Day10/90 – The origami wish

Origami is a Japanese art form of folding paper to make intricate designs, without using glue to hold it together, prior markings or any cutting material. Ori which means folding; gami meaning art, has been taught in Japan for generations, passed on from parents to their children and even taught in schools. Modern origami is still a very prevalent art culture.

One particular origami design that is very popular is the Orizuru or the origami paper crane. Cranes are considered mystical holy birds in Japanese culture for they live a thousand years. A thousand orizuru strung together with strings is called a Senbazuru. According to ancient legend, the completion of a senbazuru promises a wish for eternal happiness, good luck, a long life, recovery from an illness or healing granted by the gods (the only condition being that the same person makes all of the thousand paper cranes). For the same reason, a senbazuru makes the perfect gift for a special one. That is why thousands of origami cranes are made each year (one for each year) in many countries, honouring peace and culture.

This correlates to a very interesting story of Sadako Sasaki, a small girl of two from Japan that was exposed to radiation from the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.This later made her suffer from leukaemia. That’s when she began making the senbazuru in a hope that completing it will grant a wish to save her life from the disease that was killing her. Unfortunately she could only make 644 after which she was too weak to fold and went on to pass away. Later her classmates, in her memory, completed the remaining cranes.

This is only a tale, just like a Disney movie, too good to be true. Sadako sadly died before she could fold the thousand to save her life and a million paper cranes go in vain without making wishes come true every year. Just like Santa doesn’t bring gifts on Christmas and a tooth fairy that put coins under my pillow twenty years ago simply never existed.

Have you ever been so tired that you feel tired right down to your soul? All you ever want is for a genie to magically appear to grant all of your wishes. That is exactly how I felt when I read the Japanese tale of magical wish granting cranes. So I asked myself what my wish would be if I ever did manage to make one thousand of these thingies. Without a second of doubt I knew my only wish would be to have a mind that is in control and at rest with a heart that is whole again, full of love to give to itself first.

Being on this journey of healing from emotional trauma and mental health issues, I gathered magazines and all the papers I could find in my house today. Following an origami video, I managed to fold my first origami crane, my first orizuru. It was bad honestly, my crane didn’t look anything like the one I was trying to replicate. So I made another one, then another one and finally after a few attempts I could make them without peeping on the steps. I folded 20 paper cranes. Honestly if I keep at this pace it will take me a long time to make a senbazuru and get my wish.

The origami wish might never come true, but I was so occupied in making them for the past hour and a half that my mind was at rest while my eyes were focused on something other than the harsh reality of my existential crises. At the end when I saw those birds that my hands had made from nothing but paper, I did have a smile on my face. If folding pieces of paper into shapes of a bird every single day, in a hope that in doing so my pain will go making me a whole person again one day, honestly, I might as well will do it. That hope is enough to hold onto and work for. I sit with 20 paper cranes scattered on my bed sharing this story right now and in all honesty, I am a happy girl who made her first twenty ozurus.

Day 10/90.

Day 9/90- Poetry is soul food (Part -2)

I haven’t been feeling too good again today, but I did come up with a couple of pieces;

you lit a cigarette

It’s smell hit my lungs

Smoke filled my mouth

But all I tasted were your lips

Pressed against mine

Your tongue flicked with agony

A cloud escaped my mouth

then yours

till it disappeared in the space between us

But your lips stayed.

never leaving mine

Like they had found their abode

Humbly inviting you in forever

Making me feel numb and alive

all at the same time

Asking me the same question

Over and over

Tell me you’re mine

But a little deeper this time

Baby hold me close forever

Baby Can we kiss forever?

✨✨✨

Our bodies are like two big galaxies

Colliding with so much passion

That it consumes us

It sends waves under my skin so deep

I shiver

I forget reality

lose all sense of time

Lose all sense of space

when you’re on top of me

You’re the master

me a puppet

ready to explode with you inside me

With a window cracked

the moonlight hits your face

I see you moan

your face twists

The pleasure goes deep

this pleasure is ours

You Hold me like you’ve never held me before

each time you fill me up

with all your love and more

Just this time

Keep me close

Just this time,

Promise me

Just this time

Don’t let go.

