Happy Birthday Mommy

I unturned the hourglass upside down
Sand descending back to the ground
And as the things undo themselves within
My bed sheets are back to uptight, spread fine
The pillow has dried up
As if it was never soaked from the tears
And my eyes
My eyes, no more look like a red dawn sun
As if mourning the death of a loved one
It’s normal again, like they deserve to be
The blood slowly dripping down my leg
Just took rewind, and is back in vein
The scars, the marks have disappeared
With a beautiful golden honey skin
There’s no more chaos in the room
Like it was some battlefield
Books are back in shelf, so clean it is
Like it just renewed itself

Time will heal
Things around
I knew it always

But the depth of my heart has will no more
To trust the time or its glory for that course
Rightly said you can never get over the pain of losing someone close to you, you somehow learn to live with it.

And for me, she was my whole life. Happiest birthday Mommy 🎂

–ShadesofLife

Positivity is Toxic at Times

Often heard people consoling :
“Everything is fine” even when it’s not.
“Don’t overthink, just be happy” as if it’s just that easy.
“Don’t be sad” like that will help.
“Just stop thinking about it” like that will heal it.
“Always be happy” when it’s literally impossible to be always happy. We get sad sometimes & it’s completely natural.
“Don’t think about suicide, you’re a happy person.” like those thoughts are in our control.
“You shouldn’t be depressed, you have everything” like depression is a choice.

“Just chill” doesn’t work every time. When something bad happens that makes you sad or when you lose something/someone, not thinking about it or simply distracting from it is not the solution. Most people do this because they find the escape much easier than to feel those negative emotions.

But it is not a good practice. We may feel better in the moment but in the long run, it suppresses our emotions, develops anxiety and detaches us from our emotions and feelings. Isn’t it okay to be sad? I guess it is okay to feel any kind of negative emotions. Having the power to confront your own self is not a small thing.

You might feel your way is easier, that escaping and hiding your pain with a smile is better. Maybe you’ll even say that there are no side effects from it. But it’s not so. You don’t see them because you choose not to. But they are all inside you. It might be low self-esteem, inability to sustain healthy relationships, endless feeling of loneliness, or unreasonable anger. But it’s all there. Better vent out and let your emotions flow because no one can be positive at all times.

–ShadesofLife

Happy Mother’s Day Mum!

Initially I used to wonder “Kyu Nahi ma, Saari duniya tere tarah.” This world is not much of a beautiful place as you think it is. You come to this world through one support and that’s your mother, who is your God, your creator, your lifeline. But what when your lifeline is no longer with you.

Well, since she has left life has changed drastically. My days don’t go well and my mind sometimes stays in a muddle. But you know what helps? I take out her picture, and put it aside me. I talk to her and it releases all the discomfort I face. At times I wonder what mothers are born with? A real magical power or a lap that has the purest love?
As children we always fail to understand your love but you are the only one who can love unconditionally. I guess, writers and philosophers still fail to describe mother’s love because you come in so many different shades. Wherever you are I wish you are in peace Mum. I miss you Amma is just a daily phrase now because no words can ever express how empty I feel without you.
Ending with just one line, “Kabhi ho Nahi sakti ma, Saari duniya teri tarah” .

–ShadesofLife

Array of Nothingness

You can try to put your
feelings & nightmares in a bottle
and throw it out in the ocean
and you hope that it goes away,
you hope that it never
comes back to you,
but it always comes back
and you know it,
it never goes away,
just like sunshine in the morning
it somehow manages
to come back everyday.

–ShadesofLife

It’s Your Journey…

The loneliest people are the kindest. The saddest people smile the brightest and the most damaged people are the wisest. This is only because they do not wish to see anyone else suffering the way they did. Stop judging people.

Be grateful for what you have in life. Do not compare yourself with others. Your journey is yours and you have no idea what the other person has gone through.

–ShadesofLife

With Every Difficulty Comes Ease!

