Tag Archives: choices

When the going got tough… I had to find a way to keep going

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cheerful-happy-woman-enjoying-nature-beautiful-sky-balloonsI have been having some significant issues the past few weeks.

Most of the time I am able to stay in the moment and to stay out of negative thinking and self judgment. However, a few days ago, all my resolve fell apart and I had nothing left.

I could not crawl into a hole and hide. I could not run away from home. I could not stop caring for the people around me.

I had to find a way through a difficult 24-72 hour period.

So I chose to live by the positive psychology of PERMA.

P is for Positive Emotion
E is for Engagement
R is for Relationship
M is for Meaning and Purpose
A is for Achievement

These five elements are what make life sweet.

If the details of each day put a little deposit into each of the buckets and you can look at the day and feel good and positive about what you accomplished then you are living with PERMA.

Here is an example:

Let’s say you are facing some significant personal issues and you have no energy to  do anything for anyone but you want to do a little something for a few key people and you want to feel great about what you do.

Pick a person who needs a little help and do just a small thing, like maybe giving them some tea or a meal or just a call on the tele.

When you do this small thing you will get Positive Emotion from the deed.

You will be Engaged with the person you love.

You will be building the Relationship with that person.

You will have done something that gives Meaning and Purpose to your life.

You will have Achieved something with and for them.

Stacking up these bits of PERMA during a tough day will make you feel a lot better AND will flood your brain with Positive emotion.

It’s not always easy to find something that fills all the buckets, so just being able to fill 3 or 4 is a great start.


Love and light,


Indrani

Not seeing what has ALWAYS been there can be a true gift…

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School-boy-and-blackboard-300x300My lesson from identical twins, 25 years in the making.

I have known a set of identical twins from the moment of their birth. We have shared hours and days and weeks together over the course of their 25 glorious years on earth. They are as close as my own children and I love and respect them as much as I do my own.

I have never been able to tell them apart. My daughter has ALWAYS been able to tell them apart. She, my daughter, would get so frustrated with me when I would keep asking her which was which.

She tried to point out all the small details of their faces, the shape of the eyes, the difference in the smiles, the profile differences and still, as hard as I tried to look to see, all the details evaded me.

I remained blind.

Then, a few weeks ago, I had the lovely chance to spend five glorious days with them.

The first day I was still blind….I could not see the differences. (I had actually given up many years ago, because I was sure I would never get it.)

Then, as clear as day, I woke up the second day and I saw it.

I cannot tell you what I saw. I just had a shift in perspective and RIGHT there, I said, “Are you Jackie?” (Name changed to protect the twins.)

She said YES!

I could not believe it.

I asked again a few hours after and again I nailed it.

The next day, I nailed it again.

I do not understand what shifted in my head, but something very significant  did and  I know that I will always be able to tell them apart.

I think that this paradigm shift is what needs to happen with women who accept abuse.

They must keep looking for ways to recognize that which they have been blinded. They may have been blinded by childhood abuse, or by acts of war, or some other horrible history.

They must be able to see through what they have accepted as fact.

Each woman is the ONLY one who can shift her perspectives.

Thousands of experts can point out the problems such as:

  1. No one has the right to hit you
  2. No one has the right to rape you
  3. No one has the right to control you
  4. No one has the right to blame you for their anger

I could go on and on…

It would not matter, because unless something shifts inside of each individual person, they would not be able to escape the abuse.

I will keep doing the work I do.

Indranis Light will keep putting up blogs, sending out recordings and teaching in shelters IN THE HOPE that some people somewhere will be able to make the shift and begin to see the SIGNIFICANCE of their individuality. 

When the shift happens, when people see that THEY are worthy, NO ONE will be able to take it away and they will be able to change the relationship.

They will, like I did, say “Is that you?”

They will say, “Yes, it is me and I am worth MORE than putting up with abuse. I refuse to accept it another day longer.”

I will never give up on all the women out there who are looking for the little hints about their worth and I hope they tell me when they figure it out.

Please like our Facebook page.

 

 

Love & light,


Indrani

When the nasty “Know It All” person rears their ugly head, be very targeted in your response….

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Finger waggingAllow me to set the stage.

A couple weeks ago I buried my father.

I had the highest honor at the funeral to have delivered his eulogy.

It was, BY FAR, the most important speech I had ever and will ever make in my whole life.

