Tag Archives: decisions

I love me, I love me not, I love me….how to know if you love yourself.

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A few weeks ago I got some bad news. Something that I was looking forward to for more than ONE year got cancelled and just sort of fell apart. I did not receive any real reason.

I FELL apart.

I had to “phone a friend” and I gave myself permission to cry my eyes out.

She held space for me and I let it pour. I had not let myself fall apart like that for years.

After the wave of emotion crested and crashed, I felt better… except that ANGER began to swirl.

The previous pain was replaced by INTENSE rage and I wanted to call the offender all sorts of names and hurl insults … then I saved myself by going to sleep. The good news was that I was able to find sleep and peace whereas before I would have stewed all night and woke up even more angry.

But this time, I woke up refreshed and I took to the streets for my daily walk.

I walked almost 6 miles and I felt great.

I also had some really great conversations with myself on the walk.

There were two wolves in my head, one was righteously mean and the other sweetly compassionate.

Every time the mean wolf would speak, it would list the “ways” I SHOULD act. If I did not act in those ways, the wolf told me that I was a wimp and a push over and so on and so forth!

The other wolf would wait for the first wolf to stop speaking and just whisper something like
“you know that this person is not nasty, you know the person is one of the kindest you know…”

Then the mean wolf would jump back in…

And so it went.

I began to get very confused. What to do? Who to believe?

Then I had a thought!

“Indrani,” I said to myself, “what KIND of person are you? What if this was the last decision you will ever make about this person? Who do YOU want to be like, the mean wolf or the compassionate wolf?”

And just like that I knew what to do.

If you know me, dear reader, you KNOW I choose wolf number TWO, the wolf of Compassion. That is the wolf I choose to feed. I fed it with great thoughts about the person, great memories about the person and I said a silent prayer for the person to be well and safe and happy.

When I got home, I decided on the proper course of action for me. I decided to do the activities by myself. I decided that the decisions of another had to do with them, not me. If I wanted to go somewhere or do something, it was my business.

At my ripe age of 60, I really have NO time for waiting for another to fulfill my desires.

I have no time for regret.

So I offer this lesson to you.

When you are disappointed, as you sometimes will be, don’t allow your pain and your self righteous wolf lead down the path of nasty and revenge.

Try to feed the Wolf of Compassion and free your self from the “expectations” of what others should do for you.

Make YOUR decisions for your happiness.

Decide to be compassionate to yourself, as you offer compassion to the other.

Hope this helps…

 

Love and light,

Indrani

Life is a series of paths…take them

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walking_alone via lifeundermicroscopeIf you take a meditative moment to chart your life you will see that you have arrived where you are by consciously or subconsciously taking a series of paths.

Some of them were clearly marked:

  • Elementary School
  • Middle School
  • High School

Maybe you ended right where those paths were going.

Maybe you changed your mind.

Make no mistake; you took another path, and another and many more.

Maybe you took a path called Marriage and ended up at a destination called Divorce.

Perhaps the College path led to Masters and PhD, maybe it led to Take a Break from College.

 

When you take a moment to reflect on your paths, be sure to congratulate yourself on all the ways you have been trying to find yourself and your Joy.

Only you can make these “turn on a dime” decisions.

If one decision is not working out, make another decision.

Your stash of decisions is limitless.

Your ability to “turn on a dime” is honed.

Your readiness for change is built into your DNA.

Take a new path and see where it leads… then take another.

 

Love and light,

Indrani

Choices, roles and other mysteries…

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These days the word “choice” has a bad rap. It can only mean that we are on one side of a heated debate about women’s health. This blog is NOT about that choice, so please don’t feel like you must run for cover, find a picket sign, or shout “You go girl”!

This piece is about the choices we make every day that mold the life we eventually live. This is about all those little unconscious choices, like the 6th piece of cheesecake or the 4th affair or the decision to drive from Houston to Florida in order to shoot the girlfriend of your lover. Remember the female astronaut who was married and having an affair but was pissed off that her single lover had another girlfriend? I have to believe that her brain was offline…that is the only possible way that a woman who was brilliant enough to be one of the few to have gone into space could be cloudy enough to do what she did.

So, it is settled, smart people make stupid decisions!

I know that YOU are smart, so how can we make you immune to stupid mistakes?
I use the word ‘immune’ quite loosely, because I do not believe we can be completely immune to stupid mistakes.
We can, however, remember what is truly valuable to us so that we have a better chance of surviving the attack of “what was I thinking?”

My definition of personal values is a daily dose of remembering who we are at the core of our being and promising ourselves to stay true to that vision of who we are.
What kind of person do you wish to be known as?
Do you want to be the type of person who sneaks around having affairs and lying to your family?
Do you want to be the type of person who beats your spouse behind closed doors?

Staying present to your core values and your knowledge of what is right or wrong is one of the better ways to not stray from being a good and decent person.
It means that you hold true to your core beliefs in every decision you make.
You do not scream at others while saying you hate it when people scream at you.
It means that you weigh your responses before you fly off the handle and then ask for forgiveness.
It means that you respect others as you would expect to be respected.

The mystery of why we humans act more like animals than the rational beings we are is quite beyond me.
Why do we abuse woman and children?
Why do clergy sexually abuse little children?
Why are there so many instances of domestic violence and why do we make excuses for such behaviors?

Our choices and the roles we choose for our lives should not be made in a vacuum. It should not be a mystery as to why we continue to make the same insane mistakes. It should not cause us to scratch our heads in disbelief and not know why we do what we do.

Let’s make choices for ourselves that will allow us to enjoy the mystery of life that surrounds us. The mysteries of nature, the mysteries of love and the mysteries of the love we feel when we see children smile. Let’s make informed choices so that we can be surrounded by sweet mysteries…not by insane mysteries of uninformed decisions that are made when brains are offline.

Love & light,

Indrani

You can buy a tiger but you can’t buy common sense!

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I have right to have whatever I want in my home.
I have a right to be safe from my crazy neighbors.
The city has a right to protect the larger community.
First responders put themselves in danger when things go wrong.

I was really enthralled in the conversation when one of the first responders said:

“You can buy a tiger, but you can’t buy common sense”

At first I chuckled, but began to see this statement as wiser than it
first seems.

I can buy a tiger without any currency exchange.
I can summon up that tiger in me at the drop of a hat.
I can jump out of a perfectly smooth day into rage and fierce anger
when I DECIDE that someone is infringing on my rights.
We see this behavior in teenagers all the time.

A teenager might say “I have the right to my own life, just leave me alone”
and the very next minute they need money or your car.

A grown person might say
“I have the right to a satisfying relationship and my
partner is too boring. I deserve to have that affair, or to just dump
my partner”
We see and read about this behavior all the time.

The next time you decide to inhabit the fierce animal within, act as
if it would be easier to purchase some common sense instead.
It’s a lot harder than grabbing hold of the raging beast but in the
long run, it is much easier on you, your family and the community at
large.

Let’s think LONG term solutions, let’s think common sense.
Let the raging animal slink back into its well furnished cave. Don’t
worry; it’s never really that far away.
I guarantee it will poke its head out in a few minutes.
Beware the beast within!

Love and light,

Indrani