You. Me. Both.

I have been through a hurricane of events paired with an emotional whirlwind of highs and lows, in the last three to four months. Throughout all of this, the mask that I wore for everyone else to see was: ‘I am a high-achieving woman; working full-time as a doctor and part-time as a dancer and choreographer; going from strength to strength with my all my personal relationships; all the whilst, being a level-headed, balanced person with an epic social life.’ I am not going to deny any of it because, hell yes, it is true! I am quite an extraordinary soul, which I am only fully getting to appreciate about myself now.

Want to hear another side of my truth? Another side of what I have been through in the last few months? Are you ready?

At least twice a week, I was crying myself to sleep for no reason whatsoever. I got into a car accident, which had a significant impact on my physical and mental health – the accident was not my fault by the way! It was a scary ‘hit and run’ with an ongoing police investigation. I was adjusting to new work environments. I had to come to terms with changes in my body after gaining eight kilograms of weight in the last year, all due to poor lifestyle choices. I was (and still am) battling with the worst acne I have had in all my life. All the while, I started a gruelling work rota that I had to balance with back-to-back rehearsals for my wedding dance business, and personal/social commitments with family and friends.

What the world got was a smiley, energetic, happy Praveena. What I saw when I looked into the mirror was a highly burnt-out, stressed girl who just wanted to feel loved and appreciated for all the good work and energy she was trying to put out into the world. In my loved ones’ defence, I was constantly getting the love and appreciation I needed by all those outstanding humans. However, I was so drained that I was not able to truly enjoy that bliss for how pure and genuine it was.

Obviously, I had been and still continue to engage in healing practices. I continue to journal and practice breathing exercises. I continue to ground and centre myself. I have got back into reading books again. I have started doing my favourite hula-hooping again – I underestimated how good it always makes me feel. I have been treating myself to material gifts whenever I can. I have taken even more time to let my hair down and just have crazy amounts of fun with the people I love. I have been giving more to my beautiful family and friends, in the form of my time, effort and physical gifts; this is because of how much they continue to love me despite how neurotic I have been over the last few months. I feel like a weight is slowly being lifted off my shoulders overall.

I have not come back here, after what feels like nearly a year, to gain sympathy or anything by pouring out my struggles, because we all know how unhealthy that it. In fact, I am in such a good place at the moment and I could not be more grateful for where I am standing today. I had decided to get back into writing (as best as I grammatically can!) to share the amount of due diligence it takes to power through all the challenges life presents to us. A large part of how we manage difficulties thrown our way depends on how we react to these challenges, and how much ownership we are willing to take to address the problem and move forward with a positive outlook. The biggest learning lesson for me, in all of this, is this: the hardest part of the struggle is recognising that we are struggling. The moment we have recognised that struggle, we are slowly able to secure the necessary internal and external resources to get through that rough patch.

I am turning 28 in 5 days; I am entering my next year of life with a whole new reflective practice at hand. I am in such a good place right now and I am grateful for this life always.

Talk soon,

Praveena xxx

PS: Who knows if any of the above made sense, but hey ho! It felt good sharing it 🙂

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The 6 Pillars of a Healthy Relationship

As a child, I actually preferred to spend time alone. I did not understand why I was bullied for wanting to spend time by myself. I was called ‘saddo’, ‘loner’ and ‘boring’. Of course it hurt, but I look back on those days and pat myself on the back for being so comfortable to be on my own. Why? Because I believe, at such a tender age, I spent a lot of time building a relationship with myself and getting accustomed to my own company. Therefore when I started to choose and form my own long-terms relationships in the form of friends and family, I felt more comfortable and it happened a lot easier than we all make it out to be.

I am not a relationship guru, but I have been through my fair share of experiences in different kinds of relationships to know what works and what does not. Now when I talk about relationships, it is not just isolated to romantic ones. When I talk about relationships, I mean every single relationship we form with every human being we encounter and bond with. This includes friendships, romantic partners, business partners, family, and work colleagues, to name a few.

Maintaining a positive and healthy relationship is just as much a test of you as it is the other person, so I want to talk about how we can and should be in a relationship to ensure it is beautiful, healthy and long-lasting.

1. Honesty, openness & trust. I never understand how any bond can form without being honest and open about yourself. The more honest and open we are, the more trust we will be able to build with the other party. I am a firm believer of being honest and open about our past experiences as much as our future; we need to know that the other party knows enough about us to understand where we come from and why we are the way we are, and exploring those past experiences is crucial in understanding each other. Let’s not dwell on the past however, but use it as a foundation to build the relationship.

