Hi,
Welcome to this another episode of healing through stories.
I am your storyteller Anup from India.
Every week I try to bring a new story which will awaken our senses and hopefully will put us to sleep.
Remember those good old days when our mother or our dad or maybe an elder sister or brother would tell us a story and we would sleep like little babies.
This is same kind of mindfulness but each of these stories are original stories which I try to pen every week and has a certain theme to it.
Each of these themes reflect upon the times that we are living in.
It will help us answer certain questions we are confused about.
The first episode of this series was about dreams.
In case you have missed that episode you can check that out.
But tonight we are going to be talking about something beautiful.
Obviously through a story.
And the theme that I have chosen for all of us tonight is inner beauty.
A lot of times a lot of people tell us that it is the inner beauty that matters.
But nobody really tell us how to experience that inner beauty.
In today's mindfulness meets storytelling session we would try to experience inner beauty through a story which we would all try to imagine in our heads.
We will try to imagine a story playing out.
We will try to imagine the characters,
The location,
The props.
We can also choose to have known people in the story.
You can have a star cast that you would like.
You can be the protagonist yourself.
Or you can choose a totally unknown face if you would like in that way.
And in case you like this experience then you can leave some comments for me to read later.
And you can follow me obviously.
Whatever donations we end up raising through this session it will go into building a rural library in India.
And I shall share updates about this library pretty soon.
So it's time to close our eyes.
It's time to go to bed.
It's time for another story.
But before I begin I would invite all of you to relax your body.
Just let it breathe a little.
Take a couple of moments and try to clear your head from your everyday struggles.
Just lie down in a comfortable position.
Breathe in deeply and breathe out with a sigh.
Breathe out.
To meet the inner beauty within you,
You have to deep dive.
You have to travel within.
You have to forget the surroundings that you are in.
Maybe you are in a palatial room filled with all the comforts of the world.
Maybe you have to forget that for a bit.
Maybe you are lying down under the sky under the stars.
You have to forget that as well.
You have to tune in to this channel called Inner Self.
And experience your inner beauty which will probably going to come as a calm moment or as a sensation which may or may not be pleasant.
But please remember how ever you meet yourself during the story telling tonight.
Please don't judge yourself.
Don't question the reality that you are going to experience tonight.
You just going to go with the flow and meet our inner beauty.
After a little pause I shall begin with the story.
The destined meeting place,
Unknowingly she came near a lake.
It was a quiet lake.
There were no tides in it.
There were no ripples in the lake.
It was as quiet,
As pristine,
As turquoise as a lake can be.
The lake reflected the calmness that one usually seeks.
But her appearance near a lake,
It seemed like it truly happened by chance.
But nothing truly happens by chance.
What seems to be a chance happening are only appearances.
Because she believes that she has stumbled upon this lake.
But she has arrived at the lake with a purpose which she is going to realize very soon.
Her road leads her up into a highland world where the air is soft and delicate.
As she breathes in,
She can breathe in the calmness of the lake and her surroundings.
This place feels surreal.
Everything seems almost perfect.
There were high mounted peaks.
There were emerald woods and a turquoise lake.
Almost a wallpaper she always wanted.
But as she was lost in the beauty and serenity of her surroundings,
Her eyes fell on something strange.
She started wondering,
What's that white thing overshadowing the beauty of the place?
A white crane stands motionless.
A gigantic beautiful bird,
A white crane gets her attention.
It is known to be the prettiest crane around in the universe.
There was no crane prettier than this crane.
And it showed in her attitude the way she was standing.
There was an aura around her.
There was this air around her.
Some say it is the prettiest moving thing alive.
She gets curious.
She wants to check it from close up.
She went up close to her.
She checks out the crown,
The nape,
The wing,
The chin,
The belly,
The thigh.
Everything looks so spotless.
It's almost as if each part of her body is made by some magical power up there.
And as luck would have it,
Her eyes fell on her own reflection in the water.
She sees her own chiseled face,
Her own pretty face which looks so well defined.
Of course,
Her own face is the prettiest.
The motionless crane does not stand a chance.
Those who believe the crane is the prettiest thing in the world haven't really seen the princess.
The princess now believes she is the prettiest.
And in fact,
She has an evidence about it.
She saw her own reflection with that of the crane.
And that gave her the confidence that I am prettier than the prettiest crane.
So I must be the prettiest.
She looks down at the crane and moves on.
Suddenly her walk has a certain arrogance to it.
After all,
As the prettiest,
She deserved to have a certain spunk in her stride which she did.
And she bounced in the love,
In the self-love rather,
In the direction of self-love.
As she moves on,
She stumbles upon a moaning dove,
Moaning with a sense of low self-esteem.
Dove always thought it was the ugliest of all creatures.
But you know what they say?
They say the beauty lies in the eyes of beholder.
The dove was ignorant of its own beauty.
The princess's world was shattered when she saw her reflection next to the dove.
She realized she wasn't the prettiest.
She checked once,
She checked twice,
She checked thrice,
Four times.
She wasn't the prettiest.
She wanted to admire the dove much more closely now.
Dove was shying away in self-pity,
But she was attracted to the dove's humility.
The dove was overwrought by her arrogance and that's the moment she met her true self,
Her own reflection.
Unlike her,
Her reflection wasn't the prettiest,
But it was pretty for sure.
This place was destined for her to come face to face with her pretty self.
As she met her true self,
Her inner beauty,
She shed her condescension,
She shed her arrogance,
And she shed her prettiest tag.
And her pretty reflection became a new reality.
From now on,
She is not the prettiest.
She was just plain,
Simple,
Pretty.
Thank you for listening and thank you for your patience.
Tonight we are going to have three affirmations.
Affirmation number one,
I am going to shed my arrogance.
Affirmation number two,
I am going to shed my prettiest tag.
And affirmation number three,
I am going to shed my condescension.
And as we shed these three things,
We are going to meet our true self,
Our inner beauty.
Because we are beautiful when we stop comparing ourselves to the others.
Breathe in,
Breathe out.
Take a deep breath in and sigh it out.
Meet your inner dove which is mourning itself with you.
Tell that dove that it is pretty.
Meet your inner crane which is filled with lot of arrogance for being the prettiest.
And tell that crane that it is pretty and doesn't have to compare itself to anybody else.
Meet your inner beauty without compadables,
Without judgements.
Keep your eyes closed and have a nice peaceful sleep.
Breathe in and breathe out.
Breathe out.
