'The Miracle is us… All of us..' Encanto – Movie Review

Encanto seems to be a raving success, especially among the 6 – 15-year-old for sure. Read on to know why it could be so.

I am also seeing many schools and organisations picking and choosing the characters of this movie and coming up with Escape Rooms, debate and discussion topics in schools and children study groups (outside schools too). Now that I have shared a link, I think a couple of disclaimers are also necessary to be cleared in the get go:

• This is not a sponsored / paid promotional post either for Disney, Encanto or for the other service organisations that get mentioned or linked here.
• The opinions in this blog are mine based on my perspective about the movie and it may or may not be matching those of the makers and researchers of the movie.
• Spoiler Alert: The blog may reveal more about the movie and its nuances, so if you would like to come back to this blog after watching the movie, I would recommend you save this blog for later reading, and go and watch the movie first – in which ever language you understand and are comfortable to watch it in.

Family of Madrigal

Let us take the song at the start of the movie, which is about the Family of Madrigal (The Family Madrigal). The Madrigal Family is bestowed upon by a miracle, when Pedro, Alma Madrigal’s (abuela) husband, is killed during the armed attack on their village. This miracle helps the rest of the survivors hide (after blasting the attackers) in the form of a charmed hidden place called Encanto surrounded by the mountains of Columbia, and a magical candle that keeps the magic alive and ensures the protection of the people who survived this armed attack. 

I personally loved the song and was waiting eagerly till the end of the song only to realise that the family and entire village did not know what Mirabel’s gift was. I thought her gift was being able to understand the miraculous Madrigal House itself, in the way the song was picturised. By the end of the song, she would have introduced every member of her family and their unique yet prized gifts that they were blessed upon, in their childhood. The ending of the song showed how the family, or the village was oblivious to an obvious gift only because they could not see the magic that Mirabel was capable of, because it did not fit the norm that was expected by the mass. 

‘Each new Generation MUST keep the miracle burning’ – The word MUST shows the implicit expectation and the possible pressure that this expectation can have on all the family members of Madrigal, especially when Mirabel’s gift seemed to have skipped (but in reality, it wasn’t just what the family and the town people expected. Her gift was part of what we know to be an intangible skill). In fact, I thought Mirabel had more than one gift in the song itself – compassion, empathy, and ability to understand everyone and everything around her – all intangible skills that probably can’t be measured in any traditional sense. 

When Mirabel is ready to go home and a small girl with flower in her plaited hair, asks her ‘What is your gift?’, first I saw a representation of women and girls from my country who wear flowers in the exact same manner and was pleasantly surprised. Kudos to Disney for bringing in narratives that were representative of the many different people and cultures in the world. This one family had many different shades of skin too in the family members and hair types as well, which is again a huge shift from the stereotypical white representative characterisation of even (South) Asian characters like Jasmine and Mulan. 

The end of the song where Mirabel struggles to get out from the incessant questions of the children about her gift because she was made to believe that she did not have one, because the family did not understand what her gift really was when she received it, shows the real pain that every person who is different from the majority goes through in family or in any kind of team/group, even in a work situation. The typical way of her cousin blurting out that Mirabel did not get one and the obvious shock registered on the children’s faces and the sense of disappointment and shame at self for failing such an extraordinary family of gifted individuals, is the best representation of what many of us probably go through in real life (a version of imposter syndrome), until they are able to accept themselves for who they are (albeit different from the rest, yet special) and celebrate their uniqueness before the rest of the world can see it for themselves.

Waiting on a Miracle: This very next song that follows The Family Madrigal song, tugged at my heart strings mainly because of the emotions that it invoked with the picturisation of the Mirabel’s longing to be accepted as being worthy of this family of gifted individuals, the characterisation of the family and subtle undercurrent that was established by then, by most family members who thought Mirabel was a sign of doom or mediocrity. 

Pressure of Perfection & Social Emotional Learning (SEL)

Mirabels’s sisters Luisa (the strong one) and Isabela (the symbol of perfection) express their anxiety and stress stemming from the fear of failure. Luisa sings about her anxiety due to the failure affecting her strength (her miracle gift). She would like to have a break from shouldering the weight of expectation of always exhibiting strength and progress and have some time to deal with herself and her self-doubts. On the same note, Isabela brings a point of view of having to stick to only a few of the things that she can do because she is expected to be perfect in what she creates using her magic. She longs to want to try to see what more she can possibly create with her gift and her experimental efforts yield a beautiful outcome. Yet, it angers their abuela, who reprimands Mirabel implying that her involvement might negatively impact the magic of gifts (and fearing that it might probably even weaken the magic’s strength) bestowed upon their family and the protection it provides to their village. 

“The elephant in the room” suffering from this pressure of perfection is Mirabel’s uncle, Bruno. The story unfolds showing that the family shuns Bruno because of his gift of precognition (reminded me of the Minority Report and the precogs from the movie). This skill again is stunted because of the pressure of perfection that is expected from Mirabel’s abuela (who is probably driven by her fear), as stated by Bruno. He is never good enough is the idea that seems to have been deeply personalised by him, due to which he decides to stay hidden from the family, by living in the spaces between the walls of the magical house. He also thinks that the family and the village only expect him to have positive visions, and when he has an incomplete vision or a not to great vision, he gets anxious about performance issues. When Mirabel also pushes him to show her the complete vision that he had about her, he visualises Mirabel needing to embrace a young woman (assumed to be Isabela) and embrace the relationship with its flaws and the person itself for who she is (strengths and vulnerabilities intact). 

The movie does go on to unfold a different plot, which is great to watch and understand the bigger picture, stressing the importance of SEL in understanding self and the others as well, in the family or in the context of any relationship in our lives. It also brings up the issue of how trauma of early years can impact the perceptions and life decisions of an individual, and how essential it is to embrace ourselves with our abilities and vulnerabilities as well and know when to ask family/friends for support. 

Many of these are feelings and emotions that the children between the age group of 6 & 15 go through due to the pressure of expectation from family, carers, educators, and well-wishers. While we all mean well, somewhere we need to keep a check on what drives our care and expectations and make sure it is not our unfounded fear that drives our expectations/actions, as we might run the risk of making the children feel suffocated with our care.

