Tag Archives: Musings

Massages and reflexology: Painful, but oh, so worth it!

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Wearing heels almost the whole day means that at the end of the day, you have aching feet!

I started doing foot reflexology on a whim some time last year when I used to take GG to ballet. I used to have an hour to kill and in the mall next to her class, I chanced upon this chain which did foot reflexology and massages. I did foot reflexology a couple of times and was hooked – I paid up for a package and since then have been enjoying it on and off!

After GG stopped ballet, I also stopped going to the shop, till one day a couple of months back, my foot was paining so badly, I decided to see if there was a store nearby which does this – I lucked out and found the same chain close to my workplace and since then almost once a week (sometimes twice a week), either after work or during my lunch hour, I go and get either a foot massage or a shoulder massage.

So what is foot reflexology? I am not sure if this form of alternative medicine is popular out of Southeast Asia, but here, you see them everywhere! Foot Reflexology involves application of pressure to the feet with specific thumb, finger and hand techniques with the oil of a lotion. This technique claim that various areas of the feet correspond to the different organs in the body and by pressing and kneading these points in the feet, remove blockages in the different parts of the body.

The massages for the back and neck do not involve lotions, but only kneading, pressing and massaging on your neck/back using a towel as a shield. These also tend to be quite painful, but given that pretty much everyone is on a computer at work, muscles become rather stiff. I try to do a neck massage once a week to remove the kincks in my shoulder

The masseuse, even the old aunty-type masseuses have such strong hands, that at times it’s even painful, but oh, so good once it’s done…

While having my massages, I have the most random thoughts. Here are some of them….

Yesterday while having a shoulder massage, I was wondering if I should write a book set in Southeast Asia, where the murderer is this old auntyish lady who is a masseuse and who murders people who have wronged her by giving them massages so strong that it triggers some parts of their body to malfunctions and so some hours later they die and the police and detectives are baffled at these murders and no one comes close to finding it out until this old sinseh (a traditional Chinese medicine practitioner) figures it all out! Now that the plot is here, if anyone writes the book, you know where to find me to send me the share of the royalty 🙂

Another time, I felt I was having an out-of-body experience, something akin to floating around till I came crashing down when the massage ended 😦

Dreams – A foretelling of Reality?

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This post has been lying in my drafts for a while now. I actually had this dream a few weeks backs and it was so vivid that I actually woke up disoriented. I normally don’t have dreams – or I am one of those who don’t remember their dreams at all or if I remember, it will be extremely fuzzy!

I started using lavender aroma oil around a month back to see if it helps us sleep well – now I am not 100% sure if this dream was a result of the oil being diffused in the room or was it something deep from my subconscious or is it really a foretelling of the future! The dream was so compelling and vivid, that it made me pen it down as soon as I woke up. Below is exactly what I remembered around 5 am the morning after the dream.

In the first part, I dreamt that I was going to the mall to colour my hair around 11 pm. I remember calling my husband to check if he had come back home so he can open the door for me and I don’t have to disturb my helper.

The next thing I remember I am at a Feng Shui practitioner’s office. It’s funny that I even remember the people in the office – the head was a Caucasian with a red face and a white beard.

And then there was this pretty Chinese lady with heavy makeup, especially around the eyes who came to talk to me. I was with a bunch of people and we came to discuss some fengshui for a business of ours. But this lady started talking about me. The discussion was about how much potential I have to become very successful in life and then she asked me my age. When I told her, she said something I could not catch.

Something about the next few years being very good for my career and how I was going to be very successful. She then spoke of some package I should take to ensure this. And even in a dream, I am ever so practical…I said I need to consult my husband and that was the end of that discussion.

Next me plus that bunch of people are in a car somewhere in Sentosa (don’t ask how I know I was in Sentosa which is an island off the coast of Singapore and is used as a large theme park). We are driving to meet another Fengshui consultant – a person related to the one we just saw. Something to do about picking up something.

I still haven’t gone home and have this feeling I should call my husband. Then I see this really gorgeous sunrise – streaks of pinks, golds and lavenders with black birds against it in stark contrast.

I tell the others in the car to see it and start to take a picture saying “My crappy phone will never do justice to this sunrise”. The driver stops the car for a picture and at this point my alarm rang and I woke up. Actually I shut off the alarm to try and sleep more so I could end the dream, but could not do that.

Wonder what this dream meant? Indians believe that morning dreams are a forecast of what will happen and that they come true. I wonder what is my subconscious trying to tell me? I tried analysing this dream using the online dream interpretation sites, but nothing really tells me what the entire dream means. I could only find out what sunrise (new beginnings, fulfillment of goals, new adventure in personal life) and fengshui (search for spiritual balance, positivity) means, but together what do they mean? Any ideas?

