तनाव प्रबंधन के कुछ सटीक सूत्र
तनाव मनः स्थिति से उपजा विकार है.मनः स्थिति एवं परिस्थिति के बीच असंतुलन एवं असामंजस्य के कारण तनाव उत्पन्न होता है. तनाव एक द्वन्द है, जो मन एवं भावनाओं में गहरी दरार पैदा करता है. तनाव अन्य अनेक मनोविकारों का प्रवेश द्वार है. उससे मन अशान्त,भावना अस्थिर एवं शरीर अस्वस्थता का अनुभव करते हैं.ऐसी स्थिति में हमारी कार्यक्षमता प्रभावित होती है और हमारी शारीरिक व मानसिक विकास यात्रा में व्यवधान आता है. इससे बचने का एकमात्र उपाय है -परिस्थिति के साथ तालमेल रखना , जिससे तनावरूपी मनोविकार को हटाया-मिटाया जा सके.
परिस्थिति को स्वीकार न करने पर तनाव पैदा होता है. यह तनाव कई प्रकार का होता है. पारिवारिक तनाव , आर्थिक तनाव, आफ़िस का तनाव ,रोजगार का तनाव, सामाजिक तनाव. मनोनुकूल परिस्थिति-परिवेश के अभाव में व्यक्ति उद्विग्न ,अशान्त एवं तनावग्रस्त हो उठता है. इसमें केवल एक व्यक्ति प्रभावित होता है, परन्तु यह सीमा जब व्यक्ति को लांघकर परिवार में पहुँच जाती है तो परिवार तनावग्रस्त हो जाता है.पारिवारिक तनाव से परिवार के संवेदनशील रिश्तों में दरार एवं दरकन् पैदा हो जाती है जिससे छोटी-छोटी बातों को प्रतिष्ठा का प्रश्न बनाकर कलह एवं कहासुनी जैसी उलझनें खड़ी कर दी जाती हैं. सुन्दर व सुरम्य पारिवारिक वातावरण व्यंग्य और तानों का दंगल बन जाता है.
वैयक्तिक एवं पारिवारिक स्तर पर संपदा व संपति के सुनियोजन एवं सुव्यवस्था के अभाव में आर्थिक तनाव का जन्म होता है. उपभोक्तावादी अपसंस्कृति के कारण अपव्यय एवं जीवनशैली की अनियमितता में वृद्धि हुई है,जिससे यह संकट और भी गहरा हुआ है.सामाजिक तनाव समाज के विभिन्न घटकों,समूहों एवं वर्गों के बीच तालमेल के न होने से उत्पन्न होता है.आज का व्यक्ति , परिवार व समाज तनाव के इस विघटन,टूटन एवं दरकन् से ग्रस्त हैं. व्यक्ति हो या समाज,आज ये इस कदर तनावग्रस्त हैं की उन्हें अपना भार भी असह्य लग रहा है. वे अपने ही बोझ से दबे-कुचले किसी तरह अपनी गुजर-बसर कर रहें हैं.
तनाव परिस्थिति से नहीं मनः स्थिति से उपजता है.अगर ऐसा नहीं होता तो विपरीत एवं प्रतिकूल परिस्थितियों में भी आशा,उत्साह एवं उमंग की परिकल्पना नहीं की जा सकती. जीवट के धनियों एवं मनीषियों ने प्रतिकूलताओं में जीवन की राह खोजी है,अपने गंतव्य,लक्ष्य को प्राप्त किया है.सूरदास,अष्टावक्र,सुकरात आदि मनीषियों ने शारीरिक विकृति को हिनताजन्य तनाव नहीं माना और इसी समाज में उत्कर्ष व सफलता की बुलंदियों को स्पर्श किया.सन्त तुकाराम का पारिवारिक जीवन तनाव के घनघोर कुहाँसों में घिरा हुआ था,परन्तु वे इस कुहासा-हताशा के आवरण को चीरकर भक्ति की भावधारा में सदा सरोबार रहते थे.कबीरदास के जीवन में आर्थिक तनाव सघन घन बनकर बरसा था, परन्तु प्रभु के अलावा किसी के आगे उनने हाथ नहीं पसारे,याचना नहीं की और अलमस्त एवं आन्नदपूर्वक जिंदगी जीकर दिखा दी.सामाजिक निंदा,अपमान एवं तिरस्काररूपी गहन आंधी-तूफान के बीच मीराबाई ने कृष्णभक्ति की ज्योति जलाई. विपरीत परिस्थितियों में इन महामानव ने जितना कर दिखाया,उतना तो सामान्य एवं सहज परिवेश में भी संभव नहीं है. इसका एकमात्र कारण है,मनः स्थिति की सुदृढ़ता-सशक्तता. अतः तनाव परिस्थितियों में नहीं दुर्बल व अशक्त मनः स्थिति में वास करता है. मनीषियों व मनस्वियों को यह स्पर्श नहीं कर पाता है.
तनावजन्य मनोविकारों का आक्रमण केवल दुर्बल व कमजोर मानसिकताओं पर होता है. परिस्थिति तो सबके लिए समान होती है.एक ही परिस्थिति में रहने वालों में से संकल्पवान अपने इच्छित लक्ष्य को प्राप्त कर लेता है और विकल्प तलाशने वाला केवल विकल्प तलाशते रह जाता है. परिस्थितिजन्य तनाव ही प्रमुख व प्रबल होता तो एवरेस्ट के शिखर पर चढ़ा नहीं जा सकता था . जिसका मन परिस्थिति से तालमेल नहीं बैठा पाता उसी के अन्दर तनावजन्य विकृतियाँ अपना जाल बुनती हैं. ऐसे व्यक्ति का तंत्रिकातंत्र मन के आवेग को संभालने हेतु असमर्थ होता है.कष्ट-कठिनाइयों का हल्का झोंका भी इन्हें तार-तार कर देता है.
तनाव मुख्य रूप से नर्वस सिस्टम को प्रभावित करता है. तनाव से यह तंत्रिकातंत्र अत्यंत सक्रिय हो जाता है. इसकी सक्रियता हृदयगति एवं शर्करा के स्तर को बढ़ाने में सहायक होती है. इससे घबराहट होती है एवं सिर भारी रहता है. ऐसी अवस्था में नकारात्मक विचार उठते हैं और मन में निराशा-हताशा के बादल मंडराने लगते हैं.
तनाव मन में उत्पन्न होता है.अतः तनाव से मन प्रभावित होता है. तनावजन्य नकारात्मक
एवं निषेधात्मक विचारों से शरीर की प्रतिरक्षात्मक प्रणाली पर भी विपरीत असर पड़ता है. तनाव की अवधि
में श्वेत रूधिर कोशिकाओं की सहज सक्रियता कम हो जाती है.ये कोशिकाएँ शरीर की रोगों से रक्षा करती हैं तथा शरीर को स्वस्थ एवं निरोग बनाए रखने में अहम भूमिका निभाती हैं,परन्तु तनाव इस प्रतिरक्षात्मक
प्रणाली की मुस्तैदी को कम कर रोगों को प्रवेश करने का अवसर प्रदान करता है.
तनाव से मन में कई प्रकार के मनोविकार अपना स्थायी आवास बना लेते हैं. तनाव
से चिड़चिड़ापन पैदा हो जाता है. ऐसे व्यक्तियों का मानसिक संतुलन लगभग गड़बड़ा जाता है,परिणामस्वरूप नींद न आना,
हताशा-निराशा,कल्पनाओं में खोए रहना, डरना आदि मनोरोगों का प्रादुर्भाव होता है. ऐसे लोगों में निर्णय करने की क्षमता नहीं
होती है.
तनाव प्रबन्धन का प्रथम सूत्र है- वैचारिक खुलापन अर्थात आग्रह ,पूर्वाग्रह का अभाव . अच्छे विचारों को स्वीकृति एवं समर्थन देना चाहिए.इसी के आधार पर
सहयोग- सदभाव की भूमि तैयार होती है. सहयोग से स्वार्थवृति मिटती है और सेवा का भाव पनपता है,जिससे अपना विश्वास
प्रगाढ़ होता है. विश्वास ही विकास का मूल मंत्र है,उन्नति - प्रगति का साधन सोपान है. इस स्थिति में आकर ही स्वायत्तता की परिकल्पना की जा सकती है और स्वतंत्र रूप से अपनी योजना को कार्यरूप प्रदान किया जा सकता है.इसी में आंतरिक चेतना के परिष्कार तथा
वाह्या उन्नति की समस्त संभावनाएँ सन्निहित हैं.संभावना जब मूर्तरूप लेती है तो प्रामाणिकता के रूप में अभिव्यक्ति पाती है.