Diversity, Representation & Inclusion

For the first time, I have been ecstatic seeing so many different characters with different physical features, including the type of hair, the placement of flowers on the hair, the accessories worn, the colour & texture of the hair with differences that is representative of the real people’s physical features and cultural accessories that are used. A story that revolves around real life incidents (and not some fairy tale) that are very relatable, even when one may not know the historical event that probably inspired the story line. 

Mirabel looks like my friend from my school days, and this is a feeling not just for me, even my daughter feels that maybe because the character’s design is like an everyday person you come across in your life (not a larger-than-life princess). The small girl with the flower in her plaited hair reminded me of my cousins and myself in our childhood when we had that long a hair, which was oiled and plaited, and flowers adorned them (if not daily at least once a week). The entire family of Madrigal and its members are like any of our (extended) families. In India till recently, joint families that large lived under the same roof. I grew up in one such family! 

At the end of the movie, the entire family accepts everyone as they are, is understanding of their vulnerabilities and embraces them with these vulnerabilities… And the song ‘All of You’ is a treasure to listen, summarising all the learnings of every character in the movie, for us to take along with us when we walk out of the movie. Here is the portion from that song that I love the most:

But the stars don't shine, they burn

And the constellations shift

I think it's time you learn

You're more than just your gift

And I'm sorry I held on too tight

Just so afraid I'd lose you too

The miracle is not some magic that you've got

The miracle is you, not some gift, just you

The miracle is you

All of you, all of you

(Credits - Encanto, Disney)

Let us all take this with us always to be remembered, ‘the miracle is us, all of us’ and make this our guiding thoughts for every action of ours, including building and nurturing relationships (personal or professional). This is one movie (of a few of the more recent movies that focuses on the cultural diversity, equity & inclusion in addition to relatability, like Coco – maybe a review of that soon 😉) I would recommend that each one of us see and show to our young ones and have discussions around the various characters, their stories, their issues and how could that be overcome if this was something that we knew was a personal problem for any of our family members or friends. 

This blog is part of Blogchatter’s #CauseAChatter challenge, #MentalHealth, #Discrimination.

Work-Life Balance or Balancing your Life?

This phrase work-life balance is used to explain the way an individual can and needs to bring a balance between their official work (employed or an entrepreneur) and personal life and thereby regulate the impact on one another. For me, the phrase seemed quite incomprehensible, yet I just could never explain exactly why it was so. When someone asked me that question, my response to it had the answer to the why. I always started my response with the phrase, “My work life and personal life…”. The blog that wrote about this in 2006 is also titled Balancing Work Life and Social Life as opposed to the phrase ‘Work-Life balance’.

Despite this stance, the aha moment for clarity dawned on me when recently I was having a conversation with my Spouse, and he spelled out pretty well what I was probably struggling to clearly state. 

Work is just one part of your life. 

Work is, but one component of our lives, among various other things that constitute our whole life. So how can you have a part of life in a balance with life itself? It logically/realistically can’t. Life is much larger, more like a superset (sometimes I think of it as a universal set) of work. 

With this explanation, for me, “work-life balance” loses its traditional value that work and life itself need to be given equal focus/weightage.

Once this is the perspective, priority, process, and the rest just follow, helping in the long run to practice the calm that's the first step for self-care. While the perception shift sounds easy when explained, really arriving at this mindset takes a lot of effort against generational conditioning and groupthink. 

Here are a few things that can help in reframing our thoughts to develop this healthy outlook. Once we do this, we have a hold on our well-being – mental and physical. 

Define your components of life

Explicitly defining what life means for you and maybe evening writing it down on a piece of paper or drawing a mind map of it. For some, it could just mean predominantly their work, ending up being workaholics and facing the consequences on health that workaholism can lead to. For some others, it could only mean being a part of a socially acceptable marriage institution, ending up losing their self-identity, and seeing them sacrificing their needs as a primary carer of their family.

Let go of Perfectionism

The thought that helps within assisting in this reframing our mindset to remove the focus from work and shift it to the larger image of life is the acceptance that, I am not perfect, nowhere close to being an expert. There's always a scope for us to learn from anyone and anywhere. This provides the grounding needed to accept and work with our failures (even to meet our own expectations from ourselves), in life and work. 

Guilt-free Mindset

Whichever part of the world we are from, human conditioning has a stronghold on self-driven guilt on a lot of things. Understanding the difference between necessary guilt, to ensure not repeating a mistake or a blunder and toxic guilt that cripples us from even functioning normally is a journey each of us needs to travel through self-awareness and self-acceptance.

Honing your Abilities

While the popular belief is that people are born with their abilities, I personally believe that these can be developed by anyone, at any age. An article by Pradeep Sahay on LinkedIn that highlights that the old nature vs nurture absolutist argument is probably ready to be shelved and in its place, a new approach of using context to understand the nature and nurture aspect of talent is a good place to start reading to expand our outlook. There is additional reading within the article that is helpful in adding to our knowledge and learning.

Accepting the Fluidness of Life

My favourite phrase ‘Life throws a curveball when you least expect it’ – repeating this every time in my head during the tough phases of life, helps me tackle them because there is hope that eventually when you practice tacking enough curveballs, the rude shock of the getting sucker-punched by a curveball can one day change to a pleasurable challenge of reeling in a tough situation and growing with the learning from the tackle. This also brings with it the skill of adapting/adopting to change, learning the skills to stay relevant, and growing & changing with the change that is a constant always.

Healthy Routines

When we are on the topic of change, the one thing that can keep us grounded is having healthy routines. Routines help in giving us a soft comfort that helps us deal with the rest of the chaos that is outside our power of control, as it comes. 

Setting boundaries 

Change and routine also bring us to the most important part of healthy regulation – setting healthy boundaries. Working on our conditioning, unconscious biases, understanding ourselves and working on accepting ourselves the way we are before we can start working on what changes we wish to see in ourselves would be a great place to start for setting healthy personal boundaries.

