Written by Tejal Kutarekar
This topic is very close to my heart. Whatever I decided to pen down has come from my heart, directly...
Unnecessary hatred,
Disheartening comments,
Sympathetic glances,
Awful stares,
Demotivating teasing,
Harrowing threats,
Demoralising name-calling,
Constant bullying,
Daunting taunts...
Before I jump onto my important points, let me take a moment to appreciate initiatives taken at different places for showing respect towards disability. Recently, I read out the heart-touching story of employing people with disabilities by giving them an opportunity for their skills, efforts, and hard work rather than suppressing the gifts that they hold within them.
With unity bringing a change in society, the perception of people becomes easier. So let's pledge to contribute something valuable from our sides.
Let's focus on a few things that may help those who go through mental agony in their lives due to disability.
Acceptance is the Key...
Pat yourself on the back!
Yes, you heard it right.
Being here by cutting through all setbacks, rejections, failures, obstacles, hurdles was not an easy task for you, but you made it through.
Hence, you deserve high praise!
We all carry some flaws with us. Some flaws make you a unique being and, although it can be hard to accept, some flaws only makes you stronger.
Accept yourself the way you are with all your flaws.
From Retrospection to Introspection...
Sometimes it is helpful to take a sneak peek into your past, especially when you want to know about your self-evolvement over a while. You have grown so much through pain and hurt. Take a mindful moment to retrospect your past and connect within with your present inner soul to know how courageous you have been. We often take little things for granted by thinking they are not worth it. When you look back in the past, you realise those little things were significant things that changed your course of life for the better. Take note of those little things.
Empowerment Within...
It is said that real empowerment comes from within. You may get motivated by watching, reading, or listening to uplifting content, but the effect of feeling motivated may not last. After a while, you may feel like going back to zero. Depending on external resources to get empowered is ok, but to stay empowered you need to depend on your inner self-work. Take some minutes every day to do those tasks that make you feel charged and empowered.
Expectations vs Reality...
In the virtual era, unconsciously, we all seek social acceptance, approval, and validation from others. This expectation is hardwired as a default thinking pattern. But the thing is, we don't need any approval, validation. We think we are loved, cared for, accepted when we hear this from others. The only approval and validation that matters at the end is acceptance, approval, validation by you.
Gratitude Habit...
When I started my self-work, mindset-shifting journey four years back, this was the first thing that I learned and developed as a habit to be content with my simple life. Being grateful is not a one-time act, it is a process of developing a habit of being grateful even towards the tiniest things in life.
Keep a gratitude journal. Before you go to bed, write down three things that you are grateful about. Note down things that you have in your life and not those things that may or may not be there in your life. Unleash the power of now and embrace your gifts by being grateful. Initially, this will be a hard task and you would probably come up with just one thing to be grateful about. As you develop the habit of gratitude, the gist will increase day by day. (This is straight away from my own experience.)
Emotions and Feelings Diary...
Emotions make you feel good. Emotions make you feel sad. So the real game starts with emotions.
Use a mood tracker diary or apps. I would suggest using a diary because anything that you write with your hands gets signalled very quickly in your brain.
Make two columns in a journal for emotions and feelings. Write down your emotions and how you felt about them. This is the best way to take control of your thinking from autopilot to a conscious state. You can also keep a journal wherein you can write down what made you feel happy, sad, irritated, hurt, and so on...
Magic of Affirmations...
Our personality and thinking process is conditioned as per peoples' views, opinions about us, experiences, situations, circumstances we have been through until now; most importantly the most influential period has been the past and things that happened with us during the imprint period. Changing this needs the priming of daily affirmations that are practical.
Before you sleep just say these four affirmations to yourself. You can customise your affirmations to add on.
Affirmations are -
1. I forgive you
2. I believe in you
3. I accept you unconditionally
4. I love you
Self-love is a Must...
We may have a loving family, we may have caring friends, but the responsibility of our happiness is on us and not on them to make us feel happy. Happiness and contentment is a state of mind that needs consistent practice. It is a habit that we can develop within ourselves. It is not something that we are born with. As time passes, we understand where we find our happiness and contentment.
Spare out ten minutes for yourself daily. I know we all have a busy schedule and sometimes forget to smell the roses. Don't you think we missed something significant by doing so? Just ten minutes daily for self-care, self-pampering time is what you need to prioritise yourself. Appreciate your little efforts and achievements by gifting something to yourself. Go on a solo date, solo ride, solo hiking...
Get to know yourself more with some mindful time in the solitude.
You are here on E2E - that means you are ready for your self-love journey with the first baby step.
Best of luck!
Mindfulness with Meditation...
There is no more powerful tool for self-improvement than being in the present moment with the help of meditation. To be honest, I have very little knowledge in this area. So I would suggest you read other articles, watch videos on E2E about mindfulness and meditation, or else you can simply search about this online to get informed about several techniques.
I am learning from these sources and implementing what I learn in my life. (Yes, self-work is a lifelong process.) Trust me, so far, the benefits that I have been getting are countless.
I will leave this part up to you to experience the power of meditation and mindfulness.
Blessing in Disguise...
Count the blessings. I am sure you will find at least a couple in your life that you can embrace if you decide to think about them. Nobody is perfect and no one's life is perfect. We all have our share of flaws, weaknesses and sufferings in our lives.
But there is always a silver lining. It is in our hands to shift our focus towards that silver lining rather than complaining about things that we can't change.
Be an Inspiration...
Who says disability kills the ability to be successful?
I admit that disability puts some boundaries, restrictions, and limitations to some extent, but disability never denies your chances of being successful.
If it did we wouldn't have come across inspirational stories of Helen Keller, Nick Vujicic, Muniba Mazari. You are having the best story to motivate and inspire others, to uplift peoples' morale.
Share your story with the world proudly!
Let's revisit something before I wind up with my curation,
Unnecessary hatred,
Disheartening comments,
Sympathetic glances,
Awful stares,
Demotivating teasing,
Harrowing threats,
Demoralising name-calling,
Constant bullying,
Daunting taunts...
Let's accept that all these will be there from some people. You can't do anything with their lack of understanding. You don't have control over what people would think or say about you. It is not in your hands to change their wrong views, opinions, perceptions, but you have full control over what you think about yourself. This is in your hands.
With the above-mentioned points, you can try to change your thinking, mindset and perception about your disability, rather than exhausting your emotional, mental and physical energy on convincing others to change theirs.
You deserve Respect, Love, Care, Compassion, and Affection. How about being the one who shows all these towards you?
"You are not disabled, you are specially abled." - Tejal Kutarekar
With this, I would like to close.
Spread love and light...
Namaste to all lovely souls!
About Tejal
Hey There! This is Tejal Kutarekar. I am a Certified Life Coach and Entrepreneur by profession. Writing is something that is therapeutic for me. I love spreading self-awareness about emotional and mental health with the help of writing and composing poems. I am pleased to bring out my inner passion of guiding through writing with the help of the Empath to Empath platform. See you all soon with my content there.
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Very well written 😁👍