This week's column is pretty self-explanatory through its title ;)
I've posted the entire column below! PS: Everytime I say I was going to change my profile picture to something less Colgate-ish, I forget. Good Lord. Love In Three Decades By Amal Ghazali It is my birthday month. This year is a huge numerical milestone for me, and as soon as that sunk in I had an immediate panic attack. Already? Where have the years gone? Why don’t I feel wise at all? Should I smile less to make sure I don’t have wrinkles? And most importantly, what have I learned? Well, we could go on all day on the subject of lessons, but this time I am compelled to specifically discuss the lessons on love and relationships, a summary of what the past decade has taught me. I began my third decade like any average twenty year-old. I was from an all-girls boarding school and so college was a culture shock – look at those boys! I had no idea what I was doing, what I wanted or what it was all for. All I knew was that dates got me free food, free movie tickets (chivalry was not dead yet) and free adoration. When you have a minimal sense of who you are as a person and what you want in life, be sure to expect your relationships to be doomed into oblivion as well. Ten Years’ Worth of Lessons Over the years life occurred in a way that completely shifted and changed me from that unsure, indecisive and hormonal twenty year old into someone else. Recently I was in a car with a friend, talking about life and relationships. Suddenly, she turned to me and said, “You know, you sound so different than how you used to think five years ago.” But of course. Life inflicts gradual changes in you through experiences, and there is no denying that the past ten years have been nothing short of a great series of lessons for me. That boring date I had with the most boring guy on earth taught me a thing or two about chemistry. That night I went for a swim in the sea with friends at 3 a.m., ending at the hospital emergency room 2 hours later, taught me the difference between fun and stupidity (surprise! Sorry Mom). That time I was in love, and then out of love, taught me a truth about men – that like me, they too are flawed but trying their best. Forgiveness is imperative in love. But through loving and being around others, perhaps the biggest lesson I have learned is about loving myself. This sounds like some hokey pokey Hallmark greeting card material, but it’s true. Is it worth changing yourself for others? If so, to what extent? I have realised that there are things I could never do or a version I could never become, just for the sake of not wanting to be alone. I understood when it’s time to let go, or when it’s time to be brave so that someday, I will never have any regrets. I learned that in the end, people will always judge you on how you conduct your life, so it is pointless to make decisions driven by the anxiety of worrying what others will think about you. Ten years ago I was also doing it wrong in so many ways. I believed that physical beauty is the only key to guarantee consistent affection, so I concentrated more on that and less on other types of personal development. I certainly don’t think so any more. Granted, looks can attract people, but it certainly won’t keep them around for the right reasons. If that beauty is all you have to offer to make people love you, then you should be really, really concerned. Age, A Blessing In Disguise There is always this association to fear when it comes to ageing. There is the fear of losing youth, of having less time to take that Eurotrip we always wanted to do but never did, and of never quite achieving the dreamy milestones we had for ourselves when we first started adulthood. But the truth is, growing up is a beautiful, beautiful thing. There is a mass difference between the wisdom you know now and what little you knew then. Most of us are much happier in our bodies today than we were ten years ago. We now know what works and what doesn’t (exhibit A: my denim overalls from 2007). We’re not naïve anymore, which allows us to make better choices in friends, decisions and partners. Our self-worth is better, the need to live a fulfilling life based on our terms more important than say, worrying what others think. And finally, growing up would teach us the most important thing about love – that is wherever we are, whoever we are with at whatever point in our lives, we need to take care of our own selves first instead of relying on others. No one in this world can do a better job at loving us than ourselves. This week on 'Amal Muses', I discuss the