by Shikha Rastogi | May 27, 2016 | Beliefs, Perspective
Hi everyone, welcome back! Last week I examined a belief about assumptions and how a human mind thinks when we are in the assuming mode. This week however, I would like to break away from examining another belief and just examine what ‘acceptance’ really means, what it feels like in the mind and heart. I have written about ‘acceptance’ so many times in my posts and because this is something I personally come face to face every time I face a challenging situation and/or person, and because it’s really the very first step in facing any challenging situation and/or person, I thought it was important to write about it and at least give you my perspective on it and step by step on how I practice it because I had to practice it just last weekend 🙂
So, let’s first explore what acceptance really means and let’s take an example from real life. Let’s imagine that you are a person who works in a big corporation and although you are good at what you do, you don’t believe in sucking up to your boss. And because you don’t believe in sucking up to your boss, you were just passed over for a promotion even though you think that you absolutely deserved it. This is a scenario that happens way too often in our lives. So since you are human, when you get your review and you find out that you didn’t get promoted, your mind goes into over drive. It starts to think negative and angry thoughts. It may think something like I am not valued at work or no matter how good I am or how hard I work, no one really cares. You may also think that these other people who got promoted totally didn’t deserve to be promoted etc. etc. And in addition to thinking these thoughts, you will also be feeling a variety of emotions and which will mostly be negative. You may feel angry, hurt, disappointed, fearful etc. etc.
Let’s take another example and let’s imagine that you are part of a very close knit family that loves and respects each other. And in this tight knit family you are very close to one of your family members and they pass away suddenly. You are overcome with grief and shock on what happened and how it happened and what you could have done to prevent it. So again, your mind may be busy thinking a lot of negative thoughts and you may again be feeling a variety of emotions ranging from sadness, fear, guilt, despair, grief, anger etc. etc.
So, the question in both these situations is, when you are in the middle of thinking and feeling a lot of negative thoughts and emotions as a result of what or who you are facing in your life, what does ‘acceptance’ even look like and what is it that you are really accepting? So, let me break it down and give you my perspective based on what I have been learning and practicing in my own life. Acceptance in both these situations would first of all mean ‘noticing’ what it is that you are really thinking and feeling. Then the second step would be to ‘acknowledge’ that you are actually thinking and feeling this way – being honest with yourself. Keep in mind however that this second step, even though it appears to be very simple, is so very complex in reality because as humans in this society we don’t want to appear weak and sad and lonely and guilty. We want to appear very courageous and set examples all the time. Examples for kids, examples for family members, friends etc. And in trying to set all these examples, we don’t just try to hide these feelings from others, we also hide them from our own spouses, our family members and above all we also hide these feelings from ourselves. And because any negative feeling is very difficult to experience and live with, especially for a long period of time, we try not to feel those very uncomfortable feelings by declaring to the world and ourselves that what happened was meant to happen and also announce that we should all get back to our normal lives where we don’t feel the pain and unhappiness. Hence we pretend to be happy, pretend like nothing happened, and pretend like everything really is okay! And this is the worst thing you can do to yourself, your spouse, your family and most importantly to your own kids who you love so very much. More on this next time.
Now the third and final step in the process of acceptance is to ‘allow’ yourself to think and feel the way you are thinking and feeling without judging the thoughts and feelings as bad and without judging yourself as bad a person for thinking and feeling all those negative thoughts and feelings. This is so very important! And this is very important because in this human society which only believes in PERFECTION, it appears that the goal of being human is to be happy ALL THE TIME and because the goal is to be happy all the time, we push away all feelings which are seen as ‘negative’ or ‘unhappy’. However, this is just not right! It’s not right because being human doesn’t mean that you will only feel the ‘positive’ feelings that will bring you happiness. What being human really means is that you will feel everything ‘positive’ or ‘negative’ and learn and grow from feeling all these feelings no matter how difficult they are to feel. And believe me, you can really learn and grow from challenging situations in your life because I did and I still do and I am able to write what I write because of everything that I have learned through the situations and people that came into my own life!
