​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

​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!
 

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.

An experience is just that, an experience. It has no flavour to it. We, ourselves; our ego; is what attaches flavours to any experience.
 
When one knows this, they do not even need to go and "reframe" it to change the flavours "to help us help ourselves". Just knowing that the flavour is not a part of the actual experience itself, but our personal input; our framing; our ego's choice of lens, that is giving it any flavour whatsoever, then we can let go of whatever flavour we may think an experience has, for it is not real; merely just a projection.
 
Allah brings us to experiences as we need those exact experiences in our life in some way or another. Sometimes those experiences relay very quickly why we needed them; other times they relay in many years to come; and sometimes we may never realise why a certain experience was necessary for us. But this is where we need to have faith. We need to understand and believe every experience is elementary. Allah Pak has already told us not one thing HE has created or does is unnecessary. Every single thing has a need, for if it was surplus or excess Allah Pak would not order it to be. Every interaction we have with every human being; every word we exchange; is elementary. We do not stay one minute less or one minute more in any place or conversation than absolutely necessary. There are no accidents; there are no coincidences; there is nothing that has not been crafted perfectly by the Order of Allah SWT. Everything is planned and executed to beyond precision by Allah SWT, THE BEST PLANNER, THE ALL KNOWING, THE ETERNAL! ALLAH-O-AKBER ALLAH-O-AKBER ALLAH-O-AKBER!!! LA I LAHA IL LAL ALLAH!!
 
Allah SWT has told us that all the humans that ever were and are ever going to be, all of their roohs (souls) have all already been created all at once. They all have been kept in Aalam-e-Arwah. Yet you and I have not been sent down to earth until now, nor kept till later why?? Because we were not meant to be here before, we were not needed before. No one soul will visit earth at a time that is not exactly perfect for that soul and for all the other souls that they are meant to interact with. No one soul will ever leave a minute too soon, nor a minute too late from earth or anyone's company. We stay in any one place, company or upon earth itself for exactly the perfect time that we needed to. Don't just say "Inna lillahi wa Inna elaihi rajioon", truly truly understand what it means!
 
Don't let your ego let you fool yourself into thinking you are anymore than that which you are. It is Shaitan trying to colour every experience with flavours through your ego, so to make you lost from the truth. The truth is the experience, you will live it no matter what. Take off the lens of your ego and you will see that you were the one colouring the experience with flavours; the experience is not tied with, nor needs flavours. Shaitan convinces us to put on these coloured lenses which bring flavour to any experiences, because then it distracts us from seeing the experience itself, as we are too consumed by the flavour we have attached to it; be it good or bad. Don't cling on to any experience and the flavours they bring, good or bad, the more you live in a past experience the more they cloud the current experience with more layers of flavours; the more you live out of your past, the less you are in the present to fully embrace the current experience you are in. If you need to call upon a past experience to help you navigate the current one, trust your innate wisdom to bring it forth to you just in the right way that you would need it; we do not need to cling onto the past to enable this, in-fact we need to let go of it for it to be more aptly available - like grains of sand the more tightly you hold on, the less you have - the more present we are with more clarity, the better we can call upon ourselves to live through the present in a more grounded and fuller way.

Don't let Shaitan distract you with his game of lenses and flavours. Break free from Shaitan's hold and see the truth, the experience, with pure clarity for what it truly is. Shaitan uses these coloured lenses and flavours to control our "nafse" (impulse/desire/reaction/will - the place where we act from), take back control of your "nafse".

The lenses are the thoughts that come and go out of our minds. Thoughts induce feelings inside of us - this is "the flavour" that comes as a result of the "lens that we put on". We cannot control our thoughts; we cannot stop them coming into our minds; but we can stop ourselves from clinging on to them and the flavours they bring and understand that they are not explicitly part of the experience itself. If we can see clear as day that the flavours are superimposed on any and every experience by us and that they are not inherently of and from the experience itself, then we can objectively be in and see all experience we experience and not take things so personally. This then allows us to live a more "healthier" life, filled with a lot more faith in Allah's plan and less resistance to it, as well as less worry and stress pinned with either, past present or future experiences. Its allows us to see the bigger picture and be less phased by any curve balls life may throw at us. When you know that every experience, good or bad, is essential and has been perfectly crafted and timed for you, for what you need for your future to be; then you become much more at ease with all experiences, not letting yourself be carried away with any emotional waves.

Your path has already been set, but the journey you take on said path has been left for you to choose. You can let your emotions allow you to suffer along with the pains or you can choose not to suffer despite of pain. Its our choice. 


Peace and Love to you all. May Allah Help you find your inner "zen".

Over the past couple of decades I have suffered from depression several times, sometimes very severe and other times less so, but suffer I did nonetheless. On several occasions I used Homeopathy to “cure” my depression and “cure” it it did, or so I thought, until now. Surely the cloud of depression dissipated and I managed to get on better with my day to day life. But as life rolled on so did with it the cloud of depression roll on back in. Every time I took Homeopathy for it I did feel as though I had “healed” from it and most likely I did heal from said depression. As a homeopath would describe it, that layer that had formed had gotten removed. But had I actually really cured my depression? If it keeps coming back, even though in different forms as the remedies needed displayed, can I truly say I have cured it?
 
Let’s take a closer and deeper look at this shall we…
 
Yes clinically the depression I was suffering from in all the different occasions each time cleared with homeopathy, but the question is: why if I have cleared the layer of depression does it keep coming back? Do I just have a depressive personality? Do I have a depression tendency? Or it is just the ups and downs of a depression patient as an allopathic practitioner would tell you. Or is it the maintaining cause as a homeopath would say?
 
Well, let’s explore my life from a bird’s eye view a little for some perspective.
 
Each time I went into depression, was because of certain triggers; then I would take homeopathy, which helped me come out of it. But then what did I do after coming out of it? Did I remove the trigger from my life? Did I change how I reacted to the trigger to prevent the same consequences? Did I change my life in any way to prevent the trigger from being a trigger and still triggering me. The answer, as any one may easily guess, to all of these questions is “NO”. I did not remove the trigger; I did not change my reaction to the trigger; nor did I change myself in any way to prevent the trigger from being a trigger. Thus, it’s no surprise really that I kept going back into depression. The flavour of the depression may have been different each time, but that is about all that truly had changed over these past two decades…
 
Here in lies the problem. I did not learn anything from my depression…
 
I was on a boat on a stormy sea, I fell into the water, somehow I managed to pull myself back up on to my boat, but what did I do then? I did not complete the journey, I did not change how I handled the storm, so all I kept doing was falling back into the sea and rescuing myself over and over again. There was no progress. Thus I came to realise this now: I keep getting thrown overboard into the stormy sea, because I keep doing the same things again and again; I am not learning from my mistakes; I am not progressing in any direction on my journey, just staying stuck.
 
This is not healing myself; this is not curing myself; this is still symptom management.
 
After deep reflection I have come to the understanding that merely removing the triggers (or trigger people) from ones’ life is also not true healing, that is just being an ostrich – how many people is one to “run away from”? We cannot run and hide away from our problems. It is not the people that is the problem, but us with not being able to “cope” with the problem being present to us by these triggers.
 
I’ll explain it in another way: why is it that certain character types; or certain traits; or certain habits of people trigger us? Are they really the worse traits on earth? Are they really the only bad traits? Are they the same traits that trigger everyone else as well? NO.
Every person gets triggered by different things. Sometimes the things that trigger us might not be the worst possible traits on earth, but they still trigger us. Sometimes there may be some other traits that we do feel are also bad, maybe even just as bad as our triggering ones are, but we don’t get triggered by them. Why?
 
It is because of our history. What we have been through, who we are, what our belief systems are that determine what triggers one and what does not. Any trait that triggers us in any way is because of us and not the trait itself. The problem is not with one trait or the other, but within us. [That is not to say that its ok to have bad traits; or that an evil act per say should not be condemned; or that it can be pardoned. Just because it is not the actual act itself, but what it does to us because of our history, that is causing us a problem does not make the bad actions O.K. NO. By no means is this an excuse for any wrong doers to keep doing their wrongs. NO. Bad traits or evil acts are not excusable and the perpetrators have to be accountable for their ill doings, which they will be to ALLAH SWT. This matter being discussed here is not about them or their actions. This matter is about us and us getting triggered.]
 
Again let me explain this in another angle.
 
If act 1 triggers us but not act 2, why does act 2 not trigger us? They are both equally bad. Why can we “tolerate” or brush past act 2 but not act 1, despite our condemning both acts equally. It’s because somewhere deep inside act 1 has hit a nerve of ours and act 2 has not. So why has act 1 hit a nerve and not act 2? The answer to this question can only be found in our story of life. Sometimes we can find this answer with relative ease, other times maybe even deep psychotherapy might not be able to reach that far into our core. But the question is, do we need to reach the this answer or have we already reached an answer that is sufficient to proceed with remedying the situation? Does it matter what in our history made this nerve active? Is the solution not still to make it un-active? Yes if we can pinpoint it great it may help break the cycle sooner however, even if we don’t, it does not mean that the cycle itself cannot still be broken. Therefore whether we can deduce exactly the moment and incident that activated this nerve or not is neither here nor there, the point is to understand that said actions hit said nerves. Now what needs to be done is our neural pathways need to be rewritten to prevent us from going down the same neural pathways and hitting said nerve.
 