pressures of being skinny (you know it happens to almost every red-blooded gal). You can read the whole column below! PS: I should really think twice about publishing a pasty, makeup-less picture of myself in the papers next time LOL AMAL MUSES: The Thin Dream By Amal Ghazali Let’s face it. Every woman, at some point in their lives, wished they were thin or thinner than they already were. No matter how embracing you are of your own figure, there will be a time when you come across a poster of Megan Fox and begin to daydream about a day where your bum does not resemble a deflating beach ball. We live in a material world where physical appearance matters. And whether we like it or not, physical appearance in this context usually means a thinner, leaner and less pudgy you. I can’t speak for every woman, but I can certainly reflect on my own experiences as a young woman in an era of a specifically celebrated body type. Growing up most of my friends were females, and body image issues were often a theme in our discussions. Part of emerging into adulthood also meant blossoming physically, with hormones askew and pressures to idolise a media-approved figure skyrocketing. Today it is not any less daunting, as declining metabolism, motherhood and such becomes emerging limitations. It Started With A Boy, Of Course But of course it started with the appealing idea of gaining attention from a boy. I came from an all girls’ school, which meant high school years free of being body conscious for the sake of the opposite sex. My first glimpse of the underlying teenage esteem issues was when a girl I shared a dormitory with forced herself to throw up almost every night after dinner. She had a boyfriend at the time and the desired shape amongst her social circle was not curvy. Then I went to college and began to see boys - a lot of them too. With that came the sudden realisation of male adoration, and with that adoration came a consciousness to look worth adoring. As a student I lived with other girls from the same college, and thus began the antics of comparing ourselves with others, trying out fads and diets, introducing ourselves to various trendy exercise regimes and experimenting with commercial products apparently guaranteed to give you waistlines smaller than Malik Noor’s arm. I had a housemate who tried the Herbalife supplement, but the idea of replacing two meals a day for a liquid shake gave me shivers. I decided to opt for an Atkins diet instead, surviving for only three and a half days. Not eating any carbs made me feel so lethargic that I hallucinated about crawling towards the fridge in the middle of the night. A friend decided that perhaps weed could make you lose weight, but the concept did not seem sustainable (or legal). I had a stint of not eating rice at all, and let me tell you, asking a Malaysian girl to not eat rice is almost suicidal. And then as employment came in, so did the pay check that subtly urged us to shift our views towards purchasable aids to make us smaller. There was a stint of a new-age corset with some strange infra-red technology, promising to make you lose weight effortlessly just by putting them on. There were those magical ‘drinks’ that could allegedly burn fat from the inside, a vibrating machine that could apparently shake the calories out of you, and even expensive massages to tone your way into a Jessica Alba. The list is endless. I was either a witness or a participant of most of these things, and I began to realise that the circle was never ending. We were complaining about wanting to be thin when we were girls, and we are still doing that same exact thing twenty years later. It Is Normal To Want To Be Thin In general, a balanced body weight is of course a preliminary indicator of a healthy body. Aesthetically, the common culture would assess that the slimmer shape is more desirable. It makes me wince to say that, but that’s the truth of what you see on magazines and TV. Therefore, it makes a lot of sense why most of us yearn to have a thinner physique. But against these dreams is also the question of compromising our actual health. We take so-called mysterious ‘supplements’, put on strange devices and obsess over our bodies to the point that it tampers with our self-esteems. Ironically, our mental and physical state are declining as we attempt to appear thinner. What a bizarre contradiction. For those who didn't get the chance to read my column earlier in May (above), you can do so by going to the link below.
https://www.nst.com.my/lifestyle/heal/2017/05/239620/amal-muses-third-wheel Enjoy reading! Hi guys!
