by Shikha Rastogi | Mar 31, 2018 | Beliefs, Perspective
Hi everyone, welcome back! A few weeks ago, I examined how our parenting style and expectations from our kids are making them “Career-Ready” instead of “Life-Ready”! This week, since I am completing 2 years of writing my blog; instead of examining a belief, I wanted to talk about the three things that are on my mind – Gratitude, Hope and Meditation!
As I write today’s post, my heart is filled with deep gratitude and hope. I am grateful to every single one of you who take the time to read my post and special thank you to those of you who take the time to also let me know that you enjoy reading it! Although I have thoroughly enjoyed writing each post especially because I pour my heart out into words; yet, I still can’t believe that I continue to write after 2 years. When I started, I didn’t really know much about what I wanted to do with my blog except write about the fear filled beliefs which were responsible for all the anxiety that I ever experienced in my life. And the reason I wanted to write about these beliefs and wanted to share my writing with the rest of the world was because I had started to get a glimpse into the kind of internal peace my shift in perspective was leading me to. And that peace, although fleeting, felt absolutely AMAZING – something that I had not felt in a very long time and I hoped it will do something similar for whoever was reading or at the very least give them something to think about!
Folks, I believe, there are three common threads which run through entire humanity – our need to be loved, our instinct to push fear away and our desire to be happy. And these are the very threads which not only make us human but connect us to each other. They make us more alike than different as humans. So, the issue never is that this human being does not have the need to be loved or does not push fear away or doesn’t want to be happy. The real issue is that we hide that we all feel these things and have these needs, just like any other human being!! We try to pretend that we are perfect but those who portray perfection are more broken from the inside. They just don’t have the courage to accept it!
But there is hope! A lot of hope, actually!! And the way you get to that hope is through writing and reading/listening, being thankful and meditating. Although it doesn’t matter what you write about but maintaining a journal where you just put your thoughts down has incredible healing power. Another way to bring hope into your life is through reading/listening to articles/talks that resonate with you. And you will know what resonates with you as soon as you read or hear it. You will feel at ease and feel so much peace inside! And what you like to read or listen to will be different for different people based on where you are in your level of consciousness and what it is that you need to learn to continue to grow as a human being.
Another way to invite hope into your life is by being thankful for the things and people you have in your life today. Gratitude has amazing power to shift your perspective from despair to hope. Gratitude shifts your perspective because instead of focusing on the things that you can’t achieve or the people who you don’t like or the health that you don’t want; you start focusing on the things or people or anything else that you already love in your life and when you focus on something, you are able to find more and more of those things. So, try counting in your mind or maybe even writing down the 5 things you are grateful for today in your life. If you are going through something challenging in your life today, you may find it difficult to find things you are grateful for but there is always something, so dig deeper!
The last thing through which you can invite hope into your life is through meditation! And I am not kidding when I say that meditation has saved my life and my sanity! I know meditation seems very intimidating to most people and a lot of us may have tried it and already given up on it – maybe after a couple of times; however, what I know now after 8 years of meditation is that there is no right or wrong way or a technique to meditation. Because we all focus so much on others and their expectations; meditation, to me, is simply getting to know myself again. Getting connected to my own heart which hides all my answers about life and my reason for being here at this time on Earth!! And your heart holds your answers…are you ready to explore?
by Shikha Rastogi | Feb 16, 2018 | Beliefs, Perspective
Hi everyone, welcome back! A few weeks ago, I examined beliefs which give rise to very common feelings of ‘not being enough or not having enough’ in this world!! This week, as I have been reading so much about the stresses of being a kid in this world; I would like to examine how our parenting style and expectations from our kids are making them “Career-Ready” instead of “Life-Ready”!
Belief: The only pathway to leading a successful and happy life for my kids is to have a successful career at any cost!!!
