selflove Archives

Posted on April 14, 2020April 14, 2020 by Mycoffeeweather — 1 Comment

Accept and Bloom

All your firsts are special—first day of school, first time using a pen or getting your hair coloured, first time frying or baking a bread, first time going on a date or quarantined, first …. (long list, fill at your own leisure).

First own hair cut.

Even saying that makes me happy. The sound of snip snip has always been therapeutic to me. In fact, I start getting warnings from people every year as summer approaches — ‘Don’t get your hair cut short this time’! So I decided to do it myself. Just took the scissors and snip-snip! To tell you the truth it was scary at first— what if I goof up? Luckily ‘stay-at-home’ made it easy; now that the lockdown is extended.

I’ll just pause here.

What if there wasn’t a lockdown, I messed it up and looked goofy for a bit? Would I be judged badly and would people not let me be? As I stood in front of the mirror, hair drenched and dripping- I was combing my hair over and over; I would raise the scissor to my head and lower it. This went on for five minutes. It’s just fringes man! (Go for It); No! If it actually goes bad…? YES! NO! YES, NO!

Beep* it!

That’s it!! That moment when I decided for myself —that’s what self acceptance is. You own the goofiest decisions, you own your worst nightmares and you own your insecurities. Every time I do these impulsive things, my need for validation dies a little.

I am going to rewind back to 2009…

I am standing on my yoga mat, at a1000yoga; A chilly morning, at half past six, I’m profusely sweating all over my mat (my warm up sweat would be your post workout sweat). After the regular bout of Suryanamaskar, I found myself literally tugging my body forward holding my toes in Paschimottanasana (seated forward fold). My back is curved and I’m hell bent (literally) to get myself to reach perfection in that very moment. (This was my fight against complacency-clearly OTT).

My breathing was fast like I was on a treadmill and face contorted, like I could just deliver something on my mat. Dj my yoga teacher must’ve seen my little act; her soft and loud words still ring clearly in my head today- “Don’t fight with your body. Acknowledge where you are in the posture today and breathe into the posture.”

(Deep breath and sigh) Acceptance right in that moment.

For the next few days I’d just be happy to hold my toes and stay instead of wanting my back to fold forward. Slowly, I eased into it, over time and now I can easily have my entire body fold like a clip.

Now I’m facing the mirror, feeling the small tufts of hair, no longer a part of me (I didn’t know my hair was soft). Looked up at myself I couldn’t stop smiling. I never really accepted that I have a problem with my self belief. I would doubt myself all the time, (sometimes it’s good to be a little unsure is what I was feeding on). I stopped believing what I told myself. For just uploading a picture on social media I would need two opinions, for the caption I’d ask my brother to read. What my mind told me wasn’t good enough until something outside validated it.

Now that I accepted where I am (seeking validation), I knew where I wanted to go. Instead of putting it under the carpet acknowledge the flaws, breathe into it and let yourself bloom. I wanted to break this pattern of looking for validation from outside and own what’s coming from within. Acceptance doesn’t come easily to many of us, but owning yourself completely leaves you feeling responsible for yourself and that is freedom.

Accept and Bloom — *Pashimotanasana* (Forward Fold –*YOGA*)

What are you trying to accept about yourself? Your physical body, emotional strength, skills you don’t have yet, pronunciation, social skills, you’re not where you want to be? Whatever it may be, just sit down with yourself, once in a while and check on yourself. What is it you keep fighting with? What are you holding yourself against? How hard do you make your own life? Are you accepted in your own head?

Posted on April 2, 2019May 2, 2019 by Mycoffeeweather — Leave a comment

Light Up

Recently a friend of mine asked me, ‘how she can make her fiancé feel special by gifting something non materialistic’. I had so many ideas and immediately sent her a list of things.

After some hours (it doesn’t hit me instantly, I’m a little slow) I had an epiphany after an argument. Yes, it takes an argument sometimes to get those realisations (Disclaimer: Argue at your own risk). I felt I’ve given away too much of myself in most of my relationships. Sometimes we give and give and give and the show of love is no less.

I’m not self praising, getting to the point. I haven’t done anything nice for myself as diligently as I’ve done for others. The discipline with which we all want to please other people doesn’t come when we should make ourselves feel important. I think I take a back seat when I’m given some attention by someone other than myself. When it comes from outside I feel satiated and stop working on putting some of my love aside for myself.

What is self love then? Doing fancy things for yourself? It is whatever sails your boat but keeps you sailing everyday, through rough seas and calm. For me it’s sometimes me-time, sometimes seeing faces I don’t see everyday, music, everything about nature, dancing around my mom, singing till my throat hurts and obviously a lot of things make me happy. We all know what makes us happy. We consciously don’t make time for those things everyday.

