by Shikha Rastogi | Apr 7, 2017 | Beliefs, Perspective
Hi everyone, welcome back! Last week I examined human beings very basic need for validation and approval from other people and in the process pointed out that we need to learn to validate and approve ourselves if we want to live a life which is our own. This week, I would like to continue this topic and examine what do we do when we are praised by someone else and the role this kind of praise plays in our lives since we are the ones who are supposed to approve and validate ourselves.
Belief: Since I am supposed to validate or approve myself, I should totally try to forget or ignore or deny when someone praises me or my work or my life.
So, before I get started, I would like to thank Sylwia who posted a very thoughtful comment on my last blog post!! Since there was no way to respond to your comment, I chose to write this week’s post having been inspired from your thoughtful comment. I hope you get a chance to read it!
Oh, isn’t human mind a piece of work :-)! It has layers and layers and layers of conditioning or beliefs and when you start to peel one layer off, there is one more that you see and then one more and one more…So, if you read my last post and if you are one of those people who were left wondering, if each one of us is supposed to approve and validate ourselves then is praising others or being praised by others a bad thing or is it even necessary? What should you do when you receive that praise? Should you ignore it? Should you deny it? Should you tell the other person that you don’t need their approval? To answer these questions, let’s first examine praise, what praise is and what role does it play in our lives.
One of the literal meanings of the word ‘praise’ is to approve someone or something or to admire it. Thus, when you praise another person, you may praise them for something they did which met your expectations. Or, you may praise them for the way they look because you may find that look appealing. Or, you may praise them for the way they live their life because you may like that way of life. Or, you may praise them for their achievements because that’s what you would like to achieve in your own life. Or, you may praise them for their successes because that’s how you define success in your own life. And of course, there are numerous other reasons that you may praise someone or something. But basically, praise is a very powerful way to add to someone’s confidence or self-esteem which allows them to feel good about themselves and who they are and what they do. And a lot of times, praise also acts as a big motivator which allows people to do more of what they are being praised for or to become more of that person that everyone keeps admiring.
But have you ever wondered why is it that most people think praise needs to come from other people, from outside? Why is it that we can’t praise ourselves even though we are the ones who know in our hearts what our true potential is and how we measure up based on that potential? I know, some of you may be cringing as you read this sentence and that is exactly what my last week’s post was all about! So, before you cringe any further, lets try to understand why does praise or approval need to come from our own self through an example. Let’s imagine you are someone who has a low self-esteem and you are highly dependent upon other people (other’s-esteem) to tell you how good you are or how beautiful you are or what an amazing job you do etc. Let’s also imagine that you work in a corporation where you are lucky to have a boss who constantly gives you that approval so that you can do your best work. But then one day that boss of yours decides to retire and you end up with a boss whose style does not include praising his employees and it’s the last thing on his mind when he interacts with his employees. So, after the boss change, even though you continue to produce the same quality of work and continue to do your best like you used to do before; suddenly, you will find yourself hitting rock bottom with regards to your self-esteem and confidence. You will begin to question your own performance and the work that you do although nothing really changed with you or within you! All that changed was your boss and thus your access to “Other’s-esteem”. And because “Other’s-esteem” is not available to you anymore, you don’t feel good about your work or your performance. And because you doubt yourself and the quality of your work, you won’t feel good about yourself anymore! On top of that, since you were accustomed to a boss who used to approve of you all the time, you will expect your new boss to do the same for you but because he doesn’t, you will feel very frustrated that he does not meet your expectations. And this is exactly what happens when anyone is too dependent upon others to make them feel good about themselves!
So now, let’s look at this example from another perspective – a perspective of high self-esteem. Let’s imagine that you are someone who although appreciates and is grateful for every praise that is sent your way, also knows yourself better than anyone else can ever know you! You know your worth and trust the quality of work that you produce. In short, you are someone who has a high level of self-esteem! So, when you go through this boss change, since you already feel good about yourself and trust your work, you will recognize and acknowledge that this new boss is different from your old boss and therefore will not expect your new boss to approve your work. Instead, you will continue to produce the work that you had been producing before and thus continue to do your best like before! Hence, this change of boss will not change your worth or how you feel about yourself and your work!!
