Tag: psychology

  • The Piano We Never Touched

    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 it’s limiting, often feels safer than the unknown.

    The more you hide, the more joy hides!

    What people often don’t understand when they refuse to try new things, or ridicule others for trying them, is that they are not rejecting an activity. They are rejecting a feeling. An experience. A possible doorway to joy.

    If someone has already tried something and genuinely disliked it, that’s different. But to decide in advance that nothing new can bring happiness and joy, that everything meaningful lies strictly within one’s comfort zone; that is not wisdom. 

    It is a quiet waste of life.

    How can you know you don’t like something unless you’ve felt it?

    Why experimenting is the key to knowing more

    I’m not talking about drugs or anything risky or harmful to health or society. I mean very basic things. Simple things. New food. A new sport. A different kind of book. A place you never imagined yourself in. Sometimes even a version of yourself you never thought you could be.

    Imagine if the only instrument you had ever known was a pair of tongs, and you believed that was all music could be. You made do. You accepted it. And then one day, you discovered a piano. You wouldn’t just hear new sounds, you would realise how limited your definition of music had been all along.

    This is true of food. Of art. Of movement. Of relationships. Of joy itself.

    Unless you have experienced something, how do you know what it might awaken in you? You might discover a part of yourself, a joy bone, you never knew existed.

    Trying new things

    It may not completely be your fault

    Sometimes, this resistance to trying new things is not arrogance. It is fear. For people struggling with mental health issues, change can feel unsafe. Predictability becomes survival. Newness threatens the fragile sense of control they have built. Avoidance, in such cases, is not a failure of character. It is a nervous system doing its best to cope.

    But there is another kind of resistance. One that comes not from active pain, but from old, unexamined trauma, now fossilized in the form of projection.

    What is not processed stays like a bone in your body

    This trauma is so old and so familiar that it no longer feels like trauma at all. It has calcified. It has turned into a habit, into fixations and rigidity. Into a personality that prides itself on being “practical” or “settled” or “realistic,” when in fact it has simply stopped being curious.

    That’s where the real question lies.

    Are you losing your curiosity?

    When someone does something you haven’t – do you feel intrigued, or irritated?

    Are you genuinely uninterested, or quietly grieving a life you never explored?

    Judgment, more often than we admit, is grief wearing moral clothing. Labels give us a sense of superiority, but they also protect us from looking at what we might be missing.

    Awareness ,of both the life you have lived and the life you haven’t, is what slowly brings curiosity back. And curiosity, when paired with safety, leads to joy. Not all at once. Not dramatically. But steadily.

    An orange waiting to be peeled

    As long as you keep peeling away the layers you’ve built around the possibility of joy, you will keep finding it, sometimes in places you never thought to look.

    After all, the unlived parts of life don’t disappear, they remain veiled. 

    They wait.

    Carpe diem, hooman!

  • The Handkerchief in the Pocket

    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 feel leisurely. It doesn’t say we’ll see. It doesn’t wait to be convenient. 

    Love carries a certain urgency, a quiet but persistent one, where you want to run, stretch yourself, bring the sky to the earth if that’s what it takes.

    The moment love turns into ‘meh’, something subtle has shifted. Not necessarily hatred or anger , just certainty. The certainty that this person is not going anywhere. And once that certainty settles in, the rush disappears. What’s the hurry anyway? They’ll manage. They always do. 

    And without realising it, love starts outsourcing care to time, habit, or the other person’s resilience.

    For me, love means having a very low threshold for the pain of the person you love. Their discomfort should not register as minor to you, even if it is objectively small. You should feel unsettled by it, moved by it, pulled towards it. Not because of guilt. Not because of duty. But because love rewires you that way. 

    Their pain enters your nervous system faster than logic does.

    You want to support them. You want to ease it. You want them okay, not later, not eventually, but now. That impulse doesn’t come from obligation. It comes from attachment, from care that hasn’t gone numb yet.

    And maybe that’s the real marker. Love isn’t grand gestures or lifelong promises. It’s the inability to stay indifferent. The discomfort you feel when the person you love is even slightly hurting , and the instinct to move towards them before the world teaches you that you don’t have to.

    Adding some of my thoughts through this poem written by me;

    अगर मेरे होने पर भी तुम्हें खुद को मुताबिक़ करना पड़े,

    तो वो इश्क़ ही क्या जिसमें तुम्हें शिकायत करना पड़े।

    यूँ तो मुझमें और तुममें बस एक ही फ़र्क है,

    तुमने आँसुओं को अपनी मोहब्बत का हमसफ़र माना,

    पर मैंने हँसी के सिवा तुम्हारे चेहरे पर

    कोई और तसव्वुर ही न जाना।

    लफ़्ज़ों के जाल, वादों के महल,

    ये सब मैंने कभी सीखे नहीं,

    झूठे ख्वाब किसी को

    जान-बूझकर कभी दिखाए नहीं।

    बात अगर रूठने तक ही आ रुके,

    तो जेब में रखा रुमाल

    महज़ नुमाइश के लिए नहीं।

    Handkerchief

  • The House the Brain Becomes

    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 harmony between the nervous system and all the other organ systems. It is the one that quietly decides our overall wellbeing. The one that decides what feels safe, what feels threatening, and what feels impossible to touch.