I wrote and rewrote and edited and practiced and was generally very anxious about the whole day, but especially that I would do the greatest job I had ever done as a public speaker.

I wanted to rely on my memory but I choose to bring up the iPad and I stuck to the script because I was afraid I would lose my composure.

A dear friend had advised me that the eulogy should educate the congregation about the greatness of my father.

I spoke to my siblings and I spoke to his friends and to many young people that he had mentored and I composed my poetry on my Dad.

During the delivery, I spoke clearly, pausing to breathe and to allow the words to flutter like and angel’s wings over my family and dear friends who were in attendance.

I managed to get through almost 97% of it before my voice cracked and the tears began to flow.

Almost everyone came up or called up to tell me what a beautiful honoring I had done for my father.

Ok Dear Reader,

The stage has been set.

Fast forward to the actual night of the funeral. My siblings and children and nephews and mother are gathered in the humble living room in Trinidad and a friend of my mother comes to visit.

She walks in, loudly announcing that she has spent the whole day in church and has just offered up prayers for my mother.

THEN, she looks at me…

“Indrani,” she says loud and clear, “the eulogy was lovely BUT you should have said how devoted and loving your father was to your mother.”

The WHOLE room of people fell silent.

Everyone is now looking at ME, for my reaction.

Let me remind you Dear Reader, that the funeral would have been less than 8 hours prior and we were all still raw and in pain.

My sister, God bless her, sits upright from a slouched and relaxed position and says, “I MUST DISAGREE WITH YOU. You clearly did not hear the beginning when MY sister talked about their marriage of 62 years!”

The “nasty know it all” woman began to defend her position…she REALLY DID begin to defend her position!

If I wouldn’t have been so pissed I would have been laughing.

I then spoke up in a LOUD and VERY CLEAR VOICE.

And this is what I said….

“I have had many comments on the eulogy and everyone has said how lovely and honoring it was. I must tell YOU, you are the ONLY critic. I MUST give YOU a prize for the honor of being the sole critic.”

I then arose from the sofa, I walked to the dining room table and I picked up a piece of crumpled paper and I PRESENTED it to her.

I said, “THIS is your prize. Congratulations for criticizing the eulogy I spoke at my Dad’s funeral.”

Dear reader of this blog post, YOU should have seen the look on her face.

She could NOT believe that I was indeed defending myself against her attack.

She scampered out of my childhood home as fast as she could.

The lesson of this blog is this…

DO NOT allow nasty people to hijack your beautiful brain. Bring out the big response, stand on your sacred honor and let your brilliance fly.

Love and light,

Indrani

Asking the right questions may get you better answers….

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question-yourselfI have just started to read The 7 Powers of Questions by Dorothy Leeds.

When I reached for this book in the store, I rolled my eyes at my own self!

Part of me KNEW that I needed help with finding better questions to address Gender Violence, and the other part of me wanted someone else to read the book and think up the better questions.

Can you guess which part won?

Yep, the Inquirer won….she almost always does!

The questioner in me has gotten me into more trouble than I can recall.

So, as I devour this amazing book I came across this…

“Self – questioning is essential to our growth, because it helps us examine ourselves. Self-questioning cannot only help us determine our successes and our failures, but it can help us understand the reasons behind those outcomes.”

Every time a child does something that they are not supposed to do we ask, “Why did you do that?”

As parents and caretakers, we hope that we can help the child to discover the reasons for their actions.

When politicians do crazy things like tweet their private parts to random strangers and do it over and over and THEN still try to run for office, we ask, “Why? Why on earth did you do that?”

Often times we have the best questions but the perp has pitiful answers.

We cannot, however, allow our own self questions to be met with pitiful self answers.

WE (if we want to keep growing) must keep searching for better answers to the WHY questions that we ask ourselves.

Why did we allow that person to yell at us and why do we keep going back for more abuse?

Why do we persist in hitting our innocent children when WE hated that we were hit as children?

Why do we accept less than what we deserve either at work, at home or at school?

No one can give us the answers but ourselves.

We must be relentless in figuring out the answers.

I invite you to read this book, and then begin to form better questions so you can create better answers.

 

Love & light,

Indrani

How BRAVE must they be?

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A few weeks ago, there was a disturbing news report from a city called Lucknow in India.

Seems that a mother who had reported the rape of her young daughter was brutally attacked and in critical care.