2. Communication & intimacy. When I mean intimacy, I mean emotional and mental intimacy. Just knowing that we can comfortably drop our guard really does strengthen the relationship. It makes us value and appreciate how comfortable the other person makes us feel – this kind of intimacy is precious, and no amount of physical intimacy can replace that. To have that level of intimacy, we need to be able to communicate comfortably. If there is anything on our mind, we need to be able to communicate it in a respectful manner. If something bothers us, we need to voice it. If we feel judged by the other party, we know they are no longer worth being in our life. Period.

3. Kindness, love & respect. I think this is a basic human quality. It surprises me how little I see of this in society. Every relationship is built on genuine kindness, and a love for someone or something. From this kindness and love comes respect. When someone is kind, loving and respectful to themselves, they will naturally be able to shower those around them with the same kindness, love and respect.

4. Understanding, loyalty & humility. We are in no position to change the other person. Instead we need to invest our time into understanding them to their fullest. Let them be free and live their best life. We need to be humble and give space for each other to grow. When we understand an individual and why they are who they are, we are able to appreciate them better and love them even more for who they are. Yet none of this is worth it if we are not loyal. Our loyalty should always remain with that relationship; to go outside of that relationship and talk negatively about the other person makes us less of the humans we were born to be.

5. Friendship & laughter. No matter what kind of relationship you are working on, there needs to be a lot of friendship and laughter. Being a person who makes others laugh, or being around people who make us laugh, really elevates our frequency. We are driven to have even more fun, which in turn strengthens our relationship.

6. Having an identity of your own. We should not be defined by the relationship. We need to ensure we have an identity that goes beyond that relationship. This is how we can boost our self-confidence and therefore be the best version of ourselves for that relationship. Just knowing that we have our own life and goals, makes the relationship stronger because of how much more value and wisdom is added to that relationship.

Ultimately we need to feel comfortable being our true self. If we are not valued and cherished for the person we are, it is a sign that we need to bid that relationship farewell.

Mental Well-being During Lockdown

I wish there was less negativity around lockdown. I am so happy at the moment. I have so much control over my life, and I feel so in touch with my inner self. I really want more people to feel this way. This feeling is truly addictive, and the moment we figure out ways to feel so, there is no turning back.

I’m going to get straight to the point and describe ways in which we can help improve our mental well-being during lockdown.

1. Keep a gratitude journal. I have been reading about having a gratitude journal for years, but I only started practicing it one month ago. Every morning, I spend 10-15 minutes writing about what I am grateful for. There is no better way to start my day and I am so happy to have finally got into the habit of doing so. (If you do not like writing, then voice note it to yourself and listen back to it at the end of the day!).

2. Learn to breathe. As a human beings we are terrible at breathing in a nourishing way. This only worsens our states of anxiety. I personally have been focusing on breathing more regularly throughout the day. Every time I feel my mind wonder, I try and focus it back on my breathing. It is making me realise that our breath is the only real thing at any moment in time. By taking control of our breathing we are claiming control over how we respond to the external situations.

3. Be present. Being sat at home is apparently ‘brain numbing’ and ‘boring’. I think the complete opposite. We can add value to every moment of our life if we are present. We need to focus on what is. We need to focus on the now. We may never get such an opportunity to spend again with our family. We need to relish it and use it to reconnect with our loved ones. We need to learn to be present in each of our endeavors big or small, throughout our day.

4. Learn to do things on your own. Workout alone. Dance alone. Cook alone. Clean alone. Sing alone. Enjoy your own company. Enjoy getting to know yourself. The reality is, not many of us know who we really are. Our understanding of ourself has unfortunately become what we think society thinks we are. This is the prime time to change that. When we get comfortable being alone, we are unstoppable.

5. Take a break from social media. This is potentially the hardest. Everyone is bored at home and using social media to entertain themselves (thanks Instagram and TikTok). It is just proving how much we are seeking for external validation to define our happiness. Such happiness is short-lived. This applies to any distractions we may have. We need to break free from this escapism culture and face our real self. Take a few days off, maybe a few weeks – I took a month off! I stripped away everything I thought I was, to find out I am just a human like anyone else.