Friends: Someone with whom you can dare to be Yourself!

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Everyone has friends, these are the people you choose to have in your lives – for better or worse. You meet people, strike conversations and suddenly there’s that zing which comes because you click so well with each other and a friendship is born! You can go days and even years where you don’t speak to each other, but can pick up almost instantly when you meet next.

Social media has a allowed a lot of people to reconnect with old friends. When I moved to Singapore, I completely disconnected with most of my friends. This was pre-social media days and so we used to exchange emails thats all. But with Facebook and now Whatsapp, friendships which were last seen a very very long time ago has been revived! I now regularly communicate with school friends, most whom I have not seen since the day we collected our school leaving exam results. Yesterday, I reconnected with my MBA friends, again whom I have not seen of or heard in ages!

We also make friends where we work in, but are these friendships true? Yes, sometimes, there are people with whom you have that connection and you go on to remain friends for the rest of your life and I have such friends too. But most of ‘work friendships’ are friendships which are ‘convenient friendships’. You are friends with someone at work because it is helpful to you. Do these friendships sustain themselves outside of work?

I have such friends too A friends I could talk about pretty anything in the sun and she would be my sounding board – it was like being with a therapist and counsellor together. Her answers would be unbiased and with an outsiders view and I suddenly got insights that I never had thought of. Or if I wanted to vent about work, she was there with her two cents worth, which would make me see the issue from another angle. But, and a big but, we didn’t socialise outside of work. After we both left the organisation (she first and then me after about a year), we have met for the grand total of…..Once!! We still text each other once a while – think birthdays and festivals and keep talking of meeting up, but that never happens.

Slowly I realised that office friendships don’t really work. People in most workplaces want to be friends with you for a reason – once that reason is over, they tend to ignore you and you keep wondering what went wrong, or they continue to talk to you, just to get information from you which will benefit them.

Now I may sound cynical, but this has been a long drawn-out lesson in the world! I am pretty naive like that – I like to see the goodness of people and prefer not to think that people have ulterior motives, but then that is the truth in today’s world.

It’s taken me this long to realise this – have a small number of true friends – friends you can share anything with – and not be judged rather than having a large number of acquaintances.

But if you have a true friend, cherish them and keep them close to your heart, as in the words of Mastercard – true friends are PRICELESS!

Random Musings

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For a while now, I have been drawn to this shloka from the Mahabharat. What it means is that “You have the right to perform your actions, but you are not entitled to the fruits of the actions. Do not let the fruit be the purpose of your actions, and therefore you won’t be attached to not doing your duty”. So basically what it says is that a person should do what is it that they are supposed to be doing, but with no expectations from their deeds.

I am so drawn to this that I actually printed it out, along with the meaning in English and pasted it in my workspace – so that I am reminded of this every single minute and just do the work I am supposed to be doing, with no expectations. So no expecatations = no disappointments right?

Esotericism: Mystical or Mundane?

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“Moonlight floods the whole sky from horizon to horizon;

How much it can fill your room depends on its windows”

                                                                                Rumi

I’ve always been fascinated by the esoteric, especially the esoteric sciences, be it astrology, palmistry, alternative healing therapies like Reiki or the world of mediums, mystics and spirituality. It’s quite strange actually, since I am also the sort of person who needs to see evidence in front of her to actually believe in all this. But that’s me, eclectic and eccentric, I guess!

What are Esoteric Sciences? According to Wikipedia,  there are different definitions of this term, but what I would go with is “It is the sum total of the different parts of this universe – both visible and invisible, earthly and divine” Esotericism is the metaphysical point of unity where exoteric religions are believed to converge.

Whatever the definition, I am fascinated and intrigued by them. In my younger days, when I had more time, I would go for courses which delved into the unknown – courses like Reiki, Sudarshan Kriya and a Zoroastrian one which I can’t remember the name of. I also dabbled in Palmistry and have had some successes there, though I would say more intuition rather than skill was employed. Tarot is something else I have tried to do, using playing cards though, but can’t say I was very successful. Another thing my friends and me have played at is Planchet, but did we really invite the other-world beings is anyone’s guess!

Now, that I don’t have the time to dabble in anything and refuse to read palms of my loved ones, my fascination for this subject is restricted to what I read – both online and offline.

I also believe in astrology and will probably do more posts on that, Palmistry and perhaps Reiki over the next few weeks. I’ll update this post to add links to those posts when I do that.