You are what you think

Aira    Featured Post     enthusiastic, Family, feelings, friends, Happiness, learning, nature, optimistic, work

All of our feelings, beliefs and knowledge are based on our internal thoughts, both conscious and subconscious. We are in control, whether we know it or not. We must always aim high and do your best. We can be positive or negative, enthusiastic or dull, active or passive. Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be. The biggest difference between people is their attitudes. For some, learning is enjoyable and exciting. For others, learning is a drudgery. For many, learning is just okay, something required on the road to a job.

Our present attitudes are habits, built from the feedback of parents, friends, society and self, that form our self-image and our world-image. These attitudes are maintained by the inner conversations we constantly have with ourselves, both consciously and subconsciously.

The first step in changing our attitudes is to change our inner conversations. One must make a positive commitment to oneself, to learning, work, family, friends, nature, and other worthwhile causes. Praise yourself and others. Dream of success. Be enthusiastic.

Just do your best and don’t look back. See learning and change as opportunities. Try new things. Consider several options. Meet new people. Ask lots of questions. Keep track of your mental and physical health. Be optimistic.

Remember, you are what you think, you feel what you want.

The real job of Moms

Aira    Featured Post     daughter, feelings, Happiness, Love, mother job, parenting, Parents, real job of mother, son, teenagers

It’s not cooking dinner, changing diapers or helping a preschooler glue colored macaroni on a coffee can as a Father’s Day gift.

The most important assignment a mom has is to nurture her children.

But what does that mean, exactly? Most of us have a vague notion about what being nurtured feels like, but here are a few specifics.

A nurturing mom goes beyond being the “maintenance person” in a child’s life. She doesn’t just keep a child clean, fed, warm, and dry. She also helps enable her children to develop fully by pouring life into them. She models joy and passion. Nurturing is filling your child up with aliveness.

A nurturing mom takes time to play, read, and take pictures when the toddler’s spaghetti ends up on the head instead of in the mouth. She enters the child’s world to see things from his or her perspective, even if it means the carpets don’t get vacuumed for a while. She provides empathetic understanding from a position of strength and support. That’s true whether she’s dealing with a toddler or a teen — except for the part about spaghetti on the head.

Like dads, though, moms have a natural urge to protect their children. That can lead them to cross the line between nurturing and futile attempts at control.

You can’t control the results, but you can stir in the right ingredients. You can seek to know your children as individuals, different as they might be, and bring out the best in each. You can demonstrate by example how to explore life with zest and express the unique gifts God provides each of us. Your nurturing can blossom in emotional and spiritual growth.

Before you feel burdened with a mile-long list you can never follow through on, let me be quick to say that nurturing is not about “doing it all” or doing it perfectly. It’s about doing the best you can — without losing yourself or driving yourself crazy because your own needs aren’t taken care of. You won’t be able to nurture your children if you’re exhausted from burning the candle at both ends.

So please take care of yourself, too. You need aliveness in order to pass it on to your teenagers.

Enjoy every moments of happiness

Aira    Featured Post     Happiness, Happy moment, Joy, Life, Love, Mnd

We usually tend to believe that happiness  is rare. Our minds are so burdened with worries and thoughts about the future that we miss that small moment of happiness which keep sparking in our lives. In fact, these moments  of happiness keep coming into our lives but we ignore them because we keep waiting for a big bounty of bliss.

Osho gives a few clues for increasing these happy moments by becoming aware of them and strengthening them. Whenever you feel happy, look at a light; any light will do, just a candle, but do it only when you feel happy and relaxed. When something like joy permeates your beings, then look at the moon, at the stars or the morning sun or the evening sun; any light will do. When you feel happy look at the light and meditate on life so that light and happiness become joined together and there is a kind of conditioned reflex. After three to four weeks of practice you will be able to evoke that joy whenever you look at light; then it becomes simple. But first you have to make a deep association.

Whenever you feel happy, just repeat your own name again and again. Then the sound of your name and the feeling of happiness become intertwined. Later whenever you repeat your own name you will find that some source  has been touched and a great blissfulness has been released. Whenever you feel depressed or low, stand outside a room with closed eyes for three minutes before entering and put all your negative feelings  in a bundle. Deposit it just by the door and enter, and then forget about it. And you will be surprised; it is such a simple thing! Then when you exit the room, stand again for three minutes, put happiness in the bundle and collect it. Whenever you sit alone, not doing anything, feel light entering you from above. Soak it in, drink it; let it sink into your heart.

Let it permeate your entire body. You will find yourself disappearing as a material body and becoming a body of light.   So enjoy  moments of happiness!!

An Inter Caste Marriage.. Laugh together, Live together!

Aira    Featured Post     Family, Happiness, Humor, Intercaste marriage, Life, Love, Marriage

Well,  What do you think about it??

An intercaste  marriage is a myriad of sweet and sour adjustments. Unlike same caste weddings, the differences begin to show up even before the wedding ceremony takes place. An intercaste marriage raises more than just quizzical eyebrows.

Weddings being all about tradition, customs  and rituals, the differences are many. By and large these are marriages of choice or what we generally call love marriages where the girl and the boy make the initial decision to come together in a martial alliance. There may be resistance from the parents, making an intercaste alliance into a more complicated ‘arrangement’ than even the arranged ones.

But then, customs or traditions are seldom the reasons, which can break up relationships. The differences can be easy to handle if you mark out some basic rules for yourself. Especially the bride who may find it unnerving to be amongst people who speak a different  language, dress differently, have distinctly different eating habits  and follow a different set of customs than what she has been used to in her growing years. Naturally it requires a certain mental steeling of sorts.

One of the best ways to save yourself from a culture shock is to familiarize yourself with your husband’s family. If you know, for instance, that your mom-in-law follows and believes in certain religious or traditional customs, you will find it easier to handle the stark difference  when you are in her house. During your visits, take pains and ask questions on how they celebrate different festivals or observe fasts etc. You will find, that there are similar reasons and beliefs at the core of varying customs. It is just the exterior difference. Often, different castes worship different deities, but if you care to understand the philosophy behind the worship, you will soon feel comfortable. It won’t be very different from what your mother told you.

Believe in change. Yeah, surprisingly food habits are reported to be a real trying test in an intercaste marriage. Years of habit and liking rarely change. Idli-dosas may be savoury to your palate for a while, but you will soon start yearning for ‘your kind of food’. Also, some girls say that the different aroma in an unfamiliar kitchen can sometimes put them pickles are different, so are the homemade namkeens. Besides everything smells so differently! New aromas can be strangely alienating, making you homesick for your mom’s kitchen.

But hang on. Can’t you cook your type of meal off and on? Surely you could, unless your in-laws are deliberately hostile. You could introduce some of your favorites recipes now and then. Don’t deprive yourself of the food you love. Find a way around it. LAUGH TOGETHER, LIVE TOGETHER. Humour has no language, no olfactory contradiction. You can laugh in a sari or in a pair of tight fitting trousers. You can laugh if you are married to a Tamilian or if you have decided to wed a Kashmiri Pundit. Loving and living together has a great deal to do with laughing together. Cultivate a sense of humour in life. It should be the most important homework you do before getting married into a family or caste, which differs drastically from your own. You will discover a oneness, a sense of belonging when you find that human traits are the same, despite the difference in pickles, papads or the idol of the deity worshiped.