Here for writing

Yesterday started with me feeling sad. Am taking a week long break from teaching yoga, which means I get extra 3-4 hours per day at my disposal. As usual, I started making too many plans, but somewhere, having learnt the lessons from past experiences, I forced myself to slow down with my crazy planning and reminded myself that this is a "BREAK WEEK" , which means I truly do have to take a break, rest, rejuvenate and refresh myself by doing  / not doing things as appropriate. Yesterday morning, I woke up with a head full of ideas and the mindset to actually go all out and execute them all...inspired, excited and thrilled...bright eyed and bushy tailed and what not. The darkened windows mislead me into thinking I was up early, but when I checked the time, it was already 7 am, which meant I don't have the time to actually execute all that I had in mind. Why you ask? Well, my little one, who is now 16 months, will wake up in another 45 mins to 1 hour and once she is up, there

It has been quite a while since I had the luxury to sit in front of my laptop, opening the blogger page and tapping the keys to see my thoughts unfold into words. And it is such a gratifying feeling to be able to do this - without any agenda, without any expectations of what will flow out or whether it will be interesting or boring or relevant or irrelevant. Just the simple act of being able to articulating the thoughts is a reward unto itself. The recent events in my life has made me understand the magic that each moment holds. Whatever maybe the external situation, no matter the grief, frustration, anger etc etc, if I pause for a moment, there is pure magic waiting in that moment.  The beauty of this life is its uncertainty. Anything can happen to anyone at anytime. Yet, here we are, planning and securing our future. No doubt it is essential, but in all the doing, to loose sight of just being is the biggest tragedy!  It is so profound to experience every moment in its entirety. being

Mornings are my most productive times. Am not talking about pre-dawn times when everyone is still asleep. No no.... I am mostly leading a yoga session during those times. Am talking about the comfortable 7-7.30 am types when we wake up without the aid of the alarm. The body and mind refreshed by sleeping as long as it needs, but not so long that half the day is already gone. On such days, especially like this Sunday morning, when I am not already pulled in so many directions and not constantly checking the clock, I like to indulge. But the problem with indulging is, I have too many favourite things to indulge :) I Start with all enthusiasm...brewing a hot strong sweet coffee and opening the Sunday express. As I am half way through the coffee, my mind stops paying attention to the sweet aromatic warmth sliding into my soul and starts jumping... "Oh how lovely it will be to do some yoga now...maybe I should do my journaling now and digest some of what I have been feeling / going thr

I rarely engage in social media. My feed is mostly full of quotes and pictures of the Masters, yoga videos and cat/dog other animal videos. The posts that I put up will either be related to yoga / vedanta / special needs. To preserve my own sanity, I have unfollowed people who post either extreme left or extreme right posts, posts that glorify / demean religion or caste etc.  One cannot deny that social media has tremendous power in shaping people's opinion, give a glimpse of lived experiences of those whom we otherwise may not come across in real life, provide a platform for everyone to voice their side of the story, raise awareness of issues that are not spotlighted by main stream media etc. It is a wonderful tool, a great boon to connect people across the world, it can broaden our horizons...basically it has unlimited power. And we all know that it is a double edged sword. I am not going to get into the pros and cons of social media.  Instead, I would like to s

There is so much rage within.  A rage born out of frustration. A rage that is always simmering because of the inability to be myself. A rage that is also fed by the fact that what I am going through is nothing when compared to the sufferings of others. And also a rage at the social conditioning that makes us feel our sufferings are not valid because it is always compared to what the "others" go through.  There is still very little conversation about post-covid recovery. And this lack of conversation led me to believe that all that I was experiencing was in my head. Well, now I am slowly understanding that it is not just in my head. It is real. I don't want to talk much about my covid story here. Nothing remarkable about it. I tested positive on June 6, 2020 and was in home quarantine till June 22, 2020. I had mild symptoms and did not experience any breathlessness whatsoever by God's grace. I slept away the first week of quarantine and was counting down the days

As we are slowly getting back to our routine, I am looking back at the beginning of the lockdown and how it all unfolded for me. As the whole world withdrew inside their homes, the environment became so conducive to go within. The stillness on the outside easily helped achieve a stillness within.  As the world slowed down, the mind also slowed down. Activities came down to a bare minimum. Actions were performed only on a need basis. No mindless running around. Within this physical stillness, the mind stopped gathering new impressions. And with no new impressions to distract, the older ones surfaced up with a vengeance. When that happened, there was no choice but to confront them. Look them in the eye and truly SEE them for what they are.   And when that work was done, it was like a huge chunks of slush and dirt that were clogging the spirit were cleared off, allowing for the state of flow to manifest so beautifully. As the inner world cleared out, the actions coming fo