GRATITUDE

Gratitude Is counting your blessings, being thankful for what you have. How, we can be thankful for what we have? By taking care, being nice, cherishing the company you are with. What comes to immediate attention is your family, community or work place. When you are grateful, you bring out best in others by bringing out best in you.

Here you are focused on, what good you have in life and by treating it with honor. you create uplifting atmosphere, where people will be inspired to do their best. When the work comes from inspiration rather than any sort of control, its quality is masterclass. Where you put your focus on will grow. When focus Is on improving things rather than complaining. You grow personally as well as professionally. Gratitude is being grateful and contented with what you have and aspiring for doing better so that, when you do more it brings goodness in other people lives.

Steps towards gratitude are:

1.    Loving yourself 100%. Taking care of your needs- Physical, emotional, intellectual, spiritual, social and financial. You can only give what you have, so first make yourself full. Accept yourself 100% and be confident and comfortable in being you. We wear masks to fit in, impress or pretend what we are not. Standing for your values and integrity is first step towards authenticity.

2.    Be thankful for your family. How? When you treat them with honor and love. Creating amicable environment, being honest and truthful towards them. Genuinely taking care and giving unconditional love. Respecting their time and not taking them for granted.

3.    Being grateful for skills, talents or job you have by using your talents and working towards realizing full potential. Not using your talent is not using your gifts. Talent should be expressed and encouraged. Work towards polishing your talent and looking for bigger impact. Working towards achieving your dreams, pending time with yourself, being you and doing nothing for few minutes every day will create space for transformation to happen.

4.    Being grateful for time, by using your time well, not wasting in useless activities   Always ask, what value you derive by engaging in such activities. Engage in activities for physical fitness, mental fitness, uplifting yourself by going for nature walks. Creatively express yourself in arts, drama, music, dance, writing, photography, painting etc. Avoid harmful activities like smoking, drugs or alcohol, too much socializing or being on social media.

5.    Be grateful in using money-Honor your money by spending wisely. Do not waste your money. Again, ask what value I am deriving from it. Is it worthwhile spending or not? Shopping too much or shopping for things you don’t need is not good.

6.    Be grateful for environment, by doing things which will protect environment like-minimizing waste, recycling or reusing. Using petrol, electricity, water wisely.

Steps to develop Gratitude

1.    Every morning when you get up, take 10 minute to breathe deeply and put your attention on your breath. Watch your incoming breath and outgoing breath. Do not try to think. Do it for 10 minutes every day and night time before you sleep. Your mind will be calmer, sharper and relaxed.

2.    Write gratitude journal every day. Write in the morning when you get up. Thanks for what you have, feel grateful about what you have.

3.    Practice gratefulness by being grateful and peaceful during your day.

SUPPRESSION IS BAD

In our quest to live a happy, meaningful and fulfilling life, we need to look at dynamics of human mind. How it leads into the field of greater possibilities and what are the pitfalls we need to avoid, so that our mind does not turn into our greatest enemy. One of the worst thing we can do to ourselves is suppression. We suppress ourselves in various ways, sometimes we are not aware, other times we think that it is the way of life. When we are not in touch with ourselves, we deny our needs.

Suppression happen in many way, sometimes obvious, sometimes it is subtle.

1. To fit in the culture, we stop listening to our inner voice.
2. Sometimes we just follow trends, set up by society without questioning any goodness of it.
3. We compromise with situations and accept instead of going for what we want.
4. Accepting authority, without questioning status quo.
5. Sometimes to project the self- image of being good, we compromise on being authentic.

All these situations leads to powerlessness. We  compromise, when we feel lack, when we feel not enough.

Worst is when you are in a dissatisfied relationship. The relationship of compromise where there is no love and care but is based on mutual benefit or single sided benefit. When relationship is single sided where other partner is taking your advantage, it is difficult to recognise because you do not have clear picture and go on suppressing yourself until you have tolerated for a longer period and now situation is that there is anger in you which you cannot express due to powerlessness. This anger keeps on building in you because you are holding onto it and there is no outlet to express it. One day you are going to explode. It is important to address any dis-satisfaction by communicating your situation and taking needful action.

Another is dis-satisfaction in your job. You are just carrying on for the money sake, cannot leave it because it pays your bills, give you security and you are used to it. There may be many unique talents in you, but you are not pursuing them because you feel unsure. It takes courage to walk the path you wish to take, listening to your intuition and making forward path by taking small steps in that direction. Going for what you want and doing what you love, it will bring in much needed energy and enthusiasm.