So now that I have laid out these steps, I think it’s very important to also mention that I am NOT suggesting you that accept everything that life throws at you AND not do anything about it. So, in the first example, what I am really suggesting is accept the fact that you are angry and hurt or whatever else you feel and once you have calmed down a little realize how hard working you are and how valuable you are. Realize your own worth and value because when we face outside situations and/or people which we have no control over, we tend to forget our own value and start to ‘assume’ stuff about ourselves which is absolutely untrue. And once you have realized your own worth and value, either make a decision to talk to your boss about not getting that promotion or start looking for another job or both.
Finally, before I end, another very important thing to keep in mind is that there is no timeline for any of these steps. Depending on who you are, what your personality is, what your life situation is, what kind of support system you have etc. etc., you may take more or less time in moving from one step to the next. So, don’t begin to compare yourself with your friend, your family member or anyone else for that matter and beat yourself up if you are the one taking more time. You are not them, you are you and you are perfect the way you are!
And as always, feel free to leave a comment, if you feel like leaving one. And until next Friday, live life 🙂
by Shikha Rastogi | May 20, 2016 | Beliefs, Perspective
Hi everyone, welcome back! Last weekend was an amazing weekend for me because I got a chance to present “How to bring mindfulness into your life” at a local library. Some of you may have already seen this video but in case you didn’t get a chance to watch it, here is a link: https://youtu.be/hEmA7ZzC4FsI had so much fun presenting on this topic!
Back to this blog now. A couple of weeks back I talked about how our expectations of others affect the way we think and therefore we end up living our lives based on that kind of thinking. And in that I also pointed out that we not only have expectations from others but also assume things in the process. So, here is my belief for this week.
Belief: Because this person doesn’t react/respond to me the way I expect them to, they must not like me or not like what I have to say or what I did or didn’t do etc. etc.
So many of us, as we go about our daily lives, make assumptions all the time and sometimes we take ‘assuming’ so very far that it starts to affect our relationships not only with people around us but also with our own selves. We may make these assumptions because we may not be confident in ourselves or we may not trust ourselves completely or sometimes we may even doubt ourselves. Additionally, we may not completely trust the Universe or God and therefore when we assume anything, what we are really doing is, we are imagining stories about the situation or person or both. And in imagining these stories what we are really doing is creating thoughts from our mind’s limited perspective – a perspective of fear.
So let’s look at a few examples to better understand ‘assumptions’. Let’s imagine you have a friend or a family member that you are very close to and you share not only your happiness with them, you also include them in your sorrows and challenges. Now let’s imagine that you are facing a challenging situation in your life at this time. This challenging situation may be personal or professional or health related but because you are facing this challenging situation, you so very much want your close friend or family member to be even closer to you now so that you can lean on them for support. However, you don’t tell them that this is what you need from them because you ‘assume’ that they should understand this themselves and give you that support without you having to ask for it! And because you don’t ask them for support, they don’t even realize that you need them this way in your life at this time and so they don’t give you that support that you so very much want. So, in the process you once again ‘assume’ that this close friend or family member is not interested in supporting you through your challenges. And because you feel the way you feel, instead to communicating with them to figure out if something may be going on with them which could be preventing them from being there for you at your time of need or on the other hand they may even think that since you are going through this challenge, you don’t want other people to interfere or they may not even know how to interfere and help you and give you the support! So as a result, you start to distance yourself from them and think that they are not your good friend any more or they don’t care about you anymore. And thus begins the ending of a beautiful relationship just because you believed everything your mind told you! And if you are a highly sensitive person who is in tune with other people’s pain and feelings, you are more likely to be that person who makes these assumptions because unlike other people you would always or have always (just because of the fact that you are highly sensitive) given your support and help to friends and family members even if they don’t ask for it!! And you expect the same in return. However, what you don’t realize is (and what I recently started to realize because I am that highly sensitive person) that not everyone is highly sensitive and therefore don’t feel your feelings the way you feel theirs and that’s why don’t even realize that you need them to be there for you!