Believing in Relationships

Building relationships (in the workspace and in our personal lives) involves actively engaging in nurturing the relationship and ensuring that the basis of every relationship, trust, remains undeterred. Working on relationships also helps in creating a safety net for us to rely on when we are low on our personal strengths. While the phrase building and believing in a relationship seems simple enough, it is an emotional roller coaster ride and hence requires a lot of work on our personal emotional intelligence.

Social Life

While family and work colleagues are great, they are a given. Having a social life outside these two, building a social circle that includes, friends, causes that are close to our heart, like-minded groups sharing similar thoughts, passion, and interests, needs to be part of our social life for us to gain an enriching life experience.

We are all dispensable (replaceable) in the grand scheme of life, especially with the ‘Change being a constant’ tag line creeping up unannounced. A life well-lived (for me) means, when I am replaced (or dispensed), I have no regrets at all and am content with how I lived my life. 

While these are some of the mindful ways to have a fulfilling life as I see it, most would call these tips to have a great work-life balance. Whatever you would like to call it, these are some of the life hacks that I would stand by to make living life easier and enjoyable, considering that life always has a way to surprise us, when we least expect it. 

This blog is part of Blogchatter’s #CauseAChatter challenge, #MentalHealthTalks.

Lockdown Chaos: Coping Mechanisms for the Primary Caregivers (Part 2 of 2)

If you would like to read the part 1 the Lockdown Chaos: Coping Mechanisms for the Primary Caregivers (Part 1 of 2), follow the link. 

“No health without mental health” – Surgeon General David Satcher

Here are a few coping mechanisms I practice for my personal mental wellbeing (most involve a mindset shift from what we have been conditioned, a reframing of sorts)

1. Learn to Pause: We are conditioned to believe that we must always be engaged and contributing something. Doing nothing, is not equivalent to wasting precious time. Sometimes we need that pause of doing nothing to rejuvenate ourselves and our overworked mental and physical system. Even a supercomputer needs to be shutdown to keep it working well for long.
   
   
2. Read Different Genres: I enjoy reading (anything). I love to explore different genres and different authors. I may not read to the extent of quoting the author with the phrase or passage, but now we have the luxury or searching for the same before we share it on the digital platforms. I love to read to explore unexplored territories to widen my thoughts and diversify my thinking pattern.
   
   
3. Create Something From Scratch: I love counted cross stitch and writing. My go-to comforter is one of these two and I am always pulled into it so deeply that the needed distance from whatever is bothering my mental wellbeing is automatically created. This enables me to clearly look into it from afar and then find a way to tackle it to bring back my mental peace. The last year+ saw the conceptualisation of a memoire book on my father-in-law. What started as a digitisation effort of his written work from more than 3-4 decades ago, as it progressed the book had snippets from significant people about him and his positive influence in their lives. The process of conceptualising and shaping such a creation kept me grounded during the pandemic times stuck indoors. The coordination of getting input from people living in different parts of the state and compiling it to a complete book was cathartic. Seeing the book published and released on 31st August 2021 (on his 75th Birth anniversary) in his memory gave a sense of accomplishment.
   
   
   
   
   The whole effort also seemed like a cathartic closure for the family dealing with the grief of his passing (a decade ago). In 2019, I did a similar effort of compiling the devotional songs of my paternal grandmother in a book format to be given as memorabilia for the family on her first death anniversary.

   
   
4. A Good Sleep: Earlier I used to think that sleeping without solving a fight or a problem is not good for the relationship or self. Now I have come to realise that ‘sleep over a problem’ was told by someone who knew what they meant. When you sleep your body and mind are well rested. Sometimes your dreams could be a way of finding innovative, interesting, and simple solutions to the problem that you had before you slept. There have been extensive studies on this. Here are a couple of articles that has scientific data to support this need.
• Do Women Need More Sleep Than Men?
• FACT or FICTION: Do women need more sleep than men?
  
  
5. Pick your Partner-in-crime’s brain: This could be anyone from your sibling, spouse, cousin, friend, work colleague, parent, teacher, or a counsellor who is a good listener and ideator, who understands inclusivity and knows to compassionately look at things from your point of view and then come up with perspectives that would make us think differently from what we had assumed. I read somewhere a quote on assumption – When you ‘assume’ you make an Ass of U and Me. This stuck with me forever. Now, every single time I move into the zone of assuming that I know what goes in someone else’s mind or what they might be feeling, this quote pops into my head and there ends my assumptions. I find that it is easier to clarify what we are thinking to be true or not by openly paraphrasing it without being judgmental when we articulate our thoughts. Doing so also helps in enriching the said relationship and increases our personal score on the integrity index!
   
   
6. Free yourselves from expectations: Everyone has expectations – we from others and others from us. Yet many of us want and wish to be free of it. This takes conscious effort, but it is worth the effort. When you free yourself from expectations, there are no disappointments. Here is something that can help you see how expectations are formed. When you are able to see that, you will figure out your own way to break free of it.
   
   

   

   My 100 word story first published on Momspresso

   
   
7. Solocation: Try going on a solocation, when possible. It really does wonders to self-care. Sometime in March I decided to go on a solocation, just to get away from the daily churn of things and came back after a relaxed couple of days and much more happier than how I left. My family also seemed to have benefited from my 2 days of absence.
   
   
8. Seek Professional Support: While the above do help, there might be instances where they may not be enough. In such situations, there is always an option to seek professional help through personal/relationship/parenting counselling as the need is and ensure that your (above) efforts also have a backing of the scientific process that would fit your lifestyle, temperament, family & individual needs, and abilities. Make sure that you are seeking the right kind of professional support and not just getting some random advice from friendly neighbour, family member, or well-wisher who might not completely understand all the variables that need to be addressed in a specific manner for you and your loved ones to benefit from the same. 

Were(Are) you a primary caregiver & have similar or other coping mechanisms? Would love to hear about it from you.

This blog is part of Blogchatter’s #CauseAChatter challenge - #GenderTalks and #MentalHealthTalks.