There is nothing wrong in being sad. It is completely okay. You have every right to feel like a total mess and nobody can question you. Do not ever bottle your feelings just because you are afraid of people. You may feel sadness is not leaving you but remember this feeling is temporary.

Masks too hurt at times because they conceal the real you and give you a fake identity. To heal, you need to let your pain out. Cry, scream, express yourself. Do whatever you can but do not sulk. Acknowledge that you are hurt but remember that better things are coming. Every cloud has a silver lining and after every difficulty comes relief.

–ShadesofLife

Why Are People Sad?

They are sad because they are captured in the prison of their personal history. These days people believe in the same old thing that it is very important to have a plan in life. They never consider the fact if the plan was solely theirs or was devised by some other person.

All they do is keep accumulating on memories, experiences and other people’s ideas which is more than they can cope with and this is why they forget their dreams.

–ShadesofLife

Break Out Of Your Shell!

It goes unsaid that in the darkest hour of our life, we shine the most. If you look at the rain, it teaches you not to hide, but shine at the places you don’t belong to. You need to come out of your comfort zone to understand your true potential. You only become aware of your inherent abilities when the things are odd. Overcoming your fears and fighting against them will surely give you immense amount of pleasure because it is then you realize how tough you are from the inside.

The problem with us these days is that we take everything for granted. This is the reason why happy moments no longer seem happy anymore, and we begin to lose every hope when life becomes tough. We want miracles to happen and hope for a better future. Although it is good to be inquisitive, but you know asking too many questions and not trying to get a single answer is also not going to help.

At times it happen that the blurred pictures are the most beautiful and the people with sad past make the most beautiful future. So, hold the thread of hope. It is just the beginning and the beginning needs strength. Believe in yourself first if you want others to believe in you.

–ShadesofLife

What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Stronger!

Friedrich Nietzsche in this statement says that when you go through tough times, you gradually build up the strength for the next painful event. In case of a trauma, it may be quite a comforting thought. But most importantly, how do you feel about this statement? Does it resonate with you, or does it sound cliched?

It can be viewed as a war wound, to heal from a really bad time feeling more powerful and ready to take on the next battle. But with me, that is not quite the case. Especially after rough days and tough times, I find myself weaker and more sad. For me the quote goes like – What doesn’t kill you hurts you incredibly and makes you vulnerable and pathetic.

At times, it happens that a few tough situations help in becoming a stronger person. But the really big things, the things that totally altered my life without my consent, the loss of my most loved ones, the horrible experience of being desperately lonely or panic-stricken with anxiety and such other times have bought nothing empowering in me. I’ve felt my heart shatter into pieces and my soul dry, but I never felt stronger after those days. I was only happy that they were over.

I personally feel that strength doesn’t come from life’s worst moments, rather it comes from the best. Whenever I am loved, I feel strong. I find strength in the times when I’ve been most generous and caring. I find strength when I am able to deal well with the bad days. But I feel weak when I face those gloomy bad days. So with me, what doesn’t kill me, does not make me stronger, rather it makes me more weaker and snatches the entire energy out of my existence.

–ShadesofLife

Life is Too Short To be Stuck in a Labyrinth of Misery!

Frankly speaking, there are no rules in life. You can trust what you want to and easily change those beliefs when you wish. You are not defined by your past and you can change it when you want! It is most important to follow what makes you happy. Even in relationships, there is no need to feel miserable. You cannot be with someone for life and it needs a strong conviction. It is tough to believe that you will probably never hear from this person again and unfulfilled love is indeed soul-crushing. But not everything is meant to go your way. Many people are not destined to be together and you simply cannot deny that fact.

These days I’ve been so much more at peace with myself, I am happy where I’m at and I believe it’s better to let things move forward in their own direction. You can’t simply force things on others. A lot of people, I had issues with, are no longer there in my life. Many new people have come in and are strong pillars of support. I am allowing both, the opportunities and the people who are meant for me to come my way and to let go all that what isn’t. I’ve learned to recognize when I’m being negative towards myself and how to raise myself up instead and turn things around.

