Siddhi Palande

Lifestyle

Top 7 Ways To Live A Stress Free Life

Life, off-late, has been all about adulting. And with adulting comes excessively stressing out. Life is difficult and everything that happens to us happens in superlative. Emotional stress, work stress, it can be chaotic. You think you find reprieve in meditation and you do that but a few days on and you feel it isn’t working out anymore. Insomnia follows. You stay awake all night looking at the ceiling, killing thoughts, counting sheep or stars but stress doesn’t go away. You go to a pub, think of getting a life but a ping from your boss about the “presentations tomorrow!” pulls off that smile from your face. The weekend doesn’t crawl. It speeds past you like a bullet train and you are left with the mundane. How then do you cope with stress? I have been going through emotional chaos so much that I stopped talking to my friends, cut off my social media and went into a shell. I then pinged a small group of friends, and one of my friends told me to “take help.” I have come out of clinical depression and I know how disturbing things can be. It was a hell hole and I didn’t wish to go back in that black hole. You find this article here because I have been able to get over the stress. How did I de-stress? Read on to know.   1) Talk The mistake I did was not to talk. I shut myself off and that’s not right. You need to vent your anger, your anxiety, your thoughts – good or bad, doesn’t matter. JUST SPEAK UP. Half of your stress in life is because your thoughts sit in there, in your head and mess up the wiring within.   2) Write Writing helps a lot. But what to write? These days people journal. You can check the videos online wherein there are exclusive channels about journaling. How to journal is simple. Write your thoughts in this notebook you keep. You may write two lines or an entire essay or may abuse your managers but do it! It helps. Also, read: This is how writing a journal made my life less stressful   3) Take up a hobby Take up a hobby. Any hobby. You may wanna check out a dashing car every weekend in a nearby mall or take painting lessons or go cycling or just fill in the adult coloring books. 10 minutes every day or 30 minutes every weekend, doesn’t matter, as long as you get to unwind.   4) Read I am a voracious reader and a book is my comfort food. [I go by the name @book_gobbler on Instagram, you may want to follow me for all the book recommendations 😉 ] Reading helps take your mind off the things around you. Immerse yourself in a fantasy world or a nail-biting thriller or spine chilling horror or general fiction – up to you!   5) Walk I hate rains because all my walk routine becomes kaput during monsoons. I am a better person when I am walking, I always say that. Walking is exercise, yes. But more than that it helps release mood-boosting endorphins. There are multiple other benefits of walking but let’s stick to this one for now. Watch: I walked to a bookstore and this happened!   6) Balasana If you can’t find 10 minutes from your busy schedule for walks, (this taunt is from me to me :P), then you ought to try Balasana. This is done by taking a child-like pose, that helps you relax and destress. Check this video out to get a clear picture:   7) Music The first thing that helps me heal is music. It is my first aid when I am stressing out. Contemporary Bollywood, Trance, Retro, it all depends on my mood but music heals faster, at least it puts the healing process in a gear one. Also, read: My 9 Favorite Lines from the movie Rockstar   Lastly, I would like to tell you all a simple fact – money, position, fame – and everything else you are running after in life is temporary and perishable. What’s permanent and important is how you treat yourself and those around you – that is here to stay. So while keeping yourself sane is important, it is also equally important to make sure that you don’t drown yourself in these luxuries so much that getting out is impossible. I hope these tips help to de-stress your life. Do let me know in DM on Instagram at @book_gobbler. Here is my website and twitter profile.

Lifestyle

I Married a Sanyasi

I know you are here because you are intrigued by the headline of this blog post. But please be patient as I use my writing skills, some adjectives, some adverbs, and bring out an “alankarit” (ornamented) write-up for you. Every girl wants to date a bad boy and marry a good man and that’s exactly what happened to me. But this bad boy was, in fact, a good man. And I was to know about it only after I was married. Immediately after I was married, in fact! Well, my husband and then-boyfriend aren’t definitively bad, he would just turn roguish when necessary. What with his political ambitions and jazz, the word “radaa” or ruckus was something that he used often. Then there were those fights with dishonest rickshawalas and even I joined him when he fought against their loot. (But after the marriage that image sort started to wilt. He became a matured and responsible chap.?) But the day after my wedding my new family decided to break news to me which actually shocked me, surprised me and I am still reeling with the effect of that news! I was introduced to the family’s past via the photo albums and there I saw an image of a guy, dressed in saffron-colored pajama,  jhabba, and a pagdi. I couldn’t recognize this chubby boy. My family is a lot religious and we follow a spiritual Guru and so I presumed that this boy was a fellow disciple of our Guru. I WAS WRONG HE WAS MY HUSBAND! MY HUSBAND WAS ONCE A SPIRITUAL GURU! Wait, weren’t you expecting that? But, really, I wasn’t. It was a shock to me. I hadn’t a clue if I should laugh or cry or feel cheated because my boyfriend never once uttered a single word about this past. Understand now, don’t you? That even if you date a person for a year or more, you are not really going to be acquainted with every aspect of their life. And with that thought, I sort of quelled my thoughts, pulled myself together and gave a hesitant laugh. Furthering my scare were these words, “I was going to become a Sanyasi.” S.A.N.Y.A.S.I (That sort of came out in slow-mo or that’s how I remember it now ?) Wait, what? “Why did you….not…then?” “Umm….my inclination towards history and politics is so strong that our Guru seems to have got a whiff of it and he said that I shouldn’t take sanyas….” “Oh….” “Perhaps, he knew that I was to meet YOU!” Perhaps… Now that’s highly possible to have worldly instincts, you know? Enlightened people usually talk cryptically. And it’s up to us to solve those riddles they throw our way. And hence I didn’t think of it as odd at all. “So you would give pravachan in those clothes?” “Ummhmmm…every Saturday.” “Wow!” That didn’t really come out the way I wanted it to…but yeah it was more of a surprise, every Saturday! That’s when someone from my family chirped in (you see I was in a trance and don’t recall who asked this question next). “So, why did you fall for her?” I heard this question and his laughter followed. “I married her because she replied to one of the most toughest questions quite easily?” “What question?” I asked. “Don’t you remember?” “Nope….” I was quizzed about a question I was asked! ? “So, once I asked you, who are you?” “Yeah ….??” ? “To which you replied, they call me Siddhi but I am aatma.” I AM AATMA. Make that sentence bold, italics and underline it. And here I was thinking I was someone special… This Sanyasi married a soul who knew that she was just a soul. Get it?