Gratitude

Gratitude- is it just thankfulness? Gratitude has much more to it. It is the feeling of appreciation, joyfulness, satisfaction, content, in a simple way of thankfulness. It is not wrong to say gratitude builds for a great attitude. We know how to use the things given to us by the universe, for example- using the air to breath, using the water to hydrate ourselves, using the ears to listen, using your bed to sleep, using your pen to write, but the problem is we take it for granted. We never thank for anything; we never feel the need to be grateful for it. In terms of positive psychology, it is an emotional response to life to be grateful. This word is catching light everywhere around the globe today. But the point is it merely a catchy good feel word or is there something more to it. We say thank you to everyone who does anything for us in our day-to-day life, do we mean it? Or is it just a word? Does it make any difference? Let us dig deeper.

A study was done in 2019, to identify what difference will gratitude make to well-being and mental health of people. The participants wrote a gratitude list daily for 14 days. It was surprising that those who were doing this managed to increase positive affect in their life. They had subjective happiness i.e. when your happiness is dependent on something outside and they had life satisfaction , this experiment showed how a simple practice of gratitude reduced negative affect and depression symptoms in people. I have been writing gratitude list myself for past 5 years. Every morning when I get up, I have a routine to sit and write 5 things I am thankful for and it elevates my dopamine levels i.e., the hormones for happiness and provides a great start for the day.

In the book, Psychology of gratitude you can read how neglected this emotion is and how it is observed that people have made a habit where they cannot express gratitude, they are not capable of doing it as they have lost the expression under many other emotions of life. However, it is the most essential emotion of justice. Justice to nature, justice to your life and justice to your being.

Now let us not relate gratefulness to objectivity. When we get something, it is a normal response to be grateful. Adam smith has worked a lot in the subject area of gratefulness, he did an in-depth study and found that when an individual is grateful to other’s goodwill towards them it promotes social stability. I agree but let us dig deeper. Is gratefulness just a worldly gesture? When I write in my diary, I never thank for the presents I got, or I cannot always thank for the promotion I got. I thank for the air I breath, the roof on my head, food in my fridge, contacts in the favourite section of my phone, people who love me and on and on. When I walk outside, I am thankful for having feet, thankful for the road, thankful for the greenery.

Gratefulness is a powerful quality that throws complaining attitude out of your system. It is simple to understand that if you are always complaining, you cannot be thankful, whereas if you are always grateful you cannot be complaining. Seligman, who is an American Psychologist and writer, in 2002 found in his research that many people’s attitude is incompatible with gratefulness. Now this attitude may be perceptions of victimhood, sense of entitlement or envy & resentment but I believe each one of us deep inside just want a good life, even if we cannot acknowledge it that’s what we want.

You must be thinking in these terrible conditions around globe because of the Pandemic how can one think of gratefulness. There is pain everywhere, people are dying, nations are in lock down, so how come have gratitude and for what? I understand. Let us dig deeper, there is lock down but still we have electricity, water, food, there are so many workers out there putting there lives at risk to give everyone else the essentials, we can be grateful. People are dying, people are sick, still we have healthcare who is putting themselves at risk to help us, we can be grateful. People are locked in boundaries, but we have phones, Wi-Fi, internet connections to keep in touch with our loved ones, we can be grateful. In these tough times as well, people are coming together helping each other in every little way possible, we can be grateful. There are thousands of things in your immediate surroundings that if you see with the eyes of gratefulness, you will be filled with compassion and content.

It is important to understand the link between gratefulness and your well-being. Positive psychology consist of positive emotions and gratefulness is one of them. Positive emotions will change the hormonal levels of your body these changes will impact how your mind and body behaves towards various situations that comes in life. These are not just words these are all proven facts and many people around the world are practicing this to elevate their lives. Many cultures have a notion that gratefulness is a way to connect to nature. I am practicing this simple habit and I have been asked by everyone how are you always happy, my response usually is what do you mean? Because I am not classifying my being as happy but that is who I am. Gratefulness changes you inside out. Let’s practice today writing 5 things every morning that you are grateful for and lets see how it affects your life. You can share your experience with me on our website truth-bliss-consciounsess.webador.co.uk or email me on truth.bliss.consciousness@gmail.com

Lets speak together and grow together.

References:

Emmons, R. A., & Shelton, C. M. (2002). Gratitude and the science of positive psychology. Handbook of positive psychology, 18, 459-471.

Cunha, L. F., Pellanda, L. C., & Reppold, C. T. (2019). Positive psychology and gratitude interventions: A randomized clinical trial. Frontiers in psychology, 10, 584.

Emmons, R. A., & McCullough, M. E. (Eds.). (2004). The psychology of gratitude. Oxford University Press.

Bono, G., Emmons, R. A., & McCullough, M. E. (2004). Gratitude in practice and the practice of gratitude. Positive psychology in practice, 464-481.

Manifestation in Life

To make it simple, manifestation is a technique where you use your thought process, mind-set, feelings, emotions and belief system to bring something to reality. For example- When I am going for a meeting, I am usually thinking in my head “This is going to be the most productive hour of the day” “I am going to rock that presentation” you must be thinking this is confidence. Well, confidence is a different trait, when you think, you create emotions associated with it, that creates your aura and outlook and you send that thought in the universe and the positive energy around you makes things go in the right direction. There is another example- when we go to meet someone who we don’t have good terms with the thoughts we are having is ‘o I don’t wanna be here’ ‘o this is a terrible idea’ these thoughts and feelings that you send out to the universe create the similar reality for you, these thoughts have a little biased front and a little ignorance and may be a little delusion, when you clear your perceptions for that person, purify it and then when you approach the same person, things will be enormously different. Manifestation is conscious creation of your reality and circumstances around you. Every morning when we get up, there is a rush of thoughts in our head, these are usually past experiences, these thoughts kick some emotions, and these emotions reflect in your personality. It is interesting that we have around 60-70,000 thoughts in a day and 90% of them repeat on a daily basis. I would like to quote Dr. Joe Dispenza here, who is the author of ‘you are the placebo’ and has great contributions to the field of mindfulness and well-being. He says, if you have same thoughts, you will make same choices, followed by same behaviour, therefore same experience and then same emotions. Think about it.

Manifestation is putting your thoughts, feelings, energy all in one direction. One goal, which you think will change your life or lives of people around you. You need to mean it, feel it and visualize it coming true. Such deep belief will drive your energy at a different level and you yourself will start doing things that needs to be done. It is easy to understand for example- when I am tired I cannot think of a solution to a problem, rather I might make it more complicated than it already is, reason being my mind-set in not looking for a solution. However, when I am fresh, full energy, a mind-set to rule over whatever task comes in front of me, it gives me new ideas, my creativity is high. So I get the solutions when I am actually looking for them, I mean it and I manifest in it. No one else can manifest in your dreams, and no one will. We all have the capability to do the impossible, to invest and to discover, we need to believe it, mean it and drive our forces to it. I heard Elon Musk, the man who owns Tesla, Space X and Solar city, saying in an interview that if you want something to be true even when it isn’t true, you have to ignore the real truth because of what you want to be true.  If a genius like him believes in manifestation. We need to dig deeper.

You must be wondering how is that possible? Well. 70% of the people live for survival and base their thoughts on past experiences. They bring change in their lives when they are hit by a trauma or tragedy. It is because at that time they have highest emotional quotient that drives their focus towards the change they want to bring. Similarly some people use a quote their whole life, ‘ well I am born like this ‘ ‘This is who I am and how I think’ funny part is – ‘they are not even joking’. You condition your body and brain with these thoughts and when you plan to bring a change to your daily wiring of thoughts there is a uncomfortable experience there. Because your body doesn’t know how to react to these new thoughts and what emotion to create because you have wired your systems so bad that it doesn’t want to feel the change. But there is a great explanation to this by Robin Sharma who is one of the best seller authors that change is hard at first, messy in the middle and gorgeous at the end. Just keep pressing.

So easy to follow the link, everything that you see around you, that you use in your day-to-day life was 1^st created in someone’s mind, it was an idea and by manifesting in that idea it came to reality. So we can stand by the fact that we create our own reality. Now what is important is you learn to understand that you are the driver of your thoughts and feelings, take the control in your hands, you must be thinking easier said then done. I understand but take baby steps, believe you can achieve it. Because your thoughts will make the life you want. Our mind always wanders around, there are so many people out there who can not stop thinking even for a second, there is always something running in their head. It ultimately makes you mentally exhausted with no optimum results. Now is the time, you come to the driver seat of your head and steer it in the direction you want it to go. There is this whole theory of cause and effect that when there is a cause, our body will experience the effects and we wire our behaviour and emotions according to it. This way we wait for things to happen and live most of our life in a lack. This is the time to use quantum model of reality as discussed by Dr. Dispenza that is about causing an effect with your feelings. Be the creator.

But does it mean that if you manifest in each and every desire with the right focus and belief system, all the desires will come true? Let us dig deeper.

Just imagine if you had everything in your life that you ever wished for. How your life would be? Sometimes I am happy that I did not get what I wanted. I remember wanting to be a singer, a star, to be honest I am glad that did not happen at that time, or I would have missed where I am today. The other day I was talking to my colleague, and I asked if she is given a chance to change something in her life that did not go as planned, what would she do, after so much thinking, she said I guess I don’t want to change anything, it didn’t went as planned but it is much better and I kind of love it with its imperfection.

So, it is the aspect of gratefulness I really appreciate. But as you did not manifest in what you wanted it did not come around right. Also, it is important to understand if you are manifesting with no proper control of your awareness, consciousness, emotions, physical actions, you are going to create a reality where you do not belong. The wider example of this is what we are doing to the planet which is our biggest blessing, just to fulfil our motives and desires of fulfilment. We are bringing the thoughts to reality but is that good for us? No, not really, we are manifesting in a dreadful future. So, you need to be mindful of your every move. Suppose you want to buy a car, but all you think if ‘I can’t buy it, too expensive or may be its not the time’ you are yourself blocking your energy and capability to get what you want. When you have no negative thought, complete trust in yourself, in your vision, your vibrations that you send out to the universe will create the circumstances that will help you achieve what you want. I remember when I applied for scholarship for my masters and there was only 1 that was to be given out. I didn’t know how and why I would get it. I wanted it that is it. Eventually I found so many people helping me to structure my portfolio and guide me in that direction and I got it. I was blessed because I manifested in it. I had no clue in the beginning if that is even possible. But I had no negative thoughts just one feeling I want it and a belief I am going to get it. Help came around itself.