Let’s take another example which again is something that happens way too often in our daily lives. So let’s imagine that you are one of those many people (most of us I guess :)) who wants to hear from other people that you are either very beautiful or very intelligent or very accomplished etc. (things that society places high value on). But as you go through life, if you don’t come across many people who actually say that to you and validate you the way you feel about yourself and your own life, you ‘assume’ that you and your life are not good enough! Therefore, you begin to doubt yourself and your abilities, your beauty and your accomplishments. And because you begin to doubt yourself, it affects your self-esteem and therefore your relationship with yourself. You now live in a mindset of fear of not being good enough which initiates your non-ending journey to become better, achieve more, and improve your physical self, buy more stuff etc. etc.
So now that you understand how ‘assumptions’ can affect the way you think and can also have a huge impact on your relationships, is there something that you can do to shift your perspective? Yes you can, however, like I pointed out in my previous posts, it’s ALWAYS best to start when you are very young. But if you are reading this blog, chances are you are already an adult. But that should not stop you from paying attention so that every time you make an ‘assumption’ you can catch yourself and choose to continue to believe your thoughts or allow yourself to shift your perspective. In addition, if you are raising kids, you can also try to include it in your parenting style. Every time your kid asks for validation from you or someone else, ask them instead what do they think of themselves? Do they think they are beautiful? Do they think they are intelligent? Do they think they like their grades? Do they think they are lovable? If they answer ‘yes’, there is nothing more you need to do :). However, if they answer ‘no’, try to get them to explain why is it they think that way and build up their confidence, their self-esteem from there on. Validate them that way 🙂
And as always, feel free to leave a comment, if you feel like leaving one. And until next Friday, live life 🙂
by Shikha Rastogi | Apr 29, 2016 | Beliefs, Perspective
Hi everyone, welcome back. Last week I examined a belief about other people’s expectations and how people just because they are human, try to please other people and as a result try very hard to meet their expectations. This week, on the other hand, I would like to look at ‘expectations’ from your point of view, the reader of this blog and how your individual expectations from other people affect the way you think. So, here is my belief for this week.
Belief: If these other people in my life can learn to behave how I want them to behave, like what I like, dislike what I dislike, agree with what I agree with and disagree with what I disagree with etc. etc., my relationships and my life would be wonderful.
Don’t we all think at times especially when it’s a very close personal relationship or maybe a professional one that only if this other person can understand what it is that I am going through, it will make me feel so much better about myself and my life. Only if my husband/wife can understand how hard I work, I will be validated and I will have a reason to keep doing these boring everyday chores. Only if this boss of mine can appreciate me more, it will make my working in this company/department much less stressful. Only if my parents can really understand what it is that I really want in my life and support me in my endeavors, I will be able to feel good about my accomplishments. Only if this neighbor of mine can stop creating nuisance all the time, I will be very happy living in the home that I so very much love. And the list goes on and on and on.
So, do you see a pattern here? A pattern where we expect other people to behave in a certain way, do things in a certain way, respond to us in certain ways; the way we understand to be right. A pattern where we wait to be happy in our lives today because of all the expectations that we have from everyone around us, even strangers for that matter! Yes, I did just say strangers. Do you ask why? Well, let me give you an example. The part of the world that I live in, it’s sort of considered nice to say hello to strangers and maybe even smile at them when you cross their paths. But so many times you come across people who don’t want to say hello or even smile but that doesn’t necessarily mean they are bad people. However, because we are humans and because we expect this stranger to smile back at us and say hello in response to our hello, our mind tags them as a bad/non-social person because they didn’t respond the way we expected them to respond. So the next time if you see this person, your mind will get so busy trying to figure out if you should be saying hello to them again and be smiling at them again. Hence begins a struggle in your mind over something which is so trivial and does not even matter to you or your life in the bigger scheme of things. And keep in mind that this is just one very tiny example from everyday life.
