Hello hello,
Before I dive into this edition, it’s a long weekend in India starting tomorrow. Consider this your gentle reminder to take a breather and check in with yourself to stay intentional about your life.
Coming to this week’s story, for those of you who don’t know me personally, I studied in a boarding school for about 5 years.
I was about 13 years old in 2008 when I moved far away from home. And at that age, I didn’t understand what ‘mindset’ meant.
Looking back now, it’s almost unbelievable that something I couldn’t even name would completely transform my entire school experience.
I learned about the school located amidst the hills from one of my god-grandparents.
I loved hearing his stories and the idea of living with friends from different parts of the country, all living together in a dormitory, playing together, and going for my hobbies sessions after classes.
Anyway, I remember saying bye to my parents at 5.30 p.m. the day my parents dropped me off. Standing on the sides of the parking lot next to the girl’s dormitory, I waved at the car fading away from my sight.
Even though I was a confident young girl when I shifted, it was daunting to be seated in a class of unfamiliar faces. But I was excited to live the dream!
In the following days, the girls in the dorm helped me prepare for school and ‘study hour’, and took me around the school to classes and back.
They braided my hair and helped me figure out which clothes kit I had to wear for the different sessions. This by the way, was a lot of help because we wore the sports kit for the morning exercise session, followed by the school kit for classes, and changed back to the sports kit for hobbies and games, and then again to the formal kit for the evening study hour and dinner.
But a few days into attending classes, having meals, exploring the big library and enjoying the mountains, I spotted one of the girls writing a letter to her parents about her school life.
She wrote about how unhelpful the girls were, how selfish everyone was and how unhappy she was. She wrote that she needed an out asap. The girls from the rich families were selfish and mean. It was hell.
And that was that.
I proceeded to assume that all the helpful girls were helping for their benefit or out of pity for the new girl.
A few months into the hell I had created for myself, I held ‘The Secret’ by Rhonda Byrne. I don’t remember who handed it to me or when the book found its way to me. But oh MY GOD, this book set the tone for my life to follow.
Had someone given the book to me today, I’d have questioned the science behind it. I’d have trashed it. Thankfully, at 13, I didn’t need any explanations. I just needed hope and some direction.
To be fair, I still find myself searching for scientific explanations as to how and why this works. Especially because every third super successful person keeps talking about their mindset.
So that’s what I did over the past month – dug deep looking for the brain response and evidence of how this cliched topic of manifestation and mindset helps people create their reality.
And how YOU can CREATE the reality you want by taking tiny steps with huge implications. The key, my friend, is in your hand. You just didn’t know it yet.