    When something inside us has no language, it exists in isolation.And isolation, even internally, is unbearable, and unhealthy.

    How it starts

    This usually starts during childhood. If we don’t teach children how to name what they are feeling, the feeling doesn’t disappear. As children, the world is new, and so are the emotions that come with it. Understanding them, naming them, and allowing them to be felt is a crucial part of growing up. It becomes a skill that carries through life.

    If humans don’t learn how to name their emotions, it can feel like being put inside a box they cannot come out of. 

    A box full of emotions

    Emotions are overwhelming by nature; they flood the body before the mind can make sense of them. And when there is no language to hold that flood, the only strategy left, especially for children, is to push it down. Acting out emotions is often inconvenient for the adults around such children, which makes the child feel unsafe expressing them. So they suppress it. 

    Not because suppression is healthy, but because it brings temporary safety and apparent relief.

    Over time, the nervous system learns this: don’t try to understand- just shove it away.

    Why shoving it down seems like nothing is wrong when actually everything is

    Shoving down often looks harmless. It looks like a distraction. Watching TV. Reading books. Staying busy. Overplaying. Oversleeping. Avoiding stillness. Avoiding people. Avoiding themselves. Talking too much or talking too little. We tell ourselves it’s alright, that it doesn’t mean anything, that it’s just passing time.

    But shoving down is actually like filling your brain with waste polythene bags.

    Each one feels insignificant. Each one polybag (emotion) light enough to ignore. So you keep adding them, telling yourself it’s fine, it’s nothing, you’ll deal with it later.

    The weight of keeping – the interior design of your brain

    One day, you open the bag and realise it’s no longer many small things. It’s one large, tangled mass of useless and not-so-useless things. Some of it you may have needed once. Some of it mattered at one point. But all of it has already done its work. 

    It has left its imprint on your nervous system – on how your body reacts, how quickly you get overwhelmed, how unsafe certain emotions feel without you even knowing why.

    If your brain were a house, you would eventually stand there wondering why you placed so many bags in one corner. They’ve taken up the space of everything else. The sofa. The almirah. The space to sit, rest, and live.

    The dilemma becomes absurd – should I remove the useful things from my house just to make room for this waste?

    The tragedy is not just that these bags are useless. It’s that they are toxic too.

    Even if each one is light individually, imagine how old they are. Polythene bags from vegetables. Milk packets. Clothes covers. Years old. Decades old. Rotting quietly.

    Just like emotions – decades old.

    When you finally start scrummaging through them, you are shocked by what you have kept, and why. And strangely, you don’t know what to do with it anymore. You don’t know where it belongs. You don’t know how to sort it. You don’t know why it’s still here.

    But the truth is simpler than we make it. Throw it. It is not your responsibility to preserve waste.

    Language

    They are not just bags but your emotions!

    Except emotions are not disgusting and toxic. They are meant to be met. They are how the body communicates safety, danger, joy, and connection. 

    Emotions are a language – one we must learn to understand.

    Learn to speak the language of emotions

    This is where outer language comes in. Language is the bin. Language is the door through which things can exit. When you can label an emotion, when you can put a word to it, its job is done. It no longer needs to live in the body or haunt the nervous system. It can move on.

    But when there is no word, no name, no language, you are simply shoving another polythene bag into the next room of your brain. And that one, over time, becomes even more toxic.

    Perhaps language is not meant to explain us, but to release us.

    What remains unnamed does not disappear , it waits, settles, and slowly becomes structure, shaping how we relate, react, and retreat.

    In that sense, language is not expression but movement, a way for inner life to remain fluid instead of fossilised.

    And maybe freedom is nothing dramatic at all, but simply the ability to let experience pass through us without having to become it.

  • The Pain That Leads You Home

    “He disliked emotion, not because he felt lightly, but because he felt deeply.”

    John Buchan

    And I’d like to inform Mr John Buchan, that this ‘he’ has stopped feeling/expressing emotions altogether henceforth. 

    Because feeling so much and not being able to do anything about it drove him mad.

    And this brings me to my new thought, the motivation to change.

    Why ‘change’ is difficult

    There has been a lot of discussion on change, and there are countless resources that talk about how to create it, on social media, in the hospitals, in our spiritual books and from our discussions with our friends too. But seldom we are speaking about recognizing it.

    The change I’m referring to is psychological, although the mindset and solutions for bringing about a change are not limited to this realm of life alone.

    I’m trying to understand the step before action, the moment a person decides they need to do something about their situation. That ‘change’ now is inevitable!

    How do people find their ‘why’?

    I think we are willing to change only when the pain of staying the same becomes uncomfortable enough.

    When life becomes unbearable to live as is!

    The First Barrier: Admitting There Is Pain

    Imagine you develop a physical ache, the only reason you bother resolving it typically is because it disrupts your daily routine. The more difficult your routine becomes, the more urgent the need to fix the pain feels. 

