Grounded Narratives

I have found that staying organized is the key to getting a lot of stuff done. As I try to run my blog, shop, be a mum, meet my life goals and have somewhat of a social life, I have been forced to accept that I can't just be winging it. I have to make sure that I use my time well. Today's video is all about how to stay organized. I have been following these 5 tips in my quest for sanity amidst the hustle and bustle that is life. I hope this video helps you as you try to stay organized. Please don't forget to like, comment and subscribe.  Thank you for stopping by. xo

 Months before I celebrated my birthday (which I celebrated last week), I had started reflecting on what lessons I had learnt in the last year. One of the lessons that I saw recurring was the importance of knowing what works for you and sticking by it. It  might not come automatically but when you figure out what works for you when it comes to matters of relationships, career, style, health, etc.: You will first and foremost ensure that you spend far less time making decisions. You know when to say yes to and when to say no.  You also become more confident in yourself. Having figured out what works for me, I find that I don't need to explain myself to anyone or feel the need to justify my decisions.  You are better able to follow through on your decisions. It becomes easier to stick by your decision and face the consequences down the line. You don't get easily swayed to try this and that just because other people are trying them. This will, in the end, save...

I love my How To posts. I always feel so nice sharing tips and tricks that I have learnt in the course of time. Today's post tackles something that I have been struggling with over the last year or so, a creative rut. What is a creative rut? A creative rut is basically a period of time when you feel uninspired and unable to pursue a certain project or feel like your life has little to no meaning. My personal experience At some point in 2014 I realized that I had lost my mojo to blog. I felt so uninspired. I couldn't come up with content that I liked and would enjoy putting up. It was just after I had had my baby and I felt like my life had changed and the content I was putting up before the baby just didn't fit in with my new lifestyle. Another thing that I noticed was that I was not in a good place mentally to share good quality, interesting content. A lot of my personal life was interfering with my creative juices. How did I get out of my rut? It has taken ...

Baby girl in the background there :-) Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes...including you. ~ Anne Lammot I have just come from a mini break which I have to say was much needed. I paid a visit to my grandma last week and I was so happy to finally get a chance to unplug and just spend time with my family and focus on me. Travel Experience    I love to travel and one of the things on my bucket list (which I shared here) was to travel a bit more. On this trip, I got to see quite a lot of the rural Kenya, lots of green fields and hills. The undulating hills and lush green grass was the stuff of Jane Austen movies. There's something so calming about the countryside. At Lake Victoria On our way back to Nairobi, we stopped by Kisumu for lunch and I finally got a close-up view of Lake Victoria. Kisumu is hot, stifling hot! Damn! It reminded me so much of summers in Delhi, which honestly enough I don't miss. Reflections I have alwa...

 Have you ever come across that person (perhaps people) who seem bent on making you doubt yourself, your abilities and even your self worth? People who make you think you are too sensitive or that your reactions are inappropriate? These are called toxic people, people who in my book spread a lot of negative energy. I had such an encounter once and it wasn't pretty. I had to fight tooth and nail for a number of years to get this person out of my life but in the end I came out triumphant, free of all that toxicity. I don't want to rehash all that I went through while I was trying to deal with this person. However, I would like to share with you some ways in which you can deal with toxic people. 1. Remove this person from your life Like you would an old band-aid, rip this person out of your life. Their toxicity is ruining you, destroying your self confidence and making your life a living hell. Do everything you can to get rid of them. 2. Avoid them like the plague If the...

 I'm a girl who likes to look for ways to better herself. I read motivational books and blogs. I have a board on Pinterest called Wise Words, filled with motivational quotes, some of which I share on Facebook and Instagram. I have started watching TED talks and I love listening to motivational speakers. I do all this because I believe there is always room for improvement. I might have been able to fight one vice but there is always another that needs to be tackled, lurking right around the corner. This year has been a year of change and growth for me. I think I reached my lowest point just before things started getting better. During those moments when I couldn't see an end to my pain, I remember wondering how God expected me to carry on: working and caring for my daughter and myself, when I didn't feel I had the emotional and physical strength to do so. But then I someone shared something with me that I have refer to constantly. Whenever I find myself facing a situ...

Just the other day I was speaking to a friend and he was telling me about some life challenges that he was facing. As he was speaking, something I had read not too long ago came to mind. Life is full of ups and downs. When you finally get through one hurdle another one quickly pops up and somehow seems to grow from a mole hill into a mountain before you even have a chance to recover from the first hurdle. But you know what? That is what life is made out of. Life cannot be smooth sailing all the way. If it were, you'd never learn how to fight for the things that you want. You'd never know how to fight for that relationship you really wanted or for that job position you have been coveting. You'd never learn how to work hard for that A in that course you are taking or for better treatment from coworkers, a friend or spouse. If life were smooth, you'd never learn how to appreciate all the good things that are happening now in your life. You're alive and healthy, yo...

 Self-esteem:  Confidence in one's own self worth and abilities One of the things that I have been struggling with for a couple of years now is a low sense of self-esteem. I can clearly trace this to just after I became a mother. In the craziness of embracing this new chapter in my life, I sank deeper and deeper into an abyss. To make matters worse there was this one person whose biting words were on replay in my head and whose approval I desperately sought. Once the haziness of all this confusion wore off, I finally started seeing the futility of pursuing a relationship with this person. I started noticing how much my confidence had diminished. I never felt good enough. My dressing and consequently my love for fashion which I share with you on this blog, suffered a lot as I tried to change so as to please this person. I couldn't bring myself to do those things I loved or work towards achieving my dreams because this person didn't approve. But once I deci...