✨✨✨

I saw you today

Passing by

You drove off fast

Gave me a glimpse but didn’t smile

I saw your face and remembered how i held it

at 3 am

on countless nights

it was the most peaceful place on earth

that time you called me – *mine*

The nights i drowned in on you

Poured my insides out

let you consume each cell in my body

And the dawns i woke up

with your face on my pillow

gentle snores filled the room

Our legs tangled all the way down to our feet

Raw, Naked

but at home at the same time

Touching but feeling in our own skin

Like your skin was my skin

and we were but one person

Honey, it’s funny just how time changes people

Now we are two different souls

Lost in our two different worlds

Disconnected.

broken off.

strangers.

Darling

It’s funny just how time changes people..

✨✨✨

I miss you when the rain touches the grass

The fragrance makes me crave all things comforting

You were my comfort

A cup of hot chocolate fudge that

doesn’t taste the same now that we aren’t fighting for who gets more

I miss the way your eyes turned to a lighter tone of brown every time the sun hit them

Your cologne in my hair , hands and clothes every time i come home after clinging onto you for dear life

How do i forget my zen?

❤️

Again, I know these aren’t perfect pieces, but they are a little piece of my heart and thoughts that I shared. Don’t stop listening to your heart, whatever it’s condition maybe at the time ( hurt, torn, broken) just listen to it, give it love, make poetry out of it no matter how imperfect. That’s how you’ll let it heal.

Day9/90.

Day 7/90: Practising Surya Namaskaram

Surya Namaskar or Sun Salutations are a series of twelve linked yoga poses that date back to ancient times and have been practised by yoga gurus, meditation experts in India for centuries.

Experts say that performing these interconnected asanas can have many physical, mental and spiritual benefits :

#1 Physical Well being: Performing the sequence makes an excellent aerobic workout promoting weight loss, with one cycle burning approximately 13.9 calories and activating 14 groups of muscles making it a great cardiovascular exercise. The pressure that is applied on the body through the yoga poses, helps improve digestion and lower blood sugar levels making it a great workout routine for diabetics. It is also known to diminish skin conditions, ageing, acne and scars promoting a youthful glowing skin.

#2 Mental well being: A strict daily practise can help the body move any stuck energy or emotion that no longer serves it, in turn healing any past or present emotional trauma. A controlled breath work with the asanas can help treat anxiety, depression and insomnia.

#3 Spiritual well being: It energises all the chakras specifically the Solar Plexus region which helps strengthen will power, self confidence and decision making skills. Moreover, the fire that builds in the body through the workout has cleansing, detoxifying and healing effects and builds core stamina.

It is a fairly easy routine to follow without needing to spend any money to pay for an instructor, buy expensive equipment or gear. They can be performed at any time of the day, at any frequency on a yoga mat or out on the open grass in your garden, whatever works well for you.

Talking about the the number of cycles, only a thorough daily practise and slowly adding cycles can help build your stamina to perform 108 Surya Namaskaras which is the golden number for the salutations. But starting at a rate of 4 a day and slowly making your way up will you get you to the top. For beginners it is best to listen to your body and maintain your pace accordingly.

Why 108 though? The sum of the numbers equals 9 which is a number of awakening in the practice of Ayurveda. Also, Practitioners had 108 beads in the malas(garlands) they used for meditation. There are 108 points on the body that are touched in the process of one cycle. Lastly, the sun earth distance which is 108 times the suns diameter also has a significance in determining this number. Therefore 108 is the number of times yogis have been practising this ancient regimen and is known to be beneficial.

The steps taken from a trusted source “Art of living” are illustrated below:

Pranamasana ( Prayer Pose)Hastauttanasana (Raised Arms Pose)Hastapadasana (Standing Forward Bend)Ashwa Sanchalanasana (Equestrian Pose)Dandasana (Stick Pose)Ashtanga Namaskara (Salute with eight parts or points)Bhujangasana (Cobra Pose)Adho Mukha Svanasana (Downward Facing Dog Pose)Ashwa Sanchalanasana (Equestrian Pose) Hastapadasana ( Standing Forward Bend)Hastauttanasana (Raised Arms Pose) Tadasana (Mountain Pose)

This completes one set of Surya Namaskar and to complete a whole round repeat the steps but this time start with taking left foot behind in step 4 and bringing right foot forward in step 10.

Voila.. here we have it.

Day 7/90 : I haven’t moved a muscle or burst a drop of sweat in months so hopefully adding this yoga routine will help relax mind, body and soul in this self love healing journey.

❤️

Day6/90: Hello Fitness!

The body is your temple. Keep it pure and clean for the soul to reside in.