Let’s consider another example and I think about this one every time I get behind the wheels and begin driving my car. So almost everyone regardless of where we live may have to drive ourselves, our parents, kids etc. all the time or maybe some of the time. And so many times while driving, we may come across that one person who either tailgates us to make us get out of their way or you may tailgate someone so that they can get out of your way or someone cuts you off while driving at 70 miles per hour. So, my point is, when this happens to you, have you noticed how your mind goes into overdrive as well :). How even though you can’t control how this other person drives their car, yet, your mind gets so busy trying to come up with things to say to this ‘jerk’ of a person who according to you doesn’t even know how to drive a car. Additionally, for some people this event if it happens on their way to work in the morning, may just destroy their entire day!! And if that person is you, whose entire day could get affected by this single event, have you ever thought that you can’t change people and if you can’t change them, you are not going to gain anything by letting your mind go into overdrive because truthfully at the end of the day there must be someone else out there who may think the exact same thing about you and your driving too!
So, the shift here is to accept not just situations that show up in your life but also to accept people exactly the way they are. However, in doing that I am in no way suggesting that you let people walk all over you and mistreat you. What I am suggesting is that you choose to let go of the small stuff that does not even matter in the bigger picture of life. You choose peace for your own self over your ego which so very much wants to stay in that overdrive mode that I just talked about. You choose being happy regardless of how everyone else around you behaves. And honestly, everyone behaves the way they behave because that’s what they know to do best in that moment.
A few years ago I read the book “The Four Agreements” and one of the agreements in that book is “Don’t take anything personally”. This statement is so profound and even if you have just begun to understand and practice what it actually means it can really transform your life. To give you an example, since a lot of us work for private or public companies all over the world, how it could apply in professional sense is that as an employee of that company you can do the best possible job each day regardless of how your colleagues behave, your superiors behave or even your own boss behaves. And at the very end of the day, that’s all that really matters. And all these people behave the way they behave because of their own beliefs and thinking. It has nothing to do with you. But because you are human you assume that it has everything to do with you. More on this next time. However, if you get bogged down throughout your day thinking about who did this or who didn’t do that, who said this or who didn’t say that, chances are you will not be able to do your best and your performance will take a hit. The most important takeaway for me personally when I came across this profound statement and tried to implement it in my own life is that it all boils down to YOU. And this is how it literally boils down – you first need to have a very powerful intention in your heart to live a peaceful life and not to take things personally. Once you have set that intention, you need to make a decision every single time you are faced with this situation, which I honestly think happens so very often in our daily lives. You will start noticing these situations once you have set your intention. And then you practice. And by practice what I mean is just noticing the thoughts and feelings come up as a result of a situation and you acknowledge them and let them go by reminding yourself that its nothing personal and you choose to live a more peaceful life.
And as always, feel free to leave a comment, if you feel like leaving one. And until next Friday, live life 🙂
by Shikha Rastogi | Apr 22, 2016 | Beliefs, Perspective
Hi everyone, welcome back! Last week I examined a belief which makes us humans compare ourselves and our lives with others and in the process I also pointed out that we may actually think that us and our lives are not good enough yet and as a result we may spend entire lifetimes improving ourselves and our lives so that it can match how we think we should be and how our lives should be! And in doing that we actually think that when we are able to ‘improve’ ourselves or maybe achieve our goals, we will finally be able to accept ourselves and our lives and will have a reason to be happy! So, here is my belief for this week.
Belief: I don’t feel my life and I are good enough just yet so I need to keep working very hard to make myself and my life better and I will be satisfied and happy once I accomplish that.
Does this belief resonate with you? Are you one of those people who thinks you need to work on improving yourself and your life because you both are not good enough just yet and unless you improve yourself and your life, you won’t be able to accept both and love both? And in your attempts to improve yourself and your life, do you think you need to buy those expensive beauty products because you don’t feel beautiful enough yet? Do you think you have to get another degree, maybe from one of the best colleges in your country because you don’t think you are accomplished enough yet? Do you think you need to wear certain brands because you don’t think the clothes you wear today make you feel hip enough yet? And who do you think you want to impress by doing all this hard work – you or the people around you? I think you already know where I am going with this 🙂
So, let’s examine why it is that you and your life is not good enough just yet? And let’s start with you first – the most important character in this drama that’s your life. Let me ask you a few questions and if you answer yes to most of them or maybe all of them, you may have just found the biggest block in being happy because I did just a few years back!