–ShadesofLife

All Happy Faces Aren’t Happy

A smiling face does not always mean that a person is happy. Smile is something that can hide anything going on in a person’s mind. But it can hide the pain to a certain limit.

When I was going through this painful phase where I lost my mom, I was totally a different person. I would sit on park benches for hours pushing back tears, fighting to stay upright, and always seconds away from being a total freak out. Anyone passing by me, looked deeply into my bloodshot eyes or sometimes noticed the occasional break in my voice and simply would ask me what’s wrong. Frankly speaking, at that point of time I was so lost and frustrated that I simply wanted to wear a sign that said: I LOST MY MOM. PLEASE GO EASY.

When things go wrong with you, you are actually the one who has to face everything. No one can ever understand an inch of your pain that you are going through, no one has any idea of the gaping sinkhole that has just opened up and swallowed the normal life of yours.

Life is a battle and we are all warriors. Everyone around you is experiencing the collateral damage of living, in one way or the other. They are all grieving someone, fighting their own battle, missing someone and are worried about someone. Every single human being you pass by is fighting to find peace, to get through their daily tasks without breaking down. Pain-ravaged people are everywhere and we are quite oblivious to them. But no one wears the sign – I AM STRUGGLING, SO BE NICE TO ME. And since they don’t, it’s up to you and me to look more closely and be more considerate towards them. Because most people are hanging by a thread and our simple kindness can be that thread.

No matter how hard the hidden stories around us might be, if you look with the right eyes, you’ll see the signs. Be considerate, be loving because all happy faces aren’t happy.

–ShadesofLife

Be Brave, Be Alone!

Be brave to be alone. By alone I mean not depending on someone else for your happiness, by alone I mean a future where your goals rely on you, by alone I mean strolling on a beach barefoot with sand between your feet and winds rustling past your face.

Be brave enough to love yourself. Love yourself enough to walk away, say no when you have had too much, smile at your own reflection when life feels grim. Be brave enough to be there for your own self. Have the power to wipe your own tears when you have no one beside you but a human-sized ache resting next to you. Hold your falling pieces together because if you don’t then you will fall apart and there will be no one to save you.

Be brave enough to be the right person for yourself because if you are brave to do what’s right for you, then you will never feel lonely even when you are alone.

–ShadesofLife

When Life is A Mess..

I frankly don’t have a clue what I am going to write about but the past few days have been quite strange for me. I mean I am fine and there is not much happening in my life but there is this heaviness I feel whenever I breathe. I feel like my mind is occupied with nothing yet everything. Somewhere I wish I had some sort of consistency in life. It is simply like as soon as I am happy something bad happens. Or you know, even when it doesn’t my mood just drops down and on a serious note I am tired. I don’t know whether this is just a phase or it will last forever.

In one of my previous posts, I mentioned that there is no forever, but there is. Forever has to be an infinite number but at times forever is as small as a kiss, as small as those gusts of wind rippling your hair, as small as the ocean waves hitting the shore. The moments you never wanted to end but it ended nevertheless. I don’t know if this phase is a short forever or a long one. Some days I am all good, doing my bit, happy, joyous and lively. But on the other days, I am on my bed, too numb to even write. These are those moments when I feel the sound of the clock ticking or the switched on lights, even these become too much to take. When I feel helpless and energy-less to even get out of bed is when I sink deeper and deeper. These moments make me question my existence and I fail to understand my own self.

You know that feeling when you get to read your favorite book but it is in some other language which you can’t comprehend and all you want to do is simply tear off the pages. These are my feelings. These emotions are mine and I simply do not know how to understand it all. All that I want is to end all of this. But this is how life is, the unhappiness, the pain, the resentment, the anger is all there! May be I will be better tomorrow, may be not! This is quite sudden and time taking but I hope all goes well in the end. Either there is a hopeless end or an endless hope!