Eco-mindfulness through Home Gardening

Being an ardent plant enthusiast & advocate of responsible living, in my perspective, the word Sustainability always brings up the twin word Mindfulness. Home Gardening (now taking shape as ‘Terrace Gardening’ or ‘Urban Farming’) has emerged as one such mindful hobby, that also contributes to sustainability in more than one way. As the pandemic added to the woes, my home garden was a blessing to help balance my health (mental, physical, and emotional), while keeping my sustainability goals. Happy to share the benefits I and my family reaped and pictures of my Green Hobby over the years!

Natural Stressbuster 

When you are stressed in your daily chores, I have heard many say that taking a quick walk bare foot on Earth and feeling the soil/grass, gives us a much-needed grounding to bounce back. Based on my personal experience, this statement is certainly true. When I am in my home garden, working on the preparation of the soil bed, and caring for the plants (with trimming, weeding and such activities), I lose myself among the calmness of Mother Nature and revel in its beauty and wonder. The green of the garden (among the rest of the colours) is also pleasing to the eyes & mind and has the capacity to calm every other raging emotions. The cool touch of wet earth/grass on my bare foot makes me want to take a deep breath that sends me a message of affirmation that everything is okay, and my Earth will keep me company all my life and embrace me beyond, eliminating the feeling of loneliness.

Also, when we have blooming flowers in our garden (specifically Tulips while in the US, Dahlia, Roses and others), the beauty of the different colours of bloom was like the garden was smiling at us. Never failed to bring a smile to our faces whatever we were feeling till that instant. 

Exhilaration of Creating

The same activities of making the garden bed and caring for the seeds/saplings sown that ground me also give me a high with a sense of exhilaration when I see the shrub/herb/tree flower, laden with fruits of labour and care. Makes me feel that I have done my job as a carer right for the ground and plant flourish. It is the same feeling of seeing your child grow and achieve. This plant/tree is in a sense my child as well. 

Good Health

When your home garden also bears vegetables and fruits, you enjoy the garden to fork experience that enables you to know that the food that you eat has been organically grown. There is also a sense of pride that this food was my effort from start (sowing it to start with) till the end (arriving as the edible dish that adorns the dining table). This also weighs much lesser on the expense pattern of the family as the monetary cost incurred in much less in comparison to a store-bought yield. 

Gardening is the best combination of physical, mental, and emotional workout that you can ever have in one single activity. 

By staying outdoors, you are absorbing natural source of Vitamin D (directly from the Sun) that helps in strengthening of bones & immune system. This also benefits weight loss as per some and helps in reducing depression. Depending on the geographical location, make sure that you step out in the right kind of sun to benefit from it.  

The physical activities that you would involve in while gardening in activities like, prepping the garden bed, sowing, weeding, watering, trimming, cleaning debris & getting rid of pests, and finally reaping the fruits of this labour also helps in physical fitness and weight reduction as different parts of your body (and hence different muscles) are used. 

It can also be a family bonding activity that enhances the emotional connectedness of the family members, especially with the younger ones. While doing so, it also serves as a tool of destressing thereby bringing a holistic wellbeing for the entire family and understanding the science behind it. The same can be the case for an entire community, when you have an option for a Community Garden.

A Sense of Agency & Empowerment

With all the above health benefits, it translates to a hidden reduction in the cost of maintaining the personal wellbeing through not just procurement costs but also through health care and hospitalisation cost being nullified in many cases, including the most seen one of Vit D deficiency that is to be repaired with the help of medicinal/serum supplements.

If you are maintaining a Community Farm (or your friends doing some organic farming ventures in their part-time), it can cater to the needs of the local community and more, by bringing in an additional source of income when you can find the buyers for your produce through your community network. When we can showcase these benefits, we inspire more people in our sustainability journey.

Sustainability begins at home

In school I remember reading about the topsoil erosion and its impact on climate and environment. The easiest way to stop this is by growing grass native to our locality was the solution given in the textbook. Home garden is also a way by which every individual can contribute towards ending the topsoil erosion, maintain balance in water cycle (again a middle school concept), thereby positively impacting the climate change and leading to a more sustainable way of live for our next generations to survive on our planet earth.

There are a lot more benefits than what I have listed above in having a home garden. Do share your take on the same in the comments.

This blog is part of Blogchatter’s #CauseAChatter challenge - #EnvironmentalTalks and #MentalHealthTalks. 

Lockdown Chaos: Disparities for the Primary Caregivers (Part 1 of 2)

One year after the first announcement of lockdown in India, I wrote a post on Momspresso on the topic I am not okay as a weekly challenge prompt. While writing that blog was cathartic, the constant changes due to the COVID restrictions, the new variants of the virus, the uncertainty of this pandemic lifestyle comes back to haunt us a lot. In these uncertain times, when schools went online, and work came into my home, I lost my personal space & “Me-time” routines. 

As an EdTech & Life Skills Consultant, I worked from home for the most part of my work engagements, yet there was a routine to it. I would finish my work, when my family was away from home in school and office respectively. In fact, I would also squeeze in some self-care routines daily to keep my cool when the family returned home in the evening. In the last year+ my routines have gone for a toss including the family chores.

The lack of routines, private space, and time for the primary caregiver (home maker) has also brought with it the focus on imbalanced division of labour within the home. While the home is everyone’s responsibility, most of the daily chores such as the upkeep of the house, inventory management & maintenance, bringing edible food to the table, catering to the never-ending snack requests of bored family members who do not understand or realise what goes into getting a quick bite-snack ready-to-consume leaves very little time for the primary caregiver for self-care and personal time. If this primary caregiver is also a part-time or full-time working person, then there is absolutely no time for anything else other than crossing out the to-do list from morning when they are awake till the time their body shuts down in exhaustion in the night. Add to this the fiasco of online school and the emotional toll that it has taken on the child’s psych and development. Not all schools and teachers are even partially trained to handle the nuances of online school along with the socio-emotional parameters that need to be given special care in this modality. 

