A thought about New Year’s Eve

Another year has passed and another New Year’s Eve is approaching with all the stress associated with it.  Not sure I feel like celebrating this year. I was sitting alone thinking of all the years that have passed since 2000…what is there to celebrate? I don’t know why we stress over this night. After all, it’s just like any other.

We stress about where to go, with whom, what to wear, etc. Then we end up celebrating and it’s always a disappointment because unlike all other nights, this one is forced upon you. You must be in the mood to celebrate even if you don’t feel like it. You have to look happy and act happy.

I think we’re not aware that with all this unnecessary stress, unconsciously we build expectations about the year to come. I used to make a mental note of the first person I hugged or heard from at the stroke of midnight. If it were a close friend or someone I thought highly of, I’d take it as a good omen and vice versa. But believe me by the end of January I’d forget who that person was!!

As I was thinking about last year a lot of sad memories thundered through me. I alone know of at least ten close friends who have lost a loved one this year. So if I decide to submit to the annual routine of going somewhere on New Year’s Eve, it will be for the sake of celebrating the end of a bad year.

I do hope this coming year promises better times and happy endings for all of us.

Happy New Year!

Good day…bad day

Today was a good day…I consciously wanted it to be a good day because a couple of days ago I found myself writing to a friend on facebook chat that I had to run face a yet another stressful day. Then I read what I wrote one more time and thought to myself how sad! Who knows it was going to be a stressful day? Did the stress genie whisper in my ear and say “I’m going to make your life hell today?” I wish life were that simple!  I can’t remember details of the day I ended up having, but I’m sure it wasn’t that special.

So the minute I opened my eyes this morning I thought to myself today will be a great day…and it was! I promise you it wasn’t a coincidence but I was mentally ready to welcome whatever the day would bring with a smile. Spiritual people out there know what I’m talking about and believe that we have the power to attract good fortune or bad fortune.

But practical people who usually like to base their belief system on scientific theories would dismiss everything I just said! And for their sake, I will share a simple management theory by Stephen Covey called:  SEE, DO, GET. It simply means that any outcome is highly dependent on your perception and reaction.

In the training, the instructor drew a triangle on a whiteboard and wrote each word on an angle. I can still see it right in front of me. The outcome you get from your employees and co-workers is determined by your perception of their skills and performance. If you trust that they are efficient, you will empower them more and will therefore get good performance. The opposite is also true. If you do not believe in their skills, you would micromanage them and they would in turn lose motivation to work and produce.

Now take this diagram with you everywhere you go from the moment you leave the house every morning to the moment you go back home and see what happens.

This is what I did today with everyone and everything I encountered.

What was expected to be an impossible official procedure was completed in no time. An expected argument turned into a peaceful agreement, etc. I even found my national ID that I had lost over a month ago!

I guess it all boils down to how we see things and what we attract. 

So good day or bad day, it is all up to you! 

Life of abundance

As I was getting into my brother’s car this morning, I noticed that I left my perfume on the passenger seat last night and thought to myself I need to remember taking it back home because it’s the only one I have.

That train of thought about the perfume bottle, which barely has a few puffs left in it by the way, led me to a thought about abundance. When we collect things in abundance we lose appreciation for their value. If I had more than one bottle of perfume, would I have made a mental reminder to hold on to an almost empty bottle?

I can imagine the expression on your faces  change at this point with compassion!

But let me tell you I was so grateful that this thought was NOT associated with self-pity. On the contrary, I felt I had a connection with my “Carolina Herrera” which was given to me on my birthday back in 2008, almost 4 years ago! I’ve had it for four years and never touched it because I had other options. But when I ran out of all I had, I went back to the one I didn’t think was suitable for me, and I love it!

This applies to everything in life, when we slow down and make do with what we have, we can smell better, taste better and feel even more.

I’m not saying I’m a hero and I must admit I didn’t get to this stage by choice. I happen to have lost my job and with it the luxury to live a life of abundance.

As difficult as it has been and still is, it’s also been a valuable lesson and at times a very enjoyable and a humbling experience.

Believe me I’m only saying this because I’m in a good mood. But it’s true, when you’re in the mood I’m in right now, your energy helps you shift your attention from the awful reality of not affording to buy a new perfume…to the divine purpose that caused it.

Come to think of it, I was faced with this new reality a month before I turned 40, the age when we’re supposed to make a significant transformation in our lives. It was as if I was meant to put the breaks on and start walking.

And it is true. In the absence of a physical car, I walk more in a city known to be the least pedestrian friendly in the whole world, but I learned to enjoy it.  I learned to be creative with my wardrobe and enjoy mixing and matching clothes I never knew I had. I learned to spend less and enjoy what I have even more!

God’s wisdom - hikmeh

I remember writing the below note in my journal and I felt like sharing parts of it in this blog.

I’m still feeling traces of an anxiety attack I had earlier this evening. Though I’ve been doing well in trying to find wisdom behind all the agony I’ve been going through, I still get anxious sometimes. A part of me (my higher self) fully understands that this is all part of God’s plan to guide me into another level of consciousness. I know all that is happening to me is unreal and will soon take a turn into someone else’s life for the same purpose. 

