We when talk about learning and growing. It is important to understand that this growth that happens is not dependent on outside resources. We do not have missing pieces that we need to gather to "complete" us. The growth happens from within us. It's a shift, a change that takes place within us. We have always had the potential of the growth that we go through within us.
My writings are my reflections and opinions only, based on my experiences and understanding of life and my studies of the various arts and practices of various disciplines of healing, welfare and life. I don't believe in labels! I don't believe in there being a need to classify, categorise and quantify things. We live in a multi-dimensional world, we are multiple-dimensional multi-faceted beings, so why this obsession with liner qualifications and quantifications? Why do we need to see how we measure up to anything? There is only one of us; there ever was and ever will be only one of us. So why? Why I ask are we trying to reduce ourselves, our abilities, our quality to a small number of finite qualities that an observer can relate another person to us with; whom they know, recognize and understand? Yes we are human; we will have similarities with someone somewhere or rather lots of someones somewhere, but we are not them, and they are not us! And why do we have to reduce ourselves to be marketed with just those minute qualities? We are so much more than just those handful of traits. Why are we allowing ourselves to be measured against someone else, we will never ever measure up! Just like no one can do me better than me, I can never be someone else better than them themselves. ITS NOT POSSIBLE! And more importantly why should I be them when I can be me? I am meant to be me, I have been sent to earth to be me, not anyone else; so why are we wasting time comparing one another to each other. No one else can do what I have been sent here to do. No one else can do what you have been sent here to do. So stop trying to become someone or somebody. Just be. Live and breathe each moment authentically and connected with your soul. That is all that you need to do. Listen to your inner voice, your inner calling your gut feeling and just do. Don't think, try, force; just be. When we talk about being present that is what it means to be present in each and every moment. Live in and out of each moment through your soul. Your Ego has been developed on your journey here, but your Ego is supposed to be at service to your soul not be the boss of your soul. These insecurities described above of needing to quantify and measure up, are the product of the Ego. The soul is not insecure. The soul knows exactly who it is and what it's meant to do. The Ego on the other hand, born in and of this world, feels it needs to preserve itself, thus acts out of this need. The soul is not of this world. It feels no threats of this world; it knows both its purpose on Earth and the purpose of Earth. The soul is never lost, but it can and does often get silenced. In order for us to reconnect with it we need to silence the Ego. When we discover and experience the Majesty of Allah SWT and HIS creations, it humbles us and puts our ego in its place. This then allows us to find the silence we need to hear our soul and connect with it once more. To connect with life and the world we must first connect with ourselves, our soul. Connect.
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Often people will go to a homeopath and ask can homeopathy treat my diabetes; or can you fix my blood pressure; or can you give me something to help my arthritis, etc etc. And the answer is that we don't treat diseases; we help individuals with their individual timelines.
Disease doesn't just happen, your body doesn't just suddenly break down one day, or suddenly start pumping more blood or forget how to regulate your blood sugar. No, diseases set in because of dis-eases we face. When we face any disturbance, any adversity we are either able to face it there and then and resolve it, or we are not; and even sometimes when we are able to resolve it, it still leaves a deep lasting imprint on our soul. For example the classic rubric of Aconite: fear of fright still remains; which means even though the fright we got has passed, it's impact still lives on within us – we are living in fear of that fright still. We are either living in fear directly still of that fright or of receiving similar frights like it which is haunting our subconscious mind. So until this “fear of fright” is not dealt with. we will continue to have this deep imprint have a lasting effect on our daily lives. You see, diseases are but few, but the reasons one gets them are very diverse in comparison! 20 people can have diabetes but each may have got it because of a different reason, so for each of those 20 people a different remedy may be needed to help with their diabetes. So when you look at diseases in this way, only then can one understand why a homeopath says: no, they cannot and do not treat “diseases”. We have to go back and look at your history and see what was the original dis-ease that was undealt with that led you down to this “diseased state”; and is there currently a ‘maintaining cause’ that is keeping the diseased state so active right now? Sometimes people will say “oh but I feel fine, I don't feel stressed, I feel healthy, it's only my blood pressure that is off, but I'm fine”. How can you be "fine" if your blood pressure is up? Your blood pressure is not a separate entity to you, it is your body speaking to you - the subconscious trying to communicate its discomfort(s) to the conscious mind. Those people that think: I'm perfectly fine and 'healthy', I only have this one little thing; are actually in denial. They are just kidding themselves that they are 'fine'. Our body does not lie. As my beloved professor said: how we fall sick tells us about who we are. We do ourselves no favours by being in denial about what is going on in our life. We are only kidding ourselves and also only harming ourselves through this denial. Whether we want to admit to our discomforts or not, does not stop them from existing on within us. Whether we face our 'demons' head on or not, does not affect anyone else. We are doing ourselves no favours by pretending we are "fine", when our body clearly is telling us there is some energy that is still impacting our soul which needs “clearing”. Some people say they have never been well since a flu or a fall, well then we need to go back and look at what was going on for you at the time of this flu or fall. Sometimes people say I'm really healthy I never get sick, I have not had a flu in decades; I hear that and think: and you think you are healthy!?! Life is constantly hitting us with adversities, if one throws a high fever that is actually a sign of a strong vital force, if one is not able to throw off the adversities through an acute that means there is a lot going on under the radar that you are not realizing, especially when one has any chronic illnesses. The problem is our very definition of health is skewed. We think of having a flu as a sign of having poor vitality and health, yet think nothing of suffering from hay fever every year. We think hay fever is not an "illness"; not a sign of “poor health”; it's just "allergies", it's not just “allergies”! Hay fever is a sign of unprocessed grief, whether our own or passed down generationally to us! We think of arthritis as just something which happens to everyone as they age, it's not "bad health" it's just aging. We think maybe if we eat better and exercise we can delay the onset but that is about it, but this is not true. Arthritis, like diabetes; Parkinson's; eczema; hay fever etc. are all caused because of disturbances within our vital force (our “life force”). Every time adversities hit us, they change how and where we vibrate; whether the change in our vibration is short lived or long, depends on the strength of our vital force and our ability of dealing with the adversity. Sometimes we can clear it completely and sometimes we cannot even budge it a little; so we continue to live on with this adversity living on within us, resulting in us not vibrating at our optimum, rather now continuing to vibrate at this new "normal" frequency. Sometimes we can shift the majority of it, but still a part remains, which prevents us from fully returning to our optimum. Now I must point out over here that having an adversity live on or it's effects live on is not the same thing as learning and growing from an experience, whether good or bad. Growth is a positive; remnants of adversity living on within our being and preventing us from vibrating optimally is not. One is learning from the experience, the other is becoming stagnant by it; and often this is on a subconscious level so we are not even aware of this being the case. This is where diseases are "handy". They tell us where we are “stuck”; that the energy is not free flowing within us. Don't be afraid of or ashamed of what your body is telling you, it's communicating with you because it too wants to get better. It too wants to get back to vibrating at its optimum. Our body want to heal and it needs you to help it heal. You can take all the remedies under the sun, all the treatments in the world; but if you are resisting healing, they cannot help you. On the flip side: if you open yourself to healing, you can actually heal yourself without any aids too! The power to heal always resides within us, each of us, all the time; we just need to come to the realization that the only one stopping us from healing is us ourselves. Don’t build a wall of denial around your dis-ease, locking it up will not stop its effects on you; remove it from you! What qualifies one to be a friend or a relationship to be "friendship" as oppose to "acquaintanceship"?