Even in the so-called progressive homes where we celebrated equal participation, the pandemic showed that it really wasn’t the case. There was still quite a lot of imbalances where the primary care giver is implicitly expected to be the one to do the following:

• Plan & Provide for Breakfast, Lunch, & Dinner and the odd snacks: Includes working with available resources inside home when there was strict lockdown, plan for refilling the dwindling supplies in the kitchen stock and be prepared for those uninformed requests of odd hour snacks because you couldn’t order in during the strict lockdown periods. This has a secondary problem of additional work of pots and pans being used, cleaned, and stored appropriately. There were days when domestic support was unavailable, and the family wasn’t even aware that they had to pitch in till either they were told or in some cases the caregiver had an emotional breakdown to bring to the attention of the family that (s)he needed help.
• Teaching Assistant (TA): The unwritten expectation of being the TA even outside the lockdown was there, but the lockdown saw the primary caregiver huff and puff and juggle with the available time at hand to ensure that the child(ren) sat through the online class, did their homework and class works (that were usually done in school and hence was never on the caregiver responsibility plate), projects – specifically group projects follow up on WhatsApp and hangouts, revision before the continuous year-long assessments, and fill in for the lack of understanding that they have due to not being able follow the class due to internet connectivity and clarity on a regular basis. If an educated stay-at-home-parent finds this difficult, then we can only imagine the plight an un(der)educated parent or an educated-working-parent would have been through.
• Routines: They are always there for a very good reason. You know what to expect and hence you can plan for contingencies. This way even the rare case where something that wasn’t anticipated happens, we are able to cope. Pandemic saw to it that all routines went out the door when the entire family started staying indoors. Everyday was a new day, new pattern, and hence new adaptation. Change management usually has a peak (when emotions are at a high), lull (when we start questioning the purpose of the change), and a plateau (when we enjoy the new norm while we prepare ourselves) before the next change that is around the corner comes upon us. Unfortunately, pandemic did not give us this luxury. There were only peak after peak that leads to exhaustion due to emotional overdose. Even those who were emotional intelligence or mindfulness practitioners, the pandemic induced anxiety & uncertainty caught up with them, pushing almost everyone into a collective burn out.
• Emotional Numbness: The loss of job, finances, lifestyle, routines, lives of loved ones and otherwise, was too much that there has been a collective numbing of emotions in dealing with the grief that these loses usually trigger. Added to this was the inability to follow through with the mourning rituals due to the COVID restrictions. In the process of following the SMS protocols, despite the availability of technology to stay connected, the personal touch that is paramount in dealing with grief was missing. The losses also were quite sudden which rendered those affected by it in a state of shock. Without the support system and the rituals of handling grief most moved from shock to numbing of emotions as they did not know what else to do. The grief was either suppressed or repressed and we know what happens when either of the routes are taken without handling grief as it should be.
• Domestic Violence, Child Marriage & Child Labour: In some cases, with the entire family stuck indoors and no reprieve to reach for support there has been an increase in the cases of domestic violence. Loss of income and rise of expenses ended up in many getting their underage children to go to work or to get them married off (mostly girls). 

These are just some of them among many such deviations from what we knew life as usual. 

While I enumerate the problems that contribute to the disruption of mental wellbeing of self and the family, what can we as individuals do to ensure our mental safety and that of our families in that order. You can never pour from an empty cup, which means the first need is to ensure our own mental and physical wellbeing. Will elaborate them in the coping mechanisms I benefitted from, in the second part. 

Were you a primary caregiver & have similar or other experiences? Would love to hear about it from you.

This blog is part of Blogchatter’s #CauseAChatter challenge - #GenderTalks and #MentalHealthTalks. Incidentally, this is also my 100^th blog.

You might also enjoy reading

• The Conundrum of the Gendered Glasses
• To Work or not to Work? A Stay-At-Home-Mom's Perspective

My strides with a Great Humanitarian

I fondly remember my Grandfather telling me ‘There is no war that love can’t win!’ during my early childhood. He always said “love trumps all” and I grew up seeing him walk his talk. Anytime I hear the word Humanity or Humanitarianism, he is the first person who flashes in front of my eyes. Humanity is non-existent without the feeling & expressing the all-encompassing emotion of love. In 1995, his death showed me the true power of leading life as a humanitarian. His death ceremony saw countless people from every corner of Tamil Nadu, travel in-person to Chennai, to pay their last respects to the family. Every memory they shared had one common thread about his humanitarian touch, that benefited the person or their family in their time of dire needs. In his life (and his death), he showed me the importance of being humane and placing love, humanity, dignity, and respect above all else. 

His words and actions had a huge impact on my childhood development and still have a huge role to play as an adult. As I have said in my earlier article about him, he is one of my role models, who I aspire to be like and strive to be so every day.

These early childhood lessons have stayed with me and fuelled my passion for behavioural science and the curiosity of ‘why people do what they do’ started taking shape. I realised that what he said about humanity, dignity and mutual respect was the basis for removing all the suffering that we go through in our life. Underneath all our yearnings, these are the core needs that drive us to do everything to belong somewhere and have an identity that will be looked upon with respect and be celebrated. Unfortunately, we fail to realise that we are looking for it in the wrong places. 

These principles as the foundation, my actions always centre towards understanding perspectives of people (including my own – I am my own critique as I look inwards a lot), the underlying belief systems that drive their action, and the toxic patterns that contribute to the suffering. My four decades of learning from various experiences and people resulted in my sharing it with everyone around me in any form I could. Technology helped me do it in multiple ways. 

I now run my own life skills colloquium – ChangeMakers – for teens and young adults focussing on these topics and a few more including self-awareness, mindfulness, inclusion, conditioning, mental health, and sustainability. My blogging under the #CauseAChatter quarterly challenge for Blogchatter under the headings - #GenderTalks, #MentalHealthTalks, & #EnvironmentalTalks is yet another way. I personally think that all these three are important and essential causes for sustainable change management to be a reality. The #GenderTalks is a place where you find people writing on anything to do with Gender, Gender Identity, Gender (In)Equality and Unconscious Gender Bias. We all know that there is no wellbeing without #mental wellbeing and hence the importance of it can’t be stressed enough. For sustainability to be a reality, these two, working hand in hand with the #environmental impact of our actions also need to be dealt with in detail for us to leave behind something that our next generation can work with. I did write with a purpose (of sharing my learning for the larger group, with the hope of impacting a positive mindset shift that celebrates a learning and growth mindset, rather than the outcome itself) even before I became part of the Blogchatter challenge, but this gave me more discipline to be regular and group it under a specific cause. 

