HAPPINESS

“ I spent my entire life chasing big things. I ran till my lungs gave up and even that didn't make me stop. So i walked at a pace faster than usual because with every step i  took, my goal to be happt seemed awfully close. But little did i know, happiness had existed in the little things all this while. Perhaps those little things that I surpassed way back in my journey.” 

-ZARIYAAA

A combination of 9 letters with 90 different meanings attached to it, Happiness is the ability to feel satisfied and content in your own mind and heart. It is more than just feeling good about yourself. It is a promise you make to yourself to find the underlying meaning to various things around you including life itself. 

For as long as we can remember being happy has always been associated with the act of smiling. It is a practice we all grew up with and gradually got so desensitized to, that our adulthood marked the peak of this practice for we smiled till our cheeks hurt but none of those smiles reached our eyes nor did they make their way to our hearts.

HAPPINESS perhaps is one of the few most ironic words of english language that is for a word that big in size it sure doesn't have its meaning residing in big things. Some days it's in the beats of our favorite song while on other days it's hidden in the good deed someone unknowingly did for us. It's in the simplest of things yet is toughest to find on hard days and maybe that is exactly what makes it worth the chase.

IT IS A PATH YOU CHOOSE TO WALK ON, NOT A DESTINATION YOU REACH.

Happiness is somehow always confused with the idea of a beautiful stagnant destination and that is where we go wrong. Happiness isn't something as stagnant as a place but a journey, a choice that one makes to embrace a moment in hand. It is a choice to nurture hope, invest positive emotions even when nothing about a particular situation is an expected result.

It is a pathway to the goals we set for ourselves, a by product that empowers us to keep going despite the hurdles we might face.

Happiness is not the absence of negative emotions but the ability to nurture positivity and not feel railroaded whenever a negative situation overpowers us. 

It is the most priceless gift you can give to yourself that'll free you from the various eccentricities of life and encourage you to let go of the past, embrace your present and quit postponing positive emotions on the future. Happiness is a choice to add meaning and purpose to your life to keep yourself going and living each moment as it comes to the fullest. 

It is not a checklist but a list of ongoing experiences.

Happiness is something that is as existent within you as much as it is around you. It is not something that should reside in a cage and require a key. Do yourself a favor, break this cage and set yourself free because a key may always have the power to lock you down again but a broken cage never will.

PAIN

                                  

“It was as if something really sharp was piercing through my body, gradually awakening every inch and every fragment in me that had laid unconscious for so long. How could they call it unsafe? For all I know it was the only thing that had given my soul the reason to face my own reality and fight back for myself– 
ZARIYAAA”

As Biology might put it “Pain is described as an unpleasant and emotional experience that is associated with actual or potential tissue damage.” But, little did we all know that a mere 4 letter word barely covering even one fourth of a line could cram its way into our lives and make it a living home.

Pain for all of us has had different reactions with a consistent meaning attached to it, which was taught to us while growing up. Where childhood pain was more about scrapped knees and elbows, which was easy to respond. It somehow turned into Anguish during adolescence, which was soon followed by isolation during adulthood and maladjustment in the later stages of our lives. We were somehow always taught that pain is evil and how we should go up to great lengths to avoid it even if it meant to completely numb ourselves or to simply deny our feelings and not speak about them as it maybe considered as a huge sign of weakness.

An emotional pain is as strong as a physical pain that might be experienced due to a damaged tissue or a bone. An emotional pain often leads to shattering pieces of our lives, damaging our relationships and disrupting our identities. Not to forget about the other painful emotions that it triggers that house within us and gradually start rotting us.

THE OTHER SIDE OF PAIN

We often refuse to see how pain carries a huge role in being an eye opener for us in terms of our own reality and those of people around us.

Pain is what wakes us up from the constant state of comfortable numbness we have been in.

Pain in so many ways gives us the strength that helps us in fighting and building compassion for the person standing in front of the mirror pleading to be rescued.

Pain is what encourages us to be fearless by making us feel what we are afraid to feel.

Pain is what leads us to the path of acceptance of hardships of life and to flourish at every possible step we take to deal with them. It is what differentiates us from the non-living aspect of life, which gives us all the more reasons to be more accepting of this emotion.

OBSERVE AND VALIDATE.

Observing the painful emotion you’re going through and avoiding harsh judgment of self promotes better understanding and tolerance of this emotion.

Validation of a thought that instigates a painful emotion is another step that leads to acceptance of this emotion, which promotes self- empowerment, embracing a painful emotion is the key to nurturing problem solving behavior.

Pain is hurtful, yet it is what really gives us the courage to bare our vulnerabilities and to be seen as who we truly are under that thick layer of skin.