Is that even possible I hear you ask? Yes it really is. Our brains are not fixed, new neurons can be created and new pathways laid, but we have to actively chose to walk a different path and not let us keep slipping down the same pathways.
 
How can this be done? Well the first and most important step is to recognise that this needs to be done; for we cannot chose to walk a different path if we do not realise that it is our default path wherein the problem lies. Once this has been understood and our triggers identified then comes the long hard uphill slog of actively choosing a different path to set into our brains. But it is actually not as difficult as it may sound! It just calls for persistence.
 
Understanding ourselves is quite useful in this, if we can understand what part exactly about our trigger is causing us suffering then we can work backwards and teach ourselves not to let that take hold upon us. Like pointing a torch upon the shadows in the dark can relieve us from any fearful thoughts; pinpointing that it is (for example) the lack of ones’ freedom, felt from the others’ dominating and controlling nature, that is causing ones’ suffering can then give rise to the idea for creating a space and place for ones’ freedom.
 
We cannot change or control another’s actions; a dominating person will continue to try and dominate that is their personality, we cannot change it, but one can change how the others’ action affects them. By understanding that one craves their freedom which is being challenged and robbed through said actions which is affecting one negatively, they now have a better chance to fight for it. That does not mean a literal fight, but more a stand against the injustice.
 
It always helps to know what we are fighting for; what chance do we have in a fight we do not know we are in?
 
Once one has identified where the problem with a certain trait lies for them, then every time that trait presents itself they have to actively choose a different course of action to prevent the suffering that they feel from it, (for example, using the above scenario: refusing to be ruled by and dictated upon by another persons’ insecurities or ideals, being ok to set in boundaries and being content by them being placed, restores a space and place for ones’ freedoms). Do this enough times that it becomes second nature and hey presto the trait no longer presents itself as a problem for us, despite the trait itself still actively co-existing with us.
 
So you see, it is not just merely recovering from a fall that one needs to do, they need to heal and seal – recover, learn and grow from said fall so to not repeat it again in order for them to actually be cured from the fall.
 
 
Complete the journey of every challenge life presents to you. Don’t stay stranded in the middle of the sea; for if you stay stranded, I promise you, you will just keep staying stranded. There are no rescue boats upon these seas; there are no heroes in these stories; this is your life’s journey and you can only keep moving forward in it if you so choose to do so, otherwise you will keep re-living the same mistakes over and over again – like being trapped in a time loop. Let’s truly heal from our trauma and cure ourselves from them.
 
 
Don’t run from yours triggers, learn and grow to co-exist with them in peace, that’s is where true healing lies.


MUCH, MUCH LOVE TO YOU ALL,
Meher Andleeb Eqbal

As people we are always learning, growing and evolving all the while still living life.

Life happens around us and we happen around life and together we co-exist in a sort of dance where we bend and twirl, shuffle and twist while we co-exist in this space of ever vibrant and volatile energy.

I am sure those who have been following my story for a long time, whether here on this web space, or via a more personal connection, you will already be witness to how my life has evolved over the years. This of course keeps going on and will keep going on for as long as I exist, I will dance my weird and qwerky dance with life for as long as life has me here.


So what’s the new rhythm that life has me bobbing on these days I hear you ask?
 
Well it’s a tune that’s been playin’ on my mind for some time now. It has surfaced a few times earlier in my life as well, but for the last two years it has definitely been playing in the background of life for me.
 
So let’s go a little further back in time shall we, in the famous words of Timon from Lion King 1 ½ “We’re going way back… to before the beginning”
 
So let's go to before “the beginning” so to speak.
 
I have always had a little “issue” let say to start off with, with social media.
 
This obsession people have with posting pics of their meals, never really sat well with me, both on a social/personal level as well as a more religious and spiritual level. Then there are the pics of themselves here there and everywhere, it’s quite a self-obsessed act if one thinks about it. Not to mention all the random totally unnecessary “updates” that, no one needs to know; wants to know; or should know. Along with all the inappropriate one as well: both on a social level; personal boundaries level; as well as a privacy level. And let’s not even get started on the point blank wrong posts which are nothing but down right mean, full of bullying and abuse. I mean the fact that I even have to write it is just wrong! It should never exist, yet we all know what society is like. If anything social media has actually given rise to this type of behaviour and indirectly supports it, without it exactly being its intention for doing so. The very detached and faceless nature of the medium allows us to come out and say downright nasty things and walk away without a hair out of place for it! I mean come on, can we really not see how it is completely desensitising, thus dehumanising us! Not to mention how ugly, nasty and hurtful on multitude of levels this behaviour is. I would really really hope that at least a descent portion of society can still see this, otherwise really it would have been the end of the world.
 
SO back to me (the very self-obsessed creature that I am). Like I was saying the very essence and being of social media never really sat well with me. Firstly for the longest time I do not understand (and still don’t!) why anyone thinks that people are interested in reading my random “updates” of I woke up and had a cup of tea etc. really NO ONE CARES! No seriously NO ONE CARES!
 
But as life would have it I ended up subscribing to FB, because I was told: I can be in touch with old class mates etc. and there is one point in life that we sit there and think that would be a good idea, and then of course you do that and then remember oh wait that’s why I hated school to start off with. Well no, I didn’t really hate school, I actually did love it. But yes some of the less nicer memories of school life sometimes do resurface with such interactions. Anywhoo, I pressed on and when things got way outa whack for me on a personal level, I deleted half my FB contacts, most of which were all those supposed school mates that I went on to “connect” with on FB to start off with. (What a waste of energy! she says rolling her eyes)
 
So that was the “start” so to speak of my FB and social media journey, which spanned over a few years. Then I stopped using it almost completely and would go on it only very rarely.
 
Anywhoo, life pressed on and things changed drastically both on FB and the rest of the social media world, as well as my life: not drastically changed, but it started to change. So I found myself making a bit more of an appearance on FB again. And then late one summers day in 2019, I thought I need to set up my own business. So then I thought hmm.. well that means I will have to use social media for advertising,  Uggg I thought!! Just the thought of it was like ekkhhhh! Anyway, so I decided to dive right in, set up insta (ekh), then I set up twitter (hmmm), and started to be more active about what I believed in and stood for on FB (emm).
 
I started having to remember to take pics of food that I would make, which never really happened, so the photos were very drip drap and definitely lacked flare like a lot of the now very versed and established food bloggers’ pics were. Because, well let’s face it, it was never me! I never agreed to it, so it never had my heart in it. Therefore, it could never really take off, common sense really when we are willing to look at it clearly. I was not trying to be someone else so to speak, I was still trying to be myself; however, using advertising through social media for my “food stuff” was never really me. I was forcing it on to myself, like forcing on a coat made for someone else just because I am cold. I use to think that if I wanted to “get anywhere” with my business then I have to, “I have no choice”; but of course, we always have a choice!
 
So fast forward to watching “The social dilemma” movie Sept 2020; all of my feelings were confirmed and reaffirmed. I knew all of the stuff that was being brought to light in the movie already, I knew it, I fully believed it, but that movie really made me think that, if I already know this stuff and I am so anti it all then, what am I doing here?? What type of example am I setting for me children?
 
[There was a time when I used to think that in order for us to protect our children from it, we also need to be aware of it and all its “happenings” ( I have written about this in an older post “a  little bit of techyness”). Now however, I think no! We can make a life without social media and that is what we need to show our children that life can be easily and very happily lived without social media. Just like there is no negotiation for "Tik Tok" in my mind, then why can’t there also be no negotiation for FB, Insta etc. ]
 
So coming back to the social dilemma movie point in time. That is when things started ticking for me, clogs started turning and I started working on my “exit plan”.
 
I started slowing saving all of my intellectual property on my machine, so I do not lose all my posts. I started exploring other avenues etc. Then of course the whole censorship heavy, long hand of Mr Money came out in its full ugly force; and I though: Right! Things are just getting from bad to worse! Not only are there the general inherent issues of the social media world, but now taking away our freedom of speech on this mass level! That is just not on. SO operation exit was kicked up a notch.
 
I started looking at other spaces where I could have my voice outside of my website. In the midst of it all, there was also the big who ha over WhatsApp’s new T’s n C’s beginning of 2021. This led me to start using Telegram and Signal as a back up. So now fast forward to late 2021, as I sat there thinking about using other mediums, I decided to give Telegram a better look and set up my telegram channel. At the moment it doesn’t seem too bad, but I’m not planning on getting too comfortable. I’ll be ready to leave if things start looking not right here as well!
 
In the meantime I also stumbled across MeWe, which again does appear not too bad at the moment, but I don’t trust any of these companies if I am honest! So let’s see. For the time being I have a tiny presence on Telegram and even smaller on MeWe; but that is the direction life has taking me upon at the moment.
 
And I have to stop here for a mo and say: I am not saying all of these things because I am self-obsessed, or that I think you all are super interested in my life. NO! I am not that delusional! Lol! No, my purpose of sharing my journey is so that if anyone else is struggling with similar things and needs another perspective, or needs to hear a similar perspective to their’s to help them out with whatever steps they need to take, then maybe reading the notes on my journey might help them in someway.
 