Manifestation can be related to happiness as well. It is a simple equation that if you get what you want, you are happy and if you do not you are unhappy. So weird when we say it out loud. So basically, our happiness depends on our wants. Interesting, isn’t it? Point is are you manifesting in what you want? You would be thinking, yea I work so hard everyday to get what I want. There is a little problem with that, working hard with what thoughts In your head? Working hard with what type of energy? Working hard for sake of hard work or manifesting to achieve the end goal? Think about it….

Human mind believes what it has seen so far that’s why great minds go beyond that. Simple example, if I tell you can you become invisible, you ll probably say are you crazy? No. If I tell you can you become a parent, you ll say may be because here you have a choice as you have seen in your culture. Some people chose to be a parent some does not. If I say, can you eat. Answer probably would be yes because we do it every day. So, our definition of what is possible and can be done is determined by what we have seen around or heard around. There would have been no invention in the history if this were followed by everyone. You can manifest your energy in whatever you think you want to come true, and it will. It is a common saying that, if you can think about it, you can do it. Forget the terms possible and impossible. Remove them from your dictionary. We have programmed ourselves so smartly that we give reasons to our brain to be happy with being limited. We use excuse like o I had bad childhood, o I don’t have enough resources or may be o I am in  a poor relationship. With this one single thought we slide into mediocrity. You must have heard that just by creating stress thoughts, you kick the stress hormones in your body and you feel sick. It is evident if your thoughts can make you sick they can drive you in any direction you want. Just come to the driver seat of your mind and body. Be the master. Do not let experience push your emotional buttons.

The only next step is - be clear about what you want. Take a pen and paper today and write what you want. If you want health, write it. You want love, write it, you want a promotion to write it. Whatever you want it should be written down in clear words and commit to them. No ifs and buts. Have a clear vision for your future. Tomorrow morning when you wake up do not practice the same thoughts from yesterday or from past experiences, have the thoughts about the future you envision for yourself. Do not get disheartened if you are drifted to the same thoughts, because as we know Rome wasn’t built in a day. We just need to put the 1^st brick in place and make our life the way we want. Do it today and share your experience with me on our website truth-bliss-consciousness.webador.co.uk or you can email me at – truth.bliss.consciousness@gmail.com

Let us speak together and grow together.

Decision Making Dilemma

Discussing the decision-making dilemma that we usually face in our life whenever we have to make a decision or make a choice, how we approach our final decisions. Here, you will understand why we face problems in decision making and how we play around it and how we can deal with it.

I can talk for myself whenever I have to make a decision especially emotional ones, I am always trapped by this thought in my head if I am doing the right thing or I don't want to do the wrong thing. For example if somebody is making you feel bad with their words – some people will lash out at them, others might keep quiet and let it go and some usually think in their head if they should retaliate or let them know that they not comfortable with the way they're being talked to, then there is another thought in the head of a few that- it's OK maybe they're having their own troubles in their lives and it's alright, there is no need to think about it or give it the power to have an effect. It is very difficult to analyse what is the right step in a particular situation and always there is a fear in the head that you do not want to do something wrong. Now, on one hand it is good to be conscious and careful about your actions, that is a good quality but being over cautious and over contemplative can be a bit of a trouble for your own mental health. We can say that- too much of anything can be troublesome. And the question is – is it really that horrendous to be wrong? Let us dig deeper.

This kind of thinking is called dichotomous thinking. as you can understand from the word di means two, that means you always have two options whenever you're thinking something in your head if you think about it-  it's really exhausting and sometimes we just do things without thinking that much but usually when there are big decisions to be made or the person on the other end is someone you care about you actually think twice. as I just mentioned is it that wrong to be wrong. people are usually afraid of making wrong choices, in psychology you will read about ego and superego. this is a concept given by Sigmund Freud, who was an Austrian Neurologist and founder of psychoanalysis, this theory is about personalities. Ego, the term we usually use in a negative sense, is that part of personality where the person is very rational, he will take the decisions to satisfy himself. I am sure you would be able to relate with this for example whenever I make a choice that internally I know it might not be right, but I try to justify it to myself to satisfy the ego part of my personality. for example, if I am not supposed to eat an ice cream and I will eat it and then I try to console myself or satisfy myself with giving explanation that does not make me feel guilty rather more satisfied. here the ego part of my behaviour and personality plays its role. then comes the superego, now as the name justifies it is a little bit above your ego. here the basis is more about your morality the moral principles you hold that are given to you by your parents by your family or by your society. in this part of your personality, you're focused on more about right or wrong. for example, when you let your ego play, you will have the ice cream no matter what and you'll justify it in whatever way it seems fit. but when your superego is playing in your personality it will stop you from having that ice cream telling you what is right and what is wrong and you would not tend to drift towards the wrong side because there is a superego playing inside that you have to be right. I was talking to a therapist the other day and she discussed with me that why can’t you play in the grey area why is it so bad to take some decisions that might be wrong I'm sure you cannot always be right and then again the definition of right or wrong is determined by your societal parameters what you see around and how you interpret things there is no exact definition of right or wrong. interesting isn't it? let us dig deeper.

It would be of real interest to you, to know that if you are constantly having a fear in your head to make wrong choices and wrong decisions you can have many negative repercussions on your mental health and well being. for example, when you're always in a dilemma whether you are making the right choice or the wrong choice, you constantly lose your quality to make decisions and you rely on other people to take your decisions and this further generates a problem of blame game and there are so many down the line factors that comes in, which doesn't really play well in your favour. with this kind of personality and mental process your mind will keep going in the same loop again and again and it will exhaust you and the outcomes will be awful. it will impact your sleeping patterns. You will always reach a decision that is a not a decision at all for example- I am okay with anything, I don’t know, I am not sure. if you have this kind of mindset you will never be able to take risk in life. and I'm sure everyone understands that how important it is to take risk in life and how important it is to just go beyond what you're doing and how you can take your current status forward. It is a very important to have that quality in your personality where you're able to take risk I don't say that it's not OK to play safe and live a simple life but I'm sure everyone loves to take some kind of risk some kind of you know, change in the status quo.

I would like to point out the kind of stereotype attached to thinking behaviours - if you make right decisions you will be having a happy ending and if you make a wrong decision you're doomed. well I would like to correct it , there are so many inventions in the history that were the results of mistakes. Why go scientific, see in your life you might have made a friend just out of nowhere and at that point it might be a mistake and suddenly now they are your best friend. People make mistakes and there is something new coming out of it. You cannot reach at some new place or achieve something new in your life without committing mistakes and making wrong choices. my only point here is you do not have to be wrong of course everyone has to be right at one point in their life but there is no problem in being wrong or making a choice that you believe is the best choice for you even if it turns up wrong or even if that is the biggest mistake of your life. You  will definitely learn something from it at the end because whatever happens, happens for a reason and I believe in that. if today you join the dots back in your life you will be able to say that whatever happened- happened for a reason and today where you're standing it is because of your own choices and the decisions you made. if your current situation is based on somebody else's choices and decisions made for you on your behalf I am sure, on an average, it would not make you happy. because you do not own it. For example when your parents chose the subjects you will study in school, it generally doesn’t fit well with you as you grow up and you realise I wish I would have taken some other subject. a very simple example of this is the marital institution, if I talk about India, the culture about marriages was somewhat like that there are only arranged marriages things changed and now there are love marriages the other day I was talking to my friend and she's from UK, we were having a conversation about one of our common friends who she just got married and I just asked normally-  was it love marriage? and there was a kind of confusion on my friends face and she asked me back what other kind of marriage is there? so I realise that how much cultural differences are there, and these differences will shape your mindset to take a decision. In India families used to support arrange marriages and now there is a bend towards love marriages. The common reason parents give for that is, in arranged marriages if it doesn’t work out, the couple blame their families however, in love marriages, they made their own choice and they deal with it themselves. Interesting, isn’t it? So the conclusion is make a decision, right or wrong it is yours. Abraham Lincoln once said, you take a decision and make it right.

I am going to discuss a few ways in which you can make your decisions. Whenever you take a decision whether it is in business, personal life or for others. See if you are fully informed, check if you have right intentions behind it. To be honest there are so many decisions that are not even supposed to be made there and then, we just get trapped in our own thought process and keep swirling in the loop. I read somewhere that in Army it is a rule that before you make a decision to complain about someone or something, you have to sleep over it. I do not know if it is true in regard to Army, but the rule is amazing. It makes your decision-making capability better, brings calm to your personality.

Always remember, your decisions are usually influenced by your surroundings, your family, your friends, even by your choice of TV series. So never make a  decision in a desperation to be right. Be at calm, analyse and then decide. Desperate decisions will always make you regret, they comes with a kind of energy that disturbs your calm. Take wise decisions, now you must be wondering, if I was wise why would I be in a trap in the first place. You are wise, you just need to have confidence in yourself. Even if what you decided turned out to be wrong you will learn from it and have an experience from it. It is better than giving the steering wheel in other’s hands because listen to this carefully, even if others take decisions for you, you will face the results. I am not saying don’t take advice, do it from your trusted ones or those you feel have better understanding but make your decision based on what you understood in the end from all the things you heard.

It is important to understand you have to make decisions in various different spheres of your life, sometimes as a mother, other times as a sister or a daughter and sometimes as a partner, sometimes as a manager or a boss. Every time the context is different so it can be scary and confusing and there is a burden to be right because you care about other people involved in that scenario and sometimes you want to do it for your social image that I don’t want to be wrong. It is a completely different conversation that forget what people think which is the hardest part for many but that’s alright. Point is how to accept our choices and have believe in our own selves. In our last podcast I discussed manifestation and how your thoughts play a huge role in your outcomes in life. So be focused, see the situation through know everything as much as possible. See you cannot know 100% because there are so many things that would be happening away from your vison spectrum. It isn’t mathematics, these are life decisions. Be calm, analyse, and do it. I ll share one of my experience, I remember a few years back, I was dealing with a very important client they were a Big one. I was again and again thinking should I involve my reporting authority in the meetings and would it be okay. But I don’t know what clicked me but I made a decision that I ll deal with them myself, I can and I prepared myself. I was calm and I was prepared and my intention was to provide the best of my knowledge and grow. Simple. Well it turned out pretty well.

