This is where I take the privilege (thanks to you) to be a little unhinged in my writing—to let myself wander into the messy parts of life and share something that might stir something in you.

Some days, I’m scared I’ll rub some of you the wrong way because, well… I’m not always diplomatic.

But then I think: why even bother doing this if I’m simply talking on the surface?

So with that, consider this your warning for today’s edition. :p

In today’s email

• Do you hate your life or the circumstances you’re in?
• How to get out of a cage that is your life.
• What can pollute your mind?

Something to consider

• Just because you dislike your life’s circumstances doesn’t mean you dislike your life. It’s not the same.

Takeaway: Learn to separate your circumstances from yourself.

How to get out of a cage that is your life:

This part from a book I read echoes in my head, even though I finished it months ago: 
​
(Spoiler alert from ‘May Be You Should Talk To Someone by Lorri Gotille) 
​
The author is a middle-aged single mother and finds herself stuck: feeling lost, unfulfilled and frankly, overwhelmed. 

It’s not easy being a single mother of a six-year-old boy, having gone back to school to study. 

Despite the difficulties and the hard times, she knew this is what she wanted. So she doesn’t mind the all-nighters, running from her kid’s school to her own and then to work.

It’s a grind, for sure. But also worth it.

She made a great therapist! 

Only she didn’t feel right. She feels stuck, troubled and done for. Something isn’t right. She doesn’t feel joy as deeply as she used to. She’s snapping at her son, who can pick up very easily that something is off with mommy.

Amidst all of this, she tells her therapist at the beginning of the therapy sessions: 

I feel like I’m sitting in a cage. 
…No matter how hard I try, I stay stuck in there. I scream for help, but no one can hear me. 

​Cut to the end of the therapy, in her final session, she tells him: 

I had no idea I could walk out of the sides. It was open on the sides all along. I just couldn’t see it. 

Profoundly deep, but deceptively simple, right?
If you’re thinking something must’ve changed, then no. Nothing changed. Not one thing.

The circumstances remain the same. More or less. 

But when we heal and the voices in the head disappear, something else changes: your perspective. 

It puts you in control of your life. 
It frees you from your self-limiting beliefs. 
And gives you the greatest gift of clarity, not just in your work, but also in relationships. 
​
All it takes is:
> Awareness 
> Acceptance 
> Realignment.
​
You don’t build empires in chaos or anxiety.
You build them in calm.

Quote of the edition

The proper work of the mind is the exercise of choice, refusal, yearning, repulsion, preparation, purpose and assent. What then can pollute and clog the mind’s proper functioning? Nothing but its own corrupt decisions.

– Epictetus 

(Taken from The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday)

I also can’t believe I’m now 30 years old. For some reason, you never really think about crossing 29 when you’re younger. I’m sure I’ll feel this way in 10 years from now, too. 

But not thinking about things doesn’t keep them at bay. 

So let’s get moving, just like the time.

In today’s email

• Half-yearly audit
• Accentuating the Positive, by the Urban Monk
• Living in the gutter 

Something to consider

Like I said, half the year is gone. It’s probably a good time to check in with yourself and your goals. 

• What did you have in mind when you started this year?
• How are you feeling about yourself and your year so far?
• What are you grateful for so far?
• What are you looking forward to now?
• How are you going to get there?

While you think about this, here’s a piece on how to cull out the best parts to reflect on.

You Gotta Accentuate The Positive

By Urban Monk from The Zen Journal​

Back in 1944, a songwriter named Johnny Mercer wrote a song that has since become a classic. The song’s lyrics go like this:

“You’ve got to accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative, latch on to the affirmative, and don’t mess with Mr. In-Between. You’ve got to spread joy up to the maximum, bring gloom down to the minimum, have faith or pandemonium is liable to walk upon the scene.”

At first glance, it might seem like Mercer was singing from the comfort of a charmed life, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. 

The First World War raged on from 1914 to 1918. 

Then came the Spanish Flu, sweeping across the globe from 1918 to 1920. 

And just as that tragedy was fading, from 1921 to 1925, epidemics of diphtheria, tuberculosis, and polio claimed countless lives. 

Following that, in 1929, the stock market crashed, triggering the Great Depression. 

The 1930s brought the Dust Bowl, devastating the land in the United States. 

And then, in 1941, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour pulled the United States into World War II.

So, given all this turmoil, what does Mercer do? 

He doesn’t fall into despair or drown in negativity. Instead, he offers us a simple yet powerful message: 

accentuate the positive.