Is it time period? For example: how long you have known one another; or how long you spend with each other; or how often you meet each other? A lot of the times people we consider as “friends”, we do often meet regularly and for a good length of time; but it's not these things that qualify the relationship to that of the "friendship" status. It's not how long or well you know someone, or how often you meet, but rather the fact that you connect with them that makes them your friend. One can sometimes "click" with someone instantaneously, they just know they are friend material; and on the other hand one can have people in their life they meet very frequently and at lengths, but they do not consider them as a "friend" – why because we do not connect with them and they not with us. So no matter how long one does or doesn't know them they will never become their "friend"; they will always ever be an acquaintance or in some instances a colleague. Moreover, with colleagues as well, they can be just colleagues or they can be a friend as well as a colleague; depending on how well you connect with them. Sometimes, one does not even want to call a person they work with a colleague either, they feel so unconnected to them that they simply refer to them as a “co-worker”; because even the word “colleague” has a certain level of respect and warmth, and in some cases we feel so removed from the person that even “colleague” feels too endearing a word to acknowledge them with. Its all about how well we do or don’t connect with someone. And life partners, well they really are just the best and closest of ones’ friends; the one we connect with the most. Life really is about what and who we connect with. Sometimes we have people in our lives that we would rather not have, but we have no choice but to put up with them; and sometimes there are people we feel really close to and want close to us and in our life, but we do not have the luxury of their company as we would desire. Life has its own course that it takes; who, when and for how long life brings together we have no control over. Instead of fighting life’s wisdom, search for that which life is showing you. No conversation, no meeting, no interaction is “random” or “unnecessary”. Every conversation we have, every interaction we part-take has a purpose. A necessary energy exchange needs to happen with those that are presented; and energy exchanges with those that are not present are not meant to happen, for whatever reason. Stop fighting life! Listen to it. I have had “random”, “fleeting” conversations with practical “strangers” that have been life changing! No conversation, no interaction, is random or unnecessary! Everyone has an important role to play in the lives of the people that they interact with. Nowadays FOMO is a growing problem for people, they constantly feel they are missing out on something important. They need to know what converstaions and meetings are happening between whom and about what. Stop fretting. Just like no one can take what is yours and you cannot take what is not yours. No conversation that you should have been present in, you will ever miss; and no conversation that you were better left out of, you will ever attend. The problem is our Ego. We let our Ego get the better of us. We think that we should be in the know of this or be part of that, but Allah always knows and does best. HE knows better than anything and all; what we need, when we need it and how. Trust in HIS plan, for HE is the best of planners, Subhan Allah! Like I have said above I have been in literally life changing conversations that I didn’t even know were going to take place. The direction they took me in was not even on my radar, better yet the fact that I needed a change of direction itself was not even on my radar either. So before the “random” stranger spoke to me I didn’t even know I have to make a life changing decision after this conversation that would come from the conversation! How mind blowing is that?! So now I trust in Allah’s plans! I don’t force things, I don’t avoid things, I just live true to myself in every moment and let life unfold itself for me and take me where I need to go when I need to; because Allah guides our life in the best ways possible, Subhan Allah! So if you are fretting over the people you have in your life today or fretting over the people you want to have in your life. Don’t. Good, bad, desirable undesirable, life partner, friend, acquaintance, colleague, co-worker, employee, employer, neighbour, relative, local shop-keeper, fellow commuter, stranger, etc.; whoever they maybe that are in your life, they are there by design, not coincidence! See what energies life is guiding you to exchange with them. Be open to seeing what life is bringing your way as new opportunities for exchanges and growths that were not their before. And the people that are no longer in your life or have not come in your life, again no need to fret over them either, there is a reason they are not present in your life. We might not always see the wisdom or the reason, but that is where faith comes in; we have to trust in Allah’s wisdom and plan and trust that if they really needed to be with us they would be and as they are not, there is some hidden wisdom there. Its hard no doubt when you really wish your mother was by your side; or you miss your childhood best friend’s shoulder; or you feel that your crush is the one you are meant to end up with forever, and they are not here. But as hard and harsh and wrong as it may feel, there is wisdom in everything Allah does. Alhumdulillah. If we always got to know the wisdom behind everything then there would be no need for trust and faith. So my message for you is – Connect. Connect with all that life is bringing forth for you today in the best way that you can; for through every connection we make, energy is exchanged and growth enabled. Live, Learn, Grow and Connect otherwise we and life becomes stagnant. Much love to you all. X The biggest mystery of life, women.
But are they really a mystery? I mean seriously, it's really not that complicated is it? What I think is, is that actually it's so simple that people over look it because they expect it to be more complicated and therefore make matters more complicated and mysterious. Whereas truth be told we are actually really very very simple. All we want is to be noticed and to feel desired. And no, that does not just mean sex. Desired in every way possible. Desired to be with, desired for who we are, what we look like and desired to be loved mentally, emotionally and physically (is that really too much to ask and understand, she laughs). All we want is to know that we are important to the man who is important to us. Though note, that does not mean being told with words “we are important” but feel that we are important in every way. If one can make a woman feel important in their lives then she will look after everything that is important for you, including herself. Yes self-neglect is a sign of the woman feeling like she is not important to her man. If she stops caring about what she wears and looks like then that is because she feels you don't care much either way what she looks like. And that is not to say that one should be superficial and just care about looks, no definitely not. It's about making her feel that she is important to you. That you do notice when she makes an effort. That you do notice the new top or how her dress hugs her curves and that it does make you look again and again at her. Yes she may have dress comfy pj days and that is fine, but if she feels you are not really bothered much about whether she does or doesn't do something then she will stop doing it which will eventually lead down the low self-esteem and self-neglect road. She wants to know that in certain colours/dresses you can't stop staring at her. She wants to know that her smile makes your heart race. She wants to know that she will still make your head turn every time she walks in the room. She wants to know that you notice all the little things about her. And that's not to say that you don't, you probably do, but she needs to know that too! Often men can be too closed with their feelings and this is often their downfall. Tell her how she makes you feel. Tell her you like it when she does her hair in certain ways. Tell her, show her, make her feel it and believe it. It really is that simple. There is no fixed formula, no dos or don'ts. Just tune into your heart and hers and let them be your guide. No need to over complicate matters, no need for expensive displays of affections; be it one rose or a hundred they both still convey the same message and invoke the same feelings. It's not about the quantity but the thought and feeling. Just genuine old fashioned wooing and flirting. People often think flirting is just like "bait" to catch a girls interest in the “early days”, they underestimate the powerful tool it is for all ages and stages of a relationship. Your life partner is not a trophy to be won and placed in a display cabinet; like a plant your relationship needs to be tended to every single day. Nurture and adore your relationship and in return it will nurture and adorn your life. Life is simple and is about the simple things. It is often difficult, especially when the story is “ugly”, to see that it was necessary.
