Month: October 2022

Inspiration to Be Yourself

So before I write this blog post I would like to tell you that you are perfect. No matter how imperfect your life is, you are perfect. You don’t need to change anything about yourself.

Now if you think that being yourself is difficult or impossible and that you need to be a “better version” of yourself, I’ll tell you a story.

Music has always been an integral part of my life. I like listening to all kinds of songs and especially emotionally charged electronic and dance music.

So recently I found a streamer on Twitch.tv accidentally and I loved that she was singing covers of some of the most beautiful songs ever. And I followed her.

The best part of it was I loved the community. I never felt judged and I could be myself.

I still love the community. And even though we don’t share information about our private lives, we are pretty cool and we play games and listen to music together sometimes.

It was here that I realized I need to be myself. I realized this when I decided to face my fear of talking to groups of people. 

I am extremely shy and introverted and I have social anxiety. So it was difficult for me but I faced the fear anyway.

But I love being myself. I feel comfortable in my own shoes. And I feel more positive every day.

The key is to “Be yourself”. 

The way to be yourself is in feeling comfortable with who you are.

If you are a nice person, and you sometimes become aggressive or too funny or go over the top too much in a certain social situation, you need to be nice.

If you are actually an over-the-top funny person and you sometimes act too nice out of anxiety, then you need to be over the top again.

You see you need to be yourself. It’s good for your mental health.

Another story is when I was not being myself and I was trying to change myself.

In high school, I was too focused on fitting in and I lost touch with my true self. 

I remember we had a study abroad college fair where many colleges from outside India had come to our city. I was trying to be an extrovert which I wasn’t.

I couldn’t be an extrovert and so I blamed myself and wanted to change myself.

I later realized that I should’ve been trying to be myself which would later be effortless.

Conclusion

So yeah, it is definitely possible to be social, be yourself and find a community.

Thanks for reading this blog post. Let me know- What do you feel about being yourself?

5 Myths Of Journaling From Experience

I think for a person who is depressed and hopeless, a way to get hope is to self-reflect using journaling.

 Journaling is important.

I think most people are intimidated by the word “journaling”. 

I think there’s no reason to be afraid of this word. 

I will share some of the myths I had about journaling and the reasoning I used to overcame them.

Myth no.1
You have to journal daily

This is absolutely not true. You can journal once a week, once a month or whenever you want.

 The point of journaling is to express your thoughts and read them back to get context. 

It’s best if you journal regularly but it’s not a requirement.

I journal a few times a week and not regularly. 

Myth no. 2
You have to journal for years to see results

This is not true. You can journal one day and still get something valuable out of the process. 

The key is to be yourself and consider your journal as yours and share fully with it. 

I remember watching youtube videos where it’s said that it takes around 8 years to “get results” with journaling.

I am sure it takes less than 8 years to “get results” and I am pretty sure you can get something valuable on the same day of writing.

You see when you write in a journal, you are observing your thought patterns, the stories you tell yourself, you release your stress, you become honest with yourself, you share your true intentions, etc.

This is valuable for your mental health.

Plus, when I write a journal entry, I write my worries and ask what should I do? And I come up with answers on my own.

This acts as a way to make decisions more effectively. 

It’s like facing the evil inside. When you write in a journal, you face the evil inside you, your own limitations, your own face in the mirror, etc.

This is very useful for “getting results”.

Myth no. 3
You don’t know how to journal properly

The truth is that you don’t need to know how to journal. That’s the beauty of journaling.

You don’t need to know the right questions to ask yourself or buy a Stoicism journal with stoic questions with blank spaces for writing your answers.

You need to let yourself write anything you want in the journal. 

It’s your journal and you can write anything.

 The beauty is it can be a physical journal, it can be a digital journal, a colourful one, a scrapebook, a plain white paper or anything you want. 

The beauty is that you can write anything you want, anyhow you want it.

Myth no. 4
You have to read your past journal entries to get results

I think I heard from a video of Tony Robbins that you should be reading your journal entries or if not, you should not be writing a journal at all to get results.

I think it is false from my experience. I think results are not just about changing behaviour but also about feeling the feelings that are not expressed normally. 

And in my opinion, reading your journal in the future won’t help you feel life’s pains or pleasures at the moment. 

It is good if you can read your entries two months later, you might get insights about yourself, but it is not necessarily the only way for change to take place.

After all, feelings are an important part of your mental health and writing at the moment in the journal is a key part of feeling your life’s problems or states of happiness.

