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 🙂
by Shikha Rastogi | Jan 6, 2017 | Beliefs, Perspective
Hi everyone, Happy New Year and welcome back! Three weeks ago, since it was the holiday time of the year and because people exchange a lot of gifts around this time; I examined beliefs around ‘gifting’ and what it is that people want to achieve through this process of ‘gifting’! This week, since the holidays gave me time to read and reflect, I happened to read about how human beings are so judgmental. Therefore, this week, I would like to examine the human need to judge everyone and everything.
Belief: Its not good to be judgmental and therefore I should try to control my ability to judge!
‘Judgement’ is an in-built ability that every human has no matter what color, nationality, religion, community you belong to. And I believe humans have this ability so that we can discriminate between opposites like good and bad, fair and unfair, love and hate etc. And without the capability to judge, we will not know the difference and therefore won’t be able to live our lives on Earth! However, in the many articles that I have read so far about ‘judgement’, it’s treated as one of the biggest blocks to living our best lives here on Earth. And as a result, one of the spiritual teachings may sometimes come across as ‘humans should control their ability to judge’. And I agree to this teaching to some extent in that if we are able to judge less, we have the ability to create more – more positive thoughts, more creative thoughts and as a result more positive and creative experiences; however, the part that I don’t agree with is that there is no way you can eliminate judgement from your life as long as you are alive because that’s what makes you human! And you certainly can’t ‘judge less’ by controlling your ability to judge!! It would be like asking someone to breathe less air if they are in a city full of pollution!
Folks, an interesting thing about trying to judge less is that in trying to judge less, you are already judging yourself and your judgements! I know this may sound confusing so let’s take an example and find out how trying to control our ability to judge actually makes things worse and you end up judging even more instead! Let’s imagine you have invited friends over for dinner and you are trying very hard to give them a perfect dinner party which they will remember for a long time, however, in the middle of the party, your 4 year old ends up in a massive tantrum. And since your nice dinner got interrupted, you may already be judging your party to be a failure but on top of that if your beliefs around judging tell you that judging is bad since it causes stress and as a result you ‘should not’ be judging at this time of crisis, your mind will go into a never-ending battle of thoughts some of which will be judging your party as a failure whereas on the other hand, the other thoughts will tell you to kill the judgement thoughts!! And this will NOT help you to get calmer but instead raise your stress levels so much that you may end up lashing out at your own kid in front of all your friends!!
Now let’s look at this same example from a different perspective – a perspective of love and compassion and understanding about human ability to judge. So, lets imagine you are someone who understands and accepts the human ability to judge as normal part of living and don’t create a big deal about it; so, when you are in a situation as in the above example, as soon as you start to judge your dinner party as a failure and realize that you are actually judging, since you now know that judging is part of being human, you will not take your thoughts regarding judgement very seriously. You will instead be compassionate and loving towards your own self for thinking judgmental thoughts. And when you are compassionate and loving towards yourself, two things will happen. One, you will not try to push or control your judgmental thoughts away and second, because you will not be trying very hard to push or control your thinking; the thoughts that were judgmental before will transform into loving and compassionate thoughts. And on top of this, since you are now thinking all these loving and compassionate thoughts for yourself, you will be able to better handle your kid’s meltdown in front of so many eyes!!
Folks, it is very sad that this world does not understand and accept that all these negative thoughts and judgmental thoughts and negative feelings as a result of these thoughts are ALL PART OF BEING HUMAN!! We are not bad people if every now and then we think such thoughts and as a result feel such negative feelings of anger, jealousy, resentment, fear, sadness etc. But because as a society we have created such a big deal about these negative thoughts and emotions, and on top of that emphasize that human beings don’t think and feel such negative thoughts and emotions is why most humans try to fight them away instead of embracing them just like they do with the positive thoughts and emotions. I am not sure about you guys but fighting with my negative thoughts and emotions has never worked for me – ever!! And do you know, that’s exactly what you try to do, control your kids’ emotions when you tell them to stop crying when they are in the middle of tantrums and meltdowns. But does telling your kids to stop crying work or do they spiral down and their tantrum gets worse?
Believe me, I tried fighting my negative thoughts and emotions for several years before I began to really understand the concept of accepting them and feeling them. I know it’s very uncomfortable but the only way through them is to allow them to be thought and felt. There is no other way! And I would like to repeat – you are NOT A BAD PERSON if you think such negative thoughts and feel such negative emotions every now and then. You are simply human! The real problem is not allowing them into your mind and heart. That’s where chronic stress and depression and anxiety begin!
