How Does Being Grateful Help?

Most of us have a tendency (Ego-driven) to look for the things that are not working in our lives. I think it is because we are conditioned to work towards improving our lives. We are taught to look for the faults with us, find the cause behind them and Fix them.

I agree that it is ok to have an approach to know what can be improved in our lives and grow by learning in the process. However, in the process, if we forget to look at the things that are already working well, we are missing something important in our personal growth.

For some, life’s focus is on Lack

I know some people in my life, who are focused on what they lack in their lives, more than what they already have. The focus for them is to zoom in the areas that are not going well. They complain about how unlucky they are, how bad others around them are and how things do not go well even if they work hard.

I see this pattern in many of my clients in my counselling practice too. If I look at their lives from the perspective of an outsider, I can find events, people and reasons for them to Be Grateful.

Focus on what is already working in your life

I am of an opinion to give more importance to what is already working in our lives than finding out what is not working and fixing them. I have logical reasons and experiences to back it up and explain.

Being Grateful helps you become Resourceful Continue reading How Does Being Grateful Help?

Fixing Vs. Expressing Yourself

What’s your way of living?Fixing or Expressing?

If you can not make sense of what I am trying to say,  just go ahead and read the post.

 

I lived that way

It was my way of living. Fixing Myself! I lived that way for years. I worked very hard on myself. Yes, Hard On Myself!! I was never happy with whatever I created. I would search for the reasons to prove to me that the work could still be better!

It was comfortable

The process was somehow helping me survive with my Low Self-esteem. I believed deeply inside me that it was the Correct way of Living. I was always protected. No major difficulties. Yet, no excitement and no feeling of growth.

Every day was predictable. Even problems in life could be managed by Blaming Me! I could always find something inside me to Fix and then would spend days in correcting.

I believed that if I could learn how the mind worked I would overcome my Low Self-esteem. I did not realize for a long period that I was trapped by Myself! My mind was making me fool and I continued to remain in the state that was comfortable and known to me. Ofcourse, I did not have to face Change. I did not have to explore the Unknown.

Never complete Continue reading Fixing Vs. Expressing Yourself

Affirmations- easy to use and effective in outcome!

(If you want to see the video first, scroll down the page and you shall find it. I suggest to read the post first.)

I think most of you know what affirmations are. I looked inside Wikipedia and found this:

“Affirmation is a declaration that something is true.”

(as on the date of this post’s publication. Link)

I have found using affirmations very effective for me. I find that repeating certain words or phrases inside our mind helps us shifting our mental state.

If we are feeling low or hopeless or frustrated, repeating these chants of affirmations can lift us out of this prison of unhealthy emotional state.

As the definition above states, when we declare something with a sense that it is true, it starts shaping our reality as per its content.

For some people I know, this sounds very simple and so not much effective. But, let me tell you that this is one of the most profound way of accessing our resourceful state.

Many times we use some phrase inside our head that are not empowering and also repeat them without our conscious awareness for major part of our day. This can shape our day as per its content! We then wonder why things are not working and why I am stuck with my negative emotional state!

Affirmations with empowering content can dramatically lift a person out of the trap of unhealthy thinking and feeling patterns.

I remember my early days when I first started using affirmations consciously. Those were the phrases or sentences that I used as a part of Cognitive Behavior Therapy for my anxiety problems. Those phrases helped me calm down and feel safe. I could notice that using affirmations was one of the most effective ways of handling panic and anxiety. Although it was difficult to get handle on using them, continuing with the strategy helped me a lot. Continue reading Affirmations- easy to use and effective in outcome!

Learn to vibrate with our desires

In life, we often get into the trap where our desires are not congruent with our daily thoughts and behaviors. This is the time when we desire to have good things and people in our life, yet we vibrate at a frequency that attract opposite to what we want. This results in events in our life that we least want.

For example, we desire to have abundance and prosperity, but we get involved in mental processes and actions that attract scarcity. We talk about the problems we are facing and find reasons and people to blame for. We ruminate about things not working in our lives.

I believe in the Law of Attraction and so agree with the notion that we attract what we focus on. This reminds me of a saying that says,

“Be careful of what you think about… because you will get it.”

But how can we dissolve this discrepancy and learn to vibrate with what we want.

Let me tell you that the major part of our brain processing is Unconscious. Those are the mental processes and their consequent behaviors that occur outside of our awarewness. Continue reading Learn to vibrate with our desires

Inspired for blogging!

For many months, I did not write any post for my this or other blog. It was not out of my focus, however , I did not prioritize that in my ‘To Dos’.

Frankly, I was getting overwhelmed whenever I thought of creating any content for my blogs.

As mentioned (I suppose!) somewhere in my earlier posts, I am perfectionist by nature. I find that this quality of mine prevents me from acting on some of my ‘To Dos’. I procrastinate and do not do the things which I like the most. I have been working on this and getting better at it. Continue reading Inspired for blogging!

A time of uncertainty and Faith

Today I want to write about acting in time of uncertainty.

I am now getting the perspective that the time of uncertainty is the time of transition in life. I can tell this because I can recall many such incidences in past when things were uncertain and so tough to handle with; It usually, at the end turned out to help me learn and grow. When I hold on to this perspective I feel better about the times in life when I do not know what is going to unfold in coming days or weeks.

