I wanted to learn to play the guitar, the pre-condition was once I get ‘settled’. Because the definition of ‘settled’ was changing, I never managed to start learning the guitar.

Louise Hay made me realise why it was not getting completed – firstly because I did not love myself enough and secondly because I was putting pre-conditions to everything!

The algorithm was like this – once I relocate overseas, I will save enough money; once I save enough money I will move into a nicer apartment; once I move into a nicer apartment, I will decorate it; once I decorate it, I will start living life properly; once I start living life, I will learn to play the guitar; once I learn to play the guitar, I will be happier….The list continued. And every dream of mine had a pre-condition. Thus, nothing materialised. They remained dreams.

Just like a fortnight changed it all for the worse after my mother was diagnosed with cancer; the next fortnight changed it all for the better, once I started loving myself. My next post will be on how I did that.

In hindsight, I thank the Universe for making me go through this.