Even as she watched and became a witness to herself, she learnt to celebrate her originality. Then, she poured the self-love lessons into poetry.

Self-love!
So much about it was flying around
In books and seminars, doodles and interviews,
Photos of spas and solo holidays.
Me time on mountain tops and at pristine lakes,
Fitness, fashion, adventure and passion
Kept trending on insta as the best self-love care.
My Guru MAHATRIA told me lovingly,
Self-love is one of the ways to reach your Beloved Source.
Life hinges on three relationships – I, We, Thee;
To get to We and Thee, you have to get the ‘I’ right.
Celebrate your originality – celebrate yourself.
I wondered all the ways to pamper the I
Without the pressure of overindulgence.
After a bucket list was penciled in,
I decided to start with the trickiest but least glamorous –
To watch and be a witness unto myself.
Keeping a tab on my thoughts and feelings
In pretty, handmade journals
Was the sport I played with much awareness.
A challenging dare it surely was,
With the mind racing away every few seconds, without being caught.
Bringing it back and localizing it
Was the main rule of this game.
Decades of patterns interlaced rigidly,
Took time to untangle; yet I dared to play it seriously,
though giving up was so much easy.
After several failed attempts.
a thank you was inked in, multiple times a day
To the benevolent universe that gives magnanimously without asking anything for it,
albeit so much of it is taken for granted.
Before an event, during and after,
irrespective of the desired outcome,
The heart whispered many thanks to the cosmos,
And that’s self-love, I understood.
When enraged or constantly exasperated and during a meltdown,
I peeped inside to check what caused the disturbance.
An attempt to stop it from looping further
Was done with an exercise of gratitude or forgiveness,
And that’s the self-love I gifted myself with.
Am I a source of pain to others? I checked that too.
Jayanth, my husband screamed aloud cheekily, “YES, YES, YES”.
I snapped back, the question was not for you.
Oops! I had to record that in my journal – reacting back.
Thought by thought, scream by scream, response by response
The journey with the journal kept going.
Knocking off the word ‘guilt’
Was another goal to enhance my self-love skills.
Every time it overpowered me,
I gently observed, accepted, and let it be.
Not giving it the attention it constantly demanded,
Guilt has stopped playing drama like a bully
And lost its place as a dominant emotion in me.
When it retries to put me down,
Self-love stands up boldly for me.
Another form of self-love I practised with patience,
was to set boundaries in my head, and with others
On conversations about people that I couldn’t be of any help.

Stopping the noise from outside

In diverting the flow of sensational news and irrelevant information,
I tried to redirect it to meaningful engagement.
Gently and lovingly, I attempted to guard others and myself,
By changing the topic, when it got pointless,
About gloomy and desolate situations that are not in our control.
I whispered to myself in moments like this,
“Meghana, self-love is to block the unwanted flow that does not aid anyone to grow.”
By cutting off from toxic news, posts, reels, and more,
Content consumption was an addiction gradually overcome,
one day at a time.
At the beginning, it was most challenging,
as years of habits rooted firmly, strongly resisted the change,
to mindless browsing about anything and everything under the sun,
Until self-love stepped in and pulled me out of over-expenditure
of energy.
Like a distracted monkey, I still get tempted to jump from page to page
To look up home tours, cake bakes, destination weddings, random profiles and influencers’ wardrobes.
Thankfully, a beep in my head reminds me to do up my house; cook a great meal; flaunt a new radiance in my confidence, influence growth in our business, and invest time in my marriage and relationships.
A song from the movie ‘Guddi’ resonates – Doosaron ki jai se pehle, khud ko jai karein…
The ego shrunk all the time
When I constantly compared my perception of success to others.
As a daughter, parent, spouse, or seeker,
I felt less about myself in every role played.
Not having a direction to be purposeful,
I affirmed all day that I was useless and good for nothing.
The turning point was when my Master looked in the eye and questioned,
How long are you going to compare apples to strawberries?
His voice lingers, “Sweetheart, you are not useless, you use yourself less.”
That’s when I resolved –
To learn, get inspired, and aspire to grow big with those I look up to and make my teacher proud.

Dance with myself

Now, I dream illogically to be an inspiration, to be a blessing in whatever way, and in every way.
Having recorded some of my emotions for a while,
The confidence has grown to transform some more.
Be it a few seconds when the mind senses envy,
Self-love reminds me that no child is a beggar
Of God almighty and shifts the power to abundance.
When the mind thinks for and never against anyone or anything,
When it is absolutely dogged, bereft of mixed associations like
should I do it or not; will it work or not,
Self-love dances and announces me a winner.
When the process is right and the striving is consistent,
When sincerity and commitment are uncompromisable,
The goal is high and the motivation self-driven,
Self-love pats and kisses me
To keep going onward and upward.
On days the body is nourished with energizing foods,
And powered up with playful body movements,
When the mind is quietened with non-doing,
And the heart radiates love, without any judgment,
Self-love treats me to inexplicable bliss.
When tears of devotion roll down profusely,
Falling off the chair, I laugh heartily,
Wholeheartedly, when the heart celebrates for others,
In happiness, when I dance to ‘Bhoot chadiya’ or ‘Naach meri jaan’ crazily,
When I accept a compliment with grace.
and praise others without putting myself down,
When the intentions are pure, deep and solely for the world,
The day the heart gives generously without a transaction or processing lack in the mind,
That’s when self-love swells up and declares,
“Congratulations Meghana! Today, you are a step closer to your Beloved Source.”
INFINIPATH on Sundays with my Divine MAHATRIA
And Zoom calls on Thursdays with my dedicated mentor Megha Bajaj
Have energized me to take up challenges to change the narrative in my head,
To strive with an ‘I can do it’ attitude.
With divine grace, I’ve stopped being a stranger to myself,
And befriended self-love – a divine voice that directs, handholds, fills me with confidence and heals.
It is a channel of love that cleanses and purifies my being,
And walks me step by step, to my SOURCE OF FAITH.
To my beloved friend, I hug tight and whisper –
“Thank you for watching on me and being my North Star.
This is just the beginning… we have miles to go together.
May everyone find a genuine friend like you to help break the cocoon and flutter away to celebrate themselves.
To celebrate their originality, to celebrate you.”

Lead visual: Drawing courtesy Frederic Forest.

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