And folks, isn’t this the reality of life? Don’t you already know someone who has immersed you in praises about one thing but totally criticized you for another thing? Or someone else who loved you one moment but the next moment in a rage of anger, is responsible for domestic violence? Someone who married you for your beauty but is now jealous of the same beauty? Someone who left you for another woman even though you were his life before this woman? And in all these instances, if you are still the same person with the same heart and soul, ask yourself, why would you even depend on someone else to decide your worth if your worth in their eyes fluctuates based on their own thinking? Can’t you decide it for yourself? Why would you depend on someone else to tell you how beautiful you are if your beauty in their minds is dependent on how good you make them feel about themselves? Can’t you see for yourself when you look in the mirror? Why would you depend on someone else to tell you how loving and kind you are? Can’t you already feel that you are kind and loving inside your own heart? Why would you depend on someone to tell you what you are capable of? Don’t you already know that deep down in your own heart?
But folks, that’s exactly what we do all the time when we post our best pictures on social media so that people can see it and confirm that we are beautiful! Or when we announce our achievements or successes or vacations or charities to the entire world! If you confess or not, in doing so, we are seeking attention and want approval and validations! That’s why we do what we do and the existence of social media has in fact increased our need for approval and validation and has made us even more dependent on others to feel good about ourselves!
Folks, there is absolutely nothing wrong with praising someone or getting praised by someone as long as you remember that this is “Other’s-esteem” and because this kind of esteem comes from other people, it will change depending on how these others feel about themselves or how they feel about their own life or what their own state of mind is at any given time etc.! And when you know that and remember that and live from that knowing, you have no choice but to build your own esteem – “self-esteem” because the simple truth is, we are all the same! We are all children of God or Universe and no one is better than anyone even though you may think you are just because you are rich, or beautiful, or accomplished, or have too many degrees, or earn millions of dollars, or do great charitable work, or hold an amazing title! We are all absolutely awesome!! So, try to learn to approve and validate yourself first and once you begin to do that for yourself, notice how easily others will do the same for you :-)…Its worth a try because this your own life and you are responsible for it…no one else!
Feel free to leave a comment if you feel like leaving one. Until next time, build more self-esteem 🙂
by Shikha Rastogi | Jan 27, 2017 | Beliefs, Perspective
Hi everyone, welcome back! Since my last post where I examined why is it that a lot of times even successful people can’t seem to find their way to happiness, I have been thinking a lot about where happiness really comes from especially if it doesn’t come from just being successful, rich, beautiful, intelligent etc. So this week, I would like to try to examine the connection between ‘feeling our negative emotions’ and a human being’s happiness!
I am not sure if we can remember what it was like when we were very young kids but if you have raised or are currently raising kid(s), and you have been paying attention; you probably already know what true happiness is. And when you are a kid, it’s not only the happiness that is real, it’s the anger, the sadness, the hurt, the frustration, and every yucky emotion that is out there. It’s all real! And it’s all real because these young humans haven’t yet learned to hide all that this society defines as negative and therefore they don’t try to shove it away in the darkest corners of their hearts – yet! Instead they feel them all – the good, the bad and the ugly! And because they feel them all, is why they are that happy. They are able to get them out of their system instead of hanging on to that hurt and anger and sadness forever. On top of that, these kids don’t judge themselves for feeling these negative emotions. And so as soon as everything yucky is out through crying or yelling or a tantrum, they are back to being happy again! This my friends is called being human :-). But then when these same kids grow up as adults, somewhere in the process they learn to ‘manage their emotions’, which is definitely not a bad thing to learn; however, instead of learning to ‘feel our emotions without reacting’ what we actually learn to do is to hide all those ugly emotions away because God forbid if someone sees us this way – angry and frustrated and sad and defeated, what will they think about us? Won’t we be tagged as bad people and irresponsible adults? What will our kids learn?
