ritukpandey

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6 Self-Care Habits To Set Intention for the Day

A morning routine to have a productive day Photo by freestocks on Unsplash 1 . Be Hopeful It’s going to be a great day. I start my day with  “Good Morning God. It’s going to be a great day” No matter if sounds cringe, this is something I have been doing for about 5 years now. No matter what happened the previous night or the day before. I say these words when I wake up.  Why? These are my…

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Goal setting- Are you doing it right?

Having goals is not enough. Setting the right goals is key. It’s 2023. We are in the New Year which is now a week old. Everyone around you is setting their goals for the year and you are probably too. The first month is when most of us set goals for our professional and personal lives. A GIF with a visual aid showing 2022 and 2023 alternatively. The electric plug is unplugged. Your Goals…

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Do You Fear Your Goals?

The cycle of self-doubt and procrastination and how to escape it.

The cycle of self-doubt and procrastination and how to escape it. Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash How long have you had that goal listed in your diary, marked on your digital calendar, or written in bold letters on your vision board? How many times have you attempted to take the first step towards it but haven’t? Or take the first step and quit the next day? This has been the story for me…

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What Would Happen If I Write Everyday?

What Would Happen If I Write Everyday?

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5 ways to be active without going to the gym

Sometimes it’s the little things that we do matter Photo by Clique Images on Unsplash You can see an entire generation becoming more and more aware of the importance of exercise in life. Some people are making it their life’s goal to exercise whereas some are trying to incorporate it in their lives as much as they can. Some of us are still struggling to fit it in since it wasn’t a norm from day…

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5 ways to boost your everyday productivity

5 ways to boost your everyday productivity

A step by step guide to turn your dreams into reality. Photo by Ryland Dean on Unsplash Day to day work activities can get overwhelmingly exhausting. It doesn’t matter if you are a working professional or a student if you have a personal goal, trying to accommodate it into your life along with the already laid out mandatory activities (school and office work) can get difficult and at times…

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COVID 19- A year in Life

COVID 19- A year in Life

I found it most illustrative to list the big events of my life, and then some, from the past year, month over month. The days seemed too long but the weeks went by far too quick and something new happened- I started hating Mondays… Photo by Pille R. Priske on Unsplash When the first news of COVID-19 -19 started surfacing, I was in India. I was taking my annual trip from Dallas, Texas, USA to…

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The Promodoro Method: How it works?

The Promodoro Method: How it works?

Photo by Olena Sergienko on Unsplash Is solitary work exhausting you? Are you facing the challenge of not being able to focus on your work or personal goals? Are you constantly checking your phone, your social media, or even your fitbit while wanting to focus on your task at hand? Try the Promodoro method: Take a 5 minute break after every 25 minutes of focused work I recently started…

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Hearts meet here

Photo by Alex Block on Unsplash The place was perfectThe space was mineMore like ourThe red wall with the incomplete paintingLeft to the imagination of the visitorsThe ceiling tooThe duct, the wires the rodsAll Left bare, out nakedJust like your naked eyes teasing with mineThe music so loud, so loudGave me the silence to hear my own thoughtsThe guitar strings vibrated through the roomThe singer…

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Moonstruck

Picturesque perfectSilently shimmeringGleaming gigglesLively lunatic A piece of itselfDangling out thereComplete insideIncomplete completeness Traveler or residentHost or a guestSmiling or frowningOr simply just IT Clouds and hazeBirds and planesUp and lowGrey and silver too Shines and hidesCurves and edgesMornings and EveningsMidnight’s perfection Moon through a glassGlittering through my…

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Killed

Photo by Javardh on Unsplash

The death of my soul's desire Each time it wished to be with you, you weren’t around Each time it desired to hear you, you were somewhere I couldn’t reach. Every time it hoped, nothing was left My hearts infinite longing to be with you ended And yet, started again Oft I thought without actually wondering. What were we.. what we could be! Often words I say, hurt me…

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The Twilight of Love Photo by Riccardo Annandale on Unsplash An early morning dream, of which I remember nothing Except the pure pleasure that my heart experienced The feeling of belonging The feeling of being owned The touch that touched my soul The emotion that took away my longing The longing to be visualized than to be just seen The longing to be listened than to be just heard The longing to be appreciated than to be just complimented The longing to be understood than to be made to understand I was carried away in the arms of the wind I felt my soul free As I lay semi conscious with this joy Without a face of this known stranger My phone buzzed, my sleepy voice answered The voice on the other end was familiar It belonged to my dream Now uniting it to reality It was just like twilight between dawn and sunrise My personal Twilight I was enchanted, now conscious And for moments I fell in love