So, let’s explore this further. Is it at all possible that when you think you are not good enough yet, you think that way because you are unable to meet other people’s expectations? Is it possible that someone made a comment about the clothes you wear and that they look crappy; or did your parents point out how someone else’s kids are so accomplished because they just completed their degree from one of the best colleges; or did a family member point to your cousin and how beautiful she is because she is so fair-skinned? Alternatively, maybe you work outside of your home in a job or choose to stay home and work inside your home and in both instances you are unable to meet expectations of someone else like for e.g. your boss or your spouse or your family members or maybe even your own kids. So the point I am trying to make is, do you think you are not good enough because other people in your life, your family members or friends or just acquaintances don’t like the way you talk, the way you behave, the way you eat, the way you laugh, the way you don’t choose to believe in what they believe in, the way you do things? And this list goes on and on. If you answered yes to all or most of the questions, chances are you are human! And because you are human, you have this need for approval from everyone else that you are in a relationship with. And because you have this need for approval, you try so very hard to meet others expectations and try to make them happy. You want others to understand you, to like you, to accept you, to approve you, to love you, to trust you and again the list goes on and on. But just a few years ago, the biggest question that I came across personally really is, do YOU actually accept yourself, love yourself, trust yourself and approve yourself? And you may say that you do, however, if you do, do you do all this unconditionally or do you only love and trust and accept and approve yourself when you think others love you and trust you and accept you and approve you? Do you sometimes even judge yourself when you are unable to meet other people’s expectations and feel badly about not being able to meet their expectations? And when you are unable to meet their expectations and these others don’t show the love, the acceptance, the trust and the approval that you so very much crave, do you still feel good about yourself? If you answered ‘No’, do you realize that your loving, trusting, accepting and approving yourself is totally dependent upon how other people respond to you, view you, treat you and interact with you? If you do realize this, I am going to now let you know that you will never be happy! You will never be happy because there will always be that someone who you may work with, be friends with, a family member or just an acquaintance, who will not agree with you, love you, trust you, accept you and approve you. And because your believing in yourself, loving yourself, accepting yourself and trusting yourself is directly tied to how others treat you and view you, chances are you will never be happy!
So, I know I just painted a very grim picture but a grim picture which has an amazing silver lining. And that silver lining is, YOU! You who is this beautiful person, this bright soul that chose to come to earth knowing how special you really are. But as we started to grow up, we lost all that knowledge. We started to lose trust in ourselves, we stopped accepting ourselves, we stopped loving ourselves, we stopped believing in our magnificence as Anita Moorjani, the author of ‘Dying to be me’ puts it. And we stopped doing all this because even as a very tiny kid, we always wanted to make others happy because we wanted their approval. And this pleasing and need for approval from others actually started with our own parents and because neither our parents nor other adults around us ever told us in the growing up process that instead of trying to please others and seek their approval, including trying to please our own parents, we should focus on pleasing and approving ourselves. We should focus on everything that makes us the amazing human beings that we already are, the things that we already are capable of doing and achieving, the things that make us happy. And as I have said this many times already, our parents or other adults around us didn’t tell us all these things because chances are they themselves didn’t know anything about this!
So, now that you know what you know, are you ready to at least open your hearts and minds to loving yourself, accepting yourself, trusting yourself and approving yourself no matter what others think of you and how they treat you because how others treat you is their path but how you treat yourself is your own!
Here is a poem I wrote for myself when I had the realization that how beautiful I already am even though I may not be making everyone I know happy. But I have to let you know one thing – all this learning is a gradual process and it doesn’t happen overnight. But in order to even begin any learning, you have to first become aware of the need to learn and this blog that I write is an attempt to make you aware. That’s all!
