2/12/26 - Warm by default, helping by giving an opportunity, woke up at 3am

Last night, before going to bed and after talking to chatgpt, I realized I’m actually already warm by default. In order to bring warmth back into the current contained version of myself, all I have to do is relax my jaw instead of clenching it all the time. That’s it. Once, I release my jaw, curiosity and warmth come on its own.

For a second, I was like do I stay contained/baddie forward and then do I just relax my jaw when I feel safe or want to give access? But that didn’t feel right too.

I have to stay relaxed by default, and then enter clench mode when needed. I think this was just a very hard concept for me to grasp until now because I’ve just never seen myself contained and warm at the same time.

I’ve always been warm, but it wasn’t contained. It was mixed with people pleasing, insecurity, proving, and performing. So part of my mind did always go back to that reference when I thought of a warm version of me.

Now, I kind of get it. Like Deepika Padukone or Toor Manpreet. They’re contained, baddies, but there’s a slight warmth to them that also feels inviting.
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Taking my melotonin gummy was a bad idea. I did fall asleep before 12pm, but woke up at 3am and then was just tossing until 5am. At that point, I just decided to get up because I was way too stimulated to go back to bed. Got to my mat, did some leg raises and then journaled.

Also, answered back a message I got yesterday which feels like a test. Someone I know messaged me asking if I could help her spread the word on her newsletter, and my mind immediately raced to things I can do just because I wanted to “feel useful”. And I’ve done this so much in the past, where someone asks for help, and I literally bend backward and overextend just to help them. It feels like tricky territory for me right now because yes, I want to help her but I need to figure out a way to stay grounded and value my time too. Just saying no is also not me behavior long term. I genuinely do like helping people, especially when I can. But overextending myself to prove I’m useful or prove that I do have the skills they think I do, that’s when I abandon myself and get into needing validation territory.

Also, the more visible I get, the more people will reach out to me for help. I can’t go leave everything and go help everyone. My ex boss probably gets tons of people messaging him. Especially since he’s one of the first people in his community that really broke out of the system, and if anything, in the punjabi culture, it’s even more known to give back and overextend. There’s also that conversation about wanting to bring the culture forward. I want south asians to grow at the core of my heart but again I need to figure out the balance of helping and anchoring with warmth. To some level, I feel like I kind of have to be okay with helping in a limited way. Some might even be hurt by it.

Maybe the answer to helping people is helping them in a way that feels like giving them an opportunity, a silver platter with a few ingredients. It’s up to them to figure out how they’re going to fill it. Not just giving them a silver platter with food on it because that’s what I’ve been doing until now. Someone just had to say they're hungry, and I’d give them my whole fridge just to prove to them that I do have food, leaving myself with nothing. It kind of hurts me that internally until now, I just never thought I was good enough and I was just constantly proving.

Anyways, I ended up making bagels. Things I was curious about - while I was doing my bagel dough, I didn’t realize how bad I was at kneading. My mom usually does it, so I thought it was easy. I had to change my inner dialogue and tell myself I could do anything. After a bit, I also just added more yogurt and was curious about what would happen. Was curious and just added cinnamon on one of the bagels too, which I later realized should have been cinnamon and sugar.

Then I ended up emptying the dishwasher, washing the dishes, eating breakfast, cleaning my room, brooming my room, wiping down my desk, taking a shower, washing my bedsheets, and then went to aldi to get milk and eggs. Also got some pick roses. Put the amazon order for dishwasher pods, and went to dunkin to get coffee. As someone that wakes up and starts working.. I literally felt like I lived a whole day before 9am. I was on such a roll to the point, I’m like whatever, made I should just wake up at 3am once a week.

I was soo exhausted by the time I came home that I fell asleep for 2 hours, and then woke up because I had meetings.

The newsletter person sent me a link to her newsletter and the craziest part was it’s everything I talk about in my journals. And she has the same format I had for my “healing series”. Idk how I feel about it. Like Idk if I’m more shocked that it’s the same stuff that I’ve been reflecting on. Has everyone been reflecting on the same stuff? Also feels like wow this was me a year ago. I was so convinced I was going to turn this into a whole coaching thing, helping people heal too. It feels like I’ve been there. I didn’t even market myself, but I’m okay with marketing her. Did I not believe in myself? Or did I deep down know this wasn’t my path? Maybe I’ll tell her “hey, if you want to write something that has to do with dating, I can market it on Dil Mil’s IG. A bunch of creators follow there.” I kind of feel overwhelmed. Like idk what I should be doing.

I just know if I had the option to do it right now, get on calls and help people “heal”. I wouldn’t. I don’t feel like preaching. It feels way too draining and I’m still learning.. idek know if half the stuff I say is right. My views change like every 2 days. Is she early in her healing journey like I was a year ago? Or is this actually her path. Because for some people this is their path.

During my call to give my team social advice, I tried staying chill but I was also very encouraging. I gave them concise advice.

Mom made aloo paratha, so ate that with her and watched tv.

For the rest of the day, I had to find a photographer for the seattle event, so I was literally just having conversations with photographers, had to make a mood board, was very specific about the type of photos I wanted, got quotes, etc. I think I did find one that I like, but we’ll see tomorrow.

I was too overwhelmed to answer the newsletter girl because I was already going back and forth the whole day with photographers.

Curiosity - Kneading dough
Pockets of Love - Aloo paratha
Intuition - I did feel warmer today, almost like being warm doesn’t feel like a threat anymore.
9/10 - Impressed at how much of a role I was on today

Energy:
50% - being insanely productive on low sleep
50% - working + trying to finalize a photographer