You heart overflowed with joy. You couldn’t hold your tears in. You felt love which you had never experienced before in your entire life. Your tiny bundle of joy just arrived!! After you brought her home, in those moments when your mind still worked despite the sleep deprivation and mind-numbing exhaustion; you started to make plans. Plans about your life with her; plans about her life; plans about how you want to raise her; where you want to raise her. Regardless of what the plan was, all your plans had one and only one theme – somehow you wanted her to be the happiest person on this planet!! And even though all you ever wanted was for her to be happy, your definition of where that happiness will come from started to shift. Your definition started to shift because as she started to get older, you came across other parents with kids, who, although just like you, wanted their kids to be happy; however, their ideas of how to achieve that happiness were very different from your own! So, you shifted your focus from listening to your heart which was screaming to allow your kid to just play and have fun but instead you started listening to your head which was very busy trying to copy others who it thought knew ‘more’ than you did! And thus, your kid’s childhood and their innocence just got lost and buried in the schedules and ABCs and numbers and the race to have a kid who knows the most at the youngest age!
If you are someone who believes (even if you have been influenced by others) that the pathway to a highly successful and happy life is to push your kid to the get perfect grades and perfect test scores and entry into perfect colleges; your intentions although pure are highly misplaced! And your intentions are misplaced because of your belief in what creates a happy and successful life. Although different people, if asked about what creates a happy and successful life will answer differently; however, regardless of who you ask, if they have been there and already done this success thing, they will tell you that life is not just about perfect grades and test scores and getting entry into the best colleges. Life is also not about being better than others or being the best in the crowd. Life is so much more….
Life is about being the best version of your own self!! And being the best version of your own self simply means, knowing yourself and what your gifts and talents are and then focusing on them and cultivating them to create companies or publish books or create art or build robots or anything else that your heart is set on! Life is about failing and falling, getting up and trying again! Life is about loving someone and allowing yourself to be loved and getting hurt, feeling the immense pain but believing in love again! Life is about watching the sky and counting the stars and waiting to see just one more star on a cloudy night! Life is about grieving the loss of a loved one and feeling the emptiness in your heart when they are gone! Life is about allowing those tears to come out and letting yourself to feel overwhelmed and sad every once in a while! Life is about showing kindness to the ones who you think don’t deserve any! Life is about allowing yourself to be vulnerable because that’s when you give most and receive most! Life is about holding hands and giving tight hugs because you never know when would be the last hug you share with your near and dear ones! Life is about listening to the stories of your tiny humans which although make no sense to you, are so very interesting from their point of views! Life is about saying sorry even to your kids for something that you did wrong and teaching them that we all make mistakes sometimes! Life is about forgiving the ones who have hurt you the most because forgiving gives you permission to let go of that hurt! Life is about putting your ego aside and using your heart to view your partners perspective! Life is about finding that silver lining even when nothing is going your way! Life is about LOVE and FUN and JOY!!! Life is so much more than just a successful career or a six-figure salary!! Life is about living and listening and feeling your own breath! Life is about living from your heart instead of your mind! Life is about feeling alive!!!!
Folks, I agree that building a successful career is important in life but be mindful that it’s only a part of life and not the entire life itself! And having a successful career does not guarantee a happy and successful life! We have got the formula all wrong 😊. Therefore, I think it’s time to review and renew our beliefs about happiness and where it comes from. And it is especially important to do it NOW because the lives of our kids are at stake! Their happiness, mental health and wellbeing is at stake!
And always, leave a comment if you feel like leaving one. And until next time, live life!!!
by Shikha Rastogi | Jan 22, 2018 | Beliefs, Perspective
Hi everyone, welcome back! A couple of weeks ago I examined our beliefs around addictions and addicts and in the process uncovered that the root cause of all these addictions could be traced back to the feeling of not being ‘enough’! Therefore, this week, I am examining beliefs which give rise to this feeling of ‘not being enough or not having enough’ in this world!
Belief: Although I have been achieving everything that I am supposed to achieve, acquire, gain and attain; however, I still don’t feel accomplished enough or beautiful enough or smart enough or rich enough etc.
When I came to this country several years ago, I came across a term which I had never heard before in my life. That term was ‘social anxiety’. At that time, upon reading a few articles about this term, what I could understand about social anxiety was that it had something to do with a person being shy and an introvert. However, over the years, as I came face to face with one failure after another; I could feel this ‘social anxiety’ in my own self especially when I was among other people. In feeling this kind of anxiety, myself, I was convinced that it had nothing to do with a person being shy or introvert but had everything to do with this person not feeling good enough or beautiful enough or accomplished enough or creative enough etc. And this revelation was so profound for me that it changed the way I viewed my own self and my own mind! Let me explain further.
