Growth: That is your right path

As evolutionary creatures, we can’t be stagnant in life and we need to constantly evolve. This is the law. As creative beings, we have to use our creative mental faculties to set the path of this evolution in the right upward direction which is called as growth. At any given instant, every moment of our life either we move in the path of growth or path of disintegration. This change is a law. It is called law of impermanence. Nothing is permanent & everything in this universe undergoes change all the time. Even our body changes every year. So by definition, growth is just a change but set in the right upward direction to realize our higher self.

Unlike other creatures in this universe, we have certain mental faculties like perception, imagination, reasoning, memory, will power and intuition that distinguish us from other species and hence we are called as highly evolved creatures. These faculties aid in growth. We are called creative beings because we can be creative in life using these faculties. The usage of these faculties varies from person to person and hence the level of our evolution and creativeness.

Upward growth path is driven by our Goals and downward ‘disintegration path’ is driven by our Habits.

What are habits? Habit is something which happens automatically without our conscious knowledge. Examples are driving a car, brushing the teethes, doing exercises regularly or not doing exercises regularly, eating more food all the time or eating less food always, getting angry always and getting up from bed at certain time in the morning regularly etc. Habit is an automatic process controlled by the subconscious mind. In fact, 95% of our daily activities are governed by habits and hence we are on an autopilot mode.

How are habits developed? Habits are developed by constant repetition of tasks. By repeatedly practicing again and again, the task gets programmed into out subconscious mind and the task is set in an autopilot mode.

It is all fine as long as our programs work good for us. But, if our habits do not serve us then there is no point holding those habits with us. This is where our creative mental faculties come in picture in guiding us for the desired growth. For most of us, our habits or our programs take us towards the disintegration path. It is our responsibility to change the direction towards growth to give meaning and purpose to our life.

Habits keep us in our comfort zone. We feel comfortable doing the things for which we are programmed. The down side is that as long as one stays in this comfort zone, it is assured that he will not see growth in life. There will not be progress in life when we repeat and do the same things again and again. If one needs to see progress then it is important for us to leave this comfort zone. It is easy to say but difficult to implement. This is where goal comes into picture that acts as a compass to show the direction of growth.

We don’t feel comfortable once we are thrown out of our comfort zone. For example, if you have not developed a habit of public speaking and suddenly you are asked to speak publicly then you don’t feel comfortable doing that. Now you are in your discomfort zone. The transition from comfort to discomfort zone is not sharp. There is a gradient from the comfort to the discomfort zones. We have to use our mental faculties like perception and reasoning to explore this small gradient area. I guarantee you that your life will not be the same once you master the art of exploring this area. You develop something called adaptation. By exploring, we start to get acquainted with this newly defined environment and over a period of time, we will get adapted to this new ambiance. In fact, growth lies in exploiting this adaptation factor. Our nervous system as you know is a network of electrical wiring that operates in milliseconds where as a super computer operates in nanoseconds. But, we are far superior to a super computer because we as have vast number of adaption circuits than a super computer. If you want to see these networks in graphics then I suggest you watch the Avatar movie.

The important point here is to use these mental faculties to understand, feel and experience the new environmental factors that set in when you move away from the comfort zone. This takes certain duration for the circuits to rewire to these new settings. Once the programming is done, the wiring also becomes permanent and now this newly developed skill will become our new habit. The permanent wiring pushes this skill to subconscious mind and hence begins to show as a habit. For example, when we learn swimming, we move away from our comfort zone and hence a new ambiance is set in. Since, we are not used to this new ambiance; we drown and struggle to swim. We don’t feel comfortable but as we get used to the new ambiance, our natural adaptability factor kicks in and with the aid of our creative faculties to reason out& perceive the ambiance combined with desired goal( the driving force ) , the wiring changes and hence the development of the new skill & new habit.

Failure happens mainly when we don’t apply our creative mental faculties and when we don’t give sufficient time to adapt to the new ambiance. Eventually, we will fall back to our comfort zone thereby forcing us to experience a monotonous life pattern. So, growth is just not coming out of our comfort zone but it is an art of exploring the transition area and stretching gradually our comfort zone using the natural adaptability factor, mental faculties and the driving force ,which is our desired goal.

 Now, the month of February is on the way. What happened to your New Year resolution? Are you still on track? YES. Then WELL DONE. If not then read this blog few more times. The growth mechanism explained in this blog should be able to provide an answer. You will be able to get answers for many of the following questions. Why don’t I exercise regularly? Why am I overweight? Why don’t I see growth in my career? Why don’t I keep relationships?

