Being the kind of person I am, someone who wears time on her sleeve and her conscience, I have been terrified of the way I have started being late for happenings without a jab of guilt. Old age or is it merely a lax attitude? I looked at it with a microscope. I read somewhere that when people are chronically late; they are in essence saying that their time is more important than yours. Was it who I had become after all these years of doing it right?

Being kept waiting is an experience most people do not enjoy, because very clearly it means that their time is being wasted and indicates a lack of regard. Calling somebody and informing him or her that one is going to be late only clears the air. On the other hand, if it becomes an irritating habit, one needs to look at the problem.

It’s easy to make excuses about one’s behavior, or to project responsibilities on to another person, putting them in the offensive light. But what is the real thing is that we have scant regard for ourselves, so we think we aren’t important anyway so why would the other person care if we are late, or do not show up at all? Now of course in my book, its partly just about being disorganized, (trying to fit in too much in one instance) and sometimes it is clearly that one does not want to be there at all. Whatever be the reason, it has to be raised to a conscious level and tackled.

Talking about situations and how we just stumble into them, I personally find it easy to apologize if I have done something wrong. But here I also find that many people tend to apologize all the time. We all know that apologizing is a social custom that keeps interactions between people polite. But overdoing it may have its reasons. Sometimes saying sorry is like saying that the other person in the equation has more of a reason to be in the situation than you do. Sometimes using the phrase just defuses the tension in the air.

But merely trying to break this pattern would take some awareness and practice. Watching ones self in the situation, one realizes that it may be happening because of feeling threatened, embarrassed, intensely anxious and a variety of other emotions. This maybe stemming from one’s childhood and the more we can analyze it, the freer it would make us feel ultimately.

In life we live by our expectations. The hows of what we would like a situation to turn out, and the whys of when exactly that could happen, all take us through the risk of facing disappointment. For instance when things don’t go the way we envisioned them, we feel a whole range of emotions. Disappointment in ourselves, a friend or life in general, is tough enough to handle, but nevertheless a natural part of life. But disappointments, just like everything else, come with a reason.

The faster we can accept our feelings, the more we can move into newer emotional territories. The gift of disappointment is the ability to bring us into alignment with reality and ourselves, so that we do not remain in the realm of how actually thing might have been. As we move along and realize these disappointments, we may see that in most cases, we actually like what has happened to us instead of what could have been. And the beauty of it is that it provides us with a bridge to the other side of acceptance.

Speaking of emotions, being excited or scared, somehow bring about similar physical feelings in our bodies. For instance when we feel new challenges and opportunities cropping up, we diagnose those feelings as fearful, when they actually mean excitement. That is simply because we have not been taught to welcome the thrill of an opportunity, and back off due to some kind of anxiety, instead of awakening our courage to face up to it.

What needs to be clearly analyzed here is the fact that not all butterflies in the stomach and rapid heartbeats are a sign of fear. These are hugely translated into feelings of excitement, curiosity, passion and even love. The thing to understand here is that there is no harm in being afraid, but not when it stops us from being excited. It’s a funny assumption, but most of us think brave people are fearless, which is just not true.

The essence of the matter is that the brave are just more comfortable, because they deal with fear on a regular basis. So the more we cultivate our abilities, the more we can trust ourselves with dealing with opportunities. So the next time you feel fear, please remind yourself that maybe, it could just be pure excitement. Then we will be able to experience an energy shift that will in turn catapult growing, learning, and us into moving forward.

Talking of growth, sometimes a part of us has to die before another part can spring to life. Being a necessary part of growth, it can be confusing and disorienting. Both are actually messengers warning us of the shifts taking place from infancy to childhood, then onward to adolescence and beyond. It’s almost like saying goodbye to an old friend every time, just to move on. A strange mixture of exhilaration and sadness envelops us as we do.

The thing to do here is just surrender to the process, letting go of the past self with great love and gratitude and welcome the new with an open mind and heart, welcoming the next phase. We do not have to go far here, because each day offers us a new opportunity to renew our resolve to the universe, showing that we are ready for change.

We all know that the hardest thing is when one feels stuck in a situation that we do not really like and want desperately to change. By showing the universe that we have learnt from our past experiences, we activate our inner shift, and that probably helps us get out of   the cycles we have been stuck in. So in so doing, we allow our beings to enter a new phase.

It is known that saying yes to the Universe opens the gate to actually receiving, what the soul really wants. By acknowledging the existence of what is not working for us, we can actually begin the process of change. A natural progression of events leads us to making the decision to say yes to life.

Since we have the ability to rise above and observe our emotions we are blessed with feelings of joy and content. We must savor those feelings and take some time to be grateful. It is best to focus our energies on analyzing our happiness and all that it encompass, to feed, nurture and attract more into our lives, eventually making a habit of being happy!

Previously published in the Sindhian