Over the years, and from my multiple international relocations across the US & Europe, I have come to understand that I would be content (in fact, excited) when my identity is associated with my humanitarian aspects rather than the other attributes that generally people use to define an individual’s identity. This is what has always found me contributing to local causes in all the places that I have resided. When in the USA, I was part of the Parents-as-Teacher programme, run by the local community centre being trained about child & development psychology that is essential for any young parents. When we lived in France, I facilitated many immigrant parents with the help of the structure of this programme, as part of the PTA of an International school. During our recent stay in the UK, I volunteered at a local community centre, that positively impacted immigrant and asylum seekers from war-torn countries. I developed training programmes that would help them in their acclimatising process and help them with basic skills to enhance their job readiness. This help

ed them find suitable work that would keep them financially stable to support their family. 

I also work with many NGOs that focus on child education, as a tutor and courseware developer. I believe that education is the way to break the shackles of poverty and ignorance and the gateway to developing an informed and equal society for all. 

On this World Humanitarian Day, I could not think of a better person to write about than my Grandfather, who shaped me and the way I think & work today. The beauty about the journey of life is that it is filled with learnings & enriching experiences and Humanity is the means of making it more fulfilling. As I found my calling with my Grandfather, I would love to hear from each of you on your stories from your journey. 

This post is part of Blogchatter's #CauseAChatter #MentalHealthTalks. 

Can Success be a Stressor?

There are many definitions of success. In this mad rush to achieve success (any extrinsic definition that we choose) we forget that true success is only intrinsic. The feeling of being content is what enables you to enjoy the pleasure of success and revel in it. Else, the celebration of success is truly short-lived, temporary. Does this definition of success make you curious? Then read on. 

Consider yourself in these scenarios:

• A 6 yr old comes home carrying a trophy for winning in their school running competition, and the whole house goes berserk about the victory. Everyone says he/she is a born-champion and shows a promising attitude for a bright as an Athlete!
• A 14 yr old brings home a bigger trophy for football (or co-curricular activity for that matter), while he/she is an Average scorer in academics. Now, what would you think the reaction would be at home?
• A 17yr old boy wants to choose Fine arts, Fashion Designing, Literature, or any such ‘soft subject’ as his career path starting with UG, while a 17 yr old girl says she wishes to join the Armed forces, Political science, Mechanical/Automobile Engineering or any such ‘hard subject’ as her career path. Now how would we define success for them?

In all the above scenarios, how do you think the reaction of the family around that child, impact their self-image and their definition of success among other things? What do you think happens to the curiosity quotient (that is found in abundance in their early development years) as the child grows up?

So, do we say the 6yr was successful while the 14yr and 17yr are struggling? 

The dictionary defines success as a measure of succeeding. And to succeed means to turn out well or to attain a desired object or end. Narrowing the scope of this definition to students, we have reduced the measure of success for a student in relation to their rank/order.

For a long time, this is how success has been measured. Yet time and again we have questioned this mode of measuring. Though being on the top gives a momentary feeling of elation and achievement, after a short while, many of them feel a void. Their search for something else begins. Many end up with mental agony, stress because they are unable to understand the reason behind this void and mindless search. The story does not end here. When the world sees the person who has succeeded, they are usually subject to harsh criticism. Success brings with it a level of fame as well and this also adds to the stress for the individual, especially due to the breach in their privacy.

Many successful adults are lost after they reach their set goal (as defined by this world, which they also assumed as theirs). To quote a few examples district / state first rank holders in higher secondary. Toppers of JEEE, University toppers… What happened to them after this achievement? Can we name at least a few of them from past few years? I am sure like me you are shrugging your shoulder! 

I grew up with friends who would parrot their parents’ dream as though it was theirs. 

‘I want to become a Doctor’ or an Engineer… 

The moment I ask the question. ‘Why?’ there would either be a never-ending pause or a spontaneous response ‘That is what is in demand. Once I finish my studies, I will be job-ready, and start earning a five-figure salary and lead a peaceful life.’ (parroted response).

I am sure you are now wondering what I did when my friends were doing this. My goal as a school-going kid was to get into BITS, Pilani. The reason was, of course, partially parroting the elders in my life ‘You will learn to live independently.’ Hostel life was romanticised in my family and I am glad that this was what was romanticised and not the placement figures. When I did get into BITS, I was sent with the advice ‘Learn about self, time, and financial management.’ 

How else can success look like? 

For me, rewards & trophies (extrinsic) were/are never the definition of success. I am not against anyone participating in competitions nor winning certificates of merit/honour. Even today at 40, I participate in competitions, but now it is more to experiment rather than to prove my abilities (to myself/the world). 

Success and failure for me are similar with each giving their own lessons for us to take away. Anu Hasan’s note to self was something I agree to

‘Do not let your success go to your head and your failure to your heart’

Success needs to be responded to with genuine gratitude from the heart, while failure needs to be analysed and lessons learned, using the head. And this is what has been driving my actions. As a child, I was not able to put in words this phenomenon. Now, I am able to, thanks to all the continuous learning that I have done in so many years! I believe that failure is one of the main ingredients for success.

So, this opens the scope of defining success and lets each one of us make a personalised definition of what success means to us. 

I define success for me, as having a purpose, working towards it while continuously evaluating progress learning along the way, being content that I am headed in the right direction towards my goal. Once I reach my goal, I define another purpose and hence another goal to achieve. How do I do this? The key driver is, to be and do better than what I have been and have done so far. 