A scary time

This is the time in life when we feel scared about what can happen. We do not feel motivated to take action in any direction. We get trapped . We feel lack of resources inside us.

Transition phase

We have the option here to change our perspective and start looking at this time as a transition phase. We need to feel open to new and never-seen-before options. We also need to develop faith in the energy source of all existence and trust that it shall help us. We need to set intentions. We need to have and affirm the belief(or assumption) that every thing that happens has a positive intention behind it. This may seem difficult, yet this is the starting point in our passage from what we are to what we can become when this period of uncertainty ends.

Begining

Continue reading A time of uncertainty and Faith

Bring love in place of fear – part 2

(the begining is in part 1)

Initially I did not know how to do it and my ego did not allow me to bring love into the situation that was very fearful and anger-provoking. How can I bring love here when I am so much frightened? Is it not unjustifiable to dissolve this anger and fear by bringing love here? Logically, I could not make sense of doing so. Still I went ahead to give it a try.

I read about this concepts & also listened to it in some audios. This has always made be deny and argue about its validity at first. However when I experienced that myself, I could really grasp the subject! Now it is my way of living to bring love in place of fear every time!

I experimented by giving love to those all who are involved in making this type of mass homicidal incidences come true. It was really tough but when I persisted, I could think of reasons to love these souls too! Of course there is no legal way to justify their behaviors and I do not advocate or endorse here, that this kind of act should be any way allowed by the legal system. However, feeling love towards them has worked in bringing me back to my original happy and productive work and family life. I know that some of you may not like the way I resolved this conflict of mine but this has made me feel better and productive. I have become more creative and now believe that I can face and stand anything that is fearful. I am ready to help others and contribute.

My initial way of coping (rationalizaton and justifying) made me more self-centered and protective. It restricted myself from going out freely and living this world. I remained neutral in my feelings. When I brought love and persisted, it made me feel abundant and courageous!

I thought this way: Continue reading Bring love in place of fear – part 2

Bring love in place of fear – part 1

I could not stop myself but jump to write about this topic immediately after I returned from one of the hospitals I visit. When I left that clinic, in my car, this topic and its content kept on running inside my head. Actually, I jotted down some vague notes about it around a couple of months back, when first I got to think about it seriously. But today, I am actually drafting it for publishing here.

How it all started

Around two months back, when I came back from my hospital visit to a periphery town and switched on our television set, I was shocked on watching the news about a terrorist attack in Ahmedabad (for those who arw reading this and not from india; Ahmedabad is a big city in Gujarat state, India). The most shocking and terrifying was the fact that one of the blast places was the Civil Hospital of the city. I was not at all in a state to digest such kind of information at that time, as I was really tired from my day’s work. I changed the channel but could not stop myself from coming back to different news channels, that were broadcasting the news of the attack. I was curious to know more about it although the curiosity was fear dirven! Although I was scared, I continued watching the same clip on the channel repeatedly. My son was sitting besides me and playing with his toys. He looked at the TV and also the fear on my face. I realized and tried to divert him play with his friends.

The other family members also came to know about the news. We sat together and talked about it. We shared our opinions and discussed how to be safe in this period of terror. The fear inside me was then diluted!

Next day Continue reading Bring love in place of fear – part 1

I was amazed at his readiness

On that day my son did not go to his school because he had been feeling ill for couple of days. He was initially ambivalent about his decision. However, when we agreed with him, he felt relieved!

We then got into general conversation about what to do on that day. We explored his book about the space. He tried to memorize the names of our planets. Then he suddenly asked,

“Pappa, what is there above the space?”

The preposition ‘above’ made me curious & confused. I sought clarification by asking,

“what do you mean by ‘above’? There is not ‘above’ but the concepts of ‘all around’ as the earth is a sphere.”

He clarified that he was curious to know what was there beyond the blue sky that we could see outside his bedroom’s window.

I explained that the universe is made up of many galaxies, out solar system & many other things ( Iactually did not have an idea how to explain  about those other things to that five and a half years old curious kid).

I looked at his face. I felt that he was exploring in his mind something very serious and deep. He asked,

“Pappa, what happens when we die?!”

Continue reading I was amazed at his readiness

Purpose of life

Today, after a gap of a week, I am back to posting an article to this site. For one week, I worked on some technical aspects of this and my other blogs. I tried to write a post two to three times in between, but could not post as I did not find myself congruent with what I wanted to say.

I face difficulties in finding words and phrases that appropriately convey my intentions and meanings. I am sure that this shall also pass as I am presently living my life more congruently than before, so I shall also learn about more congruent ways of expressing my ideas. It has been a common experience with me ( I hope I am not alone!) that I write a paragraph and realize that this is not actually what I want to say. So, I have to rewrite it again. Now, I have decided that I need to keep on posting more articles and in the process, it shall improve.

Today’s topic has always been in mind since I first decided to write about personal development.I believe that for most of us, the journey of personal growth begins when we seriously consider this question: What is the purpose of my life? When I asked myself this for the first time, a second curious question popped up inside my mind- What is life? I intend to share my insights about this issue in this post.

An event that made me think Continue reading Purpose of life