But the human part of me (my ego) can’t help but live the pain, feel it with every inch of my body. I cried endlessly and felt sorry for myself and was anxious about what tomorrow would bring! I was going through what every normal human being goes through when faced with life’s painful realities.  I would think to myself if this were meant to elevate my consciousness I don’t want to wake up!

But I guess if we pause and try to transform the negative thoughts that play tricks with our minds into a whole new reality, a new awakening, we will start to see more clearly.

I sat there thinking of God and all the signs I’ve been blessed to see along the way. I pondered in his answers and felt grateful.

As far as I can remember I’ve been seeking answers to the wonders of life, the good ones and the bad ever since I turned 30, exactly 10 years ago. I started to pay attention to every misfortune and think of God’s wisdom. In Arabic we call it 'Hikmeh'!  We were raised to always believe that there is a Hikmeh to everything that happens to us in life. Hikmeh behind an accident, death in the family, illness, everything you can think of.  With this thought and despite the pain that comes with it, we were taught to say “Hamdillah” or “Thank God”.

But the ultimate purpose to this Hikmeh, was something our parents were possibly oblivious to. They didn’t tell us that with every misfortune, we learn to break a barrier that separates us from our higher soul, our ultimate truth.

The last ten years of my life were full of pain…and like every human being, with every incident, I asked God “why”? 

But I can’t deny the fact that I was also blessed with good fortune. But it was short lived.

I was blessed to find the ultimate purpose of God’s Hikmeh through the teacher I had been looking for all my life. She put me on the first steps of a journey to self-discovery. I used to call it “the spiritual boot camp”! It was the closest I was able to get to break all barriers to my higher soul.

Throughout the journey I learned a lot and found amazing answers that transformed my whole belief system. I am not ashamed to admit that in the past I was a fool trapped in my own inhibitions.  But there I felt like a bird set free to explore a new world.

In short…I was starting to see.

In my eyes my journey took the shape of a puzzle. I stumbled upon the pieces along the way. I started to pick them up piece by piece and put them together. Some were given to me on a silver plate and others I had to seek. With every piece God inspired an answer.

Today as I was writing all this, I remembered a phrase our parents always used. “God causes true believers to suffer because he loves them.” When I was much younger it didn’t really make any sense to me. If we were true believers why would God want us to suffer? And why should we be thankful for the pain?  But it does make sense.

Only with pain do we gain perspective, and pain is the only vehicle that takes us to the road less traveled.

That is why we should be thankful because God is showing us the way.

Life…how you look at it

I’m writing this note while waiting reluctantly for my turn at the doctor’s clinic. I hate doctors by the way, but this is not the point.

As I was climbing up the stairs looking for the clinic, I saw groups of people scattered everywhere and I thought to myself “amazing how many people are sick in this world.”

I resist going to doctors unless I run out of ways to make myself feel better, and this only happens once a year.

Why do we get sick? This is the question? If you believe that every illness is more or less caused by stress, then this means that everybody is stressed out! I don’t want to be stressed out. I know this is a very naïve thought but it’s true. We can all avoid this horrible monster that makes us look ugly, feel ugly and do ugly things.

Again, you must be thinking, what’s this woman talking about? Well as simple and stupid as I may sound, I think the issue can be as stupid as you want it to be.

Here's a thought

Have you ever noticed yourself talking in your head, having a thoughtful conversation with yourself about an incident you’ve just witnessed or an experience you’ve had at that very moment? Once you turn your head the other way, these thoughts would slip away unless you grab a pen and write them down at that very instance.

Those of us who don’t grab them as they come and store them somewhere, in a journal, a book or even a letter, lose out! This is how the most beautiful poetic verses are born. Unlike everybody else, poets, writers, musicians record every single thought that passes through.

This reminded me of a stimulating TED talk by Elizabeth Gilbert about the genius out there that sends thoughts our way from the horizon.

In her talk, she told an inspiring story about where the Poet Ruth Stone gets her inspiration. The Poet told her “when she was growing up in rural Virginia, she’d be out working in the field and would feel and hear a poem coming at her from over the landscape. It was like a thunderous train of air and it would come barreling down at her over the landscape. When she felt it coming she knew she had to run like hell to the house and she’d be chased by this poem. She had to get to a piece of paper and a pencil fast enough so that when it thundered through her she could collect it and grab it on the page. And other times she wouldn’t be fast enough, so she could be running and running and wouldn’t get to the house and the poem would barrel through her and she would miss it and it would continue on across the landscape looking for another poet.

But then she said there were moments when she’d almost miss it so she would be running into the house looking for a paper and the poem passes through her and she grabs a pencil just as it’s going through her and she would reach out with her other hand and catch the poem by its tail and she would pull it backwards into her body as she was transcribing on the page. And in these instances the poem would come up on the page perfect and intact but backwards from the last word to the first.”

This was one of the most amazing descriptions I have ever heard! As Gilbert says, ideas could come through you from sources you cannot identify. And I bet this happens to each and every one of you.

I’m not saying we can all be poets or creative writers, but we can at least listen and try to grab these thoughts sent to us by our genius once in a while.

That’s what this blog is about. It will be my own attempt to grab these thoughts as they come before they go chasing after somebody else!