Tahmid Chowdhury

Mind & Spirit

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  • The critical role of forgiveness in moving forward

    Forgiveness is one of the key words in the world of spirituality and religion. This makes sense – it’s better to forgive than hold on to a grudge for many years of our life. I think we know this intrinsically. Yet it’s a lot more…

  • Managing my life’s dopamine rollercoaster

    Recently, I realised how boring I had made my own life. That’s not to say my life is objectively ‘boring’. To many it probably seems I do lots of fun and adventurous things. But subjectively, it’s felt unexciting. The things I’ve been doing haven’t felt…

  • Keeping focus on the positives in our lives

    When our life routine gets thrown up in a huge way, it can be hard to not fall into a sense of despair. I’ve questioned myself a lot. Sometimes I’ve felt guilty for taking time for myself. Other times, I’ve wondered whether I’ll ever recover…

  • Overcoming the fear of letting people down

    I’ve always prided myself on the ability to be consistent. Generally, when I say I will do things, I tend to do them. Whilst this is a rather positive trait to have, I’m also starting to see where it can fall into unhelpful behaviours too.…

  • Letting go of our mind’s self control mechanism

    You’ve probably heard about the importance of letting go of the things that we can’t control. I’m pretty sure I’ve written about it several times myself. But what about letting go of the things that actually, we can control? Whilst it is good for us…

  • The importance of trusting our own senses

    Earlier this week, I woke up at 4am with the distinct smell of burning coming through my nose. The last time I smelt something like this, I ignored it. I thought that my sense of smell was playing tricks on me. Turns out that there…

  • The tale of the misplaced wallet

    Grand philosophical ideas around peace and harmony are great. But they are only useful if they can hold up when coming into contact with our real, messy and unpredictable lives. This week I had the fortune (or misfortune) to be tested on my worldviews. On…

  • Finding an outlet to express our internalised emotions

    This week started more anxiety driven for me than most. I found I woke up with a lot of existential dread without really being able to pin point why. This week ended up being about finding ways to express the emotions outwardly, without necessarily trying…

  • Sometimes it’s just not that deep

    We can get stuck in the endless frame of asking ‘why’. I’m upset – why do I feel this way? What do I need to change to make things better? Is there maybe something I’m missing? These questions can be genuinely valuable. But it’s also…

  • Opening up to a deeper vulnerability

    I had a moment this week where I felt deep fear. There was nothing to be scared of externally, and I knew that. But I felt fear all the same. I am someone who has generally always kept my composure in situations. I rarely lose…

  • The art of learning nothing

    Every day may be an opportunity to learn something new. But we can afford ourselves a break sometimes. I’ve been tuning out my brain from needing to learn or do too much. Earlier in the month I spent a lot of time reading about Autism,…

  • Finding peace in the space of solitude

    It’s taken a few months, but I’m finally getting used to not having any plans for the day. At the beginning of the week, it felt quite empty. I had a few social activities but also a lot of space. Honestly, it was pretty intimidating…

  • Connecting with our intuition on feeling safe

    I never thought of myself as a particularly anxious person. Mainly because the idea of anxiety was something very visible and pronounced. It turns out that I just have become very good at managing my anxiety, rather than it not existing. But in recent weeks…

  • Living life in our own fantasy world

    This week I’ve been spending a lot of time in the world of fantasy. I’ve been binge watching Japanese anime, mixed up with RPG video games. I had forgotten the beauty of getting engrossed in a whole different, fantastical dimension. But as an adult, the…

  • Curbing the need for social media dopamine hits

    Yesterday, I used my phone so much that my thumb started hurting. Not that it stopped me, I simply switched hands so I could continue tapping away. But if it’s getting to the point that holding a phone is starting to hurt, that’s probably a…

  • Overcoming the guilt of standing up for yourself

    Over the last few weeks, I’ve been speaking quite a lot around the subject of raising issues to the people around me. I actually had something in my personal life – I felt uncomfortable with something around a social gathering. But I also felt very…

  • Navigating the moral dilemma of buying new things

    I finally bought a new phone. This was after five years since purchasing the last one. I previously had a decent android which worked well. The battery started to fail me, but I got that replaced last year. When I did that, It actually felt…

  • How we can live life more emotionally

    Emotional reactions aren’t exactly hard to find. Online, the world can feel very polarised, so it can be a challenge to keep a cool head when discussing divisive topics – be that climate, diversity, war or anything else. For many of us, we’ve been taught…

  • The subtle art of getting on with life

    Life doesn’t stop. Even if we want it to. I’ve been slowly reawakening to life after the new year. Honestly, it’s felt lethargic and difficult. Alas, life does not wait for us to feel in tip top condition. For those of us in the EU…

  • Managing the existential questioning after the holiday period

    The last two weeks have been a lethargic period for many people. For me, I’m noticing that I’m probably more frazzled than I was before this ‘rest period’ started. It is often the period of rest that allows issues to surface. When we are too…