We all live by our stories and we hold on to it strongly. But, stories are not the reality, it's not the 100% truth that we easily assume it to be. Stories are just stories that are past and nowhere relevant in the present. Because of this attachment to our version of story, we live in constant state of stress, worry, fear, unhappiness and pacify our pain by putting blame and projecting our inner reality outside. The question is not about dropping the story but investigating our thoughts around that story that has the power to liberate us and set us free. When we are free, our thoughts and actions are in sync and they are far more clearer, kinder and fearless. All the battles that we are fighting outside first needs resolution in the inside; after all we are nothing more than what we are inside of us and we create that reality for us everywhere.
At age 38, I am glad that I found that liberation inside me that has set me free from the shackles of my own attachment to uninvestigated thoughts and my old stories that had been over long back, but I am holding on to them and replaying those in my mind with every thought that I feed in, thereby feeling the angst, pain, fear and worry of living it again. Loving and accepting the reality is so grounding & humbling that I spare myself from unwanted speculation of myself and others and just live in the moment. When I live in the moment, there is so much power. My entire energy is just being used right here, right now. What happens when I do that? I become saner than before, wiser than who I was, productive in my actions, enjoy life more than what I did and best of all become aware of the power of truth, the power of reality as it is and accept it with open arms. This to me is empowerment! Most of our lives is spent in focusing on others' business. When I say others' business, I mean when I put my energy, thinking and thought on what others should do and not do, what should have been right, not right, what my expectations from others is, how a system should function, how people should act, behave, how they should treat me for my actions and behaviours etc. etc. We spend our lives doing this: consciously and unconsciously. The result of this is, we walk away from discovering the truth that lie within us and just become a talking saint. When the focus is shifted into our own business, we find liberation, freedom, peace, love and ecstasy. We all point at others and try to correct them, but failing to realize that major work needs to be done in us because that's our business first and as we do this we enable the change in others because the world mirrors our behaviours and actions. Not the other way around. From a victim state to a creator is the most wonderful gift that we can gift ourselves with. But, doing this is tough. When we focus on being right, then we cannot uncover our truth. But, when we commit to living in truth, then we can drop the guards and see the reality. When you see the reality, chances are that you will feel disgusted initially or even feel judged by yourself because after all you are shedding a reality that you had dearly owned for long. But, now that you have uncovered it, you lay there like a new born pure soul fearing to stand up on its own and doubting self; but with time you'll learn to sail this journey too. It's all in your mind. The day you can accept it for who it is, that's the day you are free to feel joy, love and peace within. And then what happens is nothing but a life of bliss, meaning, contribution, purpose and eternal progress. This writing is inspired after reading the book, "Loving what is by Byron Katie" and I am so grateful to her for this book. This is what I needed at this point in life. She did the work on herself and with that liberation, she is transforming the world around her including me. As she says, "Judge your thought, investigate it, turnaround and set yourself free." Here I am investigating a thought that used to bother me for long. The four questions as laid down in the book is asked my me to me and watch how things turn around. You too can see and try it out for yourself and uncover the truth. My thought (I am judging the system from the story that I have created in me): I dislike system because it doesn't give me the freedom to be me. Proof of truth: I become just a follower of instructions and lose my creativity. My productivity goes down. First investigative question: Is this true that I dislike system......? Me: Yes, I have felt this way. Second investigative question: Can this be really true, 100% true? Me: Not sure, I haven't asked myself this question before. Have you always felt this way? Where there opportunities were you felt free being in the system? Me: Yes, there were few exceptions to this. Third investigative question: How do you react when you belief the thought that I dislike system because it curbs my freedom? Me: I shut down, withdraw, repulse, resist it and at times become rebellious too to fight it out.I feel angry and suffocated and feel like running away from it thinking that leaving it would fetch me liberation. Is there a stress-free reason to hold on to this thought? Me: Not really, I can't find any at this moment. Fourth investigative question: Who would you be when you drop this thought and how would you behave? Me: I would be happy, productive, creative and use my potential to the fullest while in the system. Turn arounds (You turn around your initial thought and direct it towards you):
Hilarious but insightful isn't it?! And any turnaround is useless if that is not backed by action. My journey of uncovering my truth is on. As I turned around my own thoughts, I just set myself free from holding on to a story that was causing pain in me and not allowing me to think clearly and accordingly perform to my best ability. We all unfold in our own sweet time and that's the beauty of this journey. Every experience that you encounter is required for you to enable that unique growth in you that you need. Welcome home and enjoy this journey at your own right time. Love and light, Priyanka
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It's the way you view your world which creates your reality of you, the people you encounter and life in general. Instead of trying to look for things outside us to transform, change and make better, the only simple thing that we need to do is to turn the focus within and have a look inside. You will get all the answers to your questions that have been bothering you. Your quest for love, approval, importance, peace, happiness, purpose, meaning; everything gets resolved once you gain the insight to peep within and see what's there hidden that is not letting you find what you are looking for. The journey inward is a very scary one and hence we resist walking that journey in the first place because it brings us closer to some unknown facts about ourselves, some unacknowledged aspects of our being which we aren't aware of or consciously don't want to know. For us to come out of the cocoon that we are in, we need to be willing to transform, be willing to accept the uncertain and be willing to risk ourselves and trust the process. Unless we do that, we live in oblivion of ourselves and others. We just keep looking outside desiring a beautiful life, a great career, perfect relationships, perfect partner, someone who would understand us, meaning in life and what not. But, alas we don't turn the focus on us and see what is there inside which is getting reflected outside in different forms that I am not attune to. The views that we have of others, ourselves, life and every situation is nothing but a reflection of our inner world. We project our insecurities, our beliefs, our fears outside of us and try to find joy in doing so. But, sadly this is temporary and won't fetch anything in the long run. It will put us back to where we are, with no growth, no evolution happening.