As parents, if we are only allowed to teach our kids one thing, then I really wish we could teach them that just because they are sad sometimes, angry or mad some other times, hurt sometimes, guilty or regretful other times; they are not bad people! They are not bad people because feeling all these negative feelings along with the positive ones is what being human is all about. But wait! I think we already know that, don’t we? But then how is it that if we know all this, yet, we get so anxious when we start to feel that sadness inside of us? Why is it that we feel like we have to defend ourselves when we start to feel angry? Why is it that we feel so guilty for shedding a tear upon a failure? Why is it that we can’t allow ourselves to grieve the end of a relationship? Why is that we can’t allow ourselves to feel the sadness when someone close to us leaves this world? Why is it that we feel it’s very important to ‘get back to normal’ and not important enough to feel all these negative emotions? Has any of you ever wondered that? How many times, in trying to be a good friend, but completely out of our own fears of feeling these negative emotions have we advised the people close to us who are suffering to ‘just try to be happy’ for the sake of their kids or other family members? Really? Do you really think ‘trying to be happy’ when you just lost a dear family member to a disease would work? Wouldn’t you feel totally confused and conflicted and even guilty for not being able to try hard enough to become happy again?
Folks, the biggest thing I have noticed over the years is that we are very afraid to feel all these negative emotions. And we are afraid to feel them because as kids, when we felt these negative emotions and in feeling them we cried or yelled or threw a tantrum, our parents or adults around us yelled back at us and told us to stop crying or stop yelling or stop misbehaving. But do you also know that when a child who is crying or yelling or throwing a tantrum is told by a parent or an adult to ‘stop crying’ or ‘stop yelling’ or ‘stop throwing a tantrum’; the message that this child is receiving is not only that it’s not ok to cry or yell or throw a tantrum but it’s definitely not ok to feel everything negative which is triggering this outburst. But if you dig deeper to understand the reasons why your kid is crying or why you are sad, you will realize that there is almost always a need which is not being fulfilled. A need for LOVE! A need to love and to be loved. A need for connection. A need to connect with yourself and with people around you. A need to be seen and heard. A need to give and receive. A need to pray for peace together. A need to leave a safer world for our kids. A need to be able to let that dear one know just one more time how much we truly loved them. A need to hug and be hugged by someone. A need to trust and be trusted by someone. A need to just be ourselves and live our lives the way we want to.
Wow! I have tears in my eyes as I write this post today. It’s all so very simple, yet, we make it all so complicated. A lot of our pain and suffering would just vanish if we didn’t do a thing and just listened. Listened to our kids, listened to our friends, and listened to our near and dear ones. Listened to our own selves!! We will have true compassion for ourselves and everyone around us if we just listened!
And as always, leave a comment if you feel like leaving one. Until next time, just listen 🙂
by Shikha Rastogi | Jan 26, 2017 | Beliefs, Perspective
Hi everyone, welcome back! A couple of weeks ago I examined whether we should allow other people to walk all over us and mistreat us just because we are trying to be more mindful. This week, I want to examine our beliefs about relationships, personal as well as professional, because it seems to me that they are the biggest cause of dissatisfaction and unhappiness in our lives and somehow they tie back to our desire for standing up for ourselves.
Belief: How I feel is completely dependent on how others make me feel!
Long time ago, I once heard someone famous quote “the real gain is in mending a broken relationship instead of completely breaking it”. At the time when I heard this quote, I completely agreed with its wisdom and was fully convinced that the most important thing in life is a ‘relationship’ and also that it’s very important to save any relationship, personal or professional, by doing whatever it takes to make it somehow work! However, now that I have lived at least a decade more of my own life since I heard this quote and have seen other people live their own lives as well, although, I still continue believe that there is immense value in relationships, however, for me personally, the way I define a relationship has changed completely. In the past, I defined a relationship as an exchange of energy between 2 or more people and I don’t think I am going out on a limb when I say that most human beings define relationships this way. However, my biggest learning in all these years has been that there is one more relationship which I had no clue about – my relationship with my own self! And this is ‘the most important relationship’ which lays the foundation for my entire life! It defines whether I will be successful in my personal relationships with other people, whether I will be successful in my professional relationships, whether I will live my best life or not! So, let’s first explore what does having a relationship with our own self looks like and then understand how it can help us live our best lives.