This week in 'Amal Muses' I talk about Yoga, but not just about back-bending, of course! No online publication for this one, but read below for the whole text. Enjoy! Bending Backwards in Competition By Amal Ghazali When it comes to Yoga, most of the stories you would hear is about how someone was going on a downward spiral emotionally and physically, and one day they came across a beacon of light that was Yoga, and now they meditate everyday and have achieved upmost bliss and Nirvana where they can quiet the mind and hear imaginary waterfalls somewhere in the distance, while standing upside down. This is not one of those stories. My relationship with Yoga began like this; there was a free class in my University, I went for it because I couldn’t afford a gym membership and was bored, kind of liked it, and the rest was history. Over the years I had an on/off relationship with Yoga. I am a mediocre student, which means what I lack in flexibility I make up with a lot of giggling during an otherwise quiet class, and I needed to be forced to push myself further. Recently I was intrigued to try out a slightly different type of Yoga class called Mysore Yoga. Historically, it is a type of Yoga practice originating from a place called Mysore, India. Symbolically, the name basically hints at what will happen to you the next day – sore all over. The Lesson Begins The class started at 7 a.m. which was as early as when I get up to go to work. The concept of the class was rather different than what I was used to. For two hours, I would be doing my poses alone, unlike the usual class where everyone follows what the instructor does. The point was that I would be doing Yoga according to my own pace, instead of being slowed down by other beginners or rushed up by more advanced students. My instructor’s name was Freda, a fine exotic-looking lady with lean muscles and ballerina limbs that made me feel like a soggy, over-boiled sausage just standing next to her. The first fifteen minutes were great. They were poses I was used to, and I began to feel slightly cocky with the fact that I could do them all rather easily. I checked myself out in the studio’s mirror, looking poised and firm in my Downward Dog pose. I glanced to my side and saw another girl turning her body into a round-shaped human ball, which was then rolled around by Freda. Wait. What? Am I expected to do that too? That looked… impossible. My initial confidence immediately simmered down. The next hour was a blur of muscle quivers and sweat dripping down my face. Freda seemed like a disguised, soft spoken angel who was determined to turn me into a human pretzel. Who knew I could put my legs there? Even my legs were surprised. Why was my right arm on my left side? Lord knows, but there I was. The minute I saw another girl do a strange pelvic twist, I got nervous. I was absolutely confident I could not pull that off. I saw Frieda walk slowly towards my direction. Please, God, not me. I began to wish that she was going to call some other girl to do it. Please don’t look at me. She looked right at me. “Alright Amal,” she said, her voice so soothing that I began to wonder if she was also a part-time shrink. “Next, do the Shashawasanapaka pose.” Or at least I think that was what she said. The names of these poses are extremely bizarre. The next day, I spent my Sunday on the couch with ice on my bum. It’s A Lot Like Life Sure, there are all those well-known obvious benefits of Yoga. It increases your muscle strength and tones them, which in turns protects them from easy injury. For some people, it even teaches them how to calm the nerves, and God knows we need that these days. But that Mysore class I went to also taught me something else. By the end of the session I found out that most of the other students were instructors themselves, which explained their much superior capabilities compared to mine. Although being amongst them made me push myself that much harder, it also brought into question the matter of comparing oneself to others. Like a lot of other things in life, we tend to sometimes look to the sides and become consumed with being at par with other people. Perhaps I was doing well by my own standards, but watching that other girl put her head under her legs gave me unnecessary pressure that perhaps what I was doing was not good enough. And so in Yoga, as well as in life, it is pointless to measure yourself against others, and you should always focus on improving yourself by your own personal standards. Annnndddd the second article for the column is here! As I’ve mentioned previously, I’ll be alternating between Relationships and Health. So this time, it’s a piece about the latter, though not any less fun. The feeling of seeing the words on print does not get old! This morning I got to work earlier to compete with the non-existent crowd lining up to buy the paper. Yes, if there is one thing this new job has taught me, it is that there is an actual store that sells newspapers just steps away from my office. Who knew??? Amazing. What a revelation. As usual, you can click on the link below to read it, or Google “Amal Ghazali NST” to check out my other work under this same column. http://www1.nst.com.my/news/2017/03/222986/gruelling-it-gwyneth I would also love to hear what you’d like to read about for my next possible articles! It could be anything from relationships to health to Megan Fox. Have fun reading! PS: I know, I know. That profile picture looks odd. I haven't had time to replace it with a new one! No, that’s not my new last name (although admittedly, it does sound pretty hip for a last name).
So happy to announce that I would be writing for New Straits Times! Blogging has always been such a blast. I love how I am able to be transparent and free to write about everything under the sun, and channelling good energy through words has always been such therapy. Writing a column for NST also brings the same joy, but it will be more specified – I will be discussing subjects under the flagship of Women's Relationships and Health, both of course shall be conveyed in a fun way that would hopefully be as entertaining as it is meaningful. I thought long and hard about what I should call the column. Eventually I narrowed it down to 3 options;
Eventually, I came about with ‘Amal Muses’. Why? A rather simple explanation – I am almost always musing over things. Simple and to the point. And so the first article came out and I am over the moon! I felt super proud and grateful to see it, kind of like when I first made a soufflé and it came out almost perfect. Or that time when I actually understood what my real estate agent was talking about when she was explaining loans. But better. If you don’t have the paper, you can always read them online. Just Google ‘Amal Muses’ and take the first link on the list. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I did writing them! |
Archives
October 2020
Categories
All
https:/
/www.bootsoverbooks.com/
|