TALK

TALK

“I could feel my lips getting dry and my heart pounding like it never had before. It felt sweaty everywhere on my body. Maybe because I had always practiced this moment perfectly in my head and not in reality. I knew I had a voice and I thought I was ready to use it. But as soon as I opened my mouth it was as if my words were lost in the chaos before they even came out. - ZARIYAAA”

‘Talk’, perhaps the most convenient yet sometimes the hardest way to convey thoughts, feelings or emotions merely because we refuse to do it at the first place. The problem with various issues of life isn’t exactly karma as some might choose to put it but is actually our ongoing habit of bottling our feelings within us rather giving them the voice to be expressed. Right from childhood we were somehow conditioned to not speaking a word extra or giving too much insight about our feelings or thoughts to someone else for it was considered as a sign of fragility. 

Silence might not need words to be expressed but feelings do and to deny our miseries, a voice is the most crucial form of misdeed we can do to ourselves and to the people around us. Something we’ve attained mastery in.

‘Talking’, as easy the verb is to spell, it isn’t really that easy to put in practice. 

It’s because besides being a verb talking is also about being able to TRUST someone to share your personal emotional space with and allowing them to guide you through your problems by LISTENING to them.

It’s also about being BRAVE enough to admit to your uncertainties by speaking them out loud and not feeling embarrassed about asking for help in sharing its burden.

WHY TALK?

Talk! Because one mind is not enough to understand everything.

Talk! Because it’s necessary to know that you’re not suffering alone.

Talk! Because you cannot possibly start the process of healing till you voice your issues, accept them and are ready to get rid of them.

Talk! Because you need to shed the dead weight of the emotions that refuse to let you rise from your misery.

Talk! To Build positive relationships around you so as to be able to feel secure in your sorrows.

Talk! Not because you always want to be heard by others, but to listen to your own voice, of what it’s trying to tell you.

Talk! Because you only think you know what they’re going to say.

Talk! Because your silence will only feed your insecurities more.

Talk! Because it takes mere 2 seconds to assume and ruin a relationship you spent an entire lifetime building.

What we most often forget is the fact that humans are social animals that thrive both emotionally and physically in positive social relationships. One shouldn’t feel ashamed of not wanting to be lonely or wanting somebody to share their feelings with. Humans have been given the gift of giving words to their thoughts and emotions and these words have the power to change our lives only if we allow them to.

MENTAL HEALTH

“Something that we all know about Death is that it is inevitable. 

But, to be buried alive is something none of us would want to go through and yet unknowingly a part of us goes through it everyday in the form of voices that scream in our heads, for they refuse to be buried. – THE ZARIYA ”

                                                                                      

Mental Health is a commonly misunderstood expression used by most people yet simultaneously not so common in terms of its actual meaning.

Where mental health focuses on feeling good and functioning well, mental health conditions on the other hand represent symptoms that affect people’s thoughts, feelings and behaviours.

Mental Health in its complete glory is a state of well-being in which every individual indulges in an exploration of different horizons that eventually help them in discovering their hidden potentials, strengths and coping strategies. The art of mental health focuses on the aspect of moulding ones weaknesses and channelising them in different directions where they can be used as their power to overcome daily stresses of life.

Rather than focusing on “WHATS THE PROBLEM?” mental health is more about “WHAT IS GOING WELL?”

WHY MENTAL HEALTH

My question here is why not?

As humans we tend to ignore things we can’t see, even though the feeling might paralyze us mentally we still refuse to acknowledge its existence. 

Is it worth putting ourselves through the darkness?

Is it worth questioning ourselves everyday?

Is the isolation worth to be fed by being quiet about it?

In Indian, WHO estimates that the burden of mental health problems is of the tune of 2,443 DALYs per 100,000 population, and the age-adjusted suicide rate per 100,000 population is 21.1. It is estimated that, in India, the economic loss, due to mental health conditions, between 2012-2030, is 1.03 trillions of 2010 dollars.

A Disorder is not a Decision and neither are the various stresses that one goes through in their everyday lives is. But, giving yourself the chance to come out of it or to prevent it all together by practising mental health is.

Researches show that high levels of mental health are associated with Increased Learning, 

Creativity and Productivity,

Pro- Social Behaviour

Positive Social Relationships 

And Improved Physical Health and Life Expectancy.

Mental Health is the light to the darkness that resides with in all of us and occasionally surfaces in the form of triggers of breakdowns, maladaptive coping strategies and disorders. It is what provides us the pathway to look beyond the blues probing us to thrive not only in the joys but also the various eccentricities of life. 

Mental Health is a boon to the crime we have committed time and again for so long because to not have your sufferings recognised is the most unbearable form of violence.