DM Journal - The Solo Trip - Connecting To The Inner Core

Sharing with you My observation feelings & learnings from -January 2025 since I went for my solo trip to date.

In our scriptures, there’s a simple, radical invitation: love your neighbor as you love yourself, and let that love become a breath you carry into your daily life. It sounds beautiful, almost utopian. Yet in today’s world, I’ve found that the bigger challenge isn’t always loving others—it’s learning to love oneself.

From my own journey—solitary treks through snow-draped mountains in Norway, long layovers in Abu Dhabi and traveling by roads driving on my own  became a precious “me time,” i indulged in conversations about faith, health, and healing not only with strangers that i met along the way but also with my heart —I’ve come to see self-love not as indulgence, but as a quiet, essential foundation. It’s the steady ground that makes loving others possible, sustainable, and real.

When we struggle to love ourselves, we often grow frustrated, and that frustration can manifest as mental strain or illness. We can slip into constant comparisons and ego-driven power games, which clouds our sense of compassion and purity of intention. And when intention isn’t clear and pure, loving others becomes much harder.

So, I’m learning to nourish that inner garden: to treat myself with kindness, to tend to my health—mental and physical—and to cultivate patience, humility, and gratitude. Only then does the light of genuine love for others become easier to share, less fragile, and more enduring.

If you’re on a similar path, may we remind each other to slow down enough to notice our own wounds and needs, so we can approach others from a place of wholeness. May our self-love be a quiet, steady force—one that elevates our relationships, rather than diminishes them.

While remaining  true to oneself we should always be  connected to our core with warmth love and respect for the journeys we each walk keeping our dignity alive....

Stay Blessed
Dolly Manghat
https://www.dollymanghat.com

DM Journal - 6 Nov 2025 - The New Chapter

Today, I find myself standing at the edge of a new chapter—one I never quite imagined would feel this way. Crossing into my senior years, past the age of 65, has brought with it a quiet storm of emotions I didn’t expect. There’s a strange shrinking of my world, not physically, but emotionally. I’ve noticed I don’t feel like talking to anyone much anymore. Not out of anger or sadness—just a kind of internal fog I can’t quite explain.

I’ve always been someone who thrived on work, on being busy, on having a purpose. Now, with work slowly fading into the background, I feel time pressing down on me. It’s not liberating—it’s heavy. I used to play golf five times a week, and now I barely manage two or three rounds. My body tires more easily, and with that, a creeping sense of limitation has settled in.

There’s an insecurity I hadn’t known before. A fear of being alone. A quiet wondering: is this what aging feels like? Not just the slowing down of the body, but the shifting of the psyche. I feel boredom in ways I never did before. The days stretch longer, and I’m not always sure how to fill them.

I’m trying to make sense of these changes. I know they’re natural, but they still feel foreign. Maybe this is the time to redefine what fulfillment means. Maybe it’s about finding new rhythms, new joys, even in the quiet. 

I’m not there yet—but I’m listening. I’m learning. I’m still here.

The past few days have felt like a quiet echo of my earlier thoughts. I’ve been sitting with the feeling of time—how it stretches, how it weighs, how it sometimes feels like a companion I don’t quite know how to talk to. I’ve realized that part of what unsettles me is not just the slowing down, but the absence of structure. My days used to be carved out by meetings, tasks, goals. Now, they’re open. Too open.

I tried to fill the space with golf again, but even that feels different. My body reminds me that I’m not who I used to be. Two rounds a week, maybe three, and I’m spent. It’s not just physical fatigue—it’s emotional. I miss the rhythm, the camaraderie, the sense of being in motion.

I’ve also noticed a subtle loneliness creeping in. Not the kind that comes from being alone in a room, but the kind that comes from feeling unseen. I wonder if people still think of me the same way. I wonder if I still matter in the ways I used to.

And yet, there’s a part of me that’s curious. What if this chapter isn’t about productivity, but presence? What if I’m being invited to slow down not as a punishment, but as a gift? I don’t know how to accept it yet. But I’m listening. I’m trying.

God Bless

Dolly Manghat