प्रामाणिकता आत्मविश्वास को जन्म देती है, तभी महान कार्य हेतु स्वयं का योगदान सम्भव हो सकता है और दूसरों का सहयोग मिल सकता है.तनाव प्रबंधन के इन सूत्रों में तनाव का समाधान समाहित है.
इसके साथ आवश्यक है सर्वशक्तिमान ईश्वर के प्रति श्रद्धा-आस्था की भावना. ईश्वर सर्वसमर्थ है, वह हमारी सभी समस्याओं का समाधान ,हताशा के कुहासे में ज्योतिर्मय पथ प्रदर्शक है.
वह हमारे तनाव का निवारक भी है. वह हमारे सभी मनोविकारों के सघन जंजाल को काटकर उत्साह,आनंद एवं प्रकाश से भर सकता है.अतः उसकी स्मृति को हृदय में बनाए रखने के लिए
गायत्री मंत्र की एक माला का न्यूनतम जप करना चाहिए.प्रत्येक दिन अपने नये जीवन का आत्मबोध एवं प्रत्येक रात्रि अपनी मृत्यु का अनुभव तत्त्वबोध भी तनावमुक्ति
के लिए रामबाण साधन है. यही तनाव का एकमात्र निदान है और उच्चस्तरीय जीवन का पाथेय पथ भी है.
साभार :- अखण्ड ज्योति
Showing posts with label MIND SET. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MIND SET. Show all posts
Wednesday, 31 December 2008
MANOVIKAR
MANOVIKAR form iLand blog
TRUE BLISS IS WITHIN YOU
TRUE BLISS IS WITHIN YOU
Placing your happiness in the hands of others will lead to a lot of pain and disappointment, says Donna Thomson
The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet,” said James Oppenheim. True happiness cannot be sought outside of yourself — not in your relationships with others, the groups you belong to, or in the things around you. Unless you can stand alone in your own shadow and feel happiness from within, true happiness may always elude you for external things come and go like the tide. The only constant in your life is you. Love you, admire you, value you and be happy to be you.
Why do we seek happiness from outside of ourselves? From His Holiness The Dalai Lama: “Consider the following. We humans are social beings. We come into the world as the result of others’ actions. We survive here in dependence on others. Whether we like it or not, there is hardly a moment of our lives when we do not benefit from others' activities. For this reason it is hardly surprising that most of our happiness arises in the context of our relationships with others.”
So we learn from a young age to rely on others rather than on ourselves. If we rely on others for our food, shelter and other needs, why not happiness? Well happiness of course does come from many things and our social relationships and other external factors can bring us much joy, but many of us have not connected with ourselves as we have connected with others. The negative side is that placing all of your happiness in the hands of others will lead to a lot of pain and disappointment throughout your life.
No matter how much you love a partner, a child, or a friend, you cannot make your happiness conditional upon them. Why? Because you will have certain expectations of others and when those expectations aren’t met, you may feel hurt, betrayed, misunderstood, taken for granted, invalidated, confused and so on. Everyone is individual. We have each grown to develop our own sets of values, beliefs, attitudes and ways of looking at the world. Our views may not be exactly the same as our loved ones. However, we often expect those loved ones to know what we want from them.
When someone else’s actions don't live up to your expectations you are let down. Often the other person won’t even realise they’ve done something to cause you pain because they don’t know your expectations unless you have explicitly shared them. Often we don’t even realise our own expectations until we feel someone has hurt or disappointed us.
For example, you may unconsciously expect your partner to show their love in a particular way such as saying “I love you” regularly and when this doesn’t happen you start to wonder if they truly care for you. You may feel unacknowledged and unloved. However your partner may feel that they are showing their love through their actions. You have one belief while your partner has another. Is there a lack of love? No. While you let your feelings build into a stressful negative state within you, your partner would probably be very surprised to know you feel that way.
It’s unrealistic to expect another person to know what's in your head — your values, beliefs and expectations. Thinking “Well they should know!” is not good enough, yet most of us would have thought this of someone else at some stage. Put yourself in the other person’s shoes. They see you become sad, angry, unresponsive to them, or upset and don’t know what they’ve done, or if it’s even them who has made you unhappy. This leads to negative feelings from both sides and possibly arguments that could be avoided through open communication.
Rather than looking to others for your needs, begin by looking within yourself. When you feel a sense of disappointment in someone, use it as an opportunity to analyse your own expectations. The only person who should truly be able to disappoint you is yourself — when you are not being true to yourself in some way. You can take that disappointment and turn it into a positive — a pledge; an action that you can take to better yourself.
Analyse why you are disappointed or hurt. You may find your initial thoughts or statements begin with “Because he did” or “Because she didn’t”. Now look deeper to the true reason for your disappointment. Such statements will start with “Because i expected”, “Because i wanted” or “Because i thought he or she should”.
You truly only ever have control over yourself and realising this can save you a lot of pain. Of course you can be disappointed in others but you have no control over their actions and reactions. You can share the reasons for your disappointment but you cannot expect the other person or situation to change because the other person has free will.
When you realise that you are responsible for your thinking and expectations, you will start to see that you’ve placed much of your happiness in the hands of others. You can now take your power back by recognising that you have the choice to react to something either negatively or positively. By making your happiness conditional upon another person, you hand your power over to them. You feel a ‘victim’ whenever things don’t go as you want or expect. In doing this, you set yourself up for pain, but you can now turn this around and instead set yourself up for happiness.
The key is to not expect a particular outcome. What happens next is up to you. You can choose to wallow in negative feelings which may further damage a relationship, or you can try to place a positive spin on the situation. Perhaps you can find your happiness in the fact that you’ve done your part in dealing with the situation by getting your issue out into the open. Realise that it may not be an issue to the other person, but ideally you will work together to reach a compromise. You can also decide to be happy for the other person and the pain they show you because it helps you to grow. There are always choices and different ways of looking at the same thing.
It puts things into perspective when you resign yourself to the fact that people do make mistakes — they forget things, they don’t think properly, they don’t always consider how others may be affected by their actions, they can act selfishly at times, and so on. We are all humans and we are designed to make mistakes as they are our greatest opportunities to learn. As Horace Friess says, “All seasons are beautiful for the person who carries happiness within.”
Why do we seek happiness from outside of ourselves? From His Holiness The Dalai Lama: “Consider the following. We humans are social beings. We come into the world as the result of others’ actions. We survive here in dependence on others. Whether we like it or not, there is hardly a moment of our lives when we do not benefit from others' activities. For this reason it is hardly surprising that most of our happiness arises in the context of our relationships with others.”
So we learn from a young age to rely on others rather than on ourselves. If we rely on others for our food, shelter and other needs, why not happiness? Well happiness of course does come from many things and our social relationships and other external factors can bring us much joy, but many of us have not connected with ourselves as we have connected with others. The negative side is that placing all of your happiness in the hands of others will lead to a lot of pain and disappointment throughout your life.
No matter how much you love a partner, a child, or a friend, you cannot make your happiness conditional upon them. Why? Because you will have certain expectations of others and when those expectations aren’t met, you may feel hurt, betrayed, misunderstood, taken for granted, invalidated, confused and so on. Everyone is individual. We have each grown to develop our own sets of values, beliefs, attitudes and ways of looking at the world. Our views may not be exactly the same as our loved ones. However, we often expect those loved ones to know what we want from them.
When someone else’s actions don't live up to your expectations you are let down. Often the other person won’t even realise they’ve done something to cause you pain because they don’t know your expectations unless you have explicitly shared them. Often we don’t even realise our own expectations until we feel someone has hurt or disappointed us.
