What seed do you have inside that needs nourishing?
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Domestic Violence Awareness Month- Day 14
Take a shot of POSITIVITY….
Domestic Violence Awareness Month- Day 12
Who do you think you are?
Domestic Violence Awareness Month- Day 11
Choose to be 5% more responsible for your happiness….what does that look like?
Women ROCK……
A dear friend shared this with me and I felt compelled to pass it along….
While the C-5 was turning over its engines, a female crewman gave the G.I.s on board the usual information regarding seat belts, emergency exits, etc.
Finally, she said, “Now sit back and enjoy your trip while your captain, Judith Campbell, and crew take you safely to Afghanistan.”
An old Master Sergeant sitting in the eighth row thought to himself, “Did I hear her right? Is the captain a woman?”
When the attendant came by he said, “Did I understand you right? Is the captain a woman?”
“Yes,” said the attendant, “in fact, this entire crew is female.”
“My God,” he said, “I wish I had two double scotch and sodas. I don’t know what to think with only women up there in the cockpit.”
“That’s another thing, Sergeant,” said the crew member, “we no longer call it ‘The Cockpit’.”
“It’s ‘The Box Office’.”
Quote of the day:
“Whatever you give a woman, she will make greater. If you give her sperm, she’ll give you a baby. If you give her a house, she’ll give you a home. If you give her groceries, she’ll give you a meal. If you give her a smile, she’ll give you her heart. She multiplies and enlarges what is given to her. So, if you give her any crap, be ready to receive a ton of shit.”
Love & light,
Indrani
Cultivate LOVE…..
What is the meaning of Cultivation?
The dictionary says it is the process of trying to acquire or develop a quality or skill.
When you read the title “Cultivate Love”, what did you think?
Take just a few moments now to meditate on the words, CULTIVATE LOVE.
This is very much an action phrase, it implies activity and intention.
How can you cultivate SELF love?
Here are a few ways to increase the bounty of your SELF love:
1. Reduce self-judgment. Tell yourself you REALLY are doing the best you can.
2. Have a designated STOPPER…someone who will say “Hey, STOP that negative self-talk.” This means you have to have a conversation with a trusted person and tell them your game plan. In my own life, I am a STOPPER for many even though they don’t know it. I hear their negative self talk and I remind them of something that is great about them.
3. Plant a small, living plant and take excellent care of it. Research the right amount of sun and water it needs and devote yourself to its care. Be a good steward of a living thing.
4. Stand for a few breaths in the mirror every morning and tell yourself a few good things about you.
5. Look at my video called “What’s right with you?”.
Try these easy steps for a few days, then for a few more. Keep a journal of your thoughts around Cultivating Self Love and if you feel inclined, we would love for you to share your experience by leaving a comment below.
Love and light,
Indrani
Two WRONGS don’t make a RIGHT….
This was a saying that I used to hear while growing up in Trinidad, in The West Indies.
It was usually lobbed at me from a very angry parent, (read rageful) and it was usually because someone hit me and I hit them back.
I never understood why I should not defend myself.
Recently I visited my childhood home and as someone was telling a story about a child making a mistake, the saying “Two wrongs don’t make a right” popped into my head.
The storyteller was relaying that a teenager had taken a dish into their kitchen and showed that the dish was still dirty.
A family member of the teenager then said, “Get the HELL out of the kitchen and put the damn cup down!”
The teller of the story was chuckling, gleefully, because the teenager had been “put in their place.”
In a flash, I was filled with anger and disgust and said, “Was it really necessary to curse and embarrass the teenager?”
The story teller was not at all pleased with the way their story landed on my psyche.
The storyteller did not see that yelling at children and publicly embarrassing them was not the way to teach.
It constantly amazes me that “mature” people still think screaming at children is the way to their hearts and minds.
Children need love, care, feeding and watering.
Parents, if you are still screaming, embarrassing and denigrating your children, please take as long as you need to look at your destructive behaviors.
You are destroying the next generation.
Please sign up for some parenting classes and I do not mean any of the “spare the rod, spoil the child” kind of classes.
I mean the class that shows you, the parent, that children are gifts from a divine source and that they are given to us to cherish and protect.
Love and light,
Indrani
Hanging on to the buoys
When I was 49, I decided to learn to swim and to participate in an Olympic Distance Triathlon.
Yes, you read that right…learn to swim!
Even though I had grown up on an island, what I used to do in the ocean was not swimming. It was simply not drowning.
So on the day of the triathlon, I looked out over the lake at Disney World and I counted the buoys that marked the swim course.
The idea is to swim as close to the buoys as possible and use them as a guide to swim the distance of one mile.
My strategy was VERY different.
Since I had only learned to swim properly six months prior, I could not swim one mile in a single go.
I had practiced “buoy to buoy” so to speak.
I had also heard that swimmers were so eager to finish first that they kicked you in the face, kicked off your goggles and pretty much ignored that you we also trying to finish a race.
I remember the night before I left for Disney World I had a neighbor who had done many triathlons and I asked him for advice.
He said, with a smile, “So when’s the Tri?”
I smiled right back and said, “In two days.”
He shot up from his relaxed seated position and said, “WHAT?”
He seemed to think I had waited too long to ask for help.
So I asked him for just one piece of advice.
He said, “Be careful of the other swimmers. Wear two swim caps and sandwich your goggles between them, you may hold on to them longer. Swim away from the buoys and this will lessen the chance that you’ll get kicked in the face.”
I said, “Ok, see you in a week.”
He looked at me like I had lost my mind.
