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The voice in our head that constantly rips us of our peace of mind, whose voice is it? It took me a long time to understand that the voice in our head is not who we are.
The voice in our head that constantly rips us of our peace of mind, whose voice is it? And if it were quiet, how differently would we have lived our life? It took me a long time to understand that the voice in our head is not who we are. So, how did I reach to this observation? Well, here’s the story.
I am the mother of a pre-schooler. Anyone who has mothered a pre-schooler understands that toddler-hood had in fact been a piece of cake compared to a pre-schooler with excessive energy, unending questions and strong emotions.
Quite naturally, the pandemic does not help the situation at all. Even going out is a headache with me yelling throughout the time we are out things like ‘Don’t touch that’, ‘Don’t touch your face’, ‘Sanitise your hands’, ‘Pull the mask on top of your nose’, until my voice becomes hoarse by the end of the outing that I had planned in the first place to soothe my overworked self. This cycle took the better of me until I became extremely irritable and started to take out my anger on my child constantly. What was her fault? She was being a child. This realisation wrecked havoc in my heart and I reached out to a fellow mother and friend who I had known for ages.
She is someone we all called Zen since college because she always had the calm and composure of a beautiful swan or a mediating monk. I still wonder how she pulls that off? So child and all I called her on zoom. ‘I feel guilty, overwhelmed and overworked I told her.’ ‘Why do you feel guilty about having natural emotions?’ She asked. ‘Well, I am the adult, I am the mother, I should be the understanding one.’ ‘Who said so?’ She asked. ‘Well, that’s how things are supposed to be?’ I said matter of fact. ‘Who made those rules? Who has made this rule that women who are overwhelmed with emotions should not express them freely? And if you do not know who made these rules why do you follow them?’ I was flabbergasted by her response. While I stared at her wondering actually why was I playing by the rules of a game I do not even understand she told me. ‘When a child is born, everyone blesses the child with the blessing of an unbelievably long life. Interestingly, the moment the child reaches old age, people start shelling out anti-aging creams etc so that they do not look their age. I mean wasn’t it supposed to be a blessing?’ ‘Women cannot exactly run governments, they say and these very same people vote for Kamala Harris. It’s a different story that the world had to go through ‘Trump’ to understand that cliches and people’s opinion is actually irrelevant in real life.’ ‘Thirdly, society deems that humans should all retire maximum by the age of 65 years and then you have a Joe Biden at 78 years of age, solving world problems being the President of America.’
So I ask you, she continued, the voice in your head that speaks about all the do’s and don’t’s about every minute details of one’s life, is this your voice or the societies and the naysayers of your life. If it isn’t yours, just stop listening to it immediately. Problem solved. If it’s yours you need to see a psychiatrist because I think the dementia of the world we live in has caught up with you. ‘You make sense’, I replied. What were you doing by the way, I asked her conversationally. ‘Watching the video of Milind Soman’s mother celebrating her 81st birthday doing 15 push-ups’ she replied with a twinkle in her eye! ‘No you didn’t’, I said. ‘I did’ she replied and before signing out she said,’and yes, meditate if you want to stay sane.’ ‘Sure,’ I replied.
Image source: Pixabay
A Social Media Content Writer by profession. A writer by heart. A genuine foodie. Simple by nature. Love to read, create paintings and cook. Have impossible dreams. At the moment, engaged in making those dreams read more...
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UP Boards Topper Prachi Nigam was trolled on social media for her facial hair; our obsession with appearance is harsh on young minds.
Prachi Nigam’s photo has been doing the rounds on social media for the right reasons. Well, scratch that- I wish the above statement were true. This 15-year-old girl should ideally be revelling in her spectacular achievement of scoring a whopping 98.05% and topping her tenth-grade boards. But oddly enough, along with her marks, it’s something else that garners more attention – her facial hair.
While the trolls are driving themselves giddy by mocking this girl who hasn’t even completed her school yet, the ones who are taking her side are going one step ahead – they are sharing her photoshopped pictures, sans the facial hair, looking nothing less than a celebrity with captions saying – “Prachi Nigam, ten years later”.
Doctors have already diagnosed her with PCOD in their comments, based on photographic evidence. While we have names for people shamed for their weight – body shaming, for their skin colour- racism, for their age- age shaming, for being a female- sexism, this category of shaming where one faces criticism for their appearance has no name. With that, it also has zero shame attached to it.
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