I understand how important it can be sometimes to not to be wrong but, we are given just 1 life, limited time, like a debit card on which you are cashing out every passing day. What is the need to take it so seriously? Have faith, take a leap. Faith in yourself, faith in the universe. Even if you fall, it would be for your good. Who knows what tomorrow holds for you, COVID is the biggest example, nature can play its forces at any time and all your plans will be out of the window? So, there is a lot of uncertainty in life. Make yourself stronger inside to deal with whatever comes outside. Enjoy it, right or wrong, NO. My decisions are based on what I feel is good in the situation for both the parties and my intentions behind it, that’s it. My intention is to become stronger mentally and emotionally with every decision I make, that is my only affirmation. Rest is not in my hands and whatever comes I am always geared up for that by having proper awareness and consciousness. Sometimes there are decisions in life which you do not feel good about mentally, but they will bring you huge profit and benefits, this is the time where you need to step back and this can be the criteria for you to make a call on that situation. You must be wondering that both the parties cannot benefit in the business deal, that’s the way of thinking, great mindsets always go for combined growth, and you will go a long way having this mindset when making a decision. In personal life as well, when making a decision, see if your call brings peace and calm to everyone, including yourself.

So try this criteria today i.e. Will I become mentally and emotionally stronger? What are my intentions behind it? Is it good for both the parties involved in the situation? Then make your call. I would love to hear what you observed after implementing this criteria, share your experience at our website-  truth-bliss-consciousness.webador.co.uk or you can email me at truth.bliss.consciousness@gmail.com

As I always say, let us speak together and grow together.

Mindfulness (What-Why-How)

Here our focus will be on understanding what is the meaning of the word mindfulness, why it is important for humankind, why it is one of the most talked about topic in the world? We need some answers here right. By the end, I am sure you will take away the reasons for why you should involve mindfulness in your daily routine and how you can do that. So let us try to answer mindfulness- what why and how.

Mindfulness is generally defined as – for you to be in the moment and nowhere else. Have you seen the movie Peaceful warrior? It is a good watch, if not, try today, It is based on a true story of Dan Millman.  It tried to answer these 3 questions: where are you are? The answer is- Here, what time is it? The answer is - Now and who are you? The answer is- This moment. If you think about it, it feels like those quotes you read regularly on Instagram handles but when you are in the flow in that movie it gives you goosebumps. Nothing above and beyond that is it- Here, now, this moment. Now if it is so easy why are we struggling and joining classes and training sessions to learn how to be mindful, be conscious and concentrate in here and now. I remember when I was in school and I was told to read the chapters thoroughly, after reading 3 pages I won’t really remember what was on the 1^st page until I was focused, making notes and going through again and again. So, I was told to concentrate but no one told, how? But when I look back and see how I was able to understand and still remember what I learnt in school was because I was focusing on it, practicing it, - practice shapes your brain. Human brain has taken ages to develop this mental capacity where you can think 60-70,000 thoughts in a day, which of course 90% are the repeated once, God, when you think about it, it already makes you feel exhausted. Sam chase who teaches meditation for living and study the science of conscious attention, discussed that our brain gets 11 million bits of information every second, just imagine its capacity and capability. Simply WAO. Ages and ages of evolution and development to reach this capacity, now we are struggling to give it up because we are incapable of handling it. Some people misinterpret this giving up attitude as mindfulness that if we do not have these many thoughts and information bits, that is mindfulness, I disagree. Let us dig deeper.

We are the creatures with vivid mindsets, we can achieve anything we want, but because today we are not taught how to handle these thoughts, how to be aware of what is happening in your head, we just want to give it up and say, O I am mindful now. No, Mindfulness is to have control of your thoughts, what thoughts to be generated at what time and in what direction so as to create appropriate hormones and memories for the body and brain respectively. We are fighting for peace however the approach should be to be peaceful. I remember reading somewhere about Mother Teresa that don’t tell people to use non-violence because even then you have a component of violence in your approach, tell them to use kindness, love and compassion. Focus on things you want not what you don’t want, it is very deep if you think about it and you will definitely find examples of it in your day-to-day life. When we are wishing I wish I don’t miss the bus, we are not thinking I wish I catch the bus. When we think I wish my boss doesn’t lash out at me, why not, I wish my boss is at calm today. Conscious in choosing the words you invest in. Very simple example of why you need to be mindful and be in charge of your brain, in day-to-day life, if someone is upset with us, we ll say, whatever he is just like that? Your brain obeys. If someone did wrong to you, you ll say I am never going to forgive. Your brain obeys, and when it is obeying it is creating hormones in your body generally negative hormones and shaping your brain to respond with such reactions every time something occurs like that. You are choosing to be miserable. Now if you practice consciously that if the person has said something wrong it’s okay, it’s not my doing it is his. If society is pulling you down, it is okay, it is not my doing it is them. And move on and have a good vibe for these people that I wish they learn compassion in life, tell yourself you know better. You can wire your brain by practicing this thought again and again and next time your brain will automatically have these responses. Last week I was a guest speaker to undergrad. Business students and I was asked that people are going in depression, people have negative comments how do we deal with that? Let us dig deeper.

Yes, people are getting depressed, they are facing serious mental health issues, can they deal with it? Is there a solution? Can mindfulness help? Yes. Mindfulness has shown results in various studies, so there is evidence that it helps you shape your brain. Dr, Richard Davidson who is a psychologist and neuroscientist. He talks about how people have different level of vulnerabilities; some might be very emotional others might not be. This is actually interesting, and you can find examples around you, a situation might invoke panic in you and not in your friend standing by your side. Why a heartbreak will leave you depressed for months whereas your friend might not give a nudge about it. Does it mean, there is different mental capacity, emotional capacity in every individual? may be? If you have heard of the term neuroplasticity you will understand how your brain is growing every single day, so if it is growing, can we change our mental capacity? Can we take more responsibility of our brain? I think yes, we can.

A research found that an average American adult does not pay attention to what they were doing about 47% times. When you are not paying attention there is a chance your mind is not happy. Then 76% of middle-aged Americans report loneliness, this brings early mortality much earlier than obesity. Loneliness can make you sick inside out. People generally just pass statements when someone tells them they are lonely, the suggestions they give is ‘o come on’; ‘go out’; ‘Go for parties’; ‘Make more friends’. Problem is most of the loneliness cases will come from those who have bigger circles and a great social life. Weird right. Dr. Davidson talks about 4 challenges that comes in when you are trying to control your brain 1. Distractibility. Not a surprise 2. Loneliness 3. Negative self-talk and depression 4. Loss of meaning and purpose in life. I always ask myself and ask others are you just here to run in a cycle, you take education-get a job-earn for survival, may be some fun- retirement- then you die. When did you actually live, when 47% of your life you were distracted, you didn’t even know what you did and why, just followed what society told you? So how to make a healthy mind- awareness, connection (appreciation, compassion, positive outlook); Insight (into the narrative we have about ourselves); {interpersonal and intrapersonal connections}; Purpose (a sense that life is headed in a particular direction). Awareness inside of your brain and outside. Like right now, is your brain wandering around or you are just listening, I am not surprised if it wandered, we are all the same. Connect your inter and intra worlds. What is happening inside and what you are facing outside. Be insightful of what you think of yourself. There are always like having negative thoughts about themselves and they're just using the cliche statements like I am not happy; I'm not okay to be here; I cannot be here I'm not worth it. Your brain obeys and tells you alright, if you say so. So, tell yourself what you want to be not what this world has inflicted upon you. For that you need to be mindful and be in the moment know what you are saying to yourself, be the in charge. We all have trained our minds to be distracted we train it 16hours a day for our entire lives, well the remaining 8hours we generally sleep. So, it is brilliantly trained to be distracted now it is the time to give it another training, of course your mind will resist and give you same old answers every time you try to change, that’s okay. You keep telling it your new answers, consciously, I am the best, I deserve it and I can do it. Neuroplasticity has shown how practicing can change the behaviour of your responses from your brain. Like brushing is a learned behaviour, you were not born with it. Dressing up is a learned behaviour, everyone in the world dresses differently according to how they have learnt it but now it’s a routine. So be mindful and make focus a routine, it can be learned by your brain and then be deeply ingrained in your behaviour.

Dr Shauna Shapiro who is a professor and scientist, she spent some time learning meditation and mindfulness and she realised that the effects are real. All the humans are trying to reach some unrealistic standards of perfection, and then get disappointed when that doesn’t happen. So basically, you are practising disappointment and whatever you practice becomes a routine. Then it happens automatically. I have met many people who believe that be hard on yourself if you want to achieve something. Strange are you a donkey? Who needs a carrot and stick approach? Be kind to yourself, wire your brain with positivity, compassion, and kindness. I always envision a bubble around me when I am going out and it is a new place, and I am nervous. I envision a shield around me, a transparent covering filled with love, compassion, and kindness that no negative energy can cut through it. It works. Because I have wired my brain to envision it and believe in it. When I instruct my brain with these thoughts, and I am mindful what I am choosing my brain kicks in positive emotions. That reflects in my words, my movements, and my body. But the only point Is in order to be mindful you have to be willing to get there.

In 2014, a study was done where people were left alone in an empty room for 15 minutes and when they reported how they felt they said they felt boring and unpleasant. In the second phase of the same experiment the participants were given an electric shock and then they were sent in our room alone to sit for 15 minutes but this time they were told that there is a button on the table and if they want to get out of the room before 15 minutes, they have to press the button they will get a electric shock but the time will reduce. Now this is common sense like I can sit there for 15 minutes instead of getting another electric shock. 25% of the women and 66% of men pushed that button at least once weird. one guy pushed it 190 times in that 15 minute. this is so weird and so painful to say that we cannot sit alone for merely 15 minutes because sometimes I guess your thoughts are so disturbing that you don't want to face them, they're more painful that the pain you're getting from outside. In that situation I feel if you can do that, for example, try today just sit in the room alone for 15 minutes or in your garden just alone without your phone, without your gadgets, 15 minutes and if you cannot do that, we definitely need to dig deeper into why we need mindfulness in our lives.

