Chaos to Calm: Understanding and Embracing Changes with Elegance and Grace

'If you don't like something, change it. If you change it, change your attitude' ~ Maya Angelou 

For a change, let me start the blog with a series of questions: 

What do you do when things go wrong? 

Do you take the blame or blame it on others? 

How often do you reflect on your speech, action, and situation? 

When was the last time you pondered upon circumstances on your own? 

Do you introspect when the damage is done and the situation is beyond repair? 

Alright, alright! Honest to God, these questions have been robbing me of my sleep for the past few months. To set the context, this semester the workload was extremely hectic. In my fourteen years of teaching in the college, I had to take packed lunch to my workplace albeit my residence is just a stone's throw away. Simultaneously, health-wise, I was diagnosed with high blood pressure. Since I did not want to be dependent on medication, I had to make drastic changes in my lifestyle and diet. I was impelled to move around a lot and portion control the meals I eat in a day. One of the most challenging tasks to normalize my BP. I had to reduce the intake of the two main ingredients, cooking oil and salt. I have been taking a pinch of salt and a couple of drops of cooking oil in my meals since 12 February 2024. Three months of careful monitoring of my diet and rigorous movement inside and outside the house in a hot and humid place like Samtse brought my BP to normal. However, as I embarked on the journey of self-care, I stumbled upon problems in other areas of my life. A deep realization struck me as I am typing this very sentence that getting to a normal BP range was never the destination in the first place. The journey was about finding calm in chaotic life. External voices in the form of unsolicited comments on my weight and inquisitive queries about my daily activities and diet plan have put me in the undesired limelight. I have never been a attention-seeker type. Rather I am more of an introvert. I don't like superfluous attention and I prefer keeping things to myself.  As my inner universe is the loudest of all. I need time to listen to my inner voice, process it, and intentionally manifest it in actions.  The thoughts, emotions, and feelings that creep into my mind are the worst. Figuring out ways to lower the loud inner voices takes all my time and energy during my waking and sleeping hours. Gradually, with social and emotional maturity with increasing chronological age, I am learning to be calm in chaotic outer and inner universes. 

Change is the ONLY constant in life. I had a difficult time embracing the change. As someone who used to be a wild and rebellious person throughout her pre-teen and twenties, it takes immense strength, discipline, tough self-love, courage, and a resilient spirit to navigate this difficult phase in her late thirties with grace and confidence. For instance, I am blessed with grey hairs, thanks to my dominating paternal genes. I used to conceal my grey hairs by experimenting with different hues of hair dyes. When I look back at my monthly expenditures and time spent in the beauty salon I experience mild heartburn. After experiencing a health scare due to my high BP, I made a conscious decision to embrace my grey hairs. When I see my gray hairs, I am reminded that I have an overly loving father. I am my daddy's little princess. Even at this age, I am treated like a little girl by my father. I will always be his little girl with a natural yellowish hair. The greys are his gift to me and I accept it graciously by not camouflaging it into an entirely different color. To me, gray hair is a crown of pride and glory placed on my head by the hero of my life. It took thirty-eight years for me to be the person that I always should have been. And I love every strand of my silver hair. A small act of accepting and embracing my greys has positively contributed to my overall well-being. It made me understand and embrace change with elegance and grace. 

In conclusion, I know change is inevitable. As I journey through life, change is essential for growth. Each transition, big and small, will be an opportunity to learn, grow, and mold myself. I will always remember that change is not the end of the road, it is the new beginning of a new chapter. I am thrilled to welcome change with wide open arms to emerge stronger from the storm of changes. So, I am ending the blog with the wise words of Carol Burnett, 'Only I can change my life. No one can do it for me.'