Ladies, Here’s How To Be ‘Chilled Out’ – An Illustrated Version

Women face plenty of stress in their lives. The solution is to follow this 5 point programme to be chilled out instead!

Many of us seem to be battling on a daily basis with this feeling of being ‘stuck’ or trapped. Some of us feel stuck in our jobs, some in our relationships, in our marriages, in life in general. We’re largely creatures that like to be wild and free, and we’re easily stifled… and we’re quick to feel threatened at the possibility of being stifled.

I’ve always been a bit of an emotional fool, which has landed me in all kinds of tangles. It’s taken me some time to learn to identify and avoid various traps that lie in my path (of course, sometimes I trip and fall face flat).

While I’m no ‘gyaani baba’ myself, I’m sharing some of those things that really struck a chord with me. Trying to practise them have made me a whole lot calmer. You might even bestow upon me that glorious phrase to me – chilled out – something I’ve always aspired to be (and perhaps a questionable ambition at that).

You cannot control how others react to you

It’s easy to be influenced by another person’s reactions or lack of them.

Oh, I’ve spent a lot of brain space trying to figure out why someone hasn’t messaged, why someone has, what someone did and why someone was being distant. These thoughts escalate quickly from being slightly worrisome to being obsessive. But the minute I realised that the way other people behaved towards me (along with a great many others in the universe) wasn’t in my control, I started feeling magically better. It was a much-needed lesson in letting go.

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Make your own choices, live the consequences

One of the things that stops many women (and men) from living life to the fullest is the fear of making choices that society may not approve of.

I hear alarming stories about women being pressurised into marriages, many of whom wearily accept that ‘this is how it works in my family’ or ‘I don’t really have an option’. But the most liberating feeling is that of being able to make your own choices. Even the daft ones!

Don’t resist, don’t try too hard

I’ve found that the things I’ve resisted the most are the ones that have stealthily snuck up on me all too fast. And the problems that I’ve tried to fix repeatedly are the ones that have cracked and broken. It’s surprising how long our minds can stay parked in one particular spot. But give it a good ol’ heave, and it’ll roar back to life.

Keep moving

It’s almost like we revel in overthinking. Aha, we say, here is something that will occupy my brain every night for the next 30 days to come, sapping me of my sleep, time, energy and productivity. How delightful! We succumb to this idea of rumination, like cud-chewing cows. We are most unwilling to move forward.

But nothing good ever came out of anything stationary. And eventually, all of us reach that ‘pak gaye’ point after which we can’t take any more.

Indulge yourselves

A nice massage once in a while is more than welcome. But I find that taking care of your mind with some alone time helps a lot.

I talk to my head on some days, I treat it like it were wet mud, sprouting saplings. I sing stupid songs, trim the hedges, remove the weeds. And then, once I’m done, I look upon it with great  beaming satisfaction, feeling enormously chilled out.

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