Coffee With Rajendra - A Conversational Psychotherapy Experience

Love is a game of diplomacy, where every move is carefully evaluated with scepticism. Nowhere is one judged more than in love. To be able to stay resilient in the game through thick and thin, central to the game is one's skill to be able to keep oneself at an elevated position of internal fullness derived from self-love. To be able to securely love ourselves and others, and to look past our conceptions of self-hatred and lack of faith in our own species, we seek the assurance of our lovability through the love of someone who chooses to be kind to us despite our flaws. Such kindness can either be received from someone who isn't yet aware of our flaws: a stranger who gifts us a bar of chocolate for no apparent interest, a dog who always cuddles us the same and gives us a sense of a timeless connection, or, far more assuringly, from someone who is very intimate to us and aware of all our evils, yet, surprisingly, is not disgusted with us. Bitterness and hatred, at some point, resu...

Nothing brings us closer to life than a contemplation of death, or perhaps a close brush with death - a near-miss maybe. It's only when we recognise the quintessential nature of human life that we get closer to the realisation of our purpose and gather the courage to follow our conscience without petty worries. Death doesn't have to be a fear-inducing thought, it can rather be a dark source of panacea for our deepest anxieties. We are spared from the torments of petty anxieties when we accept that we, and everyone else we know, are probably just minutes away from being struck by death; that nothing is permanent, and that all the worries we carry the load of are worth nothing - in the end, they won't even matter. Part of me has always felt some guilty pleasure at the news of suicide by popular actors and students from top colleges - for I saw such acts as a message to people that "follow your conscience, life is too short to live with regrets and suppressions" - I ...