Enough.

There are days you don't feel your best. It suddenly hits you out of nowhere. You wake up feeling like crap. You look in the mirror, literally or figuratively, and don't quite like what you see. You feel like 'less'. Days where you tend to fixate on what you are lacking and the inner critic seems to win. You know?

Remind yourself -

You are Strong - look at all you have survived so far. You kick ass my friend.

You are Powerful - you can take the steps to initiate change. If not the situation, then your attitude.

You are Talented – so uniquely you, with your very own set of abilities.

You are Capable – of baby steps and leaps of faith; of the mundane and the magical.

You are ENOUGH.

I Am Not....

A friend and I were recently watching TV and marvelling at Katrina Kaif's beautifully shaped legs with sighs of envy. You know those days in front of the TV where you act ridiculous and dissect who and what you see...yeah, those. Got me thinking of how many hours I would have to put in at the gym to get said legs. But the fact of the matter is even if I work out 24/7 I won't have her legs for the simple reason that I am not her! I could have the toned and muscular legs I wanted but a version of my own... I am not her and I will never be :)

For the same reasons I will never have Michelle Obama's arms, Angelina Jolie's lips, Tina Fey's wit or Roald Dahl's writing chops. I am not them. My attributes and talents are my own. The best I could do for myself is hone in on my talents and physical and mental traits and make them the best version I can for myself (if I choose to do so). And that is okay.

Another thing people often do, myself included, is look back and rue the days of yore. For example, recently looking at a stash of impossibly tiny clothes from college, I definitely felt a pinch. But I do realise however I work at my health and fitness goals, I am going to look like a version of what I am NOW and not something I was a decade ago. I am not that girl any more and will definitely not look like her again.... but you know what, that is kind of super too :) Just accepting that is freeing and allows me to enjoy my journey more.

It is so easy to get into the habit of wanting to look like, act like or be recognised in the way certain people (both celebs and those in everyday life) are that you forget how suffocating and limiting that is. How liberating it can be to be able to see yourself as all you are and then figure out how you can work with and make the best of what you have. Covetable standards in beauty and otherwise are impossible for the simple reason that you are not these people. You are yourself. With your own set of awesomeness and flaws, in all your perfectly imperfect glory!

This is not to say you can't discover new talents, interests and passions or that you can't push yourself physically and intellectually... but to simply acknowledge that you will be doing what you can as YOU!

Have you had any 'Aha' moments recently? Would love to hear what you think!

Invisible Capes...

There are things in life which make you feel absolutely fabulous... ones we forget to appreciate in the daily grind of making a living or living a life which we might think is getting increasingly mundane. It could be something simple or some grand scheme that you have been working toward... but oh, how great certain things make you feel! Have you had a day or a moment where you felt like a super hero? :) What is it that gets your blood pumping or senses tingling and makes you feel powerful, even if for a brief moment?

I'll start with simple examples and something physical. As some of my friends know, because I can't stop talking about it, is that I've started belly dancing classes. And even though it is for nothing else but fun, I feel like a sensuous, feminine dynamo by the time I (usually quite ungracefully) finish class. And if I had a superhero cape at that moment it would be a silky purple one flowing behind me jingling with bells and coins, with my body being my glorious secret weapon ;)

Similarly, I feel immensely powerful and at ease with my body when I do yoga. Small progresses, a little more flexibility and a better session feels like an accomplishment. Or when I get to the gym and complete a workout, I know I have at least for that day kicked my lazy bum into doing something good for myself. I am my own little superhero.

When it comes to the mental and emotional, nothing quite makes me feel as powerful as writing something I think is worthwhile. This has less to do with the writing I do for work and mostly when I write for myself. If I nail a story I've wanted to write or even just a great paragraph, I am ecstatic. For that moment while my cape encrypted with words from literary greats unfurls, my pen shines like a sword in the moonlight! :)

Sometimes it is even the sheer pleasure of watching someone else have a victory or blissful moment of their own! I remember when I was volunteering with an organisation that provided informal education for children from the slums, there was a little boy in my group, who although not the best at academics, was an amazing little budding artist. He drew this great drawing and when I told him how good he was and asked him to do a picture for me to take home, he blossomed right before my eyes. In that moment his smile encompassed his entire face and his pride shone through and made me smile wide as well. It was amazing to see and an honour to be part of someone else's superhero moment.

It could be because you nailed a work-out or aced a presentation at work; it could be a moment when you taught someone or yourself something new or had a victory from something you have been busting your butt for... it could be anything that for a moment in time made you feel amazing. You may not imagine an invisible cape fluttering in the breeze like I crazily do, but have you had a superhero moment this week?

Would love to hear from you :) 

Oh Baby!

Part I

There are a few things that I would imagine alter your perception of your body and actually change so many aspects of it like pregnancy and motherhood. The physical and emotional changes are massive and something I really wanted to write about. Considering I have no first-hand experience myself I reached out to many amazing friends and asked them to share their story in their words , (anonymously if they chose) and it was great to see people open up in total honesty about the good and the not so good! I have received such honest feedback that I want to showcase as many as I can and will make this a multi-post topic. Thank you, you lovely women...