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 | Dec 16, 2016 | Beliefs, Perspective
Hi everyone, welcome back! Last week I examined the thought process that leads us to judge ourselves and our lives if we think we are not able to handle something or someone in a better or more spiritual way. This week, since it will be that time of the year again when people exchange a lot of gifts, I would like to examine the beliefs around ‘gifting’ and what is that people want to achieve through this process of ‘gifting’!
Belief: Its very important that I buy the perfect gift for my friends and family members!
Well you may have already guessed the answer to ‘what it is that people want to achieve through the process of gifting’ – happiness!! Everything that a human mind thinks can be traced back to one single thing, the human heart and the heart’s desire to be happy! And the holiday season is no different, rather more important when all these desires of the heart bubble up along with the variety of emotions! But have you ever noticed that beneath the layer of happiness, which obviously is the ultimate goal, there is something more that the human heart desires – and that is acceptance. To be accepted and loved and valued and heard is the deepest desire of any human heart and it is this very path that leads the heart to happiness! And when it’s the time of the holidays, because you are around family and close friends, these desires of your heart, which you try to bury very well throughout the year just bubble up to the surface. And this is when ‘gifting’ comes into picture. So, if you are someone who feels accepted and loved and valued by the family and friends who will surround you during holidays, ‘gifting’ will have a very different meaning for you than someone else who doesn’t feel accepted, loved and valued. Let’s explore further.
Let’s imagine that you are someone who feels loved, valued and accepted by the people who you will be surrounded with during this holiday time; so, when you think about buying gifts for these people, you will not worry about whether they would like the gift or not or if the gift is expensive enough or not etc. The bottom line is that you won’t be trying to please them so that you can get what you want in return – their love and acceptance. Therefore, you will end up choosing and buying a gift from your heart instead of your mind. But on the other hand, if you are someone who doesn’t feel loved, valued and accepted, you will try very hard to think of things this person would like or maybe try to scan through the best and the most expensive things out there and in the process will buy something that you ‘think’ will please these people so that in return they can give you the much elusive acceptance and love that you so deeply desire. And just for this very reason, this entire process of ‘gifting’ will become so stressful for you. And no wonder so many people report that their stress levels go way up during holidays. Hence, the ‘holiday stress or at least a part of it’! But I also know that so many of us, maybe out of arrogance or hurt or embarrassment or guilt, think or say that they don’t need acceptance from anyone or they don’t care if others value them or not. This is far from the truth. If you are human, you desire all these things deeply. And so if you are this person, believe me, this is just a lie that your mind is trying to convince you of. It’s trying to simply protect you so that you don’t get hurt when you don’t get that feeling of acceptance, being valued and being heard especially when you are in the midst of family and close friends again.
But folks, I would like to bring your attention to the bigger question that you need to ask yourself during this holiday time which is whether you accept your family members and close friends and love and value them? What do you see when you look at them? Do you see someone who is flawed and needs work or do you see someone who is awesome despite all their imperfections? Do you get a view into their soul when you look into their eyes? Do you feel there is a very important reason why you ended up in their family at this time on earth? Do you feel that they are valuable members of this society? Do you feel they have something that they can offer to make this world a better place? Do you shower them with praise when they look nice or do something amazing for you?
You know folks, there has never been a gift made that can ever replace the gift of love and acceptance no matter how pricey that gift is. But the most important thing to realize is that you can NEVER receive something that you don’t give out first! So, if love and acceptance is what your heart desires, you have to start giving it out first. Once you initiate, watch how it comes back to you. Have you ever noticed the difference in how your kid who may just be 3 or 4 years old responds based on your own response? For e.g., your 4 year old is doing something they are not supposed to do and if you yell at her to point out what she is doing wrong, she will most definitely yell back or throw a tantrum. However, on the other hand if you are able to control your own anger and calmly let her know that what she just did is not right, she may still not like it but at least she will not yell back or start a tantrum. So, just imagine if your 3 or 4 year old’s mind and heart work this way, how can the adults’ minds and hearts be any different?
And as always feel free to leave a comment if you feel like leaving one. And until next week, live life, love people 🙂
