Just for Today I Will Be True to Myself

As a society today, we are as fake as we can get. Plastered smiles when greeting people you do not like, is not considered fake, but good social etiquette. Your parents encourage you to put on an act while meeting elders who they may think little of. 

Your peers want you to give them compliments for achievements that you couldn’t care less about. Your partner wants you to always be supportive of their undertakings. Your children need to be mock scolded so that they learn what is socially acceptable.

It’s a vicious circle where you are expected to act as the person in front of you desires, without ever once being able to express your own self. In fact, often you are so engrossed in playing all these different roles, that you yourself are unaware of who the authentic you is!

Today’s Call to Action

Make an effort to truly understand what part is the authentic you and what is the socially acceptably you facade that you project. Get out a paper and pencil. Here are a few questions that you need to sit down and answer honestly. Think of it as getting to know a new best friend.

Make a list of seven things you would like to do today, if you had no commitments. Make it as simple as possible. Even stuff like going shopping for clothes, wanting to sleep in late, eating an ice cream, or simply going to see a movie, can go onto the list. However you must have seven different activities mentioned.

Now make a list of things that you would like to experience. Make them as exaggerated as possible. Stuff that can make the list may include taking a world tour, learning 10 languages, taking a month off to cycle through the state, going white water rafting or anything else that you deem exciting. There is no maximum limit to this list but it should have at least seven things on it.

Once you are done compare the two lists. Find out what it is that you enjoy. Things that you are passionate about. This will help you figure out the things that make you happy, not society, but you. Now work towards including these things that you are passionate about in your life. Be true to yourself and make your self talk encouraging.

Affirmation – I am true to myself. I nurture my connection to my authentic, higher self with my thoughts, words and actions. I stand in my full power.

I wish you an authentic and happy life.

Love and light, always

Cashmere

Just for Today I am Willing to Celebrate Instead of Criticize

How many times have you been scolded as a child, for not doing something that your parent desired? If you had a normal childhood, it’s likely that you have experienced your fair share of criticism from parents, teachers, and other adults in authority around you. This set you up for being critical of yourself. Everything that you wanted to do or say, had to go through an internal filter in your mind.

As you grew up into an adult, you began to negate what were thought of as childish desires. Your self talk would have fallen into a pattern that asked more of you. That demanded you do better than last time. Just like your mother used to demand better marks, when she saw your end of year report card.

This forced you to do better. To give it your all. To motivate you to be the best. I’m not saying that this is wrong. Yes, we need to strive to improve ourselves. There is much that we can achieve if our inner voice asks more of us. However, we must also take time out to celebrate ourselves.

Isn’t that an alien concept! How can we celebrate ourselves? Isn’t the validation of a job well done supposed to come from people in our social circle? While it is true that social recognition plays an important part in our lives, it is also true that only if we are able to accept and celebrate ourselves that such recognition can be satisfactory.

Today’s Call to Action

The idea is to move from pulling yourself down all the time and being critical, to building yourself up and being supportive. We all have unique challenges in our lives. Some are similar to what others are going through, some may be unparalleled to what experiences others have.

You don’t have to wait for an occasion to celebrate. Take every small victory as an excuse. You met a demanding deadline at work? It’s time to treat yourself to a relaxed evening with friends. You managed to not eat junk food for a week while on a diet to lose weight? Pamper yourself with a special spa treatment.

By celebrating yourself, you are giving recognition to the tasks that you have accomplished. It can be an incredible motivator to doing better in the future. Celebration is a much better motivator than criticism.

Affirmation – I celebrate every accomplishment of mine, no matter how big or small. I track and celebrate my achievements. I support and motivate myself to follow my dreams.

I wish you constant celebrations in your life.

Love and light, always

Cashmere

Just for Today I am Willing to Forgive

Forgiveness, it’s a word that invokes strong emotions. If you feel that you have been wronged by someone, you carry that hurt with you. Your head feels heavy and your heart hurts when you think of the past. No matter how much someone may exalt the virtue of forgiveness, you may not be in the space to actually think about it. They say time heals everything.

