- The holi we left behind
Growing up, Holi wasn’t just a festival. It was a feeling.
It was my dad twirling to old Bollywood songs, his laughter rising above the music. It was my Nanaji’s special thandai, the secret ingredient always being love. It was my cousins, hands stained pink and green, filling tubs of water balloons with a mischievous glint in their eyes.
The air smelled of gulaal, gujias, and kanji badas—the fragrance of celebration, of home, of childhood wrapped in flavors and colors.
Later, in the hostel, Holi was chaotic, loud, and beautiful. The whole campus coming alive, strangers smearing color on each other, boundaries dissolving for a day. It felt like freedom, like belonging.
And then… Holi lost its charm.
Life happened. Responsibilities happened. Disconnection crept in quietly, like a slow leak, until one day, I woke up and realized I had been running on empty for years.
My partner wasn’t fond of celebrating, and as someone who wasn’t overly social, I felt the loneliness creep in. At first, I showed up for my kids—splashes of color, short visits, a half-hearted attempt at joy. But as they grew up, I stopped even that.
The music still played. The colors still flew. But my hands stayed clean.
It wasn’t just Holi.
I stopped dancing in the rain. I stopped calling old friends. I stopped singing loudly in the car. I stopped laughing until my stomach hurt. I stopped choosing joy in ways that once came naturally to me.
I had become someone who watched life from the sidelines.
At first, I thought this was just adulthood—this quiet surrender, this slow fading. But when I looked deeper, I saw the truth: I had spent years carrying silent grief for the things I never allowed myself to feel.
🌿 Healing showed me that loss doesn’t just live in the big moments. It hides in the small ways we abandon ourselves daily.
In suppressing our desires so we don’t disappoint others.
In avoiding joy because it feels selfish to take up space.
In choosing survival over truly living.
I remember a Holi, years ago, when I stood on my balcony, watching the colors explode in the sky. My heart ached to go down, to feel the chaos, to be drenched in color like I once was. But I didn’t move. I had learned to silence that pull, to convince myself it didn’t matter.
That was the moment I realized—joy had started feeling like something I needed permission for.
Healing wasn’t instant. It wasn’t about just stepping outside for Holi one day. It was a process of choosing myself, over and over again.
✨ Learning to set boundaries.
✨ Learning to release the guilt that wasn’t mine to carry.
✨ Learning to reconnect with the parts of me I had buried.
And today, as Holi songs blare outside, I sit on my bed, typing this note—thinking of all the fun things we stopped doing because we grew up. Because life happened. Because somewhere along the way, joy became something to be earned, not embraced.
At first, I almost let the moment pass.
I almost tell myself, Maybe next year.
But something inside me rebels. Against the silence. Against the absence. Against the version of me who chose to sit things out.
And before I can talk myself out of it, my feet touch the ground.
As I step outside, the scent of gulaal and the beats of dhol wrap around me like a long-lost friend. Someone smears color on my cheek, and for the first time in years, I don’t resist.
And just like that… I come back to life.
🌿 If you’ve lost parts of yourself along the way, healing is the journey back home.
If joy feels distant, if life has become just a series of responsibilities, you don’t have to stay stuck. You don’t have to keep waiting for the right moment to return to yourself
Healing is not about rewriting the past—it’s about reclaiming yourself in the present. It’s about stepping back into the spaces you once abandoned, not with regret, but with love.
And if you’re ready, I would be honored to walk this path with you.
- the never ending chase for more
It started with a podcast. A quick listen while doing the dishes, something to make the mundane feel productive. Then another on my commute. Then one while folding laundry. Then one before bed.
Because why waste time when I could be learning? Improving. Becoming better.
At first, it felt good. Like I was ahead of the curve. Everyone else was watching TV or scrolling aimlessly while I was feeding my mind, upgrading myself. A book summary here, a masterclass there, the latest neuroscience hack to optimize my mornings.
Productivity was power, right?
Except, somewhere along the way, it stopped being about learning and started being about not stopping.
The silence was unbearable.
I wasn’t listening to podcasts because I loved knowledge. I was listening because the moment the noise stopped, something inside me stirred—something I didn’t want to hear.
The chase for self-improvement had started much earlier, long before I ever put in my AirPods.
It started when I first realized that being good wasn’t enough. That love came with conditions. That being smart, obedient, or hardworking got me approval, and that approval felt like safety. So I kept running. From grades to achievements, from promotions to personal growth.
Because deep down, if I wasn’t improving, if I wasn’t getting better, then who was I?
What was I worth?
The thing about chasing self-improvement is that the world loves to reward it.
“You’re so disciplined.”
“Wow, you’re always learning!”
“You’re such a go-getter!”
No one tells you to slow down. No one asks if you even like the person you’re becoming.
I had turned myself into a machine—constantly absorbing, optimizing, leveling up—because stopping meant facing myself. Facing the voice that whispered: You’re still not enough. There’s more to fix.
So I fed it.
Another book. Another strategy. Another expert’s voice in my ear.
Because silence meant sitting with what I had spent years avoiding: the deep fear of my own inadequacy.
And the truth? Even after all that learning, all that improvement, nothing ever felt enough. Because the more I consumed, the more I believed I was lacking.
The hardest part wasn’t realizing I was exhausted.
It was realizing that I didn’t know how to just be.
I didn’t know how to walk without listening to something.
I didn’t know how to sit in a room without reaching for my phone.
I didn’t know how to exist without doing.
Because for years, I had mistaken self-improvement for self-worth.
At some point, I had to ask myself: What happens if I stop?
If I stop chasing the next upgrade?
If I let silence settle?
If I stop looking for answers outside of myself?
The truth? It was terrifying. But it was also the first step toward real healing.
Because healing isn’t another thing to optimize. It isn’t another course to complete or another habit to track.
Healing is about learning to sit in the discomfort of who we already are—without trying to fix it.
I started small.
I set timers on my apps.
I restricted my phone usage.
I gently nudged myself to focus on what I was running from.
And in that space, I noticed something else.
The addiction didn’t stop at podcasts. It was in the way I reached for chocolate when I felt restless. The way I mindlessly scrolled when I felt overwhelmed. The way I filled my calendar just to avoid feeling empty.
Addiction isn’t always destructive. Sometimes, it looks harmless. Sometimes, it looks like self-improvement.
The real work? It wasn’t in learning more. It was in pausing. It was in asking: What am I trying to escape?
If you’ve been chasing the next thing, filling the silence, trying to outrun that gnawing sense of insufficiency, I see you.
And if you’re ready, I can help you slow down and finally listen to yourself.
Let’s explore the void you’ve been trying to fill, not by running from it, but by understanding it.
Because real transformation isn’t about adding more.
It’s about finally making peace with who you are underneath it all.