In a world that is constantly throwing challenges our way, it’s easy to get lost in the endless cycle of hardship. 

But Mercer’s message is clear—focusing on the negative won’t make the struggles go away. 

No, we can find even the smallest glimmers of goodness, of hope, that help us navigate life. That’s where the real power lies.

So What Does This Mean For You?

The truth is, the world has always been in extreme distress, and it will continue to be. 

But here’s the thing: self-pity and panic don’t help. They don’t change anything. 

The real challenge isn’t the trauma we face, it’s how we choose to dramatise it in our minds. 

We have more control than we think. We get to decide how we carry it, how we hold it.

And think about this for a second, the weight we carry can often feel unbearable. But here’s the thing we forget—we don’t have to carry it forever. 

We don’t have to cling to that heavy rock we’re holding onto. We can put it down, take a breath, and let it go for now. 

And if we need to, we can always come back to it later. 

But for now, we can simply let it go. 

Just for now.

P.S. In case you want to check out the song, here.

If you liked reading this, you definitely want to check out the goldmine here.

Quote of the edition

To sum up today’s theme best:

“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”

― Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere’s Fan​

• Whose life are you living?
• A Comma, a Breakdown, and a Breakthrough
• The dangers of people pleasing

Something to consider

You’re the one who has to live the life you create. If you’re creating one that’s someone else’s version, will it ever truly feel like yours?

It was about 8.00 p.m. on a Friday. 

My senior and I were just about wrapping up to celebrate the rare early night off. My dreams of sushi and the glorious chilly oil I had craved all week were finally going to come to life.

There was only one final task: A short 5-liner email to be given to the boss.

We drafted it in minutes and rushed into his cabin so it could be sent out asap.

My senior and I, sitting on the other side of the desk, watching the boss read the email, smirked at each other in anticipation of the sushi to follow.

But things didn’t go as planned. 

His face got tense. Eyebrows furrowed.

He could either have been disgusted or really, really angry. And angry he was. He had spotted a misplaced comma in the endnotes of the email!

And before any of you email me telling me I’m also a lawyer, I should know how the commas change the game. Let me please tell you that it wasn’t that kind of a comma.  It was a useless kind of comma mistakenly mentioned in the citations.

Anyway, the guy was so furious he couldn’t get a hold of himself. 

So he yelled. For 45 minutes. 

Needless to say, when we stepped out, we were exhausted. 
But more than that, we were relieved. 

At least, it was over. 

Or so we thought. 

Till we were called back for round 2. 

Which went on for another 30 minutes.

This time around, he didn’t hesitate to tell us we had ruined HIS Friday night. HE had plans.

But urgh, the comma in the citations!

No surprise, but the sushi never happened that day. 

You know what happened instead? Tears! (Super uncomfortable sharing that, but vulnerability denied is happiness compromised, right?)

The night thankfully ended, but not the story.

After that, I questioned everything.
Not in a “double-check your work” kind of way.
But in a “I no longer trust myself”, freaked out and confused kind of way.Every sentence. Every source. Every comma.

Everything was now a potential failure.

It made me so angry that he thought he could yell at us for something that he could have corrected without being rude, condescending and without yelling.

I blamed him for a long time.
For making me feel small.
For eroding my confidence.

Until recently, when I had an uncomfortable realisation:

People don’t make you feel bad. 

They aren’t rude to you. 

They don’t spoil your mood. 

They don’t ruin your day. 

They can’t.

​Unless you let them.

You’re the gatekeeper.

Take back the control. It’s your life to live.

Take it back one day at a time, one small step a day.

It won’t happen in a single day.

There will be days when you’ll fail, and you’ll have to remind yourself.

I know I have to.

But from where I’m now, about 7 years later, trust me, it gets easier.

Not on its own, but with conscious practice.

Your life is yours to live. You don’t need anyone’s permission but your own.

Also, I went to the sushi place later:

Quote of the edition

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

― Lori Gottlieb, Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed​

People ask how your partner is doing, how your parents are, and sometimes even about your work friends.
But rarely, if ever, does anyone ask about your relationship with yourself.

Books, movies, and plays dive into the drama and depth of ideal relationships—with lovers, friends, and family.

We grow up absorbing messages about what it means to show up for others: be honest, loyal, kind, and empathetic.
But no one teaches us how to apply these same values to ourselves.

Not that the other relationships aren’t important. They are.
After all, everything we do as humans stems from a deep, evolutionary need to belong—to feel part of something bigger than ourselves.