Time is not the answer to healing old hurts, it’s what you do in that time that matters!

Are you still feeling victimized by people who may have betrayed your trust? Isn’t it an effort to hold on to all those negative emotions? If you feel you would rather let the past stay in the past, by forgetting the hurt, but keeping the lessons, you are now ready to start the process of forgiveness.

Make no mistake, it won’t be easy. It’s not instant, but a full fledged process.

Most often the hurt makes us want to seek revenge, not offer forgiveness. This is like locking yourself with the person who hurt you, into a room in your mind, together. Neither of you can leave that room and the only one continuously hurting, is you! The desire for revenge eats you up slowly but surely, leaving behind only a shell of the beautiful soul that you once were.

Till that clicks in your mind, it’s never going to be ready to forgive. You need to be ready to stay the course during the process of forgiveness, and genuinely want to forget those who have caused you pain.

Today’s Call to Action

When you are ready to begin the forgiveness process, begin by sitting in a comfortable place where you will not be disturbed for a while. Then open your mind to the hurt that is festering inside you. Think of the person who hurt you. If you have a photograph of the person, look at it.

Don’t try to stop the thoughts and feelings as they flow through you. There may be some physical discomfort initially, and your breath may be affected. Just keep focus on breathing normally. Once the initial intensity of the hurt decreases, you may use these statements to begin forgiveness.

“I am willing to forgive (name of person) for (action that hurt).”

“I take the lesson and release the hurt.”

“I forgive myself.”

The first statement can be repeated for different actions that have caused you hurt. Keep going till you can think of no more things to forgive this person for. This must be repeated each day for at least a week. Over time, the resentment you felt towards this person, will begin to decrease.

At this point you will feel lighter. The thought of the person will no longer cause a negative emotional reaction. Now you are ready to release them and move on to any other person who you may want to forgive.

Affirmation – I forgive and release the past. I forgive myself, and I forgive everyone else. I live my life in the present and design a beautiful future.

I wish you a release from the past hurt holding on to you.

Love and light, always

Cashmere

Just for Today I will Honour My Time

Do you have a friend who is always late for appointments? No matter how much you try to explain to them that they need to be punctual, they always end up at least five minutes delayed, if not more. It can be a very frustrating experience, especially when you are extremely particular about honouring your time.

Or perhaps it’s the other way round for you. No matter how hard you try, you always end up missing deadlines and reaching late for meetings. It’s not like you want to get late, but invariably you get held up at the last minute doing something urgent. Then you rush around like a headless chicken trying to make up for the lost time, but still can’t make it on time.

How you handle time is a good reflection of how you handle yourself. If you respect your time, that is a good indication that you have a healthy sense of self respect. If time is always racing away from you, then you are chasing the feeling of self worth without ever experiencing it.

If you don’t care enough about yourself to bother with managing your time efficiently, you are happy to get bogged down with things that demand your attention.

These situations may seem more urgent to you than your own health and self care. Notice I said urgent, not important. Nothing is more important than you, and yet you can make time for everything and everyone but yourself.

Do you deny that you will not have time to take out ten minutes to do meditation, but will speak to a friend who calls up discussing the weekend outing for more than that duration? Don’t to find it easier to watch mindless television series to “unwind”, than to go out for a walk that will help keep you physically fit?

All of us are guilty to some degree of not honouring our time.

Today’s Call to Action

Do a life audit. Write down the five things that you seem to spend the maximum time on during your day. Then write down the five things that you would rather be doing in your day. How deep is the disconnect in what you are doing and what you want to do?

Stop squandering your time on things that you really don’t want to do, but feel that you must. Don’t commit to activities that eat into your personal time. Try to avoid taking on more than your mental space can handle during the workday.

It’s okay to let go of an old project that doesn’t seem to be moving. You may have outgrown the dream, but are still hoping to get some return on your investment of money. However, if it’s draining you of the most crucial resource of time, do you think it’s worth it?

Affirmation – I choose to honour myself by honouring my time. I make good use of each new day granted to me.

I wish you happy times ahead.

Love and light, always

Cashmere