And as always, feel free to leave a comment, if you feel like leaving one. And until next Friday, live life 🙂
It doesn’t matter whether others believe in you
What matters is whether you believe in yourself
It doesn’t matter whether others trust you
What matters is whether you trust yourself
It doesn’t matter whether others accept you
What matters is whether you accept yourself
It doesn’t matter what others think of you
What matters is what you think of yourself
It doesn’t matter whether others love you
What matters is whether you love yourself
This life belongs to you, you are the most important character in it
Even if you have not lived this way before
You can make this choice today
Don’t give away your power to another human
Who is exactly like you are because we are all the same
We come from the same source and go back to the same source
So start believing in yourself, trusting yourself, accepting yourself and loving yourself
And no matter how much fear you feel when you are trying to take that first step
Keep trying because you will get better at it
And gradually one day, you will come to realize that you by practicing this,
You are already LIVING FEARLESSLY!
by Shikha Rastogi | Apr 15, 2016 | Beliefs, Perspective
Hi everyone, welcome back! In my last week’s post, I talked about money and how so many of us feel the need to have more probably because when we look around and compare ourselves with others, others seem to have more than us. As a result what we are unconsciously or consciously trying to do is to prove to ourselves and to the rest of the world that we are better than everyone else if we can have more than them! So, since my last week’s post, I have been thinking about how, why, where and when do we get the idea about comparing ourselves and our lives with others and why do we have this NEED to be better than others because even research has shown that if humans collaborate rather than compete, it produces amazing results. So, here is my belief for this week.
Belief: If I earn more or have more/better material things than my friends and peers, it would mean that I am better than them and that would make me feel good about myself and my life!
If you are human, chances are this is something you believe in. The extent you choose to believe in this belief and live your life based on the kind of thinking that accompanies this belief may differ, however, this is a belief that’s prevalent in every part of the world no matter where you live. Somehow I find it so interesting that even though we are the same species; instead of valuing each other and loving each other and helping each other, we compete with each other, deceive each other, harm each other, and do unspeakable things to each other. Interestingly, we need other people to fail, to be miserable in their lives, to be poor so that we can feel good about ourselves and our own lives. And the reason I say this is because we compare our happiness, our sorrows, our bank balances, and even our kids. And if we personally are not comparing; there will always be a well-wisher, a friend, a family member who will do that on our behalf!
So, have you ever wondered how, when, why and where did humans learn to compare and compete? Well, here is my take on this. Do you remember your childhood when your parents told you to study harder just like your brother or sister because unlike you, your sibling was getting better grades? Do you remember when a teacher in your class asked you to behave a certain way just because they didn’t agree with the way you behaved, and in asking you to change your behavior, they let you know that this other kid behaves so well and you should behave like them? So, now if you can just imagine for a second that here is this tiny little kid who is creating beliefs, learning to express themselves and trying so hard to understand how to be in this very overwhelming and confusing world, and as they encounter either a parent or teacher or any well-wisher or family member saying these things to them, they start creating a belief in their minds that if they behave better than this other kid or if they get more grades than their sibling, the adults that they are trying so hard to please will be actually be very happy. Thus begins the learning of a belief which really shapes the way this little kid thinks about living life, what it means to be successful, what they can do to be liked by someone etc. etc. and sadly this little kid carries those beliefs into adulthood. In addition, these situations also create another belief, which is, they are not enough the way they are today, so, they need to learn to be better! More on this second part next time.
But you know folks, the irony in all this is that these parents, teachers, well-wishers or family members don’t even mean any harm to this kid! They actually think that by comparing this kid with other kids, they are trying to encourage this little human into behaving better, doing better, performing better. However, what they don’t realize they are doing, either unconsciously or consciously is that they are teaching their kids that in order to be liked by adults, they need to be better than every other kid out there including their own siblings! And this is the beginning of the decline of a kid’s self-esteem. And it not only affects their self-esteem, it kills their beautiful spirit and extinguishes their light that they came to earth with. And in your defense, you do whatever you do because like most humans you may also be absolutely crazy about intelligence and beauty and again like most humans you also tried your whole life to come across as intelligent and look beautiful and as a result tried so desperately to fit into the ‘things’ that society places value on and that’s exactly what you are repeating with your own kids.