As my family likes to fondly say, my bar is never a stagnant one. It keeps changing. And I agree, but it changes as per my norms and needs. I also urge my family to do the same and I am happy and content that in my first circle of influence (family) I have been able to bring this mindset shift within each member of my family. It gives me hope that this disturbance that I have created in a still pond as far as mindset is concerned, will have its ripple effect, and hope that someday maybe even create a Tsumani – a major mindset shift, among the future generations. 

This mindset shift will bring an intrinsic view on the success required motivation. It will also eliminate the stress that is currently a package deal with the measure of extrinsically driven success definition. As we say, the comparison now becomes apple with apple (yesterday’s self with today’s self) rather than an apple with orange/tomato/beet! 

This thought as a seed and a few more ideas from other members of my alumni group, resulted in the creation of an amazing panel discussion titled 'The Imperfect Me!', that attempts to discuss these things and more, focusing on developing an individualistic outlook towards life’s challenges and come up with our own mantras for leading a life, that includes positive mental health as well. 

Now that you have read my take/perspective on success/failure, their definitions, and roles, I would love to hear your point of view on success, failure, and associated stress and anxiety to perform and prove!

This post is part of Blogchatter's #CauseAChatter #MentalHealthTalks. 

Baby Steps Towards Sustainable Living

2019 marked the ban of single-use plastics followed by waste segregation at source as a Government initiative in many states. In our gated community in Chennai, we decided to create a task force for the same. The task force was responsible for strategizing the various methods of execution of this Government directive at the community level and individual residents’ level. While waste segregation is one aspect of waste management, the fundamental aspect of it is understanding of the 3 R’s – Reduce, Reuse & Recycle

With sustainability practices gaining the needed attention in recent times to combat the climate change threat, awareness around waste management has increased as well. There are many surveys and articles on the Internet that highlight the volumes of waste that are generated worldwide and the damage that it contributes to the planet Earth. While Government can strategize and launch various initiatives to deal with this menace, it is paramount that we as individuals do our part in implementing them, starting from our own homes. 

How do you Reduce?

Let me share with you what I did (with my spouse’s support) as a lifestyle choice in my home. Any time there is a buying decision being considered, including the weekly grocery list and vegetables for home, the one pivoting point for the buying decision is always #NeedvsWant. This is what drives every buying decision in our home, even the children are now able to use this for their wish list! I wouldn’t categorise us at minimalistic standards, but our moderate buying has been quite effective for at least a few years now, even before the Covid19-induced lockdown initiated this process for many. For us, the lockdown only meant adjusting to the store timings rather than feeling constricted. Here are a few tips on how we achieved this:

• We always have a shopping list and rarely do we deviate from the list. 
• Shopping is never a stress buster. Even if this is true for some, I would urge that, purchase decisions while shopping, should not be under duress (FOMO – Fear of missing out), but a conscious and evaluated decision based on need vs want. Window shopping or moving items an online Wishlist (instead of the shopping cart) can be alternatives, if you are a compulsive shopper, though I would recommend that you work on addressing the root cause of what is stressing you in the first place to remove stress from life rather than going on a shopping spree
• Status symbols were never a motivator for our buying decisions. 
• Indulgent shopping is also something we never subscribed to.

What do we Reuse?

The benefit of reusing can be seen in reduction as well and contributes automatically to cost savings as well. 

• We have had multiple relocations and where we could, we reused our old functional furniture and fixtures with no replacements. 
• We also use the plastic bottles from the kitchen as a makeshift pot for seeds/plants, DIY pencil/pen stands. 
• Old worn clothes get upcycled as wash clothes for cleaning the kitchen counter, tables, fans, appliances, and mirrors. This has helped in reducing the purchase of paper kitchen towels and tissues.
• I make stripes from them that are used as make-shift ropes when needed. It has been a while since I stopped buying ropes and zip-tie to hold things in place. 

How can we Recycle?

As a practice, we have different bins inside our home, and everyone knows what kind of waste goes into which bins. There is one bin just for plastics and one for papers. These are then given to the wastepaper person in exchange for money. Money so earned goes into the kitty of want. When we can save enough to satisfy a specific reasonable want that all of us agree upon, this money is used.  

We also have a wet waste bin that only collects kitchen waste that can be converted into organic compost. 

What do I achieve by doing all this?

The personal satisfaction that I am doing my share to reduce the waste generation and thereby impacting the waste management process positively and contributing to keeping the environment a little less polluted. I also bring ‘cost saving’ due to the reduction and recycling that I have implemented as a practice in my home. With simple reusing methods, I further reduce the generation of waste from my home, thereby doing my bit towards the green revolution. 

Added to all this, we also have a home garden and the water that is removed from our fish tank is used to water the plants thereby recycling water as well. The plants also get natural manure from this water as it is rich with fish excreta. Growing kitchen vegetables as part of our home garden, we also benefit from ‘garden to fork’ produce and enjoy a fresh, tasty meal without the fear of pesticides and chemicals, occasionally.  

I am hoping that as you finish reading this, you have been able to take some practical pointers on what you can implement in your life to develop sustainable practices that will not only benefit the environment but will immensely be satisfying for you personally as well for being a positive contributor to personal and financial well-being as well as the environment.

This post is part of Blogchatter's #CauseAChatter - Environmental Talks

Why Solocation can rejuvenate homemakers?

I have been thinking of going on a vacation by myself (solocation) for a while, but it never materialised until recently. The COVID 19 Pandemic lockdown became a catalyst to this thought and the subsequent Work-from-Home (WFH) and School-from-Home scenarios that reduced my rejuvenating “Me-time” drastically (to be read as NIL). 

My definition of me-time isn’t just reading books, creating or doing stuff that I love doing, but really absolute silence, where I can listen to and feel my own breathing, pick & look at my thoughts without judgment, be aware of everything inside and around me, what they now call being aware, mindful or meditation (No, I do not close my eyes for this, I just stay in the moment and relish it). I love staying still and doing nothing. Over the years, doing this as a regular practice has helped me cope with all the amplified chaos, that my status as trailing spouse (with international relocations) has brought for me on a golden platter (this is a topic for some other time).