But none of those relationships compares to the one you have with yourself.
Because your self-love—or lack of it—shapes how you show up in every other part of your life.

If you don’t like who you are…
If you feel you’re not enough, or second-guess how you come across to others—
That feeling will seep into everything: how you speak, how you connect, how you carry yourself.

The world then sees a version of you filtered through self-doubt, not self-love.

But the real shift doesn’t come from how others see you. It comes from how you see yourself.

And building that kind of self-love? It starts with two simple practices grounded in psychology:

Two simple and science-backed ways to get started

Ask Yourself Better Questions

Your brain is a supercomputer. It answers whatever you ask, without judging whether the question is helpful or harmful. But it’s not as rational as you’d like it to be.

So if you ask, “Why am I like this?”, “Why am I ugly?” or “Why can’t I just get it right?”—it’ll search for reasons to confirm those beliefs.

But if you shift the questions, you change the answers.

Try asking yourself:

• What makes me happy? 
• What am I grateful for? 
• Who are the people in my life I thank God for?

These questions help redirect your focus toward what’s working and remind you of the goodness that already exists.

That’s where self-love begins—not with grand gestures, but with subtle shifts in self-talk to train your mind.

Use Affirmations to Rewire Your Inner Dialogue

I used to think affirmations were a funky business. The idea of repeating nice things to yourself out loud feels odd, to b honest.

But neuroscience says otherwise. 

To quote from this paper, “results highlight ways in which brain systems implicated in positive valuation and self-related processing may be reinforced by prospection and suggest novel insight into the balance of processes supporting affirmation.” Repeating affirmations helps rewire thought patterns by reinforcing helpful beliefs, especially when your mind spirals.

Think of them as mini-nudges to bring your brain back when you find it steering the wrong lane.

Try ones like: 

• I deserve to be loved and cherished.
• I deserve to be heard. 
• I’m a cutie. (Yes, this counts, and yes, you are.)

Self-Love Starts Small—But It Starts With You

You may not believe them at first. But as the re-wiring of the brain progresses, it’ll create a safe space for these beliefs to grow and take shape. That’s the foundation of self-love: building a safe place within your own mind.

No one else can build your relationship with yourself but you. 

And it starts with small, honest steps—questions that matter, words that heal.

If you liked this, you’re going to love this piece on self-regulation.

Love, 

Jasleen

Quote of the edition:

“The truth will set you free. But first, it will piss you off.”

Sitting on my couch at 8:30 p.m., fresh from reading a chapter on emotional regulation in my psychology course work, I was scrolling through YouTube and came across an interview with an Indian actor.

The interviewer asked her, are you ever insecure about your partner? 

She smiled and said, not at all. We’re different individuals. Even if I don’t like someone, he can still talk to them—as long as we communicate openly.

Fair enough, I thought. Maybe she’s a secure person in her relationships.

But then came a bigger question.

“Have you ever felt insecure in life?”

Not just in love—in life. Career, friendships, family.

Her answer? “Never.”

Really now? never? 

The Myth of Never Feeling Insecure

This actress is not a child. She’s well into her 30s. 

She has a full blown career in a field where every move she makes is broken down and overanalysed. 

From her date nights, dinners with friends and family to appearances after heartbreaks and attires at funerals, everything is the talk of the town.

Has she truly never felt insecure? Or does she think admitting that sometimes, even if rarely, a small part of her craves for comfort?

Is she scared that if she talks about her ups and downs in her life, however rarely, she’ll be taken for a ride?

You’re probably thinking, because Jasleen, it’s a social media platform. If she admits that she is also insecure sometimes, she’ll feel bared and unguarded. 

Everyone would not be as nice as we think. People will take advantage of her insecurities. 

But let me explain why she’s looking at it all wrong.

What is emotional vulnerability?

The ability to be vulnerable, when you need support, shows:

• You’re secure about your feelings; 
• You trust your emotions instead of suppressing them;
• You are resilient and not scared of judgement;
• You know that your needs deserve to be met; 
• You believe that your strongest relationships can handle your truth and will fulfil your needs; and
• You know when to ask for help.

Why Hiding Vulnerability Is a Mistake?

You see, vulnerability isn’t about being defenceless, over-dependent or unsure of yourself.

It’s about being courageous and secure enough to be seen as who you really are, permitting yourself to express your true feelings to the ones you trust and creating relationships that you can fall back on.