What happens if you treat your body like a trash can instead and shower it with cheap, easy to make store bought ramen noodles every night past bedtime, drink four cups of coffee everyday for no good reason and eat sugar like there’s no tomorrow every single day. I’ll tell you what happens : acne breakouts, a wardrobe full of clothes that don’t fit, a severely low self esteem, sluggishness and tiredness throughout the day, cancelled plans to avoid meeting people because you hate the site of yourself in the mirror every morning.

Welcome to my life. This is Me. Every.Single.Day. Since the past few years. I eat when I am bored to the point I bore myself of it. Today I woke up and had a bar of Hershey’s. Now while I was eating it I passed a mirror. Mouth full of chocolate, I saw a girl that was obviously me but ten kilograms overweight. I don’t remember the last time I weighed myself because of how scared I am of stepping on the weighing machine. When I do find the courage to step on it I end up feeling even worse, then I binge on another chocolate bar to feel better thinking I’ll start tomorrow (so I’m allowed to eat as much sugar as I can today because it is my last time).

Tomorrow never comes, my friend.

Eating like a glutton is, gluttony. Period. It is one of the seven sins. Quarantine is no excuse to eating like a maniac. Beauty is on the inside but would you rather look like a cow on the outside? But in all honesty, when I asked myself why I eat the way I eat even when I’m not hungry, I was surprised by how my mind answered. Eating disorders are most common amongst people that have underlying emotional disturbances. By eating we tend to fill the otherwise hollow void, to feel good and run away from that emotional turbulence. It is a sign that you have a deeper problem you need to get to the root of. I understand it now. There’s no hiding. You will feel bad about yourself before eating but after eating, you’ll feel worse. What feels good on the tongue at the moment later pushes you deeper down the spiral. Don’t go for the ten seconds of pleasure on the tongue, instead recognise what you are dealing with and then deal with it – this is the real solution. That’s exactly what I’m trying to do rn.

So the million dollar question is, how do I start?

After some research, I came up with the ultimate guide to eating healthy in a hope of making changes to my physical health, here it is :

#1 Saying bye: Bust your kitchen and get rid of all things unhealthy. All the candy bars, sugary drinks, biscuits, cakes, soft drinks, breads, pastas -they all need to go. If you want to take this seriously without giving up the day after cause you saw your favourite bag of Lay’s lying around -get rid of it! Now!

#2 Make up your mind. Stay motivated: Find a purpose, a motivating trigger to get you going. It can be a date, a dress you long to wear but can’t fit in, to simply feel good when you look at yourself in the mirror or to sleep with the satisfaction that you’re doing this right. Then stay motivated. Join a weight loss group online. I like watching the documentary series my sister introduced me to called “Bringing sexy back” on Netflix. Whatever works for you is good. Apparently sniffing food when you’re hungry using smaller, blue plates also trick your mind to eating less

#3 Prepare: Make a healthy shopping list every week, make custom made diet charts according to whatever suits you best, ready a week in advance and prep meals to not feel lazy when you’re hungry (Hunger can make you take all the wrong decisions trust me). Time your meals and eat at the exact same time everyday. Start at 9 am finish before 7pm. Brush your teeth so you officiate the end of eating for the day.

#4 Choose your drinks wisely: Water is your best friend. It will help you cut back on empty calories when you feel hungry, boost your metabolism and help in weight loss. Read Day 3/90: Let’s hydrate to get started. Try drinking beverages like green tea, lemonade, low fat milk , almond milk , matcha, clear home made vegetable soups and vegetable juice. Avoid sugary drinks , diet sodas and fruit juices which are high on sugar.

#5Understanding food groups: In order to consume a healthy balanced diet, focus on adding all food groups to your diet. Oats, whole wheat bread, whole wheat flour, quinoa and brown rice make excellent sources of complex carbohydrates. Skinless chicken, eggs, lean meat, fish, pulses, soya, nuts (almonds, walnuts) and seeds are all good sources of protein. Fresh fruits and vegetables make excellent sources of fibre and natural sugar in a diet. Add coconut oil, virgin olive oil, ghee and nuts to your diet as a source of healthy fats. Avoid eating white processed sugar instead go for healthier replacements like stevia, brown sugar, honey and jaggery. Remember portion control is everything, add all food groups to your plate.