As you look within, the first thing you learn to do is to accept yourself for who you are. Good, bad, ugly, guilty, whatever hidden self resides in you, you learn to accept, forgive and embrace yourself & fall in love with your essence which pure, serene and unscathed. Loving oneself is the best gift that you can gift to yourself. Once you pass this phase, you automatically widen your horizon to accept others and understand them better. Your acceptance level goes beyond imagination! You no longer remain inside the box with rigid views and accept the reality that there can be infinite views that a person can hold and respect the differences. Because there is no truth in the truth that you hold, it's just your truth and not necessarily the only truth. These are your assumptions of what you think and believe to be true. When we attach too much to our thoughts, that becomes our belief that we hold on to and find it hard to release that because that becomes our identity. It's hard to break an identity! Right?! So, we remain inside our own reality without realizing the beauty of other realities. And then suffer internally thinking that life is not beautiful, people are not good and worst of all, there remains vacuum inside which we try to hide from our self & others. We use distractions to protect us from this melancholy feeling and wonder why we aren't happy, why we don't have great relationships, why despite of so many people around I find myself all alone. Life is a beautiful journey and we create that for us by choosing to walk the path that evolves us, allows us to bloom and not the one that makes us more fearful and puts us back to the dungeon to rot in uncertainty, doubt and fear. We get just one life and how we live it is entirely our choice! You can choose to crib all along, blame others, consider yourself as victim and bury yourself in seeking outside approval and fulfill obligations that you are not 100% committed to or choose to create a life where you hold yourself accountable for everything that is happening in your life, regain the power to change it for better, give yourself that unconditional love to accept yourself and others and walk the journey where you bloom,evolve every passing day & become your best version having it all, nowhere to run after, nothing to prove but just be happy, contented and create meaningful, purposeful impact in the world fulfilling your unique purpose this life-time. Come home to yourself before it is too late and before you regret on your death bed. Let life not give you scary reminders to do this, let your wisdom enable you to walk this path.Your path is unique and you have to walk it. No else will. Love and light, Priyanka "Know thyself" - Socrates
As I progressed in my life, as I became more aware of myself, I started having a purposeful, joyous life having deep connections with people whom I earlier resisted because of my own battle with myself, I started doing things that I was fearful of and never imagined I could do but desired to do, I slowly understood the power of knowing thyself. What exactly is knowing thyself and why it changes everything for good?! Nothing in this world is real, it's the meaning that we give to things that we think it to be real. Our thoughts aren't real, our mind is not 100% correct but a manifestation of what possibilities we think is possible. Life is infinite and so are the experiences. We are much more than our thoughts and meanings that we give to ourselves, others and all the happenings on this earth. We are limitless, our possibilities are limitless. The programming that is inside us determines what reality we will create in our lives. Anyways, one day we all will leave this world after playing our part here. Whether you played it full, halfheartedly or whether you lived in constant fear, doubt, uncertainty determines what you will experience and what idea you will have of life and people in general. Knowing oneself opens the doors to possibilities. Once you know thyself, what is important is to conquer that part of you that holds you back from experiencing your true potential, your limitless power. Yes, conquering the 'fear-based you', is what this life's journey is all about. You don't need to conquer anything else. No people, no place, no relationship, nobody for that matter but your 'fear-based you' that remains inside of you to protect you. The irony is, it never allows you to experience the limitless possibilities that resides inside you. Because with protection comes doubts, uncertainties and fears. Overcoming these is a big challenge because we are used to being protected: protected in the womb, as we grow up, protected by our own mechanism of self-defense. And alas, we loose the beauty of knowing ourselves and what we can create! We are infinite. We are boundless. I regret for having spent most of my life living in fear, doubt, uncertainty, living in