For example, you may unconsciously expect your partner to show their love in a particular way such as saying “I love you” regularly and when this doesn’t happen you start to wonder if they truly care for you. You may feel unacknowledged and unloved. However your partner may feel that they are showing their love through their actions. You have one belief while your partner has another. Is there a lack of love? No. While you let your feelings build into a stressful negative state within you, your partner would probably be very surprised to know you feel that way.
It’s unrealistic to expect another person to know what's in your head — your values, beliefs and expectations. Thinking “Well they should know!” is not good enough, yet most of us would have thought this of someone else at some stage. Put yourself in the other person’s shoes. They see you become sad, angry, unresponsive to them, or upset and don’t know what they’ve done, or if it’s even them who has made you unhappy. This leads to negative feelings from both sides and possibly arguments that could be avoided through open communication.
Rather than looking to others for your needs, begin by looking within yourself. When you feel a sense of disappointment in someone, use it as an opportunity to analyse your own expectations. The only person who should truly be able to disappoint you is yourself — when you are not being true to yourself in some way. You can take that disappointment and turn it into a positive — a pledge; an action that you can take to better yourself.
Analyse why you are disappointed or hurt. You may find your initial thoughts or statements begin with “Because he did” or “Because she didn’t”. Now look deeper to the true reason for your disappointment. Such statements will start with “Because i expected”, “Because i wanted” or “Because i thought he or she should”.
You truly only ever have control over yourself and realising this can save you a lot of pain. Of course you can be disappointed in others but you have no control over their actions and reactions. You can share the reasons for your disappointment but you cannot expect the other person or situation to change because the other person has free will.
When you realise that you are responsible for your thinking and expectations, you will start to see that you’ve placed much of your happiness in the hands of others. You can now take your power back by recognising that you have the choice to react to something either negatively or positively. By making your happiness conditional upon another person, you hand your power over to them. You feel a ‘victim’ whenever things don’t go as you want or expect. In doing this, you set yourself up for pain, but you can now turn this around and instead set yourself up for happiness.
The key is to not expect a particular outcome. What happens next is up to you. You can choose to wallow in negative feelings which may further damage a relationship, or you can try to place a positive spin on the situation. Perhaps you can find your happiness in the fact that you’ve done your part in dealing with the situation by getting your issue out into the open. Realise that it may not be an issue to the other person, but ideally you will work together to reach a compromise. You can also decide to be happy for the other person and the pain they show you because it helps you to grow. There are always choices and different ways of looking at the same thing.
It puts things into perspective when you resign yourself to the fact that people do make mistakes — they forget things, they don’t think properly, they don’t always consider how others may be affected by their actions, they can act selfishly at times, and so on. We are all humans and we are designed to make mistakes as they are our greatest opportunities to learn. As Horace Friess says, “All seasons are beautiful for the person who carries happiness within.”
Contentment in Life
from iLand
Benjamin Franklin said, "To the discontented man no chair is easy." What is contentment? Is contentment happiness? Contentment has been defined by words like satisfaction, happiness, pleasure, gratification, ease and peace. So I would express the thought that contentment is basically happiness but maybe not entirely all that happiness may contain.
Happiness is now being defined in two ways. The first way is happiness as it relates to having good humor. The second is happiness as it relates to inner satisfaction. It is here under the second definition that contentment is properly defined. Smiling and a sense of joyfulness are some of the things that happiness contains. You can be content without showing signs of a smile or feeling joyful. These aspects of happiness are not exhibited in contentment, yet contentment still remains a strong aspect of happiness.
Contentment is a strong sense of well being. It could be a state of being satisfied, or a source of satisfaction, such as the contentment of seeing children playing.
Contentment is happiness with one's situation in life. When we talk about satisfaction regarding contentment, we have to make sure we are receiving satisfaction from our own feeling of liking something; as opposed to the satisfaction we would feel from getting approval from someone else. This is an important distinction because in one case you know how you feel about yourself in relation to anything else. Doris Mortman said, "Until you make peace with who you are, you'll never be content with what you have."
Seeking approval from other people in order to feel satisfaction, creates many problems. We have all heard about people who try to become famous so they can be happy. They are trying to feel good about themselves through the approval of others. No matter how much approval or fame you receive, it will never be enough. The more you get, the more you think you need. So satisfaction is never found out there, or by the approval you receive from other people.
Lillian Eichler Watson said, "...true happiness stems from a quality within ourselves, from a way of thinking of life. Of all the millions of words written on happiness, this is the oldest and most enduring truth. If the principles of contentment are not within us, no material success, no pleasures or possessions, can make us happy."
Pleasure is certainly an aspect of both happiness and contentment. But many people think that pleasure is happiness and contentment. Although it is certainly a part of both states of being, it is not all of it. Pleasure can never be all of it because pleasure is a passing thing. Once it is gone the question becomes, how do I get it back or how do I get more of it. So pleasure in this sense very quickly becomes an addition, unlike happiness or contentment. The fact that you need and want more, and you are not content, proves that it is an addition.
Socrates said, "Contentment is natural wealth, luxury is artificial poverty." Contentment means that you feel you now have enough of something and you are enjoying what you have, rather than needing any thing more. Happiness is the very same thing, when you have enough, you have enough. As Benjamin Franklin once said, "Content makes poor men rich; discontentment makes rich men poor." Gratification is another word for contentment. It also means satisfaction, fulfillment, indulgence, enjoyment and delight. These are all words that mean and describe happiness and contentment.
Another word that describes contentment is the word: ease. This is one of the reasons that contentment and happiness is so important to practice. The benefit of being content is to enjoy all the things that you already have when you practice ease or contentment. Ease is a really great word because it means effortlessness, easiness, no difficulty, straightforwardness and simplicity. All these characteristics can be yours with "ease," when you practice contentment. "For I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content." - St. Paul: Philippians 4:11
Finally the word peace has been used to describe contentment. This is one of the most powerful words of all. It is true that peace is also happiness as well as contentment. Look at the opposite of the word contentment: discontentment. The word and the state of discontentment are actually the state of experiencing dissatisfaction, unhappiness, restlessness, displeasure and disgruntlement. Not a very pretty picture of what can happen when we are not using contentment and happiness as strategies for better living. As Doris Mortman said, "Until you make peace with who you are, you'll never be content with what you have."
We have words, like: self-content, self-satisfaction and self-gratification to describe what we can choose to do and to be. Maybe this is a good time to introduce you to self-happiness. Og Mandino has said, "Realize that true happiness lies within you. Waste no time and effort searching for peace and contentment and joy in the world outside. Remember that there is no happiness in having or in getting, but only in giving. Reach out. Share. Smile. Hug. Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting a few drops on yourself."
Happiness is like a do-it-yourself project. Like self-contentment, you can do it for yourself and help yourself to as much as you'd like. If you get too much, you can always give away a little happiness and share it with others. Greg Anderson said, "...the supply of misery, pain, and suffering is unlimited. But so is the supply of pleasure, contentment, and fulfillment. It is we who do the rationing. Ration no more! Capture wellness this instant! This instant is all there is. Live it!"
I read this article in an online magazine called Happiness, and found it informative.
Positive Thoughts for Self Empowerment
When you say you don't like abc ..... you set filter in mind and try to search same in all the instance.
Following is from iLand post
Positive Thoughts for Self Empowerment
Let me give you an example of that. Once, I asked one of my friend, what kind of people she likes. She answered, “I don’t like hypocrites and liars”. I told her that I had asked her what kind of people she liked and not what kind of people she did not like. Obviously she became angry on this and banged the phone. This set me thinking, how often we attract negativity in life and think of it as positive attitude. We try hard to push the negativity away, but still it shows up again and again. But actually we are not being positive. We are just trying to fight negativity, which not only turns out to be futile, but also has difficult consequence. Someone who says that she doesn’t like hypocrites and liars, is bound to end up with the kind of people she doesn’t like and will face difficulties because of that. Why does this happen? Because universe always responds to whatever image is stored in our sub conscious. So when one has a strong image of hypocrites and liars, such people are eventually attracted and she end up being not liking them. Instead of this negative thinking, if she thought like “I like authentic and honest people”, then she is bound to attract such kind of people in her life. I have heard people using negative statements very often. For example “I don’t want to hurt people” But I have experienced that such people often end up hurting others, even if they don’t want to. Instead of that, they should use the affirmative approach like “I care for people” or “I love people” . Let us understand, we can’t fight with the absence. You can’t fight with the darkness, however powerful you may be. Why? Because darkness does not exist, it is simply the absence of light. You can not drive the darkness away, you can only switch on the light and darkness will run away on its own. Same way, one can’t fight with negativity. One can only cultivate positivity. Using affirmative language can turn your life around. From now on, I invite you to watch yourself, when you use negative language and realize that your thoughts are centered to negativity. Be aware of your negative thoughts and discover the positivity you are longing for. The moment, you start to think, feel and speak positive, you would experience ecstatic energy arising from your within, which will attract joy and success. Thinking and speaking the affirmative language can turn out to be miraculous.