I learned this concept explained in this blog from my static posture (Asana) yoga practices. It is a great mind body practice and offers an absolute experiential knowledge. One can nicely explore the gradient area between the comfort and discomfort zones in each posture. By doing so, we not only develop a great flexible body but we see development in all dimensions of our life like material wealth, health, relationship & skill development.

So, explore the gradient zone NOW. Exploit the naturally built-in adaptation factor.

Know the tips to get rid of negative energy

Our body is a structure made of innumerable number of molecules. Yes, it is a massive molecular structure which has the ability to hold the energy. We are in a state of perfect health when the flow of energy inside our body is effortless and at ease. We are in harmony with the universal energy that can be called as nature. We are set to be in an unbalanced state when this energy flow is blocked. Positive energy locks to a rhythmic state and thereby we enjoy inner peace and harmony. A negative energy state blocks the flow of energy and disturbs this rhythm.

There are two ways by which a body can hold the negative energy. A self inflicted intrinsic negative state where one worries or fears for some reasons that cause stress to him. Stress is a natural process and it is considered healthy when it is short-lived. But, when the stress is extended for a prolonged duration of time then it causes chronic diseases in the body. There is another means by which a body holds the negative energy. This is an extrinsic negative state caused by the influence of others. This happens when one holds a grudge, is greedy, envious etc towards others. As these emotions do not serve us any good, we should know how to discharge these negative charges that stick to our body.

I would like to share with you some of the exercises which I have been practicing for years.

1.       Earthing exercise: As you know we are made up of and surrounded by pancha bootha, the five nature elements namely water, earth, fire, space and air. For example, our body is filled up with seventy percentage of water and the planet earth in which we live is surrounded by seventy percentage of water. Our ancestors were in constant contact with each and every element of these five natural elements that surrounded them. In the modern world, we are in constant contact with four of the natural elements. We breathe air, we are under the direct influence of sun (fire), we occupy space and we drink water. But, we are isolated from the earth. Obviously, we live on the earth and hence we are connected to the earth. But, are we in direct contact with the earth? Mostly, we either wear slippers or shoes inside the house as well as when we go out. Even when we are bare foot inside the house, we are obviously in contact with the floor but in direct contact with the natural form of the earth. It surprises us to know that we seldom are bare foot and in direct contact to the soil of the earth.

Recent researches have shown that the earth has the ability to absorb the negative charges that are stored in our body. When we are in direct contact with the earth, we can discharge the negative charges thereby reducing the stress. In USA and some of the European countries, there are earthing products available that ground our body to earth and thereby reduce our stress.

Gardening with our bare foot is the simplest and natural way to ground ourselves. Please consider taking up the gardener’s role if you have a garden at your house and engaged a gardener to water the plants. So, do gardening for at least fifteen minutes two or three times per week. BY doing so, you have an added advantage of enjoying the flowers and plants which make you feel relaxed.

2.       Art of forgiveness: As a human being, we have the reasoning ability and we know consciously not to have bitterness towards other. The problem is that we know this fact intellectually but not experientially. We sometime develop bitterness with others and in that process, strain the relationship with families and friends.  Forgiveness can be practiced and can be trained to be our innate nature. The brain can be trained and the mind can be altered to develop this habit permanently. Remember the human system is highly adaptable. Do you know why a blind person has high hearing ability? He has naturally trained his ears to become highly sensitive due to the defect of his eyes. Similarly, if we practice forgiveness for 21 days, it becomes our habit. Trust me, it works!! It is the greatest tonic to have a stress free life. The best way to practice this exercise is to sit in a relaxed state every day for 5 minutes and bring to your mind at least five experiences that happened in the last 24 hours which really hurt your feelings. Then bring to your mind, the person or group of people responsible for that bad incident. Then forgive them consciously by saying mentally, “I am forgiving you”. Also, you seek forgiveness from them too. Tell mentally, “Please forgive me in case, I have done any mistake knowingly or unknowingly”. This practice appears to be crazy and ridiculous but believe me, it is really powerful stuff.

Initial days of my practice, I had innumerable number of people to forgive. But with continuous practice, the number gradually reduced. Now, I am in a state of mind where I don’t have anyone to forgive and so I have started to forgive terrorists, politicians etcJ

3.       Art of giving away: As much as we give away that much returns back to us. This is the law of nature. If you throw a ball to the wall, the ball returns back to you with the same intensity with which you threw it. Similarly, the positive energy returns back to us and nullifies the accumulated negative charges. Contribution is one sure means to feel a COMPLETE LIFE.

