Relationship with yourself - It matters a lot!

Relationship with yourself matters a lot... but it is neglected most of the time.. If this relationship gets distorted, the miserable 'You' suffers. Having a healthy inner dialogue with oneself can bring peace and harmony. 

Relationship with others is subjected to external variables. It varies with favorable and unfavorable conditions. People may come and go from your life. But person who remains with you for life time is 'You'. So relationship with yourself has to be stronger. 

You go through ups and downs. External world keeps on changing. Today is not same as yesterday. Today has to be new with freshness. Even sky colors are not same every day. They vary. So,  ups and downs are not same. You will have an excellent career on one day and on the other it may be blown away. People who were hostile to you sometimes may become closer to you or vice versa. So, constantly keeping good relationship with yourself matters a lot. In difficult times, it will help you through self-acceptance and being easy on yourself. In good times, you will be conscious not to get carried away. It will keep you grounded to your roots. 

People with good relationship with oneself never get bored. They have their own company.They constantly try to improve themselves. They try out different things. Life doesn't become stagnant for them.

How can you enhance relationship with yourself? Spending time alone to analyze yourself.. not judging anything but following self-acceptance! If there is something you can work on to improve on yourself then trying to act on that. Having any kind of hobby, which is closer to your heart also helps a lot. Cherishing one hobby and giving it ample amount of time helps. It brings inner joy and peace. One should do the things that one loves. This is not true just for writing sake . It is something which should be acted upon constantly by motivating to do the things that you love.

If this relationship with yourself not going well and you constantly blame yourself for the things which are going wrong, answer will be TIME... Give yourself time...Spend time with inner God and creator of this world.. Things will change... 

At last, today is not same as yesterday and tomorrow will not be same as today.. Keep relationship with yourself healthy.. It matters a lot! 

Tiger Parenting : Is it good or Bad?

Tiger Parenting: Is it good or Bad?

‘Tiger Parenting’ term was coined by Chinese professor Amy Chua in 2011 in her book ‘Battle Hymns of the Tiger Mother’. Tiger parenting includes being harsh on children as well as providing warmth to them. The question remains whether tiger parenting is good or bad...

While describing tiger parenting, Amy described how she demanded perfection from her daughters in everything they do. She even asked her four-year daughter to remake her birthday greeting card because it didn’t meet her standards! Everyone felt it was a bit too much...

In the name of making children excel at everything, we put children under a lot of pressure. We demand too many things from them.

Do your homework.

Eat your food.

Brush your teeth.

Go for a bath.

Don’t play in the sun.

Don’t watch too much TV.

Do this and Don’t do that!!!

Some demands are justified. Some are not? Where do you cross the line?

Sometimes we should let them be!

Tiger parenting means drawing a fine balance between being authoritative and being supportive. Authoritative parenting has negative connotations where parents are very strict with their children. In the name of discipline, they yell at children, even beat them. There is a fine line between yelling andasking children to do something in an authoritative voice...Beating them is out of the question.

Never ever raise a hand on a child... 

Accidentally I did that once when I was very disturbed. My daughter wrote in her homework she felt very bad when I beat her. She remembered the only incident….

Children don’t understand the importance of many things as much as we do. They need to be told again and again. It needs a lot of patience to make children follow us. They say children follow you. If you sit with them to study, they will study as well (mostly). It is not possible to do every little thing that a child does. We need our own time. While spending quality time with children, we can definitely do any one task daily with children.

Tiger parenting involves standing up for children when they need it. Giving them warmth and showering affection is a must. Otherwise, your authoritarian voice fails. Children start rebelling for everything as they grow up.

  
In Chinese and Asian societies, tiger parenting is widely followed. They expect academic success from children to an extreme extent. They want to develop children in all spheres. They have a narrow definition of success which means academic excellence. However, pushing children too much against their will does greater harm than good. Stress for constant study gives rise to suicidal tendencies which are bad.

Tiger parenting is good when you discipline your child to do everyday tasks and inculcate good values in them by being strict. 

Tiger parenting is bad when you demand perfection in everything, demand academic excellence and demand them to follow your orders.

In the end, there is no unique formula for effective parenting. We give birth to a child to see our own self grow, to shower our selfless love.  

Providing our own child love and warmth is our responsibility!