Our entire lives, humans learn about the importance of being ‘successful in life’. And the way we learn about being successful is by being better than everyone else. As young kids and teens, we are taught in schools and colleges and by parents to compete, to become better than someone else, to get better grades than someone else, to learn how to write before and better than someone else, to learn how to read before and better than someone else, to learn how to do anything before and better than this someone else. And we are taught and expected to do all this before and better than someone else so that we can be tagged as more intelligent and more competent than someone else. And we think that by being more intelligent and more competent than someone else, we will ensure a better job than this someone else, better pay than someone else, better home than someone else, better opportunity for our kids than someone else’s kids etc. etc. And the end goal in being more successful than someone else is always to attain more happiness than someone else. However, the one very important aspect of living our lives based on this strategy where we always strive to be better than someone else is a strategy which is doomed for failure from the very beginning because in trying to use others as benchmarks for the success that we want in our lives, we are limiting ourselves and our definition of success. Not only that, chances are, there will always be that someone else who is ‘more’ than us – ALWAYS, so, by living our lives based on this strategy, which is how most people live their lives; we are setting ourselves up for a lifetime of pain and suffering and unhappiness.
So, are you left wondering how this knowing of trying to be more than others ties into our feelings of not being enough? Well, every time you come across that someone who you think is more successful than you are, you will feel that you are not successful enough no matter how successful you already are. Every time you come across that someone who you think is more intelligent than you are, you will feel that you are not intelligent enough no matter how intelligent you already are. Every time you come across that someone who you think is richer than you are, you will feel that you are not rich enough no matter how many millions you have in your bank accounts. Every time you come across that someone who you think is more beautiful than you are, you will not feel beautiful enough no matter how beautiful you already are. So, you see folks, this is the very reason why anyone including myself would ever feel this ‘social anxiety’ especially when we are gathered with people who we think are more than us because in their presence, we will feel not enough. And to those of you who think that its these others who make you feel not enough, let me tell you another very basic truth of life – no one, literally no one can make you feel anything unless you are already thinking and feeling that thing. More on this another time.
Folks, how on Earth as a collective society of humans did we allow this to happen to ourselves and our kids! Why do we not realize the damage this kind of belief system is already doing to our and our kids psyche and thus taking us so far away from the very happiness that we are always chasing after? Why is it that we can’t just create our own definition of success, whatever that definition maybe? Why is it that we need others as benchmarks to make us feel us good about ourselves and our lives? Why is it that instead of focusing on others, their successes and their achievements, we can’t just focus on what we want to accomplish and how we want to accomplish it? Folks, we have got this life and living thing all wrong. Otherwise, what else could explain our depressions and anxieties; heartaches and heart breaks; pain and suffering; angst and despair? Why do we allow ourselves to go through this? Maybe it’s time to wake up and look at this thing which we call life from a different perspective – a perspective of collaboration rather than competition! A perspective of every single one of us being special in our own unique ways and not just a handful of us! A perspective of love for our achievements and accomplishments and not fear for what others have achieved and accomplished! I really think it’s time to wake up…what do you think?
And as always, feel free to leave a comment if you feel like leaving one. And until next time, collaborate more and compete less 😊…
by Shikha Rastogi | Jan 5, 2018 | Beliefs, Perspective
Hi everyone, welcome back! I took a little hiatus from writing in the last few months but I am back and this time I am examining beliefs around human beings’ addictions which could be anything from being addicted to drugs or alcohol or prescription medications or any other kind of addiction! In today’s post, I am attempting to examine what goes on in a human being’s mind who is an addict and this society’s response to such humans!!
Belief: He should be a responsible adult and get his act together because he is not just hurting himself but his entire family!!