I realise in asking people to share their experiences I'm asking them to share many private moments of their lives and so I decided it's only fair I do the same. A couple years ago, I got pregnant. Although, it was unplanned my ex-husband and I were pretty thrilled. Now in all honesty I wasn't completely sure if motherhood was for me but it still was pretty exciting to know what could be. Unfortunately, we went through an early miscarriage when I was just about 5-6 weeks pregnant. Although it was for the briefest of time, the whole experience sparked a massive turning point in my relationship with my body and my body image. A clear fact was finally driven home – that my body is more than just what it looks like in the mirror. It has other greater purposes, for some that might be becoming a mother, for another that be scaling that mountain peak or finishing a marathon or setting the dance floor on fire. For someone else it could simply be being strong enough to go through an illness. The fact was clear that this body I own is worthy of love because it can do many, many marvellous things other than just fit into a pair of skinny jeans.

As far as pregnancy goes young women are fed on stories of pregnant women endowed with glowing skin and lustrous hair, of how it would be a cake walk and once you had your child you would bounce back immediately in both the physical and emotional sense. Reality sometimes is a little different :) 

Let's hear from the ladies themselves about their physical and emotional journeys -

Preeti's story -

I planned both of mine. It made me feel in control: at least in the beginning of the pregnancies. Once I was a few weeks into the pregnancies, I felt less in control with every passing week. Which is not necessarily a bad thing. It helped me exercise my faith. Exercising my body, was an entirely different story. You feel tired. a lot! This is not a great motivation for keeping fit and the weighing scale keeps showing a bigger number every time you visit the doctor. (The weighing scale in my doctor's office has a little girl's picture above it that says "don't step on it! It'll make you cry!" That's the only thing that makes me smile while I'm standing on it). To console myself, I tell myself my hair weighs about 15 lbs. Even my toddler knows that’s not true

There are some other, pretty awesome things, pregnancy does to you. It fills your heart with more love than you could ever imagine could fit in there, it fills you with enough milk to supply a tiny, small village, if you decided to, you become the best baby monitor ever made: you will wake up when your baby wakes up even before he or she cries. And you’re doing all this while learning a completely new language: baby talk. So it pretty much turns you into a borderline super human. The joy I felt holding my child in my arms for the first time is second to none. Ok, may be second to the joy I felt holding my husband’s hand while dragging him down the aisle on our wedding day. On a serious note though, being a mother has changed my life for the better and by God’s grace, I have never doubted it. I look at my child and am filled with awe at what my body can do. What I can do. What pregnancy did to my body, however, is a slightly different story. Experiencing weight gain during the pregnancy, becoming your ‘heaviest’ ever, going through child birth, and then working towards, hoping and praying for your weight to go back to pre-pregnancy, is a rollercoaster ride I haven’t quite enjoyed or found the slight bit thrilling. Lack of sleep doesn’t help you getting back into shape either. The 2 and a 1/2 minutes that you are finally able to carve out in your day to exercise, seem better spend sleeping, somehow. A mixture of all of this can become quite depressing, if you are not careful. I try to handle it through prayer and surrounding myself with the ‘right’ people. My husband, fortunately, is a wonderful husband and father. Not only is he great with our son, he seems to know (sometimes even before I do) when I need to take some time off for myself to go for a walk, do some reading or just put my feet up. This has really helped me find my bearings as a new mom.

Pregnancy and child birth should, ideally speaking, make you more confident in yourself. But thanks to the size zero adoration that happens all around us, the same pregnancy and child birth can end up making us self-conscious about our bodies and lower our self-esteem. This in turn can keep us from finding and working towards that right balance between a healthy mind and body. Post-partum depression is a very real problem. It is important to go through this experience with an understanding that your body will change. I think the key for me was sharing my heart with my husband, even in the midst of the first few crazy parenting months and surrounding myself with family and friends who understood me (the crazy me) during my pregnancy and helped me get back on my feet after. It worked for me, the first time anyway. I’ll find out, in a few months, if it works the second time around. 

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Ms. Friend's story -

When the hubs and myself found out we were having our little munchkin we were over the moon. Everyone told us how great it was to be a parent, how wonderful everything was going to be!!! What no one ever told us was, I would have terrible morning sickness & heart burn for about 6 months (it was more like all day sickness). It was so weird for someone like me who loved chicken so much; I couldn’t even look at one at the grocery store. We never knew this would happen until hubs & myself were grocery shopping I had one look at the chicken and threw up all over the floor. Gross I know; thankfully the store was kind enough to tell us not to worry and they would clean up.

So my entire pregnancy I never liked any food, they only thing I could keep down was fruits nothing else and I still gained about 35 pounds. I never had glowing skin that everyone talks about. I remember asking my doctor if he had seen skin as horrible as mine.

However apart from all this, we did our entire baby shopping, had amazing baby showers, prepped the house for the baby. What followed next again no one ever told us about. Our little daughter was diagnosed with reflex at day 5 which meant non-stop crying for hours due to her tummy aching, constant spit ups, and naps of not more than 2 hours at a time. There were nights hubs n me would take turns to rock her in our arms which stopped her from spitting up. The first month or two was hell for us, I didn’t enjoy motherhood one bit. Add to that my step grandma who passed away while my mom was with me made it an emotionally draining experience.

No sleep, pain medication, constant spit up, baby crying for hours together what summed up for the first few months till the doctors could figure out what was wrong with her. It was also the most difficult time in our relationship which put so much pressure to everything else that was going on. Think about it this way, two adults with no sleep, a baby crying non stop, a mom who was on her first trip aboard and hated every minute of it, constant opinions of what we should and should not do. But two years down the lane our marriage has stood all of this and we have a beautiful two year old who is full of energy, giggles non stop when her dad hugs or kisses me. In the end I wouldn’t have had it any other way. My little family is compete.

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Thanks so much girls! Would love to hear from anyone out there who would like to share :)