And free your mind.
It was the lyrics of a song I have recently been addicted to, thanks to my brother Soltan.
Freeing the spirit involves being oblivious to other people's opinions and how they believe we should live our lives. It is taking charge of one's actions and knowing when a lesson will be learnt. Boy, I have lessons to share.
Recalling my youthful days, growing up as a child in a nation so involved in:
'What are people gonna say?' Or 'What will the neighbours think?'
It always puzzled me how engaged everyone is in living their lives according to others. The memory of the day being driven home from school by our driver with my cousins kept coming back when one of them shocked me with her remark:
"God will forgive you anything if you do your five times a day prayer."
"Really?!" I fumed. "You mean if someone kills another and goes on praying his five-time prayers, your God will forgive him?"
She informed me: "That sure is what my mum says."
Now, even at eleven, the God I had created in my mind has always been a God of Love and Mercy. We punish ourselves. What was your dream as a child? As for me...
I have always loved chocolates. In fact, one of the cutest compliments I got was when someone called me just that, yes, chocolate when I got back tanned from a holiday. And as a child, my dream was to have wings to fly to areas where kids were deprived of them and throw them smarties everywhere. Weird, but true. In fact, in later years, I somewhat brought my dream into reality when, through a personal development course at Landmark Forum over six months in a Self-Expression and Leadership Program, my chosen project was to travel to Tehran and find out the names of five schools downtown with a total of six hundred students, through a government contact found by my Ex-mother-in-law. I then got back to London and organised a charity fair where friends partook; some baked pies, others sold their products and donated a percentage of their sales, and Christmas flower arrangements were made with the help of Sophie, where the money collected was sent back home for my friends there to buy six hundred pullovers, tracksuits, books and bags of sweets and crisps made ready in storage. I then contacted the government official and went back home to deliver the two vans of goods to two boys' and three girls' schools each in person, with three great friends joining to share those precious moments when the kids would go back to their classroom and sing happy birthday to themselves.
One of the most memorable days of my life!
At the time, I was raising two children and working hard with my then-husband (not that I have had any other!). Through years of therapy and workshops, I managed to make a childhood dream come true. It was the biggest blessing to have found myself, killed every unhappy moment of my life inside, put it behind me, and started afresh.
Tonight, I returned from the second Tuesday of another meditation course at the Dhyana Centre, accompanied by Fedot, who met me a month ago to discuss spirituality and its path. Funny as we initially met online some years ago, and now our then flirtatious rendez-vous have turned into meeting up for a different kind of satisfaction in terms of friendship. The worldly speaker was Alan, the most knowledgeable person in defining every type of meditation in depth and letting you decide which method to adopt for your daily routine. During the evening, a lady spoke these words:
"There's a lady who comes to our salon. When she first arrived, she was an angry woman. With the help of meditation and work on herself, in a matter of months, she's happier, and she looks ten years younger!"
Alan agreed and mentioned how thousands of people he knew had achieved that youthfulness through practice. Tears fled my eyes as I recalled when I first attended these courses some twelve years ago by an introduction through my Ex (to whom I was married then) and how, within six months, whoever saw me kept telling me just that:
"Haldita, you look ten, fifteen years younger. What have you done?"
And I am still being told that. Despite what most think, I am botox-free. There were two cases of liposuction I went through during my life; the first one was pretty useless as the weight piled on in other areas, and the second one was three and a half years ago, whereas I was told by two doctors afterwards that I was so lucky to be alive after. I bled like a cartoon figure through the holes of surgery every time I removed the scattered bloody baby pampers covering the wounds from the tight corset I had to wear for three months to shower, and this went on for a whole week before I decided to fly back home alone to London and suffer in agony on my own.
Never again! And please take care if you decide to do something so drastic. No one and nothing is worth the pain of almost losing your life.
Enough of that.
Now... how wonderful it is to go through so many changes and come out smiling—a true evolution.
To kick start last weekend, there was more fun to be had in the great company of Don Juan. He came over and once again swept me off my feet as we spent hours of fun, listening to some of my great tunes and catching up on where we had left off. Boy, does this man know how to make a girl feel special!
Learning to love without attachment is the biggest goal I have achieved in my life after meditation.
On Saturday night, Giselle invited me to a party, which was a fantastic event! The high-ceiling room with hanging decorations was filled with a trendy crowd of artists dressed in their 'Burning Man' outfits. G Iselle and I had much to catch up on, so we settled deep into the sofa and chatted while people-watching.
As my week had been super busy, Sunday was a restful day. After an hour's massage, I left for an early dinner with my wise friend Donna at Kateh's marvellously healthy yet rich Persian restaurant. Yummy...
And last night, as my excellent housekeeper had been poorly and not come in to work for almost two weeks, I was left hungry at home as cooking has certainly not been a forte of mine for too many years now to start again. Kim sweetly offered to come over and cook us a chicken stir fry, and we ate and chatted more about the power of positivity, which helps our lives take shape as it is meant to.
We are here to experience life and, through years of development and evolution, to bring meaning to it. Eaning of peace and love for future generations. We have achieved so many unthinkable goals, especially regarding technological advances. Still, a simple quest for peace and happiness deep within us needs much searching. Why? Time is running faster than ever. The 'we have all the time in the world' theory is only a concept as we know our time could be up any second. Live like it's your last moment on earth, and please smile more often; that alone sheds years off your gorgeous faces.
My life is super rich! No money in the world can buy that.
It was the lyrics of a song I have recently been addicted to, thanks to my brother Soltan.