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City Life

Photo by Erik Witsoe on Unsplash

It was raining that day, not like cats and dogs but more like glitter and a lovers tap on the window. Misty air and invisible rooftops of high rise buildings made for a mood. What kind  of mood really depended on you? This could seem like a grey day for some, where there was no ray of hope or sunshine and you were to sulk just as the sky was and sob just as the…

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The Locomotive Manipulation

“Well you see sir, I have a ticket. He bought one moments before boarding the train as he didn’t consider it safe for me to travel alone. We believe he lost it while boarding this over-crowded train.” The ticket examiner took a look at my face and then his as if trying to match our features to know if we were really married. Although I believe that after years of marriage married couples begin to…

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The Hairpin

A story of the beginning of a love story

It was Friday morning in the murky humid city during peak hot summer. Although, it was humid in the city all throughout the year, today’s air was particularly heavy, like a damp warm cloth squeezed and placed all over you, so much so that you could barely breathe. This added to the mood chaos of everyone facing this climatic adversity.

Shifa was no…

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6 ways to help the Earth in 2020

Photo by John Cameron on Unsplash

It is the year 2020 and we all are aware of the havoc caused by nature around us. It is a response to the havoc that we caused on the environment by ignoring our duties towards the conservation and protection of the earth.  The present wildfires in Australia have already killed an estimated 500 million animals and it’s not stopping anytime soon. The amazon…

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‘Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.’ – Steve Jobs

I turned 29 last Saturday, the last of my twenties, the last year before I hit the dreaded 30. Although I believe thirties are the new twenties, sexier, hotter, braver, richer (you got to believe such things for your own good. So, shut up!) Every year, I give myself something for my birthday, a present. And I make sure it is something I really want. It doesn’t require a lot of last minute brain wrecking discussions with myself, because it is usually something I have been thinking about for a while. This year, Miss precious princess decided to go for a meditation camp. I have been meditating on and off for about 7 years now. Well, more off (way more off) than on and in this period I have tried a few different forms of meditation. I picked and chose what I liked and suited my needs and carried them with me for them to carry me in times of need.

Being a year short of 30, the too late to be single, the too late to be not thinking about marriage age, I decided to give myself a little push in another direction and go for a meditation camp to be in solace for about 3- 4 days. I started searching online and all I could find was westernized yoga/ meditation camps costing a fortune for a couple of days. And honestly, I was very unsure of going to a yoga plus meditation camp that completely originated in the USA and was operated completely by people of western origin. Before you call me names or decide I am being biased or judgmental, hear me out, I have my reasons.

The west is known to serve the same traditionally old healthy and beneficial tea in a fancy new cup and call it their own invention.

This literally stands true from the use of turmeric for its medicinal values to calling turmeric milk “gold milk” and selling it as if they invented this whole darn thing. I have been drinking “gold milk” aka “gold milk latte” since I was a kid and possibly all of my ancestors did too, unless they were allergic to milk. Well, who am I kidding! No one, I repeat, NO ONE, in India, is allergic to milk.

  I used to go to this yoga studio which offered a variety of classes ranging from barre to HIIT even though it was a yoga studio and I loved it, since it gave me a balance in my workout routine. However, what I never understood was the westernization of yoga where they played explicit hip hop music with a loud base and didn’t focus on breathing. Well, half of yoga is breathing. The most difficult part of yoga is breathing right. You don’t focus on breathing, you are not doing yoga right. Western yoga is mostly (please don’t read all) about hot yoga outfits.

  Anyway, coming back to my search, I did find something that looked like it originated in India and had traveled here because of its popularity, which should be, because it is effective. Reading the name of the meditation practice, I realized I know someone who had done this before. The only challenge was that this was a 10 day camp and I was super apprehensive that I could / would/ want to do it. Nonetheless, I applied for it, got approved and decided to go.

I didn’t research about the course (apart from reading the whole website) too much because I didn’t want to go there with an already made impression of someone else’s experience. I wanted to take in this experience as is, in the most neutral form with an open mind and closed eyes, of course. The information I had was:

You have to share a room with other students

You have to observe complete silence during the 10 days

You won’t be served dinner

You have to wake up at 4 AM everyday

And according to the schedule you have to meditate 11.5 hours everyday

Only the last 3 were my problem areas. I breathed, made my mind and went for it.