On my recent trip to India, I came across two individuals who are barely in their 40s and who are really struggling with various forms of addictions. Both these individuals have families, wives and kids, but they are still not able to get their acts together as per their families and society’s expectations! And in talking with the family members of these ‘irresponsible adults’, as our society would define them; I can’t help but wonder, what is it that prevents such individuals from giving up their addictions especially when they are not able to become sober even for the sake of their families!! This is my attempt to dig deeper and find some answers. And the reason I am even writing this post is because I want this society including the families of such individuals to view addiction and the addicts themselves from a different perspective – a perspective of love rather than disgust and ridicule!!
Anything that a human being does or does not do throughout his lifetime can be traced back to one thing – his mind. The mind which generates hundreds and thousands of thoughts every waking minute of the day! And if you have ever paid attention to the way a human mind works then you would know how it automatically gravitates towards negative thoughts. Negative thoughts that tell him how this world that he lives in is not a safe place so he should keep his guard up all the time and look out for danger even though none exists most of the time. Negative thoughts that tell him how he needs to behave in this world to be accepted by his own family, friends, neighbors and even strangers. Negative thoughts that tell him how he is not good enough yet until he becomes this or that. Although, this kind of thought pattern is a reality for most people on this planet; however, some of us are able to somehow either train our minds to look for good and positive or are able to learn to not take our negative thinking very seriously. But for the rest of the people who very much believe in the crap that goes on in their heads; they either turn to hatred and violence and hurt other people or they turn destructive to their own self. And an addict belongs to this second category of human beings who somehow over the years of living has come to believe that he is not worthy of living this life because he doesn’t feel lovable enough or good enough or smart enough or beautiful enough or rich enough etc. And because he doesn’t feel ENOUGH, instead of getting angry at other people, he gets very angry with himself and tries to mask and not feel that pain and anger through various forms of addictions! And all these things that he becomes addicted to are to basically keep him from feeling his crappy feelings.
But here is my very honest question to you? Don’t we all think this way from time to time, especially during the lows in our lives? Don’t we all try very hard to not feel the negative and unpleasant feelings that arise because of thinking this way? Don’t we all try to hide the fact that we feel these negative feelings from the rest of the world and our own families? Don’t we all pretend to be happy and act like our lives are so perfect although deep down inside we know that they are far from being perfect? So, if this is how we all think and feel sometimes, to me, the only difference between us and those addicts is that somehow, these addicts are not able to bounce back from this kind of thinking and feeling. And because they are unable to bounce back, they need a lot of help, love and support from their family members, from the medical community, from this society. But what I have understood so far in all these years of living life is that although some of us may try to help such people in the beginning; however, because it’s very challenging to get them to let go of their thinking and hence their addictions; as time goes on and if the addicts still haven’t become sober, even those of us who initially tried to help, start to pull away! We start to pull away because we expected them to have come out of their addictions by now but because they didn’t, we feel like they are not trying hard enough or they don’t love their family and friends enough or they are simply irresponsible human beings who don’t deserve any love and help and support because after all they are doing this to themselves!! But what I have also learned in the process of living this life and paying attention to the crap in my own head is that to be able to let this kind of thinking go is easier said than done because what you are trying to do is to un-learn this old way of thinking so that it would make space for new ways. And that is not easy – even the non-addicts would know that very well!
So, to anyone reading this post who may be struggling with addictions themselves or anyone who has a friend or family member who is struggling; this is what I want to say. Yes, I agree that it’s totally up to the addict to pull themselves out of this mess but family and friends play a very important role. You play an important role by not ridiculing and judging this person; by not making them feel bad about the fact that they can’t do it; by not calling them irresponsible human beings; by being compassionate and understanding even though you don’t understand a thing about addictions; by not giving up on these people because if you give up, they will too! They are banking on your hope for them to pull them out of this mess!! But wait, you can only practice compassion and love if you ever learned that yourself in the first place but because most of us never even learned to use compassion and kindness to help our own very young kids when they are ‘being bad’; how is it that we can make ourselves not judge the adults for not being able to get their acts together!!
And as always, leave a comment if you feel like leaving one. And until next time, give more love and support and compassion to especially to the people who can’t seem to get their acts together because they are the ones who need it the most 😊
by Shikha Rastogi | Sep 21, 2017 | Beliefs, Perspective
Hi everyone, welcome back! A few weeks ago, I examined why is it very important for parents to tightly hang on to compassion and kindness during the times of change especially when we may feel most stressed and out of control! This week, I want to talk about stress, where this stress is coming from and why is it that we can’t allow ourselves to become un-stressed even though we know that this stress is harming our physical as well as emotional well-being!