    We also take urgent actions on those pains, where we fear if we don’t take care of them right now, they will definitely will become too big to handle later. So, the fear drives our defences.

    This is basic common sense. 

    But when the same thing happens in the psychological realm, this common sense, this fear of future pain disappears instantly.

    Psychological pain is tied to our self-image and worth. When we suffer mentally, the first challenge is simply accepting that there is pain. And culturally, strong people live in pain while going through pain, perenially. That’s how they are admired. 

    Pointing out a pain without a smile, is considered something only ‘weak’ people do.

    You see, our threshold for psychological pain is shaped by many things. It may seem like an individual choice, but it is actually influenced by society, culture, religion, education, morality, tradition, geography, and more.

    What we should find painful, and even whether we are allowed to name something as pain, is often decided by others.

    How We Lose Touch With Ourselves

    A lot of research in child psychology encourages parents to focus more on guiding and emotionally regulating children rather than controlling them with rigid rules. We are asked to keep children curious and exploratory, rather than raising them with the fear of getting things wrong.

    We are encouraged to teach them how to navigate life through action and consequence, not by forcing them to follow someone else’s blueprint.

    This comes from the understanding that controlled and coerced children eventually develop a distance from their true selves.

    Psychologically and spiritually, children are wise by default, we just need to give them the environment to reach their own obvious answers. 

    Just like a gardener weeding out anything unwanted, and providing the sapling the best environment to grow their  natural true self.

    For example, if my child doesn’t want to share today, I let him learn through experience. Eventually he will realise that not sharing limits friendship, and he will understand the value of sharing to build camaraderie. Humans naturally crave community, so children instinctively move toward behaviours that support connection, without being pushed into people-pleasing.

    At the same time, if a child is naturally introverted and doesn’t want many friendships, they will also learn that for themselves. The point is: these things develop naturally when we allow them to.

    But in most families and cultures, this curiosity, autonomy, and self-understanding gets suppressed. Children are told to bear their discomfort, to ignore their inner signals, and to “keep going” no matter what.

    As adults, this turns into repression. And repression always has consequences.

    The Repressed Adult

    A repressed person becomes bitter, even if they hide it well. If they bury this bitterness under niceness and people-pleasing, they eventually develop health issues or simply lose the ability to enjoy life.

    The distance from the self becomes so large that they stop seeing themselves at all.

    These adults may:

    • talk to themselves often
    • feel spiritually intense or excessively social
    • appear insecure or emotionally flat
    • function on autopilot
    • insist “nothing is wrong”

    And they deny if anything is hurting them not because they are lying, but because they genuinely stopped feeling their emotions long ago.

    Helping Someone Who Cannot See Their Pain

    To help such a person, you first have to show them that their behaviour reflects inner turmoil. They will resist this, because their denial is decades old.

    So you begin by normalising what they are experiencing. You show them that many people who behave this way are actually struggling inside. You remove the shame. You create safety through information and examples.

    Only after repeated validation and awareness do they finally feel safe enough to seek help or open a deeper conversation.

    But this is not a quick process.

    It requires:

    • a generation normalising emotional pain
    • society validating the experience
    • media and culture spreading awareness
    • and a person feeling less alone in their struggle

    The Shame That Blocks Change

    The biggest barrier to psychological change is shame.

    People are shamed for having mental health issues, so they keep their pain threshold dangerously high and live in denial.

    It is normal to talk about knee pain due to lack of exercise than mental health issues, borne out of individual and family issues.

    Society calls such people who talk about mental health weak, even though everyone is suffering as much as them, in some way or the other.

    It’s like a whole village smoking cigarettes daily. One person develops cancer, and the rest shame him for it, when actually all of them are at risk. Some may even have undiagnosed cancer already.

    This is our exact cultural situation:

    We cannot accept we are in pain, yet we ridicule anyone who shows signs of pain.

    The first task, then, is to recognise psychological pain early, long before it becomes a full-blown illness.

    The Two Types of Psychological Pain

    There are two major kinds of psychological pain:

    1. The pain you feel when you cannot live as your authentic self.

    This is the pain that should motivate change.

    It is the discomfort of living a life that doesn’t belong to you.

    2. The pain of transformation.

    This is the pain of unlearning your old identity and embracing who you really are.

    This pain is intense because:

    • your past will resist
    • your family and friends will resist
    • even you will resist

    Your nervous system prefers the old foe over the new friend.

    It believes it can handle the familiar chaos better than the unfamiliar peace.

    So deciding to change is cathartic, terrifying, and deeply uncomfortable.

    And while crossing that inner bridge, you will often feel the urge to turn back.

    The pain that leads you home

    Choosing the Right Pain

    The pain of change needs to be normalised.

    It must be accepted as a healthy part of transformation.

    The pain we should fear is not the pain of change, but the pain of living a life that isn’t ours.

    We must choose the irritation of misalignment as the signal to move.

    We must choose the discomfort of building a life that feels authentic.

    We must choose resilience for the small, subtle shifts in behaviour, not just for grand achievements.

