A memory of her sitting content by the window.

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I have a memory of her sitting content by the window, by her I mean a friend who appeared in my life out of thin air, who built me and set an example of strength and value she has for herself, who loved herself more than the guy standing by that window waiting for her approval to come inside.

She sat content, devoid of any worries of the world , for I know she tackles her life in a very organised way , with a sense of clarity, purpose and clear consciousness. When she moves, she knows what direction she is heading in, and is ready for all that has to come ahead of her. She has that unwavering confidence in herself that she will do fine. She is the product of strong sisterhood, and a network of friends who she supports around her.

She doesn’t go on wasting her time and energy by sending her word out , unless you are in dire need. She is balanced and cheerful. She sits on her arm chair next to the window, letting the world pass by. She is aggressive at times, she demands respect and understanding always , because she knows she is not perfect either. She knows when to say NO, and respites before taking big decisions.

I have a memory of her sitting content by the window

There’s still a part of me that wants to go back to where I belong………

There’s still a part of me that wants to go back to where I belong and I belong to my land where I grew up. There are random early morning or late evening thoughts where I am walking on the streets , eating ice cream with my parents, having silly brawls with my brother, dancing in the rain on our songs , going for the cultural theatres , having multiple foodgasms, being around people who I can associate with more closely.

Last evening while walking on the cultural street next to my home. I saw a family sitting together in midnight and enjoying ice creams, a father playing with his little son. And it made me think how much we want and love the “ordinary” when we don’t really have immediate access to. But when we’ve it, we’re too busy thinking about the moments yet ahead of us.We beat ourselves around for the lover we lost, for friends we had a quarrel with, for the job we loved and were laid off , for the marriage day, for brighter days free from corona.

Little do we remember that what’s happening right now is truly magical and find the beauty in it and force ourselves out of different time zones we live in and stick to ” here and now”.

An Empty Cup from Empty Barrels

                                       A few years ago, I got into a debate lame enough on facebook. I won’t enter into what we basically conflicted about. But, pretty enough the woman who I argued with fed me a beautiful metaphor of an empty cup. I’m still trying to dig into my facebook messenger to look for her exact words that acted as a muse on picking this blog name which I cleverly changed into “Empty barrels”. Looking back at the time, I was 21 when I decided to create my own blog, signed up on wordpress. I’m not sure if I started bravely right over to put my thinking into a blog. I’d say there’s another girl who mused me into writing, which is after when I had started to read her blog. Her words would just flow right, the finely crafted poetry and most of all, her way of life, of course as I’d view and receive it. Yes, I’d stalk her on facebook and instagram. Totally sucking my long gone habit! It just looked perfect to me the places she would travel, or the way she’d dress up to how she got hitched to a singer and musician! Isn’t it wonderful to marry a musician, especially when you’d like to start your actual day with some music and your mood can perfectly dance to the rhythm of it? Quite frankly, I’d totally fancy wedding to a guy who’d play some acoustics to me. 

Coming back to the story of “empty cup” changing into “empty barrels” it turns out that her written message is lost somewhere under verification threats of the fb user.However, the essence is still intact. I can literally take an empty cup and create it into a flower jar, or fill it with the extra cents .  A cup by all means, for me makes a perfect room for freshly brewed coffee. 

Isn’t life mostly like it?

What makes you feel good?

I started this morning by laying down my yoga mat on my terrace, placed the plants next to me so I can see some greenery around, filled myself a cup of black coffee, closed my eyes for 5 minute in meditation and later started reading the book The secret. 

The law of attraction says, do more of what makes you feel good , Dr. Joe Vitale says “so the more you can feel good, the more you will attract the things that help you feel good”. Speaking for myself largely, how many times do we get caught up in situations thinking about things we don’t really like, feelings that don’t make us feel better? Thoughts of anger , disappointments, life not going in the direction we planned and so many reasons to complain about. And despite knowing that, we let that happen. Why?

I request you to transform your thoughts right now. Think of everything that makes you want to smile, gets you jump out of your bed and helps you get excited about the day. We have heard that a million times already to count your blessings, check around you. There are so many things we can feel happy about right now, but we let that escape our mind. Hey, let’s not do that!