The art of achieving perfect health

Health is a balanced state of our being at the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual levels. Achieving a perfect balanced state merely at one or two levels does not guarantee good health. Say for example, if we have a great fitness level that doesn't imply we have perfect health. Both fitness and health are completely different. There are cases where people have high fitness levels but still have many health related issues. So, health is holistic in nature.

Let us observe the present scenario that is happening around us now. When we have a health issue, we go to the doctor and mostly the treatment is done at the physical level by understanding the symptoms and accordingly the prescription is given. This is a symptom based diagnosis. The treatment is given to suppress the symptom but does not attempt to solve the root cause of the problem at the deeper level. So, naturally, the problem manifests elsewhere in the body. We visit the doctor again but this time with yet another prescription suggested to us. This process goes on and on. We work on solving the symptoms but do not attempt to cure the disease. This is so absurd.

Based on my years of experience and after learning the art of achieving a perfectly healthy body, I can say that each one of us can come out of this mess once and for all from most of the psychosomatic lifestyle diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, migraine etc as well as autoimmune diseases such as thyroid, arthritis, etc. This is possible provided we increase our level of awareness and proper understanding of this subject. For this, I have defined below a simplified human model .I request you to get a grip and understanding of this model.

There are four components in this model namely the mind, emotions, the body and the environment (nature) .If we understand the function of these components and the interaction between the components then with that awareness it is easy to achieve the optimum health.

The mind can be classified into the thinking mind (conscious mind) and the emotional mind (subconscious mind). As a baby, the thinking mind has not evolved and the baby operates on the subconscious mind. Subconscious mind is the one which controls all the automated processes within us like our heart beat, respiration, digestion, blood circulation, immune system etc. In case of a baby, since the conscious mind is not functional, the automated set point is in a default state. This default state is something similar to animals that operate instinctively. This automated process keeps the body in a vibrational state that is in perfect sync with nature. In this default set point state, the energy like a stream flows through the body freely and seamlessly.

For a grown up adult, we have now the thinking brain and depending on our thinking, the vibrational state of the body changes. Remember this vibration is picked up as feeling by our conscious mind. This vibration or feeling is called emotion. So, when we have thoughts associated with some bad event that generates negative vibration state and is picked up by the conscious mind as fear, worry and anxiety. In this case, the set point moves from its default state causing unbalance in the system. This in turn changes the blood pressure, heart rate, perspiration rate, pulse rate to the higher rate. Unfortunately, if we are locked in this particular layer of mind where the bad incident gets replayed again and again then we will be permanently locked in the altered vibrational state that leads to chronic disease state. Such an altered vibrational state builds tremendous tension in the body. This is like squeezing our heart so tightly with our palms and as the tension builds up, it is guaranteed that the heart breaks at one point leading to cardio disease.

Another reason for the unbalanced state is due to suppressed emotions. Sometimes, because of various reasons, some of us do not express our emotions and instead of it, we suppress consciously our emotions. This suppressed emotion is stored in the nervous system and at another random time or trigger of some event, this suppressed emotions come out and alter the vibrational state causing the disease. As long as the suppression is there, there is always the blockage of energy in the body.

We have now an understanding of the relations between mind, emotion and body. Now, what about the level of our awareness? Do we need to operate at the level of awareness as mentioned in the 2^nd Para (i.e. working on the symptoms) or expand our awareness to a level where we operate on the root cause of the problem?  To me the body is such a wonderful and intelligent machine. Intelligent in the sense that it has the ability to self correct and balance itself. YES! It is a self correction and self balancing machine. Say for example, when you had a cut in your face, the blood started to come out from the face but within few minutes the clotting took place stopping further flow of blood from the cut. Do you think clotting of blood is such a simple mechanism? No, it is an incredibly powerful and intelligent mechanism set in place for monitoring, providing feedback and restoring the original state. Please google and probe the mechanism underlying this phenomenon. By questioning and analyzing, it is possible to improve our intellectual knowledge and hence our level of awareness. Alternatively, self awareness practices help in improving awareness experientially. This heightened awareness makes to respect and value the body and we don’t show ‘take it for granted’ attitude to our body.

Such a powerful and incredible machine, our body is given to all of us and it is set in place for each one of us. Also, as explained earlier, as a baby, we all had a beautiful disease free body. But, now as a grown up adult, we are not only having one but multiple diseases set in our body operating away from our natural default state.  For sure, the major causes are our thinking mind i.e. the mindset and the level of awareness.

It is our choice to decide what to feed in to the thinking mind. If we put right things in our thinking mind then we can set the vibration in the default state in alignment and harmony to nature. Please read the blog on nine practical ways to stay positive. If we put wrong things in our mind then we disturb the balance of the body. We are having the freedom to choose and it is our conscious choice!!