Tiger parenting can be good or bad. And tiger parenting or any other parenting style is there just for study. 

Your own relationship with your child matters a lot!

Image by Pexels from Pixabay 

Wonderful World of Insects - how we coexist peacefully!

Wonderful World of Insects 🐝🐞
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World is wonderful. Insects - one of the life forms on earth are part of it. In fact, there is a wonderful world of insects out there and we should coexist with them peacefully ...

Here is a wonderful world of insects through my eyes!

Bees: 🐝
I was glad to see them in large numbers in Mechelen, Belgium. Precisely because the city is blooming with all kinds of flowers in Summer.🌹🌺🌻🌼🌷

You may be knowing a famous quote by Einstein.

"If the bee disappeared off the face of the Earth, man would only have four years left to live" 😮

Getting concerned to know this quote, my husband once took us to honey beekeeping center at Mahabaleshwar. Like a brave person, I experienced taking the beehive in my hand. Bees are good if you don't harm them. Just let them 'Be(e)'.

Long live the wonderful world of Insects!

Housefly:
One or two are seen in the home sometimes in summer. And my brave husband meticulously gets rid of them.

Mosquitoes:
Sometimes one or two mosquitoes sing songs for us when we try to sleep. And the sudden irritation pops up which drives the sleep away for some time. But unfortunately, it doesn't drive mosquitoes away at any point in time.

Cockroaches 
I am relaxed a bit as I don't have to deal with cockroaches here...

In the previous apartment at Pune, we had to bear the nuance of cockroaches a lot. I am that way very brave person who doesn't fear cockroaches! Well, 3-4 small cockroaches don't do any harm. But in Pune, they were in the hundreds of numbers and used to multiply quickly. I used to google all sorts of information to get rid of them. But, pest control was inevitable.

By the way, human population has also multiplied in this century in the same way. 

Ladybugs: 🐞
My daughter becomes terrified with these little red insects under the trees here. The excitement and fear were hand in hand when she saw ladybugs first.

Peppa Pig 'the omniscient' has given big knowledge about ladybugs to my little girl. 

There are numerous wonderful insects roaming around in this world...it's a pleasure to just observe their tiny little world!! 🤩

Ultimately, they also have a role to play in the larger ecosystem...

This wonderful world of insects is largely explored..but some things remains unexplored and there is a hidden beauty in unexplored things! Isn't it?

#insects #insectsworld #pollinators #biodiversity #bees #honeybees #mosquitoes #peppapig #peppapigworld #PeppaPigLive #PeppaPigsAdventure #ladybugs #NewAnimals

Elements of Successful Marriage - a beautiful analogy

Let's look at a beautiful analogy between the elements of a successful marriage...

There are 4 wheels on which chariot of marriage runs...

Acceptance, Care, Understanding, and Friendship.

Acceptance: Accepting the other person as he/she is

Care: Caring for your better half on a physical, psychological and emotional level

Understanding: Understanding another person's strengths and weaknesses

Friendship: Being life long friends of each other

When all the four moves in perfect unison, the chariot moves forward without stalling. Love is the ingredient to oil the wheel which reduces the friction and helps the chariot run!

Marriage means giving up your independence while choosing the path of interdependence. They say two become one in marriage. However, two people live as separate entities with different thoughts, perspectives, habits, behaviors. One thing that binds two people together is the feeling that you belong to each other.

There are seven steps in marriage on which two souls walk together(सप्तपदी):

Respect, Commitment, Love, Share, Care, Interdependence, Submission

How does marriage work?

When there is a strong bond between these elements of a successful marriage...

At last, marriage works when you work together, have fun together, support each other, share household responsibilities and wish for the overall well being of each other every day!

Image by Olessya from Pixabay 

Hope these elements of marriage help you to have blissful married life!

Sharing is caring

Daughter takes her princess cycle to the school...

After coming back home:

Daughter: All the girls wanted to ride my bicycle today. Selma, Esma, Lukili, Burnis, Fortumeta..

(Sorry if spellings of the names are wrong. I told her to ask friends to write their names on a sheet of paper!)

Me: What did you do then?

Daughter: I gave them a bicycle turn by turn...But I didn't get a chance to ride the bicycle. I kept running behind...

Me: Good..that you shared your bicycle with them.

