Ladies Before Their Time

Do you remember when Hannah Montana was the ultimate Disney dream girl?  She was cute, girly, harmless and pretty much fulfilled the idyllic role of the girl next door. The target audience for Hannah Montana was 5 to 13 year olds. Suddenly one day I noticed Hannah disappeared and in came Miley Cyrus, this happened approximately eight years later and these 5 year olds were now 13.  It wasn’t really Miley I had a problem with, I mean she was clearly growing up and had to make a more validated career choice in accordance with her age, but Miley by then was a young adult and was promoting sexual images of herself and music videos that by no means were apt for a 13 year old. Her choices were sound as it gave her further marketing exposure, but the filtering process from Hannah to Miley was nil and it made the world see how vulnerable those 13 year olds suddenly were.

What I am getting at is the drastic effect this had on girls in the real world. There was a sudden movement where 13 was the new 18 and somehow little girls were stretched out to embody the mental and physical roles of 18 year olds. This again was not Miley’s fault, it was the way media handled her shift and her old Hannah image was still lingering in the form of rejected merchandise, and if you gifted a 13 year old a Hannah Montana DVD, she would almost feel quite offended.

Another example I picked up in a popular magazine called “Teen Vogue”. http://www.teenvogue.com/back-to-school/beauty/2014/07/budgeproof-makeup-tutorial/?slide=1

 Their July 2014 issue covers an entire article on “Back to school makeup” offering even a tutorial for their readers. I am not against makeup, in fact I promote it fully as it can really add value to ones face. However, girls as young as 11 are being targeted for  this tutorial, so much so that there are specific teen makeup brands on the market now. It defeats the point of wanting to hold onto your childhood doesn’t it?

These are two examples of how media is playing such an actively influential role on the childhood of our girls. Are we shrinking down their childhood without even realising it or do we have a choice in the matter?

The truth is, it has all become about the girls lately. If we pay close attention to the rape laws in the Emirates or the child marriage and sex slavery issues in many countries around the world, they all are giving paramount importance to the girl and this indeed is a wonderful change from the 90s. At the same time though issues like weight, diet and being attractive are also part of the same struggle. Why is that? I have a 6 year old who talks to me about not wanting to become fat, and she thinks she also must exercise like me and not eat too many French fries in order to not gain weight. It doesn’t worry me that she has taken a fondness to exercise, but it does worry me that she associates weight gain with sacrificing her fries at the age of 6. I wonder if sub consciously I myself am influencing her thoughts. I admit I am careful with my food, but surely it must have been something I said to a grown up that made her react in this way. My point is, am I passing down my own fears about weight, fashion and so on to my own child, without noticing that media is already doing enough damage?

What is happening is that girls as young as 10 are not mentally or physically quite ready in their heads to address issues that the media is so liberally targeting them with, and if not targeting them directly, because of easier access to the Internet and channels such as YouTube, kids are being prematurely exposed to content that is beyond their levels of comprehension. Another example are music videos by pop singers. The radio plays a song that becomes popular and harmlessly our kids are singing lyrics like “Cause you know what to do with that big fat butt, wiggle wiggle..."

When the child goes one step further to find this song on YouTube, she finds herself with an age inappropriate video that accompanies the same song that she was simply enjoying in the car. If you have an open relationship with your child, questions start to arise and as a parent you often don’t know what to tell them. If they choose to hide from you the discovery of the video, well that’s when Pandora’s box is officially open and the answers will lie in the vivid imagination of this child. The truth is they themselves have no idea what the song is implying and associate it with having a bum that shakes. What comes from this is that they do suddenly start to notice bums and the size of them and clearly this is not what we would have hoped our 6 year olds to observe at such a young age.

Coming back to stigmas, girls are not born hating their bodies or their lives for that matter. There is something that is putting a damper on their spirits and self esteem. It is essential to pick up on what issues are affecting your daughter, and most important to detect the root of the problem. If Monster High dolls are being dressed with clothes that even Pamela Anderson would find too revealing and Abercombie and Fitch was retailing thongs for girls aged 10 plus (which later were rightly removed), I do think this adds a pressure on our girls to feel like they also need to “fit in”.

This automatically ages them before time and it leaves us wondering why the entire fashion beauty industry is banking so heavily on this new sexy clothing, miniature stilettos and make up to pre hormonal girls.

What to do?