obligation and approval from myself, others. What a waste of this precious life! Isn't it? I wish I knew this before. Hold on, I knew all of these intellectually, I am an avid reader and had all this wisdom intellectually as to what is right and not right. But, did I do it despite of knowing it? No, I didn't because my four bodies: mental, emotional, physical and spiritual bodies were not in sync and not prepared to accept the learning and use it to action. I just knew it but didn't grow across the bodies to actually imbibe those learning for bettering myself. I guess I have grown now and am ready to receive this viscerally and apply to increase my vibration and energy. Most of the time we focus on what should be right, what could be right, how others should respond, what others should do, why I am not doing what needs to be done etc. etc. We just justify our actions and make a fool of ourselves. We don't want to really know the truth. We keep running away from it till we are fortunate enough to be hit by life itself or realize ourselves about this futility. When we focus on ourselves, when we try to understand why we are doing what we are doing, why the fear, when we open up to accept the truths which necessarily doesn't belong to us, when we choose to question our thoughts, thinking and the box that we are residing in, that's when we break the first wall of our own creative reality. When we decide to really uncover the truth, we drop our perceptions, our thoughts and be OK with letting it down and even completely erasing it, in fact replacing it with a new empowering thought that will take us one step closer to our purpose. It's easy to live a life of approval and obligation but hard to live a life of purpose and joy. Because that requires challenging our old self, challenging our habitual programmed self and conquering our fear-based self. Once you can do that, life becomes beautiful, meaningful with nothing to hide and prove. Then all your dreams come true, all your relationships get better, your career becomes more fulfilling and you just create the life that you want. Conquering your 'fear-based you' gives you the power to create the life of your choice where you are the master of it. This new year, I urge you all to reflect on conquering your 'fear-based you' to live a life of purpose and joy. Until you decide and walk that path, you will never know the peace that is there while doing this. You are more than your fears, doubts, uncertainty. You are your life's creator. Uncover the essence in you to have a majestic life ahead. Wish you a happy, fulfilling and abundant 2019. Love and warmth, Priyanka I am a big fan of Simon Sinek because of his work, his thoughts and ideas. I find sync in what he does and I wish to imbibe the learnings in my life and profession. For those who is not familiar with Simon, he is a leadership guru, professor at Columbia University, founder of SinekPartners (Corporate Refocusing) and author. He is best known for popularizing the concept of “the golden circle” and to “Start With Why“. I chanced upon a beautiful video by Simon this morning and I found this to be so in tune with myself. The video talked about finite goals vs. infinite goals. I always had finite goals in my life. I always had plans in place for everything I did. Although I was spontaneous with certain things, but as far as my major goals in life were concerned, I always had finite goals set and I achieved them. But with every achievement, I felt the strong inquiry deep within me: What next now? I didn't really acknowledge myself for growing in that space of attainment of the goal. Even if I did celebrate my achievements, I didn't viscerally feel it. As a hind-side, my expectations of others were the same. My acknowledgements of others were as cold as my self-acknowledgements. In fact, the joy after every achievement was not as great as the zeal to get to the goal was. I didn't know how to enjoy the journey because majorly my focus was on achieving the goal. Life is infinite, our careers are infinite and so are the experiences. Along with the achievements, there were regrets of losing out on certain aspects, certain sacrifices and many more. And when I didn't achieve some of my goals, there was sheer resentment and shame for self. As if I never learnt to embrace the joy of learning and the growth that happened inside of me because of playing that game no matter the win or lose. After hearing Simon talk about finite goals, I realized that all my life I had set such goals and I didn't know how to convert these goals into infinite so that I find more fulfillment and joy in what I do. Converting finite goals to infinite means, how you now after having attained what you wanted to, become better and better at it. Because that is something infinite and boundless and not just restricted to just achieving the goal but getting better at what you achieved.