I have said this before and I say it again. I honestly believe we have been blessed with lockdown. We have come to realise how much our excitement and joy has always relied on external factors/events, rather than from within. This is the time for us to make peace with our inner selves and just enjoy being, instead of complaining about everything that we could have been doing if lockdown was not in place.

Stay home. Stay safe. Learn about yourself.

Make the most of Lockdown

We have spent so many of our years busy being busy. We have been living that ‘treadmill’ life.

UK is now officially in lockdown.

We have been given an opportunity to come together as one, to save lives and save our NHS. At the same time, we have been given an opportunity to focus on being human, to breathe and to heal.

There is so much we can achieve during this lockdown period – trust this coming from a girl who has been confined to a room for 14 days!

Here are a few things that we can all focus on doing:

⁃ Spend time with those in our household

⁃ Connect with friends/family we may not have spoken to for a while, via text/phone call

⁃ Meditation

⁃ Prayer

⁃ Reading books

⁃ Do an online course

⁃ Learn a new language

⁃ Indoor workouts

⁃ Journal

⁃ Breathing exercises

⁃ Going on solo walks (currently UK is allowing for outdoor exercise once daily)

⁃ Cook together as family

⁃ Watching ‘feel-good’ movies/shows

⁃ Practice skin and hair care routines

⁃ Have games night with your household

⁃ Spend some time studying

⁃ Eat healthily

⁃ Practice gratitude daily verbally or in our journals; we have so much to be grateful for even in such crisis situations

⁃ Goal-setting

⁃ Limit our time online and increase our time offline

⁃ Go through our daily tasks at home slowly and mindfully; be present

Ultimately let’s use this lockdown period to focus on being human.

It’s time for us to enjoy our time at home. It’s time for us to be grateful for everything/everyone we have. It’s time for us to shower ourselves and others with love.

And guess what, we are saving lives and our healthcare system at the same time!

Take off your social mask

We all have a social mask. Whether we like to admit it or not, we all do. Most of us even have our social mask so well defined so we can rally it out on our CVs, LinkedIn profiles, social media bios, or when someone asks the golden ‘Tell me about yourself’ question.

Want to hear mine?

‘I am a 26 year old Sri Lankan Tamil girl, born and brought up in the UK. I am currently working as a junior doctor for the NHS. I am also a Bharathanatyam and Bhangra dancer. I am a dance choreographer, events organiser and blogger. Above all, I am a daughter, sister, lover and friend.’

Fancy right?!

In the last 2 weeks that I have had to self-isolate, I have reflected a lot. During these two weeks, I was not any of what I described above. I was a human being in bed, confined to one room, taking regular paracetamol to bring my fever down, rubbing Vicks onto my chest and nose to aid my breathing; I hadn’t showered in days; I was not eating. Ultimately I was an unwell human being. That’s all.

I looked at myself as a human being. That is what I am. I am a human being. We all are the same. We are all human beings, trying to survive in a world that so desperately wants us to have a definition for ourselves.

This desperation is what pushes us to make decisions, say things, build stories that may not be hundred percent true to who we truly are, and what we have achieved. Why? Because we want to fit in. We want to feel validated. We want to feel like we have a purpose.

This forms part of the reason that I bid Instagram farewell. We are all so tuned into to thinking so two-dimensionally. We are all looking at ourselves through social masks, rather than as human beings. I found it all so fake and untrue. I found myself moulding into this 2D person. I saw people lie about their lives so openly, for attention. I was scared I was falling into this trap. The funny thing is, if we all used such technology as mere human beings, it probably would not be as exciting as it is. I needed a break from such superficiality. I needed a break from mindless scrolling. I need a break from creating dance content just to create a ‘buzz’.

It was a really hard decision. I have been going back and forth on this decision for at least a year now. I was scared of deactivating my Instagram accounts because I was scared that I would no longer be defined as a dancer, because I did not have an Instagram page that said I was one. It made me realise how much I was relying on social masks to define myself. That is when I told myself, enough is enough.

Socially I am living a life that every girl/boy my age could only dream of. Spiritually, emotionally and mentally, I was losing myself to social conditioning. I decided to snap out of it and here I am. Thank you to social distancing, self-isolation and self-reflection.

Self-Isolation AKA Self-Reflection

Last week I came down with a very nasty flu. I was feverish, lost my appetite, could not talk, had a runny nose, terrible cough and did not shower for days on end.