It is very easy to say and believe that things were meant to be in this way when we have a beautiful path we have walked to reach the destination we have today. However, when for example: a child is pulled out from under the rubble of a collapsed bombed building only to find their entire family has been wiped out, it is very hard to say: “it’s okay it was a part of the journey they had to lead, it is a part of Allah’s plan, it was a necessary hard life they had to lead to become who they needed to become”. The mind and heart are not willing to accept these things as “okay” and “God’s plan” or even, dare I say, an important happening in the child’s life. But would Andy Murray be the man he is today had he not been in that fateful classroom the day that the massacre took place? Would Thomas Edison have become the man he did had he not had the teacher who kicked him out and the mother who then shaped up his learning. Although both above instances possibly still not as traumatic as the above mentioned example of the child, and perhaps not many famous examples of people exist who have ‘survived’ such a horrible experience; but that does not mean to say that despite it being so much more traumatic, and despite it not having any famous “happy endings”, that it too is not a necessary happening - that it too has not forged out of a hellish fire a truly magnificent person. Not every famous person is great and not every great person is famous! I think back to my beloved English Teacher, may he rest in peace, when he died there was no “state” funeral, and yet he was a man (like many others I am sure) worth of such! He touched and changed the lives of so many children who then have in turn gone on and continued his legacy multi-fold into the fabric of this world. Truly the Chinese proverb holds such truth, if you plan for 100 years, teach! The impact a teacher has cannot be measured, and a really great teach weaves their essence and teachings into the fabric of society and moulds it from the inside. Some of the stories we heard on his funeral were truly mind blowing and yet only the people who met him know his name; his impact however, reaches far far beyond. His childhood although was not the rosiest; and again, for him to become the great man he was, he needed to have faced the ugly side of life. So why am I saying these things. I want to invite you to see past your scars (we all have our own battles we have fought and scars that they have left behind), to what their presence has enabled for you and your journey. I want to invite you towards acceptance of a different level. I want to invite you towards Gratitude. And before you think anything, I want you to hear me out first. Life sometimes has to put us through difficult learning curves to shape us; to enable us; to forge us. Every metal ore needs to go into the furnace to come out stronger purer and more in its ‘element’. I do not know your story, I do not know your scars, but the experiences you have had and the people you have met along the way, have each in their own way, helped you into becoming the you who you are today; from the ones that put you down to the ones that picked you up, each in their own way have been necessary in your story. If we do not brave the storm we cannot cross the seas to find our island paradise. If you did not take this exact journey you would not have found your ‘island paradise’ with its ‘golden sands’ and ‘cool sea breezes’. Sometimes we head out to sea thinking we need to go into a certain direction and end up in a certain location. But Allah has His own plan for us. He does not want us to go to the island in the East, He knows the island we truly need is in the South. So, He sends our way harsh winds and rough seas. We can try fight it for as long as we can and not make much progress; or we can learn to harness the wind, work with the wind and go in the direction that life is taking us, and also trust in the direction life is taking us is what we need today. And when we stumble upon our true ‘island paradise’ and rest in its golden sands, only then when we look back at the journey can we truly appreciate that we needed to take it so that it could lead us here. Yes, it may have been horrible and hard, and tested us beyond our imagination, but we are here. We learned to battle our storms; we learned to tie knots we didn’t know how; we learned to control our sails to best harness the winds; we discovered uncharted territory and found we could manage our way safely through; we discovered our resilience, our patience, our determination, our perseverance is much more than we could have perceived. Sure, there may have been days when brother wind got too rough and mother nature rained on us hard and threw us about on harsh seas, we even got thrown over-board a few times, but Allah sent us our “saviours” to help us back on our boat. And while there were rough days there were days of sunshine and calm too; where father sun smiled down upon us and embraced us in its warmth, giving us strength to go on and showed us the way to go forward. If we didn’t face harsh winds and seas, we would not need any saviours in our life, if we didn’t get drenched by stormy clouds we would not appreciate the warmth of the sunshine… I don’t want you to just see the silver lining in the clouds, I want you to feel the importance of the rain too. If there was no rain, there would be no life. When a lightning strikes a dry barren land and causes fire and “destruction”, that very fire and destruction makes way for new life to grow from that barren land. The lightning ‘supercharges’ life back into the barren lands. But why am I saying all this to you. I want to invite you to think of things in a different light. Because thinking is the key! Our reality is not what it is, it is how we see it. Yes, sure there are somethings that are facts, but in and around the facts we paint a picture of a reality that we see. For example, when we stub our toe, it hurts! – Fact! But we then paint this fact with our colours: “someone put that there maliciously so we could get hurt”; “someone put that there carelessly and we got hurt because of them”; “I am so clumsy, so careless, I am hopeless, I keep getting hurt everywhere by everything there must be something wrong with me”… and so and so forth, we can paint it in any way. But the truth is, we stubbed our toe, and that is it. The rest are our formations, shaping up a reality. We need to separate out the facts from the colours we are superimposing upon it. The truth is we stubbed our toe - now we can exclaim ouch, rub our toe and move on with daily happenings like nothing happened; OR we can exclaim ouch, rub our toe and sigh or get annoyed temporarily and think need to watch where we are going a bit more before we move on; OR we can become angry and vindictive and blame someone for maliciously trying to hurt us; OR we can be angry and annoyed and blame someone for being careless; Or let our low self-esteem cause us to become guilt ridden and spiral into self-pity and self-loathing… etc etc. SO, it all comes down to our thoughts. If our thoughts are shaping up our reality; then by changing how we see things, think about things, can ‘change’ our reality; aka reframing. Reframing does not change facts, yet it can change how reality shapes up around the facts. Reframing can and sometimes does help some people; it can, for some instances, help to step out and take a different look at the scene (NB, this is not to say that one should create false realities and live in denial. No. that is of course also not healthy). However, I am not going to be asking you to reframe anything. No, the contrary, when we understand that our thoughts shape up reality, then we do not need to get too caught up in the realities that our mind is shaping up. So actually, we do not need to reframe anything, if anything what we need to do is unframing. We need to remove the colour and see truth as it is. Our thoughts are like glasses, by changing the lenses we change the colour. We can change the lenses all we want and every time we will see the picture with a different colour. But if we understand that the colour is superimposed and actually we can take off the glasses and see the picture as it stands then we don’t need to worry about any colour we can or may see the picture in. The truth is the picture, that cannot be change. When we can understand that the colours we see in any picture is what then induces the feelings inside of us; then just like we can detach the picture from the colours, we can detach our feelings from the truths. Our feelings are personal, they are superimposed because of the reality that we shape up; they are not inherent of the experience, they are not exclusively in and of the experience. The experience, i.e. truth, is just that – an experience – it is there for you to gain something of and from. Experiences do not have colours (our thoughts) or flavours (our feelings). We attach the colours and flavours to them. So just like we can attach them on, we can detach them too. Now what does that achieve? Imagine: You live a moment: a vey horrid, cruel and cold moment; where a perpetrator heartlessly abuses you, physically assaults you and verbally abuses you. You feel the cruelty of the moment in the moment, you feel the cruelty of the moment years on too. No matter what you do, you cannot escape the ‘truth’ of the moment as being horrid, cruel, cold and heartless. You cried then, you cry now. Now one can try to reframe it by saying: well the person was ill in their minds, they were partly drunk, they did know any better, etc. but nothing can actually change the ‘truth’ – your truth of the experience – because how you experience something is still a truth! That is how you experienced it! And yes, the truth is: you did experience a horrid, cruel, cold-hearted physically and verbally abusive moment, which no doubt has been life changing… Now when we look at it from the perspective of our superimposing of colour and flavour, we can pick apart the experience in a different way. You feeling the moment was cruel, horrid, cold and heartless, is