Tag: life

Is It Really Just “Teasing”?

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I watched a couple interact a few days ago. There was a lot of “teasing” or as I’d like to call it “putting each other down”. Whenever they spoke to each other or about each other, it had to do with correcting each other or mentioning what they other person didn’t know. They seemed comfortable doing that as well. It made me wonder if that’s just how they communicated. It also made me wonder if that’s how they spoke to each other in private or if this was the case all the time.

I feel like I used to be like that at least in public. I didn’t know how to interact with someone I was in a relationship with. It was like, if I was nice to the person in public, I put myself in a vulnerable position. If I put my significant other down, it made me the stronger, more dominant person. Honestly, I don’t know exactly why I did it. But I do remember doing it.

After enough failed relationships, I learned that being vulnerable isn’t the worst thing in the world. People are built a lot stronger than we think. It’s hard if the relationship doesn’t make it but with the right help and work and time, we will get past it.

It taught me that I’d rather be vulnerable but be nice to my significant other. Putting them down doesn’t make me a better person. Teasing them doesn’t make me a stronger person. If anything, the opposite is true. Being good to them makes me a better person. And if I treat them with respect, then I’m treated with respect as well.

So what is it about these types of relationships and communication? I’ve seen it enough. Is it a form of affection? I don’t feel like I’d be very happy if someone I trusted with everything constantly made fun of me.

If you’re in this type of relationship, could you let me know what the deal is?

Couples and Communication

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So I’m going to tell you the truth about my new year’s eve. My husband and I had a fight. It sucked. We were both tired and we had been dealing with illnesses traveling around our family for a few weeks. There came a point where stuff we had been thinking about and not saying just all came out. It wasn’t the greatest way to start off a new year but we figured it out.

We try to both be understanding of each other but sometimes, that leads to resentment. Holding stuff in doesn’t really help resolve anything and then, one of us ends up really angry at the other.

The problem with this situation is that constructive communication is something we both had to learn. Putting our ego aside for the benefit of our relationship is something we both had to learn. Talking to each other with the common end goal of moving forward is something we had to learn.

Unfortunately, these aren’t lessons that are readily available in the Indian culture. We don’t know that we need to continuously evolve in ourselves and in our relationships. The end goal is usually to get married. No one explains that you have to keep working on your relationship after the wedding. It’s just assumed that you will stay together regardless of anything else. We are taught that we just need do what we need to do and that’s it.

But that isn’t it. Awareness and improvement are a relatively new concept in the Indian community. Happiness and emotional needs are also new concepts as well. So we have to realize ourselves that we need to be able to look at our lives and analyze it so we can make it better. As a couple, we need to be able to talk to each other and figure out a way to move forward that is beneficial to both people.

Marriage is something that should be fun. Sometimes, there are occasions where it isn’t so much. But as long as we talk and try to understand each other, it should be a short-lived situation. Then, we go back to having fun.

My husband and I sure did.

It’s 2018!

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Happy new year! New year tends to be a time where we look back at our lives and try to figure out where we can be better and what we can improve on.

I usually don’t do new year’s resolutions because I have the mindset that if I want to do something, why wait for the new year? But this time around, it all coincided and there are promises I want to make to myself. There are things I want to try to accomplish because honestly, so much of what I want to do gets put on the back burner because my priorities are always my kids and my husband. I want to be able to manage my life in a way where I can do it all.

So here it goes:

  1. Go to sleep earlier. This one is hard because my kids don’t go to sleep super early and then the only time to myself and with my husband is after they do fall asleep. As a result, we tend to sleep later than we should. I wanted to try sleeping earlier and maybe we can wake up earlier.
  2. Continue with my weight loss goals. I’m still in the process of losing my baby weight and I’ve been doing good. I just need to keep it going.
  3. Make a success out of our new family business. We recently started teaching dance classes and want to grow it as much as we can this year.
  4. Get my blogging consistent. I know I’ve said this before and I’ll be good for a week but then life happens and it’s hard. Even now, I’m typing with my baby in hand trying to grab at the computer.

Overall, I want to spend more time being with people and not distracted when I’m spending time with them. I also want to be able to figure myself out again.

I tend to have unrealistically high expectations of myself and my life. Hopefully, I can make some of them come true.

What are your resolutions?

Will You Talk To Me?

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Do you ever wonder what makes us connect with another person?

I have about 3 categories of people: people I love and easily get along with, people that are cool but we aren’t that close, and people I just don’t want to be around.

The hardest group for me is the second one, the people that are cool but we aren’t that close. These are the people I have to make small talk with. These are the people that I would like to have a conversation with but I honestly just don’t know how. I don’t know how to change the comfort level for these people.

I am at a point in my life where if I can’t just be silent with you, it’ll be hard for me to be close to you. I need to be around people that can either facilitate the conversation or are cool just hanging out. I will try to make conversation but my mind doesn’t work as quickly or freely as it once you used.