You can imagine how run-down and helpless I felt. I spent months working so hard to balance medicine, dance, travel, dance competition preparation, family and friends. I was ready to go back to work when I became bed-ridden. My boyfriend had to come and pick me up from Shrewsbury and drive me back to my parents house in London, because they were scared of what would happen to me if I stayed alone with no one to look after me and feed me food in a timely manner.

With the recent Corona Virus pandemic, my work place told me very firmly that I had to self-isolate for 14 days! 14 days!! When I found this out, I was overwhelmed. I was grateful to be at home but I started becoming so anxious about not going into work. I felt purposeless. I got so scared. I started overthinking what would happen with my medical training if I took this much time off. I started worrying about being bored at home. I was having an emotional and mental breakdown.

I started to spend more time procrastinating on social media, aimlessly browsing through Instagram, much more frequently than normal. This led to me becoming more and more anxious about the lack of activity I was doing. I felt like everyone was accomplishing things, and I was merely lying in bed, isolated from the world, and recovering from a basic flu.

Corona Virus (Covid-19) is what the whole world is talking about at the moment. Within the last two weeks, circumstances have changed from focusing on self-hygiene advice to quarantine/national exams being cancelled/schools and businesses closing. Therefore, when I was told to stay indoors, as a doctor I completely understood why I had to isolate. Nonetheless I felt guilty. I felt guilty for staying indoors isolating myself, when I felt obliged to help out the NHS and just do my job.

To think that the whole world population, known for our ‘busy’ lives, is now forced to stay at home and stay connected to our family during such vulnerable times, baffles me.

The world works in mysterious ways.

Everything happens for a reason.

I started to realise that reason when during the last two weeks. I deactivated my Instagram account. I started journaling again. I started reading again. I started engaging in positive actions which helped my overall physical and mental well-being. During this time of self-isolation, I started to self-reflect. I also started to reflect on worldly and spiritual matters.

Every single measure taken by us is to protect humanity. We may be divided by our faiths, cultures, social classes, but we are all living one common purpose right now – I do not how many of us actually realise it. For the first time since the day I remember, we as a world population are living as one. We are all living so purposefully to protect and save humanity. It is amazing what we are all accomplishing as humanity. I wish for such unity and love in all our decisions for our future, even after corona virus has died down (which I firmly believe it will).

Maybe there is a hidden message with such a pandemic. Maybe God is trying to tell us something. Maybe God is telling us to focus on what is so important. Unity. Love. Happiness.

One hard good-bye

So this weekend, after ages, I drank quite a bit of alcohol. I got drunk to an extent that I was vomiting and passed out. I can’t remember the last part of the night. All I remember next was waking up in my friend’s flat.

I honestly have not got that drunk in ages! I have actively been staying away from alcohol for some time. I drink small amounts when I go out for meals, but that is about it.

Honestly, this experience has been an eye-opener (no pun intended). I feel embarrassed, and that feeling of what could’ve happened when I was completely out of it, gives me anxiety. I’m getting mini-panics every time I think about what others would’ve thought about me. I know these thoughts of what others think do not define the person I am, but I cannot help it can I?

I just thought to write about my thoughts and feelings. In the past 2 days, I have been doing a lot of self-reflection about what I want out of life. Alcohol is not on that list anymore. Having fun with alcohol is definitely not a priority for me. I have realized that I have so much to achieve and accomplish, and alcohol is proving to be a hindrance to that. It is slowing me down. Most importantly, it is the biggest barrier to my current spiritual growth.

I am not against alcohol at all and I will definitely have a glass of wine socially with a meal. However, drinking to get drunk and have fun is definitely not me. I’ve been there, done that. I’m turning into a different person, and I’m proud of this self-reflection and awareness of my spiritual, emotional and physical needs.

Him & I

My boyfriend and I went through a rough patch recently. Living 200 miles apart, working so hard on our individual goals and ambitions, working on completely different shift patterns, on top of trying to schedule in some social time for ourselves and each other. IT IS SO DAMN HARD.

I’m grateful that we never let our difficulties get the best of us. We always try to work as a team on our problems. It’s never me against him. It is us against the problem.

Recently I taught him about Gary Chapman’s 5 Love Languages. We discussed what we wanted. The conversation was such a spiritually enlightening and eye-opening experience . It is crazy that what we both want is ‘Quality Time’ with each other, more than anything else. The irony is that we are so busy building our individual dreams we do not have the time to spend quality time together. We talked about this and I’m glad we are always able to have such conversations and come up with solutions. The world truly does work in mysterious ways and I’m grateful that I have chosen him to experience life with.

