Between Blurred Lines

Dear Reader,

I hope this blog post finds you well. I am as well as well can be 🙂

This evening a friend of mine sent me a photograph of his new-born niece. This little girl was perhaps the purest soul I had laid eyes on. For me, this rule applies to all babies regardless of gender. Babies are gods own. Pure in the true form of the word. My friend said to me, “Riddhika, she has redefined life for me by her birth.” I could have only imagined the emotion. Must have been such a beautiful feeling for the family into whose lives, divine light had entered in the form of this angel. So much so that sitting miles away simply the sight of her had brought tears to my eyes.

I wished for her to turn into a beautiful young women both on the physical as well as from within, and to always remember her worth in a world that will constantly tell her otherwise.  Whilst I typed these words out, I questioned myself as to why I would have emphasized the importance of self-worth for a soul so new to this world. So pure, and untouched.  Perhaps, a subconscious emotion had brought back memories of a reality deeply engrained into the minds of most women today.

I would like to discuss a matter of importance with you dear reader. So sit back, relax and grab that cup of green tea, or coffee whilst you hear me speak my heart out to you today.

A few weeks ago, I posted a picture of my self on my Instagram account and wrote beneath it, that if there was one thing I could change about myself, It would perhaps be the the ability to love myself and be more accepting of the way I am made. Of being comfortable with being a Punjabi girl with enough and more flesh on me! I wish we had been taught self love in school. It is a constant effort to remember to love, accept and be comfortable in your own skin. To this comment, I received some heart warming messages from friends from all over the world, reminding me that it was our soul that was beautiful and we just so happened to be gorgeous on the outside too. To remember  to always and forever keep that soul pure!

Our society doesn’t allow us to believe these thoughts for too long though. Our conscious mind is flooded with advertising campaigns portraying the perfect women as one who is perfectly shaped and looks glamorous at any hour of the day. We have started to believe that we aren’t perfect and we soon begin to see ourselves as imperfect. Without realizing that it is in this imperfection, that real beauty truly lies.

With myriad thoughts still floating in my head, I suddenly remembered about a wonderful initiative I had read about months ago. The subject matter of the organization in discussion reminded me of the far greater issues that the world faced, and how losing my strength to move forward in life, in the face of life ordinary issues, was no longer an option.

Make Love not Scars( MLNS) is an organization founded by a young girl by the name of Ria Sharma from Delhi, India. The organization focuses on  helping acid survivor victims come back into main stream society. The organization looks after the well being of existing survivors that actually want to move on with their lives. These women have ambitions and dreams that they are unable to conquer, simply because despite their own belief that they are worthy, society refuses to give them that chance. Rehabilitation is extremely hard, as India is not yet equipped to deal with the battle of disfigurement. The survivors want to learn skills and then put those skills to use by obtaining employment but society doesn’t let that happen with ease. They question and they taunt, they blame the victim and they stare and in the process they diminish any self-confidence the survivor had gathered being locked up behind closed doors for years to begin with.

MLNS focuses on bringing back these young girls into main stream society and reminding each and every one of us, that our beauty lies within us. To respect and honor that beauty, and never let that pure soul that we were born with fade in the face of these obstacles.

As women, we are blessed with the ability to bring life into this world, to bear pain beyond imagination, and to take our society forward. It is our duty to ourselves to remember our worth despite everything that we may see or be told on the physical.

I promised Ria at Make Love not Scars a special blog post highlighting her organization’s work a long time ago. I never ended up writing it, perhaps because I wasn’t connecting with the emotion at that stage. This little baby’s  photograph stirred countless emotions within me that made me wish for every girl child  to remember their worth in a world that will constantly tell them otherwise , for every women to remember the strengths that she was endowed with, and for each one of us to move forward in life, regardless of what life throws at us.

Please go support a cause that requires a lot of attention in India. Support the cause of empowering women worldwide to believe that true beauty lies in imperfection..

Leaving you with a song which seems apt to the mood of this post. I hope you enjoy listening to it. Louise Armstrong- What a wonderful World.

Thank you Baby A for the inspiration to write again. You don’t even know what a great cause you have helped highlight on your second day in this world. May you spread joy, happiness and inspiration in every life that you touch.

Be grateful for life as you live it, and may a wonderful light guide you on the unfolding road..

Until next time,

Love and light,

Riddhika

Read more about MLNS and their work and how you can support it by clicking on the link below.

Make Love not Scars- Website

http://www.makelovenotscars.org/

Make Love not Scars –  Facebook Page

https://www.facebook.com/makeluvnotscars/info?tab=page_info.tu

Random Rants

I’m writing down my thoughts today. Raw emotions. My emotions that have perhaps accumulated over the last couple of weeks and months into a little bundle and now need to be let lose somewhere. My somewhere is always my blog. When events unfold in your life, you often question your identity, your purpose and the reason why you were chosen to be placed into a certain situation at that junction or point in time.

