The true essence of our relationship…

S2E03- 8 days to #chhabhi

Hello beautiful people :)

Thank you for sending so much love and blessings our way. And, more importantly, thank you for sharing the experiences and struggles from your own time. Reading them really made me feel like I am not alone…

The initial driving force behind my starting this Season 2 was to express my ideas around ‘weddings’, spanning my fears and inhibitions, while sharing how we are planning to address some of those in our own little ways.

This narrative will be incomplete without mentioning the core pillar of our relationship; something that we both are really very proud of (touch wood).

It’s our communication.

In fact, from the day one of our relationship, our communication has been so gentle, transparent, honest and beautiful, that we two hitherto ‘anti-marriage’ souls ended up with this public wedding countdown, while happily socializing the hashtag of #chhabhi.

We often found ourselves sharing even the darkest of our secrets, the stupidest of our actions, and the most vulnerable of our thoughts with an ease never before experienced. This really helped us grow with each other, and build a foundation of trust, very early on in our journey.

Of course the picture was never all rosy and we did have our shares of conflicts too. But, what made the difference is how we used to deal with them — whenever we have a disagreement or a conflict, where either or both of us feel hurt, we take time out, as soon as we can, to answer 5 questions individually, which we then discuss with each other later, leading to a peaceful and amicable conflict resolution.

The 5 questions are — “what happened?”, “how did I feel?”, “how did the other person feel?”, “what could I have done differently?”, “what could the other person have done differently?”. This framework not only helps us understand the situation from both sides but also allows us to reach a more logical and sustainable solution for the future. This kind of communication has helped us resolve some really delicate conflicts between ourselves.

But why am I sharing this today?

Because, since we wanted to be as much “mindful” and “stress-free” as we could before our wedding, such an open communication channel was the major element that could help us achieve this.

With my fragile physical and mental health, I had already started spiralling in to a vortex of never ending stress (of shopping, event management, logistics, countless unnecessary errands, random decision making, constant negotiations with family etc.). The situation got so worse that until a few days ago, I was completely shut to any sort of external/social communication, was constantly snapping at my family members, was oversleeping, overeating & over-crying, and was being excessively defensive about everything. Overall, my mental health was on the verge of a brutal collapse.

[This is what the stress of managing your wedding can do to you…]

And, I am sharing this because I myself have seen many people undergo something similar before their weddings, making them almost ‘robotic’ or ‘emotionally numb’ on their wedding day, when actually they should be their most aware self as they practically ‘vow’ to so many things, for life, with that individual.

Anyhow, it would have been absolutley disastrous, if not checked immediately, especially after that long scary stint at the hospital only a few months back; I could not have afforded such a burnout.

And, this is where our ‘communication’ pillar really served as a saviour. Abhishek only had to gently intervene and nudge me, to help me realise what was happening, and why. Because of our strong foundation, instead of snapping or rejecting him, I ended up easily opening up to him and accepting his help & support (this would not have happened had we not kept our communication channel as active and transparent even during the planning chaos). He created those safe spaces even through our telephonic conversations, where I could openly introspect and re-evaluate everything.

Result? here I am, back to connecting with all of you, writing bravely about my most vulnerable self, totally in control of my actions once again.

Some Quick Tips

With hardly 8 days remaining now, here are some arrangements/rules we both have set, which we hope will help us be fully present (physically & emotionally) on our wedding day, creating one the most wonderful memory of this life-event —

• Disconnect early from work (in addition to the post-wedding leaves, we both have taken a week off before the D-Day as well, even if there is not much work left to do. This will help us regulate the stress and celebrate the togetherness with a fresh body & mind)
• Delegate whatever you can (it is okay to delegate as much as you can; micro managing things will only bring more misery. Family is there to help. Hence, delegate and let it go)
• Take a few days off the wedding-planning (we even took a couple of days off the wedding stuff too, to give ourselves a break from the chaos, which helped us return to it with fresh perspective and recharged minds)
• Keep Talking (as mentioned above, we both make it a point to have meaningful conversations daily, so that we can keep a check on each other’s wellbeing)
• Sleep (with work off the picture for a week now, we will focus on grabbing as much sleep as we can, including the afternoon naps)
• Meditate (we both have planned to meditate daily until the 9th of Sept, so that we can be truly present while taking each other as partners for life).

So, this is how we are planning to cope with the last week before our wedding. Hope this helps :-)

I will close the post here for now. See you later!

Love,

Chhavi