Of late, I have been interviewing inspiring leaders with an intent to know their inside world so that I can pen these observations & learnings in the form of a book that I want to gift to the world. I have spoken to quite a few of them, all high-achievers, excellent performers in their choice of field. But one thing was common: many acknowledged that there was no fulfillment, they looked for the next goal, there was vacuum inside, loneliness at being who they are etc. Some of these were acknowledged and some weren't. I could relate to them because I saw a reflection of me in them when they shared this. And today's video by Simon just was a bull's eye to this entire experience. When you focus on finite goals, you just focus on achieving it without really enjoying the journey. You focus on everything that you encounter with the lens of how this would help me in getting to my goal. You become absorbed in attaining that goal and hence, when you achieve that you don't derive any fulfillment in that because that was majorly focused on achieving and not on contribution bigger than self; majorly on feeling good and not on making a difference; on either success or failure and not on the journey of evolution as a result of embarking on that journey. Finite goals are fixated but infinite goals are filled with possibilities and limitlessness. One talks about achievement and the other focuses on potential and growth. It is important to find fulfillment by being on the journey and not just achieving it. There's nothing wrong in achievement but when that becomes an addiction and not a source of joy, you miss out on the major aspect of your being and who you are becoming/evolving in that journey. When the focus is on others, their growth and not on me, there is more joy in attaining those goals. The power is always in the journey. Goals are about what you become in achieving your goals not what you get. Getting is the finish line but goals are infinite and so are the possibilities of creation. To play the infinite game, you need your will and resources to keep playing no matter the win or loose and then create infinite possibilities for yourself and others. There is scope for improvement in all of us. It's a matter of choice though to keep playing this game and realize your truest potential. Some of the questions that you can ask yourself to set infinite goals for 2019: What empowers you to preserve even when you feel like giving up? Are you up to be your better version of self to fulfill your bigger cause? What would you like to leave behind you to outlast your finite presence and contribution? Are you choosing the finite goal or infinite goal in 2019? Love and warmth, Priyanka "Love is the essence of being human, the connective tissue of reality, the oxygen of life." - James H. Olthuis
Have you ever asked yourself this question: Who are you? As we move along with our lives, we have little time to ponder and reflect. Such questions don't excite us much because it requires deep introspection to uncover the truth. It requires courage, honesty and purity of mind to even go to that depth. But, finding the answer to this is so important because it then connects us to our essence, the real you. We are not our projected identities, our titles, our awards, our achievements, our relationships, our career, our family, our hobbies, our distractions, our friends. We are more than all of these. These are just a part of our lives and not us. The real you, the essence is pristine, joyful, happy and loving soul that emanates from within irrespective of what we have achieved, acquired or even gathered in this entire lifetime. We spent years embellishing our essence but at some point in life when we are fortunate enough to get the wake-up call from the Universe, we realize that we are much more than what we think we are, much more than our wealth, much more than our accumulations, much more than we can think, dream or imagine. The light that resides in us is too powerful, profound to be compared with just one aspect of our life. We are who we are at the core, our being. A drop of the ocean resides in us, a source of that infinite power resides in us, unconditional love resides in us and that's our essence. We are love, possibilities, joy, abundance and an epitome of growth and change. When you get access to your own essence, you act, do, behave from a space of deep love for self, others and life in general. There is no longing but being in the moment, there is no fear but trust in self & people around you, there is childlike faith and trust in the Universe, there is joy in doing, being who you are without any expectations because you realize how profound a soul you are! You realize your wisdom, the resourcefulness and know that you are enough. But to come home to this awareness you have to allow yourself to walk through certain steps and confront certain demons inside you. There is no fixed formula to tell you that these are the steps and if you follow it, it will take you there. The reason being, we all are unique and travel our journey in our own unique pace. What may be a first step for me, might be a second step for you; what I might need now might not be required by you. You have to walk your own journey to be able to get access to this wisdom. And you have to choose who all are going to support you to walk this journey. You have to choose your well-wishers, your coach, your guide, your mentor to propel you to walk ahead in this journey. Nobody else would do this for you. Till the time you are at the unconscious incompetence stage of your life, you will keep longing, keep aspiring yet find no answer, no fulfillment. Only when you choose to wake up and look beyond, you will see the horizon and what message it has to give you. Our life's journey is a replication of our thoughts, feelings and actions. Our journey is to uncover our essence and find the real you to be able to live it fully, feel it fully and act upon fully. I welcome you all to walk this path of finding yourself. Who are you? A question that if you ponder and reflect will through light on your quest, purpose and essence. Love and warmth, Priyanka A great Coach is someone who holds the space for you to experience your greatness within when the world around judges you by being in their own conditioned boxes of beliefs, assumptions, worldviews, perspectives; gives you unconditional love & reverence; shows you the mirror not to make you wrong or make you feel guilty, but to give you access to your own blind spots, your growth areas with an intention to transform your being for you to experience yourself, people and life in a beautiful & profound way; gives committed listening to you inside of which you get access to your inner resourcefulness, your wisdom and thereby walk the path towards your highest self, your scary dream, your unimaginable goal. And in this journey, you connect with your essence and realize the authentic you.
