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A Chameleon of the first order…

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Do you have to be a different person to appease certain people? Have you ever experienced anxiety when visiting certain folks or when certain folks visit you? Have you chameleon via kaibara87 on Flickrever had to pretend to be something you are not?

Do you like who you are? Are you surrounded by people who truly appreciate who you are?

Make a short of list of people that you can be yourself around.
Over the course of the next few weeks, keep note of how often you see those people or how often you speak to them. (And I’m not talking on Facebook.)

Make another list of people with whom you feel squeezed and anxious and make note of how much time you spend with them.

The first list needs to be the people with whom you are hanging out with….and I mean investing time with them.
If people on the second list are at work and you feel stuck then ask yourself how you can create or craft different relationships with some of them or even one of them.
Often times, we think we know a person, but we really have no idea of whom or what they really are.
Can you find a way to go deeper into curiosity about someone on the second list?

There was a time in my life when the first list was almost non-existent and I longed for such people in my life. I longed for people with whom I could cry and laugh out loud and not be judged. I created intentions to attract such people into my life. I imagined what it would be like to feel supported and unconditionally loved and I sat in meditation and sent energy to those who wanted to find me. It took a while longer than I hoped but now I look at my first list of supportive friends and I break into a huge grin.

Just the other day, I had a day of deep sadness and grief. I called two people, not to come running, but just to listen to me….AND they came running!
I offer thanks to KW and JC for all their love and support. I needed you and you were there!
I am a lucky woman.

Dear reader,

You can have support as well. All you have to do is envision the type of people you want to be surrounded by and then become to others what you want to attract to yourself.

Love and light,
Indrani

OBEY….

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Such a small word….yet, so many hidden consequences.

I do not know if modern wedding vows still tell a woman to obey her husband…this always bothered me.
Who decided that “certain” groups should OBEY certain other groups?
Children should obey their parents, even when the parent says to NOT tell the truth about sexual abuse within the family?
Wives should obey husbands, even when they are being instructed to do demeaning and sub-human activities? Or being treated like a slave, not receiving any respect or shown any kindness?

When abuse is taking place within a family system, this concept of OBEY becomes extremely problematic.
Should we obey to the point of emotional death?
Should atrocious acts against our person be allowed to continue because our Holy texts admonish us to OBEY?
Should we continue to accept the truck loads of blame dumped on to us because standing up to the in-house bullies will be seen as treason and disobedience?
Is keeping the family secrets more important than treating ourselves with love and kindness?

These are questions we must all answer for ourselves.

I hope you chose to treat yourself with kindness and respect even if those with whom you live refuse to give you the time of day except when they yell, shout and berate you.

It takes great courage to look at your tear stained face in the mirror and say to yourself, “No more will I accept this treatment, these hateful words and this constant barrage upon my soul.”

May you be blessed with courage, vast and strong.
May you be blessed with compassion for yourself.
May you be filled with self empathy and self resilience.
May your heart be free of all past burdens.

Love and light,
Indrani

Never settle…..

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“Do you ever sometimes wonder, Indrani, if you shouldn’t just come down to earth and settle for a bit less?”top of the world via michelleatcambridge.blogspot

I subscribe to a daily dose of inspiration and this is what came the other day!

What LESS would I settle for?
That only I be safe?
Only my family? Or my village/country/continent?
Only brown people or white people or yellow or green?
Only Christians or Hindus or Muslims or Atheists?
NONE of us can settle. We must all save all of US!

Love and light,
Indrani

Will you RISE with us tomorrow…..

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Tomorrow we ask that you….

-Step out of your home.

-Step out of your office.

-Step out of your comfort zone…..to STRIKE, DANCE AND RISE!

On February 14th, 2013, One Billion Rising is inviting one billion women and those who love them to WALK OUT, DANCE, RISE UP and DEMAND an end to violence against women and girls.

What does one billion look like? On February 14th, 2013, it will look like a REVOLUTION!

Visit the following link to JOIN A RISING in your area.

http://www.onebillionrising.org/page/event/search_simple

One Million Rising

Expired Skill Sets…

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The definition of SKILL is the learned power of doing something competently: a developed aptitude or ability.hourglass2 via blog.163.com

My definition of skill is “something I have practiced.”

During my tenure here on earth, I have practiced many skill sets that served me in the past but do not serve me here in the present.

For example, as a young child being beaten by my caretakers, I cowered and cried for mercy. However, I don’t need to cower and cry these days.

When I lived in NYC as a young woman, sarcasm came in handy with cheeky men and hateful coworkers. No need for sarcasm anymore…although I still use it from time to time, sorry to say.

While on vacation recently, I found myself in a bit of a bind when the outfit I brought for a wedding was suddenly not the thing to wear. I had to allow myself the luxury of the emotions that I felt and at the same time had to call upon new skill sets, like forgiveness and letting go, to help me navigate the incident.