In terms of Twitter, well, it’s not that they have not been heavy on the censoring I am aware that they have, but for some current indescribable reason I feel I still have a bit of a soft corner for twitter. Maybe, because I enjoy writing little inspirations on it, or maybe something else who knows. But for the time being, for better or for worse, I have decided to stick it through with twitter for a little longer; but let’s see. Again, this little corner can also very easily be overridden if push comes to shove, but for the moment its seems to have survived my detoxing surge of 2021. How long it will survive, only time will tell.
 
In the meantime I also moved away from Linked in, which I do not think I even knew how to use, TBH. I am sure there were lots of issues there too, but I hardly knew anything much about it. However, the mere fact it belonged to the company it did, was enough for me to decide to move away.
 
Am I a hypocrite to still use some mainstream SM products and not others; am I a hypocrite to be so anti some Meta products and not others like WhatsApp... Maybe. In fact, most probably, if I am honest...
 
Well, the way I look at it is: firstly it’s the company that owns it and their whole demeanour. Then, it is the product and what and how it is being used in general and lastly how am I using it and how am I encouraging its usage as well.
 
Based on all three I made my decisions, so yes some people might label me as a hypocrite and so be it, can’t please everyone. But the way I see it, I have a system in my mind which I used to determine my actions and make my decisions at the current time. At the end of the day that is all that matters! Are you able to answer honestly to yourself, are you being truthful to your true self?

Authenticity! Learn it!

If you can be true and authentic to yourself; you can answer to that little voice inside your head with truthful integrity for your actions and decisions and BE OK with them, THEN nothing else matters!

I will always be wrong in a way with something in someone’s book, that is the nature of the beast; but if I can at least be at peace with my own decisions and understand and differentiate why I made the decisions and took the actions that I did (any decisions and actions in life), then that is all that matters. Your actions need to live well with YOU, within the heart of your soul; because if there is dis-ease there, then there will be disease here later to follow...
 
The debts we take on in life today, take over the scales and distort the balance of life for tomorrow...


MAE OUT.
​

​I got reminded again today why I chose a Steiner education for my children.


The whole feeling of disheartening that comes with the mainstream approach to education came knocking on my door once again today. I felt, yet again, what it is like to work so hard on something and get it thrown back in your face as “not good enough”, because although 'you demonstrate a good understanding... include the obvious'! What do they mean by that: well although it is apparent from the work that I understand it, but as I have not used their favourite "key words"- ‘stated the obvious’- which win the brownie points, means my work is sub par!


The frustrations of my childhood days run wild through my veins again, where children who actually put in sub par effort and read cliff notes to bag brownie points excelled and children who spent hours with bucket loads of effort got left stranded as “not good enough”.


This whole system is designed for compliance!


You say the right words, do the right actions and you get rewarded, if you veer from what the authority deems necessary you are penalised. The system is not designed to allow learning and gaining of knowledge, it is there to “school” you, train you to comply and then rate you as to how well you comply.


When I stepped into the world of learning once again, I hoped I was walking into a place that would be more respective of real education, but alas it was my wishful thinking that led me to believe that there could be a world free of brownie points outside of the Steiner realms.


I chose Steiner Education for this very reason for my children. I wanted them to enjoy learning, I wanted them to engage in it whole heartedly. All the while with their efforts and learning appreciated for its own merits, and not marked or ranked according to one persons perception of what an understanding of a subject consists of. After all one mans understanding is only as good as their own comprehension abilities. Who is to say that another person’s comprehension, be it even a child’s is not better than theirs! Does the name Thomas Edison ring any bells?
As Rudolf Steiner says in The Spiritual Ground of Education-


“We must never imagine that we are the most intelligent people at the summit of human intelligence; this, in fact, would show that we are very poor teachers. Rather, we should think of ourselves as only relatively intelligent. This is a more realistic mind-set than the other. Now in this state of consciousness, we enter the classroom. As we enter, we must remember that, among these children, there may be a very intelligent being, one who in later life will be far more intelligent than we. Now if we, who are only relatively intelligent, were to bring up this child to be only as intelligent as ourselves, we would render him merely a copy of ourselves. This would be quite wrong. The correct approach would be to educate this very intelligent individual to grow and become far more intelligent than we could ever be. This means that there is something in a person that we must not touch, something we must approach with sensitive reverence, if we are to exercise the art of education properly.”


This! This is the primary and most fundamental difference between Steiner education and mainstream education for me! The whole attitude surrounding how a child is educated makes a fundamental differences in how a human being develops and grows. This has been my biggest beef with mainstream education, why is there only one perspective that is acceptable? I am not saying I am more profoundly intelligent than my educators, I don’t have to be to hold a different perspective; but why is a different perspective disregarded? After all is it not different perspectives and thinking outside of the box that has lead society to where it is at today?


Every great discovery was horrifically outrageous at the time it was proposed and yet today it is widely accepted as “truth”. So why is having a different point of view so wrong? Why is thinking of it in different ways penalised? Why can it not be allowed to be pondered over? After all one is innocent until proven guilty are they not? So why is an opinion, a perspective not allowed to be until proven otherwise?

I am not saying that I do not appreciate the “wider accepted views of the world”, but why can I not allow that to be, but also still hold my own perspectives too? I am not arrogantly thinking my views are better, they are just different, why can I not be allowed to hold me views until proven otherwise? Why can I not be allowed appreciation for my work despite it not holding the “key words”? Why is my demonstration of understanding not good enough? Why do we have to earn brownie points to show our worth, why can it not be allowed for our own worth to speak for itself?

Why does our worth need to be measured against others and be quantified? I am not like anyone else and no one else is like me. Why can I not be seen and appreciated for my own unique traits that I have to bring and offer to the world? Why do I have to hold the same or equal abilities as others, why can I not have my own weird and wonderful flavour that I can bring to the table? If all Coffees tasted the same would that not be boring?? Allow children to grow and learn in their own way. Develop there own unique tones and flavours that they can enrich the world with; for you and I do not know what it is that they have to unfold into. Do not force them into a box that will restrict their growth only into certain ways, for every flower needs to bloom into its very own unique shape.


It was this thinking that led me to firmly choose a different path for my children, so that their thinking and being could be allowed to be and appreciated for what it is and not pounded out of them in the name of “education” by “superior” intelligence.


On the dawn of the new year, I love you and leave you with another of my favourite quotes of Steiner’s from the same text:


“it is important to foster the development of a child’s inherent capacities. Thus, all teaching must be at the service of education. Strictly speaking, the task is to educate, and teaching is used as a means of educating.”
 

​I was at a talk last night, which came to be due to a growing demand from worried parents and caregivers over how to navigate the digital world. The talk, although very enlighten, had to be cut short (due to logistical reasons), leaving me behind with again this burning desire to write.


Now, I am no tech guru, I am no expert of any sort, I don’t have figures and quotes to spare, All I am is a mum working out day by day how to navigate motherhood and all I have is a bit of free tips to share.


Interested?

Well firstly there is the “why”
-Why we need to be aware and careful with the growing digital world.

Then there is the inevitable “when”
-When really is a “safe” or “a least detrimental” or “an age appropriate” time to hand over any sort of tech device to the younger generation.

Then comes the “which”
-Which devices are safer or better to start off with and I don’t mean the: “should I go for a Samsung or iPhone” “which”, I mean whether it should be a laptop, a brick phone, a smart phone or a tablet etc.

Lastly is the all important “how”
-How do I make myself tech aware enough to aid my child in being e-safe in every sense of the word!
-How do I have a handle on the situation, so that my child does not live entirely in the digital world and does come out to visit the rest of "the real" world now and then.
-How do I communicate with my child, so they do not want to socially close me off in an attempt of rebellionizm in the name of “privacy”.

These are all very important questions, issues and worries.


The first and most important part is to recognise them all! When you break up the whole undigestible loaf of chaos and mayhem into small chewable bites, you will find that there is a glimmer of light at the end of this wormhole.


STEP 1: WHY


Well thankfully, most of the people here in our Steiner community, recognise a whole lot of the “why”. They are very aware of it. The dangers with how it psychologically effects a human being irrelevant of age. How it physically effects and at times permanently changes the physiology of the human brain, even at later stages of human development, not just at the early stages. How the radiation coming from each devices is dangerous for us. How our over usage of "wirelessness" is damaging not just the view, but the earth, animals and environment and each of our bodies. How on a social level, it is damaging in more ways than one can count. Teens growing up without ability to actually socialise in person. Adults living in isolation due to falling prisoner to this virtual world. Relationship of every and all sorts, falling victim to the multiple issues that are coming hand and hand with instant messaging. Cyber bulling, online grooming. Identity theft, anxiety due to FOMO, depression due to trolling and/or due to feelings of self pity, induced by constantly viewing everyones airbrushed lives and comparing them to our “flawed uncensored ones”. The list goes on and on and we have barely scratched the surface of this beast.


Now one would say with all these cons attached to this world, why aren’t we all running a mile in the opposite direction. Why are we still allowing us and our children to go down this slippery slope.

Well the answer is quite simple. The “whole world” is doing it, the “whole world” is running on it, and we feel we “can not survive” without it, along with the few pros that do come with it, all of these reasons are keep us hooked on. I am sure there are still some people out there, in the “modern world”, who have completely managed to stay on the sidelines of this show and not join in, but those people nowadays are but a few.