Daughter: Yeah...Share करायला पाहिजे ना (We should share, na?)

Proud of my kiddo...Sharing is caring !!!

Image by Tumisu from Pixabay 

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Rose - Symbol of Love❤️

Rose has been the symbol of love for ages...

In the last century, we could see two roses coming nearer during romantic songs in Hindi cinema! Don't know the whereabouts of the romantic soul who got this visualization of showing flowers as a symbol of love... 

I remember my husband once couriered roses to me for first Valentine's day after the engagement...! Surely that was a lifetime moment for me. It may be his thought process that I should remember the moment forever. So, the moment should not be repeated for the rest of the valentines.     

Well, Occasionally I got flowers for home decoration during the first year of marriage. But roses never repeated...

On a lazy Sunday afternoon, he almost pushed me towards Virijbrokpark for experiencing blooming rose garden. That lovely gesture appeared because of checking Mechelen news every day, which I never think of… 🤔

Varieties of lovely roses almost took my heart away!

Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose....

I fell in love with roses so much that another determination almost touched my mind that we should cultivate rose garden in future. Along with the garden, there should be allied business related to rose!

Number one: Soothing rose water production (There should be some competition to Dabur Gulabary) 

Number two: Production of yummy Gulkand, Rose Petal Jam (Baba Ramdev's Patanjali Gulkand does not offer quality and Dabur Gulkand is an expensive deal)

Well, who knows what the future holds for us...No harm in daydreaming 

One thing is certain. My love for roses will not diminish even a bit over time.

I'd rather have roses on my table than diamonds on my neck!


                                                

Fruits Story - how much fruits mean to you?

Fruits Story 😃🍑🍉🍊🍍🥝🍓🍐🍏🍏🍇🍎

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If there is a competition among vegetables, grains and fruits, which of them are most yummy and delicious natural food, I would certainly vote for fruits and so will be the case with most of us 

Note: I am hard core vegetarian; hence I have excluded non vegetarian food items from this competition.

As we all know that fruits are packed with essential vitamins, there are obvious health benefits of eating fruits. My love for fruits started because of my paternal Grandpa. A rickshaw-wala used to come twice a week to take him around the town. And he would buy seasonal fruits for us every week. 

My mother also played important role in this regard as she planted fruits trees around the house like Guava, Papaya, Custard Apple etc. No wonder, it was my secret wish in teenage to own a fruit farm!

Most of us know that Maharashtra is bestowed with various fruits regions; Mangoes from Konkan, Oranges from Nagpur, Grapes from Nasik, and Bananas from Jalgaon etc. So, quality fruits are always available throughout year. I am stressing on the word ‘seasonal’ because fruits are healthy when consumed in prescribed season.

Among the fruits, I love Mangoes the most.  My maternal Grandpa used to buy Mangoes for us when we would visit him during summer seasons. When all the adults were sleeping in the afternoon, we could eat extra mangoes kept for ripening from the heap of straws. 

My daughter eats mangoes, just like me...not able to resist till the last mango in the box is finished! 

I am fortunate to taste foreign fruits as well. In Singapore, we would cherish Longan, Star fruits, Dragon fruits, Kiwis. Durian is a favorite fruit in Singapore which has a peculiar smell. There is a ban on eating it while using public transport. In Belgium, every week we buy different berries like blue berry, raspberry and of course strawberries. Other fruits like Plum, Avocados, Pamplemousse are also on the list.

In Belgium, schools have allotted fruit time every day. My daughter eats her fruit in the school at 10 am in the morning, two hours after breakfast. On every Wednesday, Government gives grants to schools for distributing fruits to students. So is the case with my husband who gets fruit in the office once a week. I wish every school and office in the world has such fruit time!

Prices of fruits are on the rise, so common households cannot afford the fruits. It will be good, if seed balls are prepared from the seeds of fruits and thrown in vacant places. Of course, fruit trees can be planted wherever land is available.

By the way... please don’t get scared that this would spread Nipah everywhere...

At the end, I owe so much to my Grandpas for lovely fruit friendly childhood!!!

When I look at the custard-apple tree in front of my home at Karanja, I remember my paternal Grandpa who has planted the tree...

When I look at mangoes every start of the summer season, I remember my maternal grandpa who would love Mangoes just like me! 

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