Beyond Perceptions- Not Confined to the Opinions of Others.

 Feel Good Sunday. Happy Sunday everyone. 

Well the topic for today is raw as it can be in it's form. Ever felt lost in your 20's? Well then you're not alone. Hopelessness, helpless and maybe "Im not worth it." Or "maybe This is not meant for me" Have such thoughts ever crossed your mind? If the answer is Yes, I genuinely urge you to read about my experience here. 

So, feelings of being worthless or not good enough are essentially categorized as negative emotions. And as we know none of the negative emotions can help us in our Development. Past few months were more or less like these for me when I started to find answers to some questions like this. 

• Am I not that good?
• Do I not deserve this?
• My sincerity is not taking me anywhere. Should I stop and change my belief System?

From the above questions, the third question is the one which carry much more depth to it. Like doing everything with honestly, being sincere, reciprocating goodness, having integrity in both personal and professional life are some of my key values. But, certain set of circumstances forced me to think that maybe living by these values is not enough. Maybe something needs to be added or altered here. 

That's why I started searching for the answers to questions like? Why do people don't recognize the worth you bring on the table. 

When I tried to go into it's depth, the answer shocked me to the core. So, here's a quote which says "You attract what you are not what you want." Anddd I was so surprised and shocked at the same time. It was like Mera to ego hurt hogya bhai......I just said people do not recognize my worth. This literally means I myself do not consider myself worthy. Okay? But my initial thoughts were something like this how the hell is this possible? Am I the one who's attracting toxicity to my life? Am I entertaining such people around me? A lot of such questions started pondering around my mind. Two days. This all lasted for two days. But I was firm on my decision that I want to improve this situation anyhow. So I decided to reevaluate myself. 

•  Have I harmed someone ?
•  Have I hurted someone with intentions?
•  Have I ever had bad or evil intentions for someone ? 

The answer for all these questions was the "BIG NO." So they again the question that stays, why am I going through this? After reading some research papers, blogs and after listening to some podcasts, I got closer to my answer. And it was very simpler than you can actually think. 

Somewhere deep down in my mind I still had that belief that "I'm not good enough." Unconsciously I found that i was repeating all the conversations that made me feel worthless. There was a constant playback going on in my mind which was not even letting me sleep properly as well. And the only reason was - i was allowing this. Seems offensive right? But it's true. When we are in pain, we often find comfort in it and start using it as an excuse or weapon to deal with situations. 

But trust me this doesn't help at all. The more I was questioning why the more I was getting stuck in the loop of thoughts. 

Only good thing was, I was very much firm that I need to get rid of this any how. So, again I was back at my job of finding answers to the most difficult questions out there. 

My next question was how can I manage this? That is when I came across a book "You can heal your Life." And boommm. It gave me a reality check.

See. You can be the bestest of best version of yourself and still people can choose to unsee it. You can bring the 100/100 marks and still people can choose to criticize you. You can bring the sun and starts and the moon on earth and still people can choose to ignore it. You can have a big huge Achievement and still people can choose not to congratulate you. You can be the best person at work and still you may go unnoticed. 

This is it. This can happen. Now the question that popped up next was why? Why is this so? 

Multiple reasons.

•  Maybe they are not aware of your potential 
• Maybe they are going through a very rough patch which you're not aware of. 
• Maybe they are doing so because they're enjoying this and what not.

The main essence here is that we don't know "The Why" to this and we are going to use it for our own benefit. Yes. Well have to become selfish sometimes. This is called Benefit of Doubt. That's when you don't know the why behind it. 

And it is not important to me either. Because had I been aware of why I might have developed some other negative emotions like hatred or anger, so it's better to not be aware of that. 

Next sawal was, how can I get rid of these? 

And, again it was simple. By forgiving them. This seemed impractical to me initially. How can I forgive someone who made me feel so small. Who made me questioned my worth. But, where there's a Will there's a way. 

• FORGIVE THEM NOT BECAUSE THEY WERE RIGHT, BUT BECAUSE YOU DONT WANT TO SUFFER ANYMORE. 
• FORGIVE THEM BECAUSE YOU DESERVE HAPPINESS. 
• FORGIVE THEM BECAUSE THEY ARE STOPPING YOUR HEALING PROCESS. 
• FORGIVE THEM BECAUSE THEY FAILED TO PROCESS THEIR OWN EMOTIONS AND HENCE PROJECTED THEM ON YOU. 
• LET THEM SET FREE BECAUSE YOU DESERVE THAT FREEDOM.
• LET ME BE UNBOTHERED BECAUSE YOU DESERVE THAT SPACE IN YOUR OWN MIND AND NOT SOMEONE WHO THINKS YOU ARE UNWORTHY. 

So the answer was FORGIVE them. But is it that easy? For me, NO. NOT AT ALL. 

Forgiving someone needs not necessarily means agreeing to everything what they say. It just means taking stand for yourself and letting them know what you felt. 

It's well known that swimming against the stream is difficult. But, wo insaan hi kya jismein tajurba naa ho....

Understand this that, your worth has nothing to do with anyone else's perception of you. What anyone thinks about you is not what actually defines you. 

When we Understand this, we become unbothered by external factors.

And remember You are too good to feel this bad. 😊😇

Best Luck.