How to avoid suppression, which happen in many ways:

1. Being mindful of your life situation, your emotions and thoughts.
2. Being aware of your needs and making sure that your needs are fulfilled. You are treated with respect, honour, love and care.
3. The moment somebody crosses your  personal boundaries, you need to take action, communicate with them. If communication does not bring result take more powerful action, so that message gets clear that it is unacceptable.
4. Sometime, situations are so demanding that it pressurises to do what you do not want to do, so, ask yourself- What you really want and go by it. Never, compromise, Universe will adjust according to your will and willpower.
5. Challenge status quo, but with right attitude and right frame of mind. It is to improve the situation not satisfy your ego.
6. Question the trends of the society, what good they are to you and society. Find answer and follow it.
7. Stand out, if need be, do not follow the crowd because others are following it. Walk alone, if need be.
8. Stand up for principles you live for, even if whole world is against you. But be convinced that what you are following is the right thing to do.

When you stand up for yourself, there I tremendous power in it, by crossing all odds what you gain is real you and it is powerful.

LIVING INSIDE OUT

Life is about inner works. It flow from cause inside to produce effect outside. Most of the people are stuck in a reactive mode, there is something happening outside in their life and in order to survive there is reaction from our compulsive mind, on which we have no power. We are reactive to the situations and thus create our life unconsciously.

There is more powerful way of being than being in a survival mode. There is survival instinct which comes first in times of crisis. It is of compulsive nature, you are operating from mind which is powered by reactions, beliefs, doubts, fears or scarcity mode. These all emotions get flooded in our minds, as we live our life, gain experiences good or bad, influence from people, family, books, movies and activities we engage in. Habits play crucial part, all good habits are formed in the formative year of child development, like eating healthy food, exercising, reading books, not engaging in harmful activities like smoking, alcohol etc. Being honest, being humane and respectful of life and living creatures and being conscious. Once this habit of being conscious develops, it is hard to have any of the damaging habits. Being conscious means that there is gap between you and compulsive mind. You will not be overpowered by the compulsive mind when you are mindful.

When you start getting mindful of your thoughts, emotions, motivations and sensations in the body, you are in a powerful position. You are out of compulsive nature of your mind, now you have power to respond to any challenges you face. Your mind is calmer and hence it provides creative solution in such cases. When you are conscious, you are in a power to change course of your life by taking better decisions. There comes a point when you have mastery over your mind and you can direct your life, the way you want it to be. That is living inside to outside. You are not ruled by outside compulsions to take actions but you decide which course of action to take.

When you are conscious, you do not take short cuts to achieve your goals. You take legitimate path and wait  for due course of time for success to follow. That success is not authentic and has no value where your core ethics are compromised to achieve your goals. We feel compelled to achieve worldly success because that is the way our success is measured. You feel the need to validate yourself  by achieving numbers and figures in the success list. Sometimes, if you look at the live of some celebrities they have achieved great success in the world but it does not bring happiness in their inner life, Why? Because outer success has not been married to inner values. You may be living a very rich outer life but inner life, life of spirit, which matter to you the most is very poor.

Your inner life is rich, when in due course of your life, you have built it on your core values and with test of time you have lived with integrity and not compromised on your ethics in challenging times. when you stick to your core ethics and principles of humanity, you gain immeasurable self worth. A self worthy  person is equally concerned about other lives and will not do anything which is against the principles of humanity. A self worthy person  lives a richer, happier and healthier life. The more generous, friendly or helpful you are , you generate that kind of energy inside and around you and that keeps you happy and healthy.

The stress which is very common these days is because people have shifted from being simple to complex. The outer life is quite different from inner life and that is the cause of conflict and stress. We have grown our egos which is false self and have shrunken  our heart. Our outer life is grand outside but we are unable to experience it because we have shrunken our heart. If we start living from inside out, no matter what outer  compulsions are, live the principles of life, care for each other and the world will be a better place to live.

NURTURING YOUR SPIRIT

Who you are? Have you ever questioned yourself? What are the answers that will come up in your mind? Take a note of that, who you are essentially means that who you are in spirit.

Are you loving, friendly, passionate person or you are just opposite or between the two. How you nurture your life makes you person you are today.

Do you live for higher self, which takes all life as one and feel that all lives are interconnected. I harm myself first when I feel any negative emotion like anger, jealousy or hatred. I first create these energies in me and then I project it on others. So, in a way I am doing great dis-service by creating negative energy because when the negative energy is projected on other people, it will influence them negatively and in return they will react with other people in a negative way and that will set chain reactions. This will lead to the setting up an atmosphere which is not very uplifting. Sadly that is what is happening in the world today. People are running, stressed to fulfil their huge demands so that they will be happy some day. Entire life they spend on chasing happiness. They have attached happiness to material things without ever looking inside, what they really want. They hardly have time for themselves or their families, that leads to lot of relationship problems or behaviour problems.