    Because real change begins the moment you stop tolerating the pain of pretending.

    In the end

    Change does not begin with motivation or discipline. It begins when you finally stop negotiating with your pain. When the discomfort of living a life that isn’t yours starts speaking louder than the fear of the unknown, something shifts inside. 

    The nervous system may resist, memories may pull you back, and familiarity may feel safer than freedom, but pain, when listened to honestly, becomes information. It tells you where you have outgrown your life. 

    And at that point, change is no longer about becoming someone new; it is about returning to who you were always meant to be.

  • The Warm Wisdom Of The Wounded

    When Healing Meets the World Again

    There comes a moment in every healing journey when you must return to life; not as the person who broke down, but as the person who survived.

    After a long period of healing when you try to get back into society (family, friends, community, work, anything which involves people), a lot of things which seem normal to an ordinary individual, would seem alien like to a healing soul.

    Re-entering society can feel strangely delicate.

    The Strange Fragility of Re-Entry

    Simple interactions suddenly require courage. Ordinary days feel like new terrain.
    It’s a quiet truth of healing that once you change internally, the external world must be learned all over again.

    For healthy/not deeply traumatised people, just attending an event is an everyday part of life. Meeting, interacting like “a socially fluent human being” is part of their daily grind.

    The Memory of Who You Were

    There is one very interesting thing about healing. If you have healed a bit, somewhere you are willing to give humanity and yourself a chance again, and then you remember you still are the same person who went through the dark tunnel, just to see the light today.

    A healthy individual likes to live, being around life, in general. Hence, even the slightest healing nudges you towards forming your community again.

    Learning to Live Life Again

    For a mending brain who is learning to be human again, all these efforts of becoming a part of the community, sometimes may seem like running a sprint.

    They know they’d probably finish it but would they feel competent rather than exposed?
    Would it further tarnish their confidence?

    And even if they do win, would they be willing to run again?
    Would they be willing to put up so much effort again?
    Would they find the struggle worth their mental energy?

    No one can answer it until it happens.

    Broken people trying to mend their wounds have been told to keep trying, to stumble, to fall and get up again, at their own pace, just like a child learning to walk. They have to learn how to participate in life for the first time, after a long time.

    But how hard that process is, only the person going through it, or the one who has survived it truly knows.

    And yet, healing has its quiet miracles. Something in it keeps pulling you forward, urging you to try again, to reach again, to believe that life can still soften around you.

    When the Mirror Feels Heavy

    When trauma runs deep, it doesn’t just change how you feel, it changes how you see yourself standing in the world. It makes you shrink from your own reflection. It makes the body feel unfamiliar, undeserving.

    And because trauma often pushes you out of the community and into isolation, that physical self-doubt grows stronger. You start overthinking how you look, how you appear, how you are perceived.

    Every small gesture feels loaded, every silence feels like rejection.

    And when healing finally asks you to step back into society as your true self, it feels like stepping out without armour. It becomes one of the hardest parts of recovery, trying to feel like a “normal person” again, when nothing inside you has felt normal for years.

    What Trauma Leaves Behind

    Trauma brings out the beast in some and saint in another. Trauma can harden some, soften others, and leave some in between. It fractures people differently. And probably the one of the most remarkable qualities of being human is adaptability.

    If you have healed right, with no more grudges towards the world and the self, you retain the good qualities and also the ones which are required for this big bad world.

    But one thing about healing is, it is never linear. Even the strongest, most self-aware person will slip into old patterns sometimes. But slipping is not failing, it’s part of the recalibration.

    Each return to old wounds teaches you something new about your strength. And once you know how to navigate these slip-ups with grace, you naturally become someone who can steady others when they feel themselves falling.

    The Strength Hidden in Old Wounds

    There are many strengths asociated with healing, if done right. If the trauma taught you to be assertive for self protection (in fight mode), stand up for yourself, then now it’s just a superpower waiting to be used, whenever needed.

    You just need to switch it on, wield that hidden sword whenever you want. You see some wrong doing, you know you have the power and the assertive energy to stand up for anyone, only now you are intentional about it.

    The gear is manual now, you are not on autopilot mode anymore.

    When Kindness Becomes a Choice

    If your trauma tilted you toward fawning, a people pleaser, you will always know what hurts others. Being nice becomes a choice, not a necessity. You become kind and nice because you know the world is very harsh and you don’t want to hurt another traumatised soul.

    Some unhealed souls may call you a “doormat,” but you know it’s a choice. Healing teaches you when to step forward with warmth and when to step back with boundaries. Even your niceness becomes a form of strength, something you offer intentionally, not out of fear, but to bring a little healing into a harsh world.

    You want people who need some warmth and need some unsolicited kindness to get it from you.

    To me healed traumatised people make the world kinder.

    God only knows how much unsolicited kindness has healed the world!

    Hypervigilance – Reimagined as Wisdom

    And then you meet a hypervigilant, anxious person, who always thought we are all gonna die tomorrow because of the apocalypse or an earthquake or climate change or a bomb blast, or a fire accident. This person in their healing phase becomes an impeccable planner and risk assessor. They by choice tell people of any pitfalls that they are ignoring, in whatver domain they are able to assess risk.