I used to wonder what was wrong with me. Turns out that this is just my personality. I am not super social. I’m social up to a limit. I will always smile at you but if you aren’t easy to talk to, I have a hard time communicating.

It’s hard to be accepting that this is my personality. I don’t like feeling unfriendly or like people don’t want to talk to me. I judge myself for it. I should be more outgoing. I should be friendlier to people who have tried to be friendly to me.

But honestly, I just have an easier time around people that I feel comfortable around. I have to work hard to change that. Sometimes, I’m not even sure I want to.

What type of personality do you have?

Who We Are Today

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Over the last few years, I haven’t written as much in this blog as I’d like to. If I’m honest, it’s probably because most of the exposure I have to the outside world is limited to my family and sometimes, I don’t want to write about the things I feel within that limitation. My original intent for this blog was to discuss things that South Asians don’t have a tendency to discuss. I’d like to try to continue that and make more of a commitment to writing regularly again.

Being surrounded by my kids most of the day means that most of my experiences are child-oriented right now. I am not the stay-at-home mom that is able to do all sorts of arts and crafts and bake and teach my children all sorts of lessons (with unending patience, I might add). I wish I was because that would give me a ton of inspiration in what I write about.

I loved writing but it’s taken a quite a back seat to the rest of my life. It scares me sometimes that I’m not experiencing the outside world the way I used to. My world view has narrowed (other than what I read in the news). So now I need to figure out what I should write about. What are things about parenthood that need to be discussed? What can I write about where the discussion can help improve and influence the lives of other South Asian people? How do I translate this new life of mine into a conversation?

This blog was started for a reason and with a purpose. I don’t want to lose that. That means I have to adapt to the change. I have to find times and ways to continue writing with a purpose.

There are always things to talk about. So let’s talk about them.

Believe in Yourself

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Validation. We all need it. But how do we get it?

A lot of us tend to seek it out from other people. It’s hard to value ourselves. It’s hard to be able to see our own self-worth. It’s hard to really trust that we are the best versions of who we can be. So we look to others and if they approve of us, we feel good about ourselves.

But what happens if we do something that people don’t approve of? What if we do something that is a good decision for us but isn’t what others think is the “right” thing to do?

How do we validate our decisions then? How do we feel good about ourselves when the rest of the world tells us we aren’t good?

I honestly don’t know the right answer to these questions.

I know that we should be able to validate ourselves. I know that if we are going to trust others, we should trust the people who have been there for us through everything. Why should we listen to people who don’t know us at our core? Why should we listen to those who don’t understand us or our feelings?

I think that sometimes, we just need to trust ourselves. I didn’t trust my emotions and myself throughout my entire 20s. I thought I was wrong in feeling the way I felt. I tried to change my mindset because I thought that I shouldn’t be feeling the way I did. I thought I wasn’t gracious enough and that I wasn’t good enough. I looked at myself through the lenses of the people around me. I didn’t like what I saw at all. I learned by my late 20s that the problem wasn’t me or the way I felt. My feelings were correct. I needed to change my life around.

So I started doing just that. As I entered my 30s, I learned to trust myself and the way I felt. Once I felt centered, I was able to make friends who really were people that I could really reflect off of. I was able to see myself for who I really was. And they saw me for who I really was.

It isn’t easy to always validate yourself. Once you start believing in yourself and who you are, it gets easier.

Stigma

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Stigma.

According to Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary, its meaning includes a mark of shame or discredit.

The Indian community takes stigma very seriously. If you do something that isn’t part of the community’s definition of acceptable, there will be some sort of stigma attached to you. If you don’t get married until you are older, if you don’t have kids by a certain age or at all, if you have a degree, if you don’t have a degree, if you have too many relationships, if you don’t have relationships with the right people, if you don’t speak your parents’ language, if you can’t cook and clean, and the list goes on and on, you probably have some sort of stigma attached to you.

There isn’t a specific definition of what is acceptable and what isn’t. It varies with each community.

Here’s my take on it: Who the f*** cares?

Why do so many people care about what someone else is doing? Why does it matter as long as the person is a good person and not harming anyone else? Why should it matter to me at all who is dating who or making how much money? It makes absolutely no difference in my life.

I didn’t think this way in my teens and 20s. Then, I wanted to fit the mold of what I should be doing. It wasn’t until I realized how unhappy it made me to do what everyone else wanted that I stopped. It did break some of my friendships and relationships. It did wreak some havoc on my life as I reoriented myself to put my feelings and desires first.

It sometimes still does affect me. I’m Indian so my programming is definitely towards the “what I’m supposed to do”mentality instead of the “what I want to do” mentality. And then I have to sit and really think and ask myself if what I’m doing is making me happy. I’m raising children now and I don’t want them to feel like they have to fit some predetermined mold. I want them to be able to make choices throughout their lives without feeling like they are doing something “bad”.

I’m glad I’ve at least gotten to a point where the stigma attached to me bothers other people more than it bothers me. I am who I am.