I came through and I chalked it up to just another life lesson. One of the most important skills I used there was the skill of GRATITUDE. I made a mental list of all the things that had gone right and made a determined effort not to allow a few negatives to outweigh all of the positives.

One of the things I used to do was to allow negative life events to have more “weight” than positive life events. I now give every event the same score. Even if I feel like weighing one more than the next, I still do not trust myself to give a realistic score, so everything gets a score of one. At the end of the day, if I have more positives than negatives, I am good!

I am still trying to figure out which things need to be weighed heavier than others and which things are deal breakers. This is a good start for me, for in the past everything was a deal breaker and I was always ready to flee from a tense situation. Now I can call upon new skill sets to deal with the issues at hand and not infest the present with the hurts of the past.

One of the best pieces of advice I ever got from a therapist is this….
“Indrani, this is not a court of law, stop your case building.”
Ouch.
So I have been trying to unlearn that very skill…Case Building. Now I look for the things I am grateful for and hope that there is more on the plus side than not.

Skills I no longer need:
1. Temper tantrums.
2. Sarcasm. (Well, I might need this one sometimes.)
3. Case building. No more dredging up all the old hurts and bringing it into the present moment.
4. Feeling worthless.
5. Minding other people’s business.
6. Giving my power away.

I can go on and on…I hope you get the picture.
A skill is something you have learned to do. If you can learn it, you can unlearn it.
Sometimes, unlearning is just what you need to have a more peaceful life.

I wrote a blog long ago about expiration dates on beliefs…you can read it here:
http://indranislight.org/2009/11/out-dated-beliefs/

I hope you take a few ideas from these two posts to apply new skills and let go of expired ones.

Love and light,
Indrani

I put my foot down vs. I share my wisdom….

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A while back, I was having a lovely conversation with a dear friend. She was telling me about a discussion she had with one of her siblings. They were talking about what friendlyadvice via moodraiser.comkind of car her sister was going to buy.

It turned out that the sister had been somewhat of the family hippie and never really took advice from anyone. It seemed that she was always in some kind of trouble. So when my friend found out that her sister was about to purchase a new car she picked up the telephone and did what any sister would do, right? She told her sister exactly what car she should get.

To be fair, she had given her sister lots of advice before but the poor girl never had the wits to take it. So here she was again, giving her advice….but this time she was REALLY forceful!

“I mean, why can’t she see that her decisions are absolutely disastrous and flighty? So what if she is an MD….she’s not married and is almost 35 years old and her eggs must be rotted by now!”

I listened for what seemed like an eternity and bit my tongue many times to keep myself from saying something like “Who do you think you are to try to run her life?” My tongue was scarred from the bites! Anyways, I digress.

After about 30 minutes she said, “Well, she finally came to her senses, listened to me and bought the car I told her to buy. It was a damn good thing I put my foot down, right?”

Was that an invitation for me to speak?
Yes, I think it was.

So I said, “Well, it was not so much as you putting your foot down, but you offering your own views and her making her own decisions.”

This was NOT the response she wanted….so she took a loud, deep breath and said, “Do you notice how much you are playing semantics these days?”

To this I replied, “Well, my response took the focus from your actions and put it on your sister’s actions….I do not think its semantics, but I can tell that you see it that way.”

Ok, now THAT was semantics!

I was not “playing” semantics with my first response; rather I was trying to show the difference in the energy between her “putting my foot down” and her sister “making her own decisions”. The advice offered may have persuaded the ultimate decision, but why take credit for that?

It feels so much better, energy wise, to offer the gifts of our own experiences rather than “putting our foot down”.
How old does a person have to be to care about whose foot is being put where?

Kids and abused people come to mind, when I think about the answer to the above question.
You can put your foot down and take away a teenagers car, telephone or x-box.
You can put your foot down and not let your child wear pajamas to school.
You can put your foot down and tell your wife that she must dress a certain way and HOPE that she “obeys” you. If she does obey you, is it because she loves you and is doing it to please you or is it because she is fearful that if she does not “obey” you will lash out and abuse her?

So, what does “putting your foot down” really mean?

If you are the foot putter downer, I invite you to try giving the gifts of your experience instead of ramming stuff down people’s throats.

If you are the person who gets the brunt of the all the feet upon them, I invite you to ask what accepting all of those dogmas will do for you.

I guess you can call it semantics, but since our words really do reflect how we see the world, it is worth investigating the words that fall out of our mouths and paying attention to the energy that goes with those words.

Love and light,
Indrani

When a LADY says NO….

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The lady said NO.
She said NO to 15 other designers.
She said NO to lots of unknowns.
She said YES to HERSELF.

She is Michelle Obama.