Unfortunately a teenager is a dreamer and their brains are close to jelly at this stage. Anything can make them angry, influence them, muddle them and even derail them towards choices that may not be appropriate for them. A 10 year old is even more volatile; they are completely unaware of the meaning of many of these concepts and process in their minds what little they can comprehend. It’s paramount to allow teenagers to find their skin, but also to talk to them and allow them to see the choices that lie before them. For 10 year olds it’s all about idols isn’t it? Their idol should ideally be their mother or father, who is willing to sit and listen to their fantasy stories and know what they watch on TV, what goes on in the playground and who is sitting in their heads feeding them information. If we do this, we can gauge their growth and somewhat remedy this shrinking childhood.

I admit it’s hard, as a parent it frightens me to think what awaits me. Nevertheless, a consciousness needs to be created in the home. A teen or pre teen as we call them these days are like new-born babies. Nurture them so they enter adulthood knowing what calculated choices await them and let’s try to help these new millennium pre-teen kids.

I will end my article with a small scenario that probably occurs in every home and what different outcomes can be applied to handle the situation. A father is in the kitchen chopping vegetables and listening to music that his pre teen daughter normally listens to. She walks in, hears the music and states this is new age music and rather different to what he used to listen to in his days.

a)    He replies that he wasn’t really listening as it was just playing on the radio. She then states that it’s pretty good isn’t it? He replies that it is not really his type of music – father let’s go, even though daughter has invited him to engage further into what could possibly be a longer conversation.

b)   He replies that he actually likes to listen to all sorts of genres and this is cool too. She smiles. He then engages in asking her who is the band and she replies that she’s not too sure but it’s nice to dance to. He follows up by making a joke and asks her to show him some of her moves. She laughs and calls him an old man. – Light open conversation with open-ended questions.

c)    He asks her if she likes this music, if she listens to it with her friends? She confirms with her reply. He then asks what other music she enjoys and she replies in a vague but engaged manner. He finally asks what movie did she go and watch the previous night and with whom she went with? She openly tells him he’s asking too many questions. – The father started off well by taking interest in the music topic, then abruptly became personal and disengaged his daughter.

I cannot tell you how frustrating it can be to determine which is the right path to take. Clearly each teenager o pre teen is different and the outcome can vary from child to child. The key is to communicate and not give up.

Inspired by Rumi

I have doubts, for they 

encourage 

me to question

I have been angry, this is the 

warmth that burns inside me

I hurt all over, my body is 

merely 

talking to me

I often feel bored, it means I am 

allowing my creative sense 

to rest

I'm lost for words, because 

feelings don't need to talk

I'd rather face my fears than 

hide in a lie  

I cry proudly 

because the 

bubble is finally 

breaking, 

sunshine will now 

come through

My emotions tell me I 

am human

Be kind to them 

Allow them to surface 

now and then

Temporarily Permanent

Nothing lasts forever, everything has an instant beauty about it and a moment can simply be translated to a mental snapshot we take in our minds. We smile, we laugh, we cry and we even feel happy or sad. The only constant is change and time. No matter how spectacular or putrid a moment can make you feel, the lingering effects are just that... lingering. They ultimately lose their potency and the scent or stench you once either longed to hold on to or desperately wanted to let go of just fade away with time. 

I was on a boat this summer, trying very hard to take some beautiful pictures of the emblematic sunset in Istanbul, capture the beauty of the Bosphorus Bridge and revel in the drug which the city was offering me whilst I stood there on the deck, absorbing the humid heat which was complemented by a light sea breeze. There were four of us that professionally stood there in military fashion, trying to capture the perfect light, the perfect angle, the perfect frame and pretty much allowed the camera to overrule the hour plus that we had in order to obtain these pictures. 

I admit there were moments when I was distracted by the other tourists who were either partaking in a conversation, the boat staff who attempted to offer us a drink or snack and even other boats that sailed by. I was enjoying my moment on the deck, but what I didn't focus on was the complete essence of the moment. I was preoccupied with taking the perfect picture and at the back of my mind I was concerned about sharing the perfect album with my family and friends. I usually just use my smartphone to take pictures, but this felt special and I did want to use my professional SLR in order to avail fully of the benefits such a camera offers for great captures. My intentions were solid, but I forgot the most important reason I was there.

The sun was setting and I didn't even see the colour changes carefully enough to take a mental snapshot of this moment. Instead I attempted to capture this live moment on camera. I know it's as important, but honestly after I returned from my trip and looked at the many pictures, I was not half as impressed as I thought I would be. I am not great at taking pictures so I was not entirely able to mirror the perfect sunset on camera. We are always able to add filters to pictures, but in real life we are also adding filters to so many things aren't we?

