Sometimes, circumstances in our life make us feel that despite all the hard work we’re doing, we’ve got nothing to show for it. There are days when all we ever encounter are roadblocks, preventing us from moving forward. The moments when our dreams seem so out of reach make us wonder if it’s truly worth pursuing or fighting for. However, the challenges we face along the way are not meant to make us quite and just spend the rest of our days on the sidelines, being better about life. The challenges strewn on our paths are meant to test our mettle, to see if we’re made of stronger stuff. It is very normal to feel anxious when we’re dealing with life or when we are pursuing our goals. That moment of the anxiety is the time when most people quit and later they regret doing so. Many of us might have experienced similar situations in our lives at some point of time. It is very important for each one of us to develop the positive thinking towards such situations. I am sure, many of you, like me, can corelate the above quote with our lives. In many such testing circumstances, we give up thinking why such difficult things are happening in our lives but how many of us really think on the positive perception of this that what we get to learn out of such challenges? I wouldn’t say that it is easy to stay positive all the time during any challenging phases in life but definitely we can tune our mind slowly towards the positive side of it. When we start changing our thoughts, am sure we will change our world in return. Our mind is a powerful tool. When we fill it with all the positive thoughts, our life will start to change.

Our key to transforming anything lies in our ability to reframe it. Hence it is important for each one of us to take responsibility for our own happiness, never put it in other people’s hands. There are problems, difficulties and challenges in each one of our lives but remember, when life knocks you down, roll over and look at the stars. I have always followed one principal in my life and trust me, it has worked wonders for me. It says, ” Whenever life puts you in tough situations, don’t say, “Why Me?” Instead say, “Try Me”. It means life is full of blessings and troubles, but it is up to us which influences our life more. It all depends on our perception towards life. We can be happy that life has given us many blessings for which we can be thankful and happy or we can feel upset, sad and get demotivated for the troubles we face in the journey of life. What is that you focus more on? The more you focus on anything, the more it will influence your life.

My Reframing Mantra

The key to happiness is letting each situation be what it is instead of what you think it should be. Have gratitude towards whatever you have in your life. Gratitude can transform any situation. It alters your vibration moving you from negative energy to positive. I have always believed in this mantra and I feel this positive energy has helped me face all the difficult and impossible situations in my life. Not only facing those situations, but it also helped me overcoming each of those hurdles in my life and standing back stronger than ever. Since my childhood, I have been very active in sports and cultural activities. Dance and Badminton always topped the list. Whenever I used to be on stage dancing to my favorite tunes or holding the badminton racquet during a match, I used to be my best with loads of positivity and confidence. These two became the most important part of my life until my life took an unexpected turn with some medical issues during my college days. I had to give a pause to my passions but had a hope that I would soon get back to that positivity of my life. But the life had some other fate planned for me. The medical complications never stopped and I had to continue living with those challenges for a very long time. No doubt, this had disturbed me a lot as I did not have a break with these medical challenges and had to continuously depend on the medication all the time. One after the other, without any link to the previous one, every few months, I was facing some new challenge with my health. I was prepared for a short pause to my regular activities but never expected that my body will stop supporting me to get back to my original state of being so active and confident. Not only that, I had to be on some or the other medication for multiple health concerns but had to undergo multiple surgeries because of those complications. I myself can’t believe that I was away from my passions for more than 10 years of my life. If I turn back to that period of my life, I cannot see my original self. This went on and on until around 2015. That was the time when I got a job in Novartis Healthcare based at Hyderabad and my life gave me another opportunity to reframe myself and get back to life by getting back to my first love “Dance”. There was never a moment of dark in life after that. All the negativity which had been filled in my body and mind due to the health concerns for those many years had started vanishing slowly and I started gaining back my confidence again. This was the best opportunity life has given me to reframe myself and try to find my original self once again. When life gives us a second chance, we should give our best shot. I did the same and gradually I worked upon myself and tried to gain back the lost confidence and started believing in myself once again. This was no less than a miracle. I have always believed in fortitude and resilience as these two are the only things that have helped me to come back stronger every time life had turned me down.

The aura of the medical challenges never stopped, but this time, I did not let my confidence go down with those challenges. By now, I had become quite an expert in handling medical emergencies with all the practical experience has had given me. Few years later, I also brought back my another love into my life. Don’t go too far thinking about it or make any assumptions, I am just talking about “Badminton”. I started playing badminton with my brother every day in our community. Slowly but finally life was on track again. I was enjoying every bit of my life to the fullest without worrying about any concerns in my life or thinking about what would happen tomorrow in my life. The road to success is always under construction. This is so true, at least in my case. When everything seemed perfect with life, another big storm passed my life and everything was blurred in front of me. This time, the challenge was with my knee and the situation got worse and hence had to go for back to back 2 surgeries, the first one being a minor one but the second one was a major one. Doctor had warned me that I might not be able to dance or play the game again as the condition of the knee was worse. This had not only shaken my confidence but I was devastated. But as there was no alternative, I planned and got both the surgeries done in the gap of 3 months. The second one was actually quite a major one which required me to be on bed completely for 3 months. I was not allowed to keep my leg on floor for these 3 months. I had to take the helper of a walker and a person to walk around on one leg. I could not even lift my leg few inches above the bed for these 3 months. The fear of what if I would feel the same way for the rest of my life broke me inside completely. For the very first time to my knowledge, I cried to my mother about how helpless I was feeling and that slowly I was loosing my confidence and hope to get back to normal life again. But do you people know what is the best part of life? It is when your family understands you as a friend and your friends support you as your family. This was yet again proved in my life. My family and friends never stopped believing in me and kept on motivating me to fight with the situation. They gave me the courage to face the challenges with much positivity and made me believe that I am a strong woman and I definitely can win over this.

Self-Confidence is a super power. Once you start to believe in yourself, the magic starts happening. With all the confidence my close ones had given me, I started working towards myself and started recovering gradually. It took me around 6 months for me to start walking without any support of a person or a walker. But in these 6 months, my weight went up 2 times. Though my doctor gave me permission to walk normally, drive my car and to do other normal activities without much stress, the first thing he told me about my weight management. Now this was another big task for me as I could not do heavy exercises to reduce my weight as my leg was not yet ready to bear too much of weight. Having a strong will and desire is half the battle and probably the bigger half. I was determined towards my goal and starting working upon myself every single day. The journey is definitely not easy but when you start seeing the positive outcomes for all your hard work, the hardest journey also feels positive. It has been 4 months since I started putting my double efforts towards my transformation journey and am proud that I could come down 9 Kgs by following all the advices my diet and fitness coaches give me. I am not stopping my journey here, as there is a lot to be worked upon and I would surely reach my goal. The best part in this fitness journey is that I have again started dancing and playing badminton daily. What else can I expect from this life.

When you are determined towards achieving a goal, there is no scope for excuses. There is no possibility of a “try” in such situations, either you do or you don’t. The amount of efforts you put will decide your closeness towards your goal. Remember, there will be obstacles, there will be doubters, there will be mistakes. But with all the hard work, there will be no limits. The only thing that matters in this journey is the effort. It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop. To double the gains, you must triple your effort. There is no short cut in this journey. You either walk the path till the end in the correct way or just stop in the middle of the journey without any other opportunity to change your life. The external factors like age, gender, societal norms, responsibilities, limitations, nothing matters when your will is strong and determined to achieve what is good for you. If, at the age of 40, I am able to do it, why not you? You just need to believe in yourself and be determined towards “Reframing Self”.