Pratima Shah

   We humans are not able to digest if anyone around us gives us feedback - be it positive or negative. We always want to answer back or give clarification to the person regarding our failure to do something. Are we right in justifying when we have not been able to do justice to the task which we were supposed to do? During the Practice Teaching sessions today, one of the classmates after completing the lesson began proclaiming to the class - "Now let's see who gives me negative feedback? I am going to take revenge on that person when it is my turn to give feedback." I was shocked and asked the classmate - who are you to do this? He replied, it has to always be so; if someone is going to give me negative feedback I will do the same. I asked, " Why did you come here if you never wanted to learn from your mistakes?" He replied, 'I will learn but I will take revenge also.     If this is the mentality of a learner, how far will he / she go in life in

   All of us are so comfortable and carefree being in a comfort zone of our choice. This leads to trouble when we face adverse situations. No matter however adverse the situation is we humans are wired to tackle it and face it through a variety of jugaads. For some of us our home and our room is a comfort zone. Some are comfortable amidst their family members and feel threatened when with strangers or someone they know but are not friendly with them. My comfort zone is that where I am able to follow my routine and go about smoothly with my day completing each and every task that I do for me, for the home and for my family. Like all of us change is difficult for me to digest. I do not like changes in my schedule; be it my meal time, my work time or anything that needs to be done regularly.    But now that I am away from home in a hostel at EFLU, Hyderabad for the Post Graduate Certificate in the Teaching of English (PGCTE) Contact Programme of 1 month, I feel bewildered facing the

   What is inner growth? Is it being spiritual? The answer - Inner / spiritual growth is nothing but acceptance of the self by loving and accepting ourselves fully. If we accept and love ourselves fully then only we can be capable of giving love and acceptance to those around us - be it our family, friends, relatives or anyone who comes in touch with us. To love and accept ourselves fully we must keep in mind few things that will help us to achieve    The first thing that one must be careful about is the judgmental nature. Since birth each of us is being judged by parents, teachers and our peers. We create these judgmental perceptions by observing others who are being judged at home, school, college or at the work place where we see someone being praised or dismissed for a particular trait. This way a mind map is created in our mind which shapes our perception. Our ecosystem revers self confidence, extroversion and success. We judge ourselves against those traits and judge oth

   Good health can be had by balancing our hormone system which governs our whole body and its functions. The slightest imbalance of hormones in women leads to many health issues which can affect the mental, physical and emotional health. An imbalance is caused only when too many or too little hormones are produced in the body. This delicate balance can easily be disrupted by a wrong lifestyle. In today's age stress is the greatest trigger of hormonal imbalance. When the levels of the stress hormone - cortisol  rise; the release of several hormones like thyroxin, DHEA, testosterone and leptin is suppressed. Thus it becomes crystal clear that as the level of one hormone goes up, the levels of 4 -5 other hormones also falls.    An imbalance can occur due to stress, chronic anxiety, lifestyle factors like poor gut health, chronic constipation, excessive body fat that stores more estrogen, exposure to chemical through plastic, cosmetics, pesticides, usage of oral contraceptives, h