Well, I took his advice and I wore two caps, I sandwiched my goggles and I swam WAY away from the buoys (even as an amateur I know that this may have doubled my swim distance).
I was NOT kicked in the face.
I added my own bits of advice.
I swam buoy to buoy!
The WHOLE way!
Want to know what else I did?
I imagined that a childhood friend was standing on each of those buoys and they were TAUNTING me like they usually did.
I imagined them saying things like, “Indrani, you’ll never make it to the next buoy!”
I imagined myself cursing them and saying, “Watch me!”
I did this for about seven buoys.
The last two buoys were different.
All of a sudden all of my childhood tormentors were piled together on the last remaining buoys and they were screaming things like,
“You GO!”
“Don’t you DARE give up!”
“We BELIEVE in you!”
I even caught myself laughing out loud as I clung to the final buoy.
At that buoy, a young man in a canoe, came up and asked if I was tired and asked if I needed to hold onto his life float.
I told him I was tired and I was worried that I was swimming in zigzags so I was really using more energy than I needed to use.
He told me that if he saw me zigzagging he would slap the water with his paddle, I would hear it and look up and see how to correct my course.
He then said, “Ma’am, please don’t give up. All of us out here on the lake want you to finish. We are all rooting for you.”
I laughed at him and said, “I am from Trinidad, I turned 50 two days ago, I learned to swim six months ago and I am like the Jamaican Bobsled Team… I will never give up!”
He laughed and said, “Ok, see you on the beach.”
Dear readers, I finished dead LAST! But I finished.
Love and light,
Indrani
The FULL COURT PRESS… You CAN stand up to them!
Do you know what the phrase “full court press” means?
My novice understanding of basketball tells me it’s when the opposing team exports most of its players to guard your players the whole length of the court. Especially the greatest players on your team like the one who scores a lot or the one who is the 3 point expert…the player most like a young Michael Jordan. I think that Michael Jordan was the recipient of many a “full court press”.
When faced with the wrath of the opposing team, one must use all of one’s wiles and wits. One must pull every trick out of the hat…make any move, even if it seems counter intuitive. It’s either make a move (a swift move), find someone to pass the ball to or just go for the shot anyway, before the ref blows the whistle that you’ve held the ball too long.
Ok, big deal, why should you care about the theory of the full court press?
So glad you asked!
Let’s use our eagle eyes to zoom out from the basketball court and soar way above our lives and take some close looks at the predicaments that we have gotten ourselves into.
When you were a kid and another kid hurt you, did you want, even long for, your parents to come to your rescue? If the answer is yes, then you longed for the full court family press to save you because you could not save yourself. You wanted your team to surround you and help you to navigate the challenge at hand.
Did your parents ever go to your school to stand with you against an unfair accusation by a teacher? If so, you were the recipient of the Full Court Press. You see the full court press does not always work the way you want it to. You may not get the teacher to admit that they were wrong BUT you will have seen that your family came to your aid and that may be all that you needed. You were NOT being blamed by your people, only by the opposing team. Your people had your back!
The full court press can work in the exact opposite way.
Take for example, your spouse hits you, so bad that you had to go to the hospital. The doctor BY LAW must report alleged domestic violence. The police begin to question you and you finally break down and all the secrets come tumbling out. The secrets of many years can no longer be held in.
Be aware that the Full Court Family Press is about to be UNLEASHED on you. The press will probably be from the side of the battering spouse, maybe even the battered spouse side may jump in.
You may be pressed and pressured with words like;
He didn’t mean it.
What did you do to upset him?
What kind of mother are you to put your children’s father in jail?
What kind of wife are you to not know how to make your family happy?
What will the rest of the family say?
What will the priest/imam/rabbi/guru/scientologist say?
When you start being barraged by the Full court press, whose only goal is to get you to go back to being abused in silence, you MUST find someone on the outside that you can “send the ball” to.
This will be someone who wants to help you live a life of JOY.
This will be someone who understands your pain.
This will be someone who has your back.
The Full Court Press to repress your rights to a peaceful life may NEVER go away.
They may vow to make your life miserable and spread rumors about you throughout the town/village/Internet.
You cannot control their actions. You can only control your own actions.
So suit up and look around. Identify those on YOUR team and give them a heads up that you may be calling on them.
Gather your team slowly and purposefully. Don’t accept people who make you feel bad even when things are good. These people may not be able to hold your pain and be a part of your full court.
I hope this got you thinking about who is REALLY on your team.
You deserve a wonderful team.
Love and light,
Indrani
Call me CRAZY!
You know the song “Call Me Maybe”? If not, Google it now and have a listen. It is really sweet and fun to dance to!
I have some lyric changes for those of us who meet someone and BAM, we are in love!
Then when it does not turn out to be a fairy tale, we blame everyone else and we swear the next “stranger in the night” will be perfect.
By the way, Stranger in The Night is another song from long ago…it too deserves a listen.
Here goes…
Hey, I just met you
You say you love me
And here’s my money
Just call me crazy
Hey, I don’t know you
But you swear you love me
And I’m so desperate
So call me crazy
Hey, where you going?
We just had sex
You said you loved me
Now you say I’m crazy?
Hey, I really love you
I really hate me
And now you’re scared of me
Am I crazy?
I don’t claim to be a song writer but you get the point, right?
Some of us do crazy things and expect romantic outcomes.
Let’s respect ourselves, have our own life plan and use our thinking brains.
And NO, THAT’S NOT CRAZY!
Love and light,
Indrani