To view this newsletter in the browser, click here                 Issue #152       A newsletter from Creativegarh to help you live a life of passion, purpose and meaning.         Not everything can be changed or has to change.                     You wake up one morning inspired to change your life in one sweeping motion. You evict all the demons out of your home, you shove everything and everyone who doesn’t serve you anymore out of the door and then you cleanse your home and your heart with sage and make place for a brand new life. You invite new friends to your tea party and you bring out your best chinaware. You change your wardrobe, your family portraits, your upholstery, your cleaning lady, your lamp shades, your friends list and eventually who you are.           The next morning, as you clean the dirty dishes of your new life, you feel a sense of desolation and malaise, a heaviness of life’s wrong decisions sits in the pit of your stomach, your heart beats faster than the speed at which you had made a to-do list to bring in a new life.           You sit on your new upholstered chair sipping from a glass of gloom. Something just doesn’t sit right in this new life. While everything seems new and inviting, it misses the familiarity – the everyday conflict at home, the chaos of words, emotions and pent-up frustration all spilling over a worn-out carpet and then being shoved under it by the busyness of life.           Familiarity is our safe space. It’s the known demon. It’s the only way we know and it is the only way we feel safe. It’s the place where everything and everyone is surviving and any hushed whisper of thriving is nipped in the bud.           But an awareness of familiarity followed by conscious decisions can change everything.           As you make repeated attempts to change your life, you will realise that some things just don’t change or even have to. Some family members will stay bitter and with malice, some beliefs you just can’t switch and some fears are just unexplainable yet so very real that you can only accept them.           And the things that you can’t change despite your efforts are sometimes meant to stay in your life and you need to embrace them as gifts. When you wake up tomorrow morning, tell yourself that you cannot control the world on the outside but you can, on the inside.           You cannot control the people and the situations but you can control your response to them. You can’t control what’s in their heart but you can control what you allow into yours – it could be the aggressive rebuke of a mother that triggers you, or could be a projection of someone who feels unloved by herself and allows you to show up with compassion and thus discover this gift within you. Is the family conditioning of a patriarchal home a generational trauma or something that gives someone an identity which you do not have to take away from them? Sometimes, fear is the only tool someone uses to find their own power. Allow them their power and reason to live as you find your power by being in a state of calm while winning big battles and losing some small ones.           Not everything has to be changed. Sometimes a perspective is everything that needs to change. And that changes everything within you and in the world outside of you.                 Are you addicted to healing?                     Are you keeping your life in a perpetual loop of trying to recover from something after something and someone after someone?           Are you one of those who are addicted to healing? Of signing up for one retreat then another, moving from chamomile tea to matcha, from breathwork to ancestral healing, from this kriya to that kriya, from filling up a forgiveness journal and a gratitude journal and now looking for a new practice?           Are you keeping your life in a perpetual loop of trying to recover from something after something and someone after someone?           Maybe the healing journey is your mask for a spiritual journey and while hiding behind that mask, you still keep repeating the same patterns yet telling a different narrative that you are ‘working on yourself’ while what you are really doing is giving your ego another identity to create and strengthen.           All the self-books you read, all the journals you write, all the green teas on the supermarket shelf you try, all the meditations you sit through, all the gurus you follow, all the spiritual texts you read, all the podcasts of godmen you listen to just don’t work if you don’t work them.           A podcast doesn’t save a relationship, a cup of green tea doesn’t make you slimmer, a meditation app doesn’t make you a loving person and writing an affirmation doesn’t get you a customised Lamborghini parked outside your Venetian villa.           All this helps. If you go deeper and see how this changes you and how much you are willing to change. Knowing what happens in your mind and your being with all this wisdom is what makes a difference.           Do you notice yourself more when you operate from ego? Do you notice that point when anger comes? Do you notice the emotion that comes up when you come to know that you’re not invited to the wedding? Do you observe how your heart races when you are asked to speak in front of strangers? Are you aware of your feelings when someone else gets more likes on social media? Do you see yourself react when your bullshit is called out? When you are at your angriest worst hurling abuses and furniture, do you witness yourself like a fly on the wall?           What do you do then? Sign up for another retreat? Speed dial your life coach, open a meditation app or listen to a life-changing podcast?           When someone is drowning, do you pull them back into the boat or do you ask them to sign up for a swimming retreat in the Himalayas run by a world-class teacher?           When you are drowning in the ocean of life, come back to the boat and sit with yourself.           All spiritual learning and wisdom comes down to that one moment in time when you are not in a state of sambhaav – equanimity and santulan – balance.           It all comes down to the next breath that you can take consciously. It’s about knowing your feelings and observing your mind in that very moment while operating from the heart.           Sit with yourself. Physically sit. With. Yourself.           Feel what you are feeling fully.           Speak with the emotions.           Notice the patterns.           And then respond differently. From your heart.           Every time.           Again and again.           And then, dig into the learnings from all the retreats, gurus, scriptures, podcasts and books and integrate them into your life.           No, it’s not perpetual healing you need but an integration of every piece of awareness you have about yourself. The universe didn’t create you just to heal and feel good. You’re not here just to put yourself back together. You’re here to experience awe, to love fiercely, to create beauty, to rest in being.           You’re here not to do everything you can to feel better. You are here to do everything you can to get better at feeling.           Nothing is broken in you. Nothing needs to be healed. It just needs to be integrated. So you can realise that you are a divine being. And you don’t need another retreat, life coach or a morning post to tell you that.             Our upcoming retreats                         Kolhapur Last 4 Seats Left 10th to 16th August     Escape the city's clamor, reconnect with your inner light. Indulge in a life changing retreat, experiencing the discovery of your true self, within the arms of nature.   More details     Reignite conversation     Kasauli Sold Out 31st August to 6th September     The stunning vistas and holistic experiences at Kasauli create the perfect space for self-discovery and ensure this retreat is a transformative and unforgettable experience.   More details         Udaipur Last 8 Seats Left 29th October to 4th November     Discover joy at a 400-year-old fort nestled in the peaceful hills of Bambora. For souls in search of a purpose, it provides a perfect space to just be.   More details     Reignite conversation           This week, let's revisit     Kasauli March 2023                         Experience a life full of purpose                     The purpose of my life is to create a sensory experience by curating food.   Smita Roy Sakleshpur August, 2022         My purpose in life is to create & amplify infinite impact through the power of storytelling.   Raagul Ram Nainital May, 2022               For a daily dose of Creativegarh and our retreats, follow us here:                           Mantra Gold Coatings & The White Paper Creative         Sunita Somani         Pedal On               View Our Collabs for Joy                   creativegarh.com             You are receiving this newsletter because either you have subscribed to it through our website, interacted with us by filling an invite form or because you have asked us to put you on the database. 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