Are you having Covid Anxiety too? Here are few ways to identify how !

A couple of years ago I realized that I have anxiety; I noticed it when one of my closest friends passed away suddenly. I was terrified that someone else close to me will die, it took me a while to grasp the reality and I always thought what I felt was real, I assumed the worst case scenario, panic if I hear that someone is sick, doesn’t necessarily have to be someone close to me. If I see an online news of someone dying, I used to read through to see why that person died, and then I assumed that it would happen to someone around me too. This was a mental battle between me, myself and I, which took a toll on myself, my health and my relationship with my then boyfriend (current husband). Although I tried to leave this aside as a one off incident, I realized that it kept triggering when there are situations beyond my control. Covid catastrophe was a big trigger for me. I also realized that I was not alone in this, yes there are so many going through what I go through in different ways, in different situations (I have a friend who is having anxiety because his wedding got postponed) and that it is common. I felt a sense of relief, not because of people who are suffering, but because there are remedies for people who are struggling to overcome things like this.

I’m a worrier by nature, there are so many like me, who constantly worry about something. It is normal to worry when your child falls sick, it is normal if your parents are sick, but if you always assume the worst case scenario and panic about it, then it is not as normal as you think it is. If something bothers you too much that it affects your sleep, your routine, your day today activities then you might be a worrior and having stress or maybe anxiety. You can push it to the back of your head thinking, oh it is not important to sort it but it actually is.

Why is it important to identify your stress and anxiety?

It might affect you long term, affect your relationship with your family members, your job, most importantly your health. Long term stress and anxiety can develop into high blood pressure, diabetes and literally age you. The wrinkles, fine lines, grey hair.. all of that.

How to identify?

It doesn’t necessarily have to be suicidal thoughts or feel depressed it could also be having irrational fears, a significant change in sleeping habits, having vivid dreams, a significant change in eating habits or a prolonged low mood.

Stress and anxiety are not always a bad thing. They are natural, short-term reactions that people need to stay safe, it happens because you care, because you care too much maybe. So admitting it is nothing to be ashamed of.

How to handle it?

It is normal to have it during this period; you are facing many lifestyle differences, pay cuts, cooking all day, working from home and the list goes on. There are many ways to cope up with it, try breathing exercises daily, do a bit of exercise even if it means just dancing to your favourite music, meditating or do something that calms you down. There are apps on your phone which helps you calm down, there are exercises which you can also check on YouTube.

Importantly, identify what triggers it, when you understand it, it will be easy to overcome it. It is necessary to know that you cannot control everything, and there are certain things, which is beyond our control, like the current situation. What you can do is, do the best you can and look after yourself. There are always people who you can speak to, someone who will help you get out of it too. I have two amazing friends who do therapy online, super easy to talk your  heart out to : Beautiful Minds Counselling & Rasini Bandara. 

Working in a Covid filled world is not normal. You should not be upset or be upset if your work collegues are not fully functioning at highest productivity levels.It is important to understand that you need time to process the grief that comes with the loss of your former work life and social life.

Do drop me a message if you need any support or a helping hand if you are having stress or anxiety, always remember that you are not alone in this.

Picture Credits - https://metro.co.uk/

To all you single ladies.... why you shouldn't just SETTLE !

I’ve gone through it all, the hustle and bustle of being a Lankan girl. I've had the Lankan aunties and uncles going 'ill find you a nice boy' phase, 'why still single' phase and now I’m going through the 'have a baby soon’ phase. There was one aunty telling me ෂාහ් රුක් ඛාන් ල වගේ නටන්න පුළුවන් මිනිස්සු හම්බවෙන්නේ නැ . උයන්න පුළුවන් හුස්බන්ඩ් ල හීනෙන් තමයි. So basically she told me to settle with whoever who came my way.

Then there was one who told me that height doesn’t matter, her argument was that generally Sri Lankan men are short, so I should marry a short Sri Lankan man. Someone told me that romantic guys don’t exist, they only exist in hindi movies and I should stop watching these nonsense.

For the record I never wanted a 6 footer, neither I wanted a man who is like Shah Rukh Khan. He is a 50+ plus year old man romancing twenty year old girls on screen, who on their right minds want to marry that? But I think somewhere down the line god must have felt extremely sorry for me for listening to all these bullshit so gave me a romantic husband who can cook damn well.

Many might argue with me on this, but I think the generation before us was the most messed up generation. They settled in their marriages, believed that women should settle at a certain age, or their biological clock goes bonkers, should listen to their husbands or boyfriends who take you for granted and then have a big wedding and marry soon without wasting time. I know many who have done this and ended up in divorces. Marrying the wrong person can make you feel lonelier than you ever were. No man or woman can make you happy unless you are with your life. That is the universal truth.

There are different phases in twenties and thirties, that single ones come across, and dealing with it without letting it get to you is the only way out. No one, should marry for the sake of marrying, trust me you are better off single unless you find that person you absolutely love and want to spend the rest of your life with. I've met some amazing people who are very happy staying single, I always envied them. 