Most of the modern world has joined in on this band waggon and as always, everything, no matter how dangerous, still has a purpose. The accessibility, the simplicity the connect-ability has changed the face of the modern work world, some of which is definitely without a doubt for the positive. All these changes mean, even for some of us wanting to keep a zero to low profile in the virtual world, we still end up having to have an existence on it, no matter how miniscule.



Now this leads us on to the when; We, as adults, have somewhat established that its a wild horse, but we have no choice but to ride it. Nevertheless us accepting it and come to terms with it and hopefully keep our own selves in check in regards to it, as adults, is one thing, but to then have to turn and hand that device on to our children and say "here you go buddy happy birthday, have fun!" Is another thing entirely!




STAGE 2: WHEN


A knife no matter how dangerously sharp still has a purpose, but would you go and hand that to a toddler, no I don’t think so. A knife is a tool, it needs to be used as one. Children at some stage of there life, do need to be taught how to use it, you can not keep it away from them forever, saying its dangerous you can never touch it. No, that is not very sensible, otherwise next thing you know; one day when you are not available and they really want to cut something they will reach for it thinking they can do it and end up having an accident with it. The sensible thing to do is to present it to them at an age when they are old enough to respect it, but eager enough to still learn from YOU! The key factor in this statement is still wanting to learn from you. I say this with emphasis, as we humans are always learning something from somewhere. Often we lay importance to the act of learning, but what we forget is, where they learn from, is actually very vital. If they go and learn from a space that is not safe, what type of information do you think they will be learning?

This is why I say that having an “open door” policy with children, is THE MOST IMPORTANT THING EVER! What do I mean by open door, well to put it simply, have a relationship with them such that they always feel they can walk in and ask you anything, no matter how embarrassing, disturbing, humiliating or infuriating for either person. This comes with you having a relationship with them that is trusting. Trusting to keep there secrets safe, trusting that you will not over-react, trusting that you will not lie to them, mis-guide them, trick them, fool them or humiliate them and also maybe most importantly tell them off.

Telling off children may be at times necessary, but it is very important to recognise when giving a big long lecture is not what is needed. When they come to you in reverence and to confide; understanding and reassurance is what is called for.

Have open and honest conversations with them, that is presented to them in an age appropriate way. However in a way such that, it is left open ended, so that it can be re-visited and built up on in the future, as and when needed. You do not have to give them the full 411 from word go; give them enough to answer their immediate concern/query. Leave the rest hanging to visit another day and also tell them this. For example: “how about we talk about the rest another day”. They need little digestible sized chunks of information.


You may feel that I may have slipped off subject here, but there is a method to the madness. Now why did I go off on a tangent with knives and talks then? Well just like a knife is a tool, the devices of the media realm, are also tools. We need to find the sweet spot for our own individual children and us, it will be different for each child, only you as the parent will be in the best position to judge when the right time is for each child (as even with siblings it can and will differ).

I say this because both girls and boys, in general develop differently, then how they are individually as a child, how their relationship is with you is also just as important a factor, what your family and educational needs are. Only you can judge when you feel your child is mature enough to handle such a device and also still be on a healthy relationship with you, to respect and understand you enough to actually listen to you and hear you!

Those are two very different and very important elements of any relationship! Do not kid yourself, if you have a teen/pre-teen, your relationship at some point will get tested from the teen’s side, don’t take it personally, take it as it is: changes induced by internal changes of the teen, but these changes do not have to be permanent. Remember always, you are the adult, you will need to adjust and bend and come to terms with living with another adult; whom you are not yet quite willing to accept as one.

Don’t be antagonistic, give them space and time and most importantly respect! They are coming to there own, when they come out of this transition, they will be an adult! This stage is vital for the future of your relationship. Try to find a sweet healthy balance between your relationship, a space where they are still comfortable to approach you if they need your help. This is only achieved if you give them space to grow and respect to explore their new found opinions and voice.

Accept that their opinions will be different to yours and at times, they may not even be at all sound, but they need to discover somethings “on their own”. Which means they do not want you to say, “you are wrong, how you think is wrong” etc etc… instead a more helpful way might be, saying it in a way so that they can take away a different perspective and explore it on their own.

For example, “I definitely agree with you, Greta Thunburg has definitely got lots of sound ideas, lots of great opinions. Did you also manage to catch what Professor Asmeret Asefaw Berhe was saying in her Ted talk, about how we can all also help effectively to tackle climate change by looking after the soil around us as well? You should check her out, I would love to hear what your thoughts are on what she was saying.”
-A way to introduce another person in the picture for them, to see that there are more great people out there trying to make a positive change on the climate issue. People of all ages are trying to do their part, not just the “young”; just as an example of a potential conversation.


Coming back to the when, so, incase if it has not been very obvious, see my constant referral to a certain age group, “teens”. This is because before this stage, the child is at a different growing cycle and one that really should not be disturbed with this somewhat alien influence upon their body.

​It is from the age of 14, give or take, that the child transitions into the next stage of development, where they will be exploring more the world. It is at this stage, that I believe, at some point when you feel right, that introduction to this world is at the goldilocks stage, the “just right” place. In the school where my children are at, it is also at this stage that they are, not co-incidentally may I add, requested to bring in their own laptops. This now leads us quite nicely onto the “which”.


STAGE 3: WHICH


Now unless your child is travelling on their own, there really is no need whatsoever for them to have a mobile, especially if you have a landline. If they neeeeeed to talk to their friends, they can, via the landline; or if you are out, from a parents phone if it really is that “urgently desperate”, which rest assured, really isn’t!! (I mean come on we were teens once!!).


Now if your child does travel on their own, a brick phone (aka one without any WIFI 4G compatibility) is more than sufficient. Yes they do still exist in this world and actually you may be surprised more and more people are turning back to them! (method to the madness!)


Next, laptops- according to my “little bit techy” husband, laptops/PC’s are most probably the lesser of all of these evils. Reason being they are less practical for “instantaneousness”. The children are less likely to constantly be on a device. Especially if you for example: have fixed hours of agreed “casual/social/gaming” usage, have the wifi only on at certain times and not on constant or at least switched off at night etc. then the addiction likelihood is significantly reduced.


As there is a reduced likelihood of the neck strain issues that are of a growing concern stemming from the constant usage of mobile phones and the bad posture associated with it, it also adds to the benefits of using laptops over using smart phones. If used off of tables and/or at least lap cushions, then there is also reduced exposure from the machine to the body, of harmful artificial heat and radiation. On the same note also a less likelihood of them sleeping with it in bed due to its clunkiness, again eliminating the risk that comes with sleeping with mobile phones in bed.


Smartphones/tablets- now really becoming one of the same things. The benefits of course with these devices is the constant accessibility to your emails and other apps. Which is of benefit for some lines of work, or even as busy parents, but as a student, this type of "constantness" is definitely not of any requirement, nor of any positive benefit. Therefore in my opinion best to avoid for as far as possible!




The perfect combination, in my opinion, would be a brick phone and a laptop which could easily see them through to 18 without any issues. In fact, if there isn’t any actual genuine pressing need for a smartphone, one could argue that that is all that one does need full stop. Yes it does mean we would need to go back to relying on our ability to read maps for example, but if one exercises the brain more, that isn’t a bad thing!


Now this is of course in the ideal world, unfortunately a place which we do not reside in. In the real world things are never this hunky dory and we do end up having to give into our children’s peer pressure; because let’s face it, parents in general (we are all equally guilty of this, in some shape or form) will all agree that this is not happening and yet at the first sign of children demanding, give in and start the vicious circle of peer pressure.


So in the real world, you probably will end up getting them a laptop, as that is most probably a requirement from school. You most probably may try to go down the brick phone route or no phone route, for as long as it is possible, but definitely before the reach 18 they will at some point start pestering you for a smartphone. The most likely outcome will be, you having to give in, because as much as you are holding it off, it does come to the point of you feeling that you are just being cruel to your child. Even though you are not, you are in fact doing them a favour, but we are human and human nature is such that there is only so much we can cope with. Especially if we ourselves have it and we can in some form “afford” it, then we will end up giving in.


Like I said before, I am talking in the realm of children who are 14+. They may start pleading with you from as young as 10/11, please just do not even entertain the idea with them! I know as I look around everyday in buses, cafes, etc children as little as 3 or 4 have there own devices. Honestly I wish I could stop them in the streets and tell them do not do this to your children, but sadly this world is not one to take any type of advice they haven’t asked for anymore. Especially not from a random stranger and that too, one they would be running a mile in the other direction from. (The elephant in the room, but that is a story for another time and space).


So having given in, now the question arises what do I do? This leads us on to the “How”


STAGE 4: HOW


“how do I make myself tech aware enough to aid my child in being e-safe in every sense of the word!”


As old fashioned as this advice maybe, but there really is no beating the age old secret of “READING”, read read read, that my friends needs to be your best friend!! This is a constantly changing world, no two days are the same in this world, you MUST read. If you want to know what is happening, how to stay safe and keep young ones safe, the only way you will know about what the latest threat is, if you read. The more you read, the more you will be clued in on to exactly what things are doing the rounds on the internet. From the scary “Mo Mo” life threatening game, to the latest virus threats that could hack your device.


You need to be part of the virtual world yourself: learn from it, experience it and read it, so to enable you to know how emotionally it can affect a person. You do not need to be engaging in every action and practice, but you need to be aware or it.