This is how I understand my relationship with my own self. Having a relationship with my own self means that I am able to love myself even though other people around me think I am unlovable. Having a relationship with my own self means that I am able to encourage myself even though other people are too distracted to give me that encouragement. Having a relationship with my own self means that I am able to praise myself even though other people don’t see a thing in me that they can praise. Having a relationship with my own self means that I am able to forgive myself for the mistakes that I make even though others can’t find reasons to forgive me. Having a relationship with my own self means that I am able to show myself all the kindness in the world even though others don’t show me that kindness. And when I am able to live this way and love this way and be kind and forgiving to my own self, I will stop looking for all these things from these other people that I am in relationships with and as a result my cup of life will be full with goodness and happiness and I won’t be dependent on other people for my own happiness. And when my cup is full, I will not by very ‘needy’ of other people’s love or kindness or encouragement or praise or anything else for that matter. Thus, I will stop needing other people to ‘make me feel good’ which is what holds us back from living our best possible life – needing all these things from other people to make us feel happy and peaceful and loving and worthy! Now, I will have the opportunity to make myself happy!
I know some of you or maybe a lot of you would be thinking, what is the point in having any kind of relationship with anyone else then if we can simply live happily just by having a relationship with our own self. Well, there is! This is my take on it. So, if you already have an amazing relationship with your own self and you don’t need other people who you are in relationships with to behave certain ways to make you happy, you give them the space to be themselves and because you give them that space, they don’t feel controlled and manipulated and as a result don’t feel the need to constantly defend themselves and stand up for themselves. And folks, this is exactly the reason why anyone even thinks about standing up for themselves – because they feel controlled and manipulated and they don’t like it! But I know that even if you have gained all this wisdom on how important it is to have an amazing relationship with your own self, yet, this other person that you happen to be in a relationship with may not have acquired that kind of wisdom, or they may have come across this wisdom but they choose not to believe it, then, that may be the time to quit that relationship because life is too short to spend with people who make you feel less than you who really are. Don’t you think?
I am not kidding but the first time I heard about having a relationship with my own self, I could hardly understand it let alone believe in the power that it gives the person who tries to live this way. And I could not understand it because I was not raised this way and I know most of us are neither. But then, our parents and their parents and so on were also not raised with this understanding. So, my hope as I end today’s post is that not only will I practice living this way with myself but my daughter will also learn from my practice and in time, it may very well become the best gift I ever gave her!
And as always, feel free to leave a comment, if you feel like leaving one. And until next Friday, live life 🙂
by Shikha Rastogi | Jan 22, 2017 | Beliefs, Perspective
Hi everyone, welcome back! Last week I examined how a human mind always makes ‘assumptions’; assumptions about how people want you to behave, assumptions about how your life is, who likes you and who doesn’t, whether you are a good human being or not etc. etc. This week, every time I look around, people seem to be struggling and want to know how to be happy and this is equally true for the ones who are considered to be ‘successful’ by our society. So, I would like to examine why is it that a lot of times even successful people can’t seem to find their way to happiness!
Belief: I thought if I am successful in life, I would automatically be happy. So why am I not?