The Power of Authentic Self-Expression

When you do that, you’re no longer carrying the weight of it all by yourself. 

And if someone thinks they can use it against you, your strength reflected in your comfort of sharing is enough to keep them at bay. 

You know you talk about the insecurities because they can’t get to you through them.

You’re not handing them a weapon. You’re taking it away from them.

This isn’t just motivational fluff. 

This is what 6 years of researching and studying the human behaviour of thousands revealed. 

While interviewing people for a completely different research project, she noticed that people who were vulnerable were living truly “wholesome” lives. This researcher went on to call ​vulnerability the birth-place of joy, creativity, belonging and love​. 

Who doesn’t want joy, creativity, belonging and love in their lives?

Need I say more? 

Five Actionable Steps to Embracing Emotional Vulnerability in Relationships

This is how you can learn to be vulnerable in relationships:

1/ Acknowledge the discomfort

Start small. You don’t have to unfurl your childhood secrets all in one go. You just have to admit what’s making you uncomfortable.

2/ Create your inner circle

Not everything needs to be shared with everybody. There will be some people in your life whose core values will strike a chord with yours. These are the people who support you and enjoy your trust. 

3/ Permit yourself to be seen

If you’re invalidating your experiences or undercutting your feelings, it doesn’t count. 

Be honest but polite if you’re talking about issues that might be triggering for others too. If you want someone to understand you, you need to learn their language.

4/ Accept your imperfections

Nothing is perfect. In fact, what is perfect is also subjective. You can’t spend your whole life chasing something that is so fluid and practically impossible.

It’s okay to make mistakes. Don’t take everything too seriously. Be a gold fish—feel your failures for sometime but move on. You’ve got so much more ahead of you.

5/ Be open to others vulnerabilities

Just like you, others are also not perfect. Tap into the environment in the room before giving judgements. Ask questions before making assumptions. And create a safe environment for others to feel secure. Be reliable, dependable and accountable.

Real strength is not the absence of insecurities, but the courage to acknowledge and address them.

You deserve to feel supported and cared for in your relationships. That’s what you should be seeking.

Just in case, you’re feeling like there’s no one who’ll listen, I dare you to ‘write’ to me at jasleen@keepupwithkaur.com. Go ahead, give it a shot!

It’s time to drop the act.

A question that digs deep into the idea of healing and finding a version of yourself that can handle ANYTHING. 

A version that is not held back or tied up in itself. A version that can see everything clearly without the shade of biases or their own schemas.

It was at the lunch table, in the middle of some 50+ people around where I told her of my new read ‘Good Morning, Monster’ by Catherine Gildiner. 

I had just finished narrating the first story in the book to her. It was about Laura, who was about nine when her alcoholic dad had to run away because the people he owed money to wouldn’t leave him alone. 

Not to say he was a bad guy, the circumstances were such that he had no other option but to leave her incharge of her two younger siblings. 

In fact, he cared about his kids so much that he came back a few years later to find that the kids were being taken care of by their neighbours. 

He missed dropping them off to school, preparing them lunches, taking them out fishing, so he took them along with him and his new wife, their to-be step-mother. 

He was generally a good dad, she told her therapist. He did all he could.

Cut to today, she was living a seemingly successful life. She had a great job, had friends and a long-term stable relationship. But there was one issue.

Her partner had given her an STD, which he picked up from another woman who he was seeing. But you know, it wasn’t as bad as it sounded because it was a manageable one. 

Plus, the doctor said herpes was actually pretty common than most people know. The flare-ups happen sometimes but it’s all under control, usually. 

It was a different thing he didn’t have the STD when they started dating and later, even when he found out about the STD, he didn’t tell her about it. But may be he just forgot. Because he’s generally a good partner to her.

Anyway, the doctor said that sometimes, it’s not under enough control and even modern medicines don’t help because the patient is too stressed out. Just like in her case, the doctors then refer the patients to therapists. 

Now of course, when she started therapy, she pushed and told the therapist that she was a lucky girl who survived everything, had a great job and a long-term stable relationship. 

But in any case, the therapist had to do her job. So, at some point during the sessions, like all therapists, this one too asked, “how was it at home?”, “who all lived at home when you were a kid?”, “what was it like”?

Right at this point, my friend asked her million dollar question.

We’re all not living hunky dory lives at all times. This was a woman in her 30s who had issues like all of us do in our lives. There are ups and downs. There are days and periods when we are extremely stressed out and periods when we’re not.

How is all of this supposed to help the situation? It’s not like talking about the unfortunate past is going to fix everything today. 