your feelings of the moment. Although true, because that is how you experienced the moment in the moment, they are YOUR feelings. They are not exclusively in and of the experience itself, rather how you experienced the experience (one person can and may experience an experience slightly differently to another). You experienced it in this way because you thought of those abusive acts as being: cold, heartless and cruel. And yes, where majority people today would hold the same or similar views of an abusive act as such as being: cold; heartless; and cruel, it still does not make it the truth. The truth is: a person hit you and said some words to you. That is it, that is the truth. … It is our social dictates, which shape up our belief systems; these belief systems then go on to make us think that an act is: “negative”, “wrong” and “hurtful”. Undoubtedly the act of getting hit physically hurts our physical body, but so does falling out of a tree; so does over working our arm muscles in the gym; so does menstrual pain, or better yet labour pain. So why is one pain branded as “good” and one pain brand as “bad”; pain is just pain is it not? Does all pain still not equally cause us discomfort? Our morality does the branding; but where does morality come from? As humans we have created certain codes, orders, systems, acceptable norms and behaviours, but even in that we have variations throughout different generations and cultures. It is these belief systems that control our thinking, that shape our thinking – that shapes our realities and our truths; but if we can take a step back and remove these parameters and then look at a situation we will find the situation to be neutral. Because that is all it is – a situation; an experience; an event. Without which future events, situations and happening cannot follow and unfold. A situation is just a domino in a line of dominos. The dominos are all just neutral, no one domino more important, or bigger, or smaller, than the other and yet each domino vital in its own right; even if one domino is missing the show cannot go on. So with that said, it does not matter how you experience the domino. There is neither anything wrong with how you experienced it, nor is there any need to rethink of: how where or why the domino was as it was. It just was, and that is it. It was necessary because it was elemental for the show to go on. When we can understand this, then we can let go of the colours and flavours that we have attached to the experiences, because although that is how we experienced them and it was vital for us to experience them how we did for the next domino to fall, at the end of the day all those experiences are just dominos in a line. Whether we have tagged an experience as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ is just our superimpositions and in a way ‘irrelevant’; how we may or may not have tagged them actually bares no relevance in the grand scheme of things, they are all just dominos in a line – each the same and each just as vital. When we can view our past experiences as dominos and allow the colours and flavours to ‘fall off’, then we can free ourselves of the hold these feelings have had upon us; allowing us to fully embrace and carry on in our life without being weighed down by the weight of a heavy heart (because that is where all our feelings live on unless we can let them go). Whether an experience was ‘good’ or ‘bad’; hurtful or beautiful; made us sad or happy; angry or worried, it does not matter now. The experience is gone, it served its purpose which was to tip the next domino in line. It was a lesson, not a life sentence, you can let go of it. Whether someone’s behaviour was ‘right’ or ‘wrong’, ‘good’ or ‘bad’, does not matter, the branding is superimposed by our belief systems. How someone should or should not behave is based on parameters that we have imposed. When a mother leaves her baby and goes to work it is branded as 'bad', but when a father does it, it is 'right' or 'good'; when a shark eats its young, its 'ok', but when a human beats their young, its 'wrong'; when parents throw out there 18 year old, it’s 'good', but when a 50 year old throws out their 80 year old parents, it’s not. The human condition is full of contradictions and nuances, morality skewed to favour one or another; the social dictates work for some and not for others, some fit it some don’t. The more one attempts to micromanage and understand, the more life eludes us and leaves one bewildered... The key is to let go. The experiences brought to you in life are by the Will of Allah. They are necessary. Experience them as you do, true to yourself and the moment, but then let it go. The experience is here to shape you and your life; don’t cling on to them, don’t judge yourself or others on the bases of the experience, that is Allah’s job. Whether pleasant or unpleasant, let go of the feelings you have attached to the experiences, they served their purpose in the moment, but they are of no use to you anymore; they will just keep you anchored in the past. Even clinging on to happy memories keeps us anchored in the past, preventing us from seeing what is spreading its arms for us today. Sure, visit memory lane from time to time; but remember you are just a visitor, not a permanent resident! You can rise above your feelings. Yes, life may have hit some really rough ones your way, but each pitch was necessary. The behaviours of some people around you, although ugly and uncalled for, has nothing to do with you. It does not define you, it does not represent anything of and about you. They were hoops and hurdles you had to jump on your journey to here, where you are at today, to enable your journey to come this way. Like the rungs on a ladder they have fulfilled the purpose they had in your life and now you can move on from the fact that you tripped up and got hurt on them, you have climbed up much further ahead from that time, it was a lesson you had to learn from, not your legacy. …. One can go around with ‘sands of time’ cupped in open palms to their perpetrators to show to them: ‘look how you have wronged me’, ‘please apologise and change your ways’. One can go to these people bleeding from the cut on their finger in hope for a sticky plaster, yet not get one. One often has to tend to their bleeding wounds themselves, applying pressure till the bleeding finally stopped on its own and eventually scars over. Over time one learns they are not going to get a “sticky plaster” from their perpetrators and that one has to find their own; so they turned away from them, but often they do not let go of those grains of sand. No, instead they clench on to them in their fist(s) in hope to one day still show to them these grains of sand to make them see and realise something from them. One can try to get on with their life, but with a clenched fist(s) no doubt it is hard to do things ‘normally’. I am here to tell you: let go of those sands of time, there is no point in clenching your fist. When you open your fist you will find there is nothing left in there; those grains of time have long slipped out from your hand. No point in trying to clench on, it won’t achieve anything, instead it is just preventing you from living your life comfortably now. Even if you went to them and got them to admit that they have sharp edges you cut yourself on; them admitting is not going to make any difference to your life today, you have already realised that on your own and taken precautions not to get too close as to cut yourself off of them again. Them owning up to their sharp edges and offering you that sticky plaster now is not going to help you, you cannot go back in time and give yourself that sticky plaster, it’s pointless for you now; you don’t have a time machine and if you did, you would go back in time and stop yourself from getting cut in the first place – not give yourself their sticky plaster! So let go of your clenched fist, there is no point in keeping it clenched when there is nothing left in it and nothing to come of it. Let go and relieve yourself of the energy you are having to put into clenching your fist; open your fist and relax your hand, then see how much more easier it is to live your life without clench fists… ... I don’t want one to have to reframe, rebrand, rethink their way out of anything! Like the teachings of the Japanese Art of Kintsugi, I want for one to be able to stand tall and be ok to wear all their scars out, because every scar is proof of one’s strength and what they have overcome. We should not need to pretend or gloss over any aspect of our life, they have all made us the people we are today… Life, is the experience of discovering ourselves. I wish for one to be able to let go of the hold their past has upon them so that they can truly arrive in the present. One does not need to meditate to find inner peace and presence of mind, all we have to do is let go of the past to arrive in the present (btw I have nothing against mediation, I think it is a fantastic tool as an intermediatory to help us process and let go of the past). When we arrive in the present that is when we find gratitude, true gratitude, for our life’s existence – inner peace, thus wellness comes as a side effect. We do not need to be or become grateful when we discover gratitude, it lives inside of us in the form of humility. True inner peace, gratitude, beauty and joy are not cloaks that one can wear, they are states of being. We cannot force our way to them, like a mirage the more you chase after them the further away they get. We will not be able to find and stay there when it is force, we have to arrive at them as a side effect to better living. They are not a destination, rather a way of living and being. Let’s live well and let the rest take care of itself. MAE OUT! There is a lot of talk nowadays about frequency: our frequency, interference with other frequencies (like Wi-Fi and 4G/5G. etc.) light therapy/ effects of different lights upon us etc.. Although this is more commonly talked about in recent times, its actually not a “new” discovery or "new phenomenon" for the human race.