I have often been asked what it means to be Master Practitioner Priya Khanna’s daughter. What does it feel like to have a lady who has helped countless number of people attain what they most desired, be your boss, then a friend and most importantly being her daughter and her being my mother. She has not one but many feathers in her hat. Not only has she helped countless number of people with the use of all the alternative therapies that she has studied but her practice of a science as powerful as Fengshui Shui has opened the paths to higher prosperity and success for many. How blessed she is to live a life helping people. When clients drop by the store and say your mother is a genius, I just smile. Because to me she is just my mother. She is a genius regardless of what she does and does not do. So I wonder what is this extra special stuff she does with clients who think she is a genius!

I am almost always caught tongue tied when this question is thrown at me. .. ‘Tell us about Fengshui. Does it work?’ ‘ Is your home Fengshuied?’. Yes that has now become a word in the vocabulary I often hear… ‘Fengshuied’. To which my expressions and my face are as confused if not more confused than the previous time I was asked the same question. Yes my home is ‘fengshuied’. Yes I am the daughter of a healer and yes it’s wonderful, However in all honestly I just don’t know what I’ve taken back from all of this.

Do I believe in any of it? Some of it? Or does none of it have any value in my life.Im not a fan of being asked at parties and social gatherings about energy work or healings or alternative sciences. Not because I am not proud of the sort of work we do, but simply because I am not too sure of what all of this has done for me or how it has helped me progress and move on in my own life. Not until now at least.

Perhaps you need to have your own individual experience to gain perspective on a particular topic. You question everything in your life till you don’t attain answers. Whether these answers come to you in the form of signs from the universe or are thrown at your blatantly all vary from time to time and situation to situation. However, I have recently found myself following one of moms most tried and tested techniques at a time when my otherwise happy life suddenly went on a roller coaster of emotions at its own free will. Leaving me feeling quite helpless really.

She calls this the Rice Paper diary Therapy.

I sat down to write down all my emotions and feelings towards particular people who perhaps cause feelings of stress, or various situations that I feel are completely out of my control. I wrote down everything they or the situation made me feel. Both good and bad emotions about the individual, the situation and the what, why, and how’s that usually answer why the mind is restless. I poured down every single thought that came to my mind about all these individuals and situations that were causing the havoc in my being. After I’d done this, I simply burnt the piece of paper on which I’d poured my heart and soul out.

Funny enough, I’ve always been told that once this paper is burnt you will not remember anything you felt. It will almost feel like the emotion didn’t exist. Imagine how much stress, anxiety, fear and garbage you manage to get out of your system. I write anyway but for myself and for others to read. Making it censored material. But imagine being able to write everything and anything you actually felt and then to simply release those feelings, because you didn’t have to share this with anyone! It’s hard to describe the feeling but I can undoubtedly say that this is one of the nicest therapies I think I could have learnt from mom.

I am sharing something that helps me every time I feel low and out. I have been doing this for years now but have never thought it was important enough to be shared. Not till I recently realized that sometimes you don’t need someone to talk to, but simply a coping mechanism that will help you let go and heal.

I know most of you will find this exercise so tiring and so tedious. It honestly is the most boring, tiring and tedious exercise that exists. Specially because it entails coming to terms with your own realities and situations as they exist. But we all know that no form of exercise ever yields any result till we don’t put in some effort into it.

At Elements Fengshui, the company my mother started we encourage our clients to try and do this writing on special hand made paper diaries, however I just recommend that every time you feel down and out, you try and do this exercise on any paper!!! You could be on a flight, waiting in a queue for something, or sitting in the car! Doesn’t matter where you are, all you need is a pen and paper! You will feel so much better and so much lighter after you do this. Almost like the issue didn’t exist at all. I have written about so many things over the last few months and I do see a change in myself. I feel the difference in my reactions to situations, and this is when I realize that this is what it feels like to be Priya’s daughter. To be able to tackle situations hands on from a holistic perspective without harboring feelings of hate, regret, anger and dislike. Throughout our lives, we were taught that we must not fight how we feel. We need to accept how we feel. And if our feeling isn’t a good feeling or our thoughts are bad, go find the root cause of the issue, don’t just brush it off and hide from the situation. Healing comes with acceptance. Acceptance of the situation as it is. Allowing yourself to heal is the best gift you can give yourself.

I do hope you will find it in yourself to allow this healing to enter your existence too. You deserve it. You deserve infinite happiness and invite love, don’t allow yourself to accept any lesser!