If you’ve been reading the newsletters, I always make a special mention of past experiences especially during childhood. 

Whether it’s issues related to the anger, abandonment, co-dependency, commitment, trust issues, lack of self-esteem, people pleasing. So why do we insist on delving into the childhood so much?

I mean, think about Laura. 

Why put her through the torment of knowing that her father, who was supposed to take care of you, nurture her and protect her was so self-occupied that he couldn’t see anything else?

How painful would it be for her to face that he neglected her and left her incharge of two younger siblings, whom she fed (with stolen food) and took care of, till the neighbours found out and took them under their care?

I know this is an extreme example even though this is a true story. 

And I know this is harsh. I know it’s painful because it’ll bring back all the memories and emotions you’ve spent years covering up.

I also know that sometimes parents have their own shit to deal with. They’ve got to put food on the table. And it won’t help today to blame them for what happened years ago.

But this exercise is not about blaming them. More so, it’s about acknowledging that they’re human and so are you. It doesn’t make them bad people. It’s accepting that life happens.

It’s about taking charge, taking back in control of the real situation instead of lying to yourself about your so-called great life. It takes patience and grit to sit through the pain and anger. 

You might even question why you’re so ungrateful to your parents, who despite their own shit, also faced their own share of hell?

But then, after the pain and the anger, there will come a time when you’ll understand that this new acquired (or shall I say, old but accepted?) knowledge will set you free from the weight of the emotions you’ve been working so hard to keep under the sheets. 

It will help you heal and become more regulated. You will understand your triggers, be able to safeguard yourself against them and at some level, accept and love your parents for who they truly instead of loving a version of them that you cooked up in your head.

You’ll know the situation and guide your brain to handle it accordingly instead of telling it to put up a constant and tiring facade that everything is fine, when you bloody well know it isn’t.

You will see the present as it is. You’ll stop putting up with shit just like Laura, take control of your life, meet someone who truly deserves you and get a promotion at work because you will no longer be in your own way.

Recognizing your parents’ humanity doesn’t diminish your worth or invalidate your experiences. At the same time, accepting the past as it is doesn’t make them bad people.

It takes immense courage to acknowledge their limitations while committing to your own healing. They are human—and so are you.

I hope this acts as a nudge for you to self-reflect and break your patterns to get out of your own way. You deserve to live the life of your dreams. All power to you!

Love, 

Jasleen

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.

Here is how you can find the key. Click to read more.

I have taken a few days to finally write about this because love IS indeed one of the biggest cliche topics. But before you jump to a judgment, stay with me. 

We spoke to a few people about their definitions of love, and they consistently spoke about:

• wanting to put their loved one’s needs before their own, 
• respecting each other, including boundaries, 
• wanting to fix the world for them, 
• wanting to fight the world with them (But why, though, why fight the world? You do you-minus the fight!).

Someone also described love as appreciation at an existential level. Another one said Love Is Like Oxygen. If you get too much, you get high and if you don’t…well.

Well, if love is so beautiful, why do some people avoid relationships altogether? Why doesn’t it feel the same way even if they find someone who will give them their all? 

Now, I know this isn’t the case with everyone. Life is messy. We all experience everything differently. But what remains the same is – that we all want the love that gets us high on some level. We all want to be seen, fulfilled, and supported.

And to get that kind of love, you need to be open to accepting it. Not just want it but truly allow it.

Think about it. How will you truly feel that someone is there for you unless you learn to be secure enough to be vulnerable with them? Let them comfort you, be sad with you in your sadness and happy with you in your joy. 

If you don’t believe you’re worthy of love, it’s hard to let it in.

For those needing proof, the research says:

“The initial level of self-esteem of each partner predicted the initial level of the partners’ common relationship satisfaction, and the change in self-esteem of each partner predicted the change in the partners’ common relationship satisfaction… these effects did not differ by gender and held when controlling for participants’ age, length of relationship, health, and employment status.”

Who would have thought we don’t need to look too far for it – this kind of love that I’m talking about? Perhaps the first step is simply to indulge in a cliché self-love. You deserve to be loved.

Love, 

JKD

“I wanna be a billionaire so f***ing bad

Buy all of the things I never had

I wanna be on the cover of Forbes magazine

Smilin’ next to Oprah and the Queen

…

A different city every night, oh, I swear.”

Do you want a bigger house with a beautiful drive-way, a home theatre, a big balcony where you can sit a read your book with your cup of coffee? a nicer car? more vacations? more time with your family? 

