MONDAY MUSINGS SEASON 2 - EPISODE 247
Destiny is in your hands
5th February 2024
Grief ruins courage. Grief ruins sacred learning, grief ruins all. There is no enemy like grief. Valmiki Ramayan 2-62-15
How to manage grief effectively?
We shall continue from our last episode where I stopped with two techniques to manage grief ie Acknowledge the grief and take support wherever required. More techniques now:
3. Indulge in self-care
Grief takes a lot of energy so we need to rest when we need to. One needs lot of care when grieving. Why not give care yourself? Things you can do to maintain self-care include good sleep, meditation, reading a good book, listening to favourite music, etc.
4. Be kind to yourself
Treat yourself the way you’d treat a loved one. We are pretty good at beating ourselves up when grieving. We need all the kindness we can get to manage grief.
Self-kindness is like an oxygen mask — it’ll give you the strength to keep going.
We can respond with kindness and in a voice we would use to comfort someone we love: “you’re doing the best you can right now”, “this is really painful so go easy on yourself”. We’re not trying to get rid of the sad, unwanted thoughts or feelings; we’re making space for them, allowing them to be there in this moment, and bringing in some others to join them.
5. Stop trying to control your feelings
When emotions are too painful, we often want to distract ourselves from them. But feeling the full range of emotions is to be human. The more we try to control the feelings, the more exhausted we become.
We can make space for our feelings and be more present in the world around us. We have more freedom to let them come, stay, and go in their own time instead of fighting with them, escaping from them or being controlled by them.
6. You need to weather the storm
• Acknowledge your thoughts, feelings, memories, physical sensations.
• Connect with your body: use your senses, your breath, have a stretch, press your hands together
• Engage in what you’re doing: refocus your attention to the present moment. Notice what is around you. Use your senses. What can you see, hear, touch, taste, smell?
This could vary from person to person. Here are some suggestions from #WhenLifeHitsHard by #DrRussHarris
• Find a regular time and place to acknowledge your loss
• Keep reminders of your loved one (a photo, toy, item of clothing)
• Do something symbolic (light a candle, play special music, pray, journal). Each religion prescribes elaborate practices around this.
• Take time to remember and allow your emotions to be, just as they are. Make room for them. Acknowledge your pain and memories and be kind to yourself. Notice them, name them and allow them. Hold your own hand or lay a kind hand on your heart or belly and feel the warmth of your own touch.
• Focus on the memories that you hold dear; how you want to remember your loved one – a special occasion, things they said that mean something to you, their quirks, things about them that you admire. Savour these memories and moments.
#DestinyIsInYourHands.
Many a times, I see people leaving things to destiny, blaming their failures on destiny. Is there something called destiny which we should be bothered about? Lakshman says “No. Brave men with self-respect do not believe in destiny”
विक्लवो वीर्य हीनो यः स दैवम् अनुवर्तते |
वीराः सम्भावित आत्मानो न दैवम् पर्युपासते || Valmiki Ramayan 2-23-16
"Only a confused and cowardly person depends upon destiny. Brave men with self-respect do not honour the destiny."
We will see more about destiny in the next episode of MONDAY MUSINGS
GOOD NEWS COLUMN
#AnotherInspirational12thFail
#12thFAIL, inspirational entertainer by director #VidhuVinodChopra swept filmfare awards. Here is another inspirational real-life 12th Fail’s story.
#DhirajTakri, a 21-year-old content creator from rural Odisha, has become an internet sensation for teaching people on Instagram how to speak English like an American by incorporating snippets from web series and TV shows and that is a great motivational story.
Overcoming some initial trolling, Dhiraj’s follower count rose from 160 on 7 December 2023 to 1 million on 20 January 2024—barely 44 days—on Instagram. His story of how he achieved this despite odds is very interesting.
After studying at a local village school till matriculation (Class 10), Dhiraj went to a nearby town to complete his intermediate (high school) but failed his Class 12 examinations.
Things at home were not easy for him to continue studies, his father used to repair bicycles while his mother travelled from one village to another selling bangles and other kinds of jewellery. Dhiraj went to Kerala to study at a Christian theological training institute in Thiruvalla, Kerala. Although it was a two-year course, he could study for a year only because of the national lockdown imposed following COVID-19.. He started learning English at this institute.
During a session at the school, he saw a video [on YouTube] of someone teaching how to connect words and shorten them in spoken English conversation. That captivated him to learn that kind of English.
Once Dhiraj left Kerala, he began learning American accent by watching plethora of videos online.
“There was a channel I found called RealLife English. They were teaching viewers conversational English using movie clips. I really like that format and that’s how I wanted to learn spoken English as well. Initially, I had no wish to make reels on Instagram or anything but as I kept learning how to speak, I gathered more confidence,” he explains.
“Since I’ve been learning how to speak English in a Western accent for nearly four years now, I also wanted to teach others like me. Also, I believe those who teach a skill are better at it than those who just learn. I wanted to keep improving myself by teaching others. This way I can also help others while also improving myself. As I stated earlier, I also liked the format of using movie clips to teach conversational English and began to explore them further online,” he clarifies how he ended up teaching English to others from 12th Fail.
• Anybody can achieve if there is passion and motivation.
• Failure is not a roadblock. Each Failure is a stepping stone for success.
• Those who teach a skill are better at it than those who just learn.
• You are the master of your life, Destiny is in your hands
_______________________________________________________________________________ Conceived, compiled and posted by Jaganathan T (www.authorjaganathan.com) as a weekly newsletter MONDAY MUSINGS in LinkedIn