–ShadesofLife

Choice – A Blessing or Curse?

Your life basically is a sum of all the choices that you make. The better your choices, better is the opportunity to live a happy life. You know what is funny is that there was a time when I never believed I had a choice. I would have chosen to please everyone else except my own self because I feared the judgement which I thought would come with the choice that would be right for me.

Choices in reality do not really exist if your main focus is to keep others happy. Though this can be incredibly freeing, it can also be quite scary at the same time. It is important to note that if you want to put everyone else’s wishes above your own, then the choice is easy – do what it takes to make everyone happy! But doing this is not that easy. You need to decide whose feelings matter more? Is it yours or others?

If you’ve ever been caught in one of these situations, you know it’s a lose-lose situation plus it is quite exhausting and you begin questioning yourself if this people pleasing mission is really worth it? It is all basically not worth the headache that starts to build and it is better to make choices that are right for you in the long run.

I’ve on and oft quoted that “other people’s opinions of us are none of our business”. At times it is easier to believe that there is no choice because then we can stop any kind of disappointment which may arise from living upto others expectations and sacrificing our own happiness. If your own happiness isn’t a priority, then having a choice is indeed a blessing. If you do not want to believe that putting the happiness of others may ultimately result in sacrificing your own, then it is definitely viewed as a curse. The good news? It is your choice!

–ShadesofLife

Happy Endings – Reality or Myth?

We humans love happy endings. But does every story ends in a happily ever after? I guess no. Some stories start to end, some to teach us a life lesson and some to make us a better person. There are happy stories as well which give us hope and sad ones are those that show us the true mirror of life.

I always trusted happy endings. Since my childhood I loved the stories of Cinderella and Snow White where happy endings existed throughout. Life was never a fairy tale for me but it wasn’t a bed of thorns as well. What I fail to understand is that is it the fact that happiness is only meaningful when it is found at last and less significant when it is found earlier in life and is followed by unhappiness? Loving a happy ending is just a human abstraction where a happy ending is similar to death ending our life; a full-stop. But in life, happy and sad moments do not leave us. Life is unfair yet we crave for happy endings.

Things happen, sometimes good sometimes bad, but it is important to move on. It is important to be the person you are, not what your problems force you to be. In life not all stories have happy endings, some stay incomplete and some without an ending altogether. All you need to do is keep your head held high whatever be the situation.

–ShadesofLife

Self Love

Loving yourself can be an incredibly difficult thing to do at times, you need to undo self hate and take hold of the concept of self love. Self love, I feel is a very abstract concept. It is not a single go-to destination. You may feel you are right there but then all of a sudden something happens and you begin to hate yourself. It happens and it is quite Normal. You can actually have bad days when you don’t love yourself and feel quite sad and hopeless.

You may constantly push yourself for self love but the thing is that there is no absolute solution for it. If you begin to love yourself, it is not like you will begin loving others as well. Loving your own self won’t make you love other people. On an ending note, all I want to highlight is that I love people who struggle everyday with self hate. You truly deserve all the love from others and you should be aware that you know who to love others beautifully despite not loving your own selves.

I do not hate the concept of self love, but what I dislike is the ambiguity of it which is used to make generalized statements to make people who struggle with loving themselves feel bad. We have a complicated relation with love and ourselves. Saying “no one can love you if you cannot love yourself is short-sighted and makes people feel inadequate.”

Human relations are not so black and white. I was loved when I was at my worst by people who I don’t believe I deserve but they loved me anyway. I have loved people when I hated myself badly, those people who think they do not deserve my love but I loved them anyway. In this big world nothing is so cut and dry as human relations.

–ShadesofLife

It’s Not A Big Deal To Have a Bad Day!