It’s like the savings account we were told to open to create a habit of saving. Yeah sure it’s an investment but it’s a habit more importantly. Why make it a habit? Why not just do it when you feel like? Because attention is like money; if you don’t set aside some for later, you might end up spending all of it and you want to spend some on yourself too. Too much attention given is overwhelming, and you have no idea how the subconscious of the other person is going to take it. Im not suggesting we become self obsessed, but consciously divide some attention for yourself everyday.

It’s helped me a lot over the years practicing this. You must know you’re an important person in your own life and you deserve some love in any weather. You don’t have to depend on the seasons, you can churn some snow for yourself anytime you want because you’ve made it a habit. Create compartments and reserve one box of love for yourself. No matter what, that box will never go out of luck. Because you can always give yourself a reason to be grateful to be alive. (Book Rec.: “Man’s search of meaning” by Victor Frankl)

Time-out an old post of mine; I had written on rest and break. May be sometimes we just need that—doing nothing at all. However, a void tends to fill back up, when we get back to our lives. Its important to fill it up with some good feelings. Unless we feel good we cannot make others feel good. We will keep going out there expecting the world to fill that void. We need to wear our own masks before securing other’s even on the airplane. Why not clap for small efforts that we put into our daily tasks? Appreciate and show it by words and by doing nice things when we have accomplished something, however small or big. I was a mathematics fan in school and every time I solved a problem I would say “Clap for me everybody I got the answer.” I need to learn so much from the old me.

Starting small helps, may be look into the mirror and smile (yes you can be a little looney), have personal journals, small notes of praises, buy flowers (this one not my idea but works), take yourself out for a coffee, buy plants for yourself. Then go all manic and throw some imagination, may be make yourself a garden, start a blog, make huge plans for yourself without worrying about how you’ll do any of it. Show yourself that you’re well deserving of the things that keep you buzzing. It doesn’t even have to be perfect; sunrises are my thing and I’m almost always late by a few minutes. Even then you just have to show up, for something for yourself. Your mind needs to learn that you are your best cheerleader and your first love.

All this and you’ll never be worried about attention not coming from outside. You wouldn’t even need it most of the times. People may be rude, lash out on you sometimes; the world doesn’t change. You do. You become this light bulb, always shining bright and that lights back up immediately even if it flickers. Everyone wants some of your light, but make sure you stay lit for yourself first.

Posted on January 23, 2018January 24, 2018 by Mycoffeeweather — Leave a comment

Curl up and Love

We can hate too much and we can love something way too much, it is in our capacity to notice what we are choosing to do.

We all have this ideal image about everything in our lives. We cannot deny the influence of social media, advertisements, movies, people around us and unsolicited advice shaping our thoughts of how things should be. Anything out of the ‘should be’ standards is rejected.

An example of an old advertisement speaking for itself

Dark skin is such a worn out discussion but I know of people who still hate their shade and are wondering if they should invest some time in the ‘fair and lovely” gimmick. Wondering why some actors with unmatchable skills in their profession and success are not confident in their own skin (literally).

There are a million topics like, growing taller as kids, balding as adults, having Happy dent teeth, obsessed about body size over fitness levels, leaner looking arms, 6 packs and even skin tone, big IQ, making choices acceptable to your environment, not failing ever, associating with the “good” people and what not. We are always under some kind of pressure to meet the standards our environment puts us in.

Focusing on things our bodies are not good at, we start hating that thing instead of accepting it.

I grew up watching the Vatika and Clinic plus girls swishing straight hair with light perfectly reflecting off their hair like a white shiny line. I thought something is wrong with my hair, made up my mind that it’s too dry and I need to fix it. I even got a friend scorn at me, on a day I was lazy to struggle with my hair, “look at your hair” and I was left out of the plan only for not fitting the “should be” standards.

I didn’t want to be left out and I didn’t accept my hair for being curly. My dad had the curly hair genes and Mom was the Vatika girl, and that didn’t help either. I was at war with my hair when removing knots and combing it down trying to straighten it and on giving up, get it chopped off to a short length.

The journey of getting to know my curls, accepting, being friends, to taking care has taught me self love.

I stumbled upon some good angels like Dolma from Body craft Bangalore, Nikita Suresh @nikynutrition Nutritionist, Bangalore and @honestlizhere Instagram. Life just was on good roads. On another hair venting session Liz said “pyaar se” translated as “with love”. It lighted a bulb in my mind. Honestly, I’ve never stopped loving my hair after that.

It’s different when you’re not waiting for love to come from outside. You’re waiting for yourself to show up for you, to accept yourself and be kind to yourself. It’s not selfish it’s self love to learn to be kind, loving and patient with yourself, whoever you have become over the years, who ever you anticipated to be and have turned out differently or not, accept yourself wholly first and be kind to yourself my friend and things will just turn around for you. May be this February create a small challenge of self love.

Also I read this in a mbg article, watch the tone of your self talk. It’s going to change your life if you can talk to yourself “pyaar se”.