I will find a niceeee boy for you

This depends on where you are in life, if you feel that you are emotionally ready to get married and be open to meet a few guys, let them try. There is no harm. There was this one time when I was single for a long time when aunties went ‘ඇත්තටම කව්රුත් නැද්ද’ My reply was ‘නෑ aunty හොයල දෙන්නකෝ’ as a joke but some took it very seriously :P and one gave me the whole shah rukh khan type talk.

Proposals do work most of the time

If your parents, aunts uncles and the entire world are looking for proposals, let them. Don’t be stressed, no one will force you to marry someone. If you have watched ‘Love is blind’, ‘Too hot to handle’ or ‘Married at first sight’ on Netflix you will understand  even in the western world, that many people crave for relationships, ready to explore with an open mind and there are people who are ready to get married. So don’t be ashamed, it can be torture sometimes, but do it with an open mind, you can always talk about them to your girl gang jokingly if it turns out to be horrible.

Biological clock is ticking !

Please don’t marry because you are aging, or someone has a timeline as to when you should have kids. Kids are extremely expensive, hard work and a lot of energy. Unless you and your partner are ready for this, don’t do it for the sake of doing it. The kid doesn’t deserve it, last thing a child want is unhappy frustrated parents to grow up to.

Don’t settle for the sake of settling

If you have a partner and it is not heading towards marriage, don’t force it. A man or a woman, absolutely have to be ready to be married. Those tiny quirks and the habits you notice while you date, are going to magnify when you are married. You have to be ready for all of it, it is not as rosy as it looks but with the right person it can be easy and pretty great too. You both need to be on the same page with this, you cannot rush a marriage, the ones who do have ended up in disasters because parents have pushed them to get married soon. No one is going to live with them but you, that person will be there for you through sickness, pay cuts, covid anxiety to all of it, so don’t do it to satisfy anyone else. But if you too have a timeline in your head and your partner doesn’t seem ready ever, then that’s something to address.

They won’t change after marriage

We are in the 21^st century, yes it is nice to have someone to share your life with, it can be hell if it is not the right person. But you cannot change a person after you marry them, if there are life threatening habits yes you can force a person, but otherwise they will only change if they absolutely want to and most likely, it won’t happen according to your plan or timeline. Certain things will never change.

Be happy with yourself; find happiness within, your career, your looks, your life. Be open minded for a relationship, relationships in thirties work more because you know what makes you tick and what makes you happy. If you find a partner in the right mindset, miracles and fairytales will happen. You both need to be with the right mindset at the right time. Mills and Boons stories, hindi movie plots, Netflix rom-coms… all these were created based on true stories, your love story might be right around the corner, so wait for it.

Don’t settle !

So much hatred for local celebrities in Sri Lanka – Who gets their Social Media Mantra right?

During this quarantine, my best friend and I shared local celebrity Instagram posts with each other for the kicks of it. Some are real horrors but some actually put a lot of effort to produce interesting content to their audience, mostly because of their massive following.  Two people that often popped up on our Instagram explorer are Shanudrie & Dinakshie.  I haven’t watched any tele drama or movie of either of them, neither has my friend but the level of engagement they have on their pages are impressive. Shanudrie sings, posts recipes, which look quite good whereas Dinakshie posts dance videos, updates on gardening etc. Now what interesting here is the level of hatred they get. So many comments on posts, some are ridiculous to the extent that you wonder how can anyone be so jobless. But most of these comments are from fake accounts, so clearly none of these people have balls to say it with identity or authority. I watched a live video to realize that they actually get filth posted, utter Sinhala filth. No one obviously apart from their family and friends know them personally, so how can anyone insult someone on such a personal level?

Apart from our monitoring, judging and sharing opinions, we also realized how they keep their social media game on point.

Being candid and giving unexpected responses

Dinakshie gives it back, kudos to her. Very rarely, you find anyone who posts a sassy reply to burn them off, but she does it, speaks her mind. I haven’t seen many local artists being realistic or genuine much. Mahela trolls fans on Twitter too in a funny way (I don’t like him because for a whole bunch of reasons). Its mostly edited pictures, wanna be influencers or ‘its all about themselves’ posts. Lack of authenticity is a big NO NO today, whether you are popular or not, no one wants to read fake posts or promoted content anymore. It is all about storytelling and giving something to takeaway. One might argue, what can you take away watching a video of Dinakshie dancing to a song of Kalank? Inspiration for starters. I know nothing about dancing but I shared it with my friend who is also a dancer and told her that she should dance it out at home too.

Being honest and intimate.

People decided that Dinakshie posts too many pictures with Saranga. They get very vocal about it too, posting comments on their pictures. I think everyone in life goes through a phase when they in their relationship, newly dating or newly married, and the need to post on social media, many newly wedded wives do, I did too. It is not to show off your relationship nor to show the world that you are happy, just because… you feel like it. I don’t see anything wrong. I remember the same happening to Priyanka Chopra with her husband, India hated their desi girl marrying a pardesi but hey it’s her life, right? Then there was this local actress who posted pictures in her night clothes early morning with her husband, with a caption : ‘Good Morning World’ (me and my friend thought that she looked very satisfied in the picture, husband not so much :P) This is a different level of intimacy altogether which any audience would not want to know.  