Mindfulness is to be in the moment increase your focus increase your consciousness increase your concentration. The problem is how: the simple thing is every morning before you start your day, do meditation maybe for three minutes just three minutes. This might sound easy but when you will sit down and close your eyes, your mind will start to wander around maybe what you gonna do in the day or maybe what happened yesterday, maybe what your boss is going to say to you if you didn't do the project carefully today, so many things, it will keep wandering here and there just three minutes, if it wanders bring it back and do it again and again. The best way to do it, is focus on your breathing pattern, when you breathe in- focus on that, when you breathe out- focus on that, be very conscious and careful when you're doing this, all your focus and energy should be directed only on concentrating on your breath. Next thing how to create mindfulness is when you're eating. Focus on your food enjoy it, just savour each bite you take, enjoy the flavours be thankful for the food. Enjoy every bit of it, just be focused only on your plate not on your phone, not on the movie you're watching while you're eating, not on anybody else.

Also suppose you're at work and you don't get time to be mindful. You work like machines - you know what to do- you know the drill, you just go out there and you just do things. Whenever you realise this, starting from today that okay this is happening again I'm just becoming like a machine, stop there, relax and focus on your breathing. just focus in and out that is it. Try to turn off your phone for some time in the day. Today give it a try that when your phone beeps there is a notification or a new message, see how long you can hold before looking at it, how long you cannot be disturbed before you look at it because usually if you notice whenever your phone beeps you have to just go and pick up your phone. Practise these little things today and share your experience with me.

As I always say let us speak together and grow together.

Sleeping Pattern: How can it affect your life?

I have been encountering many people those who are facing sleeping problems. So, I'm trying to address why do we have these sleeping problems, what type of sleeping problems are there and how we can deal with them. As always by the end, you will be able to take away with you a better understanding off sleeping problems what why and how. You will be able to implement a few of the techniques used by many people around the world to help their sleeping patterns and improve their mental and physical well being. So let us dig deeper.

An international survey was done in 2008 to  understand these sleeping problems in the general population around the globe. in this survey 10,132 individuals were included from different countries and it was found that 56% of the sleeping problems were prevalent in America, 31% in Western Europe and 23% in Japan. Now you very well know that it is just a survey so it doesn't cover everyone in the population which is 7 billion plus so with this survey we can actually understand that how prevalent the sleeping problems are, instead of creating a standard statement. the most interesting facts that came up with this survey and from people’s experiences was that these sleeping problems were impacting their daily functioning, how they were dealing with their family life, it was affecting their personal activities and professional activities and one of the most weird fact that came out of this survey was that maximum of people struggling with sleeping problems never took any step to resolve them, a few of them consulted physicians, a few of them took therapies, however more than average people suffering with sleeping problems didn't even know about it, that there is actually any problem, they were struggling with it and just accepting it as a daily routine, as a part of their life. Now this calls for serious attention, this is so alarming that people just accept stuff like this and let it affect their life as they go along and kind of wire their brain and body to live with the suffering. this is really sad,  and we need to fix this.

There are so many studies being done to understand how sleeping problems can cause so many issues in your life one of those studies was in 2006 it was about evaluating the relationship between sleeping problems and aggression, anger  and  impulsivity in a population of juvenile and young offenders. Now again this study was done on males detained in prison so of course the results are not general but the results have a really deep impact on how the sleeping pattern can change your behaviour. In this study was found that how your quality and quantity of sleep determines your aggression level if you are not sleeping well if you're not having quality sleep you will have high aggression and it will increase the hostility, this was really interesting that prisoners who were not getting proper sleep, who were sleep deprived in some way, were having aggression and anger issues. We can relate with it in your own life as well, when you're not having proper sleep your body feels exhausted and obviously you're feeling more drained, some people feel annoyed some people feel stressed some people have anxiety just because of their sleeping patterns.

I was doing some research for my academic work recently and I came across some really interesting facts that I thought to discuss with all of you. Starting off with the most basic question like why we sleep? Some people tend to sleep only 2 hours and some might be sleeping for 10hours. But why? Our body work entire day, not just in the physical world outside, there are lots of functioning going on inside as well. So you need to relax your body, calm it down, it is important for your health, cell growth, cell repairing, it helps your brain functioning, affects your metabolic state, improves your learning and memory. I still remember during my undergrad years, I used to be awake till late night before exam and my grand mother used to tell me to sleep and I would perform better, well at that I didn’t understand that, I was more like, what does she mean, if I won’t revise how am I going to perform better in the morning, more revision the better. Turns out she was right, your brain rewires kind of, when you are sleeping. Your memory strengthens. So I am sure if it is so important to sleep and many of us and finding it hard, facing problems, we have to find a way to fix, right. But first we need to understand these problems, So let us dig deeper.

Sleep deprivation you must have heard about it, whenever you have emotional disturbances In your life, that will affect your sleep because your brain regions are active due to the disturbance and if they are active you cannot sleep. Insomnia, in this you cannot fall asleep and even if you do, you are unable to maintain it. It makes you tired, you lose your focus and finally bad health and you need to understand it can be because of ,many reasons, like what mattress you are using, do you have noise around when you sleep, there might be some problem with the temperature of your sleeping environment, there might be stress in you that is not letting you sleep and keeping your brain regions active, some people suffer insomnia because of depression, you might be in pain and cannot sleep, the problem can be a diet as well what kind of food are you eating at night and if it is sufficient or it is not sufficient is it giving your body the right amount of nutrients. So if you're having sleeping problems like sleep deprivation or insomnia or anyone in your family he need to cheque is there something wrong around these factors and if yes try to fix them yourself 1st and see if it changes something. There are many serious sleep disorders as well like sleep apnoea in which your breathing temporarily stops for a brief period of maybe like a minute or two. then you have narcolepsy, in which you get sudden attacks of sleep and there are so many so many reasons of that sudden collapse, it is a very serious condition as there is no cure to it, it can be helped with medications and life changes but you cannot just all over cure it like that, so by now you can understand that sleeping is such a big issue,   so many people are suffering with so many things if today you see that you are somewhere there you're having some problems as well so it is the right time to take an action instead of waiting for it to convert into something really serious. So let us see how.

Dr. Charlene Gamaldo, who is a neurologist and medical director of sleep disorder centre at Johns Hopkins centre for sleep has given some great insights to help. Check yourself, are there some habits that affects your sleep, like watching late night TV, on your phone when abed? She discussed how we are becoming a chronically sleep deprived society. Your body needs sleep just like it needs to breath. Dr Joe Dispenza, tell us to opt for meditation before sleeping, well as you can imagine if you are disturbed in your head you can’t meditate, go for guided meditation. Add more physical activities to your day, meditation is very important. Moreover, don’t call everything a problem, if you are sleeping less and you are fit and healthy, which I personally doubt, you don’t need to bother. The point here is to be physically and mentally healthy, each one of us has different sleep requirements. When I was in school, and we had to get up early, I used to wait for weekends. Why? So, I can sleep and not wake up early. Why? I enjoyed sleep; I loved my sleep. Well, recently I discovered you cannot really enjoy sleeping, you just like the resting state. You like how your body feel when you wake up and you want to be in that state. Sometimes we keep sleeping, even if alarm snooze for 10 times, we don’t care. But when you see the clock and it is already 8 and you start your shift 8:30, all the idea of snoozing goes out of the window, A few days back it happened with me, I had a meeting with a client in Australia, now I am in London, give me a break haha, So I couldn’t wake up that early because I worked till late night the previous day, and my eyes opened at 6:27 and the meeting was at 6:30, imagine my pain. That was THE moment, I jumped out of my bed, jumped 4-5 times, changed, combed, put a lip balm on and there I was for the meeting. Lol. That happens. But what I realised was, my brain is very smart and so is everyone’s. If I want something, like getting up or sleeping, I can actually do it, if I really want it. Now you must be wondering I want proper sleep I want want. But I am unable to, well in that case, we need to check so many factors as I discussed earlier, that what is disturbing you, might be something outside or something inside. Do your analysis, spend time on yourself. People generally say, If you have a purpose or a work that makes you jump out of the bed in the morning, you are on the right track. If your life doesn’t have anything that interests you, you might not want to get out of bed, which again will disturb your sleeping cycles. Having discipline in life can help as well. I have seen so many people, rather in my family. They get up at same time every day and sleep at same time, might be too much for many, but it has made their life wonderful.

As for me I do various things, I always have a day check at the end, what I did etc, it gives me a rest that the day has come to an end, then I meditate for 5 minutes that’s it. Sometimes I am working late, but even then I follow this. Then I have a planner with me on  my bed where I plan what I am going to do tomorrow, so when I wake up next morning, I know I have so much to do. In this list, I always add something that I enjoy, may be go out to the lake, or watch a movie with my friends, or cook something interesting. Making your day interesting and creative, something that you find challenging and something new, add that, it will increase your energy and you will feel happy whenever you wake up. For those who are finding it hard to sleep, you need to check, is it something in your immediate surrounding that is bugging you, or is it your health condition, or some new medicine. There are many genetic issues as well, do not let them sit with you. Plan to say goodbye to your sleeping problems. Take charge of your life because you deserve the best. A few tips are: have your dinner 3-4 hours before you go to bed, take a shower, some people use oil lamps, different positions on your bed, check log that tells you the day has come to an end and plan the next day. Relax, just this moment.

Leave your gadgets away, just you. Keep everything aside, everything means everything, you might have had a fight, or a promotion, or a long hectic day, all done, all passed, its over, tomorrow the show will begin again. Eating right and physically activeness will make a big difference. I can share my experience on that with you, last month, I was so occupied, there were so many academic projects, then professional projects, then I was working on a pro bono event, too much, I wasn’t eating right, didn’t exercise for a week, I was sleep  deprived, I told my mom, something doesn’t feel right, I need to fix my routine again, it is getting out of hand, and she was like how did you figure that out, my reply was I have brought two packs of coriander this week and the taste was horrible in the dish and I was like this coriander isn’t nice, how was I using it earlier. She was like- so that’s what you are basing your argument on- coriander taste. Well, No, the problem was that it wasn’t coriander, it was parsley. See, such a blunder and how can you not notice? Good god, come on. Well, I didn’t notice because I wasn’t mindful, my brain was not getting refreshed as much it wanted to, I wasn’t eating right to make its functioning normal and I wasn’t exercising and this all just for 1 week, changed my brain functioning, now just imagine those who have been living like that for ages. I just want to say, you are not alone, we are making fools of ourselves almost every day, as I did, coriander and parsley aah !! but if I can change and bounce back, so can you, take the control. Try to analyse your patterns today and share them with me on our website truth-bliss-consciousness.webador.co.uk or email me your stories on truth.bliss.consciousness@gmail.com

As I always say let us speak together and grow together.