I feel motivated to be a better version of myself every moment I spend with him. Yes it is going to be tough, but when we both know we are working so hard for our future, it makes it all the more worth it.

No one told me it would be this hard

It is so difficult to focus on this present moment when I was programmed all my life to think about the: ‘what if’, ‘what next’, ‘how will it’.

I sat down to meditate today and I really struggled to hone in on the Now. I had a flood of thoughts about what I had to do next, and what I had to do tomorrow. I felt like I was physically fighting my way against thinking these thoughts which drained more of my energy.

Accept it. Don’t resist it. What I had learnt today is my thoughts do not define me. I cannot start judging myself for not being present. Actually thinking those thoughts was my present. The more I resisted, the more I hated myself for resisting. I just have to accept that that is what my mind is thinking of at this moment, be at peace with it and continue. I believe that slowly that will help to calm my mind down.

I can see that this journey to awareness and presence is going to be a long one, but I know I will get there eventually.

Silencing the thoughts

Today I practiced 12 minutes of uninterrupted silent meditation.

I initially put a timer on for 15 minutes, and aimed to continue meditating for all 15 minutes. However, my thoughts started to waver and when I opened my eyes to check the timer, 12 minutes had passed. I gave myself the credit for the 12 minutes I had practiced for, and stopped there for the day.

My ability to quieten my thoughts has improved significantly since the first time I sat in silence. This time round, I focused so much on my breathing and its rhythm, that I mentally could not divert my attention to anything else. Nonetheless, during the 12 minutes, I had visions flash before my eyes amplifying my feelings of anxiety and fear (related to my current orthopaedic job I completed a few days ago), my feelings of jealously towards certain individuals I have come across, my feelings of confusion regarding how people may be judging me.

Therefore, I wanted to take this space to reflect on all three feelings.

1) My current job on orthopaedics gave me so much anxiety and every day I walked into work with the fear of what I may have screwed up at work, what I may have missed, what someone would say to me regarding any small thing I would have done. I was not myself. When I finished my last every orthopaedic shift on Monday, I felt a sense of relief. I felt like I could breathe and be myself again. Nonetheless, when I was meditating today, I had a flood of that anxiety creep up on me. It is going to take me time to get over those negative emotions I felt during that job, but I know I will get over it.

2) I have become quite obsessive over some individuals, especially some women (and on some occasions, men) on social media. I have somewhat started to develop some kind of jealously over their lives. I do think this has stemmed from my own insecurities about myself. When I can feel these emotions take over me, I always take time to remind myself of the good person I am at my core and the person I am becoming. Therefore, now every time I feel jealous or insecure over someone, especially on social media, I actually like their post, comment something positive and/or send them a prayer. This has really helped with my sanity and it has reminded me how important it is to be kind and send nothing but love. I am not going to judge myself over my negative feelings, but I am going to work to turn that negativity into something positive for myself and all those I may have been feeling that negativity towards.

3) Today is the 27th November. Today marks Maaveerar Naal – a day when Sri Lankans Tamils come together and commemorate the lives lost during the Sri Lankan civil war, especially the lives of the innocent Tamils. This is also the same day that several members of the Tamil youth start posting and sharing remembrance posts on their social media pages. I was feeling the pressure to share my own respects to the innocent lives lost, and I also felt as if I would be judged if I did not post something. At the end of the day, I did not do anything; I did not see what purpose it was going to serve an image for the sake of following a crowd. I instead took the time to reflect on what I could do to make sure the lives lost were not in vain. I instead took the time to reflect on how I can stand out as a Tamil girl and ensure Tamils across the globe would also feel proud and motivated to carry on the Tamil culture and language for the generations to come. That is me paying respect to the lives lost. That is me finding the Maaveeran (Brave Soldier) within me. That is me falling in love with my Tamil culture yet again.

Silent meditation is really helping me break down and evaluate my thoughts. This is how I am going to silence my thoughts as well. Rather than judging myself for the thoughts I have, I have decided to analyse the thoughts that I am focused on and write about it to you. It is slowly giving me control over my thoughts, which is what I have always wanted. It is a work in progress but I am on this journey to healing my soul. Join me on this infinite journey of soul healing as well.