Our ancestors understood this a long time ago. They may not have given it these titles, but the concept was the same. Let us look at Feng Shui for example, it too talks about energies, harmonising our energies and that of our environment. Architects who build churches centuries ago understood the importance of the church sound travelling not just well around the inside of the building, but also how it resonated outside into the town and the positive impacts this has on the town. Churches were designed and placed in a way so that the sounds would resonate out in a certain way. Why? Because Sound, affects us. Sound, light, heat, “energy”, they are all energy. The energies we put out, receive and hold inside of us, impact us and our surrounding. Recently we have come to understand that using artificial materials in not great; neither for putting inside of us, on top of us, or around us. With inside and on top, its fairly easy to understand about how the chemicals may react with us; but when it comes to having the artificial materials around us – not only are the chemicals in it (and it gives off to us) toxic, but also how it bounces energies back can also impact us. In the art of Feng Shui, they talk about moving things around to help the energy flow through the environment in a different way. Well if you jog your memory back to some of your Physics lessons you may or may not remember doing some experiments with sound and light waves, possibly using ripples in water as a visual simulation of the phenomenon. Well if you can think back to those lessons, you may or may not remember how placing obstacles in certain places changed how the waves behaved. Now imagine that but on a bigger scale, like your room. How energy bounces off and around the room will vary depending on what is there and how it is placed. The Art of Feng Shui was not all that far off from our modern day understanding of physics now was it!?! Now let’s also consider what energies we give off all the time when we are at home. That is the energy then that we and our family are living in constantly and reabsorbing. If you are sitting in worry and fear, guess what energy you and your family are feeding off of? For those of you who are Muslim, you may recall Surah Fathiha, the Surah read in every rikhat of every prayer, is also known as Surah Shiffa (the healing verses)!! So when we read this surah its unique wave pattern (frequency) is emitted in and around us and therefore affects us – so is it any wonder why Allah has made this Surah an essential and so frequent part of our daily lives? Is it any wonder why it is said there is peace to be found in prayer? Is it any wonder why we are supposed to have the Azaans (call for prayer) resonate out into the town 5 times a day? Frequency. We all have our own frequencies. We all emit our own frequency as well as that of what we are feeling. When are feeling low and allowing lots of things to bring us down, we are vibrating at a lower frequency. When we are feeling light and full of joy, we vibrate at a higher frequency - at our optimum, closer and truer to our pure selves; with our energy flowing more freely within us. We are all affected by frequencies. When we get affected by something, we can allow it to: ‘disturb’ our frequency for a short time and allow it to pass through us; or we can choose to block it out preventing it from entering us; or we can hold on to it once it has entered within us, preventing it from running its due course and leaving us, and let it keep affecting us. The truth is, life will always bring things our way, we have to allow them to pass through us. If we choose to block it then we are firstly exerting a lot of energy in putting up a shield, thus not living in and at our optimum; and secondly in doing so resisting what ‘upgrade’ it needed to bring to us, and also preventing other things from entering us too – therefore also preventing them from preforming there ‘upgrades’ within us as well (and I say ‘upgrade’, because like computer software, we too need constant ‘upgrading’ in life; otherwise we are not learning and growing, only staying static). Life is about our own personal growth and self-discovery, thus fulfilment; therefore blocking ‘upgrades’ is defeating our purpose of life. Thus we do need these upgrade in life; whether they come from “good” experiences or “bad” is irrelevant in the grand scheme of things; the experiences are only there for us to learn and grow from, they are not good and bad in and off themselves ( see my "Finding Gratitude" post to explore more into this subject). When we hold on to things, we hold on to those energies. These clogged up energies then prevent our own energy from flowing freely within us. They then over time become stagnant, this stagnant energy then affects the cells it is housed in and around. Left long enough dis-eases starts to set in, because these cells are not able to vibrate at their optimum so they stop working at there optimum; eventually it can even lead to pathological changes in the tissues. We have to let go of these energies that we are holding on to. They were brought to us as a life lesson, not a life sentence. Let go of them. They will do you no good to hold on to them; and this applies for both ‘good’ and ‘bad’ ‘energies’. Don’t cling on to the past. The more you hold on to the past, the more you will find you are not here in the present. Life is not what has happened or what is going to happen. Life only exists in the now. This is where life is happening and unfolding living and breathing; reconnect with your physical in the now. Again, no surprise why breathing is a big thing these days. A lot of work is being done with breathe work these days, because it brings us back into our bodies - into the now, into the present moment were we are literally living and breathing. Also not something which is new. Our ancestors knew the importance of becoming and staying present. Remember just because they didn’t have “modern” technologies does not mean they too have not “lived”! Like we say to our kids: been there done that, they too can say that they too have been there and done that in all their experiences of life too. Despite the “modernisation”, and upgrades that have come with it that we have implemented into daily life, the human being and its ‘human-nus’ has not changed one bit. When it comes to letting go of stagnant energies and shields, we can come to it ourselves through insights which allow us to let go of those stagnant energies; or we can come to it through therapeutic tools: the Chinese medicine ways unblock energy; the Ayurvedic ways unblock energies; reading and listening to the Quran unblocks energies; Homeopathy, (the energy waves medicine) also unblocks energies. It does not matter how you go about it, so long as you do go about it. ... Its all about “energy”; its quality and its flow. Energy Energy can neither be created nor destroyed, only transformed. It’s the law of Physics. Transform your energy to a new better frequency. To receive we must first emit… To connect to higher frequencies, we must first emit them to start off with. Literally: We are with what we connect! Much Love to you all. X Homeopathy is for all – it’s a way of life not a treatment.
Homeopathy is not the “name” of a “treatment type”, it is a practice, it is an art, it is a way of living and the way of life. Homeopathy is born from and of nature, it abides by the rules of nature. Despite being the Science of life, “Science” and scientist are often baffled by it thus claiming it to be a “placebo effect”. But where I ask is the placebo effect when a baby benefits from the art of Homeopathy; where is the placebo effect when an animal benefits from the practice of homeopathy; where is the placebo effect when a plant finds its strength from the miracles of homeopathy? Homeopathy like the other phenomenon of the natural world is difficult to decipher, yet simultaneous is mind blowingly simple. In fact that is where the beauty lies, it’s so simple that one cannot understand how it can be. Something does not have to be overly complicated to be incredibly powerful. Power lies not in the complexities, but simply by being profoundly effective; and that is why homeopathy despite appearing to be baffling is exceedingly simple, yet incredibly effective. Moreover the other beauty: you do not need to believe in it for it to work; the Sun does not need you to believe in it for it to exist and give out its radiant warmth and light to you, it is just giving it out and you will just receive it, regardless of whether you believe it understand or in fact even want it. You can even attempt to lock yourself away from the Sun into a cold dark room, yet the effects of the Sun’s energy, presence and ability will still reach you – life cannot exist on earth if there was no Sun and if it was not of the exact nature that it is. The laws of nature are so simple that we overlook it. Nature is designed for all of us to live, survive and thrive in it, irrespective of our capacities to understand it. Someone who has never seen a written word has equal access to the bounties of nature to one who has read and written ten thousand books. Sometimes we get so carried away with trying to figure out what is it in something that enables its actions that we miss the fact that it is not dependant on the why or how or our capacities of deciphering the whys and hows, for it to be able to have the actions it does. We try to go in so deep into the depths of every chemical present in every cell that we actually miss the real picture; hyper analysis, classifications, deductions are all well for wanting to understand the ins and outs of how and why, however, it often makes us miss the real marvel which is the actual action itself. It is not important that to get from A to Z the route taken in this example was via PQ and R, It could have been WX and Y , or BC and D what is important and what actually matters is that you get to Z. Z is the important thing to always remember. And that is the most profound difference between Allopathic and Homeopathic practices. Allopathy busiest itself with deciphering the PQ and R’s in hope that deciphering it mean it can be replicated, controlled and magnified; meanwhile Homeopathy looks only at the Z, because it knows in the grand scheme of things the rest is irrelevant, because it could have taken any route, the route it took was not important the result it produced is the real key. The law that IS Homeopathy: LIKE CURES LIKE It is not how it has come to be that matters, all that matters is that it is what it is. If I am a ‘Z’ and it is a ‘z’ that is all that is important, not why or how it is a ‘z’. All I need to know is that it is a ‘z’ that is it. It being a ‘z’ is all I need to remind myself how to be a ‘z’ as well, because when we are no longer in our full element, we sometimes forget how to get back to being in our full element so all we need is a little nudge; a gentle reminder; for something to show us how to get back to ourselves, and that is enough to get us back on track. It is not any external stimuli that “fixes us”; WE “fix” ourselves, by remembering how to be ourselves. Thus, as I said before, it really does not matter what route anything has taken to get to ‘Z’, because we are not dependant on one fixed route to allow us to get to ‘Z’, we already know how we ourselves can to get to ‘z’, we just need reminding that that is where we are trying to go. Our bodies are what heal us, homeopathy, just helps us get back on track so that we can reach our destination. All ailments, disbalances stem from our emotions one way or another. How, I will be explaining below; but that does not mean they in themselves are causing us ailments, in fact it is the other way around, we are causing ourselves ailments, by not honoring our feelings.
