NURTURING 2024

How must you act when cancer glares at you?
Be calm, be strong, run as fast as you can, take a breath or face it? They never teach this in the classroom.

Watching the catheter on the back of my hand and the drop stand beside, seeing the scars under the bandages, feeling the pain in the bones, influenced not only my soul but every aspect of my identity. For me, grief has come in ways my body and soul weren’t used to or prepared for. But then, may be I didn’t care for my body and soul to help it be ready to unburden the trauma.

But how many of us actually nurture ourselves after a life altering event, we are all so busy to get back to normal that we forget our bodies were never meant to run all the time, they are meant to be rested well, loved and taken care of. And so does our soul. Our monkey mind wants to just run and do hundreds of things but almost never listen to the demands of the body.

One thing I have started doing religiously is listening to my body and monitoring what goes in it, not only food but thoughts and environment too. Thus I started 2024 with a determination to nurture myself inside out by:

Falling back in love with cooking: While you still probably won’t find me cooking biryani on a weeknight, I want to get excited to cook fresh, delicious, and inspired dishes.

Move around a little more: I am not going to try to start playing basketball but I will definitely get those muscles back that long covids and cancers took away.

Reading good stuff: This is the slowest I’ve read anything in a long time. I have taken up a challenge to read 50 books this year (Suggests on what to read are most welcome).

Calm myself down: The minute the mind is calm all is fantastic! It’s a practice that is growing on me and I plan to regulate my life around it.

Looking through this list, one theme stands out to me more than any other is NURTURE. The past few years threw things on a loop to me, more than I could handle and I am looking forward to a sense of balance. Establishing routines in reality is nurturing oneself. What a wonderful way to begin a new year!