Following is from iLand post
Positive Thoughts for Self Empowerment
I read the following article online and realized how true it is for most of us:
Tuesday, 8 July 2008
TRUE BLISS IS WITHIN YOU
Placing your happiness in the hands of others will lead to a lot of pain and disappointment, says Donna Thomson
The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet,” said James Oppenheim. True happiness cannot be sought outside of yourself — not in your relationships with others, the groups you belong to, or in the things around you. Unless you can stand alone in your own shadow and feel happiness from within, true happiness may always elude you for external things come and go like the tide. The only constant in your life is you. Love you, admire you, value you and be happy to be you.
Why do we seek happiness from outside of ourselves? From His Holiness The Dalai Lama: “Consider the following. We humans are social beings. We come into the world as the result of others’ actions. We survive here in dependence on others. Whether we like it or not, there is hardly a moment of our lives when we do not benefit from others' activities. For this reason it is hardly surprising that most of our happiness arises in the context of our relationships with others.”
So we learn from a young age to rely on others rather than on ourselves. If we rely on others for our food, shelter and other needs, why not happiness? Well happiness of course does come from many things and our social relationships and other external factors can bring us much joy, but many of us have not connected with ourselves as we have connected with others. The negative side is that placing all of your happiness in the hands of others will lead to a lot of pain and disappointment throughout your life.
No matter how much you love a partner, a child, or a friend, you cannot make your happiness conditional upon them. Why? Because you will have certain expectations of others and when those expectations aren’t met, you may feel hurt, betrayed, misunderstood, taken for granted, invalidated, confused and so on. Everyone is individual. We have each grown to develop our own sets of values, beliefs, attitudes and ways of looking at the world. Our views may not be exactly the same as our loved ones. However, we often expect those loved ones to know what we want from them.
When someone else’s actions don't live up to your expectations you are let down. Often the other person won’t even realise they’ve done something to cause you pain because they don’t know your expectations unless you have explicitly shared them. Often we don’t even realise our own expectations until we feel someone has hurt or disappointed us.
For example, you may unconsciously expect your partner to show their love in a particular way such as saying “I love you” regularly and when this doesn’t happen you start to wonder if they truly care for you. You may feel unacknowledged and unloved. However your partner may feel that they are showing their love through their actions. You have one belief while your partner has another. Is there a lack of love? No. While you let your feelings build into a stressful negative state within you, your partner would probably be very surprised to know you feel that way.
It’s unrealistic to expect another person to know what's in your head — your values, beliefs and expectations. Thinking “Well they should know!” is not good enough, yet most of us would have thought this of someone else at some stage. Put yourself in the other person’s shoes. They see you become sad, angry, unresponsive to them, or upset and don’t know what they’ve done, or if it’s even them who has made you unhappy. This leads to negative feelings from both sides and possibly arguments that could be avoided through open communication.
Rather than looking to others for your needs, begin by looking within yourself. When you feel a sense of disappointment in someone, use it as an opportunity to analyse your own expectations. The only person who should truly be able to disappoint you is yourself — when you are not being true to yourself in some way. You can take that disappointment and turn it into a positive — a pledge; an action that you can take to better yourself.
Analyse why you are disappointed or hurt. You may find your initial thoughts or statements begin with “Because he did” or “Because she didn’t”. Now look deeper to the true reason for your disappointment. Such statements will start with “Because i expected”, “Because i wanted” or “Because i thought he or she should”.
You truly only ever have control over yourself and realising this can save you a lot of pain. Of course you can be disappointed in others but you have no control over their actions and reactions. You can share the reasons for your disappointment but you cannot expect the other person or situation to change because the other person has free will.
When you realise that you are responsible for your thinking and expectations, you will start to see that you’ve placed much of your happiness in the hands of others. You can now take your power back by recognising that you have the choice to react to something either negatively or positively. By making your happiness conditional upon another person, you hand your power over to them. You feel a ‘victim’ whenever things don’t go as you want or expect. In doing this, you set yourself up for pain, but you can now turn this around and instead set yourself up for happiness.
The key is to not expect a particular outcome. What happens next is up to you. You can choose to wallow in negative feelings which may further damage a relationship, or you can try to place a positive spin on the situation. Perhaps you can find your happiness in the fact that you’ve done your part in dealing with the situation by getting your issue out into the open. Realise that it may not be an issue to the other person, but ideally you will work together to reach a compromise. You can also decide to be happy for the other person and the pain they show you because it helps you to grow. There are always choices and different ways of looking at the same thing.
It puts things into perspective when you resign yourself to the fact that people do make mistakes — they forget things, they don’t think properly, they don’t always consider how others may be affected by their actions, they can act selfishly at times, and so on. We are all humans and we are designed to make mistakes as they are our greatest opportunities to learn. As Horace Friess says, “All seasons are beautiful for the person who carries happiness within.”
Why do we seek happiness from outside of ourselves? From His Holiness The Dalai Lama: “Consider the following. We humans are social beings. We come into the world as the result of others’ actions. We survive here in dependence on others. Whether we like it or not, there is hardly a moment of our lives when we do not benefit from others' activities. For this reason it is hardly surprising that most of our happiness arises in the context of our relationships with others.”
So we learn from a young age to rely on others rather than on ourselves. If we rely on others for our food, shelter and other needs, why not happiness? Well happiness of course does come from many things and our social relationships and other external factors can bring us much joy, but many of us have not connected with ourselves as we have connected with others. The negative side is that placing all of your happiness in the hands of others will lead to a lot of pain and disappointment throughout your life.
No matter how much you love a partner, a child, or a friend, you cannot make your happiness conditional upon them. Why? Because you will have certain expectations of others and when those expectations aren’t met, you may feel hurt, betrayed, misunderstood, taken for granted, invalidated, confused and so on. Everyone is individual. We have each grown to develop our own sets of values, beliefs, attitudes and ways of looking at the world. Our views may not be exactly the same as our loved ones. However, we often expect those loved ones to know what we want from them.
When someone else’s actions don't live up to your expectations you are let down. Often the other person won’t even realise they’ve done something to cause you pain because they don’t know your expectations unless you have explicitly shared them. Often we don’t even realise our own expectations until we feel someone has hurt or disappointed us.
For example, you may unconsciously expect your partner to show their love in a particular way such as saying “I love you” regularly and when this doesn’t happen you start to wonder if they truly care for you. You may feel unacknowledged and unloved. However your partner may feel that they are showing their love through their actions. You have one belief while your partner has another. Is there a lack of love? No. While you let your feelings build into a stressful negative state within you, your partner would probably be very surprised to know you feel that way.
It’s unrealistic to expect another person to know what's in your head — your values, beliefs and expectations. Thinking “Well they should know!” is not good enough, yet most of us would have thought this of someone else at some stage. Put yourself in the other person’s shoes. They see you become sad, angry, unresponsive to them, or upset and don’t know what they’ve done, or if it’s even them who has made you unhappy. This leads to negative feelings from both sides and possibly arguments that could be avoided through open communication.
Rather than looking to others for your needs, begin by looking within yourself. When you feel a sense of disappointment in someone, use it as an opportunity to analyse your own expectations. The only person who should truly be able to disappoint you is yourself — when you are not being true to yourself in some way. You can take that disappointment and turn it into a positive — a pledge; an action that you can take to better yourself.
Analyse why you are disappointed or hurt. You may find your initial thoughts or statements begin with “Because he did” or “Because she didn’t”. Now look deeper to the true reason for your disappointment. Such statements will start with “Because i expected”, “Because i wanted” or “Because i thought he or she should”.