When we were born into this world, we were so pure, so innocent, and so full of life and happiness. We had big dreams and we thought everything was amazing and nothing was impossible! But gradually over time, as we were growing up, we started to learn from our parents and the society around us. We started to believe in the beliefs of our parents and this society. We started to believe that life was serious business and we had to study very hard and get into great colleges and become successful if we want to be happy in life. So, here we were, just a few years old, but because we didn’t know any better and completely trusted in our parents and this society’s wisdom; we played along like ‘good kids’ when we were pushed to the max for getting the best possible grades. We played along because we wanted to make our parents happy and more importantly we wanted to achieve the most sought after thing that the adults were chasing after – ‘happiness’!! And in the process, we sacrificed fun and instead focused on being hard working; we sacrificed spending time with friends and instead focused on our books and coaching classes; we sacrificed our innocence and instead focused on being a grown up; we sacrificed the happiness and love for life which already existed within us and instead focused on chasing after the ‘external’ happiness that the adults told us was very important!! And so we did all we could possibly do throughout school and college to secure the highest paying job out there. And secure we did – the highest paying job possible. Our parents were so proud and the society treated us like we became better human beings just by virtue of securing this job! Everyone was happy, including us! Everything that we sacrificed in the process seemed worth it at this point! Every time we were pushed by our parents seemed to make sense now because we got the job – our ticket to happiness 🙂
Then we started to work in this job but in working with our ambitious colleagues, the flame of ambition started to burn inside us as well. And this flame of ambition would re-kindle each time one of our colleagues would get promoted and so we decided it was time to join the race for promotions and we started to work very long hours. And we decided to jump on the promotion bandwagon because we thought we will be even happier when we get that promotion and draw an even bigger salary and will be able to buy a bigger home and send our kids to private schools and buy more expensive things that our hearts so very much desire. And in the process of securing that much elusive promotion, we sacrificed enjoying the already beautiful home that we lived in and instead focused on buying a bigger home; we sacrificed spending time with our own kids and teaching them what we know about life and instead focused on getting them into private schools so that they can be taught by great teachers; we sacrificed doing what we loved and instead focused on doing what made us miserable like kissing up to bosses and learning to manipulate; we sacrificed living our amazing life today and instead focused on living a dream in the future!! WOW!!! I don’t think I need to tell you at this point why, even when we become very successful, we still don’t find that damn happiness.
Folks, we have our beliefs about happiness turned upside down because we believe that when we do this or achieve that or when that happens or that doesn’t happen, we will ‘become’ happy. We have set a future date for our happiness because no one taught us about being happy today. Never in our lives are we taught that happiness is a choice and anyone can choose to be happy no matter what they have or don’t have; what they do or don’t do; what they earn or don’t earn; what they own or don’t own. Being rich and successful and owning a lot of things and stuff doesn’t give you the copyright on happiness!! It makes life more comfortable but having a comfortable life doesn’t guarantee you happiness. It only guarantees you comforts!! Happiness is an entirely different ball game!
You know folks, the irony of life is that when we are young kids, we already have that happiness and peace and love and charm inside of us, yet, as we grow up we go looking for all these things in the outside world and spend entire lifetimes just searching and getting frustrated for not being able to find. But if we can just understand that happiness can never come from anything that happens to us or the things that we achieve or don’t achieve, it comes from simply loving who we are today and what we have today. And when we love who we are what we have today, we will not have a lot of attachment with our ideas of what we should have or how much we should earn or what job we should do in order to be successful and happy. We will just go with the flow of life instead of fighting against it because it’s this fighting against everything and everyone which is so depleting and exhausting. And it’s this fighting which doesn’t allow you to feel gratitude for everything and everyone you have today and instead keeps you agitated and angry waiting for the next shoe to drop so that you can validate your belief about happiness which is – happiness comes from outside events and people and things and is very difficult to achieve. Well the truth is that there is nothing to achieve here, there is only to choose and to learn to choose, you need to practice – a lot 🙂
And as always feel free to leave a comment if you feel like leaving one. And until next week, live life, love people 🙂
by Shikha Rastogi | Jan 13, 2017 | Beliefs, Perspective
Hi everyone, welcome back! Last week I examined the human need to judge everyone and everything and in the process pointed out that the ability to judge is part of being human and instead of trying to control it, we should just accept it as part of being human which will allow it to just melt away. This week, I want to examine ‘assumptions’; assumptions about how people want you to behave, assumptions about how your life is, who likes you and who doesn’t, whether you are a good human being or not etc. etc.