#6 Keep track: Keep track of what you eat in a day in your daily journal. Logging in the details of all your meal plans will help you see your daily diet chart clearly in turn promoting weight loss. Weigh and measure yourself on a fixed day of every week. Keep notes to see your progress. It will keep you motivated.

#7 Be patient: Weight loss isn’t a one day trip, it is a journey. You have to be patient, consistent, show some strong will power and dedication to getting to your goals. Start with calculating your B.M.I and then set realistic goals for yourself. Loosing 0.9 kilograms a week is considered a healthy and safe rate to loosing weight. Instead of relying on fad diets that will show transient weight loss which will bounce right back, aim at making life changes that are practical and can be followed easily in the long run.

#8 Cheat: After eating healthy for a while, our brain gets tired of holding back and the weight loss might slow down so add a cheat meal to your weight loss journey. I recommend every Saturday afternoon lunch as a cheat meal but start only after being 3 weeks in a pure healthy diet cause speaking from experience, if you take a cheat meal without having a good grip at it you might relapse (speaking from experience). Try cutting back on alcohol and smoking Day5/90: I Quit. while you work your way to achieving your goals. They will only reduce your metabolism and slow weight loss.

I hope this was helpful and you join in on my journey of getting fitter.

Day6/90 hello fitness!

❤️

Day5/90: I Quit.

Three years ago I smoked my first cigarette. I was with a group of friends that were smokers. They seemed cool to me, I was in my rebel phase and wanted to try it bad, so I did. I remember taking my first ever drag and coughing like my throat and lungs were spitting fire. I hated it. The couple of tries here and there turned to once a week at parties, that turned to once in three days when I felt low, to once a day to ultimately not less than four a day. Before I knew it I was a full blown smoker.

I was in denial that I wasn’t an addict.” I can live without smoking .. “, I would tell myself. But then the same girl would hide lighters in her cupboard, lie to her mother and go on drives just to smoke, steal money to buy a new box, sneak out on the terrace at night then conceal the smell with perfumes and chewing gums …

I was aware that this was a habit and that I had to quit. These are my very recent thoughts whenever I lit one up: first 5 drags I’d feel euphoric satisfaction, the next half of it would be smoked thinking ” Oh my god this is disgusting; how bad is this habit ; I hate the smell and the taste so much; wait, what if my mom saw me.” The very last half of the cigarette, my heart would change and become certain that I had to stop and this is the last one, I will quit after this. But it was never the last one. So I decided to buy myself a vape thinking that it will be a good way to start quitting. Vapes got banned in my country and that led me back to my old friend. I was stuck in the spiral again.

But here’s a silver lining, the last 24 hours have been my first-last 24 hours to go without smoking in an year! I feel proud.

Here are some ways I brought about this change-

#1 Accept: Don’t stay in denial . Initially, I wouldn’t call myself an addict because I chose to ignore the fact that the habit is controlling me instead of it being the other way around. If you end up choosing to do something despite knowing it’s wrong and you shouldn’t it means you need to realise you are not being the master of your own self. You’ve given your habit more power than your conscious.

#2 Purpose: The secret to permanently breaking any bad habit is to love something greater than the habit. Change is painful, but purpose is what makes it bearable. For me , starting this journey on self love was my motivating trigger. Find your trigger.

#3 Smoke: One last time. This might sound out of the box, but smoke it. Find a quiet place , do it alone , breathe it in, take your time with the last cigarette you’ll smoke. Take a picture of it to remind you of the exact day you quit. After you’re done, you’re done. Quietly say goodbye to this toxic habit and start with the journey.

#4 Trash: Out of sight, out of mind. Start with cleaning up all the empty boxes lying around. Buds , lighters , ashtrays they all need to go. Get rid of all the reminders, trash them in the bin.

#5 Boundaries: There are some friends who’ll only catch up with you to have a quick smoke. They need to go. Tell the others you’re quitting and ask them to support you by simply drawing some boundaries. Avoid company of those that might trigger you into smoking again.

#6 New Memories : I don’t know if this is something only I dealt with but there’s certain I strongly associated with this habit , like my terrace. It is the place I used to go to smoke every night. Whenever I go to my terrace I have the strsong urge to smoke. So I decided to make new memories with the place. I started watching stars every evening on my terrace. Now my brain associates the night sky and the terrace with watching stars and not smoking.