You truly only ever have control over yourself and realising this can save you a lot of pain. Of course you can be disappointed in others but you have no control over their actions and reactions. You can share the reasons for your disappointment but you cannot expect the other person or situation to change because the other person has free will.
When you realise that you are responsible for your thinking and expectations, you will start to see that you’ve placed much of your happiness in the hands of others. You can now take your power back by recognising that you have the choice to react to something either negatively or positively. By making your happiness conditional upon another person, you hand your power over to them. You feel a ‘victim’ whenever things don’t go as you want or expect. In doing this, you set yourself up for pain, but you can now turn this around and instead set yourself up for happiness.
The key is to not expect a particular outcome. What happens next is up to you. You can choose to wallow in negative feelings which may further damage a relationship, or you can try to place a positive spin on the situation. Perhaps you can find your happiness in the fact that you’ve done your part in dealing with the situation by getting your issue out into the open. Realise that it may not be an issue to the other person, but ideally you will work together to reach a compromise. You can also decide to be happy for the other person and the pain they show you because it helps you to grow. There are always choices and different ways of looking at the same thing.
It puts things into perspective when you resign yourself to the fact that people do make mistakes — they forget things, they don’t think properly, they don’t always consider how others may be affected by their actions, they can act selfishly at times, and so on. We are all humans and we are designed to make mistakes as they are our greatest opportunities to learn. As Horace Friess says, “All seasons are beautiful for the person who carries happiness within.”
Sunday, 29 June 2008
WHY YOU SHOULD FORGIVE
WHY YOU SHOULD FORGIVE
Concepts of right and wrong are not based upon any specific truth, but upon the perception of the moment, says David Nlmes
Have you ever forgiven anyone? You may quickly say ‘Yes’, which indicates you still remember the issue, which means it is not totally forgotten...and so therefore, it is not truly forgiven. We say we forgive, but we rarely do. We ‘excuse’, we ‘permit’, we ‘look past’, we ‘understand’, we ‘learn to live with’, but we never really forgive. We simply exchange our dislike of an event with the hope of returning to more pleasant times.What then, would you have to do to forgive? Is it possible to forgive while not totally forgetting the problem that created the reason for forgiveness in the first place? How do you forgive? How do I forgive?
To understand why total forgiveness seems almost impossible, or at least, very difficult, we need to ask why we value the concept of forgiveness in the first place. We need to look at what motivates us to either run from it or embrace it depending upon which end of the problem we see ourselves in. Let’s tear apart the whole concept of forgiveness and look at it the way it is.
What triggers the need to forgive or to be forgiven? Having done something wrong, you will experience the sensation of guilt. It might not happen immediately and it may take some time, but once you have done something wrong, the door is open for you to eventually feel guilty about it. The understanding of guilt is totally necessary for you to be on either side of the forgiving exchange. Now, having embraced the concepts of doing a ‘wrong’ or ‘bad’ thing and then associating them with guilt, this opens the door for multiple levels of forgiveness to exist. For example, once the wrong deed has occurred, an opportunity suddenly appears for somebody to forgive you, and you can also forgive yourself.
What triggers the sensation of guilt? Somewhere, we were taught that certain things were ‘right’ and certain things were ‘wrong’. Later, we then create connections to events we experience and use our past examples of right and wrong to inform us of whether our actions or the actions of the people around us are proper. In time, we can easily see who has done something wrong and we know they are guilty and should admit to their crime and admit they are guilty. This then opens the door for us to forgive them and for them to forgive themselves. Our society and many religious structures look upon guilt as a mighty and necessary force that is used to help us maintain an orderly society. It can be difficult seeing how our world could exist without us taking turns being either the receiver or the distributor of guilt. What else could possibly motivate anyone to change? What if you were taught about right and wrong, in error? Imagine being in a country where it is ‘wrong’ for a woman to show her face in public. Imagine a situation where it is ‘wrong’ to cross the boundary from one country to another when you are not welcome.
Imagine a moment where it is ‘wrong’ to kill another person. Imagine a moment where it is ‘wrong’ to purposely exceed the speed limit while driving. Imagine being in a country where it is ‘not wrong’ for a woman to show her face in public. Imagine a situation where it is ‘not wrong’ to cross the boundary from one country to another because you are welcome. Imagine a moment where it is ‘not wrong’ to kill another person who is attacking you. Imagine a moment where it is ‘not wrong’ to purposely exceed the speed limit while driving, so that lives may be saved.
These examples clearly show how something that is ‘wrong’ in one instance, is ‘not wrong’ in another instance, which means our concepts of right and wrong are not based upon any specific truth, but solely upon the perception of the moment. With this being the case, ‘being right’ or ‘being wrong’ are totally transient in the eye of the beholder and have no absolute state of being. Truth is eternal and unchangeable, so from an eternal and unchangeable spiritual point of view, this means the whole concept of right and wrong is not real and simply does not exist.
What if you never did anything wrong? If the concept of ‘right and wrong’ is not a solid spiritual truth, since they change with perception, then these concepts are neither seen, nor experienced and they aren’t true. When we say somebody is wrong we are viewing things from an extremely narrow and erroneous perception. So, if there is nothing ‘wrong’ with killing, should we just let the world run amok with violence and terror and do nothing to stop it? In a perfect world, you would not fear that you had to stop it, but likewise, in a perfect world, the concept of ‘wrong’ or ‘fear’ would not exist in the first place and no threats would be perceived. To understand the concept it would be helpful to see that all improper behaviour and events are mistakes that occur due to our perception of an act.
Instead of using the perception tainted variables of to judge ourselves and others, let’s instead look at improper events simply as ‘mistakes’. For example, if I were on a train to Philadelphia and happened to mention to a fellow passenger about how excited I was to be heading for Chicago, it would be obvious to this man that I had made a mistake and had gotten on the improper train. This does not make me bad. This does not require any sensation of guilt and this does not require forgiveness.
All this requires is that I get off that train and get on the proper train. When the fellow passenger informs me of my mistake, he has not judged me, but is simply informing me of an error I have made. Since I have done nothing wrong, there is no reason to associate guilt or fear with what he tells me. Being open for truth, I will not feel attacked and I will feel no need to defend my mistake. Instead, I will be happy and thankful to the passenger for helping me see and undo the mistake.
Truth frees because there is no judgment of any kind and it eliminates the need to be forgiven. Likewise, guilt binds because it is dependent upon judgment and it requires your need to be forgiven.
All concepts and origins of guilt, sin, right, wrong, etc, are of our own making and are based upon fear. Only our mistaken perceptions have created these concepts, which are e not true. They are simply errors of thinking.
To change your course, all you need to do is to be open to see where you may be mistaken and then and it will heal your perception of this world and of yourself. There is really nothing at all to forgive in the first place.
Sunday, 22 June 2008
HOW HAPPY ARE YOU?
HOW HAPPY ARE YOU?
Being happy depends not so much on external circumstances as on your inner life, says Tony Wilkinson
Are you the happiest person you know? Not necessarily the luckiest, richest, or most successful, just the happiest?
If not, why not? Most people will reel off their current worries — the job, the kids, the car, the price of fish. I don’t mean to sweep these aside: problems need to be solved, if you can, or waited out until they disappear. But as far as living happily is concerned you have to face a crucial fact. If you can only live happily after all your problems are solved, you are never going to live happily, because when today’s problems are gone and forgotten, others will take their place. So either living happily is just impossible, or you have to do it in spite of your problems.
Being happy depends not so much on external circumstances as on your inner life. This means all your thoughts, perceptions, beliefs, emotions, desires, dreams — your entire mental and emotional scene. Happiness is about how you react inwardly to events, what you think and believe, how you feel, how problems affect you. It may sound obvious, but like many obvious things it’s something that is often forgotten when it matters most. We focus almost exclusively on our external lives, on getting and spending and having fun, and then wonder why we are not happy. But it’s when our inner lives are tranquil that we are happiest and we call this inner peace.