We sometimes think , again speaking for ourselves , that overthinking will let us solve the situation better. But one of my friends sent me a book called Blink, which dwells on the idea of “The power of thinking , without thinking.” I wonder how cool it is that it teaches us about how snap judgments can be more fulfilling and more appropriate for us than taking time pondering and then making a decision. Some decisions are actually best taken by our brain in reflex, in the moments when we know something without knowing why. Instead of wasting our time , just sitting back and thinking , let’s rejoice in the here and now and go back to good times that gives that extra oomph for life.

So sitting back relaxed on a Sunday morning , I am creating a list of my “Secret Shifters” that instantly is my mood lifter and recalling every memory I have with a cat I am in love with who used to be there at my workplace, about having Turkish breakfasts at the sea side, taking walks during the sunsets around the Kuçukçekmece lakes I once lived in, doing yoga early mornings with the sounds of birds and having coffee while reading my favourite book. The list is truly endless.

Now , I ask you what makes you feel good? Write it in the comments, or make a list of it and share with me. 

Have a lovely day ahead! 

Practising Consciousness.

It amazes me how these days a shallow talk, idea and a gossip catches fire than anything that happens at a greater level. We all go far and beyond to continuously feed ourselves that piece of information which is actually toxic for us. How we spend days , years and sometimes our lifetime over involving ourselves into that matter.

Over hearing Sadhguru talk about “consciousness” in his second session of Inner engineering. It has been an eye opener for me in a lot of ways. He clearly reminds us to have and manifest as many desires as you want to, but be careful that those desires are attended to consciously and carefully.

It’s so easy to be smitten by the illusion of empathy, happiness and satisfaction that it gets harder to see what’s actually a truth and reality and how it impairs our decision making and make us sick for ages. And this truly these days is advertised by the more exposed we’re to what we see , and who we involve in our closer circles.

Over days and sometimes months are spent in breaking the cycles which shouldn’t have started at first place. Our little habits go a long way and farther into someone’s head and heart. Our little minds may be hacked by so many redundant energies.

Let’s practise some more consciousness together and learn to build a more peaceful world!

Untold truth about teaching english certifications if you’re an Indian working abroad.

While living abroad for few years now, and trying to move  up the teaching ladder, fine tune my teaching and speaking skills. No one will deny when you’re trying to make an ESL teaching career abroad , if you’re South Asian who grew up with English, but have that flat native speech sounds, stretches and pauses that come with it the world will look down on you. The other half truth being , the recruiters would suddenly put on the tag “We’re Racist” and obviously rule your application out just because you’re Indian.

Generally speaking, if your CV has been worked on splendidly well using an updated canva.com frames and makes a great first impression to your recruiters and you outsmarted them by hiding your nationality. You’ve a chance to get an interview call if you’re sending teaching applications for other countries. However, unless you’ve a decent neutral accent, or the one that of Shashi Tharoor or the BBC news readers. Surely, you’re just a dime a dozen.

What these teaching agencies do not disclose while selling their teaching certifications in India are the facts about the suffering and constant stress that’s going to come  with it, while you stay unemployed.  If you’re taking this career forward in a light  that you want to travel the world, and teach at the same time. They don’t tell there are thousands of others who pursue these qualifications with you, who are natives and will obviously be picked for the job . You may have to face harsher circumstances than an engineer would.

Sure, these hefty teaching English certificates are internationally recognised qualification. It gives you confidence and effective toolkit when you stand in the classroom full of foreign learners who know few words of English. It’s going to do wonders for your students , if you’re pursuing this career to teach in your home country as you already know the work culture.

This is a wake up call for the Middle-easterns, Arabs ,  Asians or Balkans that these certificates won’t do wonders for you, least of all make you earn equally well. What’s more important these days is what passport you hold for a career like this. If you shook yourself out of your comfort zone, and took an education degree from Europe or from one of the native English speaking countries.

Teaching career abroad comes at a huge cost. One of the truths being, if an employer is hiring you, he sees that you got one of the criterion met with these teaching english license, and with some relevant teaching experience. Whatsoever, you won’t be paid at par. Unfortunately, the truth of the day is you’d still be hired cos’  you’ll cost them low.

Sure, if you’re a warrior enough as I’m. If you don’t easily give up and are willing to work on yourself,  compromise your comfort zone, shed off your native Indian english accent  and know few other languages.