For example you do not need to be trolled yourself, but if you read people’s comments on things you can start to experience how emotionally damaging some comments can be. If you have a certain idea about how people can be so ruthless, for no real reason, you will know that your child may need support emotionally in certain ways if they are posting things online.

Remember they may not always come to you to tell you someone was so horrid online, because they may think that you might think its no big deal or they may think I can handle it; because I can’t make myself known to be emotionally weak and unfit to handle this world and so on so forth.

Or on the other spectrum they become over obsessed with the selfie culture and go posting mad due to cravings for appreciation and then feel overwhelmingly depressed if then their photos are not liked, but be unable to explain their massive breakouts of anger due to it.

These things can be soul crushing. You need to be aware how these things can change the behaviour of your children, how they can psychologically effect them at times permanently. You will only be aware of it if you are aware of what happens in the online world.


How to tackle these things. You can not tackle them in hind sight, well you can, but that’s not the best place to start. As always the best place to start is from the beginning.

Before you hand them these devices, you need to request/ make an agreement/ a pack, whatever you want to call it and how ever you feel you can approach the subject with your children; but you need to have this conversation with them: that they always keeping you in the loop online.

I.e. that you can befriend them online, you will keep a zero to very low presence on their social media sites, but you want to be added so that you can see what they are getting up to, what is happening and stuff (not like a spy, but just as a friend). You promise you will not mother them online, or embarrass them, either in person, amongst friends or online. You just want to still be a silent part of their world just on the sidelines. This is where that trust comes back in again, if you have a good bond and strong trust between you, then they will be willing to trust that you will do as you are saying.

You need to talk to them about, if they see trolling, whether they are facing it, their friends are facing it or just a random person X is , but it is hurting them or making them feel upset to always talk about it. It is a big deal, it is very wrong and how certain website do have a place for you to report them or at the very least block them.


Talk about how lots of people do put on pics of themselves/food/their work/travel and how its ok, but sometimes it can be fun at first with your friends all "liking it" and enjoy it and commenting about it. It may make you feel really excited and fantastic inside, but its not really a healthy practice: to judge your worth from these things.

People change, people get busy, people may start feeling jealous or fed up or feel resentment and start not likely your pics or writings, they may un-friend you or leave unpleasant comments etc, which will start having bad effects on you. From feeling low, because people are not liking your things, to feeling angry and frustrated. All these things lead to an unpleasant space and place, all it does is make you shallow and addicted to what other people say. None of these practices have any sort of healthy outcome. It's best to refrain from them. Yes to occasionally want to put a pic of yourself up, is one thing, but to constantly have that in your mind to put up pics is definitely not a healthy thing.


Talk to them about how and why you do not want them to be online late at night so there will be a type of imaginary curfew for the phone/wifi etc. But making sure that then the same rule is also followed through by all the other adults too. So that you are not a hypocrite. Explain to them that if you do need to be on your device for which ever reason at night, you will allow it, if it is a reasonable request. But with that enforce that they must always make sure they have at least a lamp on in the room, so that the screen’s glaring light is not the only thing blinding your eyes at night and how that is extremely harmful for your eyes.

This flexibility will make them more willing to respect the rules and hopefully prevent them from going behind your back and sneaking around with it. Don’t make it forbidden and taboo, the more you try to make a big deal about a thing and take it from them, the more they will want it more and more.

This is not a fight about power and control, this is a time to teach them to have a healthy relationship with this world for life. Its bigger than “the now”, always focus on the bigger picture! Educate yourself and educate them about why certain practices are not healthy. Encourage them and show them by example how to build a healthy relationship with this world.


"Meal times, how to retain that reverent family time at meal times".

Do not bring your phone to the table, do not answer anything that rings at meal times- and this is a practice one should always have, irrelevant of if they have children and how old they maybe. Keep meal times a “family time”. If you never bring the phone to the table, then you will also be respected and heard when you ask your teen not to!

Get them to start cooking at least one day a week. This has many benefits. Not only will they learn a vital life skill, but when they slave hard in the kitchen, then they will also respect the fact how important it is for the other people to be "present"-in every sense of the word, at the table when the table is laid. They will learn the importance of the table attendees enjoying the meal, respecting it and praising it! And hopefully also how important a little bit of help can be when you are cooking for the family; if someone offers to lay the table or wash some dishes, then they will hopefully be more inclined to think of helping when it is not their turn to cook.


When you assign them a meal time to cook, don't just assign them a meal, teach them how to meal plan for it, shop for it. These are also vital skills that they will need later in life. Tell them it doesn’t have to be fancy or complicated, you will all happily eat whatever they will prepare for you. Teach them both, how to shop in local shops and online. More and more people are shopping online these days and its is a very empowering practice for them to learn, that you can buy fresh groceries with a click of a button, just like you can order from "just eat" with a click of a button. It will also teach them that the virtual world can be used to make your life easy, as oppose to just for gaming and socialising. If they are not very excited for it, start videoing them when they cook, so they can feel they are on a Youtube video or TV show to get them excited about cooking. They love this type of attention. You do not have to put any of it actually online, unless you both want to, but it is a nice way of getting them excited about it and wanting to do more and more with there meals.


Please remember these are just my own personal tips, I am sure there are a lot more way and things that one can do. These are just what has been whizzing around my head, for now the past week, as it’s taken me a week to actually complete this.


One more thing as I (finally) take your leave, (its been a long one this one), keep the teen engaged with lots of planned activities. The more their schedule is full, the less time they have for any other distractions. Having strong family routines, with a healthy mix of fun and games, activities and chores, classes and school, all ensure that they will hopefully stay engaged and interested in the real world and less available to “kill time” on the virtual one.


If you stuck it through in one read, I am impressed!


Wishing us all, power to be the parent we all wish to be, on all counts!


Faithfully,
MAE
 

 
It has been a while now, that I have been pondering over penning down my thoughts, but with so much talk over Steiner education suddenly in the air, I thought now is the time to finally pick up that pen. 

I want to firstly begin by mentioning what, I THINK, is the most vital piece of wisdom we often forget:
 
"every piece of writing one finds, (especially on the internet), is but a projection of the writers own opinions".

Please always bare this in mind when reading anything!


For those of you who are pondering over education, I will below attempt to steer you, with getting your head around my thoughts regarding education. Hope it helps!

Let's start with Steiner Education; what is it, who is it for and what it entails, as my overview perspective. At the heart of every Steiner school is the philosophy, anthroposophy, that Rudolf Steiner has introduced to the world of human study. From this outlook, this school of thought towards education has stemmed. 

Steiner education is an education for any and everyone, i.e. all walks of life, it may help someone who may feel a “misfit” in mainstream for whatever reason, just as much as it may help someone who also feels completely at home with mainstream as well. The question is not about whether this is a school for this group of people or that, its about what you want from an education, what you believe “education” and “educated” people to be. “Education” is the act of imparting or acquiring general and/or particular knowledge and skills, powers of reasoning and judgment. Therefore, if you carefully reflect upon this, you will come to the conclusion that education does not need to be imparted or acquired in a certain form or be of a certain content for it to be considered "education", although sadly in our current society this is not to be the case.

In our modern world only the strict guidelines laid out by an "educating body" be it schools, colleges, universities or institutes are considered "education"; where the content imparted and acquired can be precisely quantified. This is all down to our ever growing obsession with "control", we want to have control over everything. Keep it at a space and place were we can easily comprehend it, anything that we do not fully comprehend gets dismissed discredited and in fact, at times, demonised.

For example if we take a look at this whole “child labour” and help “educate” under privileged children in “third world” countries. This whole ideology, in it's current form, rather controversially no doubt, I find wrong on so so many levels. It is very arrogant of us to use the term “third world” it is very naive of us to consider knowledge that has been passed down the generations as anything less than knowledge past on in formally formed schools. Don't get me wrong, I am all for schools and formal education, I think it is a very nobel thing and at the time when it was pioneered it was meant for greatness and it has achieved it no doubt too, but somewhere along the way in recent years it seems to have been a bit neglected, its like that Encyclopedia printed at the turn of the 20th century that got put up on the top shelf of the book case to show off its pride and glory but treated so sacredly that it has never been touched and it has just sat there collecting dust and in need of a major reality check, as according it, women can't vote and the world has never seen any world wars!! Time to recalibrate our equipment I 'd say...

I don't want to undermine the hard work and beautiful knowledge that is spread in schools of all types; my argument is
all types of knowledge should be treated and respected equally!
Regardless of where the origins and teachings of it come from, Knowledge is knowledge it should not be sniffed at!

Without a shadow of a doubt, children who are deprived of any education that they seek, should be helped in receiving it; but by the same token, people with more easy access to formal education, should be more positively exposed to knowledge that is not so abundantly found in formal schooling and allowed to gain access to it in a more honouring manner.

For example just as there may be a child born into a coffee farming family who is meant to be a budding heart surgeon, there may be a child born in to a family full of accountants who has a real knack of sewing. They should be equally encouraged and applauded.

This is my plea to everyone:
Please help save highly specialised skills that have been perfected over countless generations from fading away out of our hands reach. Generations to come will be left with empty black holes in arts, traditions, cultures, practices and skills, if we don't make an effort to appreciate and preserve them while these last candles of wisdom still burn. It will be eons before we as a race can again through trial and error, recover knowledge that we once had but let slip through our fingers due to our ignorance, arrogance and naivety.