So how is inner peace to be achieved? Is it a question of religion, perhaps, or yoga? These can certainly help but only if they have a positive effect on your inner life. The difficulty is that inner life is based on patterns and habits — some you were born with, most you have acquired. You don’t choose, occasion by occasion, how you respond inside when something happens. This happens and you feel angry; that happens you feel sad; you pass the patisserie and you feel hungry; you hear a tune or smell a certain scent and it reminds you of a particular time or person? Things produce a response without you thinking about it or choosing how you feel, and they don’t necessarily leave you with inner peace. So the trick is to break the pattern. You can’t completely avoid problems, but you can change how you react to them by acquiring new habits that provoke peaceful inner responses. Training your inner life into different habits requires learning skills of thinking, feeling, and managing your beliefs and desires. These are very like the virtues many religions and philosophies advocate, but if you think of them as skills rather than virtues, you benefit from an important and liberating shift. Instead of “I must become a better person” you can think “I would live more happily if i worked on my skills”, so the change in attitude becomes a choice, not a duty. And to these remedial skills i’ve added an extra set of enjoyment skills, otherwise getting happier could turn out a very depressing affair.
This process is not something you can do overnight, it’s a whole new way of life, but the reward is what we all want most — happiness.There are five main skills you need to cultivate.
Mindfulness: Borrowed from Buddhism, this involves developing your ability to focus your thoughts in the present. The problem most of us have with thought is having too much of it — the worrying and nonstop mental chattering our minds are prone to. Mindfulness is a key inner skill because, as it gets stronger, it lets you focus on your own inner life and catch your habits in the act. Once you can see how you are ruled by them, the change you are seeking often happens of its own accord.
Compassion: Most religions rightly stress compassion. As well as being a virtue in its own right it is a practical skill that counteracts negative emotions like anger and hatred, which are terrible wreckers of happiness. Try it the next time someone annoys you: put yourself in their place and ask yourself what they might they be thinking or feeling to behave like that. Even bad people, let alone people who just mildly annoy you, often have a warped or mistaken view of the world which makes them do what they do. Wars are started and atrocities committed, for example, because someone decides that this is what their God wants. It doesn’t mean they should get away with their actions, in fact it may be necessary to take strong action to defend yourself.
Story skills: These are very useful for problems with your inner belief system, as they let you stand back and explore alternative versions of reality. Beliefs have great power over your life because a belief is something you take as fact. Start to think of your beliefs as stories, and it is easier to accept that other things might be true as well, or even instead. Even true stories only select the little bit of reality we are focusing on at the moment: no one story is the whole truth about any situation. From a different point of view we would see a different story, sometimes a whole different world. This is not about make believe, it’s about reframing situations to look at them from a different perspective.
Letting-go techniques: These are particularly helpful when we are unhappy not getting what we want. Generally, we are encouraged to keep wanting and to think that more will make us happier, whether it’s clothes or cars or even love. But wanting is a treadmill: as long as you have unsatisfied wants and desires you won’t be at peace, so to be happy you either have to satisfy all your desires, or let go of some of them. Letting-go skills also include forgiveness, which helps hugely if one of the things you think you want is revenge.
Enjoyment skills: This last group includes skills such as patience, humour and, especially, gratitude. You don’t have to be grateful to someone, it’s enough to cultivate gratitude for things. Our minds naturally scan the environment for dangers and resources, a useful mechanism when we were hunter-gatherers. But it can make us unnecessarily pessimistic — focusing on the 10% we lack rather than the 90% we have. Cultivating enjoyment skills will help redress the balance.
Acquiring all these skills takes time and effort. The important thing is to practise them until they operate without you thinking about them. Your practice routine will be very individual, because everyone needs to prioritise different skills depending on the specific issues that are holding them back from being happy, but keep the skills in mind and you will constantly find new ways to try them out.
Thursday, 19 June 2008
SAY BYE TO YOUR FEARS
MIND SET
SAY BYE TO YOUR FEARS
To stay in your comfort zone because of fears of what may lie outside will condemn you to a life of regret, says Adrian Savage
Over time, we all gather a set of constricting habits around us — ones that trap us in a zone of supposed comfort, well below what our potential would allow us to attain. Pretty soon, such habits slip below the level of our consciousness, but they still determine what we think that we can and cannot do — and what we cannot even bring ourselves to try. As long as you let these habits rule you, you will be stuck in a rut.
Like the tiny, soft bodied creatures that build coral reefs, habits start off small and flexible, and end up by building massive barriers of rock all around your mind. Inside the reefs, the water feels quiet and friendly. Outside you think it’s going to be rough and stormy. There may be sharks. But if you’re to develop in any direction from where you are today, you must go outside that reef of habits that marks the boundaries of your comfort zone. There’s no other way. There’s even nothing specially wrong with those habits as such. They probably worked for you in the past. But now it's time to step over them and go into the wider world of your unused potential. Your fears don’t know what’s going to be out there, so they invent monsters and scary beasts to keep you inside.
Nobody’s born with an instruction manual for life. Despite all the helpful advice from parents, teachers and elders, each of us must make our own way in the world, doing the best we can and quite often getting things wrong. Messing up a few times isn’t that big a deal. But if you get scared and try to avoid all mistakes by sticking with just a few tried and true behaviours, you will miss out on most opportunities as well. Lots of people who suffer from boredom at work are doing it to themselves. They are bored and frustrated because that’s what their choices have caused them to be. They are stuck in ruts they dug for themselves while trying to avoid making mistakes and taking risks. People who never make mistakes never make anything else either.
It’s time to pin down the habits that have become unconscious and are running your life for you, and get rid of them. Here’s how to do it: Understand the truth about your habits. They always represent past successes. You have formed habitual, automatic behaviours because you once dealt with something successfully, tried the same response next time, and found it worked again. That’s how habits grow and why they feel so useful.
To get away from what’s causing your unhappiness and workplace blues, you must give up on many of your most fondly held habits and try new ways of thinking and acting. There truly isn’t any alternative. Those habits are going to block you from finding new and creative ideas. No new ideas, no learning. No learning, no access to successful change.
Do something differently and see what happens. Even the most successful habits eventually lose their usefulness as events change the world and fresh responses are called for. Yet we cling on to them long after their benefit has gone. Past strategies are bound to fail sometime. Letting them become automatic habits that take the controls is a sure road to self-inflicted harm.
Take some time out and have a detailed look at yourself — with no holds barred. Discovering your unconscious habits can be tough. For a start, they are unconscious, right? Then they fight back. Ask anyone who has ever given up smoking if habits are tough to break. You've got used to them and they are at least as addictive as nicotine or crack cocaine.
Be who you are. It’s easy to assume that you always have to fit in to get on in the world; that you must conform to be liked and respected by others or face exclusion. Because most people want to please, they try to become what they believe others expect, even if it means forcing themselves to be the kind of person they aren’t, deep down.
You need to start by putting yourself first. You are unique. We are all unique, so saying this doesn’t suggest that you are better than others or deserve more than they do. You need to put yourself first because no one else has as much interest in your life as you do; and because if you don’t, no one else will. Putting others second means giving them their due respect, not ignoring them totally. Keeping up a selfimage can be a burden. Hanging on to an inflated, unrealistic one is a curse. Give yourself a break.
Slow down and let go. Most of us want to think of ourselves as good, kind, intelligent and caring people. Sometimes that's true. Sometimes it isn’t. Reality is complex. We can’t function at all without constant input and support from other people. Everything we have, everything we have learned, came to us through someone else’s hands. At our best, we pass on this borrowed existence to others, enhanced by our contribution. At our worst, we waste and squander it. So recognise that you are a rich mixture of thoughts and feelings that come and go, some useful, some not. There’s no need to keep up a façade; no need to pretend; no need to fear of what you know to be true.
When you face your own truth, you’ll find it’s an enormous relief. If you are maybe not as wonderful as you'd like to be, you aren’t nearly as bad as you fear either. The truth really does set you free; free to work on being better and to forgive yourself for being human; free to express your gratitude to others and recognise what you owe them; free to acknowledge your feelings without letting them dominate your life. Above all, you will be free to understand the truth of living: that much of what happens to you is no more than chance. It can’t be avoided and is not your fault. There’s no point in beating yourself up about it.
