Theloopylululog

One habit that has improved my life the most?

Hmm…

I am a creature of many good habits. To the point that I get bored of my predictability sometimes.

Some of them have been with me since I was a kid. Others offered their friendships as I stepped on to the ladder of growing up and making something out of myself.

Some are straight out of self help books. Some customised to the obsessive wacko in me. While others are a part and parcel of enjoying life to the hilt.

Narrowing it down to one is searching for the proverbial needle in the haystack. BUT…

I have it right here! Been out here digging for it since dawn!

The habit I was born with

Waking up before the sun has it’s merits. A head’s up before the cacophony of family is well and good, but I love to wake up at dawn, hours before the day begins it’s warm up for the work out ahead. My mind loves to be up and about early, wearing it’s best attire and swearing itself to silence and solitude at that unearthly hour.

When you have spent decades fighting battles with it for one precious moment of silence, it is indeed a blessing when it chooses to become a monk, preferring it’s own company over others. Who am I to question it, eh?

Just imagine all those tranquil hours waiting just for me? To be spent any which way I want to! Qigong, Meditation, Yoga, Pilates, Cardio, Weights; each one get’s it’s share of some well deserved love, attention and care.

The best part? I get to sing for my gods; as loudly as I can. Who’s gonna barge in to my home asking me to tone it down at 4 AM when the whole locality is buried under a mountain of sleep and blankets with not one pair of ears available for my audience!

I don’t know if this habit of waking up before the world does, has improved my life or not since I have always woken up before the rest. I only know I feel like I have bitten into all the choicest offerings of the day if I welcome it into my heart at 4. I end up playing a futile catch up with it if I don’t.

The habit I chose to marry

There is something though I had to learn from scratch. Something that never came naturally to me. I had to fail at it many times over painfully and embarrassingly. Blaming and shaming myself. Hiding under Everest sized guilt. Regrettably regretting.

It took major handholding through the toughest of times for it to register itself into my roster of habits.

Introducing Emotional Mayhem – Thy name

I like to call myself a victim to my own emotions. An emotional fool of the worst kind if ever there was one. I lacked emotional maturity like the deserts lack verdant meadows. Even the Atacama attracted rain-fed super blooms towards it before I could gain a grip over my emotions.

There was a time I was high on Ekhart Tolle, Osho, Robin Sharma and the likes. But they were no help when my emotions ran amok. Like spluttering mustard seeds in hot oil, I was all over the place except where I should be. In the pan err in my control.

Reactive and explosive I was a minefield. One step away from blowing up on myself. Anger and hysterical tears ready to walk the ramp any time.

So what helped?

Sleep.

Huh? You are scratching your head, I know.

If you know me, you know Sleep and I are divorced.

Exactly.

So what to do but resort to some jugaad!

A gap between reaction and response was the key to the lock.

Nowhere was it mentioned that it had to be sleep. So, not sleep per se. I ran with the conditions apply clause!

I just put time and distance between them.

YES! The one disgusting thing I hated viciously in maths came to my rescue, imagining itself to be the Prince Charming to my Cinderalla. Talk about divine providence!

Just enough time and distance for the reaction; Oh I feel so vengeful I could squeeze your ***** and exterminate your entire clan to sublimate itself to a response; Oh that’s ok, I forgive you. It usually took about the time I lay in bed and waited for sleep to open it’s doors to me.

Just as I was slow to accept the merits of slow cooking, I took eons to discover the perfect recipe to my emotional freedom. My wham, bam, poppadum approach to life came with a statutory warning I forgot to read.

But once exposed, I stopped grovelling. I straightened myself up.

I will always remember the first time I was successful in this endeavor. My then boyfriend now ex was a royal mess. Self involved to the core, he barely had time to SEE the real me. Hindsight often glowers at me, wondering what made me love such a narcissistic creep. My only answer, please forgive me, I knew not what I was thinking! I was emotionally stunted darling.

One evening I received a mail that particularly hurt me badly. His words singed me so bad I just went numb. No fireworks. No vengeful words. No hasty reply to later regret in leisure. I just went unusually quiet.

Instead of a fiery sambar, I relied on a wonderfully nuanced biryani to come serve my needs. I put the pot of my garbled emotions on fire, lowered the flame to sim and went to bed. Sleep for once tucked me in with TLC. Even sang a lullaby.

The next morning I woke up to the calm after a proverbial storm. The biryani was ready, perfectly fluffy and juicy. My mind was deep in meditation. My body was open and luxuriously rested. I was no more a commander in chief of a country at perpetual war with another.

My emotions were settled. No anger. No harsh words. No more poisonous plans of revenge being scribbled in haste.

Just calmly detached.

Soon I cut cords with him. Let the relationship go. Blocked him. He was nothing but spam clogging my life.

From being an impulsive child I suddenly found myself transforming into a level headed calm woman. In a few months, I noticed a massive change in me. How I handled my business, my family, my depression, life in general; everything seemed ready to sort themselves out.

I applied the same technique in every sphere of my life to build a home within me that didn’t resemble an armoury.

Inculcating habits: The slow-cooked biryani method.

The trick to a perfectly layered biryani that melts in your mouth leaving a new taste and flavour with every bite is to let it simmer in it’s own juices. Cook immaculately in the steam released when every ingredient organically binds with the other to become a wholesome One.

The art lies in leaving the pot alone while it simmers. No peeking. No walking back and forth. No impatient behaviour of any sort.

Just detach yourself from the pot and give it the space it deserves.

My emotions needed the same treatment. I practiced giving them space. I came away with sorted feelings.

I practiced putting distance between the storm gathering speed within me and the place/person it will crashland on. Physically and mentally. Leaving plenty of time between to stop widespread damage to both parties.

The impulse was still there but I was no more impulsive. I diverted my attention towards my hobbies, telling myself, just this once…let’s not start a war, just this once.

Once became many. Until it became a habit built into my bones.

Now it takes days to elicit a response from me. Text. Mail. Conversations. I sit on my response until they are a handcrafted perfection. With a bow. Sometimes simply choosing silence. Giving dignity to emotions. Not just mine.

What happens behind the scene is how I deal with my reactions in silence and solitude. Known to none. No ***** are mutilated. No one is maimed or left to die in some imaginary minefield.

Just me and my feelings in our playground. Riding the swings, goes up and down the see-saw; while my emotions are being simmered over the fire of maturity and compassion.

Wisdom is often the result of slow-cooked experiences turned habits.

What started as sleeping over my impulsivity graduated to waking up to being thoughtful. Choosing a life of proaction not reaction. One slow-cooked habit at a time.