The attackers were demanding that she withdraw the rape charge against their family member.

She did not.

SHE IS BRAVE!

What do you think she taught her daughter?

She is one of the bravest women I have never met.

I wish I could meet her and help her.

But chances are, I will never even know her name.

I can still help by continuing  to do the work of ending violence against women.

I am sure that my efforts will not help THIS woman BUT we will help others.

We will help as many as we can reach.

Will YOU help us to help other women?

How, you ask?

You can:

  1. Sign up for the Live a Brighter Life FREE classes and begin to stand up for yourself and for others. www.liveabrighterlife.eventbrite.com
  2. You can train to become a trainer of this work. Just send an email to Stacie@indranislight.org and she can answer any questions you may have and help you get started.
  3. You can make a donation to this foundation so that we can continue to do the great work we have started. http://indranislight.org/donate/

Any amount helps.

The choices are yours.

 

Speak up about abuse or stay silent and allow it to continue.

 

Love and light,

Indrani

My Father, the Ninja…..

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080410_ninjaWhen I hear the word Ninja, I think of a person who is stealthy, nimble and agile and uses the forces of his opponents to his advantage.

He only fights when necessary, and then too, only to defend himself or his family, or to right a terrible wrong.

My father is a Ninja.

He never let on to any of his three children how difficult it was to put food on the table. He never allowed us to suffer the stigma of “poverty” and always found ways to provide what we needed to succeed as students and young people. He encouraged all of our friends to visit, sleep over (often in drunken hazes when we were teenagers) and never once do I remember him lecturing or making us feel like losers for our immature behaviors.

He always led with love and followed with well placed stories with metaphorical lessons that somehow always made sense.

As my father lays in a sedated coma due to a severe stroke, we his children are left to remember the greatness of the Ninja skills he wielded so magnificently and we are left to wonder IF we managed to become the adults he always believed we could be and if we told him we loved him and showed it as much as we could.

I am so grateful that he never considered that his daughters be married off at young ages so that he would be relieved of our care.

He always stressed as much education as we were capable of and never wavered in his belief in our abilities to become fully functioning members of society.

I read about fathers and mothers who sell children into prostitution as a solution to bring money to the family. I cannot even imagine what my father would say to theses practices.

I read about parents dragging their girls out of school so that they can take care of the house and the younger siblings. I cannot even imagine what my Ninja father would say about that.

I cannot imagine lots of atrocities that I hear about fathers around the world. I am grateful that I had a DAD who would have given his last ounce of blood to keep his children safe and secure.

My father was a Ninja and as he sleeps in his coma, I can only hope that his dreams are of better times with me in Texas, where he loved to be.

He loved to go to the giant grocery stores and to buy what he wanted and came home to cook it for me and my children.

He loved driving my son to elementary school almost 25 miles away from home while I took care of a new baby.

He loved to go to Target and to be able to buy whatever his heart desired and it always desired very little.

If he had two pairs of pants, it was enough.

If he had four, he would say something like, “but I can only wear one pair at a time while I wash the other one.”

He was not a hoarder of material goods. He spent wisely and knew the value of a dollar.

My Ninja father taught me so very much and most of all he taught me the value of the relationship between Father and Daughter.

A bond that should never be taken lightly.

A bond that sets up the girl for a life of happiness or dread.

A bond that cements the way a girl feels about men.

My father, the Ninja, is my everything.

He is and will always be my hero.

Dad,
As you sleep know that I respect what you have taught me and I hope to continue to make you proud.

Love and light,
Indrani
Daughter of Ralph Augustine Nathu.

When religion disrespects women it’s bad for all of humanity.

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10277278_715031178560095_2112063105973454337_nI grew up a Catholic. I was one of the best Catholic girls you could ever want to meet. I was openly critical of ALL other faiths. I remember so clearly at a young age reciting the Lord’s Prayer in church and asking why we did not repeat a line that my Anglican friend used to say and I was told, “THEY don’t know the real prayer.”

Shamefully, I admit that I accepted that response as gospel and I told my friend, MY DEAR friend, that her prayer was wrong.

How hurt must she have been?

I persisted in my dogged dogmatic beliefs well into my twenties until I began to realize that ALL faiths taught the same thing and that I did not have to lambaste people about what they should believe.

The teachings from my childhood have made me a moral individual and for that I am grateful. I no longer practice anything and I consider myself a just and moral individual.