Which ever walk of life you may hail from, which ever education structure you support, this one thing we as humans can and should unite in- endeavour to save from extinction, heritage; once it is gone, it really is gone and can not be brought back with a quick fix, stop it while we still can from becoming extinct!

Coming back to the point at hand, Steiner education brings to the world a way of imparting knowledge in a way which is more in tune with what the child's natural growth cycle is on the physical, mental, emotional and social front. This approach therefore accomplishes the process of knowledge transferring in a more effective way, as you are working positively with the child's natural growth, leaving a greater impact and more rooted relationship with the knowledge.

The focus is on positively bringing knowledge to the child at the appropriate time, in the most effective and efficient way and not on seeing how well they can do in end of year exams. The theory behind no testing is not that they can not cope with it, but rather that the teacher who is teaching them day in day out in small groups, should already know exactly where the child is at, what their strengths and weakness are, what there temperaments are, where one needs to give more effort, or requires extra practice.

This removal of unnecessary pressure and stress of exams at early ages also helps to build a more healthy and grounded relationship with knowledge, as you are not cramming in knowledge at the last minute to pass exams, you are learning for the pure joy of learning, for the inner human desire of learning. This builds a relationship with knowledge that will hopefully be one with the right foundations and hence stand the test of time.

In recent times I have noticed, more and more focus is on exam readiness in mainstream education; the teachers are just focused on getting through the curriculum in time for exams and then just practice exam techniques, practice ticking all those boxes that will get the child through exams. Exams that are generic and built for singling out a certain type of personality/intellectual group (the cookie cutter syndrome as I like to call it) who then further get refined in university and furthermore at work.

The system does not appreciate nor let appreciate diversity, uniqueness, individual greatness and genius. We as a race have thrived and survived because of our diversity and versatility. In the past centuries, although we have achieved unparalleled heights in all fields due to knowledge collection and harvesting in formally formed knowledge institutes, sadly in the past decades the standardisation of the formal education sector has really started to hurt our diversity. It is churning out one tone specimens of the human race and this will come back to bite us in a very unpleasant way, in the very near future I fear.

Steiner Education very specifically leave scope for diversity, there is no "fixed" set of strict instructions for teachers to teach in certain ways, it is all very fluid, allowing scope for moulding the "classroom" experience in a way that the teacher feels fit for that particular group of children. Scope for the teacher to: bring in; change; or remove topics that are taught, as and when they feel necessary for that particular class. That doesn't mean to say they have no plan! They have a year plan, as well as have a lesson plan, for every lesson they teach, but they have the flexibility and the confidence to also throw that plan out the window and make a new plan as and when they feel is essential. This approach allows the curriculum to be organic and grow and live and breathe with those individuals in the class in which it is being used for. 

Naturally this approach as I am sure you may appreciate is not for the faint hearted. One needs to have a lot of faith in the philosophy, in the school, in the staff and most importantly in your child; let them come to everything is their own time and space, they might not be were you think you want them to be right now, but they surely will be far beyond your fathoming soon enough.

For one who suffers from "FOMO" and needs their entire life plan written out in stone; knowing that week 3 in term 2 in class 5, means the exact same thing for every class 5'er all over the country, this approach may shake them to a point beyond there comfort level. It really is no wonder that so many people see Steiner education in a negative light, not everyone has the confidence and strength to go against the tide, and truthfully not everyone should either. We really do need all types of people in the world to survive. 

I am not here to sell Steiner education to you as something that is perfect, or that it is the better or right way to go, no, that is not at all my intention. It is just like everything else out there, good for some and not good for some, perfect for others whilst very much so wrong for others. My point of writing today is to give a glimpse of my overview of how I understand Steiner education.

Steiner Education has recently been getting a lot of raised eyebrows in the UK, yes maybe there may have been issues of concern amongst a few and I applaud the schools who are looking at fixing their short comings- no system is perfect. However, more importantly, I think one needs to carefully review who was being looked at, who is saying what and what is their outlook, what is their agenda and maybe most importantly do they really truly understand what it is that they are looking at? Is their measuring stick really set in the right units, does it even need a measuring stick to begin with, I wonder? Does everything really need to be quantified? Maybe we as a society, are getting far too involved in micro-managing things, to the point were things are no longer healthy? Yes by all means when things come to child safe guarding we must be going through things with a fine toothed comb, but when it comes to managing to keep up with documenting every moment in every child's day to justify "progress", if that is were these so called "major flaws" are residing, maybe then we need to rethink the paperwork just maybe?? FOOD FOR THOUGHT!

The question somehow is no longer, "is this right for me or not", the question now has suddenly changed to, "is this school right for anyone?"?? This is were I think we all must draw the line and not be by-sitters anymore, this is not a question which any one person has the right to ask and answer, it is very naive and arrogant to think that any one person or persons can answer it and seal the deal for the nation, especially when the decision makers have no real understanding of the ethos behind the education nor any genuine interest in anything that is not their standard of norm. It is stripping away the rights of all those people who choose to try something different with their children, the rights of all those people who believe in this philosophy, the rights of all those people who believe in diversity to be a good thing, whether they themselves take that different road or not is irrelevant. 

Families who take there children to Steiner schools do not impose there beliefs on anyone else, they do not enforce that this is the route all should take, so why are we being put into a corner and bullied into forgoing our choice? I thought we are living in a modern democratic country which gives people the freedom of choice? Live and let live, I thought was the motto, so why is it that every time people feel threatened by something they do not understand the reaction is always to smother down that flame; yes a flame can burn the forest down, but a flame can also launch a rocket to the moon, give it a chance, guidance and direction and it will take you to the moon, if that is where you want to go!



On that note, MAE OUT!

There is an old saying:
If you don't want it read, don't write it down. 

If it is written it will be read!

I have lived by this saying my whole life. 

Basically anything we do or say will be associated with our life, our parents lives, our children's lives, our grandchildren's lives forever and then some. 

I think if we hold that in our minds and then do what we do, we will hopefully not be caught off guard.


This two pence comes in light of the big panic that has come to being, due to the new T&C's of WhatsApp. 

I am not "anti" or "pro". I am just looking to raise awareness.

Knowledge is king!

If you know that all apps (especially "free" apps) are designed to collect and sell on data, tailor ads, program your mind and habits, be addictive, then that is half the battle.

It is much easier to avoid falling into a pit if you can see it. 

I am not here to say stay away from social media or this app or that, I am simply saying this does happen ALL the time, with EVERY app, just be aware of it. I'm just here to shine the light on the existence of the pit(s). 


I'm sure almost all of us have experienced the "oh my god is my phone listening to my conversations?? I just said about going to a holiday in Hawaii and now I am getting ads for it!!" moment, ("tailored ads"); but let me tell you I have had moments where I have THOUGHT of something, not said it out loud not wrote it to someone, not heard it and then thought it. No. Just a pure simple "innocent" "random" thought and it comes up in ads!?! ( I'll tell you why these two words are in quotation marks below) 

Well the conversation followed by an ad is quite easy to understand, they ARE listening to us. (Watch "The social dilemma" movie if you have any doubts!)

But the whole thought being "read" thing?? 😱
Well, unless I have a microchip inserted in me, that really ain't possible.
So far to MY knowledge, that is not the case. (I could be proven wrong though, I do understand that is a very likely possibility too!) 

However for this moment in time we will assume, said is not the case. So how can they "mind-read".

Well, it's not really "mind reading", but rather mind programming. YES! They programme your mind to have the thought.
"How?? For the love of God how??" I hear you ask.

Well, to be honest it's a lot simpler that you think; well, simpler than the lengths that DiCaprio had to go through in Inception. ( Again a brilliant movie if you have not seen it, go and watch this! ) But, basically the principal is the same.

The idea is planted inside your brain, but in a way where you believe for it to be your own. In other words your subconscious has been primed to have said "thought" - through ads. In fact, you may have already subconsciously seen the ad first, but as it did not "register" in your consciousness, you don't recall it. Then you had the "thought", most likely triggered by another not directly, but semi- related ad; and then finally, you see the ad again, but this time you actually see and register it. 

So in actual fact you did not have an "innocent" "random" thought, but in fact, you had a thought that your brain had been primed to give. 





I'm just gonna let you soak that one up.
Mic drop.

​

Hi Friends,

As always, with kids especially, when things go too quiet one starts to wonder, what's cooking?


Well things have definitely been a-cooking here! I have embarked on a new leg of my journey of self discovery and self development.

I found myself exploring an old dream at the start of the year, (completely unconnected to the 2020 kurfufall, btw, I have to add! ) This exploring found me discovering and re-connecting me to my true calling. 

You may have already somewhat fathomed my love of food by now I'm sure; but I'm sure by the same token you also know it's not just a love of food, but it's a love of real nurturing food. Food that heals all: body, mind and soul. 

Well you may have noticed also that that is my theme running through my whole being and my blog too: health of body, mind and soul. Therefore on that note it most probably won't come to you as a surprise that I have always had a keen interest in Homeopathy, a medicinal art that looks at the whole being, and treats the whole being, body mind and soul.

At the start of this year I embarked on my journey of self development in the art of both Homeopathy and nutritional health, with a side serving of life coaching of course; might as well get a cert. that says I can do it too while I am at it right! After all these years, back to College! Yikes!