It is always important to maintain a positive attitude in life. But it is also true that life is not always perfect. It is impossible to live your life always in a positive state of mind. Everywhere we look we are continuously being told to be happy and also that we have the ability to manifest our perfect life. Being positive can be exhausting and sometimes, depressing. We can’t simply begin to live a life devoid of any sadness or negative emotions.

When life takes a downward lane, it is normal to blame ourselves. But you should remember to avoid blatant negativity. Just like nature has to go through the darkness of winter in order to experience the rebirth of spring, in a similar fashion, life’s hard times must be lived. The storms of life teach us a lot.

We tend to evaluate and judge our feelings, and those which make us uncomfortable, we term them as bad. We then naturally try all possible means to avoid these negative feelings. The skill of converting negative feelings into positive action is a healthy skill to develop. However, the overuse of it may help avoid feelings which may later manifest themselves as anxiety, depression or you can also term it as the overall discontentment with our life. So it is really important to learn how to process negative emotions. No matter what, just remember it is a phase which will eventually pass. You are having a bad day not a bad life. And that is perfectly fine!

–ShadesofLife

It’s Okay To Feel Your Feelings

When it comes to feelings, you may believe certain feelings are bad and some good. Remember that there are no good or bad feelings. We are emotional and have a broad range of feelings, which truly have a purpose. Feelings ought to be expressed or else suppressed emotions at times manifest themselves in quite an improper manner.

If there was only happiness, it would eventually lose its luster over time. So it is important to experience sadness and unhappiness as well so as to truly appreciate the beauty of it all. Without being aware of the dark sadness we would not be able to appreciate the light of happiness.

Feelings too have a life cycle. They take birth, bloom, they peak and then die off. But that is how it is. The sooner you accept it, the better. Even in couples, after a disagreement, there will be resentment and anger which is not expressed. If the underlying feelings remain unexpressed, it generally leads to a disproportionate disconnect. All the unexpressed feelings will eventually explode.

It is important that we allow ourselves to fully engage with our feelings. Even if you feel sad, challenge yourself to stay compassionate which will help you to widen your emotional bandwidth and normalize feelings like sadness, despair or anger.

It is very important to embrace your feelings. Close your eyes and let your emotions consume you, cover you like a blanket, warm you from the inside out. After all, it’s absolutely okay to feel your feelings.

–ShadesofLife

True Love is A Deliberate Choice

Generally it is not about the romantic way you meet someone. It’s basically about your compatibility, gestures and adoration. When it comes down to one thing to sustain love, it’s definitely choice. When you choose to love someone, it’s your decision. Every second, you put some effort to nurture that love and this gets us in trouble. I feel its wrong to say that love is something which happens to us. It’s something we make happen.

Love is an action, a pure choice, a commitment. The most beautiful thing about love is that you know that you are chosen by the person you chose. Love needs sacrifice and it won’t always be easy. But it is most beautiful when reciprocated. When you love someone you have something which is so profound. You have a home in that person, where you can be your own self, somewhere you can rest without being judged.

You will have some one who sees you truly and loves you forever. You don’t choose the one you will be attracted to, but you choose the one with whom you will stay in love with. Feelings are fleeting, it is a fickle thing. How you are feeling today will not resonate with the way you feel tomorrow. But real love is constant, it’s tangible. And when life becomes too unbearable, it’s love that gives us the strength. Feelings do not play any role here. When life throws us a curve ball, it’s in love where you will get the much-needed stability. You can’t just abandon love specially when its hard.

Love isn’t really a feeling, nor is it a state of euphoria. It’s hard work which needs constant compromise. Feelings can flicker, it can come and go. But real love? It stays and goes on forever!

–ShadesofLife

Kuch Ankahi Baatein ❤

“Ishq kiya dil o jaan se bhi zada tumhe,
Nahi andaaza tha tum sirf dard ban k reh jaoge.

Krte na ye khata fir hum,
agar pta hota k tum is pyar ko kabhi smjh hi na paoge. ”

–ShadesofLife