In this journey called life, we all come with a pure essence, but as we progress, we knowingly/unknowingly start covering this essence, this diamond and keep looking for something outside us. We keep chasing, running after something without even realizing that what we are running after, is actually within us. What we long for is actually present inside us and we are unable to see it because of the blurred awareness that we have. Because of our years of conditioning, layering, masking, armouring, we lose that connect with our true essence. At the core, there is diamond inside every person, every being. Everyone is so beautiful, so pure; just that we need to decide to walk that inward journey to actually feel that essence in us and everyone around. As you walk this path, you realize that there is so much to unravel, uncover in us that instead of using our energy to transform ourselves, our being; we use this energy to first transform others and that's where we falter. We focus on improving others without ourselves doing that deep work required to enable that transformation. As we choose to walk this journey, we enable others to mirror our greatness, our positivity; we create for others that space to dive into this journey of transformation. As a Coach myself, I have this deep reverence and love for coaching because I can myself see that transformation happening inside me. I feel being connected to my essence, I feel love for myself, for others and every soul that I come across. There is no judgment, no pretense, nothing to prove, but just happy walking this path that I have come home to. I have deep belief in coaching because it has transformed me for better. I feel humbled and fulfilled from within. A great Coach enables growth across all the four bodies: physical, emotional, mental & spiritual and makes you consciously competent. Best of all, allows you to open up to this process at your own pace and time. And to hold someone in a space of love and reverence, see the genius in him/her, help him/her experience the warmth that lie inside of him/her, a Coach first has to be in that space and awareness himself/herself. Life is a beautiful journey from unconscious incompetence to unconscious competence. When you are at the first stage of unconscious incompetence, you are majorly at a denial phase, sitting in oblivion and not aware of; as you move from this stage to conscious incompetence, you start realizing that you need to make a shift for actual growth to happen. That's when you choose to drop the lens with which you are viewing yourself, people and life. As you walk past this phase, you land up in conscious competence. Your level of self-awareness starts increasing and you now make a conscious effort towards walking the path towards self-mastery & growth. The ultimate stage is when you reach the climax of your growth stage which is unconscious competence. You do this effortlessly, unconsciously and are at a space of deep love, gratitude, reverence for self, people and life. That's a state of blissfulness which only a few masters who chose to walk the path of higher transformation & growth journey lands up in. I want to land up in this space someday unconsciously and effortlessly. Who is a great Coach? To me a great Coach is someone who lights the light inside you, connects you with your essence and makes you walk your own chosen path because that's unique, beautiful and truly empowering. When the spark is ignited in you, you just have to allow it to burn into a flame that can guide you through darkness and also keep you warm, gentle & loving from inside as you progress on your journey. I am thankful and grateful for choosing to walk this journey with the support of my Coach. I thank the Universe for letting this happen for me. I am happy to experience and viscerally feel this transformation happening in me. I am committed to doing my bit as a Coach and help transform lives along with working on my own transformation journey too. Love & reverence, Priyanka What's your failure quotient? How many times can you take Nos, rejections before you give up determines your ultimate level of success. To have exponential success, you have to be willing to embrace numerous Nos, rejections, be comfortable with banging your nose & be prone to adapting with failures. Hard to believe but yes, this is the truth! A person's failure quotient determines how far he will go in life; whether he will achieve his/her unimaginable/scary dreams or not. I wish I was aware of this mathematics earlier when I started my journey and career! Probably I would have fulfilled many of my dreams/goals by now. Nevertheless, as it is said, you receive the lesson at the time when you are ready and willing, so I am grateful to be sitting in this awareness and truly accepting the fact that failing and being a failure are two different things. Successful people embrace the act of failing, they are willing to fail; they like to fail; but unsuccessful people stop themselves from failing any further, they avoid failures, they hold themselves back. After few bumps here and there, they quit. That's it! I have always been a topper in my life. And every time I read stories like back-benchers making it to great heights and toppers being seen as someone not being able to make it big in life (statistics says so); I used to wonder why. Honestly, this pinched me too. Not that I didn't appreciate the success of the back-benchers, but pitied myself and my kinds. I used to feel very sad and even worthless for being a topper. I used to question myself as to why did I then put in efforts, burnt the mid-night oil etc., if toppers had to live a life of conformity?! Does it mean that hard-work, efforts didn't have a role to play?! Well, people who do well early in life get used to success and so they become very fearful of failures. They are fearful of rejections and Nos. So, they don't do anything that will sabotage