V is for VIBGYOR

I had taken my kids out to the park, and it suddenly started drizzling. The sun was still out and we had not expected a shower at all. While I was feeling bad about an evening ruined for the kids, they excitedly pointed out to a beautiful rainbow sweeping across the sky. A ray of sun through the tiny drops of water breaks into a colourful jig of seven colours, VIBGYOR as we know them. The sight of a rainbow was enough to turn those frowns into smiles.

The Seven colours, each bearing a different significance and meaning, invoke feelings and beliefs unique to each of them. What the colours symbolised looked like a summary of what I had been writing all month long!

Red is the colour of love, passion, energy and enthusiasm.

Orange symbolizes creativity and playfulness, bringing about a balance of both in life.

Yellow is bright, chirpy and happy and symbolizes vibrancy, energy, and wisdom.

Green has a calming effect and is the colour of fertility, and growth, good health, harmony.

Blue is soothing and relaxing and is the colour of divinity, the colour of peace, understanding and communication.

Indigo symbolizes infinity, mastery over the self and intuition.

Violet symbolizes royalty, and spirituality.

Together they symbolize how much infinite potential lies within each one of us; the potential to love, to be creative, to be happy, to grow, to understand, to be playful,  to be vibrant, to be wise, to be harmonious and peaceful, and finally to have control over our self and to be one with God!

The rainbow is a symbol of hope; it tells you how a ray of light can bring out the brightest of colours from a single colur- white….and how you can choose to be that light in someone’s life, turning their world colourful or trust someone to be that light for you!

What took me a month to say, the rainbow said it all with its band of seven colours!  

U is for Unique

The other day, a friend remarked how I wasn’t just like the rest of the gang. “You are a little too childish, a little too outspoken, a little too messy,” she went on…“that’s not classy at all and neither attractive, you must change”

 Yeah, I’m a ‘little too’ of all of that. I like being myself, I hate pretense, and I hate people who pretend!

 I like to eat with my hands, and don’t really make a big deal if what I’m eating happens to accidentally drip down my chin, especially if I have been enjoying eating it! That doesn’t make me any less lady-like, does it?

I like to line my eyes with kohl, even if I’m home alone, I like to dress up for myself, and no one else, and wear what I like to wear, and not what people think I should be wearing! So that doesn’t make me less classy. In fact, I think, being classy is not just about the clothes, it is about the respect you have for yourself and for others.

 I’m not a rebel, I’m usually law abiding, even if I’m the only one waiting at the signal, when it is red! (That’s happened couple of times before…people breeze past even as the light has just turned from green to red, but not me!) They may think I’m weird, but I like to stand up when I hear the national anthem being played, wherever I may be at that time. Does that make me a nutcase?

I don’t wait for someone else to initiate conversation; I am at ease talking to strangers as I would be with friends…does that make me any less attractive?

I don’t think it is funny to have fun at someone else expense, and no, just because I said it in as many words, doesn’t make me childish…. In fact I never thought it was mature enough to do so anyway!

And yeah, it’s ok if they call me a unique piece, because I know I am unique! Actually we all are…! Why die copying each other when you are born unique?

Every print of thumb is unique,

And so is every snowflake,

I’d rather be myself and be proud,

Than being someone fake!

T is for Trust....

Does trusting people come easily to you? Can you blindly place your trust on people? Or are you the type who would not trust even your shadow? Are you the kind of person who would insist on verifying everything before you trust? Whichever category you might belong to, how important do you think this thing called trust is?

Studies show that trust is one of the most important attribute of human existence. If we can live as a community, it is only due to the mutual trust we have on each other. This begins early in life, when we are kids; we trust our parents and people around us to keep us safe and healthy. When a father throws his child in the air, the child trusts his father to catch him back. He might not have a moment of doubt what would happen if his father failed to catch him. When you are admitted in the hospital for a surgery, you place your trust on the doctor to treat you successfully, if you didn’t, you would not let yourself even be anaesthetized!! You fall in love and you marry, and there couldn’t be a bigger gamble than that. But you trust your partner to love you and be with you for life. So that’s how important trust is, and our brains are hardwired to trust.