You may go places! 😉

 

*P.S the opinions are totally based on the real life experiences of the author of the article and doesn’t support or reject any sort of education .*

 

 

 

Self or The other

The artful rhythm

or the messed up commotion,

the loathing of self

or the kindness for others,

the mysteries that are found

or the knowledge that is lost.

The kindled emotions

or the drowsiness of the present,

The pumped up  confidence

or the consciousness of failure,

The artifice for others

or the truthfulness to the self.

In the baffled battle between

the reality and the imagination,

the wisdom of identity

or the crisis of self,

the matter of truths

or the falsehood of belongingness.

The nature that gives

or the humans who receive,

the cyclonic outrage

or the waves that soothes,

The impartial abundance of being

or in the dearth of living.

In the paradoxical

dichotomy of the choice,

some meaning that is gained

or the vanity that is lost,

we discover a part of us

and gained some perception of us.

“I resemble everyone,but myself”

I remember pouring my heart to one of my teachers in graduation days of going through identity crisis. While she after listening to me patiently compelled me to read more about “identity crisis”.

After giving an account of the serious issues going on in head to my dearest friend, she lightly waived it off saying “these are merely mood swings”. ” Sleep until you feel better”.( similar to what Einstein did perhaps)

While telling mother about the flooding of thoughts and questions penetrating each brain nerve. She almost subsided my thought saying ” these are emotional outbursts”. “Make books your best friends”.

Of all the repeated questioning and analogy and failed attempts of clearing my head. I actually got down dissolving myself into the wonder of words until my conscience got arrested again on the beautiful delineation of a poet in a verse “I RESEMBLE EVERYONE BUT MYSELF”.

And true that is, at last I’m able to confer if not, reach to inferences( similar to final “solutions”), that a part of my “wilderness” still remains untainted and touched. And the struggle still remains to unlearn and repossess my identity.

On a lighter note, I have still got time for discovering new perspectives. After all, not all messed up thoughts go waste!

The feeling of being answerable.

I have recently joined as a Teacher of English in a school. I have always been precise and curious about Grammar rules as a student and would point out to my classmates and colleagues whenever it was necessary.
When I started my journey as a Toastmaster during my college in Chandigarh. I got acquainted to the budding Grammarian inside me, whenever I would take the Role of it in the meetings. But as soon as I joined as an English Teacher and stood before those curious and not so curious eyeballs. I realised how important it is for me to be delivering my best. Everyday I come back from school take a nap and start reading WREN & MARTIN. Honestly, I had shirked reading the book all my life when I was a student. But now the feeling that I’m answerable to some 250 lives daily. It has become a constant need to reach out to the best of resources available around me . And trust me, that does not only make me answer well , while I stand before my classes but also is making me a well informed and more confident person.

I had always kept the idea of becoming  a teacher at bay, but seems life takes you by surprise by throwing you up especially in the same situation which you would like to avoid. But I throw my hands up now and am ready to admit that I have started to love the profession because it isn’t just a 7 to 3 job for me anymore. Coming back from school, preparing myself for another day, reading much more than I used to.If it hadn’t been for those curious , restless eyeballs who look up to me as someone who is going to inflate more curiosity in them , I would have never changed my ideas about it.

It only takes me to wonder more , if we would all just begin drilling passion to our work and not just see it as a mere means to earn, how fair and just things will transform into. To top it all, we will all end up satisfied and happy!

Another Epiphany?

The time has tested me enough,
Sun has set now,
The hair looks a little grey and white,
Teeth a little yellow,
The shoulder joint now pains harder,
The spine can’t stand tall any longer,
Isn’t it a matter of despise?
Legs shivers a lot easier,
Eyes water much quicker,
I think I have done all it takes,
It’s time to let the wheel turn another,
No more shadows to haunt in dark,
Not a voice should make me quiver,
It’s time to wait ànd see what comes,
The crack in the curtains scare no longer,
May be darkness is my friend now,
I light it up in my eyes,
The zip and zap and bim and boom
It plays with me the childhood games,
I think their is nothing to gloom,
Because I know I am not the only one,
Never have been so and never will be,
This has happened and will happen,
So not to wail in vain and waste,
What is precious should atleast we taste,
I know a lesson is down in that chamber,
It glows like jewels in those fairy tales,
And all I know is I am going down under ,
To steal that gem and keep with me safe!