Belief: I don’t think people like me much because I am so outspoken OR I don’t think my neighbor is very friendly, he could be a racist OR I think people who disagree with me are arrogant people etc. etc.!!
A few years ago when I understood how a human mind, when faced with a situation or when interacting with another human being, makes up stories to comprehend and make sense of everything that is happening; I was just completely blown away! I was blown away because these stories were all based not on facts but rather assumptions and over time as I paid attention to my own thinking, I realized that I was making a lot of assumptions all the time about almost everything in life. And like I mentioned above, I was making these assumptions to try to understand and make sense of everything that was happening or not happening in my own life or to understand the kind of interactions I was having with family members or friends or strangers. And the funny thing (or maybe not so funny after all) was that most of the times these assumptions of mine were totally wrong! Yet, because my mind created these assumptions and completely bought into them, I would suffer the aftermath of the kind of negative thinking which accompanies these assumptions which would present itself in the form of mental and physical stress! And after all these years I have come to the realization that I suffered in vain and that there was no need for me to assume what my mind assumed and as a result created the thoughts that it created which led to all the suffering that I put myself through.
But folks, this ability to make assumptions as we live our lives is not just personal to my mind. It’s the reality of every human mind which has ever lived on this planet. The only thing is, depending on how evolved you are as a human, if you really understand how human mind works to make assumptions, you will be able to catch yourself in the act and let that kind of thinking go! But for the rest of us, if we don’t even know that we make these assumptions on a daily basis, we don’t even have the opportunity to learn to let them go! So, in case you belong to the former category of humans who don’t know what making assumptions really means, I am going to give a few examples to help you understand.
So let’s imagine you have a colleague who you exchange pleasantries with and maybe even talk to more often than anyone else at work. And one day out of the blue, this colleague of yours doesn’t seem to even acknowledge you let alone say hello. And if this wasn’t just a one-time thing and if it happens a few more times, these are just a few thoughts that may pop into your head – did I do something to piss her off? Did I say something to another colleague who blurted in front of her? Does she not like me anymore? So, in the process if thinking this way, what your mind is really doing is trying to come up with reasons why your colleague may be ignoring you. And this is what is called as “making assumptions” and it’s called making assumptions because you didn’t take the time to ask your colleague what was really going on and instead created stories about what ‘could be going on’. And by choosing to assume (yes it’s a choice but you have to be really evolved to be able to choose), your own mind created so much unnecessary suffering for you!
Let’s take another example. Let’s imagine you are with your kid in a park where there are other kids who are enjoying and playing together and all of a sudden one of those kids pushes your kid and your kid falls to the ground. As you were chatting away with other moms, all you happen to notice is your kid lying on the ground covered in dirt and tears. Your very first thoughts in those moments may be – this other kid is such a bad kid because he behaved so badly and pushed your kid. What kind of things this kids parents teach him. This kids parents must have such a bad parenting style. Don’t the parents of this kid teach him some manners? And again, this is what is called as “making assumptions”. And again, your mind created stories about not just how badly behaved this kid is but on top of that you started to also question this kids parents and their parenting style.
Not sure if you noticed folks, the interesting thing in both these examples is that your mind could have very easily created a positive story instead of a negative one but that’s the thing about a human mind – it just loves to think negatively and create negative and fear based stories. And if you don’t take the time to identify the kinds of assumptions you make in your daily life, you can never get rid of that stress which takes away all the fun from living and especially living in the present! But like I mentioned in my last post when I talked about judgement, you are not a bad person if you are making these assumptions. You are just human. That’s all!! And the best way to allow yourself to let go of this kind of thinking is by first beginning to understand and identify all the assumptions that you make and then allowing yourself to not focus on them by choosing to think a different thought. And even though it takes a lot of practice to implement this in life, I can guarantee you that it’s totally worth trying and practicing because it allows you to have that empty space in your mind where you can actually focus on the present moment and focus on yourself!! And that’s what makes you feel peaceful inside and being peaceful inside is what makes you happy!
And as always feel free to leave a comment if you feel like leaving one. And until next week, live life, love people 🙂