So, you may now be thinking, wait a minute, isn’t this how most kids are raised or have been raised in the past. So, is she really saying that all these parents, teachers, well-wishers and family members have been doing it wrong all these years/decades/centuries? Well, I honestly think, yes, we have been doing it wrong all this while! And you have the right to not agree with what I just said but I want to make it very clear that I am not being arrogant and I am not judging anyone for doing what they have been doing because like I mentioned in a previous post, chances are that’s exactly what all these adults grew up learning and therefore that’s what they know to be right. And like Maya Angelou once said, when you know better, you do better, similarly, it’s just that these adults were not even aware of the damage they could do to these little humans when they compared them!
I know this is a very sensitive topic that touches a lot of nerves and many of you may still not agree with what I just said. So, I am going to try to give you an example from an adult life and maybe that will help you understand my point. Imagine that you have a boss who has very high expectations from you and one of their strategies to encourage you to achieve those expectations is to compare you with their best performers. So they may say something like this to you – you know this project that I have assigned to you, which you have taken so many months to work on, if I had given this same project to this other employee, they would have done it in a couple of weeks. And this boss may say something like this on purpose or maybe unconsciously to encourage you into doing a better job. In either case, my point is, when you hear this, would you actually feel motivated and encouraged to perform better? Or, would you feel like crap thinking that your manager values another employee over you and thinks that this other employee does a better job than you could ever do? And this is exactly what you are doing when you compare your kids with other kids or their own siblings.
Okay, so now that you know what you know and if you agree with my perspective, are you thinking it’s already too late and you have already done the damage to your kids? I am no parenting expert, however, I do know that if you decide to change the way you have been interacting with your kids, it could still be very positive for them even though they themselves may be adults now and raising their own kids. You could share your new knowledge with your adult kids so that they learn new ways of interacting with their kids because the change has to start from somewhere. And for those of us who have young kids, we still have this huge opportunity to tell our kids again and again that they are good enough exactly the way they are and we love them just because they are who they are. This however will not work if you yourself don’t believe in what you are trying to communicate to your kids. And if you don’t believe in it, you need to first understand what’s blocking you in accepting your kids and loving them the way they are today instead of hoping that they were like someone else’s kids. And do you know why you are unable to accept your own kids? Maybe because you don’t accept yourself. And maybe the reason you don’t accept yourself is because growing up, your parents didn’t completely accept you. And you are just repeating that with your own kids! As I mentioned before, more on this next time.
And as always, feel free to leave a comment, if you feel like leaving one. And until next Friday, live life 🙂
by Shikha Rastogi | Apr 8, 2016 | Beliefs, Perspective
Hi everyone, welcome back! So far I have re-examined beliefs that encourage you to focus on what’s good in your lives. However today, I would like to re-examine what is it that we all want to have in our lives – the future! And I don’t think I am going out on a limb when I say that ‘happiness’ is really the goal that each and every single one of us seems to be striving to achieve. And in trying to achieve that happiness, a lot of us think that money and material success are the most important factors. So, here is my belief for this week.
Belief – If I can acquire X amount or lots of money and as a result all the nice brands and other material stuff, I will automatically be very happy and all set for retirement.
We all know that money IS a very important factor in living our lives while we are here on Earth. I am not even going to argue about that. However, how much money do we really need to live a comfortable life? May be you have a number in mind or maybe you don’t. Are there other things like spending time with your family and friends or spending time doing what makes you really happy is also on your list. Maybe you are one of those people who is already living a balanced life and you are somehow being able to make time for all of the above. Or even better, maybe you are one of those people who actually does what you love to do and make a living out of it. And in that case, I would love to congratulate you because you cannot be not courageous if you are doing exactly that. However, if you are one of us who is still stuck trying to live a life based on what the entire society places value on, read on.