What is holding you in situations and actions that no longer work for you often isn’t inertia or procrastination. It’s the power of habitual ways of seeing the world and thinking about events. Until you can let go of those old, worn-out habits, they’ll continue to hold you prisoner. To stay in your comfort zone through mere habit, or to stay there because of irrational fears of what may lie outside, will condemn you to a life of frustration and regret.
There's a marvellous world out there. You'll see, if you try it.
SAY BYE TO YOUR FEARS
To stay in your comfort zone because of fears of what may lie outside will condemn you to a life of regret, says Adrian Savage
Over time, we all gather a set of constricting habits around us — ones that trap us in a zone of supposed comfort, well below what our potential would allow us to attain. Pretty soon, such habits slip below the level of our consciousness, but they still determine what we think that we can and cannot do — and what we cannot even bring ourselves to try. As long as you let these habits rule you, you will be stuck in a rut.
Like the tiny, soft bodied creatures that build coral reefs, habits start off small and flexible, and end up by building massive barriers of rock all around your mind. Inside the reefs, the water feels quiet and friendly. Outside you think it’s going to be rough and stormy. There may be sharks. But if you’re to develop in any direction from where you are today, you must go outside that reef of habits that marks the boundaries of your comfort zone. There’s no other way. There’s even nothing specially wrong with those habits as such. They probably worked for you in the past. But now it's time to step over them and go into the wider world of your unused potential. Your fears don’t know what’s going to be out there, so they invent monsters and scary beasts to keep you inside.
Nobody’s born with an instruction manual for life. Despite all the helpful advice from parents, teachers and elders, each of us must make our own way in the world, doing the best we can and quite often getting things wrong. Messing up a few times isn’t that big a deal. But if you get scared and try to avoid all mistakes by sticking with just a few tried and true behaviours, you will miss out on most opportunities as well. Lots of people who suffer from boredom at work are doing it to themselves. They are bored and frustrated because that’s what their choices have caused them to be. They are stuck in ruts they dug for themselves while trying to avoid making mistakes and taking risks. People who never make mistakes never make anything else either.
It’s time to pin down the habits that have become unconscious and are running your life for you, and get rid of them. Here’s how to do it: Understand the truth about your habits. They always represent past successes. You have formed habitual, automatic behaviours because you once dealt with something successfully, tried the same response next time, and found it worked again. That’s how habits grow and why they feel so useful.
To get away from what’s causing your unhappiness and workplace blues, you must give up on many of your most fondly held habits and try new ways of thinking and acting. There truly isn’t any alternative. Those habits are going to block you from finding new and creative ideas. No new ideas, no learning. No learning, no access to successful change.
Do something differently and see what happens. Even the most successful habits eventually lose their usefulness as events change the world and fresh responses are called for. Yet we cling on to them long after their benefit has gone. Past strategies are bound to fail sometime. Letting them become automatic habits that take the controls is a sure road to self-inflicted harm.
Take some time out and have a detailed look at yourself — with no holds barred. Discovering your unconscious habits can be tough. For a start, they are unconscious, right? Then they fight back. Ask anyone who has ever given up smoking if habits are tough to break. You've got used to them and they are at least as addictive as nicotine or crack cocaine.
Be who you are. It’s easy to assume that you always have to fit in to get on in the world; that you must conform to be liked and respected by others or face exclusion. Because most people want to please, they try to become what they believe others expect, even if it means forcing themselves to be the kind of person they aren’t, deep down.
You need to start by putting yourself first. You are unique. We are all unique, so saying this doesn’t suggest that you are better than others or deserve more than they do. You need to put yourself first because no one else has as much interest in your life as you do; and because if you don’t, no one else will. Putting others second means giving them their due respect, not ignoring them totally. Keeping up a selfimage can be a burden. Hanging on to an inflated, unrealistic one is a curse. Give yourself a break.
Slow down and let go. Most of us want to think of ourselves as good, kind, intelligent and caring people. Sometimes that's true. Sometimes it isn’t. Reality is complex. We can’t function at all without constant input and support from other people. Everything we have, everything we have learned, came to us through someone else’s hands. At our best, we pass on this borrowed existence to others, enhanced by our contribution. At our worst, we waste and squander it. So recognise that you are a rich mixture of thoughts and feelings that come and go, some useful, some not. There’s no need to keep up a façade; no need to pretend; no need to fear of what you know to be true.
When you face your own truth, you’ll find it’s an enormous relief. If you are maybe not as wonderful as you'd like to be, you aren’t nearly as bad as you fear either. The truth really does set you free; free to work on being better and to forgive yourself for being human; free to express your gratitude to others and recognise what you owe them; free to acknowledge your feelings without letting them dominate your life. Above all, you will be free to understand the truth of living: that much of what happens to you is no more than chance. It can’t be avoided and is not your fault. There’s no point in beating yourself up about it.
What is holding you in situations and actions that no longer work for you often isn’t inertia or procrastination. It’s the power of habitual ways of seeing the world and thinking about events. Until you can let go of those old, worn-out habits, they’ll continue to hold you prisoner. To stay in your comfort zone through mere habit, or to stay there because of irrational fears of what may lie outside, will condemn you to a life of frustration and regret.
There's a marvellous world out there. You'll see, if you try it.
Sunday, 1 June 2008
ACCEPT LIFE AS IT IS - TOI 01-JUN-2008
ACCEPT LIFE AS IT IS
When you appreciate and accept life on its own terms, you harmonise your mind with God’s mind, says Saundra L Washington Those living on the highest levels of life have learned to accept life on its own terms. There are some realities about life that we must accept. This is the key to living joyfully in communion with the heavenly while abiding here on earth. Life, no matter how we choose to look at it, is a challenge. It is the beginning of a struggle that continues until we breathe our last breath. Life is something that we did not request. None of us asked to be born. Neither did we ask to be poor or wealthy, tall or short. We did not ask to be a part of one family as opposed to another. Life is full of risks. There is a certain element of risk taking that is inherent in every venture we undertake; whether it is in business, or in marriage, in a profession or in athletics. We never have complete security within ourselves. For we know that every moment we live, our lives are in constant danger. A stray bullet may hit us, a car emerging out of nowhere may crush us, and a slip of the foot may result in our death. So life is unpredictable. We get no warning, we are afforded no red alert, and we get no second chance at life. And we might as well face the fact that our life is a dying life. As soon as we are born, we begin to die and every day we manage to somehow survive, we have only gained another step towards our grave. Each morning when we wake up from a refreshing sleep, we have died a little during the night. As we go through the streets of the city, we are dying a little. As we go about our business on the job, we are dying a little. In essence, we are living in the land of the dying.
It will help you to accept life on its own terms rather than struggle against it. Identify and move from the limiting and conflicting, either/or, black or white, all or nothing, illusory perception of life to an attitude that is open to all aspects of reality. We do this by accepting life on its own terms — accepting that pleasure and pain, happiness and unhappiness are all a natural part of the human experience. Fighting against life’s realities and adopting a stance of negativism only create unnecessary pain and difficulty in your life. Accepting life allows you to understand your frustrations, grow from them and experience life’s abundance.
When you appreciate and accept life on its own terms, you harmonise your mind with God’s mind, says Saundra L Washington Those living on the highest levels of life have learned to accept life on its own terms. There are some realities about life that we must accept. This is the key to living joyfully in communion with the heavenly while abiding here on earth. Life, no matter how we choose to look at it, is a challenge. It is the beginning of a struggle that continues until we breathe our last breath. Life is something that we did not request. None of us asked to be born. Neither did we ask to be poor or wealthy, tall or short. We did not ask to be a part of one family as opposed to another. Life is full of risks. There is a certain element of risk taking that is inherent in every venture we undertake; whether it is in business, or in marriage, in a profession or in athletics. We never have complete security within ourselves. For we know that every moment we live, our lives are in constant danger. A stray bullet may hit us, a car emerging out of nowhere may crush us, and a slip of the foot may result in our death. So life is unpredictable. We get no warning, we are afforded no red alert, and we get no second chance at life. And we might as well face the fact that our life is a dying life. As soon as we are born, we begin to die and every day we manage to somehow survive, we have only gained another step towards our grave. Each morning when we wake up from a refreshing sleep, we have died a little during the night. As we go through the streets of the city, we are dying a little. As we go about our business on the job, we are dying a little. In essence, we are living in the land of the dying.