But this is not always the case. But what happens when you trust someone and that trust is broken? Can you heal yourself and trust again? If I had to answer that question, I trusted people too easily. I didn’t think someone would cheat me ever, because I did not cheat anyone. I believed people were being as frank as I was with them. Of course you know where I am getting to, don’t you? This naivety and being all that trustful was the biggest mistake I could have made…..or so I thought! Not only did it hurt me in all the wrong places, it also took my trust out of trusting people! Was I wrong in trusting people then? Probably yes, probably no…

There are different areas in our brain that deal with this issue of trust differently. One part of the brain is wired to trust, but there is also another area of our brain that is wired to logically think over things. It is the part that helps us to reason out things and then allow us to trust. Going back to the earlier example, how did the child learn to trust? The child being in close contact with the parent on a daily basis, has learnt to trust his parent. Why did you trust your doctor? By checking out the doctor’s credentials and by verifying his success details, and perhaps talking to some patient he has treated successfully in the past, you have learnt to trust yourself to him. How did you know your partner was right for you? Before you married, you must have put your better half through a lot of tests, some upfront, some subconsciously, to know if he is right for you. That means, we do use logical thinking before we trust someone.

If that is the case, why did trusting someone hurt me? Did I not verify? Did I not use my logical side of the brain? The answer is - how much ever we try to use logic, there a lot of times when we rely on our hearts and not on our minds to make decisions for us. And the decisions made by the heart stand as much a chance of being wrong as the decisions made by the mind, using logical thinking. In spite of years of trusting, there is still that tiny chance that the parent might just miss grabbing the child in time…or the highly successful surgeon may mess up your case….or the partner you were so confident of, dumps you at some stage!!

So do you trust or do you not? I would say, keep your trust intact. Keep your faith in people intact. A few bad cases of misplaced trust shouldn’t be a deterrent in breaking your trust in the entire humankind.

S is for Smile....

Anyone will vouch for the power of smiles! It is one of those contagious little things that you can catch anywhere and when you do, you also pass it around inadvertently. On our morning walks we meet strangers on the jogging track, people whom we see every day at the same place but have never stopped to talk to, yet we smile at each other with a nod of the head that is supposed to mean good morning! And over a period of time it feels like you know practically everyone! A smile is that powerful weapon, with which you can break even ice!!

Every time you smile at someone, it is an action of love. Let me share a few lines from this wonderful poem that says it all-

Sometimes you don't find the right words for certain situations, but in such situations a smile can speak a lot. Words have this ability to confuse, but smiles have this ability to convince. So take time out to smile.....even at a stranger......someone out there may be in desperate need of it.....you never know whom you have brought happiness with your smile. 

R is for Relationships....

We come into this world alone and we leave it alone. And in between, we get into relationships, some beautiful and some ugly. On one hand, there are relationships that teach us to love, share, bond, and trust, and on the other, there are relationships that teach us to choose wisely, by hitting us where we’d hurt the most. Good or bad, we need these relationships to make our existence in the world meaningful. Relationships will not grow by themselves, and like plants, they need to be nurtured. Here are five pairs of spokes that I think keeps the wheels of relationships going-

Trust and Honesty- Trust is the most important factor in a healthy relationship. A relationship is the weakest when there is more doubt than trust. Trust is as important to a relationship as air to the lungs. It is not easy to rebuilding trust when it has been broken. There’s a saying which says, trust is like a cup delicate and fragile, once broken can be mended, but the crack will always be there. And that is why it is also important to be honest and truthful.

Communication and dumping your ego - Lack of communication kills more relationships than any argument or fights can. Talking things out clears so many issues, but for some strange reason, people would rather stay quiet than communicate.  Body language is also an important mode of non verbal communication. A good hug, a reassuring pat, an understanding nod, a loving gaze…there are so many ways to communicate. So even if it is uneasy or uncomfortable, keep all doors to communicating open. The ego always comes in between a good relationship, so skip the E and let it GO! Turn the “M” in ME upside down so it always reads WE. When there is no ego, it opens the doors to communication.

Love and Respect- You always get respect when you give respect. And with respect comes love. When things are bitter in a relationship, it is difficult to respect the other person and what they say. And that is when we tend to speak disrespectfully and hurtfully. But most fights end some day, the bitter words may be forgotten, but how you made someone feel, will never be forgotten.  

Understanding and patience- Agree that you will not have similar opinions about everything, and will disagree more than you will ever agree. When there is disagreement the floodgates of anger open up and we tend to say so many things that we wouldn’t have if we had been patient. Just like no two fingers are the same, no two people are the same, and so opinions will always differ. Being patient lets us understand the other can think differently, and this understanding makes relationships last longer.

Forgive and forget- To err is human, to forgive divine, it is said. Easier said than done. No one’s perfect, and mistakes do happen. But when the relationship is more important than the mistake, it would do good to forgive and forget, not as a rule though.