#7 Hydrate: Whenever I get the urge I quickly gulp down some water to fill me up. It clears my thoughts instantly and curbs the craving. Check out my article on hydration to get started.Day 3/90: Let’s hydrate

#8 Fresh breath: Brush your teeth after meals or use a mouthwash to rinse .Chew on gum when you feel the urge to smoke next time. It is scientifically proven that keeping a fresh breath will curb the urge. I prefer chewing on some cardamom.

#9 Elastic band: Wear an elastic band around your wrist and snap it the next time you find yourself wanting to smoke. Apparently, it works.

#10 Reminder ring: This one is very personal. I found a plastic red ring with ABC engraved on it in my jewellery box the other day, I bought it on a very happy family vacation when I was a kid but never used it. I wore it on my right index finger which I use to smoke. It is my very own sobriety ring, every time I look down on my hand and see it, I get the courage to say no to myself. Try it.

#11 Stay busy: Pen down a routine for yourself so your empty mind doesn’t go to the direction it clearly shouldn’t. Genuinely staying busy will help keep your mind off the thoughts of smoking. Read a book , watch a good movie, just anything that takes your mind off it.

#12 Keep Track: Set a page aside in your diary to keep a track of how much you smoke, with the dates. This activity alone will show you how much you’re abusing your lungs and keep you focused. Writing things down will ways be a big help.

#13 Reward: Don’t be hard on yourself If you are a heavy smoker, start by cutting your daily consumption to half , slowly leaving the habit. The idea is to give up , not punish yourself. Willpower can only be kept strong if you aren’t being too hard on yourself. Instead of being too hard for a short time then going bonkers again, it’s better to make realistic goals for yourself. Once you achieve your short term goal , reward yourself. It will keep you going till you finally get to where you want.

I know how hard giving up an addictive habit is, specially when you are dealing with an existential crises, (Like I am ). Anxiety, insomnia and all the obsessive thoughts are what lead me to getting hooked to this habit in the first place. So dig deeper to the problem of why you choose to do it? What void are you trying to fill with this habit? Once you get the answers, try solving those problems, face them instead of running and choosing to play it safe. Trust me I’ve done it all along and it got me nowhere. So I’ve chosen to face it head on. Day 5 /90 , I quit smoking.

I hope this helps you out and you join in on my journey.

❤️

Day4/90: I’ll be in my room knitting

When I was ten I visited a school that had the biggest art and crafts room I had ever laid eyes on. I remember being mesmerised by the hanging origami, crochets, pottery and the largest collection of paintings. It had my biggest yes just by the look of that one room (although I didn’t quite have any idea what I was saying yes for at the time).Little did I know then that this was a room of the boarding school I’d end up spending the next three years in. So an year later I sat in the exact same room with thirty other little girls. We were handed a pair of needles and a red ball of wool each. I had seen grandma do it earlier but had no idea of how it worked.So we were taught how to hold the needles, how to put the caste on (the first line of stitches) and how to knit in the most basic pattern to make a scarf. Honestly I sucked at it and don’t even remember completing it , now that I think of it I don’t even know where it went .

Fast forward to two years ago when I visited my grandma. She has been knitting and sending socks, caps, sweaters for my brother and me since as long as I can remember. On this visit , she showed my her drawer of knitting supplies with balls of wool in so many colours, packs of needles in different sizes and a whole bunch of unfinished scarfs. She looked at me with the saddest smile she’d ever worn and said “I think you should take these, I have no use for them now”, then looked at her hands. My grandma is the strongest woman I know. She has kicked the butt of cancer and still manages to go about life with the widest smile without complaining or being disappointed with what life throws at her. But now she suffers from rheumatoid arthritis. With fingers bent, stiff and swollen she stopped knitting.

A week later I started knitting my first scarf following a YouTube video. It took me a good 6 months to complete it because of my inconsistency. That scarf was then gifted to my grandma who was the happiest to receive it. Sadly that was the only one I could make. With what I was dealing with emotionally, it took a whole lot of energy to just get out of bed and go about the day, that I didn’t have any left to knit.

So today I took a pair of size 10 needles and ball of white wool out and laid the stitches for a scarf. I ended up knitting for thirty minutes straight . Oh my joy.

Knitting is like meditating. When I knit, all my racing thoughts seem to align , it feels like I can see them , count them and organise them.Creating something from nothing but a messy ball of wool that sometimes has knots in it, with our own bare hands…sounds metaphorical to life doesn’t it? The sound of needles is honestly gold, it’s like music to the ears and calms my anxiety. It releases the happy hormones and decreases the stress hormones (scientifically speaking), no wonder why I feel at peace post knitting.