The body is a vessel, designed to keep running in the best possible way and in as much balance as possible. We are not the body, but the Soul that inhabits it. The Soul is not material, thus it does not have "material problems and disbalances", the material disbalances and problems come as a result of a non-material disruption that is encountered by the Soul. The Soul is our true self, the Soul expresses itself through feelings. Feelings are what drive us, and make us "human". Our feelings are what controls our Will, which in turn controls our actions, which consequently invokes our intellect for thought, (intelligible thought, not “free floating random thoughts” which are known as ‘Waswasa’ – the whispered provocations of the Devil, Shaitan, more on this coming soon). In the early years, one acts out of pure imitation, as the years progress, the Will takes charge and one acts out of their Will. If this Will is suppressed, challenged or threatened, thus not allowing it to be, the fire of the Will gets dwindled. The Will is at the core of ones’ self. A dwindled Will, thus core, means a dwindled self. If the Will is not allowed to grow and become strong, one becomes but a fraction of themselves. They no longer act out of their Will, instead have to switch over to acting out of their intellect far sooner than they should have needed to. Their thoughts become their main driving force for their actions. Their Mind develops, but their Soul-self is left neglected. When this happens we grow up with a sort of hollowness inside of us. No matter what we may do or achieve, the satisfaction does not reach to the core of us, it stays on the surface and we are often left troubled and dissatisfied with life despite “worldly successes”. When a big part of us has not had the opportunity to be developed it is this lacking that we are yearning to fill, but are unaware of how to do so, or that it even is the case. This dis-ease lives within us and eats away at us and our vitality. Ordinarily if given the right space and time our Will and Soul does develop and later as we get older and "wiser", our Mind too develops. We then allow our Mind to take the wheel, we start listening to and actioning what the Mind calculates through its experiences the "better" course(s) of action, which is healthy. But when we get plagued with a conflict of the Emotional actions and the Mind’s actions this is where dis-ease begins. The longer this dis-ease sits within us the more it makes a more "permeant pitch within our being. This then manifests into a disease state, with or without pathological changes. This does not mean that one needs to be passive and vanilla with everything in life, in fact that in itself will still result in dis-eases. And all of this is also not to say that one should completely make away with Intellect, thought and the development of them. No, they are also necessary; for without them we would remain very child-like, living purely in and out of emotions. It all comes down to balance. Just as there is a place and need for the Mind to take control once it has developed, there is a real need for there to remain a space for the Emotions to still take charge and rule. When either side is suppressed or given sole charge for too long and too often that is where the problems begin… Imagine a delicate multi layered set of scales all balanced upon each other, if you add a weight to one side of one scale this will make that scale disbalanced and in turn the others that are connected to it setting off a chain reaction of readjustments until a new "stable" condition is reached. This "stable" condition will be balanced as best possible so that the whole structure does not come tumbling down, but the balances will not all be in there original "optimal" positions. Until this weight is not removed everything cannot go back to their "resting" optimal positions. Over time if more and more weights keep getting added on parts of this delicate structure more and more deviations will result from the original optimal position. This is what happens to us in life, as more and more we live through our Intellect and less in touch with and honoring and respecting our Feelings; more and more imbalances make home within us, leading us to more and more dis-ease and eventually "diseases". To thrive in our Earthly life we need to develop our Mind, but all the while still nurture and nourish our Soul. When we start living too much out of our Mind and in the material world, then we risk not acknowledging and nurturing our Soul enough. This can be seen when no matter what we may do or achieve, any happiness we gain is short lived. Because happiness is an expression or our innate emotion, joy. When the happiness is induced by the intellect it is short lived, but when happiness is expressed as a result of our Soul experiencing joy, then it is deeper rooted and not dependent upon any material circumstances, thus longer lasting and experienced as what is known as “contentment”. Although it must be pointed out over here, that there are some emotions that stem from the Intellect, like fear and anger. Fear results from our thoughts (mainly and often from the Waswasa thoughts), its roots live in the Ego, just like that of anger. They are a consequence of one's Ego being threatened or challenged. Fear and Anger are the two extremes ends of the Ego’s expression when it encounters stimuli. Our Ego is a part of ones’ Soul-self that gets developed as ones’ intellect gets developed: it is best described as our Mind’s persona; it is an acquired facet of our Soul’s self, developed as a result of ones’ Worldly Journey, (which is why despite its development it can still be allowed to be “let go of” in a healthy way – more on this coming soon). When the Ego faces any perceived threat or challenge, in interest of self-preservation, it acts out with a number of different emotional responses. These emotional responses are not the same as the emotional actions that come from our Soul, as their origin is from the Intellect. They are not innate to the Soul, but are acquired emotional actions that have been developed from and with the Ego, as a result of the stimuli that a Being experienced in its Earthly journey. For example one person may be found to live completely in and out of fear, where another is completely “fearless”. It is not that the latter is reckless; no its Ego, in its journey so far, has not felt threatened to the point where it needed to develop its sense of fear very much; and the former may have experienced much adversities where its defence mechanism has kicked in and developed its fear emotion to such an extent that it has completely taken over. Let me explain with another example: If you observe a new born baby sleeping, its expressions are mainly that of joy or sadness. Over time if the baby feels its' self or its' safety threatened then it slows develops its acquired emotions of fear or anger depending on the environment and circumstances. Often it is not our acquired emotions we suppress first, but our innate ones. Because our acquired emotions stem from our Ego and once it starts to develop it has the main driving wheel, thus the first emotions that are suppressed are our innate ones, as our Soul-self gets pushed aside and ignored. Then if our Ego gets repeatedly threatened, then it too can start getting suppressed and sidelined (and with it our acquired emotions), which is another defence mechanism of its: submission and surrender in-order to prevent annihilation; and we become but a slave to our outer world, “living” life more like a robot, going about our daily life without much of ourselves actually living and being present in any of our actions. We become passive and vanilla in life. This is what we see described as: being here, but not present. Because your material self is here, but your spiritual self, your soul self is not. No prizes to guess that this too is not a healthy way of living. Our Earthly journey is not for us to surrender and became a slave to our surroundings/circumstances, it is for us to develop ourselves, our light, our gift and bring our offering to the World. If we live in balance and nurture and develop all aspects of ourselves that is when true Wellness can be achieved. Although it is much harder to develop your Will and Soul-self at later stages in your life, it is not impossible. The more you allow quietness in your Mind the more better you are able to connect with your Soul-self. Bring stillness within to help settle the waters, once the mud settles things can become more clearer. Fear lives in the Future, and Anger in the Past; what we need is to live in the Present and for that all we need is internal stillness and quiet. May we all find, keep and act out of our stillness; for then we will have truly arrived into the Present. Who are you?