Well with a heavy investment on books galore I set my ship a-sail some many months ago and now in College I steadily chart my course for a destination just out of sight beyond the horizon, but I place my faith in Allah All Mighty that he may help me reach my goal! Insha Allah Ameen Suma Ameen

 
As I go "under-construction" I am sure you may have guessed I will have a little less time to spare to pop a post here and there, but rest assured I will not be abandoning my space here, I will pop little notes here and there as I go, both on my journey of development and for tips for your journey of development!

We are ALWAYS, learning, growing and living!


Here is to forever evolving life!

Much love

MAE!
X
​

​Here's a thought, a radical idea maybe for some! 


Thunderstorms, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes and volcanos all are notoriously know for the destruction they leave and the lives they claim, but how many of these do we ever try to harness or control or "re-direct". How many people who live in these high threat areas do we think to rehouse, out of concern and safety of these imminent threats? Hmm let me think. NONE!! I REPEAT NONE!


Why?? 


Why do we spend fortunes on building "earthquakes proof" and "flood proof" housing in these area instead of simply un-inhabiting them? Would it not be more wise and cheaper to just live somewhere else?? Yet we don't do that? No, we stand and we face these natural phenomenons head on?! 


So why, may I ask, are we so fixated with controlling this current "natural phenomenon"? Infectious disease, is it not a "natural phenomenon"? Then why, I ask, are we so fixated with "controlling" it, "manipulating" it "re-directing" it, why are we causing more problems than solutions? 


Why, may I ask, are we not letting life and people be? Why are we suffocating both the lives and livelihood of humanity? 


Is it not MUCH BETTER to empower the people with knowledge of how to keep themselves "safe", how to keep themselves healthy, so that even if they do get a hit they can stand up and shake it off with relative ease?

Why are we not empowering people with self empowerment?

Is that not only much more efficient and effective in the long run, but also a better, more wiser course of action, than to try and dictate actions of the masses for unknown lengths of periods at a time for unknown amounts of times?

Actions that not only are crippling the economy, robbing the masses of their livelihood, proving to be detrimental to the future of the youth and their mental/emotional health, but also detrimental to our elderly and vulnerable, the very people whom we are thinking we are protecting through these very dictated actions? In actual reality what we are doing to our elderly and vulnerable is signing away their life to a fate worse than death of seemingly endless isolation and alienation from the living breathing life of society! 




How? How, I ask, is this helping anybody!!! How!!

People who are meant to die, WILL DIE!!! you or me doing anything is not going to prevent every life that this or any other illness or natural phenomenon is destined to claim! Now you may not believe in predestined or fate or any of such things and I am not asking you to, but as a human you must at least understand that their is NO CHEATING DEATH! You may think that you have "out lived" your life expectancy, or cheated death if you have a narrow escape, but sooner or later it will catch you, it always does! 


Now I appreciate all that said, no one wants to see their loved ones go, especially if they go in natural disasters or unnatural incidences or "pandemics", we feel as if they have been cheated on by life. And I fully understand and resonate with that sentiment, I do! That is exactly why I say, educate, educate, educate! empower, empower, empower!


You do have what it takes to take back the reins of your health and life in your hands! Take it out of the hands of others, you don't need multitudes of tests and drugs. What you need is to understand what YOUR BODY needs, how much sleep, how much exercise, how much fat, protein, carbs, vitamins, minerals, fun, inspiration, intellectual and creativity activity, its all unique to and for you. You are not a car battery out of a box identical to every other car battery out there ever made under a certain "type cast", requiring the same amount of acid and alkaline balance, needing to be wired up in the exact same way, needing to be looked after in the exact same way. NO!

You are an individual, a living and breathing individual, who needs to look within to see what you yourself need. No one lives your life, walks your walk, deals with the people and environment that you do or have to in the way in which you do.

NO ONE!

So how can what you need in your life, to make your life better, healthier and happier be the same as what anyone else needs! It just can't! It does not work that way and SHOULD NOT work that way! 


Mainstream medicine is now understanding this and trying to work at understanding and implementing it, but it's a long long way from being "freely" available. 


Why not instead of spending billions upon bring the country to a crashing halt and then billions to kick start it again, only to keep doing it again and again, we actually spend the money where it can benefit not only the medical units across the world, but also the people that they serve? 


Why not pour money into spreading this knowledge, deepening this knowledge and implementing this knowledge? 

Maybe if we do so, you may actually find that some people who were "vulnerable" actually liberate themselves from said vulnerabilities and survive a hit that they otherwise would not have? Maybe by improving peoples health and healthcare instead of just delaying a deadly inevitable exposure to the a virus, we empower and equip them to face it head on, fight it and defeat it? 

I don't want avoidable deaths to happen just as much as the next person, but what I am saying is that I don't think the way we are going about it is necessarily the most efficient and effective way of achieving said goal.

The way forward is not "locking in", but locking out and unleashing the power of true health and healthcare! 


Learn and understand your body, for when the "war" begins, it's not what you have on the outside that matters, but what you have on the inside that sees you through to win the fight!


Build your body, mind and self, not fear!


To true health, happiness, knowledge and empowerment!


For it is not ignorance that prevails, but empowerment that perseveres!




To knowledge, because for knowledge there really is no substitute!
❤️

This one has taken me some time and reflection to pen down over a couple of weeks, its a long one, but hopefully someone somewhere may find a little bit of support, comfort and help in it...


Across all my social groups I hear but one call, “overwhelm”. Why is this so? Does this not trouble you? The fact that so many people feel overwhelmed over our current state of reality really is disturbing on so many levels! Some people are overwhelmed by the amount of work that they have to do because a) their house help is no longer there and b) their family is at home so there is too much to do. Now I don’t mean to belittle anyone by saying chill you should be able to do all that, because no, it is not right for anyone to say that, no one knows the other’s situation, commitments, restrictions or abilities. But what I will say is the solution is actually simpler than you think!


This current life we are living is not normal! We are not going to be in this state forever, nothing is ever forever, that I can guaranty you! No one is coming into your home, no one is there to judge you, if you can’t manage to do everything you think you should do in one day then relax, there is always tomorrow! What you couldn’t get done today, can get done tomorrow, if it doesn’t get done tomorrow, then there is always another tomorrow! We put too much pressure on ourselves to live up to our own unachievably high standards! I am not saying lower your standards, its good to want to strive to becoming your ideal, but let’s ease off the pressure shall we! These are not normal times, so let’s leave those standards for normal times shall we. For now live how you can, make do with what you can do and for heaven sake get this message firmly across to your family, (for those that this concerns) you are not on holiday, you are not in the midst of a celebration, you are in the middle of a crisis!!! Food is on ration world wide! So stop acting like you are in a 5 star hotel and demanding for fancy dishes 5 times a day!! Come on you people wake up and look around you! There are families who have lost all income and have not enough food to get by, so let's stop pretending this is a very long public holiday because for a lot of people it definitely is not! (breathe breathe breathe, sorry I had to get that out of my system first!)


Now I do not mean to say by the above that we should be all worried and it’s doom and gloom, but I keep reading wives being demand upon to cook 5 times a day fancy dishes! That is outrageous if you ask me! Now is not the time to be living like a king, but a time to be living smart. Spend less time and ration on cooking; cook healthy, cook smart, cook fast and maximise your produce to its full capacity!


Suddenly parents have to do a lot more than their daily “normal” lives like being their children’s teacher, nanny, best buddy, fitness instructor, IT whiz, and heaven knows what else more! So at a time like this having to spend more time cooking than your normal daily routine is really not helping! Unless you are teaching your children to cook and using that as the day’s lesson plan you should really be spending the least amount of your time actually in the kitchen cooking. So let’s get this straight with our families shall we; don’t be a tart, cook smart!


Now that is just one pebble on the beach, there are far more pebbles to be touched upon.


Some people are being overwhelmed by their children and how to cope with doing right by them. Firstly, what is doing right by them? What you may think is doing right by them, might not be what it actually entails! Remember what I said above, these are not normal times so we need to let go of our “normal standards”. What do children need: food, warmth, cosy home, a whole lot of love and time! Once you have food ticked off, warmth and cosy home for most are thankfully already set. That leaves the two most vital ingredients for children, love and time! Yes children need to be educated, and they will be, trust in yourself, trust in them and trust in the act of education!


Education doesn’t come through books, books are limited to imparting precise and one dimensional knowledge, education is not dependant on books, it is dependant on the mind developing through all senses, processing all that it absorbs and deducing conclusions from it. That is learning! Once they learn, then they act on what they have learnt, then they learn some more from those actions and reactions. Retaining all of that learning and using it to aid one in life is what is called education! Education has no limits, subjects, restrictions, qualifications or quantifications, it just is!


You being present with your child not only teaches them that they are seen, heard, cared for, loved and safe; it teaches them how to live life, how to act when there is trouble brewing in the air, how to look after loved ones, how to manage the daily grind… how to be human.


For young ones your presence is all they need to learn so much! For older ones who you struggle to keep occupied with yet another game of monopoly, give them things to learn either with you through life skills or with you through researching a hobby, old or new, then either mastering it or compiling a presentation on it or otherwise. Or if they are into their late teens, allow them to manage daily life and it’s strings, which not only gives them a chance to experience it, but gives you a much needed helping hand in living through it. Or again motivate them to learn about something new that they may have always shown an interest in, remember it doesn’t have to be “intellectual”, it doesn’t have to be a part of the national curriculum. Learning is all around us, there is no limit to what, how and when you can learn something; embrace the act of learning! Don’t stress about what they might be “missing out” on, don’t stress over what they should be learning, take advantage of this unique opportunity life has just given them to learn something new, something completely different and unique to them and you.