their image of being topper, successful. The achiever's image is dear to them and throughout life, they live maintaining that. They never try out beyond their limits. Once they get what they wanted, they become complacent. One no, and they are doomed! One rejection and they can't handle it. So, they know how to underplay it. I failed to become a Doctor. I couldn't crack the entrance examination and this took a toll on me. The image of being a topper, an achiever; broke. I was under pressure to perform and focused all my energy on cracking it but with fear of failure. What if I didn't crack?! And yes, I didn't crack. It shattered me and I never tried again. I didn't know how to fail gracefully and I gave up. My failure quotient was lowest! One failure led me to give up my childhood dream! See that's why toppers don't become successful! Statistics are right! It has nothing to do with skills, potential; but your ability to embrace failures/rejections/Nos. When you don't take failures personally, you don't give up. You keep trying and trying till you get the yes. More the Nos, more is your validation to your inner commitment to yourself. May be my inner commitment to becoming a Doctor wasn't high and so my failure quotient to that was pretty low. Pick up any successful person and look at their failure quotient. You will be amazed! They have more Nos, rejections, failures than you can even think of. Thomas Alva Edison failed 10,000 times before he discovered bulb, Allen Breed who invented airbags pursued 30 long years before his product was sold and accepted; Sara Blakely failed numerous times before she became the youngest self-made billionaire....The list is endless! We don't see their failures because once you achieve success, all that people remembers is the ultimate level that you are in. Your desire, willingness, eagerness, persistence to fail determines if your 'WHY' to achieve is strong enough or not. I thought success was to avoid failures, being cautious. But this is absolutely a wrong equation to follow. Success is to embrace failures. More the failures, more the chances of your success. To dig out the diamond, you will have to dirty your hands; to succeed, you have to embrace Nos. So, ask yourself how many rejections have you faced in life? If the answer is No, you haven't tried enough to succeed. You are standing in your own way to greatness. Pike Syndrome is something I love. I am a victim of Pike syndrome. Google to know more about it. When you get conditioned and limit your actions/efforts because of past bad experiences, couple of failures/rejections and quit; that's called Pike's syndrome. As leaders also, when you reach a particular level in your career; you become very protective of your image and role. You refrain from failing, embracing Nos; you avoid failures; but you want you teams to try. Do you think they will? Absolutely not! They will eventually figure out that if you are afraid of something, they too will avoid that because they too seek security. Leaders who embrace Nos themselves; not only allow themselves to embrace their greatness but others too. My new learning: Embrace Nos with greater velocity and be happy every time you get it. Let the answers unfold as you do this. I leave you to unravel this secret in your own good time. Do watch this awesome video to figure out yourself what your failure quotient is?! Love & warmth, Priyanka
"For me, there are two types of people: the young and the experienced." - Dr. A P J Abdul Kalam
Can it be that you talk of young minds and you don't quote Dr. Kalam?! Well, today was one of the best days of my life. In fact, one of the happiest days because I got to spend time with the young minds: the future, the hope and the strength of today & tomorrow. I got an opportunity to share my journey and experience with the children of standard 3 as a part of their "Career Day" programme at school. Going back to the classroom took me back to my days as a child. A voice inside me was telling me, "Look, how far have you come in life! Today you stand there not as a receiver but a giver to ignite the young minds!" Let me tell you, at the end of the session, I received more from the young minds than what I gave them. I received loads of love, gratitude and innocence. This nourished my soul because they just poured all of these selflessly and in abundance. They didn't stop applauding; their teacher had to tell them to stop doing that. See, that's how children's are! They give and give and they are so good at expressing their emotions, whatever it may be; that they just let it flow. I am penning down some learning from that session so that we get to learn from these young minds. Yes, you heard me right! There are so many things we can learn from them. Here's a peep into their minds, their world. And as experienced professionals, we stand in a much advantageous position of leading them towards excellence. It starts right from your home with your child. So here it goes: 1. Be curious like the child: As we grow, we hold ourselves back. We masks, we armour and try to pretend to be who we are not. We don't ask questions because we want to feel like we know everything. As a result, we actually don't learn things after a point. We put on that veil of "knowing it all" and soon lose out. But a child is curious and hence they look for ways to find answers to their questions. There are so many questions that they have, they just need someone who would enable them to find the answers. Curiosity allows you to ask questions and brainstorm. And great questions lead to great ideas, great answers. 2. Show up 100% every time: No matter what, children shows up 100%. They are involved in the moment and what is right now in front of them. They are least bothered about what will happen next and how. They just know how to show up at this moment. So, from them you can learn to be present. That's what being mindful is all about. 