If you decide to give this therapy a shot, please tell me how it went of for you! I’d love to hear what you have to say!

Until next time,

Love and gratitude

Riddhika

A girl in waiting (Part 2)

If there was a way to express how I’m feeling at this moment, I would do it.I don’t think my post will be able to justice to this feeling that I have within me at the moment!I feel like I need to look up a hundred new words to describe this wonderful, amazing, liberated feeling that I’ve got going within me, post my experience at The Dubai Holding Women’s Run  day before yesterday!

I signed up for the 5 km run just a few days ago, with so many doubts and worries about how Id manage to complete it given that I hadn’t even trained for it as such. However, when it started, I couldn’t believe I was doing what I had always planned to but had delayed on so many occasions. Running with 1500 + people is probably  always going to be one of the best memories of my life. My first run was so so special!It gave me the confidence to believe that what I had set out to do, was indeed so wonderful and so important in order to feed my soul! It wasn’t about the run, it was about getting rid of my own inhibitions and waiting around for someone else to come around and help me do it. It was so much more about taking control of my own happiness!

I just kept telling myself, that I would run the entire thing. Not walk it, but just keep jogging/running! I must admit that until yesterday I didn’t even realize how long a mere 200 metros could actually be! When your nearing the end even those last few meters feel like a lot! I kept thinking I completed the run in 45 mins thanks to my miscalculation, however, what made me happier was when I checked the official results, I realized I finished it in 35 mins. I’m quite kicked, given that I didn’t actually train for it nor was I very concerned about my timing. However, going forward I think timing will also become my point of focus. Aim was to do it alone,and be comfortable doing it alone and I am so glad I pushed myself and went for it. Its making me feel happy and light!

I am hoping that this is the start of a long romance with myself. One that will hopefully last a lifetime. So many lists to prepare and so much to do now. No room for fear of doing it alone hopefully. Lets see if I can now push myself to start training for the 10 km Standard Chartered Run! 🙂

Attended a Boat Party in the afternoon post my run and regardless to say, I am exhausted from the weekend, every part of my body does feel like somebody dismantled it! However, this exhaustion has a happy high to it. So I’m not complaining!

I have attached the link to my current favorite Coke Studio track Dasht- e- tanhai . I hope you enjoy Meesha Shafi as much as I do. It just goes with the mood I think.

Thank you to all those who sent me extremely encouraging messages post my last post! It meant a lot. You made it all even more special by reaching out to me, at a time when I most needed the boost 🙂

 

 

Until next time, be happy and be mental!

Always,

Riddhika

 

 

Don’t surrender your loneliness so quickly 
Let it cut more deep. Let it ferment and season you 
As few human or even divine ingredients can 
Something missing in my heart tonight 
Has made my eyes so soft, 
My voice so tender, 
My need of God absolutely Clear. 
 —Hafiz

Step by Step.

I complete a year in this blogosphere today.Exactly one year ago, on a day not as cold , I decided to start blogging.Honestly, i had no idea how far this was going to go.I was very keen on discovering why people who blogged, enjoyed it so much. Like many other things, blogging fascinated me.I had no idea what to expect and I just went with the flow…

A year later, its hard to describe why I enjoy blogging so much…Its this crazy feeling of just letting go of things you feel and sharing your thoughts with so many people! Each time I write, I feel a high that makes me so happy and light…that I know i want to come back again and again and again.

When i started writing, I thought I would write regularly, but that certainly wasnt the case. Initially i was worried that had the excitement died? But it hadn’t  and i I soon realised that it didn’t matter how regularly I updated my blog, but that when I did…I had thoughts,ideas and views that I considered important to share.

How do I feel a year into this journey? I’ll be honest with you all and most importantly with myself. Its been one of the most satisfying experiences I have had. This medium has helped me let go of emotions that I sometimes found difficult to express. True to what I said one year ago..this bog is an expression of the soul. A year later, I ask my soul how content it is, and in its response I get a smile.I can tell that writing has helped me just when and where i needed to be helped the most.

My writing may or may not be the best, but there are so many of you who have come back regularly to hear me express myself through this medium.I cannot thank you enough for the words of encouragement and feedback that you have given me. Its given me the motivation to keep writing and that is the biggest gift ever.

Not quite sure whats going to happen from here, but im sure the path will become clearer as I take each step….

With Lots of love,

Riddhika

Do not Enter.

We dont get treated the way we do because of someone else’s mistakes.It is because we allow them to treat us the way they do, that they do such things.

If i dont allow to someone to enter at their discretion,i suppose they wont have the room to create a mess and leave as and when they feel.

I am the most supreme soul.I am who i am and i am divine.

And you arent allowed to enter.Not without permission atleast.