Catering to their audience – fan engagement !

Few things on social media, which I noticed that these two girls keep it flowing with engagement: TikTok videos, YouTube channel, Facebook & Instagram stories. Going live on Instagram, posting engaging content on and off. I think despite all these haters, these girls are on point with their social media branding, many things we all can learn from. TikTok is not for every audience though, if you are a lawyer or a cricketer or a lecturer : no one, NO ONE wants to watch you dancing on TikTok. One for the road maybe, but not every week.

Not endorsing everything !

You come across influencers today who endorse every bloody thing, and some wear free clothes everywhere and shamelessly post it by tagging the sponsors too. Two things gone wrong here, while you disrespect the brand, which you promote, you bring your self esteem down too by posting about every freebee that comes your way. I think it is important for any brand to identify an influencer who would complement their brand and likewise. I saw an advertisement of a cricketer sleeping with a bat on a mattress, I couldn’t stop ta-alking about itself for a long long time to my husband who didn’t like it at all (for obvious reasons)

P.S. I remember Sanga posting pictures of a renown designer of a female clothing brand – who we all know is his friend, so didn’t make much sense. 

Bottom line, there are many people like me, my friend and many Sri Lankan aunties and uncles in who judge, then bitch, then form assumptions about it. No matter how much time someone invests on a fake post trying to be miss goody two shoes, people are going to dis (ce ammata) you. So be authentic, be yourself (not too much if you are weird), be spontaneous, share your mistakes, your learning curve, your journey with you fans. Be the star you want to be, whether you are famous or not. Your honesty can create wonders and many genuine followers who actually admire you for who you are!

Picture Credits : https://brolly.com.au/gov-news/social-media-influences-are-everywhere-these-days-including-government/

Ghosted? Cushioned? Benched? The Millennial Relationship Checklist !

Being in our thirties, my husband and me have had been through 'taken for granted', being cushioned, being played out in our twenties in past relationships. Sometimes over a drink, when we have a chat about our past, I always wonder why didn’t we end up together few years before. We had to go through the rough patches, to tough stretches to maybe value each other more. We are grateful to god, good karma, and thanks to many other idiots, we are together today. But then you see people taken for granted, being played out… where you wish, so wish that you could blurt it out loud and say ‘honey you are being used, get out of that relationship’ but you cant. Because they themselves have to realise it, see it on their own and call it off.

What are these signs? It definitely may differ from person to person and from what you expect out of a relationship, but some are common for us all. 

1.        Cushion, cushioned, cushioning !

''Nothing is sexier than a man or woman who can face temptation and have the level of maturity to say ‘this isn’t worth losing what I have’’

Cushioning is doing exactly opposite. Cushioning is having many side kicks to keep you comfy and cushy. They have layers of cushions, someone to message on social media with, someone to chat with, someone to talk on the phone with, someone to be intimate with… the list can go on. Some people cushion early in a relationship, when things are still uncertain, but the worst cases happen when someone can do it when they are in a serious relationship.

2.       Bread-crumbing !

I’m sure we all have come across being breadcrumbs at some point. Flirty, fun, casual texts and social media reactions to give you a subtle hint that they might be interested in you but doesn’t take it forward, and some might have a perfect couple picture on social media. So yes, if someone is breadcrumbing you, just bring it openly to the table. There might be a hidden partner who knows nothing about these flirty bombs that he drops.

You should not be a crumb, or dessert, you deserve to be the whole bloody 5 course meal. Move out, if you feel any less than that, believe me it’s not worth it.

3.       Benching

This is what a cushioner would do to you. You are reserved as a girlfriend, or boyfriend. But there is no progress. Many years of dating, but no clear commitment to marry you. If they want to wait till their other sibling gets married to introduce you to their parents, trust me, there’s something wrong. They love attention, flirting, texts and likes on their Facebook profile picture but you are definitely not number one in their lives. Maybe you were at one point, but right now they have so many options altogether but keeping you as a safety net.

Stand up from the damn bench, its time to wake up.

4.       Ghosting or The Slow Fade

Many know what ghosting is, it is completely cutting communication suddenly without any warning. The Slow Fade is cutting it out slowly, giving so many excuses, less meet ups, less and less interest, minimal communication. “I’m so busy at work’’ ‘'I worked late today, came home late’’ it can be even something super simple like this.

If you feel that you are being a victim, address the white elephant. Don’t wait.  

There’s no hard and fast rule, but if your heart says there’s something wrong probably there is. If you feel that he or she might be cheating on you or your friend, the odds are that they are. If you want to have a long phone call every day, say it, if you want to go on a romantic date every week, do it. If you want them to acknowledge you on social media, accept you as their fiancé in public, post it. If you feel that there are intimacy issues, address it even seek help of a counselor. Don’t blindly be in a relationship, open your eyes, open your heart, because you deserve to be respected, recognized and valued.  

Life is way too short to be in an unhappy relationship.