3. They believe in their dreams: They are confident that they will achieve what they set out their minds to. They are full of confidence. Whether they know the way or not, that doesn't matter; they just want to dream and have full faith in themselves. This I guess is what is called the childlike trust and faith! Have you ever tried having childlike faith and trust?! Just try and see what difference it makes to your being. 4. They are like sponge: They absorb. Why can they do this?! Because they are receptive of new ideas and concepts. They aren't stubborn and are ready to quickly drop and pick up again. Our limiting mind doesn't allow us to receive all information. It only allows us to accept those that match our judgments, past experiences, our tunnel vision and the like. But, the children's mind is limitless. They are beyond what we adults assume them to be. They can ask you amazing questions that will even make you think. 5. They are fearless about failures: They don't make a fuss about failures. They are very resilient and can quickly change their emotional state. They know how to move on. As adults do we know how to process our emotions and move on? Do we know how to forgive and let go? 6. They are full of gratitude: As I ended the session, they showered me with claps that still echoes in my ears. They can give you the lesson of gratitude and make you feel so special. They can give you love because they are full of love themselves. What profound souls they are! As I ended the session with these young minds for now, I realized, we too were like these children, then how & when did we become different?! Have we dropped the good things that enliven the child in us or without our knowledge have we lost sight of them? Re-discover the child in you and give life yet another chance. Wake up and dream again, stand up when you fall, cry when you are sad and just be yourself without pretense. How beautiful it is to awaken the child in you again?! A day with the young minds was truly awesome and fulfilling. It awakened me and the child inside! #Gratitude Love & warmth, Priyanka "Mostly it is loss which teaches us about the worth of things." - Arthur Schopenhauer
The angel of death teaches us how to be truly alive, how to be free and how to be oneself. Yesterday, I attended the prayer meet of one of our acquaintances who left for his heavenly abode, leaving behind his family & his young son. As I sat there and as I saw the face of the little boy who lost his father, I could see a smile in his face. An innocent smile who is yet to figure out what really has happened to him. As I walked towards him, he greeted me with a smiling "hello" and it melted my heart. I could no longer stay strong and allowed my emotions to silently flow. I was amazed at the strength of the young boy of 7, which of course came from his innocence to the reality of the current situation. At that moment, I also realized the true meaning of life yet again. A new understanding of life triggered inside me that moment. It made me think where I stand as far as living my life is concerned. I realized I am not living my life to the fullest. It was a reminder to me to live life, make new agreements with myself, understand life from a new perspective and live life the way it is truly meant to be. Although I have come a long way breaking many of the old agreements that I made with myself based on my older understanding of life; I have just touched the tip of the iceberg. Sadly, the very beliefs that we live with, are not our personal choice but something that is bestowed to us since we are born and unconsciously we agree to accept them the way they are. I realized that there is much more to becoming alive, living life truly and being oneself to actually enjoy its power. We never know when this life will leave us suddenly, leaving behind nothing but regret/probably not even that, for not living life to our fullest. Be like the child, be wild & free; but with a difference. And the difference is, instead of innocence we can use wisdom to free ourselves. Don’t be afraid to be alive again. Live a new understanding, a new dream. Along with this realization, I also came across a book that shook me to the core and made me think about my own beliefs that I have been holding tight. Beliefs about myself, people, life in general. You get in touch with those beliefs when you harness the strength to face them & challenge them. These beliefs got formed much before I could gather my wisdom to accept/reject them. And as I grew up, I agreed to accept these because these were gifted to me by the people around me, my well-wishers, my environment. Saying 'No' to them means being rejected and be thrown into a world unknown. So, acceptance was the only thing that I could do. Their intent was good, even they didn't realize about the harm that they have been causing to others and themselves by transferring these beliefs without really confronting them/rebelling against them. They too couldn't be free from its shackles. But, as I grew I realized some of these beliefs didn't make me happy. Some of these didn't serve me. I wanted to do away with them but I was fearful of leaving them because that would mean upsetting the very people who always wanted my well-being. Fear of judgement, fear of being a victim clouded my mind. These beliefs were deep-seated and were around my own capabilities, my self-worth, my potential; about people, about life. When these beliefs are passed on to you, you accept these as a gift. But, then you loose out your ability to form your own empowering beliefs. So, here I choose today to go one step deeper: accept a new way of life, a new understanding of life by embracing the following: 1. Use words as a power to inspire you & others to experience joy, love & possibilities & not to judge others/self or make others/self feel guilty. Words are powerful! Your choice of words have the power to create your dream or even destroy them. So, be mindful from today. 