    The erstwhile hypervigilant self, still notices things but knows how to use that information for benefiting others rather than going in a spiral alone.

    Why Healed People Make Empathetic Leaders

    People who survived chaos can become remarkable leaders. Their insight and resilience make them uniquely capable.
    People who lived through hypervigilance often excel at risk assessment.
    People who fawn often become excellent nurturers and relationship builders.

    Unprocessed trauma can distort a person’s relationship with power.
    But the same person with healed trauma has knowledge of empathy and boundaries, and other important aspects required for becoming a great leader.

    You see the good thing about trauma is if you are truly healed, you operate as a happier version of yourself, yet the teachings remain. You still remain the empathetic version that you truly needed.

    Does this mean everyone should go through deep trauma?
    Does this mean the heroes of your society the leaders should be those who have gone through traumatic events and healed?

    A good topic for research it seems!

    The Danger of Unhealed Power

    Unhealed people could be a menace for sure in leadership positions. We have many examples of such people, especially in political scenarios. The ability to watch the world burn but still be okay with it, is classic unhealed inner child behavior.

    Often, unprocessed childhood wounds manifest in adulthood as emotional volatility or disconnected empathy.

    It raises an important question: should emotional maturity be a prerequisite for leadership, just as education and experience are?

    Because more than anything, I would suggest the leaders we choose to go through a psychological analysis to understand how deep a trauma they have, and will it make them do cruel things to their citizens, without any accountability.

    Leaning On Those Who Have Done the Work

    Now, to expect we have absolutely unbroken people in this world is impossible. But we can lean on people who have learnt to heal. For one, they believe in changing for good, they are self aware, they are adaptable. They know what it means to be broken, yet they believe in living a good life and they know why it is important to heal for living that life.

    The Choice That Changes Everything

    Until we reach the stage, where all are happy and resilient, I would use the superpowers of those who have chosen peace over war any day.

    The power rests in choice, the choice to become a better human everyday.

  • How I Learned to Enjoy the Life I Already Have

    “He who knows that enough is enough will always have enough.”
    Lao Tzu

    Scarcity breeds two fears: the fear of never having abundance again and the fear of losing what little you already have.

    There is a Taoist saying, “He who hoards much, loses much”—be it worry or money, I would say.

    This isn’t a note from a financial maestro advising you how to save or spend, but a reflection from someone who believes in thriving mentally, despite the economy we’re living in.

    The fear of abundance means expecting never to find wealth, health, time, or love again, whatever you once lacked.

    This fear can appear as the urge to clutch tightly what you have, no matter how little or much that is, and sometimes it shouts through a vulgar display of excess, stretching your own limits until it backfires.

    The wound that never heals

    This scarcity mindset may be either first-generation or multigenerational. It may have begun after an earthquake that you, or perhaps your grandfather, survived. It could be because of a major event that you or your family went through, something that’s long over, yet still vivid in memory.

    Scarcity trauma can also exist at the community level, even within religion. It may be local or far larger than you think, depending on how many people lived through that catastrophe.
    For example, the trauma of Partition or war is multigenerational and shared across vast regions. It changed people once and for many generations after.

    Sometimes the trauma is not because of any major catastrophe, but as the elder child you were told never to spend a lot, curb your wishes because your father did not make much. You were taught to give up on your wishes because that meant good for the family. You were forced to grow beyond your age.

    Whether that trauma makes you a spendthrift or a tight-fisted person depends on various factors. You may follow the YOLO (“you only live once”) approach or save for the rainy days, sometimes even for your 7th generation.

    The point is, no matter which approach you follow, both are extremes.

    Easier said than done, yes, but if you notice that you’re unhappy either way, whether as a super saver or a super spender, then you’re suffering. You are either always living for the moment or always waiting for the “big day” to enjoy, a day that is not coming anytime soon.

    The brain can’t feel what it never did

    You lash out at your family over a small purchase, fearing the loss of all you have. You lose sleep thinking about that catastrophic event recurring. You try to control every decision, yours and others’ to never “let go.” You might hide financial details, or you may have developed a sharp temper.

    On the other side, the over-spender spoils everyone or only themselves selfishly, like a revenge on the older times. They buy a fancy phone because they never had one but deny their family the abundance, fearing that generosity will invite more demands, which will ‘spoil’ them.

    Some buy endlessly for others, mistaking spending for love, raising a family that doesn’t understand money or its meaning. One wound endured while another wound created.

    Whether you hoard or overspend, you’ve likely become friends with the “not feeling happy” way of life.

    And while you are unhappy, remember that those who depend on you, live with you, or love you are unhappy with you too.

    Is this pain real or is your brain still defending you?

    No one is denying your pain! It happened; it surely did! But what you do with your life now matters just as much.

    One reality is that the traumatic event happened, that phase you had to endure. Another reality is that you are doing well today. You have someone you can care for today. And even if it isn’t someone else, it’s you whom you can care for, in a healthy way.