Loneliness

We need to look at a very crucial topic, prevailing everywhere, in everyone at some level. Loneliness. You might be smiling and laughing all day but when you go to bed, it strikes you how lonely you are. You are working in different state, away from home, everyday you feel how lonely you are, working in a group where you feel don’t belong, you feel every second how lonely you are. Some people might say loneliness is just a negative feeling, however, some might have learnt to cherish it as it keeps them in the remembrance of their loved ones. So there are different faces of loneliness, that we will discuss today. You probably need to dig deeper in yourself if there is an element of loneliness in you and if yes, how to look at it, if it is causing you mental and physical harm, how to fix it.

COVID 19 has surfaced many problems that were hidden in people. You might have experienced this pandemic has resulted in families staying together under one roof for the longest period in a very long time. Some enjoyed it, however some families fell apart, people realized how frustrated they were and how lonely they felt even when surrounded by people all the time at home. When there was variations in their day, they used to go out and change their surroundings, things were fine, but when there was no change, every day in the same house, same people, it made many frustrated. On the same hand, the other side of the coin will show you those, like me, who are away from their families, they don’t have a choice, they cannot meet them, they are totally alone. The feeling of loneliness in this time, grows deeper and deeper. This is not good. Why? Because loneliness is a negative emotion, which drains you emotionally, mentally, and physically. It can lead to depression. Are you experiencing low self-esteem, do you have thoughts like ‘Nobody loves me’ ‘ I am bored with life’, do you often have anxiety when you are in social gatherings with a feeling, that I want to go home, I don’t belong here. Do you have fear that you might be mocked or people will not understand you. Do you get awkward when you can not say what you wanted to say, do you get conscious speaking your head? Is there a feeling in you where you don’t trust people and try to keep yourself away from others or you have fear of making bonds with others that it might lead to disappointment? If there is anything like this that you feel, these are the symptoms of loneliness deep inside you. You might not look at it and avoid it, to cover yourself that ‘ I am the happiest person’ which is good, but if deep inside these emotions are running, you have to deal with them, face them, instead of avoiding them. 1 in 3 people out in the world feels lonely. Recently the UK government dedicated more funds towards charities working on loneliness. There is an urgent need to reduce stigma around this topic. People feel embarrassed to talk about it openly. It might present them as weak; you need to understand it is okay, and to get rid of this feeling, you need to share and accept it on your own first.

 Olivia Remes, a TED talk speaker talks about the consequences of loneliness, she is very right to say this has a deep impact on humans because we are social beings, none of us can survive without each other. We need each other and if you are unable to fulfil that need, its not a shame, you need to accept it and start looking for options to mitigate it. Olivia is a researcher at the university of Cambridge, she has found numerous people to be honest every other person she encounters who has loneliness issues or know someone who has these issues. Now there are many people who have some of these issues, but they don’t know, and they keep asking themselves, what’s the matter with me? This is the form of self-criticism. Do not do that to yourself. Rather see, there is a problem with my emotions, I will try to acknowledge it, reach out to get help and I ll fix it, it is human body, and it is okay to have negative emotions sometimes, we will fix it.

It is a simple equation, the more you tell yourself you are devoid of something, the more your brain will create craving for it. It can work in both directions, if you look for happiness, you are happier. If you look for sadness you are sadder and if you look for loneliness you are more lonely. Now you would be thinking, who looks for sadness and loneliness, well our brain is very clever, you look for them, brain follow patterns and it tries to make you go through the same road again and again which you have followed so far. Brain is a growing machine; it likes to follow patterns and make routines. Now the best part is, you have a say in it, you play the recording for it to follow, it is easier to get towards negative emotions, because then the brain is low, not working, like us, we do not like to work that much but always waiting for weekends where we rest, so it is much like us. You have to take the charge to come out of those negative emotions track as you do with your body every Monday morning, isn’t it? For us Monday mornings are necessity, even if we do not want to get out of bed, we will, its important. But with brain, we get lazy because the impacts are not seen immediately, you do not fix your wiring and emotions patterns because brain does not have a boss who will fire you if you don’t operate properly. Ironically, you are avoiding the most important thing of your life, that will drive all other aspects, a healthy brain leading to healthy emotions and healthy body. So, if you are unable to deal with loneliness, it is because you haven’t become the boss of your brain to tell it how to operate so it can change its programming. In a way many people in the world are dying to get some time alone and live for themselves for just once, and those who have this privilege endowed upon them, they convert it into negative emotions and call is loneliness. Once it’s accepted by your brain that it is loneliness, it will grow deeper and deeper and then it becomes a mental health problem which can shape into depression, again a serious mental health issue, because the brain has absorbed these emotions now, it creates the same emotions every time now, so what to do? Let us dig deeper.

The answer to loneliness is change in attitude. Try to be more acceptable, embracing and kind. No need to start with others that o today onwards I am going to listen and talk to those, who currently I can’t bear. Today I will try to behave friendly. Well, no need to go through that much struggle and pain. Start with yourself. Love yourself, be kind to yourself, if you need something, do it for yourself and nobody else. For example: you need a glass of water, and you can’t reach the top to get a cup, ask someone to help you and stop struggling. You might not like to ask someone, but you are making yourself suffer, be kind to yourself and others will be automatically kind to you. Start with yourself and eventually your attitude will change, and you will radiate more friendly vibes. Initiate conversations with people eventually and you will build bonds. I will tell you my story, I left home when I was 16, I went away to study, Usually people have friends following them or joining them, well, for me studies were more important so I didn’t wait for companionship, I went alone, stayed with a new family, eventually they started loving me and the bond was likewise, I used to play with their kids, eat with them on their dinning, it was lovely, but I was lonely inside as I didn’t have my people there who I relate with, but I just suppressed that went along. Then I joined my undergrad in engineering and well, I started building my career, I taught at various places, I was working as a Radio Jockey, so again I was far away from hang outs with friends or staying home, I was building on myself, but the cost was loneliness inside. Eventually that surfaced I acknowledged it and I realized even with all the love and happiness around me, when I am alone, I feel like going home or talking to my old friends. That was loneliness, I joined a spiritual group, there I learnt more about who I am and What I am doing. I understood that we are never lonely, it is a feeling that we house in ourselves, and we do not let go of it. I was taught that I am soul, going through this journey of life, people will come and go, change is the inevitable truth, so what loneliness. You and nature are one. Feel it, embrace it. So, when I looked back, the family I stayed with when I first moved out, that was my new family, why to stick with the old stereotype definitions of family. I learnt to let go and embrace what is in front of me. Today I am in London, far away from home. I do not feel lonely anymore, I have a big family here, my landlord is such a wonderful person, always helping. And bear in mind when I came here, I knew nobody at all. Today my professors are my family, we go out for lunch, have long talks, go for walks. My colleagues are my family, there is a tight hug every morning we meet, they are always encouraging me and motivating my work. When I need advice which I mostly do, I bug them and even if they are tired, they will listen and guide me as family does. I remember once my shoe broke and I was at work and there was no way I could go and get a new one, my colleague literally fixed my shoe with a needle and thread, now if that is not family, I do not know what it. I remember when I received my postgrad degree, my family was not here, must have felt lonely right? Not really, I went straight to my lovely colleagues, opened it with them, they were making drum roll sounds, we clicked some pictures together, I got a beautiful plant as my graduation present, can it be better? I do not know; it was the best celebration. So how can you be lonely when there is so much love around you. People are craving for some lovable gestures, compassion and if you can take a step forward, they will. So, you are not lonely until you chose to be. Share your problems, share your doubts, ask for opinions, give suggestions, take care of others, take care of yourself, when do you think this negative emotion of loneliness will kick in? never. Eventually it will erase out of your system and your brain will rewire. It is all about embracing your current state, here now this moment right. Past is gone, which you are clinging to, the reason you feel lonely because you might have had wonderful experience with your loved ones, that is gone, remember it happily, don’t get stuck in it, your brain and body doesn’t like when you get stuck. Remember one thing, you are a soul, who is travelling on this planet and there is a long way to go, and I will repeat this again and again, until your brain accepts it. Let us dig deeper in ourselves.

Finding a balance in life

One of the very interesting topics that people often talk about is ‘Finding a balance in life’. If you talk to anyone who knows me, they will probably say, o she works too much like 24x7 however, I have defined my own balance, in my own unique way. This is what I will try to explain and discuss that when we talk about finding balance in life, there is no black and white explanation or pre-defined concept around it. It is unique to everyone. So how to find what is your balance and how to maintain that for your life, let us dig deeper.

It is easier to understand that balance is required in everything you do, on a wider basis yes, we can also say balance in life is crucial as a whole or otherwise you will fall, right. Balance in life comes with bringing balance in every little thing about you and about your life. Your breathing, sleeping, eating, working, everything. For example, eating pizza everyday would disturb your health pillar, and when one pillar gets weak the foundation of entire monument comes at risk. You must have heard a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Well as said you can’t always have black and white when it comes to balance, when I gave example of pizza, as of course I love it, I have my research that supports it as well, that you can live every day on pizza and still be healthy. Sounds weird?  Well, look for yourself, google Phil Duncan, who has travelled a lot of countries around the globe and eats pizza all day, every day. Now there is a trick there, he takes care of what base he eats, he takes care of what salt he uses and then what cheese he uses, so you can find your balance in anything you like, even when the world tells you that is impossible, craft your ways. Balance in different spheres of your life like family, friends, work, relations, health, mindset, everything. You see what the right balance for you is, chose what you enjoy and love and craft it into the best productive balance for you.

People might say you are crazy the way you are leading your life, but you see if the elements are in the right place for you? Are you mentally and physically going well? It does not have to be done in one day, be flexible, keep changing be agile. Keep improving. What is your balance based on? What are you running for?