What are you? You are not your brain. Your mind is not your brain. Your thoughts are not your brains “random” functions. They are the projections of your mind, the projections of you. Your brain might be the region/organ where your soul “houses” the mind, but it does not control the mind. The brain does not control the processes and thoughts of your mind. The mind however, can and does control the brain, and with it, the rest of your physical matter. You are an energetic being which is “having an experience on earth”, through the physical body that it has been gift by Our Lord, Allah SWT. (N.B. However, not the main subject of this post, but I will briefly below touch upon homeopathy to tie up the thinking sphere.) Homeopathy works on the energetic plain. It looks to “resolve” disturbances on the energetic plain. Pathologies do not start with the physical. Its not: one day your heart decided to beat faster; or your arteries decided to collect plaque; or one day your body started to dish out more cholesterol. Pathologies always start from the energetic plain. From the heart and mind of the energetic soul, that is what is “us”, truly us. When left: untreated; unresolved; uncared for; unfixed, the physical symptoms start to show up - first as just symptoms, then eventually as pathological changes. By the time there is detectable pathological change, normally when allopathic care steps in, the dis-ease has been so far gone that it has turned into a disease. It needs a lot of work for it to be reversed, a long and slow process, but that does not mean it cannot be done. However, whether this outcome can indeed be reached depend on a lot of parameters. Its not a simple case of: take this remedy for x number of years and it will eventual cure it all for you. No. It needs a lot of dedicated love and care. Years of: toxicity; self-neglect; suppression; and overlooking; bring us to diseased states, so it can takes years of: detoxing; self-love; addressing; and care; to bring us back. Usually, no singular entity has brought us to this point, so no singular entity, usually on its own, can undo it either. As mentioned above, this post is not essentially to do with homeopathy (however mentioned), but in fact is for one to realise the true essence of ourselves. What and who we actually are. We are not the physical outwardly body that houses us, but the living soul within it, that is our true being. For us to experience the physicality of the physical world that is Earth, we too need a physical medium to experience it through. But the medium is just that, a medium, it is not us! So why are we so focused on the physical? Allah has told us that we have 6 lives, the first was in Alamul-Arwah, where the latter of us “humans” of the human race, have lived for an eternity, thousands and thousands of years, ever since we were created by Allah SWT. There we had: no gender; no body; no relations; we were just beings that lived in sole worship of Our Creator Allah SWT. Then when Allah SWT chose for us to leave that life and enter in to our second, HE had us sent down to our second life which was to be in a womb of a person HE now destined for us to be our mother. A soul was blown into this physical entity which was once a clot, but has now by the Ordaining of Allah SWT steadily been growing to become the form of a 4 month old embryo. This HE has thus ordered to be continued to be formed into the form that HE desires best for us to enter into our third life with, the Duniya, the earthly life. How long HE wishes for us to be in this life, for our souls to be “encaged” in this physical body, only HE alone knows. And then when HE so wishes for us to leave this life to go on to our 5th; HE will order an angel to extract our soul from the earthly physical vessel, that HE had gifted to us, and once again we will be set free of physicality in order for us to go on to live our 4th life in Alam-e-Barzakh. Here in Alam-e-Barzakh there are two worlds: Iliyeen and Sijeen. The good souls will be merrily greeted by their family in Iliyeen, where they will have a good time with all their past relatives; and the unfortunate souls who did not fair well in the earthly life will suffer on Sijeen. Here, in Alam-e-Barzakh, all the souls will live on till the Day of Judgement, when the horn will be blown and all in all the worlds will seize to exist. On the second blowing of the horn we will be resurrected back into our former earthly vessel and brought forth in front of our Lord Allah SWT. Here will be our 5th life, the life of the Day of Judgement, Qayamat. Which for some will feel the duration of the two sunnah rikhat of the Fajir prayer, those who will be in the company of The Prophets; and for some it will be 50, 000 years, but those years are not the same years in quality of earthly life. May Allah SWT protect us and forgive us and make us of the good believing souls. (See links for more info: https://youtu.be/y58jT-YgdP0 Death - Jourey of your Soul (nasirislam.com) ) Our life on Earth is very very minute in comparison to the full life of our souls. Our souls are in a manner of speaking eternal from the point of our creation by the Ordaining of Allah SWT. The material experience of our soul’s life is but a blip in the grand scheme of things, yet we are so focused on it. Just as a mini comparison/perspective: if our childhood life is equated to our first life in Alam-e-Arwah; our second life, which is in the womb, the university years; our worldly life is like our university exams, our place where we “prove our worth”; before we head off to “live our life” in the “real world”, where we work, which can be equated to our life in Alam-e-Barzakh and that of Day of judgment; and our eternal, Heavenly life (insha-Allah), like life after retirement where we can do our “real living”. So why are we so worried about a time period that is so short? Our focus should not be to prolong our material life, but to make full use of it to achieve a better life in the Hereafter insha-Allah. Our focus should be to do all that we can to get our eternal reward and be saved from eternal punishment, because guess what, they are ETERNAL! That is a very long time to overlook and God-forbid get wrong! It’s about time we got some perspective and straighten out our goal and focus while we still can insha-Allah Ameen. May Allah SWT forgive us our short comings and our sins, help us, guide us, and make us of the pious believing souls that HE showers His choicest blessings upon both here and in the Hereafter insha-Allah Ameen Suma Ameen. Hi Everyone,
For some time now I have been seeing this struggle with people from the indo sub-continent who have moved from there to the west or otherwise. Back there, there is a lot of house help and a lot of family support due to joint family living so people indulge in a lot of practices that frankly is not achievable to live up to outside of said areas. Not only due to the reason we don't have the same house help and family support, but also nowadays a lot of the women have to/or would like to work. One such practice I find people drowning away in, is the practice of cooking a magnitude of dishes! Not just for parties, but also for daily meals! I mean talk about madness, these women come home from a full day of work, get in the house, straight away sort the children out. Getting them washed and dressed ready for bed, sorting through homework loads and ensuring it gets done, all the while preparing a feast for dinner??? I kid you not, a feast is exactly what it is: a meat curry dish, a veg curry dish, a kabab dish, a salad, rice, daal, nan some even make two meat dishes??? I mean come on!!?? Why are you trying to kill yourself?!! There is only so much any one person can eat and frankly even one well-made dish will be just as satisfying!!! No one, but no one will come to ease your aches and pains when you have ground yourself to the ground and you sit in your old arm chair at 75, so for who and why are you killing yourself for today? A little self-love, a lot of self-forgiveness and smart working attitude can do you a whole lotta good!! And I talk not only to the people who are outside of the indo sub-continent, but to those also who are in it! House help is a luxury not everyone can have all the time. Don't depend on it. Become self-sufficient, smart-working, self-loving people. Schedule in one chore per day for yourself, one each (age dependent) for your children and one for your Husband- we need men brought up in the indo sub-continent culture to "grow-up" and realize that we are not living in the 1930's when we were all part of the "creme"! We are living very fast paced lives in the 21st century. House help is a time of the past, stay at home women are but a few, if she is helping you with the finances, help her with the house! It's not a taboo thing anymore, it's called we are a family, we work and support each other. Thankfully the latter is a positive change though that is already coming about! I see a lot now, both in the indo sub-continent and out, men being very supportive of the wives working and helping them achieve that. I have the pleasure of knowing many kind hearted men who nurture their children like a loving father and not like the times when the theory was "children are meant to be seen and not heard". Thankfully there are now plenty of men who are more than happy to do the dishes or vacuum, or even help wash n get the children ready for bed, let's keep spreading this positive message and break free from that taboo once and for all! Coming back to this change needed for day to day cooking. The way of the indo sub-continent is to eat in quite a “princely” manner. Having a long table laid filled with a variety of indulgences, but what then happens when you come to throw a party??? A celebration in a manner of speaking should be bigger and better more elaborate then the everyday, so now what happens when you already lay a huge table for the everyday then your celebrations need to be bigger and better. So you end up going OTT with cooking and decorating etc. which means man more hours of labour both before and after; and not to mention the amount of food always left over! And the amount of money spent on everything! Let’s thinking about scaling back maybe? And I am not saying any of this for my benefit, what do I care how much money time and effort you spend on your day to day or your special celebrations! I say this for you, for your wellness. Its ok to have less items on the table every day, its ok to enjoy simple uncomplicated flavourful foods that don’t span the length of the table. Make life easier for and on yourself. Make one veg dish and one meat dish at the most. Make one accompaniment with it, rice or bread not both. Lets make our lives easier for ourselves, not harder. The outside world puts enough pressure on us as it is, lets at least give ourselves a break! As you are “modernizing” your wardrobe, lets modernize our dining tables too perhaps. Let’s modernize our self-love too! We no longer have to be hard on ourselves because we think that is what we are supposed to do. Relax! Take a break, enjoy life, enjoy being with your family, not just serving them. The key as always is in the balance. I am not pro or anti modern or traditional life styles, I am just saying don’t drive yourself to the ground by putting unrealistic pressures on yourself. Re-assess your life and make it easier for yourself. Its your life, your health; only you can look after it and do what’s best for it. The days of where women were looked upon as the servants of the family are gone, but the practices are yet far from gone. Let’s change that. They say there are always two sides to a story, what they don't say is that both sides have an agenda. They would not be telling you their side of the story if they didn't want you to see things from their perspective, if they didn't want you to "approve" of their actions.
