YASMIN SAIT - "LIFE IS LIKE A WATER BUBBLE."

Yasmin Sait, Actor, Author, Counsellor, and Life Coach, ruminates on becoming a senior and how she did not give in to the stereotype of “We Are Done - Our life is for our children and grandchildren".

My journey from a Mother to a Professional and now an Author …....

Closer to turning sixty. A bunch of questions were running through my head. Mainly the Society and conditioning were the significant concerns I was anxious about. I felt like an adolescent adult (Child)because I had no answers to my questions and how I would deal with them.

I have a much better understanding of life now than before. All these years, I kept thinking about what people would think. Now I realize nobody has the time to think about you, and they are all busy thinking about themselves. Everyone can have a fair chance to live a life one can imagine living.

I feel age is just a number; it could be an advantage or a disadvantage at any stage of your life. It depends on the choice you make and live it mindfully.

The Journey of a Mother to a Professional.

I had a satisfying 30 years career, started as a customer relationship manager, and moved on to start my own FMCG Supermarket Business as an entrepreneur. In my late forties, I joined Jubilant Retail as a Process analyst. Resigning from my corporate job, and made my way into the entertainment industry with my children and successfully helped them reach heights in their desired careers. That was when I was known as their Momager. During those years, I also enjoyed having my screen presence as an actor, acting in several commercial ads for tv, digital and web series like Pushpa Valli. Despite challenging years, I had a good time seeing my children grow, and I also grew massively alongside them. I stepped down in 2018 from being their Momager. And I continue just being the MOM now.

 Third innings as an Author!

 As I was closer to turning 60, I felt the pressure from the stereotypes of women that advised me on what I should and should not be doing. My only fear, I was not ready to hang my boots. I wanted to lead a fun and childlike life. In my heart, I had always been a youthful human. Out of anxiety, I started talking to women in my family, friends, and extended circles. And I realized most had a similar answer “We Are Done” our life is for our children and grandchildren as we are getting old now. That was ticking off more fears within me. I did not stop at that and kept contacting more and more women until I came across a few women who said age is just a number. Hearing that made me feel happy and gleeful. I started my third innings as an author. To pen my book titled Manan "Delving Deeper into Oneself." 

Manan is the idea/concept that empowers women to find a purpose. The title of this book Manan means to meditate, thinking thought, whose theme is the process of delving deeper into oneself and navigating transformation at various stages of life, including unforeseen disruption. 

If one can dispassionately do a self-examination, one has a choice of coming up with new positive ideas and attitudes while discarding those negative and debilitating ones. It is like chewing the cud of experiences in silence, an enriching act similar to how a cow extracts nutrition from even inferior feed.

I started talking to my family and friends in extended circles and got a few referrals. I contacted them and pitched the idea of my book Manan. Some of them went back and forth and kept me waiting, some agreed and backed out after the stories were written and completed, and a few instantly agreed, for they believed in the idea of Manan. 

As this was my first work of literature, I chose not to disclose it to anyone, not even my family. But the whole experience of writing was superb. My creative side would keep me up all night at the job. As I completed writing each chapter, I would share it with my best friends and wait for their feedback. This experience also helped me with an enriched understanding of how people's minds work.

 Counsellor & Life-Purpose Coach

During the year of Covid-19, there was nothing much to do. Lockdown had shut me indoors like many others. And I was going through my counselling sessions myself. To rule out fear, I started focusing on Mind and Body, an online exercise for a fitter body, and the other was acquiring knowledge. I received a few certificates, one of them was life-purpose coach. After the second wave, I started attending physical classes for 1-year Diploma in Counselling Skills. Helping people is something I have been doing for more than 25 years, and now I have the right tools to work better, as I am a certified counsellor and a life-purpose coach.

 Learning Never Ends

A new lesson is always waiting for you at every stage of your life. Experiences are all we gather along the way, as every life is different. Being a good listener and having the ability to make friends can help you learn a lot from their experiences. The younger can teach you trends of the present world, and the older can share the pearls of wisdom. Lessons coming from both generations can help you have a wonderful life with no age bar.

I own a natural smile to win hearts. I am good at multilingual communication with interpersonal skills. 

 I look at an older person who has accomplished living a life, and I think to myself, I have no reason to crib for in comparison to their life, no idea how far I can reach in life to make it fulfilling. Thus I count my blessings daily and have developed a habit of maintaining a gratitude jar.

Currently, I am working on my brand new journey. That is so far more different from my retail and entertainment industry.

 I never thought about the future. But I will never stop working until the day I can’t and will have to give up. My Mom used to say this Proverb: “Life is like a water bubble” I never understood the meaning of it then. It is clear to me now. Thus, I decided to focus on the journey and not the destination.

_ Yasmin Sait -