    I’m not asking people to go big or go small, neither to save it all nor to spend it all. I’m asking for objectivity.

    Reconsider how you manage your finances:
    Is there a heavy feeling of fear, shame, guilt, or regret behind it?
    Is it fair to put yourself through this pain?
    Is it fair to deprive those who depend on you or to never teach them how to handle money with balance?

    Neither too much nor too little—just the art of balance.

    Living in circles

    Ask yourself: Is living in the future or the past worth wasting your present?

    People living with the fear of scarcity often forget that the brain remembers not only the past but also the present. The life you’re living now is being inscribed in memory every day, telling your brain how safe or unsafe you are.

    Many people say, “I’ll save up for that big vacation,” and wait ten years before doing any other thing to make themselves happy. And finally, it happens.

    But what also happens is the void that follows.

    The happiness lasted only until the dream became real. And when the time to enjoy came that vacation, they couldn’t. They were never used to enjoying anything, not even a simple visit to an ice cream parlor.

    The dopamine of waiting faded once they arrived. But the other chemicals of happiness, the ones that make you feel joy and relaxation, did not flow, because they were never did. The body doesn’t feel safe enough to relax and experience happiness.

    Overwhelmed by emotions, they might cry, fight, freeze, or leave, not because they don’t want joy, but because they no longer know how to handle it.

    The tyranny of right moment that you missed

    Sometimes it’s the age, the situation, or the people you are, or aren’t with.

    This is when you should realize that certain things make sense only when done at the right time. No amount of money or power can recreate the happiness that needed the right moment and the right people.

    A trip at 21 to an abandoned fort with your friends, funded by pocket money, feels entirely different from a trip at 40 with colleagues to a five-star hotel in a premium city. It might look great on social media, but it does little for your soul.

    The small Saturday ritual of going on a long drive with your family, eating your favorite snacks, and listening to music will do far more for your nervous system than waiting until 50 to travel to New York with kids who have grown up and grown apart.

    Nobody can enjoy life as a family that never learned to enjoy together.

    It’s not the destination, it’s the objective, the process, the practice for the big thing that matters more.

    Imagine out of fear, despite being able to afford more, you always wore inexpensive clothes or ate only at cheap places. What happens when you finally wear a beautifu expensivel outfit or are invited to a Michelin-starred restaurant? In both cases, you’ll feel out of place.

    Out of shame, you might fidget and eat nervously. Or, trying to overcompensate, you might flaunt your money and behave as if you don’t belong there. You will feel like an imposter.

    Either way, you’ll look like someone unaccustomed to this, not just outwardly, but inwardly.

    The point isn’t appearance; it’s your ability to genuinely enjoy what you always wished for.

    We can live, a little everyday!

    That’s why you should stretch a little, in terms of both time and money, for yourself and for your family and friends.

    Keep yourself accustomed to being happy. So even if you never reach your final goal, you’ll have enjoyed the process so much that it won’t matter anymore. And if you do reach it, you’ll enjoy it even more, it will feel truly worth it.

    So live a little every day. Eat that fancy ice cream. Buy that nice watch. Take a day trip to a resort. Get a comfortable chair for your work desk. Hang good curtains in your room.

    Do one good thing every few months that feels slightly out of your budget, just to remind yourself that you can make it.

    Spoil your family a little. Tell them, “We have enough, and we’ll have more, but we’ll enjoy what we have, even if we don’t.”

    Don’t mock those who spend or those who don’t. Stay true to what you can and can’t do. Don’t become a crybaby of jealousy or insecurity.

    And finally

    Tell your brain: All is well. All will be well.
    You are allowed to be happy right now, with whatever you have.

    There is no fixed criterion for happiness, only a mindset.
    And if the heaviness returns, remind it gently that,

    You’re strong enough to handle it. You can make it work.

    Trust the process, and keep going.

    And this makes me think of Philip Doddridge when he said,
    “Let us live while we live.”

  • Emotional Cushions and the Art of Living Well

    I am reminded of a quote by Booth Tarkington as I write this essay:

    “Cherish all your happy moments; they make a fine cushion for old age.”

    Mr. Tarkington and I have probably understood the miracle of a cushion in our lives.

    A cushion is something you need when you lean on something. While we are familiar with the aesthetics and physical comfort a cushion brings, we must also realize that we have other kinds of cushions too.

    The emotional cushions, as we may call them.

    A song could be your cushion after a hard day at work.

    A slice of pizza could be your cushion after a tiff with your parents.

    A glass of something cool could be your cushion after a setback at work.

    A two-hour movie you’ve watched a hundred times before is your cushion when you feel a little lonely.

    Your favorite book is your cushion when reality feels exhausting.

    Looking at old photographs is your cushion when you’re feeling homesick.

    Sitting on the balcony with a hot cup of coffee is a cushion when you miss the good old days.

    A chat with a friend is a cushion when you feel unloved.

    A dance routine you always turn to when you’re too much in your head.

    A rap song you sing verbatim when you’re feeling demotivated.

    An hour with your favorite sport brings you back to life again.