There is an interesting scene from a recent Tamil movie - ‘Mookuthi Amman’ which I watched on OTT - where the brother asks his family members what their wishes were and the elder sister (who dons the homemaker responsibilities) very humbly requests ‘I need one day vacation from the kitchen’, was something I was able to correlate with, instantly. I am sure many homemakers would have had this thought in their minds sometime or the other in their lifetime! 

I would blame my socially conditioned thought process for not considering solocations early on in my life. If you are wondering what this means, here I list a few:

• I always feared that the family would suffer if I left my home for a while. 
• I thought I must not take off on my own for my personal pleasure, despite being an advocate of self-care myself for many of the people whom I have impacted in my professional avatar as a wellness and parenting coach.
• Worry about so many ‘what-ifs’ plaguing my mind.
• Being a homemaker was my choice, hence the challenges are mine to deal with.
• I am not the only one facing such circumstances. Why am I acting as though it is just me?

I hope you now get the drift. Considering the pandemic situation, I did not want to travel too far from my home either. So, my #solocation plan was to check-in to a hotel with good amnesties, a 10 min drive from my home. 

I packed my backpack on a Friday morning, finished my lunch with my family, took a cab, and checked in to the hotel at 3 p.m. My Hubby man had booked a room with King size bed and oh boy, was I thankful!

Stepping into the room, the concierge told me that a surprise awaited me. I thought it was my husband’s doing with some surprise, but what I saw was really a heart-warming gesture from the hotel staff. On the writing desk lay a beautiful card, with an amazing message welcoming me for a great and safe solocation. They congratulated me for stepping out of my comfort zone by choosing to travel solo and comforted me with the assurance of safety during the duration of my stay. This hotel – Novotel OMR - won me over that instant (though I already was a great fan of their hospitality, having experienced them in other countries).

That gesture was a big step towards easing the doubts that were rearing their ugly head on my decision to go solo. The rest of my stay during the weekend was pure bliss. The benefits I enjoyed during my stay:

Completely Rested: Sleep early and wake up early and refreshed the entire day – my comfort schedule which I had forgotten since motherhood; changed to, sleep late wake up early, and stay exhausted. Oh… The King-sized luxury bed was quite the comfort and I slept like my husband. (I recently read a quote on my friend’s FB wall – I do not want to sleep like my baby, I wish to sleep like my husband. I am sure you get the drift.)

Stomach full without having to cook: Eat filling meals without having to think about what to cook and then actually cooking them! Being weekend, the breakfast buffet at Novotel was filled with choices including South Indian and North Indian choices. I had my fill all three mornings – Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. Oh! And there was Galette (My French colleagues will relate to this dish) too. I felt so stuffed that I skipped lunch. I can still feel the refreshing taste of the breakfast on my taste buds. Their to-order coffee was perfect. Novotel OMR weekend breakfast menu is one of the best.

Experiencing Hospitality: Amazing staff at the restaurant. Always serving with a smile and every happy to oblige any service I requested. Welcoming me every morning with a cheery ‘Good morning’. Enquiring me about my stay and how I was liking the food. I felt like royalty! 

Productive Work Meetings: Yes, I got some office work done too. I was able to get a lot of my writing assignments completed, did some brainstorming for one of the volunteering initiatives, and was also able to catch-up with my old friends over undisturbed phone calls. All this without distractions or disturbances at my home or the doorbell going off every now and then.

Reading: I did get to read a lot on the digital platform. I had also packed a book ‘Teaching through the Heart’ by Meera Ravi which I have been wanting to read for a while now. I missed my reading-for-hours-without-disturbance mode. These two days I was able to do that as well. 

Silence: I had all the silent me-time I could ask for. Doing all the above, I still got this silence, and it helped me in calming myself and come back home with a fresh perspective and a smiling persona that my entire family noticed the change!

On my return on Monday, I had an extended surprise waiting for me at home. 

Lunch was prepared by my Hubby and ready for me to eat. I did not have to come home and immediately resume duties. I had time till dinner for me to take over.

Last but definitely not the least reason to make solocation a normalised event in every household. I got to hear these words from my spouse’s mouth, ‘Now I know how you make things look easy. Two days when I had to hold fort, there were a lot of things I realised were not as easy as I thought they were’.  For example, seems our son rated his morning health drink prepared by his Dad as ‘okay, but needs improvement’. That made him realise how many zillion times I had prepared the same thing, to meet the needs of every individual at home. ‘Though I only did a fraction of things in comparison to what you do daily, I was exhausted by nightfall, both days. I knew being a homemaker was not easy, but I really got a glimpse of how extremely exhausting and difficult it is and for years you never let any of us feel this side of it. You deserve these breaks more often.’

And I have a champion in my son. He said, ‘Amma needs her rest and downtime. She is overworked and less rested. We will all do our chores and pitch in more regularly.’ I do not have to remind them about their home chores (at least not that frequently). The family is more sensitive to my needs, fluctuating moods, and exhaustion. They are now conscious of my office work and hence are more participative in household tasks more. We have family lunches and dinners more frequently where conversations (all kinds) are helping build healthy connection rituals resulting in a secure attachment. These small changes in our family helped the homemaker in me feel valued and that it is now well acknowledged and appreciated by everyone in the family.

My son and spouse are the organisers, sensitive, and emotional characters while I and my daughter are the logical decisive quick thinking and emotionally stronger individuals in the home. She loves pointing out in every possible situation that our family would probably win the award for the ‘maximum stereotypes broken’ category if there was one anyway and feels so much pride and contentment when she states this. 

What more can I ask for? Along with a relaxed and rejuvenated me, I also have a spouse who appreciates what I do much more than before. I think solocations occasionally are beneficial in more than one aspect. I see more of such solocations in my future! I would urge all homemakers (in fact each one in any capacity) also to go ahead and try it out, at least once, if not for anything else, but their personal wellbeing, as part of a self-care practice. 

If you have already had these in your past, would love to hear of your personal experiences as well and understand what other benefits that this can offer (for self and the family as a whole).

This post is part of #CauseAChatter #MentalHealthTalks with Blogchatter.