self-compassion Archives - Lifestyle Architecture Lab

In our lives, we live through different phases. We meet new people, different people. People who were just strangers to us and then they slowly become our acquaintances, then friends and sometimes something more.

As this happens to everybody, this all has had happened to me as well. After leaving home years back, when I came to start a new phase of my life. It was the start of my professional career. I started meeting new people, everyday. Some of them I didn’t even notice when they came in and went out of my life. But some of them came to stay for long. Friends, close friends, best friends and more. We met, we laughed our stomachs out, we roamed, we explored, we shared things, we conversed. I felt really blessed with these people in my life. But then the next phase came in my life, when i saw these people go out my life as well. I was a whole new person, when they went.

Before these people came in my life, I was living a normal, not much funny, a bit serious, disciplined life. But the life i was living was joyous, self-contented, not dependent on somebody else, not living through someone else’s decisions. I was happy. I was enjoying life. I was alive. Not that with these people I didn’t enjoy or felt alive. But there was something else to this. I felt changed after their vanishing act.

Post their existence in my life, my life started changing, I as a person started changing. The circumstances which came along with these people, stirred the change in my life and my personality.

Now I was totally engaged with these people. When people meet their values, their thoughts, their personalities collide and affect mutually. I saw myself adapting myself values that those people had. Earlier, I had a habit of not letting things go, but now I was letting things go. I started taking decisions based on the circumstances, decisions which could make a great negative difference to my life in a longer run. I saw myself loosing out on my own values.

But all these people come as a phase in our life, unless they are your true soul mate. Rest of the people come and go. Like the waves in the ocean, some waves are high and some are low. High waves make a great impact on the surfer and low waves doesn’t.

When these people went of my life and I got the chance to reassess the path of my life. I saw how my path had deviated after i had met these people. If I didn’t take any actions my life’s path which is now deviated from it’s original course, it’s gonna stay this way. So I started list down all the aspects on which had caused the deviation.

I came up with the following things:

Letting go attitude
Loosing out on my own values
Being too selfless for those people
Doing things which mattered to those people, but might be against my own values or morals
Leaving my own regular routines (i.e. fitness routing), for giving out more time to those people

Then I thought how can I fall back to my original path of life from which I had deviated. Things which should make me the same man I was before, were as following:

Discipline
To value my own values
Stay on the routines, no matter what
Self-compassion
Do what I love

I started following these things again now with more rigidity and I can now see where I am heading. I’m heading the right way. I’m meeting new people still, making friends still but while keeping up with the above things. I found the control of my own life back to myself.

By taking my own example here, I had mentioned several things above. But it doesn’t mean that people that I had met were wrong or they disturbed my life. No! That’s not what it is. The reason for my life path’s deviation was myself. I started loosing out on myself. That’s what caused this deviation.

This happens with a great number of people in the world. When they take decisions under painful situations or circumstances, which leads them to a life path which is not good in the longer run.

So the bottom line is we will live through different phases of life. We will definitely meet different people. These situations will arise. But it’s up to you, what you choose and what you let go. If you choose to stay with your own values or let them go. If you choose your disciple or let them go. If you choose to do what you love or let it go.

Of-course sometimes compromising a little is not that bad, for something or someone you love. Sometimes it’s not that bad to loosen up a bit and let go. It’s not wrong. But just watch out, if you don’t compromise your whole personality for someone else’s sake and you don’t let go of yourself. That IS wrong.

Just put your values on priority and keep up with your routines, no matter what! Cause these are the things you do for yourself, not for others. If you mix these things right, while you being with the people you love. That would be the life worth living with joy, pride and no regrets.

So go ahead, take back the control of your own life. Be yourself and stay motivated.

Photo by Hello I'm Nik on Unsplash

Photo by Hello I’m Nik on Unsplash

Life!

It’s not a predefined path towards happiness or sadness but a way which we carve out for ourselves. It’s based on the choices we make in our voyage.

Life is not a straight line, it’s a zig-zag path. Mixed with both the lows and highs of happiness and sadness. There has not been a single fortunate person who just had only happiness in life from the cradle till the grave and no single unfortunate one who just had sadness. Everybody, every single person experiences both the emotions in his or her lifetime. Though the ratio of these feelings differs for each and everyone.

If we want to live a happy and healthy life, we need to stay happy in a bigger ratio than sadness. How can we achieve it?

Anyone can achieve it, cause happiness is a choice not a state of mind. At times there will be situations that definitely gonna make us sad, but it’s our choice to fight them or to surrender. We do have a choice to surface up from that sadness. We have a choice to be happy. But it needs strong willpower to make that choice. More than 60% of people I know as friends, family or as close ones don’t possess that kind of willpower, which results in them being in a sad state which is totally unnecessary for them. They could choose happiness over that sadness but they didn’t, because their willpower was not that strong which didn’t allow them to move on from that sad thing. So how do we deal with this?

To reach a greater goal, first, we need to take the first step. That’s the most difficult part. Most of the people couldn’t make it there, because they don’t even take that first step.

Once we have taken the first step to get started, then we need to keep on moving by taking short but steady steps. Some people, after getting started, get so excited that they move on high pace, but they couldn’t keep up that pace and get tired of different circumstances like not getting the desired results or physical tiredness etc. and eventually they stop moving. But people who take smaller steps and keep on going on a steady pace and not thinking much about the goal but the process of reaching there, eventually get there.

Taking small steps and keep on going is not easy as it may seem, but it’s better than the former one. We must practice it with discipline so much until it becomes a native habit. Who said no efforts are needed? Of course, it will take great efforts, but won’t it be worth it? If it will give you a happy and healthy life.

Haven’t you heard, a healthy mind in a healthy body? In most cases it’s true. How could you achieve it? [Here’s a good article on 7 Steps to a Healthy Body and Mind.] There is only one way to be in a routine. Just show up every day, do it every day. Practice self-compassion each and every day.

Come on, make that choice, be happy be healthy. Show up every day for the routine you want to follow. Take that first step and keep moving.

Thanks to James Clear and Anca Dumitru for inspiring this post.

Inspiration only reveals itself after perspiration.

– James Clear

Taking the control of your own life!

Life you really want comes with discipline, consistency and self-compassion, always!

Life!