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People often ask what healing looks like. I don’t think it looks like standing in the light without fear. At least, not at first. If you have lived in darkness for a very long time, your eyes learn its language. The darkness is where every possible danger lives. Where expecting…

One thing that puzzles me about parenting is how much suffering is normalised in the name of building resilience. There is very little evidence that chronic harshness builds healthy resilience. Most research points toward the opposite. Developmental psychology consistently finds children build resilience through secure attachment, responsive caregiving, and gradually…

“उड़ान वालों उड़ानों पे वक़्त भारी है परों की नहीं अब हौसलों की बारी है” Bashir Badr Meaning- Oh you flyers, times are tough for flight. It is no longer a test of your physical wings, but a test of your inner courage.  We tend to believe there is an…

Tulsidas wrote:परहित सरिस धर्म नहि भाई।पर पीड़ा सम नहि अधमाई॥ There is no virtue greater than helping others. There is no sin greater than causing suffering. Centuries later, Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote:”Nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer; nothing is more difficult than to understand him.” Imagine a person, X,…

Marriage is a maze. No matter how much you prepare for it, you still find yourself standing in situations that make you wonder whether you prepared at all. The first decade of marriage is particularly interesting. Most couples face some of their toughest storms during the first five years. Many…

I don’t know why, but one feature in the human behavior manual seems to be this: we learn late. Not according to our timelines. Not according to our plans. We learn when we learn. And when we truly learn something, it stays. So why do we rush the process so…

Worshipping God should feel like having a favorite musician. Think about it. You have a favorite band. You love their music. There is that one song you play whenever you are feeling low, and somehow it makes you feel better. When they release a new song, you get excited. If…

Humans are rarely one thing at a time. We love people we resent. We stay loyal to things that exhaust us. We believe in honesty while still lying to protect ourselves. We are systems built to hold contradictions, contrary to popular moral belief. You may love your parents, yet you…

Memory has always been my nemesis. My perception of my childhood memory is like living in a house surrounded by monkeys. The moment you start to think something good about that house, you remember one dangerous encounter with that big red-faced monkey! Suddenly you are 6 again, being chased, alone…

To calm the chaos, the nervous system needs steadiness. It needs predictability. It needs someone who stays the same, like there is a tomorrow. Someone who is not conditionally there.Someone who does not leave because it becomes too difficult to stay with you. Someone who understands that being present matters…

To read the original essay, click here: https://thoughtsden.com/the-roles-we-play-the-people-we-forget/ Someone asked me after the previous essay, “What next?” And I think that is the real question. Once we understand that we have placed people into rigid roles and slowly stripped away their humanity in the process, what do we do after…

2. We learn by surrounding ourselves with people who are better than us. If we surround ourselves with those who lack understanding as compared to us, then we will have no inspiration to be better. It is not about who has more money or fame, who is stronger or smarter,…

I worry about having a friend. The discomfort of depending on them.The discomfort of relying on their presence to complete conversations you do not want to have alone. I can wait for years just to complete that conversation. The conversation waits within me.The grief holds itself carefully inside me.The pain…

The way we exist on social media is different from real life, or so I believe. Social media is not just an extension of our social personality. It is also an extension of our internal world. It has quietly become a part of our resume, our biodata, our social life….

There are people who make something inside you tighten. Your jaw, your chest, your thoughts, your whole being for an instant! People who don’t just irritate you, but make you want to correct them, fix them, defeat them, hold a mirror up to their face, make a movie on their…

Most people don’t refuse new things because they are certain they won’t enjoy them. They refuse because trying requires a brief surrender of certainty, of control, of the version of themselves that already knows how to exist.  New experiences don’t just offer pleasure; they threaten familiarity. And familiarity, even when…

I saw my childhood friend standing on the other side of the road. We were meeting after almost two years. We both started walking towards each other hurriedly. We wanted to hug already. We had missed each other so much. The moment she saw me, she said, “Hey, you’ve become…

If you love someone and you don’t feel an urgency to take care of them, not dramatically, not performatively, but instinctively; then something is missing.  Either you are not truly in love, or you have already taken them for granted. Because love, at least in its living form, does not…

Language is more important than we think. If we cannot speak, express, or label something, we cannot build the quintessential community every human being needs. And I don’t just mean the outer world communities like friendships, families, societies , but an inner world too. The inner world community is the…

Before I delve into today’s super-serious topic, let me share some contemporary sayings: “Heaven probably has a multi-faith cafeteria.” “Coexistence is agreeing that everyone’s god has a different dress code.” “If God wanted only one religion, humans wouldn’t have been given opinions.” “God listens in all languages. Humans argue over…