2. Don't get affected by what you hear about yourself from others, including your self-talk. It's nothing but an emotional reaction. Whatever may be the opinion of others/self of you, don't take it personally. It is their perspective that is talking and has nothing to do with you, including yours. So, be compassionate & loving no matter what; to yourself and others. 3. Don't use your judgement & consider them to be true.. Assumptions will ruin your thinking power & fog your decision making capacity. Assumptions spoils your communication flow, depletes your energy and creates unseen barrier. 4. Always give your 100%. Never refrain yourself from giving your best even when you are not in good mood, or even when things are not working right. It is easier said than done. These are difficult to embrace at one go. One has to keep practicing it. You can transform only when you become aware. You will know what to do with the awareness. So, the key to transformation is awareness. And then by using your power to create your intentions, you can transform yourself. Personal development is the journey that we choose for ourselves to be alive again, be free and be truly happy. Love, Priyanka When the curtain of darkness drops and when you throw light to your unawareness, you will viscerally feel breakthrough happening. Every time I feel I am growing, I bump across an area within me which needs light, which needs my awareness to transform into light within me. Today I am glad I again got present to something inside me that I wasn't even aware of. All thanks to my Coach! I resisted and defended myself from acknowledging it. I denied that I felt that way because long long ago I learnt my way of dealing with uncomfortable emotions. I learnt to protect myself from feeling the hurt, the pain. And the way I choose was, to not feel that emotion, not acknowledge that emotion and even ignore it when it hit me. And after doing this, I became very good at it. Practice turned this into a habit and habit became my second nature. I became very adept at hiding my emotions, my feelings and could quickly cover that up with something, which sadly after a while even I lost sight of it. And I thought it was okay to be this way. I thought this is how emotions need to be dealt with. As I ignored my uncomfortable emotions, I also deflected the good emotions coming my way. My being got created this way and so my energy with which I showed up!
I struggled with this internally without even my awareness. Every time something happened, every time I couldn't progress in my life I defended myself with circumstances outside of me, by putting the blame on people around me and even judging myself. Least did I know that there was actually a bug inside me that was stopping me from blooming into who I was, from flying high, from achieving my goals, from showing up the way I am meant to be. I was looking for answers outside me while the real demon lied inside of me. I even tried to understand this by gathering information around people, their habits, ways to deal with them, etc. etc. The more I looked outside, the more I enabled the demon inside me to grow. I knowingly nourished the demon inside me by putting my focus on things outside me. I thought that if I understand the situation well, I can adjust to it. I thought that if I understand people well, I can accommodate their view points....The list is never ending. The moment I decided to look within, the moment I decided to throw light to the demon inside me, I realized that it was there sitting inside and just trying to stop me from having limitless access to myself & my being. I decided to take responsibility and engage in a discussion with that demon. Let me call it my limiting mind inside me instead of demon because I got to know that it was there lying in me to protect me and not to destroy me. But that limiting mind wasn't aware that even though it's presence had a protective undertone, it did more harm than help to my being. Because anything limiting can just be a bonsai and not a blooming plant. It did give me the requisite ingredients to survive and be protected but not what needs to flourish, thrive and bloom into limitless possibilities. And I want to have a limitless experience. Tears rolled down my cheeks just after my session with my Coach ended. As if, I was bidding adieu to my limiting mind who protected me, showing gratitude for it's presence inside me for so long that today upon joining hands with it to embrace and welcome my limitless mind, I am feeling joy & courage. I thanked my limiting mind for having been there with me in my journey and for all the protection. But, I also said,"It's time for you now to leave me and whenever I will need you, I will call you not to limit me but to help me embrace my limitless mind. This way you'll be empowered too. Because now I want to embrace limitless possibilities and I want to spread this awareness to people around me." I know there are numerous people out there who will resonate with what I have felt and I want to support them in embracing their limitless mind the way my Coach did for me. As a first step, I am going to do this with a group of leaders that I am addressing in a session next week. I am glad that this breakthrough happened today. Now I can take the participants to this joyous journey that I viscerally experienced. My limiting mind, I acknowledge you, I thank you for being with me. I take responsibility for defending you all through out my life, And as a result of which my experience of me, people & life was limiting too. Today let's together embrace my limitless mind, And set on a journey of limitless experience of myself, people & life. Let's take it to the next level. Let the journey begin... Love, Priyanka |
AuthorLife & Organizational Development Coach Archives
February 2023
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