Sattva: Issue 20
Birthday week reflections, morning pages, reading recommendations
Hello! If you are new to my newsletter, a warm welcome.
Sattva (सत्त्व) is a beautiful Sanskrit word that has many meanings—spirit, true essence, good sense, wisdom, quality of purity, energy, consciousness and mind, among other things.
Through this fortnightly newsletter, I want to bring to you all things good, which will make your life better. My focus will be on topics such as mindfulness, productivity, slow living and sustainability, accompanied by genuinely useful recommendations of products, books, music, links to read, and of course food and recipes. Through these, I hope to instil some Sattva in your life.
Birthday week reflections
It was my birthday last week. I don’t do anything special on my birthdays but I do tend to be more reflective on this day - on how the past year was and how I want the coming year to be.
I started my day by writing down all the things I want for myself in my 46th year. While some things are too personal to share on a public platform, there are a few diary entries from my birthday I would love to share with you.
Some of the (Notes to myself)
Don’t stress over the little things. You do this a lot. Kid not gone for his shower or kitchen in a mess - it is not worth losing your sanity over these things.
Don’t assume bad faith. If you don’t like the way someone has behaved with you, give them the benefit of doubt and move on without lingering on that negative feeling. They may have done wrong by you, but lingering on that feelings makes you take a bigger brunt of that wrongdoing, first at the instance of the bad experience and then reliving it over and over. Keep moving.
Plan your day. But with plenty of free time built in. The free time should be the non-negotiables around which you build the rest of your calendar. Free time isn’t a bad thing. It is the space you offer yourself to nurture your creativity, to think, to reflect, all of which is as important as taking the time to create or work.
Enjoy more beauty. Appreciate a piece of music, art or poetry every single day. Follow more poetry and art accounts on Instagram for little doses of beauty in the day. Look at the scenes around you with the aim of finding beauty. Enrich yourself every day.
Be more connected. The biggest lesson in year three of the pandemic is that lives are fickle. People we love don’t last forever and then all we are left with is regret. Call family and friends more often. Leave voice notes of the silly funny things you experience in a day. Find ways to stay connected.
Take more pictures of pup
Morning pages
Have you watched this gut-wrenchingly emotional mini-series called Scenes from a Marriage? It reflects the pain of a breakup between a married couple, from an ultra close up lens. I first came across the term ‘morning pages’ in this series. The lead actor (the husband) has been asked by his therapist to write a brain dump of three pages as soon as he wakes up in the morning before he does anything else.
I was intrigued.
A few days later, my friend called to wish me on my birthday and we got talking about the books we were reading. She told me about ‘The Artist’s Way’ written by Julia Cameron, who created this concept of morning pages - an approach to journaling as a way to unleash creativity. I read her book The Writing Diet last week and it was fascinating. While the latter parts of the book were all about practical eating tips, the first part about the morning pages helping people eat better was an eye-opener. I now have a grand 4-day streak of writing my morning pages. I’m still too early in the process to advise you on how to do it but I am convinced about how good it is for me.
Here are general tips on how to go about writing morning pages.
Just start. If you have never journaled before, it may sound intimidating at first. Just start anyway. There is no one to judge how you are writing or what you are writing. This is for your eyes only. I’ve found it similar to meditation. When you start meditating, you find a whole bunch of random thoughts flying through your mind but the second you try to focus on any single strand of thought, it goes away from your reach. Similarly, a brain dump may sound easy, but when you start to write, you may find your mind to be empty. Sit down to write anyway and you will find that your mind is more accepting of you looking into it and plucking away on the strands of thoughts, with a few days of pursuing the habit.
Do it first thing in the morning. If you think your mornings are already rushed, wake up 15-20 minutes earlier to find a spot of undisturbed time to do this exercise. Don’t check Twitter (note to self) or Instagram or give in to external stimuli before your morning pages. Think of it as a meditation, keeping yourself as undistracted as possible.
Use a pen and paper. If you are not used to writing anything more than a shopping list or filling a form, your fingers and hand will protest at the process of writing three whole pages. Eventually, the muscle memory of writing exams for three and four hours in school and college days will kick in and it will be less painful. You can never write as fast as your thoughts so there’s no scope for analysing or editing, which is the purpose of morning pages.
Make it something to look forward to. Light an incense stick or candle that you love. Buy yourself a nice notebook and a comfortable pen that can ease you back into the process of writing by hand and loving it.
Keep with the flow. A common question that you may have is what do I write for three pages? Just anything and everything that crosses your mind. Don’t worry about good writing or grammar or the order of things. There’s no need to edit your writing or censor any thoughts. Just do it every day.
So what does writing morning pages do for us?
It sets off a discipline in us that we may find helpful with any other pursuit like exercise, writing, eating healthy etc.
It helps clear our mind, like talking to a friend or a therapist, just more no-holds-barred because you’re sharing this with yourself.
Certain events of the day weigh heavily on our mind - something stressful, rude, stupid etc. but when you write it down, it cuts the event down to size, not allowing it to loom over us. It makes us realise that these things weren’t that big after all for us to rue over.
It is especially helpful to writers and artists who constantly face self-doubt. It makes us more accepting and less critical of our work.
Would you like to embark on this journey of morning pages? Have you done this before? Do share with me!
To read
As someone who is very new to having a pet, this poem made me cry in the middle of the day. Not just mildly choked but big tears running down my face. It made me want to run to my pup and hug her tight, much to her annoyance. I’m typing this right now with her fluffy soft belly under my feet and I can feel the rise and fall of her breathing as she takes her morning nap. Even if you don’t have a pet, please read this poem, How to be a dog by Andrew Kane.
I am a big advocate of hobbies. I love to fill my free time doing things with my hands such as gardening, soap making, crochet etc. My next book (talking about this for the first time!) is going to be centred around this. How hobbies infiltrated American life.
With much confusion about pretty much everything around Covid, an article like this offers some solace to people who are frustrated with others not masking up properly. One-way masking works
Inspiration: Pastry Chef Has a 1000-Plant Farm on Her Terrace With Seeds From London, Arizona - This feature on The Better Life is about my friend Kishi Arora and her beautiful terrace garden.
My friend Krish Ashok writes on a subject close to my heart, sustainability but with a practical approach - The key to planet-friendly food choices
Cooking black-eyed peas for better times - my column in Mint Lounge, with recipes for Cowboy Caviar and Garam Lobia Chaat.
Resources
Scenes from a Marriage, miniseries on Hotstar.
The original Swedish series Scenes from a Marriage (1973) on Youtube
My shortlist of journals and planners
The Artist’s Way - Julia Cameron
The Writing Diet - Julia Cameron
Morning pages photo on Unsplash
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Lovely write up as always.. Look forward to reading your posts. When was the birthday? Great ideas to recalibrate.
Happy birthday
I would love to start jounaling, thankyou for inspiring me.