This morning I walked into the Arushi Children’s Home for girls all prepared to take a Guided Healing Meditation Workshop on Self Love. What I wasnt prepared for was the amount these strong, fearless, cheerful young girls taught me.
Here’s where it began:
www.salaambaalaktrust.comThe Arushi Children’s Home for Girls is a residential shelter under the aeges of the Saalam Baalak Trust. Around 40 girls under the age of 18 live here under the supervision and care of a dedicated team of trained and compassionate people who ensure they are safe, nurtured and empowered. https://www.salaambaalaktrust.com/full-care-residential-programme.phpThe Apeejay Anand library was a sweet haven of knowledge with books for all age groups. “Show them all the beauty they possess inside“ Whitney Houston“I love myself just as I am” “I love the people no one loves” “I love only God. I see God in me” The girls revealed such powerful answers about themselves in the writing and sharing exercises. Embrace yourself. You are perfect just as you are.And here we are. Thank you for the lessons you taught me in return. Lessons in courage, strength, hope, acceptance.Thank you to all my friends and family members who helped me with the stationery and the goody bags. Rohan, my little brother in heaven. This was for you:)
Outside Cajole was smiling and congratulating the new Partner in the law firm.
Inside she burned
The new partner was her junior. 2 years and 6 months to be exact. And this five foot nothing was so good at her game she gobbled up anyone else’s chances of rising up the ranks. Cajole dug her nails into her fists. Her french manicure blunted out the pain.
Seething with anger, her eyes became smouldering rocks.
A silent explosion took place.
In the middle of the office party celebrating the youngest and newest partner, no-one noticed the pile of ashes in the corner that were once Cajole. One person did say there was a bitter smell in the air.
Sometimes every thing is in place but one tiny spoke in the wheel delays plans.
Sometimes things are beyond your control. Just before you meet the MD of the company you are about to join, his secretary reschedules the appointment because he has to travel somewhere urgently.
And sometimes the endless roles of red tape just wears us down .
Whatever the delay, the circumstances around it or the cause for it, delays can be testing times for all of us.
Firstly it is frustrating knowing that you have no choice but to wait another day, or another week or a month to get what you want.
Next comes the irritated restlessness that accompanies it, a tiny knot of tension that could express itself as impatience or just a bad mood.
And finally comes the worry the “what if” the anxious feelings keep you up at night imagining worst case scenarios.
I’ve learnt the hard way over and over again that the only thing I can do when faced with delays is to
1.Drop the matter for now
2.Do something else in the meantime.
And if that feeling of impatience creeps up on me again, dust it off again and again and focus on something else. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
The more we learn to tune inwards to our own inner self the more we realise we knew somethings all along. In that space of absolute tranquility is where the answers come. Going from reader to astrologer to psychic to numerologist to regressionist to face reader for an answer will give you wide and varied responses, but will never resonate as well as what we know to be true deep down inside us.
Just when I think I’ve let so much go, an old painful memory comes creeping in during my meditations to remind me there is still inner work to be done. And when I heal myself for one final time I realise I had been holding on to some unecessary baggage for way too long. God only knows why 🙂
Self Love is not One Size Fits All. The journey differs for each individual yet the goal is common. If we all love ourselves, we learn to love each other.
It is not a one time practice. It’s a daily practice be it in the form of prayer, affirmation, meditation, exercise – self love and self care is a continuous discovery of ourselves through the good, the bad and the ugly within us.
Self Love can no longer be ignored. The wounded will always wound the other. Until we embrace and heal our own wounds we will always hurt inside and consciously/unconsciously hurt another. No need for detail here, just follow the News to see what is happening.
Self Love is acknowledging our own toxic traits and working on them.
It’s much much more than choosing the right make up and colour highlight it’s a continuous journey inwards and feeling right.
Though it is important to have “me” it is equally important to recognise that eventually it’s about “we”. The better my relationship with my innerself, the better my relationship with any other being on this planet.
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