Stop everything, and say THANK YOU!
It will change your life.
Hey hey all you wonderful people!
We are at the last edition of Raw and Real for the year 2023, where every week, we talk about:
1 Raw and Real conversation
2 One-Liners
3 Gratitudes
Let’s goo!! :))
1 Raw and Real Conversation
Oprah was once going through an extremely difficult situation in her life.
It was all falling apart. So in a state of crying out loud from her bathroom floor, she called up the great poet Maya Angelou, who also happened to be her mentor.
Instead of consoling her or listening to her complain even more, Maya said: Stop and say THANK YOU!
Wait, what? I am crying because of something that didn’t work out, and you want me to be grateful?
To say what Oprah said,
Ironically one of my most desolate moments, barely being able to speak in between sobs of despair, I called Maya looking for comfort and sympathy,” writes Oprah. “Instead she sternly chided me, 'STOP IT' she said. 'Stop your crying right now and say THANK YOU!'
…
More often than not, most of us tend to get caught up by the pains and miseries of daily life that we tend too forget hat all is going great and working out soo perfectly well in our lives.
We start complaining. We begin losing hope. Worst, we convince ourselves that everything in our life is falling apart.
Whereas in reality, you are alive, you can breathe, your hands and legs and heart are functioning well - and you won’t trade that for a billion dollars.
In the hope and desire for more, we take for granted what we already have.
And that, my friend, is a recipe for misery.
Imagine God coming to your doorstep, to hand you over EXACTLY what you want and had asked for, and just before He is about to knock your door, he hears you crying, waiting, moaning over 3 things that are not working out, instead of the 30,000 things that ARE working out.
Which is what most of us do when we complain or cry because of our problems. Sometimes, we don’t even realise how it becomes our second nature!
This does not mean you ignore your problems altogether and live in a hallucination of “everything is fine” when it needs your attention and rather wait for a magic wand to correct it. Nope.
You will still be working on your problems.
You will be the one who will still be dealing with those situations.
However, instead of crying and complaining, you now come with a perspective of what all you already have, instead of how your life is dysfunctional because of the absence of that thing.
You will operate out of abundance instead of lack.
And that, my friend, changes everything. Everything. Including the problems.
Reminds me of the place where I live at, in Noida. Whenever I am stuck in something or need help with a life situation, I go for a walk in the part. One such day, I took a longer walk and returned through the main road.
Around 8 o’clock in the night, I could see some 2-3 homeless people laying their blanket on the path, getting ready to sleep on the footpath.
It almost gave me a sense of gratitude for the problem I was so stuck in.
Which is what I wish for you this New Year, my friend.
Be grateful. Say “thank you” often. Be the person who looks at the good in everything even when (especially when) it is falling apart.
And if you want any help in doing so, the book “The Magic” by Rhonda Byrne would help you.
I picked up this book randomly in Crossword in December 2012, and believe me, I still recommend this book often.
It contains a series of 28 magic practices that teach you how to be grateful, over a period of 28 days. I read this book almost every day for the first 7-8 years of having it. Till date, I practice 2-3 of its gratitude exercises every single day. So much so, that at a time when a friend says “I am tired I receive client calls on weekends as well,” I tell them “But it’s a choice, and you must be grateful for them.”
Gratitude has the power to change your life.
If only you give yourself that chance.
Please do yourself a favour and get a copy of “The Magic” if you want a better, wiser, more beautiful way of dealing with problems, and are sick and tired of being sick and tired.
We wish people “Happy New Year” every 1st Jan, don’t we?
Time we do that to ourselves as well. After all, the best wishes emerge from within.
The Magic works for those, who work for the magic, instead of working relentlessly against it.
2 One-Liners:
Having a relationship with yourself is the hardest part.
The mark of a strong human being is they are willing to go anywhere without their phone and wrist watch.
3 Gratitudes :))
To be able to recommend “The Magic” to you all :)
To be able to take an off during this New Year and Christmas, and not worry about my career falling apart because I am offline for two weeks :))
To be able to just write this newsletter throughout 2023 (and hoping to make it more raw and real in 2024). Trust me, to crystallise what I was feeling in my heart, every week in this newsletter, was one of my favourite homecoming exercises. Thank you, for being a part of it. You have NO idea what it means to me. Thank you! <3
On that note, see you all next Saturday. FINALLY with the announcement of “The Year of Writing Miraculously”
PS: Please try forwarding this email to your friends, especially the ones who love writing, thoughts on life, and authenticity over anything else :) Thank you :))
Bye for now, friends!
Nishtha