For example, the Rock, Dwayne Johnson, he's a Canadian American actor, producer and semi-retired wrestler, he is one of the biggest superstar in wwe history, his autobiography is one of the best sellers, definitely we need to look at how he thinks he has found his balance. he has a routine you might not be able to follow, It was very interesting to find out how he thinks he found a balance for himself. He wakes up at 4 in the morning, do some cardio, then breakfast, then some strength and conditioning training and then off to work. He takes 5 hours sleep on an average, and for him that is perfect. I remember relating to his words when he discussed how when he was in his 20s, he thought he had all the answers when in reality, he didn’t and in 30’s like everyone else he thought okay now I am getting there and in 40s he realised that’s how it’s going to be for you. Isn’t that almost same for everyone. But the point is you have to start finding your balance, you won’t get it in a day, it takes time, lots of mends, changes, so many things. Once you get it, you ll get the best of both worlds and reach your maximum potential. I am a big fan of Dwayne Johnson, who doesn’t like the rock, right. He said once in an interview, know what you want, have an incredible work ethic, be your best and follow your heart. I believe when you mix these together, you ll find your balance, you need to be committed to excellence in whatever you want and howsoever you want your life to be. Now that was the professional routine, he always spends time with his daughters, he loves them and do not compromise family for work, I like that balance, what about you? All I can say is, you don’t have to be another Dwayne Johnson and adopt his approach to balance. Pick up the elements you like, learn from them and then design your balance for your life and become the best you. I love the element of discipline and dedication from his routine, what about you? Dig deeper.

Okay let us see life of Elon Musk,  billionaire, CEO of SpaceX and tesla, chairman of solar city and was ranked by Forbes on their list of the world's most powerful people, from being raised by his abusive father in the suburbs of south Africa to now being one of the richest people in the world, it must be worth looking at what he thinks his balance of life is, he is not just an engineer and a business person, he is a loving father to 7 kids. He believes in utilizing every minute productively. He gets 6hours of sleep on an average and start his day at 7, as he told In an interview, he usually skips breakfast and starts his day with replying to urgent emails. He plans his day there and then. After that he drops his kids to school, he works 85-100 hours a week, results are evident isn’t it. He loves his work and enjoys every second of it. He plans his day ahead, he always visits his non-profit organisation, even when he is so busy. For productivity he plans every second but after work, he always has an hour or two for other things like meeting up, dinners, networking. He gyms twice a week. Weekends he has free time, spending time with children, playing video games, parties, baking occasionally and enjoying other bits of life. He is an admirer of Benjamin Franklin, so of course the belief is if you are failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail. I love his quote that if you wake up in the morning and think the future is going to be better, it is a great day. Again I love work ethic of Elon Musk and I try to adopt some elements from his ethics to my balance. Can I be another Elon Musk, well God no, but I can be the best me. From his life, I take the element of time management, what about you? Thing deeper.

Always see what you doing and how? Like Ingvar Kamprad founder of Ikea had a vision that divide your day in 10minutes slots and look carefully where those slots are invested or wasted. Now that is to be seen as how you define it and how you think it might fit your life or maybe the approach doesn’t fit your life at all. Because it takes a lot of commitment and dedication to achieve that critical evaluation of your time.

These successful legends have carved their ways, their balance is based on their life, their wishes, their situations, and expectations from them. Now its time you try to find the best balance for yourself, you are the unique version of yourself, just need to polish it, pick up something from these legends and try to incorporate it in your routine, see if it works, if it doesn’t bend it, shape it as you want it to be, that suits you best. Work, success, they are okay, but what about family, friends, and relations, you must have heard the last words of Steve Jobs, American Businessman, Industrial designer, investor, media proprietor, and of course CEO and co-founder of Apple. Chairman of Pixar and so on, the legend people look up to, absolute genius. He died at the age of 56 because of Pancreatic Cancer.

His last words were  I reached the pinnacle of success in the business world, in emphasise my life is an epitome of success, however aside from work I have little joy. In the end wealth is only a fact of life that I am accustomed to, at this moment lying on the sickbed and recalling my whole life I realised that all the recognition and wealth that I took so much pride has become meaningless in the face of impending death.  People say his last words were O wao !! after looking at his family. We don’t know the truth, but these words teach you a lot whenever you read them or hear them anywhere. You can do everything with money but not let someone else take your sickness. We all are running to increase the zeros at the end of the figure on your paycheck, but look for yourself are you happy? Are you healthy? Money is source to achieve other things, but it cannot be the only pillar of your life. No matter what watch you are wearing, how much your dress costs, how many rooms your house has, if you are not happy and healthy and not balancing your life, what is the point.

It is important to understand that you have to be rich at heart first, feel that enormous happiness inside you when you wake up in the morning. Focus on your food, treat your body as temple, love your family and friends, find time to enjoy whatever you want, like I like watching movies, no matter how busy I am always find time for it.

Focus on your equation of life, what you are putting in what is the cost, what’s the output. Do not balance two things that are different in their base, like money can’t be equated to health and happiness, however, it is a source, collecting sources is fine, are you having a plan to work on other aspects and sources. There are so many people who have everything but still nothing. Base the balance and divide the segments, materialistic things, emotional well-being things, physical well-being things- these 3 pillars are well connected, 1 pillar shakes a bit and the foundation will fall. There is a Swedish lifestyle philosophy i.e. lagom, it just means not too much and not too little. It applies to work, home, health, and nature. So, try to see if you are living the life of ‘too much’ is any aspect may be food, going out, working, enjoying, too much of anything isn’t a balance.

Time is the most valuable asset to you and that is the foundation to everything you do. Once this minute passed it won’t come again right, so what did you get in return for investing this minute in there. What is the equation? Sleep, you get rejuvenated systems. Talks, you get awareness, food, you fill the fuel to your body, and it functions. Listening this podcast, boosting your energy, and increasing your knowledge base. We are trading time for money most of our time. Okay what are the other elements in this equation, knowledge, skills, relations, fun, much more but how? That is when you have to be present in the moment, here-now-this moment. See what is happening, calculate it for yourself every now and then to keep on track and not waste this wonderful life. Overworked, over booked, just lost.

I ll share my balance, it is a work in progress, and I am no legend, so maybe you can relate to my balance and pick something from that. I love working, I love movie and I love food. Well let’s see the balance. I take special care of my relations, health, and work. When I say relations, as I live away from home, I always call at home at least thrice a day, no matter how busy I am. As for my friends, I have a very close circle, I call and talk to each one of them at least once a month, not as a duty, but I really enjoy the conversations and catching up. Then my health, now this pillar is supported by many sub-pillars for me. For my mental health, I meditate in the morning and before going to bed, it brings me calm. I practice mindfulness in everything I do, by doing 1 thing at a time. I do not let myself sit idle. Now see, sitting and relaxing and sitting idle are two different things for me, sometimes I ll sit by my window and sip my coffee or may enjoy a song while watching at the sky, but sitting idle because I don’t have anything to do, that can never be the case. When you sit idle, you brain wanders and then you grow weeds in the garden of your thoughts, and you don’t want that right. Then under my health pillar comes food, I am eating right from quite awhile now, earlier I used to skip meals and be careless, get a takeaway because I am tired and don’t want to cook, well, I am more committed now, I take proper meals no matter what I am doing. My grandmother used to say, you earn for food and if you don’t even have time to eat what’s the point. Well, see I listen lol. Then under health pillar, I exercise, I go for a walk in the morning, no matter what else I do in the day, morning walks clear my head and gives me a great start, then I do a dance cardio In the evening. Next pillar is work, well When I am not doing anything else I am working, I love creating new ideas, having new thoughts, I work as a project manager, and I meet so many people around the world and I learn a lot from them. Then I am student advisor, I like to see how students think and what can I do about it? I am a guest lecturer, so I always enjoy when students have intriguing ideas and questions for me. Then the best thing is this podcast that I started last month, I like sharing things with all, trying to help may be just one out there who needs a bit of a push, I love reading your stories and experiences that you send me. So, I balance all these in my 24hours, I enjoy it, I love it and I am always looking for something new in that. So, look deeper at your pillars today, see your balance, take a pen and paper, draw three lines, write down the divisions of your life and see what you are doing to strengthen these pillars. Share your ideas and stories with me, you can use the submission form on our website i.e., truth-bliss-consciousness.webador.co.uk or you can comment under the video on our YouTube channel, type your stories in the discussion box of YouTube. DM me on Instagram or email me at truth.bliss.consciousness@gmail.com.  My only intent is:

Let us speak together and grow together.

Are you having anger Issues?

Today we are going to see how to manage anger, there is no person out there who doesn’t get angry, not even me, sometimes, something happens around you that makes you angry. For example: My flat mate was not cleaning up the dishes and it was there for days so I got angry. I am sure we all get angry all the time, without even noticing, with our parents, friends, colleagues, siblings and on and on. Now why is this a problem? Like if you see anger in an emotion created in your head, it is a response to an outside situation like any other response, so why is anger considered bad? Why are people finding ways to manage it or tackle it? And the most important question is, is there really a way for anger management? Because if you search online right now, you will find hundreds of articles telling you how to manage your anger, does it really help? Well, the answer is yes, if you really want to fix it, you can, so let us dig deeper.

Now anger can be defined in many ways, in psychology it is termed as negative emotion because it kind of turns your body, brain and mood down. Now according to research done by Dr. Sandra Thomas, anger is a very strong, powerful and very uncomfortable emotional response to an outside situation that was not desired or expected, a situation that might challenge your values, beliefs or anything that you think is right and that’s how it should be.

I agree totally with this explanation, it happens so many times that when things are not happening as we wanted them to be, there is an unrest and usually that is converted into anger. So, what I can understand is that the problem is we cannot accept the natural flow of life, we want to control it and this is no surprise that we fail and then get angry. It happens with people as well, if your children are not behaving as you want, you get angry with them, if your friend is constantly ignoring you or not doing something that you want, you get angry and that’s not it, our anger is not limited to living objects we get angry with anything and everything, the other day my friend was really angry and I was like what happened and she couldn’t get the last blouse from the sale that she has chosen a month ago. The funny part is we actually control it to some extent depending what and who you are angry with? Think yourself, if you are angry with your partner, he has to sleep on the sofa that night, if you are angry with your boss, lol, he wont even get to know you have such a feeling, o no. When I go to bottom of these things, I believe it is the problem of accepting change and accepting people as they are. Being okay with everything and finding your way around it, is what one should look for. But the problem is when this emotion kicks in, all these big thoughts go out of the window so what to do?? Let us dig deeper.

There are many reasons for anger issues, these reasons can be genetic or acquired. Now, acquired anger is something you learn from your surroundings. You must have seen your parents getting angry, your teachers getting angry and obviously we learn, we see, we understand, and we copy, well Darwin said monkeys were our ancestors so imitating is in our nature isn’t it, lol? Also developmental trait theory in psychology will tell you that these traits are developed over time. If not learned, you might have some deep-rooted issues in your body physically, that might cause problems and the brain responds by creating this emotion of anger. Maybe you are emotionally and mentally not well, having lots of stress, workload or emotional problems with friends, family or partner, that can result in you getting angry. Some people have wired their brain in a way that whenever they are under stress their brain will automatically create the emotion of anger. Again you can wire your brain with the responses you want it to create because situations repeat in our lives always, just people and circumstances change that’s it, so it is the matter of practice, it is hard, for sure but you need to tell yourself, no I am not getting angry, I will choose calm and understanding, do not force it on yourself, choose it.