Here’s a link to the YouTube video that I followed :

https://youtu.be/24lR2IRS57A

So, I added knitting to my journey today and hope it doesn’t take me 6 months to get it done this time. Thirty minutes a day for the next 86 days..

❤️

Day 3/90: Let’s hydrate

So I’ll be honest here. I’ve heard nutritionists say it, celebrities say it, even read probably like a gazillion articles on it but can never seem to adhere strictly to a good hydration regime.

We are 60% water and yet can’t live a day without it but what most of us fail to understand is that our bodies get dehydrated without us even knowing it. My mum has been asking me to drink more water ever since I was young but I hated it. Why do I need to go overboard with it, I’ll drink when I am thirsty, is what I always said. We lose water throughout the day in various ways therefore it is important to compensate for that loss.

So it is said that in general you should drink between half an ounce and an ounce of water for each pound you weigh per day. In other words, 3.7 litres of fluids for men and 2.7 litres of fluid for women. If I start drinking the required amount per day what will happen? So I did a quick google research:

#1 Acne reduction and clear skin. acne is an old friend and is a problem I’ve been dealing with since my early teen years and it just won’t go away no matter what medication I take or skincare routine I follow.

#2 Increasing the water intake significantly improves digestion specially for people that suffer from constipation. Well my morning coffee gets me going, but ok.

#3 Also improves metabolism and helps in reducing weight. Losing weight is again something I’ve been trying so hard to do. I read a book by Rachel Hollis called “Girl wash your face” where she talks about how increasing water intake automatically curbs hunger and can act as the first step to weight loss.

Ok for real though, despite knowing all the benefits I still couldn’t get myself to drinking as much water as is required of me ,so I came up with a couple of solutions.

1) Invest in a good water bottle– For a lazy person like me, who hates going back to the kitchen again and again to fill up glasses of water, this works. I bought myself a bottle of a capacity of 1500 ml and aim to finish two of those every day.

2) Beverages-If you hate the taste of water, not that it has a taste, but initially I couldn’t get myself to gulp so much of nothing .. if that makes any sense. So I started drinking beverages like lightly sweetened lemonade and green tea. Trying out the infuser detox water bottle is also on my list. In doing so I don’t hate it as much.

3) Monitoring-Keeping track of your water intake can help as well. There are free apps in the AppStore that notify you with reminders throughout the day and they can be customised easily according to one’s need. I go with the option of using a bullet journal page to keep track of the bottles of water I drink per day because I like writing so damn much.

Adding water to this journey will hopefully do wonders for me. I hope I can be strict with myself when it comes to hydration.

I hope this was helpful.

❤️

Day2/90 : Pen is mightier than sword

Ever since I entered my teenage years, I became weirdly obsessed with diaries. The glitter cover, leather spiral notebooks , unicorn themes there were just so many. I would go into a bookstore buy a diary and leave. Would go for shopping trips with mum she’d ask me if I wanted to get myself anything and she would get the biggest yes for a diary.There was a sense of comfort in seeing blank notebooks, blank pages.

But what exactly did I do with the butt load of diaries I had collected over the years? They’re all empty. Well most of them.I would grab a pretty pen , take out a fresh page from my least favourite one(always wanted to start there in case I messed up)and would just sit for hours staring at it . There was a lack of inspiration it was like I found it hard to express myself freely. But about an year ago I started writing.I would make entries on rough days or just generally when I remembered doing it or didn’t feel too lazy.

So today I took the collection out and sat surrounded by them.There’s a leather journal with an Eiffel Tower embossing (a gift my best friend got me), a sequin one that my dad gifted me on daughters day , a pink one that has a push button to light up the sprinkles on a cupcake that says life is sweet , a purple elephant Thailand diary I got from Krabi from the last family vacation, a spiral Miniso London diary I bought cause of how I obsessed I have gotten for going to U.K. this year and a beautiful handcrafted hand embroidered cover diary I bought from Shimla. Phew… Well there’s a ton more, but these are just my favourites .

Till date I have finished three diaries. The first entry being 7 January 2019 . There are so many missed dates in between, even in them. I spent the day reading each and every page of those. While I was reading my own autobiography, I came across pages I had been extremely happy and ridiculously low . There were records of fights with friends, or the movies I watched and so many slight insignificant details that brought me feeling the exact day that I wrote them.I was so thankful for having all of the data about myself, it was like revisiting old memories with so much detail.

