Day 21 + 22: Spread the love..

So I know I missed yesterday.. but I think a few days filled with love, celebrations, togetherness and just good old fun warrants the missing of a day!!! (Not really I know! Really sorry guys - but hey..this is life hey?!)

So today is officially 3 weeks since the inception of this blog! I feel truly humbled and excited to be sharing this space with you, and truly want to share my love and sentiments of gratitude to each and every one of you that have taken the time, energy and effort to read and be a part of this journey with me.. How apt then that the theme of love is the one that happens be the one for today as I enter this final week of my Advent Calendar of Positivity with you all....

The topic of love is something that is very resonant to me as many who know me well would know.. Given half the chance, I could most certainly write or speak much about this, and hope to one day write a book on this simple yet profound word that is so significant and important in our world, especially now more than ever. So I will do my best to stay on point today - but do forgive me if I tend to digress a bit - but do also remember that I'm making up for a lost day!

Many of you may know that I was celebrating my brother Bhavesh's wedding this weekend... If you know anything about traditional Indian weddings, you may be aware that the ceremony is more than just the wedding itself and will usually span over a few days if not a week or more with a host of significant ceremonies celebrating this significant milestone in one's life.

So that is what this week of past consisted of - a host of celebrations and ceremonies leading up to the wedding day and final ceremonies thereafter. There are some fun celebrations and serious, significant ceremonies, there are times when you want to pull your hair out from the stress and hard work and planning and chaos and late nights followed by early mornings and the lack of sleep due to amongst other reasons as a result of late night catchups with family members who have not seen or spent time with each other for extended periods of time. Add to that 2 years of the C-word stress on top of that, and you have an idea of what this week consisted of...

...Buuuuttt... even with a last minute Covid scare, the wedding celebrations were a resounding success which saw us bring home a new bride into the Harry household for the first time in over 30 years! What a significant milestone :o) Even though we have celebrated over 14 weddings within our family circle in the last few years, they have all been for one of my sisters, cousins or female members of the family which traditionally sees the groom's family gaining a daughter into their household and officially leaving her childhood home for good based on the Gujerati tradition. 

The thing that  stood out the most out of everything for me over these past few days however, was LOVE. 

Just pure love. For the love of living, and being, and celebrating and just LOVE. Love for family. For friends. For traditions - old and new. Love for making things work regardless of the challenges in the way. Love of community and society and sharing and caring and spreading pure joy and love. Celebrating the love of this couple made me remember how easy it is to love. As they often say, love makes the world go around - and this week, I really experienced that. How everyone comes together when there is the same goal, where one puts others above self, but also remembers that self love is just as important.

A colleague who I'm blessed to work with, taught me one of the most important life lessons that I try to life through in my daily life. He explained to me that all we had to do in life, is "just love and send love to others". Just love he said to me over and over again - love others, especially and even the ones that do wrong by you as they're probably the ones that need it the most. I didn't realise what an important life lesson this would be for me on my life journey, and whenever I have anger or ill feelings towards someone or something, I just remember this colleague's words to "just love and send them love". It is truly one of the most challenging things to do - when you're upset with someone and all you feel like doing is shouting and screaming and ranting and raving - but to instead to remain calm and collected, and instead, just love them.

At this time of the year, most people focus on festivities and year end plans, but many forget how challenging it can be for those that are less fortunate, or even those that have no loved ones to celebrate this time with...So today, and going forward I ask you to consider "how will you spread the love"? What can you do to cheer someone else up or just make this time of the year or this challenging period we're going through that much easier? How will you love and spread love?

Wishing you all a blessed and amazing week ahead. Till tomorrow,

For the love of wisdom and life always, Poonam

Sun 19 December 2021, 21:15, EL, SA