DON’T LET THE WORLD STIFLE YOU!

There are many things in life you may regret could have happened another way.

Your parents could have been more understanding or even kinder. Your family could have been more cohesive and entwined tighter. That you weren’t so shackled by the culture you grew up in or the country you were in or the religious diktats that were imposed on you. Or wish you had the foresight to choose better relationships in your love lives. Your careers could’ve gone another way. Your education was better skewed to placing you in a better job. Couldn’t fate have dealt a better hand?

At some point in your life, some of these thoughts may have crossed your mind. Is it wrong to feel so? No. Though, I might add, here that it is fatal for you to keep dwelling on it. Why? Because life isn’t a cake walk for anyone in this world. The Bransons, Musks, Ambanis, Gates, spiritual gurus you think have it all, have all had to bear their own crosses. Go through their life stories and you’ll pour through the pain they all once, experienced. Even the most beautiful being, the butterfly has to go through its painful metamorphosis.

I have hundreds of people who come to me, citing the wrongs that they’ve gone through. I see them living the angst from day to day. The pain gnawing at their innards and their refusal to let go. If you hold on to the bubbling acid within, how will you find peace? Pain is that demon you carry and nurture hoping it’ll assuage and wrap you in comfort. What comfort is, really there in re-living pain?

I had a young woman who was raped by her own brother at the age of 13. She was consumed with humiliation, anger, hurt and pain. Life had been unfair. What would a young, happy, joyful girl know that the person she tied ‘rakhi’ to, was the very person who would shatter her life in smithereens. She had every reason to curse and rant and cry and be pained. My only question to her was, “Is remembering it all every day and re-living it, helping her in any way?” The magnitude of what happened to her can never be gauged or be alleviated by platitudes, no matter how convincing they might be. Yet, it was imperative for her own peace, for her to move on. To let go.

She did, eventually. By sheer grit, determination and the desire to not allow the shadow cast on her to envelope her entire life. She had a choice and she made a good choice.

You do have a choice. A choice to keep walking with your back bent, your soul broken and the fabric of your esteem torn to shreds. Or to accept that nothing can be done of the past – the family or country or religion you belong to, the choices made by others where you had no control. But, today, right now, YOU have that power. The power to stand tall and change what you can. The potential to live your life the way YOU want to. The capacity to chart your own course in waters you choose to. The question is, DO YOU WANT TO?

You may realise that there is a lot of comfort in hanging on to the pain inflicted, real or unreal. It is your raison d’etre. It validates your need to live playing the victim. However, it’s a drug that will eat you alive. Relinquish the power in being a sufferer and take charge of your life, your future.

We are all born with the ability to be awesome. Don’t let the world around you stifle your path to awesomeness!

Love and light and a warm tight hug!