Here’s some tips I use while writing

1)Writing a page every single day. I write one side of it in the morning, when I start my day. Basically to plan how my day should go and things I need to do. The other side I write before bedtime about how my day actually went with some important details that I want to remember.

2)Sometimes I like to tuck things in , a movie ticket if I went to the movies, a leaf from the park if I went for a walk, a candy wrapper if I got a surprise candy that made my day.. and so on.

3) I like to put a heading to my day on the basis of how I am feeling in the morning. If I feel all charged up the heading would be -” there’s a fire in my belly”, if I feel low the heading is – “I am a warrior today.” I try to be creative when it comes to titles cause they set the mood for my day , they’re like code words I remember throughout.

4) Using good stationary in general makes writing joyful.Fine felt tip pens are my favourite and they come in so many colours.

5) Adding a few lines for inspiration on telling myself I am strong , almost there and can do it make a lot of difference. There’s nothing more comforting than being kind to yourself.

6) Some people (most ) address and start with dear diary which is sort of the old school way of going about it but, I like to address myself with a whole lot of love. I greet myself with hey sunshine/angel/ beautiful or just any words appreciation. I know it sounds silly but it feels like giving yourself a warm hug.

7) Talking about my emotions, peeling off the layers, naming them and then understanding why I am feeling the way I am feeling helps a lot in recognising and dealing with overwhelming thoughts.

Well, that’s all I could come up with.

Writing has healing effects and so I have made a mental promise to myself to not miss days writing. 2/90 .. gotta keep going.

Later…❤️

Day 1/90: Dolce far niente

So here we are, Day 1/90.

A day that might seem tiny in a journey so vast, but surely one that holds the most relevance.Why? Because it takes courage to put one foot forward. All journeys ascend and will end one day but only and only if they are started and starting a journey holds the most power.

The day started with me making up my mind , basically utilising all resources of will power left inside to begin.

I wrote letters to my past lovers, one a best friend and one a high school sweetheart. Both failed relationships, both that taught me pain and everything I know about love. I wrote about the good parts, to show me things I learnt . And the bad parts, to show me why it’s time to cut ties. Of course , the letters won’t be sent out. It was just a way of silently saying goodbye.

Then I made a list of all the things that I wish to be, the things I wish to change about myself. It’s pretty simple, I want to be the best version of myself. Cliché? Honestly if I just dream big maybe I’ll end up being half of the best version of myself but it still will be heaps better than what I am today. So my list has a total of 55 entries to be exact. From making art, losing weight, getting a clear skin, reading 20 new books,watching few of the best series on Netflix, decluttering etc etc.. This list is basically going to be a check list for the days to come. A source of inspiration to help me keep going on hard days cause of how sure I am that I’ll have many. Trying to get into it with full preparation cause there’s no way I can fail this time, no holding back , no looking back.

What else did I do? …. well , nothing.

I came across a phrase that Julia Roberts used in the movie Eat Pray Love : “Dolce far niente”

I wondered what it meant. Dolce far niente is the Italian way of saying “The sweetness of doing nothing” sounds too absurdly good to be true doesn’t it? How can a person find peace in not doing a thing. We’re rock bottom right now, so I gave it a shot today. did absolutely nothing. Not one thing from the list. Missed a whole bunch of basics too. I Just vainly lay in bed the whole day, fuelling up my depleted energy resources.What does an empty mind do when it’s not engaging in any activity. It thinks. So I thought and thought the whole day, my thoughts kept me up all night. And after all the thinking when it felt like there are no thoughts left. My mind went blank and for the first time in months , I felt peace. There was a sense of freedom in not bring a prisoner to my thoughts anymore. Never saw more clarity.

Now , with a clean slate, I feel charged up for seeing the next day.

That’s it for now:)

90 Days of self love: day 0

As I sit locked up in my room while the world is in absolute chaos on the outside since forever now, my idle mind came up with a whole lot of self realisations.

So basically, all that ever mattered honestly were two things that I failed to recognise the worth of earlier. Not jobs, not money , not love , not relationships. But it all came down to two things ; numero uno -family. Of course the one thing I took for granted, well we all did at one point of time and even after this madness ends, I might go back to the old ways but I just won’t ever forget from this experience that at the end of the day they are the ones we can afford to be stranded with. Like that island question, who would I choose to be stranded with if I could only keep one thing? by default, it is family, I’ve accepted it and feel gratitude towards it now. Thank you quarantine for giving me this awakening.