How about getting fitter and eating healthier? reading more and watching more movies? Learning a new skill?

If you weren’t thinking about this until now, I’m sure I’ve got you thinking about it now. You’re welcome :p 

Coming back to the point, I know I want a better future for myself.

And now that I’ve got you thinking, I’m sure you’re also nodding your head at your screen right now.

You know, I posted my first article on Keep Up with Kaur in July 2024 but I had wanted to do it since around February/March 2024. In May 2024, I told one of my friends how desperately I wanted to do this. All I needed was some time and space from the chaos. This is what she said, “Things will never settle down, and you’ll just keep waiting forever.” 

What a moment of revelation I had thanks to her. This is life. Life is chaos. 

The thing about the future is – it’s not built in the future. An object remains at rest or continues moving in a straight line at a constant speed unless an external force acts upon it. (Newton’s First Law of Motion)

The actions that you’re going to take today define your future. Your intentions simply won’t make it happen.

Here is what you’ve got to do right now:

• Open the Notes app on your device.
• Think about your goals and write them down.
• What do you want your life to look like?
• Work backwards and make a plan.
• Put a timeline on it.
• Set milestones.

Whatever it is, get to work. Go to the gym, update your CV, review your finances, work on your relationships, pick up the phone, speak to your friend, get your shit together and get going. 

Whatever excuse you’re making to do it later, it’s not worth it. 

10 years from now, you won’t want to think about your life and wish you had acted on this. 

You’re not a victim of your circumstances but a crafter of the life of your liking.

And so I’ll reiterate, open the Notes app and get to work.

Jasleen

Sorry, but this is going to be a long one.

It was back in 2016. I think it was winter in North India but I’m not quite sure. We were probably chilling outside the college cafe or finding cheap lunch places around the college to skip the terrible ‘arhar dal’ lunch.

I don’t think I completely processed what it meant for our friend to be diagnosed with autoimmune hepatitis so I don’t remember the exact details of when I heard the news. 

We knew he was in the hospital so we made plans to go meet him and in the days to come, along with my other friends, we learned that he was not in good shape. He had to come to terms with the fact that his immune system was attacking his body.

The doctors told him it was genetics. But neither of his parents had that disease. This friend also has an identical twin. He (thankfully) didn’t have the disease either.

When he asked the doctor what caused it, the doctor casually responded that the actual cause of such diseases was unknown. 

Mind you, he was one of the most physically active and fit people I knew back in college. 

I don’t know if you have the time or the space to process what’s happening in a situation like this. I know he went to hell and came back. 

Some five years later, when consulting one of the country’s best doctors on the course of treatment and taking a second opinion for the first time, the doctor didn’t ask him what he ate, how much water he drank and how often he exercised. 

He asked, “How was the environment at home before you first got the symptoms?“

Later, around 2019-20, another friend was also diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, also an autoimmune disease. I knew she had moved across continents at a very young age. 

I figured it was not easy to start a life all on your own when you’re only about 17-18 years of age in a new country, a different cultural setting, and a new society, after having left your friends and family miles behind. It can get very real and very brutal, all too soon. 

The doctors told her also that while the actual cause is unknown to medical science; it was probably just stress.

Just stress? We’re not talking of a minor inconvenience but a life-threatening disease where the immune system of the body fails and takes the position of an attacker instead of a protector. It cannot differentiate between a cell of the body and a foreign cell and attacks every cell simultaneously. These diseases can be managed but can never be cured. It was “just stress”.

Or was it?

I recently finished reading ‘When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress’, authored by Gabor Mate. Mate is a doctor who treated multiple patients for medical illnesses and addictions. In his 20 years of practice, he worked with patients who suffered terminal diseases like cancer, ALS, arthritis, multiple sclerosis etc. 

While examining patients, he started noticing patterns: people with immune system illnesses, whether autoimmune or immunodeficiency, had often experienced trauma before their diagnosis. 

So he started talking more to his patients about these traumatic experiences and narrowed down these traits in his patients:

• People pleasers (you can read about people pleasing and stopping it here)
• Emotional repressors (more about self-regulation here)
• Emotionally responsible for everyone
• Perfectionists
• Non-confrontational
• Hyperindependent

To cut the long story short for you, their bodies gave up because they simply couldn’t take it anymore. I was tired of trying so hard all the time and constantly being in fight-or-flight mode. So it stopped trying.

Small changes in your life can save your life.

Love, JKD