    Becoming a part of a community where you share a common interest or goal can be a cushion when life feels worthless.

    Even a small contribution, a kind gesture, an offer of help, can remind you that you have a purpose after all.

    All these are the cushions we keep in our lives and take out as and when we need them.

    Some may just be lying around, like cushions in your living room, catching your sight and comforting you unknowingly.

    Need Of Bigger Cushions

    A vacation. A Vipassana break. A retreat. A sabbatical. Or a reunion with our favorite cousins. These are some examples of bigger cushions, when the shock is bigger. We need more time to lean on and find comfort in our cushions to recuperate.

    Why We Need To Stitch New Cushions Every Now And Then

    We also need to build a habit to stitch and find our new cushions. You see, we have new emotions, newer shocks, newer issues to ponder upon. 

    The older cushions may not fulfill all our needs. Hence, we find new cushions based on our new requirements, yet not abandon the older cushions. They all serve a purpose, they all provide comfort this way or other.

    Learning a new skill like knitting or taekwondo. 

    Starting a blog like this. 

    Finding a new way to exercise. 

    Seeking a spiritual guide, or even a new faith. 

    Taking breaks from people and jobs to build a new home within yourself.

    Instead of children, we may choose pets and plants to care for. 

    We may become part of a community that helps the disadvantaged.

    This list is long, and it should be long. 

    Why We All Should Become Cushion Collectors

    Cushions come in different forms and sizes, depending on the emotional need they help with. One cushion can’t serve all needs. Nor can you carry the same cushion everywhere.

    That’s why you place them in different corners of your life, so they’re always within reach. 

    You never feel the rush to run home for comfort, because there’s always a cushion nearby.

    This list of cushions should be a work in progress, always growing. Life will not tire of throwing new setbacks and shocks at you. So you must be ready with your cushions to handle them better.

    Let your life look like a cozy room, full of your favorite cushions.

    And may you find the fluffiest one, in your favorite color, very soon.

  • In a World of Shadows, Find Your Sunflower People

    A very interesting time to be alive.

    We’ve discussed it often, practiced it daily! Removing toxic people from our lives, like garbage, never looking back. Even though it never feels like garbage, it feels like taking a knife out of your wounds with your own bare hands. It might feel like taking out your heart and squeezing it to bleed, till you don’t feel anything.

    Once you have found the courage to move on, eventually life would become peaceful.

    Wonderful. But what next?

    A lot is said about what not to do. How not to put up with toxic behaviors, how to leave a room that doesn’t respect you, how moving on is better than staying. It is inscribed more like a warning than a suggestion. But what is never discussed is what to do later, and why.

    Many of us were raised in toxic families, only to find ourselves in toxic marriages and friendships later in life. Like a loop, or living in a constant shadow of misfortune.

    We often repeat the mantra: “It’s better to be alone than with toxic people.” But is that really true? Can we truly make it without people? Can we remain our true selves, without having anyone, neither toxic ones nor the good ones in our lives?

    Enter the Sunflower People 

    Yes, you shouldn’t tolerate toxicity. But sometimes, you simply can’t abandon certain people. You can’t step out of the constant hurt that you have to face, you don’t know what to do except for dying when you are looking for a room to breathe.

    So what is the solution? Can we step out of this loop of loneliness? Can we still be happy after leaving who needed to be left? Can we still feel supported during our times of struggle where we can only endure but not stop?

    Yes absolutely! And that’s why it’s important to cultivate and cherish your sunflower people, after removing the cactus people from your life. They even matter when the garden of your life has all kinds of plants, sometimes with thorns, sometimes with flowers.

    Sunflower people bring light to your life on the darkest days. They are your chosen family. The ones who energize you just by being around them.

    These are the people you must search for, keep holding on to, and never stop appreciating their presence in your life. Don’t stop at one such person! Be greedy! Keep decorating the bouquet of your life with such beautiful and pure people. The more sunflowers, the more beautiful and peaceful it becomes.

    Why They Matter

    Sunflower people give you the energy to face toxic situations. They fill the void left by hurtful ones. They remind you, daily, that you deserve better. Their presence in your life is a testimony that you matter and deserve to be loved.

    They show up in different ways:

    Some you talk to every day.

    Some you meet once a year.

    Some you know digitally/virtually.

    Some you haven’t seen in a decade.

    They don’t all look the same, but they share one thing: they heal you when you connect.

    You regain the strength to face the world again.

    They make your clumsiness charming, your silliness memorable. They remember your little quirks, maybe even your favorite drink. They let you be imperfect in a world that demands perfection. And they always know how to hype you up when you’re down.

    The Gift of Chosen Family

    Not everyone understands this, but building a chosen family is a masterstroke of luck. To handpick the people who surround you. To find your home in others, when you’re lost in life. That is a blessing.

    Be the home to someone. To find your home in someone.

  • From Horoscopes to ChatGPT: The Human Need to Be Seen

    ChatGPT (and similar LLMs) proves something simple yet profound. It shows us that validation, encouragement, and understanding matter deeply to us as human beings.