When I went to India in 1984 to get married, one of the first questions I was asked was this:

“Are you having your period?”

I was shocked and upset.

WHY was that anybody’s business?

I was told that the priest would not do the ceremony because I was unclean!!

WHAT?!!!

I remember thinking, “At least the Catholics never called me unclean!”

I refused to answer that question and I refused to play the game of being bound by yet another set of rules that made NO sense to me.

Fast forward to a few years ago, a friend asked me to speak at his Hindu temple during a women’s gathering.

I knew from past experience that this sect of Hindus DID NOT allow their women in the presence of their priests. I told my friend that I would speak but he should expect me to NOT agree with the segregation.

He withdrew his invitation, which was probably a prudent thing to do on both our parts.

The quote that appears in this blog by President Jimmy Carter seems to chronicle ALL the distaste I had seen, felt and understood throughout my life from people steeped in their religious beliefs.

There is definitely a place for religion, otherwise, the system would have died away already.

BUT why do women STILL follow religions that perpetuate a bias against females?

Why do men who love their wives and daughters still follow the dogmas that are prejudiced against women?

Would these same men and women be ok with words like:

“Women can’t be doctors.”

“Women must just be housewives and bear children.”

I have no answers to these questions.

I still have the questions and they get louder in my head.

Do you hear the same questions in your head?

 

 

Love & light,


Indrani

Words from a SURVIVOR….

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My DEAR friend Emily Anne Webber and I just had a great conversation about how abused people feel. We recorded it and there was so much goodness that I wanted to share the recording with YOU!

She has learned how to LAUGH and BE HAPPY.

YOU CAN TOO.

Give it a listen and please pass along to anyone who could benefit from these words:

Love & light,

Indrani

 

 

emilyselfgrowthEmily and I will be doing a summer call series called ASK THE SURVIVOR. You can send in questions about abuse, surviving abuse, living with an abuser, etc and she will answer. She has so much to share.

Stay tuned for more information on our Ask the Survivor Summer Series!

For more information on Emily, please visit here.

Tell your fears….NOT TODAY

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“Fear is a habit, I am not afraid.” ~Aung San Souci

Click on the image below to find out if I let my fear stop me from walking this cantilever bridge….

photo

 

 

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Dancing Queen only 17…

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A few years ago I created a flash mob in my town to the song Dancing Queen by Abba.

I twirled and sang and enjoyed the freedom to dance in public and not be ridiculed.

Until that day, I had forgotten what it was like to be 17 and NOT a dancing queen.

At 17, in Trinidad, I was in charge of my siblings four and eight years younger than I and I had full emotional responsibility for them. My father worked all day and night to keep us fed and clothed and sheltered and we were the light of his life.

My mother had immigrated to the US to work and try to bring us there as well.

At 17, I had already been caring for my siblings for 3 years and it was hard work.

A teenage brother who never listened, nor should he have, was rudderless and a baby sister who clung to me like I was her mom, which I guess I was.

I remember thinking some days that I just wanted to run away and disappear. I was tired of being the caretaker when, the truth was, I needed care myself.

I had ONE thing in my favor. Education!

I went to school every day and studied as hard as I could and was usually at the head of my class.

In those days, I had no dreams. I only knew that school was my refuge and it would have broken my heart if I had not been I allowed to go to school.

A few weeks ago in Delhi, I met a curious 17 year old and OH how she desperately wanted to be allowed to study and not just given in marriage.

Her mother, whom I also met, told me and her, in no uncertain terms that she would have to marry at age 20!

She looked at me and said WHY?

I could not answer. Instead I asked her mother if perhaps she could be the next Indira Gandhi or the next Mother Teresa.

The mother said that she never thought about it.

Looking back at my 17 year old self, taking care of children and struggling to make sense of my own needs and those of my siblings, I would have cratered if I had been told I had to marry at 20!

One of my friends from India tells me how useless it is to make programs for girl’s free education when they are not even allowed to go to school in the first place.

There are no ready answers for the multitudes of questions surrounding girls, education, marriage and children BUT there is ONE clear fact… if a girl gets as much education as she wants, she will be a better functioning member of society, a better mother and a much better wife.

Let her stay in school, give her brain a chance to develop and become mature. Just because her body is capable of producing children does NOT mean she should!

Raise your voices; keep girls in school and learning.

Love and light,
Indrani