Belief: I am so stressed out all the time but this is how life is in these modern times!
In talking with people and reading articles these days; I have begun to realize that a lot of people have started to shift their perspective on ‘stress’. They have started to believe that ‘stress’ is part of living life in these modern times and that there is nothing much they can do about it. Stress appears to be the new norm for living a successful life in these times! It’s like this fashionable thing, a hot topic that people discuss with friends and family and enjoy comparing who is busier and therefore more stressed! And although at its face value, stress does seem necessary to achieve all the hundreds of desires we have in our life in this day and age; however, all of these signs point towards another reality. The reality that we have become addicted to stress because on some level we have invited and accepted stress as a ‘normal’ part of life and living.
So, have you ever wondered why is it that most of us think that being very busy and stressed out is the new norm? Why is it that although this busy-ness and stress is wreaking havoc on our physical as well as emotional health, yet, we somehow are unable to do what is needed to reduce some of this stress? Here is my take on it. I don’t think anyone would disagree when I say that the goal for most humans in this world is to achieve great things and become very successful. And to achieve great things and become successful, we believe that it’s very important to work very hard. And because we think it’s very important to work our butt off; we ignore everything that comes in our way of achieving and becoming successful and it includes stress!! So basically, our own expectations from ourselves as well as from our life trumps our basic common sense which may be telling us all along to slow down and to pay attention to what we have already achieved. To pay attention to our mental as well as physical health because our hearts as well as bodies can’t take it anymore!! But because we are always too busy doing things based on what our heads tell us; some of us don’t even know the first step to getting un-stressed and slowing down. And for the rest of us who may know how to slow down, we are so attached to our ideas and beliefs about achievement and success that we are not at all ready and willing to let go. And we are not willing to let go because we are very afraid that if we let go of the busy-ness and stress and unwind and slow down; we will be out of this rat race that life is. We will be out of reach of that elite category of high achievers and extremely successful people who make life look so very cool. We will be left behind relaxing and de-stressing while our neighbors and friends and family members will achieve their dreams! And because of this constant fear in our heads, even though we know that we can’t handle that demanding full-time job on top of raising our kids, we continue to do it! Even though we know that our kids are our priorities, we continue to work longer hours and just expect our kids to raise themselves! Even though we know that our kids will not be living with us for very long, we continue to be stuck with our devices doing very important things! Even though we know we will not be here on Earth for very long, we continue to disrespect ourselves by not listening to our hearts and bodies!
And when you ask people why is it that they can’t let go of some of the desires and thus some of the stress from their lives; a funny response is that this is the expectation of the society these days :-). So, for example, if you have a teenage kid and if you are that mom who has devoted her life to making sure your kid is that kid in high school that all other parents are in awe of – an all-rounder who knows pretty much everything that a human can know; let me make you aware of one truth! These expectations and ambitions that you think are coming from this society of people around you and you are just doing what everyone in this society expects you to do; guess what, – it’s YOU who has these expectations and ambitions to make your kid into a genius not the society! It’s YOU who has this fear that if your kid doesn’t become this teenage genius, he will somehow fail in life! it’s YOU who couldn’t get into that successful club and so you want to realize your own ambitions through your kids!
So, folks, don’t just go around blaming the society and the people in that society because it’s YOU who create this society. You are this society! It’s YOU who contributes to it! So, instead of blaming the state of your lives on this society, look within and start by taking full responsibility of the life stressful or not that you have created so far! Because unless you have the guts and courage to look within and take responsibility of the things you could have known and done differently, you will be stuck in that vicious cycle of expectations and stress and will continue to blame the state of your own heart and head and body on someone else. So, be brave and assess your own beliefs and thoughts which are being created because of these beliefs and the feelings that you are feeling because of these thoughts. Are they working for you? If they are not, it’s YOU and only YOU who can do something about it – not this society!
And as always, feel free to leave a comment if you feel like leaving one; and until next time, be brave and take responsibility!!
