When we are born, we are unspoiled. As we grow, we develop many complexities due to many influences in our lives. During childhood, we are repeatedly discouraged, blamed, and in some cases, abused. As we grow older, we develop our own version of right and wrong. We create a world of our own.

Our brain collects and keeps all visual, auditory information from the moment we are born and to the smallest of the details. Apart from our brain having memory, cells in our body, in billions, have their own memory. In other words, our body store both physiological and psychological memories. We are complex emotional beings in nature compared to any other living animal.

Apparently, physical and psychological memories strongly influence our emotions! Interestingly, we can create, store, and release emotion like energy. Moreover, if we do not process our emotions properly and suppress them for a long time, they can find a way out violently and unexpectedly.

Unfortunately, we carry our guilt throughout our lives resulting in ever-increasing burden on our shoulders. We become heavy with guilt and anger for things we could or did not achieve, for things we cannot have, to cite few examples. Evidently, everyone carries his or her own sack of guilt and anger.

One must question our nature of accumulating and carrying our guilt and anger until the end. Both guilt and anger are useless for us. They give us no advantage. Therefore, one may ask: is there a way to put down the sack from our weary shoulders? It is possible, indeed. Importantly, since our guilt and anger inside us are neither addressed nor given attention to, they are stored. Actually, we should process and address our emotions in order to remove them from our system. We cannot just wish them away.

In fact, by acknowledging their presence and providing a channel for them to disappear, we can remove our emotions gradually. Taking drugs, consuming alcohol only worsens the situation. They only provide temporary comfort and relief. Is there a better way to unload our burden Luckily, we have natural gift to process our feeling and emotions. Forgiveness stands first of all other natural remedies (疗法).

Indeed, there is no better way than forgiving ourselves. Not withstanding, we should learn to readily forgive others. When we learn to forgive ourselves, we also naturally forgive others.

In summary, there is no benefit carrying our years of emotional baggage. By forgiving, we can throw away the emotional baggage we carry for years, if not decades, and it can lead to positive ones. Forgive your past mistakes. The moment you start forgiving, you feel a lot lighter and years of heaviness lifted magically! To your surprise, you start feeling a lot more energetic and optimistic in your daily life.

When I think of meditation（冥想）, my mind automatically pictures someone sitting by the beach, cross-legged and humming. “Boring,” I used to say, dismissing the ancient art and its promises of inner peace. 【小题1】 Or perhaps I should say I don’t believe in my ability to find peace of mind by sitting quietly. I’d rather sleep, to be honest.

Still, a friend persuaded me to give meditation a shot. Unwilling but curious, I tried a session offered by a meditation app, right in the middle of my workday. 【小题2】

For starters, the app didn’t ask me to sit cross-legged－that’s one thing to be thankful for. It only asked me to sit in my chair in whatever position I found most comfortable. 【小题3】 You are with your body every second of every day, but you rarely feel it. 【小题4】 The woman’s comforting voice was directing my attention to each part of my body. It was like all of my senses were suddenly activated and strengthened.

When I opened my eyes after the 10-minute session, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that the world seemed brand new, but my body felt more awake, like it had been in hibernation（冬眠）all long. 【小题5】

My dearest daughter, as I looked across at you sitting on the sofa watching The X Factor, I noticed that you are no longer a child, and that having just celebrated your 14th birthday, you are now a young woman starting a journey into becoming an adult woman. As I looked at you, I remembered myself at 14, and the vastly different places we are beginning this journey from.

Your identity as a mixed-race young woman, with an English father and a Pakistani mother, has already influenced how you place yourself in this world. As yet, you are unaware of the personal struggles that I took at the age of 25 to marry. How it felt when my mother refused to come to my wedding. The sharp criticisms of the Asian community that such marriages do not work out and always end in divorce. The confidence I had to grow, as we chose to live in a multicultural community, as I refused to be shamed into living in the leafier white suburbs.

Then, at the age of 30, I became your mum with all the joys and struggles this brought, as I refused the Asian traditions for a new baby’s arrival. From your birth, your life could not have been more different from mine. I was brought up on a council estate, within a tight-knit extended Muslim family, through which poverty, racism and neglect were woven. I was never given the freedoms or the opportunity to experience new things. Now, as I hear you play your piano. I am grateful that you have these opportunities.

So many doors were closed to me as a young person, and as I fought for small steps of freedom. I soon learned that it was better to do what I wanted without the knowledge of my parents, and so deceit and deception (欺骗) became woven into my life too. The pressures to obey, to be a “good Muslim” girl and keep the family honour, were choking. Behind closed doors at home, the neglect and abuse took place. It was hidden, I felt the shame, lived with the fear and suffered alongside my sister and two younger brothers. Oh, the power we thought our parents had over us! I was convinced that one day my father would indeed beat us so hard that leaving us for dead, he would, as his threats said he would, bury us in the large back garden, and tell the school he had taken us back to Pakistan for good. My sister and I longed for a different blue sky to live under.

As a daughter of immigrant parents, I carried their hopes of a better education for their children—my own veins (血管) pulsing with the hard-work ethic (道德) and need to be grateful for the opportunity of a free education. And it was education that provided me with the strength to find my own blue sky. I fought to leave home to go to university at the age of 18, and never returned to live with my parents again.

Now as you explore your mixed-race heritage, which I hope we have supported you to do with visits to Pakistan and ensuring you go to multi-cultural schools, I want you to take the very best of all that is Asian with you as you become a woman.

I want you to know that although your journey has been vastly different. I am excited as I watch you standing on the threshold of becoming a woman for all the adventures and possibilities the future holds for you.

May you fly your blue sky with grace, confidence and hope as you find your place in this beautiful and crazy world.

Loving you now and always.                                                                      Mommy