Are you one of those people who thinks (like so many others) that being able to earn lots of money, ability to buy the fanciest car, wear the costliest brands, live in the biggest house etc. etc. is what will give you happiness as you go through the journey that is your life. You know, as I look back upon my early years in life, especially the ones where I was approaching college and it appeared at the time that my whole life depended upon which branch of study I chose; amazingly, it’s only now that I am beginning to realize that it wouldn’t have mattered at all what I chose back then because even if I had chosen differently, I would have still chosen based on how everybody else defined success. I would have chosen based on what everyone else valued which essentially is money and brands and nice homes and nice cars. And I am in no way saying that any of these things are bad to acquire. All of these things make our lives so very comfortable but my point is where do you stop? And the reason I ask you this is because when you are able to earn more money, own a nicer home, a nicer car etc. etc., there is always hunger for more and more because there is always someone else that you know who has more, is making more, doing more etc. etc. And we all know deep down inside that the reason we want to achieve more is to prove to the world and ourselves that we are better than others because we compare ourselves with others all the time. As a result, we get so caught up in working so hard in meaningless and stressful jobs just so we are able to achieve things that fit society’s definition of success and in the process we can’t find time to really live our lives and do things that really make us happy from inside. We can’t find time to pause and take a moment to appreciate the beauty of nature, listen to the waves of the ocean, spend a few moments in a day playing with our own kids, listen to their stories about the day they had, hold our partner’s hand or give them a hug…we can’t even find time for ourselves! And yet, somehow we convince ourselves that by working so hard, we are not just making ourselves happy but our loved ones happy too. But do you really think your loved ones will be happy when you are absent from their lives? Do you really think that this beautiful kid that you brought into this world will wait to grow older just so you can retire and then make time for them? That’s the funny thing about time, it waits for no one! And even though we all know that very well, we realize it until much later in life or maybe never.
Are you feeling a little guilty after reading this? If you are, let me tell you that it’s completely okay that you feel guilty because that means you have been thinking about this already. It’s just that you needed another perspective, another reason or a nudge to wake up and start implementing this in your life. So, where do you begin would probably be the first question that may come to your mind. I would say, wherever you think you need it the most because you know your life best. If you think you have been missing out on spending time with your partner, go home and just be with each other. If you think you have missed spending time with your kids, just go home today and put that phone/laptop away (after of course you have finished reading my blog :)) and just follow your kids lead. Your kids can teach you so much about what you have forgotten in life – how to have fun! If you think you have not been paying attention to yourselves, have a date with yourselves. Do what you love to do most. Don’t think too much about it though; just do it! Just do it because a lot of us tend to over-think and over-plan. The key here is to just be PRESENT..that’s all! I read somewhere a long time ago that PRESENT (to live in the moment) is called just that because it’s really a GIFT. A gift to ourselves, to our families and friends. So, even though we have 10,000 thoughts running through our minds most of the time, even though we have a long list of things/chores that we need to get done by the end of the day, what you really have to do is to prioritize. You have to prioritize whether cooking fresh food, if you are a woman who works outside the home a priority over spending time with your kids since you may only have a few hours or just a few minutes left in the day before your kids go to bed. You have to prioritize whether staying stuck to that company emails, even though you are officially back from work more important to you than catching up with your partner about what’s going on with them. You have to prioritize whether spending time watching mindless TV is more important to you than listening to your kids tell their own stories of how their day was and what was good about it or bad about it. You really have to learn to prioritize!! However, make sure that YOU are the one who is prioritizing and deciding what’s more important to YOU and NOT your family members, your well-wishers or anybody else for that matter whose opinions affect you! Because if you go by the opinions of others and prioritize based on those opinions, chances are you will be back living in your head again because you will be frustrated that you are still not doing what you want to do! So be very honest and listen to your heart. It always tells you the truth 🙂
Like always, feel free to leave a comment if you feel like leaving one. Until next Friday, live life 🙂