Standing there with my camera made me think of a few things. The camera is equipped with many functions which can allow your pictures to look as perfect as possible. A zoom, a flash, filter effects and endless other features which enable us to emulate perfection. Similarly we as human beings can also be skillful at many things, these help us to perform better than others in our job and sometimes gives us added advantage too. Nevertheless, in this rat race where we are struggling to be the best at what we do, we tend to forget that the journey towards perfection is often where the magic lies. 

I stood there taking pictures and there was one particular moment which was unrelated to the camera or the scenery, which I returned home with. I watched how my husband helped his mother climb on the deck and didn't allow her to fall and lose balance, thereafter I watch how they laughed and giggled between themselves, oblivious to who and what surrounded them. I absorbed this moment and took a picture of it. It required no filter, no flash and no added value. The value was right there in front of me and the scenery was merely decorative, to make the picture look a little more resplendent than perhaps a living room setting. What I had done was sponge up the moment of them together, allowed a palpitation to be evoked and then taken a picture of this moment. The entire process occurred in a twinkle, but what was important was the order of steps. I didn't take the picture and then enjoy the moment, this would be contradictory to my motives of taking the picture in the first place.

In life we have a tendency to frame what we consider perfection and then forget entirely about the rare hair raising moments which nature, our relationships, a good conversation or just a close watch can offer us. 

I recently had a Skype conversation with a good friend and whilst we were talking she attempted to take a quick screen shot of me through her iPad. She said she failed as the connection froze at that precise moment. However, explained to me in few words the aww inspiring moment she had encountered during our conversation, and wanted to keep that moment on camera. I understood her reasoning completely, because I too had felt that on the boat, observing my husband and his mother. 

This summer has offered me a myriad of emotional explosions on all levels, many of them positive and a few negatives too. However, two months later what I have concluded is that these tiny concussions or sparkles have been so brief that we move on to look for more adventures. The important thing is to  drink in and inhale these brief moments that unlock our deepest pores. 

I did this on a few occasions, quite deliberately. Today when I have to create a mental photomontage of  my summer, I effortlessly remember those split second moments which I have taken a temporarily permanent place in my mind.

Truly nothing is forever, so happiness and sorrow all have an expiry date. The key is to make the most of what is in front of you and if you can, try to see the absolute positive side to any encounter. If your time is cut short with a friend, at least you had that time with them. If your parents are suffering an illness, at least you have them around and can spend your time with them, if your kids speak rudely to you, at least they have the confidence to approach you and not avoid you altogether. 

Don't you feel that when you go to the movies, you often get absorbed in it and can imagine yourself being one of the main characters. It only lasts for a few hours at the most and the after effects linger for a while, until life continues and you get busy elsewhere. If you can pay money at the theatre to get that experience, why not try to achieve that in your real life and be the real hero of your own movie? Sometimes one only needs to stand where they are, to feel blessed - Mary Oliver.

Thank you for reading and please share my article if you feel it can help others. 

Arianna

Tomorrow is always too late
This is how she feels about fate
The calendar, a date
A bundle of memories, the best way to relate

An early bird
“Why waste the morning, how absurd”
She listens but will always put her word
A daal rice girl
She’ll wear a frock and make a quiet twirl

Ari will burst out laughing about yesterdays joke
And suddenly cry, who knows what made her choke

She’ll work to save
Workout like a slave
Go dancing to the best rave

Arianna is your best friend
She’ll tell you when the
sales start and end
Eat a carb filled brunch
Followed by a salad for lunch

Endless bicep reps at the gym
But her arms will hurt when eyebrows she must trim
For a pic, hold her stomach in
She must look slim

Ari will say, “I have plans” when she’s eating ice cream in bed
Ari will cancel her plans when she gets a text “guess what he said?”

An expert at deciphering male micro expressions
She may tell you her darkest confessions
Will say, “yes” to mean “no”
Will smile when she’s sad
Will always trust her dad
Arianna is a little bit mad

Arianna lives in every home
That funny girl with a moustache made of froth and foam
We all have an Ari chromosome

Let it go / Let her go / Let go … more than just lyrics

I was listening to the radio just last week and I observed three different songs that have faired well on the charts this year. The world cup song by Shakira uses “Let go”, albeit sounding like “Lego”, Frozen.. I don’t need to tell you, you can probably hear it resonating in your ears and if not any child in the world aged between 3 and 8 will happily sing it to you and lastly “Let Her Go” by Passenger. I’m sure there must be others that have adapted these magic words in their lyrics, but my radio station has played these relentlessly on loop almost. 