What About Your Friends? (Throwback to TLC)

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There are some days that it really hits that I don’t have that many friends. I definitely have a few good friends but I’m not getting 800 invites per weekend to do things. People aren’t throwing parties in my honor, I’m not getting a ton of texts a day, and my weekends aren’t crammed with random events.

To be fair, having kids also limits your social life a little bit but I don’t want to blame them since this has spilled over from my life pre-kids.

My friends have now evolved into people who will come running any time of the day if I need them, people who will be there to the best of their ability between their busy lives, people who I can be completely open to about what I feel and think.

And while I love that I do have some really good friends, sometimes, it does hit me that I’m never going to be the popular girl.

I guess I never was. From the second I was in school, I have never been the center of anyone’s crowd. I’ve never been the person that everyone needed at a party. I’m not the person that would up anyone’s social standing (if there is still such a thing). Even my “groups” from college or different dance teams have moved in a different direction. And while I was there though, I was always on the periphery. I was the one person who was good friends with one of the people in the group which is how I was a part of it.

Honestly, I suck at making small talk with people. And to be completely blunt, sometimes, I’d rather be home with a good book or watching tv than be in a social setting full of people I don’t know.

For example, a few years ago I went to a party without my kid for the first time since becoming a mom. I was so excited to be able to be in the party scene again. But when I was there, I spent all my time hanging out with a good friend who I still saw on a monthly basis and talked to all the time anyways. I did small talk with a bunch of other people who I knew but wasn’t really friends with and then just hung out with the person I was most comfortable with and liked being around. It made me wonder what the point was of being at this party.

Recently, I watched someone who has a lot of friends at their social events. I kept trying to figure out if she was just more extroverted than I or maybe nicer than I am. Maybe she is just easy-going enough to be able to accumulate a lot more friends. Maybe she just has more time since she isn’t raising 2 smalls kids. (Although again, I don’t think that is a fair assessment because these personality traits of mine were there before I had kids.)

I also started wondering if sometimes, people just hang out with each other so they have “friends”. Do some of them in the group really even like each other? Or do they just tolerate it because it’s their group?

I don’t really have a conclusion to this. All I know is that this is where I am in life. At this point, I don’t really expect it to change. Maybe between the time I was a teenager to my 20s. Or my 20s to my 30s. But now, on the downside to 40, I doubt that I can change this part of my personality. I don’t even know if I’d want to. I’ve made the effort this far in my life and maybe it’s time for me to just be.

This might just be who I am.

Turn My Brain Off, Please!

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You know those people who are able to do whatever they want without a second thought?

Yeah, I’m not one of those people.

I always always second guess everything.

I feel guilty about not staying within the lines.

If I do something that isn’t okay by someone else’s opinion, I feel horrible about it.

This was definitely worse when I was younger. I definitely judged myself through everyone else’s eyes and opinions.

After a certain point, I realized that I couldn’t live my life according to everyone else. And while most of the time, I can be okay with whatever happens, there are times when I overthink everything. I start analyzing and overanalyzing and eventually, arrive at the conclusion that everyone doesn’t like me or something I did.

So I guess my point is that sometimes, I wish I was one of those people who could just turn my brain off and experience life without worrying so much.

The Next Step

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Last week, I wrote about mental health and yesterday, I mentioned how it’s important to be able to cope with the feelings that you might be having.

I also wanted to dedicate an article to what the next step is.

If you don’t feel like you figured out ways to cope and actually feel better, it might be time to seek help. There is nothing wrong with needing professional help. As I mentioned before, if you are willing to see a doctor for your body, why would you feel bad about seeing a doctor for your mind? It is a part of who we are and it also needs to be taken care of.

So what’s the next step?

When I finally admitted that I needed help, I literally just got on the phone with my insurance company. A lot of insurance companies have a phone number for mental health on the back of their card. And when I say I got on the phone with the company, I mean that my friend and I got on the phone because I still needed the support. It was a hard decision to make. It made me feel like I failed at something because I wasn’t able to deal with my issues by myself.

Sometimes, you need someone to help you stand yourself up again. And it’s okay.

So I called the insurance company’s mental health line and asked them who they covered in my area. They literally started at A and gave me 5 names and numbers. I called the first number on the list and made an appointment.

It’s important that you like your therapist and feel like they can help you. I needed someone to listen and to help me navigate my murky feelings. I needed someone who could help me take steps to become me again.

I was lucky that the first name that I called was the first person I saw was the therapist I ended up seeing for the next 4 years. Even when I felt better and more like myself after a year or two, I kept on seeing her every so often just as a tune-up. I saw her as I went through a few other phases in my life and she helped me get through them.

The only reason I stopped was because I moved away and physical distance made it difficult. I haven’t found another therapist because I haven’t felt the urgency to see one yet. After having 2 kids though and not quite feeling like myself for a while, I am thinking about finding one near me.

I want to be the best version of me I can be and be able to give that to my family. So I’ll do what I can to find that person again.