 A couple of week's ago, I experienced my first ever panic attack. I had put Elly to bed and was watching State of Affairs when I decided to go to sleep as well. What followed was something that baffled me until I discovered that I was having a panic attack. As I lay in bed willing my brain to relax so I could fall asleep, I started breathing very heavily while having very disturbing thoughts. I tossed and turned for quite a while until I realized that I was sinking lower and lower into a dark, terrifying abyss. I then turned to prayer, my only source of refuge when I need the strength to keep on pushing forward. I remember asking God to take the burdens away because I couldn't carry them anymore. After that I thanked Him for every good thing that He has granted me. Soon a feeling of peace engulfed me and I fell asleep. It's very easy to fall into the trap of complaining about things or letting challenging moments take over your thoughts. For instance, the tem...

It's been so long since I planned to do something fun and out of my usual routine.  Now that I have decided to use this year to find myself, I thought it would be a good idea to review my bucket list. For today's post, I want to share ten things that I have always wanted to do in the hopes that it will hold me accountable and also inspire someone out there to go out and do something for themselves. Without further ado, here are 10 things that are in my bucket list, in no particular order. Go snorkeling . This has been a dream of mine since I discovered what snorkeling was. Can you believe I have only been to the coast once in my life! I'm hoping to change that this year and while I am there, I want to go snorkeling. Go bungee jumping. I'm a bit of a control freak but I want to loosen up a little and I think bungee jumping will be a good way to start. Polish my French . I studied French in uni and sort of let it go over the years but I want to change this. I have...

` Late last year, I read this post which brought to light something that I had been struggling with but hadn't had the the guts to confront. Do you sometimes act out of fear? Do you sometimes say yes because you are afraid of the consequences your no will have? When I stopped to think about my actions over the last couple of years, I was shocked to find that there are times when I actually stuck through something because I was afraid of what the other person would think of me if I said no or of hurting their feelings.  Fear, even subconscious fear, has a way of sneaking in and running our lives. In my case, I noticed that out of fear of being alone, I stuck through friendships that were to say the least bad. Out of fear of the unknown, I took much longer to put my all into my passions and I ended up constantly thinking about abandoning my dreams and going mainstream. Out of fear of being misunderstood, I sometimes shied away from saying exactly what I meant or felt in any give...

I don't remember when I started keeping a journal but I do know that it has become a part of me. I can't leave without a notebook or journal. Without it I feel empty, lost, disorganized and like I don't know myself. For me, the art of journaling involves writing down my deepest thoughts, thoughts that I am not yet prepared to share with those closest to me. My journal is where I sort through my feelings, where I cross-examine everything that has happened to me on any particular day and try to make sense of it. I have fallen victim to overthinking and over-analyzing and many times, this has led me to beat myself up over my mistakes, harder than necessary. But when I write about these things, I am able to see some progress as the months go by. My journal also contains my list of goals i.e. things I would like to accomplish. I write them down here first then I break them down into manageable sizes which I spread throughout the year (a process I shared in this post ). I al...

Has it ever crossed your mind how easy it is to forget that you matter, that your happiness matters and that your decisions are just as important and serious as the next person's? I recently went through a situation that made me realize how much of myself, how many of my beliefs, I was putting aside just to make others happy. I had been compromising for so long that I had forgotten how important it is not to allow anyone to trample over my decisions and my needs. What happened was I had been unhappy with how a certain friend had been treating me. I started realizing that whenever I had issues that I wanted to discuss, I would end up getting judged to the point where one day this person said to me, "You're always having issues. Don't these things of yours ever get finished?" To say that I was hurt is an understatement. You see, I had gone to great lengths to always be there for this person. Whenever things weren't going great for them, I made ...

It's Fathers' Day tomorrow and honestly, I couldn't come up with something special to do for my dad. It's only recently, once I got over those troubled years when all I thought was that my folks didn't understand me, that I really started appreciating everything they have done and continue to do for me. You see, my dad is a quiet man. It's very easy to forget that he is very present in my life. We have a relationship but it's not as open and free as it is with my mum. Granted, I think I am more free with my dad than most people I know, I do sometimes wish we could be on friendlier terms. But hey, I know he loves me and would get the moon for me if I needed it. For this year's Fathers' Day, I thought I would write a tribute to this man whom I love and cherish. My dad has taught me very many lessons, even in his silent mannerisms. I will highlight three of them below and hope you can add those lessons you have learned from the fa...

***I decided to revive the Inspiration column  because I realized that there are many times we struggle with understanding ourselves and the things that are happening to us. It takes a lot of courage to sit down and face yourself, to know who you really are and to love that person regardless of your faults. But when you do, you will be able to present your true self for others to know and love. Until recently, I spent a lot of time going about the motions of life without knowing what I truly wanted. I took what I got and tried to be happy with it. Many times, I would end up disappointed at the chain of events that had taken place. I would spend many sleepless nights sitting up, wondering how I could have done things differently, how I would like to go back in time and change one or two things so that my present life would be different. Having Elly has greatly changed my view on life. I have realized that I can't just sit back and wait for things to happen: If ...

The end of August is nearing and I can't believe how fast time has flown. Life lately has been extremely busy. Yesterday (when this post should have gone up) was a crazy day hence the delay in putting this up. It was baby's clinic day and I wasn't feeling too well myself. I think exhaustion was kicking in. So I decided to take the day off and relax-did some reading and a lot of sleeping. I'm feeling a little better today so I'm back in business. Miss Elly Elly is now 5 months old. Can you believe it? 5 months! I can't! Where is the time running to? Yesterday while at the hospital, the nurse was educating me on how to start weaning her when she turns 6 months next month! I am in awe. She's grown so much. I have been looking at photos of her from the time she was born up until now and cannot believe how far she has come. She's extremely talkative now (baby talk) and has just discovered that her hands can move around. She now grabs at things and has ...