Always be mindful of these agendas. The truth is always somewhere in-between both sides, our job is to sift away the agendas and always seek the truth in every story. What is really interesting to see is how our body works and how our mind works in relationship to that.
When it comes to our health we concern most about the peripheral then work our way inwards, but interestingly our body works in the opposite way. What do I mean by this? So for our body the utmost important thing is the very core of us. When stressors hit us, it looks to protect the most vital, our inner most self, our actual being. Then it protects the vital organs most, then the dual organs and then the limbs etc and lastly the skin. For our body the skin /our outer most layer of existence is the least important. It is more than happy to shift the energy of the stressors through our skin. Because for it, that means that the rest of the actual important parts are healthy safe and strong. But for us, mentally/emotionally we concern most about our outer most selves when it comes to looking at our health: our skin, hair, weight, limbs etc. What do I mean by this? Well if our limbs ache we are concerned about it. If our body looks "ugly" we are concerned about it; we struggle to make our appearance how we/society thinks it should be. But when it comes to the important stuff we are not so concerned. When it comes to what we are feeding our body via the physical, mental and emotional. We are not so bothered. The thing which effects our health the most is our emotions. They are at the very core of our existence. Because they are us, we are them. It is how we feel and see the world and how we experience everything that makes us who we are. It is what separates you from me and me from my children. Everyone who can see the colour blue will see the colour as it is received by them, via the light hitting the colour bouncing off and hitting their eye and getting processed to become the image one sees it as, (which in itself could be different for each of us, but that is convo. for another time). But what that colour does to us on a mental and emotional level in that moment is entirely unique. And what it does to us/for us makes us unique and individual and who we are within ourselves. What stressors do to us on an emotional level affect us profoundly and define us. What stressors trigger within us on a mental level affect us deeply. What thoughts we feed ourselves, impact our health on a cellular level. These things are actually what define our health and yet we concern not so much about how we feel. In fact, we don't allow ourselves to feel. We push aside our feelings and press on. It is these pushed aside feelings that because ignored, come back in a different form. In the form of blood pressure, diabetes, tooth pain, gall stones, obesity, mood swings etc etc. What we feel, and how we allow or don't allow our feelings to be, define our health on every single level. Give yourself the permission to feel! Give yourself the permission for your feelings to be accepted, both by yourselves and the rest of the world, but most importantly by your self! It's ok to not be ok! It's ok to be miserable, angry, sad, confused, anxious, etc. Until and unless you give yourself permission to be that, you will not be able to get through and over it! The only way to free yourself from a “negative” emotion is through it! (and by the way, there is no such thing as a negative or positive emotion, it is just how social dictate has labelled them. But we will go into that at another time.) The more you learn, the more you realize how little you know; the more you see, the more you realize how little you see; the more you live, the more you realize how little your living really is.
No matter how wide you open your gaze you can absorb only a finite amount. What I see, may not be what you see; but equally what you see, is not what I see. There will always be something that the other person knows not, that I know; but equally there will always be something that the other knows, that I do not. So what is with this imaginary egotistical arrogance and superiority over another? It is all in your head! Come out of your head and see how little it is that you truly know! Everyone is an expert in the knowledge that they hold; mocking one for knowledge that another does not seem to possess which you have been lucky to stumble upon, shows not their ignorance and lacking, but shows your small mindedness! If you can count to 1000 in both English and French it makes you not superior to one who can count to a million in Swahili, only different. Hypothetically, if you are currently in class 12 and you know more than a Human who is currently in grade 2, does that make you superior? The fact that you compare yourself to one in grade 2 reflects a lacking in yourself. Any knowledge that has been brought to you is not for you to gloat, but rather entrusted upon you to share. Don't be a miser with your knowledge, share it, for with sharing it can only ever grow! And I say share it (and not arrogantly flaunt it!), because with sharing comes the concomitant act of compassion, which is humbling and cannot be achieved without love! Life is like a game of Cricket, Allah has set up the game for us to cater exactly for our style of playing, where we can be challenged and stretched, but not strained beyond our capacity. It’s now up to us if we hit a sixer on every possible ball, or if we let them go by as a dot ball. You can live life like you’re in the power overs of a twenty20, or you can play it slow like you are in a long slog of a test match, whatever it maybe, but you have come to play; so play!
If we live life afraid of getting out then we risk not putting up any runs on the board. Yes, upon some ball our wicket will fall, but will it be a: run out, catch out, bold, lbw, caught behind etc, no one knows; but we can’t let our fear of getting out stop us from playing and enjoying the game, otherwise what’s the point of coming out on the field in the first place. Trust in yourself, read the balls being bowled to you and take your best shots at them. You can have perfect timing, effortlessly hitting the balls for boundary all around the park if you trust in yourself. Even if you don’t have perfect timing, you can still work hard and smart, doing calculated shots still pull up a handsome score. Or you can even tune into your Afridi instincts and go savage whacking ‘em all out the park. Or maybe you like a more quick quiet singles approach, ticking the score board over quietly. Whatever your style, pick up your bat and give it a fair fight! Be in it to win it, don’t shy away from the fight! You were not brought here to be the 12th man, standing in to give others their break! You are the captain of your team, its time you stepped up and took the lead! Author: MAEI want to colour my moment, put my stamp on it, claim it to be...
Thank you dear friend who has painted this piece, I know you not, but know that your painting called out to me in a group of many. Thank you for painting an expression of your moment, it calls out to me expressing something to me, and at the same time expressing something for me, my moment... when words are not enough, colour can tell your story... tell me what you see, tell me what you want me to see... tell me your story, come I'll tell you my story... let's come together and let colour be the story... x |
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