It will help you to accept life on its own terms rather than struggle against it. Identify and move from the limiting and conflicting, either/or, black or white, all or nothing, illusory perception of life to an attitude that is open to all aspects of reality. We do this by accepting life on its own terms — accepting that pleasure and pain, happiness and unhappiness are all a natural part of the human experience. Fighting against life’s realities and adopting a stance of negativism only create unnecessary pain and difficulty in your life. Accepting life allows you to understand your frustrations, grow from them and experience life’s abundance.
You have heard people who make comments such as “I go with the flow.” What they are saying is this: I accept in life what i cannot change. I deal with it as it comes within the framework of my own knowledge and capabilities and spirit. When inner negatives are dissolved, our outer life will be more harmonious and fulfilled.
Understanding life helps you make the unconscious conscious; to see your misguided beliefs and negativity clearly, to understand their roots and causes, and most importantly — to transform them. A complete path, it offers a practical, rational, honest, and above all, gentle and self-accepting way to move from an attitude of you versus the world to one of you and the world; from you versus life to you and life. Fundamental to accepting life is to give recognition to the supreme life-giver. Whenever we praise God or give God recognition and acknowledgement, it is for life. Whenever we give God a spiritual applaud or standing ovation, it is for life. Think about it. God has given us life, something so tremendous, potent, and marvelous that no scholar has ever been smart enough to detail its composition or understand from where it derives its sustaining energy. Life is a force so complex that it cannot be duplicated. And, most amazing and thrilling of all, He has given us minds! It is through our minds, the thoughts we think with it, and the impressions we store in it, that we are conscious of living. In short, your life becomes just what your mind makes it for you and just what it tells you life is.
Few people go deep enough within their soul to realise in its entire fullness, breadth and scope the amazing gift of life that enables them to pursue a lifetime of accomplishment. What a marvelous gift. What power! God has endowed us with the power to think, to believe, to create, to imagine, to choose, to feel, to aspire. Having a wonderful sense of appreciation puts all our petty complaints and frustrations, irritants and negativity into perspective. You live on a realm beyond grudges, ingratitude, selfishness and take-for grant-ed-ness. You enjoy and value each moment and are determined to get the best out of every second.
Don’t forget that God is a living energy to quicken and guide our own energy. The Infinite Power Source is a living elixir to lift up, sustain, and establish our own spirit. Being negative takes the spirit out of you. What is the point of God increasing your spirit while you at the same time decrease it with negatives? If you refuse God’s gift of an abundant life, then you must do without it.
Our minds, which thinks so ceaselessly and insistently, is the most marvelous instrument imaginable; but it is up to us to control it and to choose the kind of thoughts we think, to train ourselves in appreciating all flowers that come into our life, and deal with the weeds. Yes, we must come to terms with the silent and perennial truth that the field of human life will always consist of the good, the bad and the ugly coexisting together. We all experience the good in our lives, but intertwined with the good is the bad and the ugly. Finding the ugly and unpleasant mixed in with the wheat is an everyday experience and each of us has to deal with the inherent difficulties involved.
But lest we become arrogant, we also understand that not only do we live with both the wheat and the thistles but also they exist within each of us. Collectively and individually, we are capable of heart-touching kindness towards one another as well as heartbreaking evil. We are capable of building up and capable of tearing down, capable of great love and capable of seething hatred, capable of horrendous evil as well as remarkable good.
When you are able to appreciate life and accept it on its own terms, you harmonise your mind with God’s mind; with the universal intelligence, power and glory. Every day lift yourself up in your own mind, mood, imagination, and sheer inner conviction. Everyday, give praise to the author of life and glory in its wonders.
Sunday, 25 May 2008
LOGIC OF LETTING GO
MIND SET- LOGIC OF LETTING GO
Loosen the influence of external pressures, listen to your own internal dream, and then let go of what isn’t part of that dream within, says Bret S Beall
As adults, letting go can still leave us feeling empty or full. Both feelings may occur simultaneously. Ultimately, letting go will allow us to feel free, unburdened, healed, happy, even joyous. I intend to address how we can reach these ultimate feelings. The concept of letting go is very complex. For the sake of this discussion, i will divide the various aspects of letting go into three categories: 1) physical, 2) psychological, and 3) spiritual.
When i discuss the physical realm, i am talking about anything tangible, whether it is our bodies or our environment. Our environment can often be cluttered, so purging of much of this stuff can be truly liberating. Our bodies may not please us, so we can choose to let go of extra weight. We can choose to let go of bad habits and addictions. We can choose to free ourselves of the indiscriminate materialism and consumerism that requires constantly acquiring more and more of anything.
Moving from the physical to the psychological, we move to the why of those items that we could let go of physically. For example, why do we have all of the stuff that needs to be purged? What has caused the rampant materialism that has allowed us to fill up our lives with objects and beings? I almost wrote ‘inanimate,’ but there are those who fill up their lives with pets and children and casual acquaintances rather than real relationships. All such acquisitional behaviour is symptomatic of a psychological need that longs to be filled, but which should be purged. The same is true of other unpleasant emotions, like anger, fear, jealousy/envy, even hate; when a psychological need exists, it causes these emotions to manifest in an attempt to satisfy that need. Guess what? The very same is true for any bad habits and addictions we want to let go of; while there may be a biochemical component to these, they also are indicative of some sort of need or self-perceived deficiency or pain that, in turn, is symptomatic of needing to spiritually let go.
Truthfully, one could argue that if one lets go and purges at the physical and psychological levels, spiritual level purges and progress will automatically follow. Instead of dealing with those two arguments, i am going to run to one common expression: Let Go; Let God. When we consider the spiritual level, by definition we are dealing with the Divine by whatever name we wish to call Him. Also, by definition, we are exiting the scientific arena that forms the foundation of most of my work, and moving into the realm of faith, which happens to form the foundation for the remainder of my work. Most spiritual advisors argue that happiness and joy are the natural state of our souls. Therefore, if these are not what we feel, what must be purged from the spiritual realm? Because every single major faith has reincarnation as one of its major tenets, and the purpose of reincarnation is for the spirit to achieve a higher state. Ridding ourselves of karma is the ultimate purge!
Now that we have seen the different levels of letting go and purging, how do we begin the process? Try beginning with just one small step in one aspect of your everyday life. Identify something that you don't need, and let go of it. Perhaps it will be your décor? Even though i embrace much of Mies van der Rohe’s ‘Less is More’ philosophy, one does not have let go of an overall personal style that you might enjoy more in order to simplify and streamline your life. However, it may help to examine “Why” you have a particular décor, and whether it might merit letting go in order to have a more lifeenhancing physical environment. Mostly, this is about just getting rid of accumulated material items that aren’t needed any more.
Think about the motivations you have for selecting a career, a hobby, a car, a house, even a spouse. Are those motivations from your own internal dreams and drive, or are there some external pressures? This is moving beyond the realm of everyday activity, and into the realm of special activity; these special events are most often psychological in nature.
Remember, though, that there are many ways to get an education, so temper all external pressures with your internal dream. Loosen the influence of external pressures, learn what your choices are, listen to your own internal dream, and then let go of what isn’t part of that internal dream. Now that you have identified your internal dream, what is holding you back from achieving your greatness? Money? Fear? Inhibitions? Overwhelming anger? Frustration? Laziness? Whatever it is, you must start to let go of what is holding you back. For instance, i have a beautiful relative who is very intelligent and artistically talented; she once told me that her dream was to write children’s books. When i asked her why she didn’t ‘just do it,’ she said she was afraid of failing. I urged her to let go of her fear of failure, but that fear had its hooks in too deep.
Once you start letting go of what you don’t need, and loving all, you will have fewer blocks in your spiritual Path! As you begin to ‘Let go,’ you automatically begin ‘Letting In.’ Both are processes, so please don’t expect overnight success. Start small, and change will occur incrementally. Let go of the need for perfection and the physical, psychological and spiritual baggage that embodies. Let in the goal of self-improvement throughout your life. Let in Love. We are all works in progress. Make a pact with yourself to show just a little more love every day. Let in the Divine.
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