Now, the former , well is a blessing in disguise and I’m sure most of us after spending so much time at home know that there is nothing above what family is. But the latter part -the Number 2 , the thing there’s no escaping from is the mental health part and it is a department that requires work(a whole lot of it).

Now if I start talking of my story in particular and why I am choosing to do this , you might get it. I am a 24 year old in the midst of adulthood still feeling like an adolescent who hasn’t figured her shit out. I don’t earn, and the lockdown has left me with no opportunities for now. I did plan on doing a masters in U.K. this september but because of how the world is rn, not so sure about that now am I?On top of all of that, well, we are all heartbroken aren’t we…

In this particular scenario , my situation hit me like a tight slap on my face. Problems that I used to run from, the thoughts and anxiety that were earlier toned down by a movie on Friday or lunch and drinks, are what have shifted my sleep cycle to 5a.m. To 2 p.m . Yes my bio clock sucks, I have zero willpower , I don’t move my ass from the same place for hours, eat and then eat and eat a little but more.

So I asked myself, girl if this is it, this is all it, if this is what life has come to , how would you choose to live. They say always look at the bright side of things , a glass half empty is still half full. It never made sense to me, how can falling in front of fifty people and making a fool out of yourself be seen side in a brighter hue(this has happened to me).

But metaphorically speaking this is a situation where we are helpless , where the old lovers seem to be laughing when I am falling down deeper deeper in a spiral than I ever did before. After a ton of thinking, I felt like I needed answers and if not now then when, I snapped and thought let’s do it- let me do it. When there’s no surety of what tomorrow will offer to me. When what I have right now, is broken goods, it would be wise to use this time to mend it.

Hence came the 90 day journey to self love.

The only rules for it are –

1) Cut off all toxic influences from your life.(whatever and whoever came to your mind while reading it needs to go) . For me it’s the ex’s , the bad friends, toxic habits.

2) Promise yourself these 90 days to do everything and anything to get your shit together. That’s all I want in life, because without that, how can I ever live , right.

So in all honesty..

Let us begin shall we?

Day8/90- Poetry is my soul food

Day 8/90. I had a mental breakdown today and had zero energy, a negligible appetite , an extremely bad headache and a feeling of inconsolable low. I wanted to blog so bad to not break the streak. After having no inspiration whatsoever throughout the day, I lay in my bed, closed my eyes and started listening to the beat of my hurting broken heart. It felt like it spoke poetry. So I picked my phone up, opened notes and randomly started typing what it told me.Here goes nothing..

I was numb when i met you

Just really hard to get to

Broken and heartbroken

Once, twice, maybe a couple hundred times

A fortress in ruins

A heart bled out dry

A country with no summer

A traveller who’d lost all track of time

But then you came

Like rain on a barren land

With a promise to reap flowers

I was scared, oh so scared

Been pushed to the wall so long

A lover who’d forgotten how to love

Too afraid to dive in this time

Fearing i would run out of air

Too afraid I won’t survive

You took my hand in yours

Placed it on your heart

Made me hear what it sounded like

Told me everytime it beat

It said it needed me

And just like that

you had me on my knees

Slowly i let you in

Crashed down my walls, bit by bit

We loved so blind

This was one of a kind

I believed you were my saviour

You’d take away my pain

Then teach me love all over again

A better kind

We’d talk for hours

I let you in on my deepest parts

Together, we’ll change the world..

I thought,

Together, who’ll get to us?

I thought,

Until that one doomed night

Something changed

You switched sides

The lights went out

There was just darkness in sight

I was Too afraid to open my eyes

My worst fears had come true

And just like that

You were gone too

Tears poured down as i thought to myself

Funny how life works,isn’t it?

It didn’t make me sad

I almost laughed at myself

For being so naive

Then i heard a muffled voice

It came from a tiny girl buried deep down inside

Oh little girl

Don’t you fear

For everything is now crystal clear

Look at the horizon

There comes a horse

Look closer

You see you’re the one on the top

She is your saviour

For true love lies within

You’ll move mountains my girl

And then one day You’ll conquer the world

Who needs a prince with a carriage

When you’ve got castles within

Why look for true love

You see

It all lies within !

I know it’s not perfect, but this is my heart’s own way to make poetry from pain and try to heal itself.

I hope you liked it.

❤️