You must have heard that when people fight and are arguing there are lot of heated conversations and words exchanged, in the end, it is just like O please don’t mind, it was said in the heat of the moment, well, words can never be taken back, so why not to take the steering in your hand, if you think you cannot handle at least move away from the situation until you are ready. There are many side effects of suppressing your anger, never do that, ever, when you hold it in, you are bound to burst one day and this isn’t good for your well-being and your relations. Whenever you are angry and if you are unable to pacify yourself, be angry, be the best of it but find ways so you do not harm others with it, some people shout, some start washing up, or go for long showers, or a nature walk, some cry. You have to let it vent out, never suppress any emotion in you good or bad, of course find ways to deal with it, that’s what I have learnt from my experiences. I have seen everything, like most of the time, I used to keep my anger in and not say anything thinking that it is the mature way, however, I was harming myself doing that, so I realized instead of fighting with it, I need a healthy way to deal with this emotion that’s it. It is about finding patterns, take a pen and paper and write the situations where you usually get angry, find a pattern, and see what you can change about it. In life we have many relations where we do things that we do not want to do just to keep those relations, especially in twenties, you find new friends, make new partners and many of these relations harm you psychologically. We enter many psychologically abusive relations in life, where we harm ourselves inside to hold on to something that we do not even want. You lose yourself, who you actually are and want to be and that comes out in the form of anger, frustration, so many other symptoms and they keep on increasing. Then we go for binge eating, drinking, smoking and what not, just to distract. So, one thing is stop pleasing others, be yourself, be nice, have right intentions for everyone and that’s it, if someone like you-  cool, if not, move on.

Like when I am angry, I write down the entire situation and try to see it from other person’s point of view, it pacifies things for me. Always stand in other person’s shoes, understand both side of the story and then react. Eventually your brain will stop reacting before thinking, it will rewire.

 Our brain goes with fight and flight response when there is a situation you feel is a threat, now here the rational working of brain goes out and emotional working kicks in, so it is about how you see situations, change the attitude, be mindful. I encourage everyone to listen to our episode on mindfulness so you can calm yourself and bring back the rational part of the brain back in action. One of the important things is being mindful of what you are feeling, instead of saying o I don’t know whats happening, I don’t like it, take a step back and see o I am angry, and this is possible, I do it and so can you. Once you acknowledge tell your brain I am not going to harm myself with anger I ll understand and find a way instead. Your life will change, and anger will just be like any other emotion.

There are a few techniques you can focus on, 1. one as mentioned is mindfulness, be present, meditate, make a habit to meditating every day 3 minutes in the morning, before you start your day. 2. When you are feeling angry, take 3 deep breaths and calm yourself down, I have tried it a lot, whenever something is going to trigger my anger I find a place, close my eyes and take 3 deep breaths and say to myself after every breath, you got this and its okay. When you are unable to hold it in, shout out loud somewhere and vent it out then a deep breath.3.  Anger can never solve situations, teach your brain that, you need to be rational and wise to deal with a situation, so when anger comes in, tell it to go away, take the charge. It might sound tough, but I have done it. For example: when my flat mate isn’t washing those dishes, when the anger kicks in, I tell myself to calm and find a solution, so I talk or take some action but not anger. Think for yourself that today, I am going to take the charge and I will not let anger conquer my life, my emotions run as I want them to be, well it will take time, but when you think it or say it, mean it. 4. Exercise is very important as it keeps your hormones and emotions in check and helps you to become more mindful, that will help you reduce your anger. 5. Find patterns and see what triggers you and then work on changing them for you or learning to accept that. Also, if you are on some medicines, they can also affect your anger issues, so again discuss with your doctor if you have anger issues and you think it might be because of your medicine and if he/she can help. 6. CBT i.e. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is very affective as well, it is always effective to take help if you are unable to handle your emotions yourself, try these little tricks it doesn’t work, take these therapies. 7. Keep a log of your mood, when you have a disturbing experience in the day, write in your diary and don’t let it go, look back at it and see what happened and how else you could have reacted. I do it myself. 8. Have friends and family help you, tell them openly that you think you might have anger issues, so next time if you are angry tell them to point it out for you, now some of you might get more angry when someone points out but tell yourself that its okay, its for my own good, a little struggle with your brain in the beginning will change your life forever. There is a wonderful saying that you can’t stop the wind but you can definitely learn to surf.

So now is the time to change your approach, we don’t have to get rid of anger or any emotions, we have to learn how to handle it in a positive way and that will be helped by becoming more mindful, have a few statements with you that you have to tell yourself whenever you see-  that alright I am getting angry, I don’t want to, I ll choose another course.

So today’s work is when you go away after listening to this podcast, check for yourself what  is the pattern, what triggers your anger most often, note them down. Then see how you can help them by rewiring your brain and being mindful of the situation. Always step away and analyze the situation and if it involves other person see both sides of the story fully. If not, check what is bothering you. Once you can map these things out, you are half way there, then it is all about practice, telling your brain, its okay, I chose to have a different emotion and I ll deal with it.

Try this technique today and share your experience with me. You can DM me on Instagram on my FB page, you can fill the suggestion form on our website, leave a comment under this video here. Anything you like. Please share and subscribe to our youtube channel. Let us speak together and grow together.

Jealousy: How it impacts your life?

I want to take up a very important issue, Jealousy and how it impacts your life? It is important to understand that we have become so used to this emotion that when someone is progressing in front of you, the first emotion is not of happiness it is of jealousy that o god, I want that, why is he getting all this. Like have you ever been in a situation where someone in your friend circle or work circle, got promoted and you are like, what? I am more eligible and capable, how come he got that? Well, that is jealousy. Let us look today how granular this emotion is and how it is affecting your life without you being even aware of it. By the end, you will be able to analyze your patterns of jealousy in life and how you can come out of it and divert this into a positive emotion. So let us dig deeper.

Jealousy is multi-dimensional, it has so many faces. It can be cognitive i.e. how frequently you have appraisal of threats or some kind of suspicions, emotional jealousy i.e. the actions taken when exposed to this emotion, the level of impact it can have on you or behavioral jealousy where there are protective measures involved. Now it is important that every type of jealousy emotion comes with a different outcome, it can be negative as well as positive. Well mostly it is negative outcome. When jealousy is coming from your emotional dimension, there can be reactions to threats and situations in the outside world or there can be conditioned response. Like if you see your cousin with a phone that is better than yours, you ll get a feeling of jealousy even if you have your favorite phone, so it is conditioned in your brain that if someone is getting something that is generally good, doesn’t matter if you need it or not, you will develop an emotion of jealousy, that others shouldn’t possess it, I should. Also, it can be a behavioral affect, when you are protective or detective, which might have some kind of implication on your self esteem or prestige, the reaction comes in the way of jealousy. For example: you know like most girls want to hold and of their partners in public just to make sure that other girls are aware that he is with her; when in relationship there is always a habit of checking up on the partner’s phone to see if they are doing something they like but you don’t want them to. It would be weird but in some relations, you want the person to be happy just with you, if they are happy with something else or someone else, you get jealous and that then cause reactions in the form of arguments, fights and what not. You must have heard of the term, romantic jealousy, when you see your girl talking to another guy, even though she is committed to you, you ll get jealous and the outcome can be positive that you feel more attached, or it can be negative you might start doubting and become nagging.

Such a mess isn’t it, social media is becoming more and more like a jealousy trigger for many around the world. Check for yourself, when you see others are going on vacations, getting new phones, new laptops, new house, does it make you jealous, well if you don’t want to call it jealousy may be a little uncomfortable, a bit at unrest, that why are they getting all this, I want this and I deserve it more. Now there is a great debate when people just feel they deserve something more than others but we ll take it up another day. It’s a common feeling that I want that why is this person given everything. The feeling of comparison begins, and it turns to jealousy. The feeling of comparison is growing everywhere, when people post pictures of having some great food, those sitting at home get jealous that I want that man. When people post picture and videos enjoying with their loved ones, those who doesn’t have that get jealous that I want it. Feeling of despair kicks in, you feel bad and then you feel jealous.

Best way to deal with these emotions is, See good in others and in every situation. If you see a good place where others are going, find out more about the place and plan for yourself. Might not be possible right now but someday will, plan it, it will fill you with so much energy. If you are jealous of someone’s progress learn from it, see how they did it and imply the techniques, think of growing and be happy for them for showing you that if they can, you can too. Work on your life and treat these triggers as indicators of how you can have that and if you really want to have that.

Some people who have everything they still feel jealous to see other people’s plate you know they say that you ll always find other person’s life better than yours, only until you have walked a mile in their shoes. It is not always as it looks like. When you want to bring other person down that is jealousy. You can kill this jealousy when you have a mindset of growing together as I just mentioned, applaud others and take the bits of learning and information you want from that and go get it for yourself, it will take time but when you work on it you ll realize your requirement and needs and what you really want in life. Jealousy is just a way of self-destruction, let us change that today into constructing our lives.

When you create a thought of competing with others then comes insecurities and jealousy. And when you can’t go ahead you wish to bring them down out of jealousy and therefore, creating stress and anxiety for yourself. This is your life’s journey, and you forget to enjoy it in this race. You forget the truth that you are here to live your own life, make your own karma and no one has to do anything with it. You are compromising your bliss, competing for what? Doing something to have a good life is different, doing something to compete and be above others and pulling others down is jealousy. Just imagine that when you are competing at office just to get above another fellow employee, you are missing out on all the good memories you could have made, all the chances where you could have learned more. Competition blindsides you from other aspects happening around you and fills you with jealousy to pull others down and not raise yourself up. By the time you realize it is always too late.

Everyone sees that, feels that but no one acknowledges this and that is where the problem begins. You will always be at unrest when you are jealous of others, having a feeling to pull others down. Finally, you ll suffer, mentally and physically. Now people try to normalize it by saying that it is a normal feeling, everyone gets it. You need to understand This is human nature to console themselves and defend their doings. Jealousy is everywhere, relations, work, wherever you see. Now the problem is you wired your brain to create the emotion of jealousy, this is part of your personality. Whenever you will see someone above you, you will have a feeling of jealousy. The more you practice an emotion the more it will dwell inside you.