She dressed herself so that she could feel her best.
I want to believe that NONE of the dresses had the names of the designers attached.
I want to believe that she picked on the grounds that made her the happiest.
Why?
Because there is always someone ready to say… (And they did):
“She should’ve given someone else a chance…”
“She should have been more aware of launching someone else…”

I am GLAD Mrs. Obama was strong enough to say YES to the DRESS that made her GLOW!!

What permission did Michelle give to women everywhere?
Choose for YOURSELF!
Do not be influenced by the hallowed pundits or the voices that would have you tow a certain line of action.
CHOOSE the best thing for you!
Choose with strength and softness and LOVE of yourself!

Michelle Obama… You were on FIRE in the RED Jason Wu, and I am sure you knew that you floated into that ball on a cloud of modern feminism.

The modern feminism that allows women to:
Choose for themselves.
Choose what they want in their lives….especially when the whole world is looking at them!

We can take a page from her book and make choices that show self respect and self love and do it with grace and humility.
Love, light and Choices!

Indrani

Spit in my face? What does that mean?!

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When you spit in my face…what does that mean?ashamed-woman via zawaj.com

A few weeks ago, I saw a man spit in a woman’s face.
He straightened up and spit, aiming right for her face.
She was stunned.
She froze and she looked like a deer in the head lights.

What was he trying to communicate?
What words would he have chosen if he had chosen to speak words instead?
What could he have been thinking when he CHOSE to spit in her face?

Will she choose to go back to him?
Will she choose to forget her humiliation and her embarrassment?
Will her friends and family make her feel like she should put it behind her?
Will she succumb to the voices that say it may have been her fault?
Will people expect her to explain her behaviors?

What else might he do?
What other insults has she or will she suffer?
When is it enough?!

What have you been exposed to that has made you feel like this woman?
When will enough be enough?

Who can decide?
ONLY YOU.
Only YOU.

Love and light
Indrani

Fair fight…..if only!

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Fair fight…..if only!women-working-out1 via blog.itriagehealth

Yes, if only all of our fights could be fair and above the belt.
That’s so hard to do though, isn’t it?

We feel attacked and we strike back.
It’s that old fight or flight, right?
I can either run away or I can slam you right back.

Are there other choices?

There are other choices….but only for those who REALLY want to change.
There are other choices….but only for those who understand that they can only change themselves.
There are other choices….but only if you intend to invest the time to build a new muscle.

Have you ever gone to a gym and started a weight training program?
Did you start with the MOST weight on the rack?
If you did, did it work out for you?
I hope that you started out with smaller weights, even 3 lbs…especially for the small muscles like the triceps.
The small muscles fatigue a lot quicker than the larger thigh or butt muscles.

Let’s expand this triceps training metaphor to your resolve to fight fair.
When you start, the resolve is small and you can only hold the fight fair tenets for a short time. Then you fall back into the old habits that you have down pat.
You lob name for name, insult for insult and then you choose your partners weakest spot and WHAM! Then one of you falls first, and the other feels vindicated.
If you were to verbalize what the original fight was about you might not even remember.
Your head would be filled with “well she said my mother is horrible” or “how dare he say that I am a bitch?”

The list is endless.

The real issue is again buried under the rubble from this most recent battle.

So do you give up?
If you do what will happen?
Things will not change.
You will feel the same way next week, next month and next year about the things that irritate you today.

How then do you withstand the emotional onslaught without striking back?
It is as simple as a DECISION to STOP the WAR!
I mean STOP contributing to the war.
I mean stop the lobbying of the insults.
I mean SHUT UP!
I mean to walk out of the room.
I mean to withdraw your emotional investment from the fight at hand.
I also mean to STOP pretending that anyone is actually winning!

The pretense that there is actually a winner in all this personal rancor and nastiness is epic!
Epic Pretense is pretending that nasty will get your loved ones to:
1. Love you the way you want
2. Give you compliments
3. Clean up their mess
4. Do whatever you say they should do.

When is the best time to start these new action items?

Well, it would be great if you (the warring parties) could have a peaceful conversation when there is nothing “hot” going on.
Then together you can decide on some ground rules.
If there is no chance for a peaceful conversation, then YOU have to take the high road and begin to implement the peace treaty by yourself.
How can that look?
You can tell yourself that you will not accept name calling. If it happens you will leave the room.
You can also decide that cursing is not allowed in your home and if it happens you will leave the room.
These changes will not be magically manifested…you will have to work at it (like starting with the 3 lb weights during a tricep exercise). You will tire easily, but keep it up.
Slowly you will see that changes are occurring and then you will have to take a deeper look at what it all means for the rest of life.

There is a lot of work that goes into lifting 3lbs with your triceps to being able to lift 35lbs. It is possible, but only with consistent training and proper care of your whole body.
Likewise, it is possible to stop being at war with each other, but only if it is something you really want. You must want it as surely as you want a plentiful supply of oxygen and clean water.
Oxygen and water are essential to living.
Fighting fair is essential to a LIFE worth living!

Love and light,
Indrani