Always remember we are not in a race against anyone, each individual brings to the table what they are, which is what “wins” them each opportunity in life. Don’t loose this opportunity to strengthen the beautiful uniqueness of your children, for that is who they are, that is what will carry them forward in life, that is what they need. League tables mean nothing in an interview in their dream field, passion is what shines through and sees them through!


Another thing I hear through the grape vine, lack of peace causing overwhelm. Some people are not worried about their children’s education or being demanded upon for too many meals, but they are struggling to find peace. Whether it is inner peace or outer home atmospheric peace. Either too many arguments are taking place or there is inner frustrations of being “cooped up”, or feelings of grief or loneliness due or restrictions on family contact. Or of course the big fear factor that is eating people up from the inside. Fear of not having access to essentials or fear of loosing family or fear of one’s own health. All of these leading to again feelings of overwhelm.


Now if you ask me this lack of peace is actually a more deeper rooted and greater problem than any of the others, regardless of what the reasons for it be. This actually exists in our normal daily lives and is either now just surfacing or compounding and sadly although the other two mentioned issues may well disappear post lockdown, this problem is one that will live on if not dealt with. But the good news is, as mentioned, this issue is irrelevant of lockdown, therefore it can be tackled irrespective of lockdown. This is not a matter of the mind, this is a matter of the heart! It can be insha’Allah tackled through healing of the hearts.


As always my first and foremost advice is hugging and holding. Children get easily overwhelmed and frustrated as do parents with their tantrums and demands as well as life’s demands. Hug each other and hold each other as much as you can, if your children are arguing just hold them, hear them don’t talk to them, just keep them in your arms until they recover. Honestly I kid you not, it works like magic, it will not only clear their overwhelming feeling, but also any that you may have been having. When you argue with your partner despite who started it, or who was right or wrong, stop shouting at each other and sit either in each others arms or next to each other holding hands and then talk it out, skin to skin contact can not only save the lives of babies, but it can save the life in your relationship. The best cure for arguments and overwhelm is holding and hugging, it diffuses the fire inside! Trust me! You might be thinking phish phosh, but it is not, chemicals are released and reactions taken place inside your bodies that is what calms you down, its not a load of nonsense its biology!


Now coming to feeling “cooped up” or grief or loneliness, I have touched upon this before briefly on my lifeline page on FB, but I will contemplate it further here.


If you are living with a family, as in are not entirely alone in a house and still then you are feeling cooped up or lonely then this should be an indication to you that there is something monumentally wrong here! A home is where one should always look forward to being, a family whom we live with should be all that we need to survive, it should be with whom we feel the happiest and safest with. If one is not feeling these things then its time to do a lot of deep reflection and soul searching! It doesn’t mean that there is something wrong with you or your family as per say, but what it means is that you are not feeling at home with them or in your home. Now this could be for a variety of reasons either you are longing something for yourself that which you do not yet have, like for example a job, a career, a direction, or you are longing a connection with your family that you do not have. The latter is actually a simple matter but a complex one to fix. The way to go about it is firstly self reflection, think about firstly with whom it is lacking and then what is lacking, what type of connection is it that you long for that makes you feel lonely even in your own home with your own family. Then the next step after you have diagnosed the problem is the bigger braver step of addressing it. Raise awareness to the individual(s) of firstly this issue then the root cause of it and how you think it can be tackled. This last bit is the most tricky one, because it no longer involves just you, it involves others. Now firstly the difficult part is getting them to appreciate that this problem is present in your connection and it is costing you, then once you get that sorted the actual bridging of this gap is going to take long hard persistent efforts on both(or all) persons’ counts. But it is not impossible!! If you keep working at it insha’Allah one day it will be accomplished. But bare in mind as it is something you need you maybe the one who may need to work extra hard for it, be extra persistent with it and maybe have to put in most of the effort for it, but to reap the rewards we must first put in the back breaking work.


Now the other side of this, sometimes we live with persons that no matter how hard we try with, a gap can not be bridged. They make you feel lonely and unwelcome, in this case if they are not your spouse or children, then maybe it is something that needs to be brought up and addressed, but if it is your spouse or your children, then things need more serious thought and intervention. Families come in all forms, shapes and sizes, only we ourselves can know the true nature of our situations and we must reflect deeply, but sensibly and with clarity not emotionally and seek a truly plausible solutions for ourselves.


Even if you feel that there is nothing “wrong” with your relationships with anyone, nor is your personal purpose bothering you and you think neither of those are the reason for you feeling cooped up, does not mean that they may well not be the issue, maybe it is just you not being able to pin point it just yet.


Emotions are complex, sometimes they show their source other times it may need a lot of time and uncovering to reach the actual source because it is covered up in so many layers. Imagine an onion, you have to peel back layer after layer to reach the core. Sometimes this can be achieved on one’s own, other times it may need professional intervention. Psychologists are great but sometimes we need a little bit more than just conversational un-peeling sometimes the helping hand of simple homeopathic remedies are needed to help us uncover deep hidden emotional upsets. Whatever the case there are avenues to explore this and reach peace insha’Allah. The first and most important step is to actually recognise that there is an issue to start of with.


I think I best leave it at here for the moment and let one sit with these thoughts, for the biggest leg of learning is done in the space of silence.


I wish you inner and outer peace.
May we all find our stride and learn to dance in this rain!


Much love
MAE

I thought to refrain in indulging in this conversation, but then I think maybe I should break the silence. Tis not the elephant in the room the problem, but rather the other occupants in it that alarm me. I don’t know where you stand, but I do know that I don’t know where I stand anymore, as for once I feel lost to figure out where common sense stands.


My aim has always been to avoid either extreme, to take an informed balance approach, now I have that semi down re the elephant, but its all the strings attached to it so to speak that I struggle with. This whole school closure thing has my mind and heart all up in a twist. For once I feel uncertain about what is the sensible approach.


Whether you believe this virus to be the threat they say or not, one thing is clear the government’s efforts are to contain it, and the only way inevitably will be to shut schools, no matter how much they appear to deny it now. Now whether it is the right thing to do or not, is not the issue for me here anymore. My issue is, if that is the case, that this will have to be the action and its just a matter of time, then why are we delaying it? (Apart from the obvious that its going to cost the government a packet and then some!) But on a personal level, the longer the schools are open, the more widespread it becomes, therefore the more chances of every school being infected increases day by day, its simple maths really! If you are going to take this action, is it not better you take it before you are infected, so to actually reap benefit from it? Even if one person is infected in the school, by the time it is confirmed it is to late and the damage done! Whether you believe it to be a threat or not, but common sense dictates if you are going to take an action for a certain result, should you not take it when you have a shot at attaining said result? You know that whole, strike when the iron is hot thing, ring a bell???


So here I stand torn between two pieces of my own common sense, I fail to see clearly what is sensible anymore? I mean it should be really very obvious shouldn’t it! I know the elephant, I can see the strings and yet I stand bewildered thinking am I the crazy in the room??


I don’t want to pull my children out of school and yet I can’t see the benefits of delaying the inevitable; when in doing so you only negate the result for which the action is to be taken for in the first place!

You can’t catch a plane after its has departed!


So alas I sit here as a person trying to live with common sense and as a mother who would like to make sensible and right choices for her children to the best of my mental, emotional and physical ability.


I think when one puts it in this way, there really is no choice, no dilemma, no confusion or doubt of the sensible!


In the war between a woman and a mother,
A mother is always right!


Here is to us all, to finding peace within ourselves, because at the end of the day when all is said and done and there is nothing but the quiet of the night, there is only one voice to be heard and to answer to, the little voice of reason within you!


To Self Peace!


Stay safe and happy!

​MAE

After training and getting some experience under my belt, I have now decided to venture out into the world of freelancing. 

Here you will be able to find a window into what I am getting up to these days.

From cooking to teaching cooking, it's all happening!

I started off on my journey with cooking with the humble tea prior to entering double figures in age, but not quite like how people practice that art these days.
No those pots of tea where something of a time long ago when people gathered and experienced tea as an event. Nowadays it's plonk in that tea bag in hot water in your "to go" mug and rush out that front door like you are missing your flight, sigh! 

One of my most fondest memories of childhood, is cooking with my mom, we made many a cakes together and laddos!! These memories are a big reason why I decided to post my recipes online. I find nowadays more and more people are afraid to cook, which I find really sad. I want people to share this experience with their children. Not only will they be gifting them a very important life skill, but they will be enriching both their children's and their lives with countless, precious, glorious memories!

Memories!

Memories are worth investing in!

So how did I go from making memories to making catering meals... well as always one baby step at a time... 

From cooking at an international food festival that my friends and I pioneered, to cooking for fundraisers. Bake sales and bread making classes, to teacher conferences; the steps join up and pave the way. They may say "and the rest is history", but history doesn't just happen, like it is so often implied, as they so casually say glazing over it.
​
No, it is lived and experienced.

If you want to get a piece of that experience, get in touch with me and we can share a little history making together...

As always, much love... 

MAE

Standing by to help...