These words got me thinking, perhaps that’s what lyrics do, play games with your head. In this case however I was positively inspired to apply these simple words in my own life.

Recently someone shared her experience about a good friend not being so good anymore. Well, to be honest my theory has always been that people don’t actually change; we only get to know them better over time. I find solace in this theory, as it suspends the progression of negative energy towards these people who make us unhappy. How dare they have control over our happiness? Also, I certainly do not wish to emit a pessimistic flow towards them; this does not favour my karmic foundations either. 

Every human being, including you and I go through a metamorphosis every “x” number of years. In this transformation we actually go through what I call a detox process of discovering ourselves and what it is that we truly want, who we want to be, where is our life heading etc. The symptoms of this process include being a complete asshole or bitch for as long as this period lasts. I apologise for the language, but truly there is no better way of putting it. The problem is the repercussions this has on the people closest to the victim. They are so colossal; sometimes they can lead to relationships being destroyed forever. 

I have learnt that “letting go” of these good friends for as long as it takes is the only way we can firstly save clouds and thunderstorms of negative energy in our perfectly stable lives and secondly you can give those people their space and time to rediscover themselves. 

It’s all very easy to write this down and preach my theory, but in practice it really does feel like you are cutting off one of your fingers and your fist is suddenly mutilated. It has to be one of the hardest steps to take in life. 

Nevertheless, the benefits of doing this are far more worthwhile as you save yourself humiliation, feeling belittled by this person you cannot recognize anymore, unloved, invisible, unwanted and the list goes on. How and why did this happen, you wonder? It’s got to be my fault you often conclude. Err… NO it’s far from your fault and you are simply a victim of circumstance. In fact, the best thing you can do for this person is NOT being there. 

I have tested this theory to the tee and let me tell you it works. Your value in that person’s life is doubled over time, and let me remind you that you once upon a time before this person entered your life, you still breathed and survived didn’t you? You are not the life support machine for this person and neither should they make you feel needy and desperate if they are not around for you. 

I want to emphasise that as an honest and genuine human being you are dutiful towards the needs of your closest people and if they openly tell you that they need to be left alone, well we really must respect that. 

On the other hand you may find that the person is simply taking you for a ride and it’s merely a twisted tactic for them to distance you from their life without having the courage or grit to openly confront the situation. I pity this cowardice and if this is the case, well darling you definitely need to let go! The worst karma one can perform is playing with someone’s feelings. Now since karma is quite the bitch and never pardons anyone, you can sit back and relax, the circle always comes around. 

I dedicate this article to a friend who has suffered a lot recently and although Thoughts is officially not publishing for the summer, I did feel it my duty to nourish my readers a little bit. Let go my lovelies, for added baggage is always an extra cost to pay for and frankly I’d rather use the money and spend it elsewhere. 