Check for yourself today, when someone is growing or getting something that you want, does it disturb you? Does it bring unrest in your life? When someone is praised around you, do you like it? Or do you want to be in their shoes? Does it affect you? The feeling that everything should come to me and just to me, do you ever get that. In family, your parents love you but when they start loving your friend or something like that, do you get jealous? And then does your behavior change for that friend, this is common, and this is a negative outcome of this emotion.

We are living in the world of labelling, this is good, this is bad, this is better. This is success, this is failure, now jealousy comes when we know someone is above us or has better than us. Who decides that? Society. You see what is prevailing and adapt to it. There was an experiment done in a dentist clinic once, you can see it on YouTube. Whenever there was a alarm, everyone will stand. Now new patients came in and during 1^st 2-3 alarms they kept sitting but kind of felt uncomfortable when everyone was standing on alarms, so 4^th time they stood up as well on the alarm. People follow the society, if they say its good, we believe, they say its bad, we believe. They say he is more successful we believe; they say she is more beautiful, we believe. We need to change that, live for yourself. Jealousy comes with comparison. You are taught to compare, remember when parents told you that look at your cousin how good she is doing at studies, we compared then. Now we are strongly wired. Believe you are unique. Jealousy will go out of the window. Have a vision board for yourself, I want this and I ll learn and grow. Create goals and work for them, when you are moving ahead in the direction you planned, you ll be filled with a feeling of satisfaction which will eradicate the feeling of comparison, because you are growing. focus on yourself than others for example in a race you are always thinking o god he should slow down man, our focus can shift towards how I can increase my pace. Attitude can change only if you want. Live this life for yourself and not to show others anything. Be content and keep improving.

Best way is to be grateful. So, 1. Create a journal and listen to the 1^st episode on gratefulness and increase that in your life, write 5 things in the morning that you are grateful for, it will keep you happy and you won’t compare. 2. Have a vision board and set goals for your personal and professional growth, when you have a feeling of development it will bring satisfaction and you will not get jealous. 3. Whenever you get jealous, acknowledge it and tell yourself, I an unique and so is my life. I am happy and I am growing. Say it to yourself. Affirmations are very important in life, every morning I post 1 affirmation on our Instagram page, you can get help from that. Jealousy can be in any part of life in your relations like with your partner or your friends, relatives. It can be at workplace, with your co-employees. Learn and move ahead in your personal journey, make that your aim. Help others grow.

So try these little things today and share your experience and views with me truth.bliss.consciousness@gmail.com.

Let us speak together and grow together.

Negative thoughts: How to deal with them?

So did you have any negative thought today, just one, running across your mind? Did you feel a little bit low about something? Did anyone affect your inner peace? Do actions of an individual disturb your aura? Think about it for a second. In today’s episode we are trying to investigate how one negative thought can change your entire day and your entire personality. By the end, you will have a deeper understanding on how to acknowledge when you are entering into this vicious circle of negative thoughts and how to get away from it. So let us dig deeper.

Has it ever happened to you that the day is going brilliant, you are loving your life, you are feeling on top of the world and suddenly an old memory kicks in or someone says something about your work or a bad comment on you, the entire aura or happiness, joy and love goes out of the window and all you are left with , is that one thought that kicked in, in a friction of seconds. Human brain and behavior is evolutionary is nature, the way we think and behave towards   world has been developed this way over ages and been passed on to generations and generations, humans have tendency to look for the negative and then hold on to it. So basically,  it is okay, it is normal for you to get attracted to negative parts of a situation and see the negative side of anything you come across, that has been human nature, it will take your efforts to change this. But the point is, okay we get it this is a problem, how to change it? What efforts are we talking about? Let us dig deeper.

 To bring a change in how you think and behave you need to bring a change in your emotional equilibrium inside you. It is an interesting insight, I actually saw a video of Tony Robbins, who is an American author, coach, speaker and philanthropist, he says that your emotional state is affected by your physiology, I can actually relate to it, your body speaks your emotional and mental state. You know like when you have done something good and you are super proud, you will walk gleely with broad shoulders, chest out, chin up, however, when you have done something shameful, your shoulders are down, chin down, eyes down, sloppy walk, I am sure if you guys give yourself a minute, you can relate it to some of your life situations. What I understand from emotional and physical well-being paradigm is that they are all interconnected, you want to work on your emotional well-being, focus on your physical well-being and vice-versa, these are pillars of your life and all needs to be in a balance, any pillar if gets weak, others can’t hold up your life, you must listen to the episode on finding balance in life to have a better understanding of it. So when a negative thought comes in, first thing is to train yourself and raise your awareness that o okay my thought is going in a wrong direction, what triggered it, sometimes it is sub-conscious but nothing to worry, as soon as it kicks in tell yourself the best things about your life and you. Now, in that state, everything seems gloomy and some people would be like, ah I am the worst, life isn’t worth it. Just due to that 1 thought you will fall in the vicious circle of all other thoughts.

For example- I will tell you how I recognized it, I was a victim to it negative thoughts and this still happens but I am cool with it now, I remember when I made my first radio show and I was in the heaven, like o my god this is my work, I was 19 I guess, and I was super proud so happy and suddenly one of my relatives said to me, o you know this is not what you should spend your time on, you have so much potential and all my happiness was gone, I was like what? I was so happy and this man is telling me I wasted my time and suddenly there were so many other thoughts around it that I guess I am not making right decisions, I should be focusing somewhere else, may be I am not made for it and on and on, at that time I was unaware and no one told me how to deal with such situations and emotions, I am sure you would be pulled down at some point in your life by your people for having dreams that were out of the box. But somehow, I was helped, I was like yea you know what I really enjoyed it so I ll do It anyway. I am glad I did because trust me those years I learnt a lot and enjoyed a lot. What I did in that situation was telling my brain the positive side of what I was doing and not looking at the negatives which was illustrated by somebody else. I weighed the pros and cons and that’s it. Now this is a problem of a teen, in life we have many bigger problems as we grow, we start to take life more seriously which is a kind of silly from my point of view, all I believe in is you are in this world for a limited time, you grow and learn, getting serious for things that are not going to last forever, doesn’t make sense to me. All you need is food, money and shelter for survival rest is all the wishes and expectations and demands to make this journey comfortable and fun. So negativity is the result of experiences. No need to ne worried if you get one, the point here is to know how to deal with it. The more you train your brain about how you can deal with your thoughts and tell your brain the counter satisfying answer to the negative thoughts, the more it will be trained to function like that automatically.

Having negative thoughts is a part of you, it is okay, the more you will work on it and become aware of it the more you ll be away from it. Negative thoughts are called negative because your energy levels drops with them and you feel drained because of them, so it’s a kind, if you are happy with it, cool but it will impact you deeper and deeper physically and mentally, its science running all on hormones created with it. So in order to have better hormones to create better physical and mental health and better functioning of your life you need positive emotions, so lets work on how to increase them.

Whenever there is a negative thought entering your head, start self-talking o wow, no no, you cannot come in, I have much better things in life and trust me when I say this everyone on this earth has something to be happy for, even a beggar on the street will have something to be happy for.   Sometimes when there is a negative thought generated in response to other person’s behavior that is something different. So far it is like when you get a thought out of nowhere but sometimes, we are in a loop on negativity in life. For example- if your partner is not fulfilling your parameters of a happy relationship, you will have huge negativity in that bond and that will impact you day and night. Once you fall in the loop of negative thinking, you will face distress in all the relations in your life, you will face annoyance, anger and frustration issues, now all this just because you didn’t take care of the garden of your thoughts. You will eventually see there might digestion problems, pain in shoulders, neck, arms, you might skin issues and you would like what’s happening, all because of the seed of negative  e thinking, so you see how powerful it is. But not to worry it is a small part of you so definitely you are more powerful than these thoughts.  How to fix it?

Step 1. Acknowledge: now how? Whenever there is a thought that disturbs you, makes you feel uncomfortable realize that alright this is a negative thought. Each of you will have different experience of this as we have different experiences and different lifestyles.

Step 2. Check your lifestyle today? Do you eat right? Did you give the body its diet of exercise, meditation? Your body needs it, exercise is a diet of your body, you don’t give it so you ll be devoid of the benefits in the first place, but you will also be facing punishments from your body to you in the form of fatigue and disease.

Step 3. Do you take in the right information not just for your school, university or work, the information about humans, people you love, human behavior, did you read something good? Did you nourish and nurture your soul today? When I was a young girl there were always news of molestation and kidnapping in media and newspapers, I got so scared and whenever I used to go out I used to be scared, imagine if I wouldn’t have came across this information, I don’t say don’t be aware of what is happening around, but a child doesn’t need to know everything as they don’t know so many other aspects of life and they believe the little things they see and it becomes a part of them. Life will teach you things itself at the right time, no need to rush.  

Step 4. What you see in others? Be aware of what you say and think about others you meet? Did you see anything positive or  not? If not, try harder and look for it today. Just one good thing in the other person.

Step 5. When you are hurt because of someone, remember to heal yourself right there and then so that 1 incident doesn’t make a nest inside you. Remember you cannot control things outside or control any person’s behavior towards you. People behave according to their mental and physical state, we are all in the same boat. For example – suppose your friend lashed out on you or something you did for no apparent reason, you ll be hurt, you ll get angry, you will start questioning your friendship and one thought lead to another. In that situation, tell yourself, I ll deal with it later, there might be something I am not aware of but I ll let it go for now. When you develop the capability to calm yourself in the moment, your thoughts will be driven towards the direction you want.

Step 6 and the major step: Ask yourself, will it matter in 5 years? Whatever the negative thought is about, may be you are telling on am not worth it, I am a loser, all these thoughts are invoked by some trigger, some memory, some experience, ask yourself will this memory or experience matter in 5 years, it won’t, if you look back, things that actually mattered were never a problem and things that were problem didn’t really matter.

Follow these steps whenever a negative thought kicks in and I am sure things will change for you because I can speak for myself they did change. Share your experience with me through our website truth-bliss-consciousness.webador.co.uk or email me at truth.bliss.consciousness@gmail.com

Let us find ways to make this life filled with the essence of truth, bliss and consciousness, one step at a time, let us speak together and grow together.