A(NU) Thought

Why Does Your Heart Race Before the Meeting Even Begins? Have you ever noticed how your body reacts before your mind does? Your manager's name flashes on your phone. A Teams meeting notification pops up. An Outlook email lands in your inbox. Or Monday morning meeting that starts bothering you from Sunday onwards. Before you've even read the message or joined the call, you've already felt something. !!Stress. Anxiety. Pressure.!! Why does this happen? Psychologists call this Classical Conditioning . Classical Conditioning is a type of learning where our brain automatically associates a previously neutral trigger with an experience that repeatedly evokes a particular emotional or physical response. (Read that again!) Over time, the trigger itself begins producing that same response.

Have you ever felt a strong surge of anger when you couldn’t express it? This morning, while riding in my cab to the office, I felt an overwhelming surge of anger toward someone I have been working with on a project for about 2 years. The past 2 months have been especially stressful because the organization hasn’t fulfilled a single commitment (no exaggeration here). Following up with them is another exhausting and infuriating experience. Working with them has given me sleepless and anxious nights. . So, what did I do? I tried to calm myself by chanting OM NAMAH SHIVAYA and OM HANUMANTE NAMAH . It helps me.  Gradually, I focused on my body parts where I felt tension—my hands, eyes, forehead, and jaw—and consciously released the tightness, and took deep breaths. Then, I reminded myself of what I could control; prepared myself mentally for the excuses and delays that might come next from them, all while breathing deeply to stay calm. . I don’t know if it’s my (increasing)...

So, are you a good person or a nice person? It’s not always good to be nice, you know. Sometimes it’s okay to be ‘just you’.   We often end up mixing the two attributes - good and nice – assuming them to be the same. But there is a vast difference between the two. What is the difference, you ask? Or is it just that I am going bonkers? Well, by definition … ·          A nice person is someone who is pleasant to be around, has good manners, and is cheerful; ·          A good person on the other hand, is someone who is honest, helpful, and morally good. A person who has generally been good tends to be nice to others, most of the time. However, the question is: should they be nice to people, even if they don’t want to? Would people consider them as ‘good’ if they are not nice any longer?   The Burden of Being Nice Here’s what I think: you might be a good person, who doesn’t want to intenti...

A few months back, I came across a digital advertisement of a Furniture brand offering a solution for couples who break up and move out of their relationship. Well, that's good but then, why??? The advertisement made me realise that people  don’t shy away from stating that romantic relationships today are similar to ‘2-minute noodles’. The essence of slow cooked biryani seems to be lost. ‘I call it ‘2-minute noodles’ because people want things to happen fast, if something doesn’t add up to their convenience. They easily prefer to break up and move on. Well, of course there are exceptions. In some cases, people don’t give up, while in others, people should.

What happens when you hold on to your pee for a long time? And you get into the habit of doing it continuously many times, over and over again? Stones, right? Kidney stones. And how does this affect you? It blocks, it creates pain, immense pain in the lower stomach. So much pain, that one might prefer to die at that moment than bear it. So, what do you think happens when you get into the habit of holding on to your emotions? When you start bottling up all your feelings, bit-by-bit? 

 Have you ever faced writer’s block? I am sure most of us have. Not just limited to writing, but this ‘block’ troubles everyone irrespective of field, interest, and profession, at some point in life.  You could be a writer, painter, photographer, singer, film-maker, crafter, content creator, working in any profession, or just a simple human, who can think, you have certainly faced this block at one or the other point in your life. How do you overcome it? What do you do to let this block go or disappear? Do you read, write, watch your favorite shows, just talk about it to peers; or keep your work aside and focus on something else. Well, to me it feels as if this writer’s block has been consistent with me forever now. Alright, there are a few phases, when I am able to put down my thoughts on paper (and then key it in the system) and sometimes, even record them for my podcast. But I miss those days when I used to think and write so fluently that I would surprise myself. It has be...

सच कहते हैं लोग, life का कोई भरोसा नहीं, कभी भी कुछ भी हो सकता हैं. Especially, पिछले २ सालों ने तो यहीं सीखा हैं. इतना तो समज में आगया हैं की, nothing is permanent and nothing stays forever. Actually ना today, I am gonna be a little upfront in my conversation.  Just Imagine this - आज हम किसी के साथ बैठे हैं, हस - खेल के बातें कर रहे हैं and suddenly that person just vanishes… and हम उसी जगह पर बैठें हैं, अकेले... shocked and wondering वह कहाँ चलें गए, अभी तो बातें पुरी भी नहीं हुई थीं. 

Image source Yes, you heard that right? What are your superpowers? Now don’t think of Iron man, or Wolverine, or Thor and Jean Grey. I am asking about the real-life superpowers that exist very much in common people like you and me. Got you thinking, right?   Let me clarify with an example. बचपन में मैंने काई बार माँ को बिना चिमटे के stove पर रोटी फूलाते देखा था . मुझे लगता था she is fire-proof… Hahaha. But as I grew up, I realized her superpower is not being fire-proof, but the warmth that exudes from her. Every day when I used to reach home in the evening after a long day of work and travel, she would open the door for me and welcome me home with her warm and comforting smile. मेरा सारा stress दरवाजे के बहार ही निकल जाता था .   Happens right, some people have that effect on you and you too have such an effect on others. Now that is what I would call a Superpower’.     

There’s a single-seater white झूला occupying the space in my house balcony (yes,  my house has  balconies.  Not one but two! ). I have always loved the thought of having a झूला in a balcony or a veranda in a house. It has been one of my most desired things on the list of home décor, or essentials, actually. This झूला bought on amazon made with wood and the white rope is very special to me; it’s like what I would call “my space”. I can sit on it for hours together doing things that like (reading, surfing, chatting, listening to music) or just not doing anything. Simply staring at the horizon. Mostly, I sit on it thinking of everything that is possible – the past, present, and future. It is very relaxing and calming, you see, just sitting there with a cup of morning tea or evening coffee.   

Image Source Sometimes in life, we are back to that same phase, from where we had started the journey. Back to that familiar crossroads, stranded and just wondering which way to go, which direction to choose... this time. Does this ever happen to you?   Every time we reach a new milestone in life, we believe that this is it, ‘ लाइफ तो सेट है अब ’ , ‘ सेटल हो गए '.   अब तो इसी डायरेक्शन में आगे बढ़ते जाना है . अब जो भी सपने  Bucketlist  में हैं , सब पूरी कर लेंगे … .