Freeing the spirit involves being oblivious to other people's opinions and how they believe we should live our lives. It is taking charge of one's actions and knowing when a lesson will be learnt. Boy, I have lessons to share.
Recalling my youthful days, growing up as a child in a nation so involved in:
'What are people gonna say?' Or 'What will the neighbours think?'
It always puzzled me how engaged everyone is in living their lives according to others. The memory of the day being driven home from school by our driver with my cousins kept coming back when one of them shocked me with her remark:
"God will forgive you anything if you do your five times a day prayer."
"Really?!" I fumed. "You mean if someone kills another and goes on praying his five-time prayers, your God will forgive him?"
She informed me: "That sure is what my mum says."
Now, even at eleven, the God I had created in my mind has always been a God of Love and Mercy. We punish ourselves. What was your dream as a child? As for me...
I have always loved chocolates. In fact, one of the cutest compliments I got was when someone called me just that, yes, chocolate when I got back tanned from a holiday. And as a child, my dream was to have wings to fly to areas where kids were deprived of them and throw them smarties everywhere. Weird, but true. In fact, in later years, I somewhat brought my dream into reality when, through a personal development course at Landmark Forum over six months in a Self-Expression and Leadership Program, my chosen project was to travel to Tehran and find out the names of five schools downtown with a total of six hundred students, through a government contact found by my Ex-mother-in-law. I then got back to London and organised a charity fair where friends partook; some baked pies, others sold their products and donated a percentage of their sales, and Christmas flower arrangements were made with the help of Sophie, where the money collected was sent back home for my friends there to buy six hundred pullovers, tracksuits, books and bags of sweets and crisps made ready in storage. I then contacted the government official and went back home to deliver the two vans of goods to two boys' and three girls' schools each in person, with three great friends joining to share those precious moments when the kids would go back to their classroom and sing happy birthday to themselves.
One of the most memorable days of my life!
At the time, I was raising two children and working hard with my then-husband (not that I have had any other!). Through years of therapy and workshops, I managed to make a childhood dream come true. It was the biggest blessing to have found myself, killed every unhappy moment of my life inside, put it behind me, and started afresh.
Tonight, I returned from the second Tuesday of another meditation course at the Dhyana Centre, accompanied by Fedot, who met me a month ago to discuss spirituality and its path. Funny as we initially met online some years ago, and now our then flirtatious rendez-vous have turned into meeting up for a different kind of satisfaction in terms of friendship. The worldly speaker was Alan, the most knowledgeable person in defining every type of meditation in depth and letting you decide which method to adopt for your daily routine. During the evening, a lady spoke these words:
"There's a lady who comes to our salon. When she first arrived, she was an angry woman. With the help of meditation and work on herself, in a matter of months, she's happier, and she looks ten years younger!"
Alan agreed and mentioned how thousands of people he knew had achieved that youthfulness through practice. Tears fled my eyes as I recalled when I first attended these courses some twelve years ago by an introduction through my Ex (to whom I was married then) and how, within six months, whoever saw me kept telling me just that:
"Haldita, you look ten, fifteen years younger. What have you done?"
And I am still being told that. Despite what most think, I am botox-free. There were two cases of liposuction I went through during my life; the first one was pretty useless as the weight piled on in other areas, and the second one was three and a half years ago, whereas I was told by two doctors afterwards that I was so lucky to be alive after. I bled like a cartoon figure through the holes of surgery every time I removed the scattered bloody baby pampers covering the wounds from the tight corset I had to wear for three months to shower, and this went on for a whole week before I decided to fly back home alone to London and suffer in agony on my own.
Never again! And please take care if you decide to do something so drastic. No one and nothing is worth the pain of almost losing your life.
Enough of that.
Now... how wonderful it is to go through so many changes and come out smiling—a true evolution.
To kick start last weekend, there was more fun to be had in the great company of Don Juan. He came over and once again swept me off my feet as we spent hours of fun, listening to some of my great tunes and catching up on where we had left off. Boy, does this man know how to make a girl feel special!
Learning to love without attachment is the biggest goal I have achieved in my life after meditation.
On Saturday night, Giselle invited me to a party, which was a fantastic event! The high-ceiling room with hanging decorations was filled with a trendy crowd of artists dressed in their 'Burning Man' outfits. G Iselle and I had much to catch up on, so we settled deep into the sofa and chatted while people-watching.
As my week had been super busy, Sunday was a restful day. After an hour's massage, I left for an early dinner with my wise friend Donna at Kateh's marvellously healthy yet rich Persian restaurant. Yummy...
And last night, as my excellent housekeeper had been poorly and not come in to work for almost two weeks, I was left hungry at home as cooking has certainly not been a forte of mine for too many years now to start again. Kim sweetly offered to come over and cook us a chicken stir fry, and we ate and chatted more about the power of positivity, which helps our lives take shape as it is meant to.
We are here to experience life and, through years of development and evolution, to bring meaning to it. Eaning of peace and love for future generations. We have achieved so many unthinkable goals, especially regarding technological advances. Still, a simple quest for peace and happiness deep within us needs much searching. Why? Time is running faster than ever. The 'we have all the time in the world' theory is only a concept as we know our time could be up any second. Live like it's your last moment on earth, and please smile more often; that alone sheds years off your gorgeous faces.
My life is super rich! No money in the world can buy that.
I am really impressed along with your writing talents and also with the layout for your blog.
ReplyDeleteIs that this a paid topic or did you modify it your
self? Either way keep up the excellent high quality writing, it's rare to look a great blog like this one nowadays..
My web site - Abercrombie