    Despite knowing it’s an AI, a machine, not a “sane human” talking, we still believe its kind words. We want to hear praise, to have our fears and feelings validated. And we keep coming back for more.

    This shows an interesting phenomenon: the human brain is wired to be seen and heard, no matter who it is from.

    Why Kind Words Matter

    Throughout history, humans have been drawn to psychology, astrology, tarot, and numerology. Some followers turn to them to know the future. But many simply want to feel known.

    Think of any sun sign or name-based reading. Beyond predictions (rolling eyes), they usually describe personality traits like strengths, quirks, weaknesses. And most of the time, they emphasize the positives.

    People end up hearing things about themselves that they may never have heard from loved ones.

    For example:

    “An X sun sign person is sincere and disciplined. They are go-getters, ambitious, natural leaders, and liked by all. They are charming and reliable, though sometimes impatient.”

    Now imagine reading this the day after you failed at something. You might mock it. You might not believe it. But somewhere, it makes you feel better. You reread it, just for that comfort.

    Because often, those who seek such words are people who never got the kind words they deserved.

    The Power of Words from Loved Ones

    Now imagine these same words (true or not, who knows) spoken by someone you love deeply. The impact is undeniable. You may even start embodying them, because the person you love sees you that way.

    And yet, in many cultures (especially South-Asian ones), we undervalue the role of words. We think love is enough. We believe in actions, sometimes not even that. Sometimes we assume our mere existence is enough.

    But technology and psychology, especially therapy, show us otherwise. To be seen and heard is healing.

    Maybe that’s why confession (in Christianity, with all its spiritual significance) feels healing. Even unseen, a person speaks, and a person listens. That act alone is powerful. Our words become more important than our physical appearance and actions.

    Maybe that’s why cultures have speeches for every occasion. Why a eulogy matters so much. Does the dead wait to hear something at last, before moving on peacefully?

    Finding Words, Finding Healing

    In the end, there is an easy way and a hard way to live. The hope will always be to find people who give us space to speak, and who find the right words to whisper back when we cannot hear ourselves in the noise of life.

    But until we find them, I am okay with ChatGPT being my friend, philosopher, and guide.

  • When Life Feels Like a Panic Room

    Behold this image!

    A surgeon after performing a 10 hour surgery, comes out of the operation theatre. He takes a sigh. Things are still critical. But he doesn’t give these expressions when he is in the operation theatre, where everyone is looking at him for his work and prowess.

    He also doesn’t show his pauses in front of the patient’s relatives. He does it when the people who look up to him, can’t see him.

    He doesn’t want them to shake their confidence in him.

    He probably wouldn’t even have felt like sighing when he was in the operation theatre itself. The pressure wouldn’t have let him relax or take a short break just to realign himself at all.

    So, in the same way, you don’t sigh inside the very room where the problem lives.

    Imagine there is a heavy discussion or argument going on, you are sort of the neutral person or the unsaid umpire of the situation. You are swept up in all the heavy emotions in the room that demand your 100% attention.

    But it doesn’t mean your nervous system isn’t asking for a break. We need time to realign, process and ruminate our thoughts. That small sigh is an example of a short yet significant break.

    When we are in the room with the red light on, we may not want to tell people that there is something critical going on, through our expressions.Lest, they might get nervous and tense even more.

    We may foresee bigger trouble ahead, but we hold the calm of the room intact before dropping the weight of heavy information.

    And sometimes the situation is so urgent, you can’t imagine anything else, but to remain present in that situation.

    But something happens when you step out of your frame of reference. Something changes significantly, even for a second.
    Something which was mentioned by Daniel Kahneman, in ‘thinking fast and slow’. The moment our frame changes, mostly it’s the panic room itself, we suddenly become aware of the heaviness.

    There is heavy weight on our shoulders but we also feel we can put it down, for a bit. Before we could find the courage to put it back up again.

    Maybe that’s how being in a tough phase and getting through it feels.

    When we are in it, we can’t catch a breath. We are so deep in it, we can’t think of anything else in the world. It makes us panic and lose our strength, bringing us to our wits’ end.

    But is there something which can temporarily fix this frame, just like stepping out of the panic room?

    I think those transient breaks are people/friends/family. It could be a hobby, it’s a vacation. Sometimes work too!

    It could be a book or a movie or a night of standup comedy!

    Something or anything which lets you dissociate and detach from the imminent problem, for a bit. Something which gives you a chance to feel yourself, process the situation and your emotions about it.

    This change is pertinent for your emotional resilience. Yes, we are built to last. But we are not built without pit stops.

    When life feels like a Panic room, you need a break. #thoughtsdenbyneha

    We need to recharge. Maybe the capacity of everyone is different.

    We still haven’t been able to make a perpetual machine, let alone a human body!

    Do not hesitate to catch your breath. When going gets really tough, step out of your room.

    Yes, you have to step into it again, eventually, but recharging before going in, might give you a fresh set of perspectives and energy to solve the situation in the room again.

    What is life, if not a vast healthcare center!

    At any given time, some room is always blinking, asking for help?