A few of my friends who knew about it were a mix of thrilled, impressed, excited, surprised, shocked and were looking forward to it (probably more than me). I was wished good luck and the best, and they were hopeful I will learn all the secrets to living a happy life, that I would come back with this immense pool of knowledge that they could drink from and here I was like how would I fall asleep on an empty stomach. Priorities, you see. My uncle who practically raised me when I was a kid knows me so well that his reaction was “You are going to run away by the 4th day due to hunger”. He was partly right. I did run on the 4th day but not because I was hungry. Then why? You ask. Again, I have my reasons.

I will post another article on my entire experience of this camp with more details. I want to keep this a short read so here is a gist of why this girl ran away from the meditation camp.

The silence was absolutely wonderful and I was observing things more clearly, smiling at nature and to myself sometimes which I liked, cracking a joke or two within. I was able to meditate on the first day, the food was okay too. It wasn’t great but it wasn’t bad either and since, the day’s activities mostly included sitting with closed eyes, there wasn’t much hunger to satiate. However, the evening discourse session with the original founder of this camp (it was a recorded video shot in 1991) made me realize that I was hungry for more in life and wasn’t ready to give up craving and greed and that I was absolutely averse to his singing. The meditation technique was very different from what I had learnt in the past which was an added difficulty. And although, the camp constantly attributed religion and sects for their dogmatic ways, I started finding dogma in this camp’s methods. I was supposed to meditate in a closed, dark, damp room with 30 other people which literally made me gasp for breath. It bothered me more when the day was so beautiful around this time of the year in Midwest. By the third night, after more than 36 hours of meditation, I realized that I couldn’t agree with everything that the teacher was preaching and my mind was constantly counting seconds now. This started an internal struggle within the positive and the cautious side of my mind. You may call the nice and the evil or the angel and the devil or the right and left or the heart and brain, you take your pick. I constantly have to reassure myself when I decide to do something against most norms, not all, most.

This is how it went:

P: ‘I think I am going to quit’

C: ‘Did you not decide to do this for your birthday?’

P: ‘Well, I did. But my decision was to do something that brought me peace and happiness. Are you really peaceful?’

C: ‘Didn’t the teacher say that some weak minded people would leave. Are you saying you are weak minded?’

P: ‘Can you think of a time when I quit something I really wanted midway? Do you realize how hard it is for me to accept it in front of someone that I will be quitting this? Isn’t that brave in itself? Doesn’t that show I have courage? Didn’t the teacher also say time is very precious, every moment is precious? Shouldn’t I be spending this precious minutes doing things I really want to do rather than serving time because I decided to do something which ended up not to my liking?’

C: ‘Well, you do have a point. All the best in getting your way now. Let’s not take no for an answer.’

And so, I took charge. Of myself and my time. I signed up for a one on one session with the assistant teachers and made my point.

‘One of your precepts are to be truthful, to not lie. So, I sit here in front of you and say this honestly, I am not happy here and I wish to live. I liked my 4 days of stay here but I think it’s time for me to leave for I believe that I would find more peace hiking up a mountain and sitting there by myself than being here in this room with 30 other people. I meditate better being one with nature than in a closed space.’

The teachers tried to convince me to give it another day, another try and I respected that. I had decided to spend my birthday by myself and so I did. In complete silence. Well, almost. I sang to myself that day out in the open amongst the trees. And the next day, I thanked them for hosting me and off boarded the ship.

I spent the next few days with my family in Minnesota. Read books with my 4 year old cousin, drank coffee at old and new coffee places, bought fresh maple syrup, rearranged closets and spaces, walked by the lakes, watered the plants, watched the sunset with the little munchkin, introduced her to the ketchup song and then danced to the ketchup song, ate at an Indian buffet and wrote this article. And all this while I kept my phone at bay.

And the last thing made me the happiest. Oh, geez, makes me sound so self-oriented, doesn’t it? Arrgh, anyway the whole point of this 3 page article is to bring to you this very important point. No matter what the situation is, if it doesn’t align with your goals, if it affects you in a bad way, move away from it. Of course, make sure, no one else gets harmed in the way, but don’t let outside or inside pressures succumb you into doing things that don’t make you happy, that don’t make your heart fly. I have been a victim of this in the past and it was very freeing to have been able to take this step this time.

As I was sipping through this tea, I realized it isn’t my cup and instead of keeping on sipping through it to reach the bottom only to find disappointment I decided to go for something my heart really desires, COFFEE.

PS: While writing this in Minneapolis, I had to constantly convince a 4 year old that I am working on something that is going to pay my bills, something that will give me money to buy food and keep the heater on during winters to keep me warm. Only then she would let me work. Wouldn’t it be great if my writing actually paid my bills? Let’s pray for it.

*More on the experience at the meditation camp coming up next week.

  The girl who fled meditation camp ‘Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking.