by Shikha Rastogi | Oct 21, 2016 | Beliefs, Perspective
Hi everyone, welcome back! Last week I examined the society’s very strongly held belief that it is more important to put others needs before our own. This week I would like to take another step further and peel one more layer to understand why is it that so many times we feel that we ‘should’ do this or that instead of just focusing on ‘what we want to do’.
Belief: This is what I should do, how I should do it and when I should do it…and if I don’t do things the way I am ‘supposed’ to do them, it will mean that I have failed in life.
Have you ever paid attention to the thoughts in your mind that tell you all the things that you should do in life and when you should do them and how you should do them, or else…things like getting married at a certain age, getting married to a certain kind of person, having kids at a certain age, working in a certain job, behaving a certain way with your in-laws, behaving a certain way with your colleagues, being a certain kind of friend to your close friends, being another kind of friend to your ‘not so close’ friends, being the ‘right’ kind of parent to your kids etc. etc. I can go on and on and on here but I think you can see where I am going with this. So, let me ask you this very simple question…have you ever wondered, how is it that your mind even gets around creating all these thoughts about the ‘things you should do’ and the way ‘you should behave’ etc.? Where do all these thoughts come from? Let me give you my perspective on this.
Folks, as I have been pondering this question for some time now and really trying to understand why is it that human beings approach life and living with a lot of ‘things they should do’ instead of ‘things they really want to do’, it’s becoming very clear to me that this saga started generations ago when someone back in the day started to create a list of all ‘things we should do in life’ in order to achieve happiness and perfection and hence live a successful life. And may be these people created this list because doing all those things and doing them in a certain way led them to happiness, however, to me, all these ‘things we should do in life’ are really ‘rules’ telling us how we should all live our lives. And I absolutely don’t think that just a handful of rules which we didn’t even create for ourselves and instead someone else created them for us generations ago can teach us how to live our own lives today. Furthermore, all these rules which eventually became beliefs and got passed on from one generation to next were created completely out of fear which is why any human who tries to live their life based on these ‘rules’ or ‘beliefs’ end up being miserable instead of happy. Let me explain further.
Let’s try to understand this through an example. Let’s imagine that you are a first time parent who like any other new parent has no clue whatsoever how you are supposed to raise this tiny human being. So, you turn to help and advice from your parents, your in-laws, your friends who may already have kids, your colleagues, or maybe even internet or magazines. And even though you receive great advice from all these people/sources and you try to implement some of it or most of it, yet, you don’t think any of it seems to be working for you and your kid. So, by this time you are frustrated and begin to doubt your own parental skills. And out of frustration, you start to convey back to all those people who you received advice from that their tips are not really working and then they start to inform you that you must be doing it all wrong because it worked for them! And by this time, you are not just frustrated, you are depressed. You are depressed because you thought you should know how to raise a kid when you delivered one and even if you didn’t because this was your first time, you should have been able to successfully implement all or at least some of the tips that worked for all these people. So in this example, I don’t think you did anything wrong in reaching out to these other people or sources to seek advice, however, what you assumed in the process is that because all these people are much more experienced and have raised or are raising kids, ‘they should how to raise your kid better than you’. And because they should know better, you ‘should’ be able to not only understand their advice but ‘should’ be able to implement it successfully with your own kid.
Can you imagine the kinds of feelings that this parent would feel? Feelings of guilt, worthlessness, hopelessness, embarrassment etc. Basically, lots of fear about not being a good parent for their own kid!! But you know folks, everything that this parent really needed to know about raising her own kid was inside her own heart. But because her beliefs told her that she ‘should’ seek advice from others to become a successful parent and that she ‘should’ listen to others because they are more experienced is why she didn’t even pay attention to her own heart which knew exactly the kind of kid she has and therefore the kind of parenting style she can adopt to raise her kid.
But folks, don’t be disheartened because this society at this moment is at the brink of waking up! Waking up and realizing that it’s not getting married at a certain age or having kids by a certain age or working in a job that earns you a six figure salary or may be even getting married at all or may be even choosing not to have kids even though you are married etc. is what decides whether you will be happy or successful in life. What makes a person happy is in their own hearts – which is why the saying – follow your heart! And if a human heart wants to not get married, that’s ok; if it doesn’t want to have kids, that ok; if it doesn’t want to talk to certain friends/relatives because they are not worth talking to, that’s ok; if it wants to leave their six figure salary behind to do something else, that’s ok; if it wants to travel the world alone, that’s ok; it’s all OKAY! And before I end today’s post, I would like to commend each and every one of you out there who has the guts to follow their own hearts!!! By following your own hearts, you are helping people around you wake up!!
And as always, feel free to leave a comment, if you feel like leaving one. And until next Friday, live life 🙂
by Shikha Rastogi | Oct 14, 2016 | Beliefs, Perspective
Hi everyone, welcome back! Last week I examined our beliefs about relationships and focused on what having a relationship with our own self means and why it is the most important relationship that any human being can have. This week, I would like to take a step further and would like to examine the society’s very strongly held belief that it is more important to put others needs before our own.
Belief: It’s more important to help others first and fulfill their needs.
Amazingly, generation after generation has held this very strong belief that it’s more important to help others and love others and be kind to others and basically fulfill their needs before we should even think about our own. And even more amazing is that in some cultures it’s actually the way of life, the norm rather than an exception. And in these cultures, since this is the expectation, the people who actually dare to take care of themselves first before extending help to others are frowned upon. So, have you folks ever wondered why so many generations of humans have felt and still feel very strongly about putting others before their own self? Here is how I look at it.
Every human that has taken birth on this planet has been after one and only one thing – happiness! And in chasing after this most elusive thing, ‘happiness’, I believe that people back in the day came up with ideas and beliefs about where this happiness comes from and what it is that humans need to do to find this happiness. And in the process of figuring out how to become happy, they somehow understood that one of the ways to get to ‘becoming happy’ is by making other people happy, by doing whatever these others expect you to do so that when their expectations from you are fulfilled, they will be happy and hence you will become happy. Of course, this is just one of the many ways that humans believe that they can become happy. There are a lot of other things like buying branded stuff, going on expensive vacations, buying expensive beauty products, buying and showing off expensive jewelry, living in expensive homes, driving expensive cars etc. etc. that people believe also make them happy. I will talk more about this in one of my next posts but for now let’s just focus on how ‘making others happy’ plays out in our lives.
So, before I philosophize any further, let’s try to first understand the difference between the 2 approaches – ‘taking care of my own needs first and then helping others’ vs. ‘putting others needs before my own needs’. And let’s try to understand this through an example. Let’s imagine that you have a very dear friend who lives alone in the same city as you and this friend is single and has been going through a serious health crises. And you have a family with spouse and kids and may be you work outside of your home in a corporation. So, even though you would love to help out this friend by calling them frequently or may be even visiting them just so you can be there for them in their time of need, but because your own life is so busy, you are hardly able to find time for your dear friend. So, when you are operating from the mindset of the ‘putting others needs before my own needs’ approach, you will feel an obligation to help your friend and you may think ‘oh I should really help my friend because that’s what a good friend is supposed to do’. However, because of your own busy-ness in life and the fact that you can’t find the time to help, you will feel guilty about not being able to help. And this feeling of guilt may bring along other negative feelings like feelings of helplessness, feeling that you are not a good friend, feelings of fear about what would your friend think of you etc. etc. Thus, in this case, even if you somehow make time to be available for your friend, you will continue to feel all these negative feelings and this will prevent you from being fully there for your friend! So even though you may be desperately trying to help your friend and make them happy by being there for them, you instead would end up achieving nothing because you are operating from fear instead of the love that you have for your friend!
Now let’s understand how ‘taking care of my own needs first and then helping others’ approach would play out in this same example. So if you are operating from this approach, you would first acknowledge the fact that your own life is very busy and even though you love your friend dearly, you won’t be available for them most of the times. And you will also acknowledge and understand that helping your friend is not an obligation rather something you would love to do if you have the time. So in this approach, the kind of thinking you will have is, ‘let me take care of my own things first and as soon as I have the time, I will chat or may be even visit my friend, however, in the meantime, I will remember her in my prayers and send her healing energy through my prayers/meditation’. Thus, in this approach, you will not only be kind towards yourself for not having enough time for your friend but will also be fully present when you actually find the time and your friend will notice your help in the form of your complete and undivided presence! And this approach will be a win-win for both you and your friend since you will already be happy about being available for your friend and you will not be trying to make your friend happy first so that you can become happy yourself!
So folks, I know another aspect of this could be that your friend expects you to follow the first approach and wants you to drop everything you have going on to be available for them but I honestly think if this is a friend that really loves you the way you love them, they will understand and empathize with your situation and be grateful for whatever little time you are able to spend with them. But remember healing always starts with your own self, so, before you begin to blame other people for expecting things from you, you better start reviewing your own expectations from them! More on this next time.
And as always, feel free to leave a comment, if you feel like leaving one. And until next Friday, live life 🙂
by Shikha Rastogi | Sep 23, 2016 | Beliefs, Perspective
Hi everyone, welcome back! Last week instead of examining another belief, I examined what ‘practicing mindfulness’ looks like and in the process pointed out that when we learn to practice mindfulness, the biggest thing we learn is to respond instead of reacting to any situation or person. However, this approach could be misunderstood as ‘allowing people to walk all over you’ especially if this is a difficult person that you are dealing with. Therefore, this week I would like to take a step further and examine who exactly is responsible when you are in a situation where someone is mistreating you and how is it that you can use mindfulness to address it.
Belief: Since I am trying to be more mindful, I should let people walk all over me.
Absolutely NOT!! No human being regardless of where they come from, how much they earn, what their job title is, how amazingly intelligent or beautiful they are should ever be allowed to walk all over anyone else!! Literally no one should ever be given the right to walk all over any other person – period! However, interestingly, if you ever feel that you are or ever have been in this situation and feel that another person is/was walking all over you or mistreating you, always remember that you play a very important role in this situation and also that it’s you who has given them the permission to do so!! Yes it is you!! And you give them permission because you choose to not speak up for yourself. You choose to not protect your own self. You choose to believe that somehow you deserve to be walked all-over. You choose to believe that somehow this other human is more powerful and important than you are. Most importantly, you choose fear of that person over love for your own self!! And that’s right there is the reason why you let anyone treat you badly.
I know folks, the truth hurts especially if you are that person who is realizing this right this moment as you are reading this blog! You may feel angry at this very moment may be because you don’t agree with me. Or you feel guilty for not standing up for yourself when you were mistreated by someone in the past. Or you may feel uplifted now that you know you play a very important role in how people treat you! There may be a variety of feelings you may be feeling and it’s completely ok to feel them because you are human! But like I always say, the ultimate choice is yours – the reader of this blog and if there is something you don’t quite agree with, let it be. My experience of life has been that when you are ready to learn something, the wisdom will appear! So, if you are not ready this time, read something that resonates with you.
Alright, now let’s explore how is it that you give people permission to mistreat you in the first place. So let’s imagine you have a very smart colleague or a boss or a spouse or anyone else for that matter with some kind of authority. And if this colleague or boss or spouse is the person who is not treating you with respect, have you examined your own belief system and identified that belief which tells you how all these people that I just mentioned are more important than you are? Have you looked at that belief which tells you how much better these people of authority are as compared to you? That belief that tells you that you will never be better than them because they are superior to you just by virtue of the ‘roles that they play in your life’!! Dear people, if I could see you right now, I would just give you a big hug because these are exactly the beliefs and may be a few others like these that hold you back from speaking up for yourself! These are the kinds of beliefs that do not let you stop the people who mistreat you right in their tracks. These are the kinds of beliefs that allow you to be mistreated by bosses or colleagues or anyone else for that matter. These are the kinds of beliefs that give you permission to stay in an abusive personal relationship. These are the beliefs that infuse your minds with so much fear – fear about what would happen if you did speak up, fear about losing your job, fear about ending up being lonely without a personal relationship, fear about not having what it takes to endure whatever happens after you speak up!! And the kind of culture I come from, where women are considered inferior to men, women are especially vulnerable to these kinds of beliefs and therefore end up in these kinds of situations more often than men and to my amazement it doesn’t change much even if these women may now be living outside of their country!! A humans beliefs follow them wherever they go until they take the time to examine them.
Let me tell you one thing folks – from my own example of not choosing to stand up several times in the past vs. standing up for myself for the first time recently and speaking up when I was being mistreated at work; a lot of people in this world have such low Emotional Intelligence (EI) that so many times they don’t even realize that they are mistreating someone! People like these are completely clueless about others feelings because they have never taken the time to acknowledge and feel their own! However, other times, there are people in this world who are real bullies and they know exactly what they are doing and will continue to prey upon you until you muster the courage to stand up for yourself! And it’s not just the adults who belong in this category, even the kids at school end up being bullies! And such adults/kids feel very powerless in their own environments which is why they like to bully someone else which gives them a sense of being powerful! However, regardless of the category the person who is mistreating you belongs to, it’s you who is responsible for protecting your own self, for standing up for yourself, for asking the person mistreating to stop but you can only do that if you feel inside that you are worth standing up for, you are worth protecting! And if you are one of those people who mistreats yourself, criticizes yourself, finds faults with yourself, then, you are more than likely to allow someone else to do the same to you! So the bottom line is, if you really want people to respect you then respect yourself first. If you really want other people to love you then love yourself first. If you really want other people to accept you then accept yourself first. And when you are able to love yourself and accept yourself, you will expect the same from others that you work with, interact with, and are in personal relationships with. And when others know that about you, they will not dare mistreat you and even if sometimes they do, you by practicing mindfulness, will gently but very firmly be able to remind them that you deserve better!
I have shared this poem on this blog before but I would like to share it again because I think it’s very appropriate for this week’s topic.
It doesn’t matter whether others believe in you
What matters is whether you believe in yourself
It doesn’t matter whether others trust you
What matters is whether you trust yourself
It doesn’t matter whether others accept you
What matters is whether you accept yourself
It doesn’t matter what others think of you
What matters is what you think of yourself
It doesn’t matter whether others love you
What matters is whether you love yourself
This life belongs to you, you are the most important character in it
Even if you have not lived this way before
You can make this choice today
Don’t give away your power to another human
Who is exactly like you are because we are all the same
We come from the same source and go back to the same source
So start believing in yourself, trusting yourself, accepting yourself and loving yourself
And no matter how much fear you feel when you are trying to take that first step
Keep trying because you will get better at it
And gradually one day, you will come to realize that you by practicing this,
You are already LIVING FEARLESSLY!
And as always, feel free to leave a comment, if you feel like leaving one. And until next Friday, live life 🙂
by Shikha Rastogi | Sep 16, 2016 | Beliefs, Perspective
Hi everyone, welcome back! Since a lot of people say that this world is not a safe place to live in, last week I examined if this world really is that unsafe and the humans living in it are really that bad, the way we view them a lot of times. This week I would like to break away from examining another belief and instead would like to examine what ‘practicing mindfulness’ looks like.
I am really fond of attending mindfulness related workshops that are sometimes offered for free at my workplace and I happened to recently attend one of these workshops where the lady who was presenting was promoting mindfulness and was presenting all the research that has been done in the last 40 – 50 years to show how truly helpful mindfulness is if one takes the time to practice it. At the end of her presentation during Q&A, one guy asked her ‘the question’ which I think is on everyone’s minds – everyone who is interested in the topic of mindfulness and wants to benefit from it, however, is clueless on what the heck mindfulness really is and how exactly to practice it. But the interesting thing that I noticed from this presentation and a lot of other similar presentations which I have attended over the years on this topic is that most people who are presenting on the topic of mindfulness do an amazing job at presenting, however, a lot of times when asked this question about ‘how to actually practice mindfulness’ in a real situation at work or in personal life, they tend to falter. And this presenter that I just mentioned above was no different. So I am going to take a stab at it and will try to break down mindfulness the way I understand it and if anything I say resonates with you, you are welcome to try to use in your own life and if it doesn’t, simply discard it – your choice!
So before we being to even understand ‘how’ to practice mindfulness, let’s first try to understand what mindfulness really means and in what ways can it help as we navigate through our lives. Here is how I understand mindfulness – to me, mindfulness is NOT about getting rid of all the negative thoughts that our minds create so often. I believe mindfulness is about understanding my own self better, my own beliefs which create the thoughts that I think and my actions that are a direct result of these thoughts. And when I become more mindful, what really happens is that I begin to understand the kinds of thoughts my mind creates in any given situation and also understand the kind of re-action that I could have in that situation as a result of these thoughts. And because a human mind thinks repetitive thoughts almost 95% of the time (maybe even more), I, the owner of my mind, continues to repeat the actions (re-action) over and over again until either I realize that this is happening or life becomes full of stress and anxiety and maybe even depressive and then I have to take the time to understand what’s causing me all this misery. But on the other hand, if I learn to be more mindful, when I come across another situation which triggers my mind to create similar thoughts, now that I understand the ‘thought-re-action’ phenomenon, I realize that I have a choice whether or not to re-act (repeat my actions) the same way as the last time around. And the way I would practice it is by first accepting and being ok with the fact that my mind is creating all these negative thoughts and then realizing that I have a choice whether or not I want to believe my thoughts. And when I understand that, I allow myself the space to choose to let go of my negative thoughts and because I choose to let them go, I end up acting differently this time around. And because I acted differently this time around, everything and everyone around me will act differently also and amazingly they will also receive that space to choose whether to re-act or change their actions this time around!!
Alright, let’s try to understand this through an example. Because a lot of us work in corporate jobs and therefore work in teams, I would like you to imagine that you are part of one of those teams where you and your colleagues are working hard to implement a project. There are timelines associated with tasks and a strict deadline with regards to the implementation of this project. And even though all team members in the team work well together, there are a couple of folks who seem to have issues all the time with not just other team members but with you as well. So every time you receive an email from these 2 people or are face to face in meetings discussing something, all you can think about are the things you will write or say to these people in response to their emails or words. And in practicing this approach, what your mind is really trying to do is to defend you from the negative things that these people can say or write.
So, let’s see how we can try to practice mindfulness in this situation. Let’s imagine that you just received an email from one of them saying that a task you were responsible for wasn’t executed well and your boss and all other project team members are copied on that email. So if you are not mindful you will be furious when you read that email and will want to re-act by responding to that email immediately! And if you choose to respond to that email in that state of anger and frustration, you may end up saying/writing things that you may regret later on and it will never end your perpetual frustration at work because at the end of the day the truth is that you have to work with these people! But if you are mindful, you already know the kind of people they are and you expect that kind of behavior from them and because you expect that behavior, you can choose to NOT engage with this person and NOT re-act when you see that email. Instead you still get angry but you choose to respond once you have had a chance to cool off your own anger. This will allow you the space to NOT re-act but to respond instead. And this is the key difference when you practice mindfulness. You respond to situations and/or people and not re-act to them. And that right there reduces your stress levels because you break the vicious cycle of acting the same way every time and in response, the situations/people respond differently to you!
Additionally, if you become really good at practicing mindfulness, people like these and their behaviors become a source of entertainment instead of frustration for you! And the people who you thought were responsible for all the work related stress become more bearable now that you have changed your perspective not just on them but have understood the basic truth about where the stress is coming from – your own re-actions!! I know this may appear like a difficult way of functioning in life because obviously each one of us have egos that would tell us to ‘stick it back to them’ but trust me, practicing mindfulness brings so much peace to you that it simply outweighs the need to prove others wrong and point their mistakes because mindfulness allows you to focus on yourself instead of others 🙂
And as always, feel free to leave a comment, if you feel like leaving one. And until next Friday, live life 🙂
by Shikha Rastogi | Sep 9, 2016 | Beliefs, Perspective
Hi everyone, welcome back! Last week I examined if ‘worrying’ about the things that your mind has identified as ‘problems’ actually helps to stay safe from these problems or it creates more ‘problems’ for you. This week, since a lot of people say that this world is not a safe place to live in, I would like to examine if this world really is that unsafe and the humans living in it are really that bad, the way we view them a lot of times.
Belief: The world that we live in is not safe and the people who live in it are not good.
This one cracks me up each time I come across a human who says this or something similar to this which is – I don’t like what’s going on in this world and the people who live in it. Really! If you don’t like this world and the people who live in it, why did you choose to bring your own kids into this world? Why did you choose to give birth to these tiny humans who will learn all about this world from you and since you think this world is not a safe place, they will learn that too and go on to live a life which may be very similar to your own. What will you tell your kids when they ask you why you brought them into this world knowing that this world is unsafe? What will you tell them about the humans who you think are not good? What exactly will you tell them as part of the growing up process because they will ask you all those questions? And if you don’t answer their questions, they will come up with their own answers. Have you ever thought about that?
You know folks, the one thing I have come to understand is that in order to create the life that you want, it’s you who decides whether this world is a safe place or not, not the media or your peers or family members or anyone else for that matter because apparently there are a lot of things/people/opinions who influence how we choose to view this world. And once you have decided how you want to view this world, you will find out that your life will reflect exactly that until you take the time to review and change your perception about this world! So, if you are that person who thinks that this world is an unsafe place and the people who live in it are not nice, that’s exactly what you will encounter in your life! And I don’t believe the reason is that you attract the unsafe situations or bad people (law of attraction) just because you perceive this world and people as bad. The way I understand it is because this is your perception of the world, your mind now knows exactly what kind of situations and people to focus on and pay attention to. So if you think this world and the people who live in it are not safe, your mind will always find such unsafe situations and bad people to justify your perceptions. And even though you may come across situations that are positive or people who are really nice, your mind will still try to find the unsafe and bad in both because this is how a human mind works! And because your mind would continue to find the negative and bad and ugly, its belief that this world is unsafe and full of bad people will keep getting reinforced until you the owner of the mind takes the time to consciously review and change this belief.
Let’s take an example to understand this better. And what could be a better example than raising a spirited (strong willed) child since we are raising a generation full of such kids. So, imagine that you have one of these very strong willed kids who keeps you on your toes all the time, who observes, analyzes and evaluates everything before they get down to doing anything even playing with kids at a park, who questions everything you ask them to do, who wants to be in-charge of all decisions not just related to him but to you as well, who takes a lot of time to adjust to new surroundings and new people etc. So, is this exactly your kid that I just described here :-)? If yes, have you ever noticed that every word that I just used to describe this kid is negative. However, let’s see if we can find the positive in all the negative. So a kid who is very active is a healthy kid and I think being grateful for a healthy kid is what any parent could do. A kid who observes, analyzes and evaluates everything before they get down to doing anything will not run away with strangers when they are offered treats or will have fewer accidents if they are playing in a park because they are cautious. A kid who questions everything you ask them to do is going to be an adult with their own mind and can’t be easily preyed upon or victimized by others. A kid who wants to make his own decisions will be a leader who will lead people or companies into making those decisions. A kid who takes a lot of time to adjust to new surroundings will have much fewer friends but the ones he will have will be the ones he will love to be friends with forever. And I can go on and on and on here.
Folks, because a human mind always categorizes everything into good or bad, negative or positive, beautiful or ugly etc., it always tries to bucket every situation or person or event into good or bad, negative or positive, beautiful or ugly. But if you are conscious enough, you can choose to see the good in the bad, the positive in the negative, and the beautiful in the ugly just like if you have a baby and even though she may not be the cutest baby around, she is still the cutest baby in the world for you because that’s how you choose to view her. That’s what I am talking about here.
And as always, feel free to leave a comment, if you feel like leaving one. And until next Friday, live life 🙂
