The Art of Healing your Soul

This post begins with a confession. I must admit that I was a scared cat for a good part of my life. You can comfortably call me an introvert. Introverts can't mix with human life and yes I am one of those people who worry about putting off others and press the panic button at anything that my mind may not able to come to terms with. We introverts wear colored masks to hide the frown lines that the world and the drama it creates, puts on us. For a long time, I struggled at choosing those masks and painting them with my favourite hues of emotions. With the passage of time, I am learning the trick.
An article sent by the bestie on the three different kinds of people in the world based on their negative feelings shook me up. This thought provoking article on Mental Floss  talks about three different kinds of personalities. If you happen to read it, you may get a fair idea about the kind of personality you are. I tried to wear one of those personality types, and failed to strictly put myself into any of the kinds that the author has mentioned of. For me the journey has been from a sense of nothingness to weary boredom and finally at this stage in life, I have given up on the world and can't fit myself into the shoes it has offered.
This discouragement led to anger, hopelessness and fear. I wasn't aware of those moments when I was becoming an epidemic of negativity. 
In 2013, I took to practicing spirituality. My mom was startled when one fine day, I declared that I was attending the Sunday mass. For someone who had seen the altar of the church as a young girl, this was one giant leap towards a different kind of life, one that she had never perceived to live. After endless rounds of confession and spiritual cleansing, I took a few decisions. One of the most important of those resolutions was to deactivate my Facebook profile and stay away from twitter. I think one can freeze the former while I didn't know how I was supposed to delete the latter. Perhaps, it was one of the best decisions I ever took for myself. Yes, if you have been hunting to find peace and have failed till this day, then trust me this is the first door that you  need to open, to be in harmony with yourself. I had scuttled away from social media during lent and by the time I returned, fifty days later, I was many kilos lighter and detached from the dramas that had taken a toll on me. If TV is the culprit for you, especially the depressing news channels, then try and cut that clutter from your life for sometime. Trust me, you'll thank me for having given you the advice.
A few months later, I also cleaned up my friend list, unfriending people who were there on my list because we had 125 mutual friends. We never bothered to speak and since it was scary to start a conversation with a stranger I chose to set them free. On the other hand, a few other people decided to set me free and that evened the equation.
The social media is keeping us informed and raising important issues but at the same time, it is accumulating pessimism inside us when we read about them everyday. Also, it puts us at par with people who talk about their personal lives or goals. We start measuring our materialistic and emotional happiness with their yardstick and that is the point from where we fall, and hurt ourselves. 
Remember not all fingers are of the same length, and yes research like this says that Facebook can magnify narcissism and anxiety.

                                                 Picture credit: christianpost.com

30th January 2016

Yesterday night was special. After spending an extended weekend in Delhi, I headed back to Bombay. The paradigm shift from winters to a pleasant climate is a kick in the gut. I usually prefer the Delhi-Bombay Rajdhani as it saves me the extra miles from the Mumbai airport, but this time I was in hurry so chose the latter option.
After reaching home I curled up in the annals of my comfortable bedroom, still reeling under the winter chill that had been coughed into my lungs by Delhi.
A little later in the early evening I received a phone call from my best friend. She was in Bombay and wanted to catch up with me. Unlike in Delhi where we scoot inside our homes after eight pm, in Bombay it's a different story. The people of Bombay are not bothered about others and their lives, as all of them are hurrying to reach their destinations, since travelling is an arduous activity. Perhaps because of this reason Bombay is brimming with human life even at night.
For Delhites though,  conforming to the idea of travelling at night is difficult. Even then over the years, I have punched fear right on its face and journeyed across the length and breadth of the city. 
I remember those days when I had landed in Bombay, and navigation had bogged me down. I couldn't ascertain routes or plan an outing, and had to rely on the autorickshaws and kali-peeli taxi. In Delhi, where every nook and cranny of the city is connected by metro, moving around isn't a big deal anymore.While in Bombay you need to have extra starch in your backbone to hop onto the local which drives the city. For a person who had recently landed in the city, the probability was a big no. I chose the next best option, the rickshaws and taxis, since learning routes took some time. Infact memorizing the names of places took me about two months until I could wean myself off from relying on taxis.