Myth no. 5
You don’t need a journal of your choice 

I would say this is partially false. You do need to love the process of journaling.

And one way to love it is to invest in a good journal or a keyboard or a pen or a quiet place to sit in. 

You need to love the process of sitting down and expressing your thoughts on paper to journal consistently.

I remember I was in a forum for personal development, and someone had written that if investing in a good journal of your choice, a nice pen, a nice laptop, or whatever that makes you love journaling, then you need to do it.

I use Rustic Town’s leather journal. And I love it. I feel like a writer.

Conclusion

So in spite of all these myths, one can and should journal. If one of these myths had been stopping you in the past and you haven’t tried journaling before, please consider journaling because it’s really powerful.

Thank you for reading this blog post. I am excited to share more ideas and stories in this personal blog about hope. 

So I will end this blog post with a quick question for you- Do you journal sometimes? What do you like about journaling?

3 Things I Am Grateful For

Here are 3 things I am grateful for and why I am grateful for them is given below. No big deal, just 3 things:

The first thing is miracles.

I am grateful for miracles. Miracles that give us hope, a sense of wonder, and a sense of gratitude itself.

A story I would share with you about miracles is finding amazing friends.

I had the opportunity to make friends who are like me.

When I was in the mental health hospital for my psychosis treatment, when I was in high school when I was in my happiest and unhappy moments.

I think friends are miracles. What a concept the thing is- FRIENDS! Some person whom you can be yourself with, outside your family!

So when I was in the mental health hospital, I met a person M, who helped me get through all those days. I was playing badminton one evening, and she asked if she could play too. I said “Ok”.

The next day we chatted and became friends very quickly.

But I was having problems with my mental health. She was there to talk. I was also there to support her.

I mean to say that before this I used to believe that I couldn’t make friends because I was an introvert. But I realized that friends exist like a handful of people made in heaven for us.

I used to think that I was forever doomed to be depressed and that I was indeed in deep depression. But friends made me realize that miracles exist.

The second thing is my privilege.

I am very privileged. My parents have money, and I am loved and I am intelligent enough to read dense philosophical books, I also have ambitious genes, I can introspect, I am a sensitive person, I am a Libra, and my parents own their flat, etc. I am born in India where great leaders like B. R. Ambedkar, Sidhu and Kanu, Birsa Munda, Gandhi, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, Rabindranath Tagore, etc were born.

I am very privileged.

The story I want to share for the privilege is of my sister. She always put the right thoughts in my head. I am a naive person. And she always inspired me. She is a true leader and she taught me to be grateful for my privileged.

One day when I was young about 15 years old many years ago(I’m 22 now), I didn’t know much about the #metoo movement. I made a very rash statement to her about #metoo. And she scolded me and told me the facts.

I learnt to respect women and have a realistic perspective from my sister. I told you I was privileged. I am truly lucky!

The third thing is God.

I am listening to a song called “I Bet You Don’t Curse God” by Christina Grimmie right now. It’s a beautiful song!

Through thick and thin, through my psychosis, depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, etc. God is the reminder and fact that kept me going.

This story is about my philosophy tuition teacher madam R.

On the first day of my philosophy tuition year when I was in a Philosophy course in college, she asked me if I believed in God? I at first said a diplomatic answer, neither yes nor no.

Then she asked me this. “What is God to you?”

I still remember what I answered.

I said,” I think God is what remains when everything is stripped from existence and nothing remains. Then what remains is God.“

What I meant when saying this, I don’t know to date. Because it’s a feeling to me.

Madam R said,” You alone deserve to study Philosophy.”

What I meant to tell you through this story is not to brag about me. But to tell you that God is the reminder and the fact.

It doesn’t matter what religion you belong to. What matters is faith.

I am naturally more of a doubt guy than a faith guy. But life has reminded me to have faith over and over again.

I still get frustrated when something bad happens to me. But I also always look for the feeling when I say “I think God is what remains when everything is stripped from existence and nothing remains. Then what remains is God.”

By the way, I stole the idea from a song from the music “Kun Faya” from the Bollywood movie “Rockstar”. I don’t want to take credit. But I say it only because I strongly believe and feel its truth and that’s what happened when I said it to madam R.

Conclusion

So to summarize, the 3 things I am grateful to God for are:

1. Miracles

2. My privilege

3. God

So thank you for reading this blog post. A question for you: What are you grateful for today? You don’t have to tell me why. Just mention three points.