Snapshot Mumbai

Vada pav hawkers

A landscape that shares millionaires and paupers

Bollywood love songs and religious bhajans

Resonating in and out of rickshaws

The smell of paan

Beetle leaves freshly sit on roadside marble slabs

Sweltering heat

Uneven roads, gymnastics for my feet

Every road crossing is like a leap of faith

Shiny Parle toffee wrappers

An entire shelf of toothpaste boxes

Stainless steel tiffins

A haberdashery that stocks from pots to pins

A disabled child with the biggest smile

No traffic light is free from the hijras putting you on trial

Cannot help but peak at the Mid-day headlines

The boy sells between the vehicle aisles

Twelve kilometers per hour, I’ll still be here for a while

Street food cravings

My stomach’s not smart to tolerate these ravings

I see the carts and their coconut shavings

Buttered bread aromas fill the evening pandemonium

Torrents of cinemagoers in perfect harmonium

Incense vapors initiate the working day

Car horns serve as the soundtrack for any vehicle to find their way

Thousands of commuters in and out of trains

Nothing stops these Mumbaikers, least of all the rains

The smart often labeled unreasonable

Black magic baba most reasonable

Behind the glamour and glitz of the silver screen

Lies the maddening life of the common man

His muffled scream

A long soothing drive

Where else but on Marine Drive

Unveils the real life documentary

Obscenities hard to bear

A growing plague

It’s here, it’s everywhere

 A city that never runs out of gas

A kaleidoscopic vignette

You don’t always give to then get

Love, hate, love, hate

Ho jaega… a city where a lot is left to fate

Museum of the Mind

There is actually a place in Rome called the Museum of the Mind, and although it’s what used to be a mental institution; today gives a tour of the mental illnesses that used to be treated at this hospital. One is supposed to learn and empathise with what is referred to as not a normal society of individuals. The ideology behind this museum is that if once you have crossed the doors and gone inside, you will not turn back. It’s referred to as stepping “InSide Out”. I have not visited this exhibition centre but only reading about it makes me think twice about whether I will be able to tolerate what I will see. A mental pathology can indeed be very overwhelming and often if you are exposed to it for long periods can make you question your own sanity.  Today one shouldn’t assume it solely a relationship between the patient and the caretaker / professional, but actually a third window needs to be opened. I am referring to the awareness in society about such ailments and the ability to empathise and include such patients in our society.

All these feelings made me wonder about the definition of “normal”. If you suffer any form of diagnosed mental pathology, you are placed in the not normal bracket. These patients have unfortunately been diagnosed with such disorders and have suffered them due to genetic disorders, mental injuries or malformations that have harmed their cognitive reasoning. They must live with it forever and the Museum tells us success as well as failure stories of such patients.

However, it is my belief that over time and due to many reasons, madness is out there and closer to us than ever before. The reasons can include the fizzy drink and junk food culture, pressures of a more narcissistic environment that we all belong to (the attention seeking selfie society) and also a better detection of research being done in this field by the many mental health clinicians. We are all in one way or another a little bit “crazy”. It is not necessarily a “crazy” that precisely needs medical treatment, because mostly our own levels of resilience are what help us to combat such episodes.

Old age used to be the explanation to natural degenerative process of the human brain and it has been accepted for years that old people suffer from such conditions. Sadly this is not the truth anymore. A study done on children in 1957 for the detection of anxiety disorders, compared to the children today showed considerably higher levels of anxiety than previous generations. Another study comparing university students in America from 1982 and 2006 also depicted students being more narcissistic in the latter cohorts. The positive side of these studies proves that what was considered as psychologically normal before has now got a mental illness label of some sort to it, which broadens the number of people who are affected by one disorder or another, albeit in a very subtle form. This helps to identify the root at an earlier stage and therefore prevent it getting worse and controlling it better.

However, doesn’t this also mean we have turned into a culture more open to detecting a mental illness within ourselves and less tolerant to seeing it in others? Our environment has made us more self involved and far more insecure than previous generations, this is giving rise to the bigger problem or I even choose to call it the disease of the 21^st century. The American Psychiatric Association even labelled selfie as a mental disorder, because really what it means is people refusing to grow up and seeking approval or a compliment everyday. If you quickly detect the main symptoms of any mental disorder such as anxiety or any type of depression, there are two adjectives that loudly speak out. 1) The need for attention.  2) Insecurity, which is satiated by approval from others. When one takes 20 selfies a day and posts them on any network, that person is 1) seeking attention and 2) fishing or a compliment to make themselves feel better. It is not harmful to take a selfie because I also agree an image speaks louder than words and a picture of me smiling is far more effective than me saying, “I’m happy” on my status. Let me give you some shocking data from 2013. 21 million pictures uploaded to Instagram received the hash tag label  #selfie and 51 million received #me. I’m just saying!

If you cannot classify this as a mental illness (an on-going love affair with yourself) then what can be scarier? We advocate that love for ourselves is important to have a happy and satisfied life, but in this obsession for self -love we are losing sight of others and the more real mental illnesses that truly are a concern for our society.

I want to finish off by briefly addressing a symptom that again we are suffering from more and more in this quest to seek perfection within ourselves. When was the last time you didn’t judge someone for the money they spend, their eating habits, for their appearance, for their material choices, for the music they listen to and the list is never ending. The truth is our obsession with judging others is simply a reflection of an unsatisfied life that we lead ourselves. I read a very interesting article on this subject and there was a list of harmful situations that can be a consequence of judgmental behavior. I would like to share this list and see if you can observe how some of these unpleasantries are signs of this ongoing personal love affair that I have mentioned earlier.

Taken from: http://zenhabits.net/judgy/

I am very ignorant of what the person is going through.

I don’t understand the situation.

I have unrealistic expectations of people.

I think I’m superior to other people.

I’m not grateful.

I’m being self-centered.

I’m not being curious, but instead I close off all learning.

I can’t really help the situation from a place of judgment.

Therefore, before looking into the museum of other people’s minds, perhaps it’s more important to seek into your own museum and begin to question your own normality up close!