Endings and beginnings…

I still clearly remember 2019 ending, 2020 felt like a new beginning with many opportunities to come. But then COVID happened and now we are just a few weeks away from 2023. Where did three years go? It feels like we are in a blip, just like from Avengers. Where Thanos snaps and half the population disappears, then Iron man saves them by sacrificing himself. All the population who disappeared come back after 5 years, they do not grow old or age in these 5 years, these years are non-existent to them. It feels the same now, that the three years went away in a blip, the only difference is we grew older, wiser and stronger.

We all spent these few years at home, in the lockdown. We attended classes from home, worked from home. A few of us learnt new skills or sharpened the already existing skills. Many introverts found Solace and comfort in their home. COVID gave all of us a new perspective on life. Most of us have started realising the importance of mental health. And now it seems like everything is slowly falling back into place. We started going out, we are adjusting ourselves to the new normal. Many of us lost our dear ones, we as a society went through collective pain which only made us stronger and brought us together. We understood the importance of relationships, family, friends. Most importantly, we understood the beauty of life.

Now that 2022 is also coming to an end, we can only hope that there is a brighter future ahead. Endings can be hard to many of us. We reflect upon what we achieved in the past year. Most of us might have made resolutions at the beginning of this year, only to forget about them half way (those of you who stuck to them, and reached your goals, kudos to you!!!).

Endings and beginnings (transitional phases) often come up with a lot of stress. We all know change is the only constant. We cannot avoid transitions in our life, but we can work upon learning how to deal with the stress that comes with transitions.Here are some ways we can deal with such stress

Practice gratitude
When we try to evaluate our progress, we sometimes get stuck in comparisons or shortcomings. Instead we can try feeling grateful for everything we already have
Journaling
Putting our feelings and thoughts into words can be therapeutic. Journalling about stressful situations can help in managing them better.
Exercise
Exercise not only helps in keeping us fit and strong, but also reduces stress. One can pick any kind of activity they enjoy. These may include but are not limited to cardio, strength training, cycling, jogging, swimming.
Meditation
Mental and physical stress can cause increased levels of the stress hormone cortisol. It was observed from various studies that meditation reduced the inflammation response caused by stress
Ask for help
Be it a friend you trust or a therapist do not hesitate to ask for help. PsyKlife provides one on one counselling services, feel free to reach out. PsyK life has also launched its National Mental Health helpline which is free of cost. The timings for the same are 9AM – 12 AM. Our helpline (08067335511) is reachable even on Sundays. With The PsyK- Life, help is just a call away. It’s easy to get caught up in resentment or self blame for not reaching our goals. But I urge you all to pause and reflect upon this question. Are our achievements only tangible? What about all the little intangible achievements? Maybe it’s time to worry less about how many material things we achieved and wonder more upon how far we have come this year, how much we grew as a person. Let us look at what all we have to be grateful for.

I once read in a book “Time is not as we see time, but rather in lessons that are learned”. Let’s pause and reflect upon what we learnt this year. It could be anything. It could be riding a bicycle, learning how to cook, learning to love yourself, learning a new concept, learning music, dance, anything. All of it deserves appreciation. If you feel you learnt anything in this past one year, give yourself a pat on the back, you deserve it.

Aren’t all endings just new beginnings?? This new year, instead of putting unrealistic expectations on ourselves let’s be more realistic, let’s try to spread love and light to those around us. Let’s learn to live in the present( I am not an expert at this, I am working on it too). Let there be less of judgement, criticism, hatred, blaming, defensiveness and more of open mindedness, appreciation, love, understanding, accountability.

I come from a Telugu background. We call telugu new year ‘UGADI’ (Yug+adi, where yug means age or era and adi means beginning, so ugadi means beginning of a new age). We have a tradition that we follow on our new year, we make ugadi pachadi (pickle). The Ugadi pachadi consists of 6 ingredients which have six different tastes (shadruchulu – shad means 6 and Ruchi means taste) which include Bitter, Sour, Tangy, Spicy, Sweet & Salty. This signifies that just like the pachadi has all six tastes, may your year be filled with all different experiences.