Life begins with you and finishes with you. You have to keep your life alive by keeping your connection to your spirit alive. it is very easy to loose this connection by doing mundane things and in todays fast paced lifestyle it is very easy to loose it, because people are in a such hurry to do more that they have no time to stop and think what they do , is it adding value to their life or sapping life energy. When success is measured in numbers without giving any attention to what is happening in the inner world, that success has no meaning which is divorced from intrinsic values.

People are driven by power, Money or greed to make it big without taking into account that they are compromising on morality, ethics or humane values. It is perfectly desirable to be successful but not at the cost of inner well-being. That is why it is important to do actions from wholeness perspective, by taking bigger picture into account. Doing things which brings good to society. Businesses which are short sighted and focussed on just monetary gains will have a shorter span as compared to business with a bigger vision.

The quality of your life depends on how good you feel inside, you cannot feel good if you are doing something which is inherently wrong. keeping your inner space sacred is good for your well being and well being of society at large. Living can never be in isolation. your life is built upon other lives, which supports you in terms of your family, community, government, education, health, farming, art and culture, people who are working to make food, home, shelter and living. our life is interlinked with every other life on the planet. it becomes extremely important that what we value for us as an individual or family, we need to feel for others and our community. We need to take care that we do not step on others rights, interests or boundaries.

Life is sacred and it is meant to live in the right spirit, full of joy, compassion and enthusiasm. If more and more people become aware of our connection to each other, world will be a better place to live. The work you do , has to be aligned with your spirit, the spirit will guide  you by taking you to other path or by blocking  your ways, what you presently do. you will feel heavy, unrelated to your work if it happens, you need to have a serious look and find out what is in alignment with your inner purpose.
Rekindle your spirit and find out what brings you joy, enthusiasm and energy.

Cultivating Fertile Field Of Mind

We all know, how to create beautiful gardens. Do we know how to create beautiful life?
To make beautiful gardens, we have to clear all the weed, make the field soft by digging, make it fertile by adding organic matter and water. After field is ready we plant seedlings and while they are growing we take care that weeds does not grow, we protect it from  animals or pests and extreme weather. All the hard work is needed for a healthy crop.
Have you ever wondered that you mind is like a fertile field. You sow seeds of thoughts in the field of mind. To enjoy a beautiful life, we need to cultivate our mind in such a way that waste thoughts are cleared, thoughts which brings in more noise should not be entertained.
How? we can achieve this by  simple practises:

1. Practising mindfulness: If we are aware of our thoughts, we have power. Thoughts come at such a speed that it is not easy to be aware of our thoughts. If we can witness our thoughts without acting on it, it will pass and slowly we will start clearing the noise and start finding some gap in our thoughts. When this stage come you have some power to choose your reaction rather getting overpowered by compulsive reaction of your mind. You have gained certain mastery of your mind, you have power not to act as per programming of your mind.
2. Keeping good company: It is vital for healthy mind and well being that company you keep should uplift you, support you. You become what company you keep. Your associations have power to influence your mind and consciousness. Higher is your awareness better you are.
3. Cultivating good habits: A disciplined life is beautiful life. Start your day early, keeps you fresh and in good energy .Start you day with yoga or exercise, do some deep breathing, it will bring your mind to a calmer and peaceful state. A peaceful, calm mind can handle challenge well. It has ability to think of solution in a creative way.
4. Having a hobby: Everybody is unique and every person is here to share their unique talent. It is vital to express yourself  creatively. When we do not express ourselves our creative energy remain bottled up and leads to frustration. It is important to release these creative forces within us. The key is when you creatively express yourself, it put your mind in a happy state and it uplifts whole surroundings.
5. Motivation: You wire your brain by motivation. your actions are guided by motivation. Whatever is projected outward is guided by inner motivation. Make a inner resolve that whatever you do it is not only for personal good but for general good.Always ask yourself, will my actions impacting others in a negative way? Your outer and inner life should be harmonious and balanced, there should not be any conflict between them.
6. Let GO: Drop your negative programming by letting go. Beliefs which are not serving you should be dropped.
7. Stay Away: Keep yourself safe by staying away from toxic people and environment. Once you are hurt, it will have cause to bring more misfortune to you. It is important to wash off any unpleasant hurt so that it does not bring hurt again.

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