The power of Self awareness practices

“We see things as we are, we don’t see things as they are”

The way in which I see the world is different from yours, hers and his. Yes, perceptions of people are different. No two people perceive an event in the same way. All of us see and perceive the same event differently and accordingly the manifestation of their realities. This is called paradigm. Paradigm represents our views of the world, our interpretation of what we observe in the world. What we see is based on our own perception and may not be the true reflection of the reality.

For example, let us imagine a scenario where you and I were walking in a park. Because of our difference in our perceptions, what you saw and what I saw were completely different even though the ambiance was the same. Even as you go through this particular blog, the way how you perceived this blog, the way how another person reading this blog and the way how I perceived when this blog was written were all completely different. Each of our perceptions was true and real in its own way but it was just a part of the bigger reality. The true reality of the event can be seen only with pure awareness. In fact, this is the purpose of practices such as meditation. Later, I will explain this idea in a separate blog.

Perception is nothing but assigning a meaning to an event by our mental interpretation with our sensations.

Perception = Sensation + Mental Interpretation.

Self awareness exercises comprise of practices like Yoga Asana, meditation, mindfulness practices, etc. Any such self awareness practice has the ability to change the perception. Our perception becomes deeper and increases with this practice. Say for example, when we practice asana, it is natural that our perception on bodily sensation moves from gross, solid sensation to subtler finer sensation. It moves from layer to layer to the deeper levels. In other words, we start to feel the sensation more vividly in high resolution which can be called as expansion of awareness. So, two things will happen with the self awareness practice.

1. Deepness of perception

2. Expansion of awareness. 

With regular practice, this expansion of awareness grows wider and larger. Gradually, it moves towards that pure awareness state which by definition is infinite.

Yes, our awareness field is infinite in size. I can explain this fact with a simple exercise now. Right now, you are reading this blog and awareness is centered in the process of reading these texts. Now, if I ask you a question, “what is the sensation that you experience in your left leg big toe?” Now, your awareness jumps and directed to feeling the sensation of your big toe. Now, if I ask you to listen to the sounds around you then your awareness shifts in observing the sounds around you. So, your awareness is like a spot light moving from one source to another. The sounds around you and the sensation on your big toe were there previously also but they were not in your awareness. So, in a way, one can expand his field awareness to infinite level and can experience all the time the dynamically happening events around him. Since, our awareness is as limited as a spot light, we experience only few events.

Perception is based on our past experiences and our belief system. Our belief system is shaped by our experiences and the way how we were programmed since our childhood. With self awareness practice, one can experience a deeper level of perception. This means, to say that one can perceive in a different way and in fact, that is his conscious choice. According to me, this is such a profound and powerful realization. Many of us don’t even know that we can perceive in a different way and adding to this that we can change our own belief system. In such a case, we not only operate on our own defined belief system but with the same spot light (the same level of awareness) and hence we experience life in the same way. So, naturally over a period of time, we experience a monotonous pattern of life.

Once, we become aware of the above explained mechanisms i.e , our perception and our reality , different perceptions of different people and their realities and our own conscious choice of changing our perception then we are simply empowered with a powerful tool called paradigm shift that contributes to the following.

1.       With the practice, the level of perception changes and hence we perceive differently. We start to experience change in ourselves and our belief system.

2.       With the deeper level of perception, we start to understand other people’s points of view in much better way and we value those as significantly as ours.

3.       Our internal mental state changes with the change in our belief system. External event is just a trigger. We make an interpretation and assign meaning to an event based on our own internal mental state. So, whatever the reality manifested externally is just our own internal representation, a mirror image of our internal state of mind.

We can change our external world by just changing our internal mental state.  Once we experience this concept experientially by means of the practice then we naturally stop blaming the external factors like less resources, no time, no finance, blaming other people, etc when we have a bad experience. Instead, we start working on correcting our internal state.

4.       Emotional Wellness: With regular practice, we gain a deeper level of perception and hence we start to watch things in higher resolution. This gives us the ability to watch even our own emotions more vividly as it unfolds in real time. This gives us the ability to balance our emotion. An untrained person has poor sensitivity and not trained enough to balance his emotion.

I promise you that when one programs his mind to this kind of awareness by regular practice , it becomes such a powerful asset to lead a well balanced life. So, GO FOR IT if you want to change your belief system, balance your emotion and create a beautiful world for you and yes, it is your conscious choice.

Diet – Stay one step closer to the Sun

In the first blog, we have covered diet in a bigger picture, on how too much information on diet adds confusion, the merits of consuming native food, attitude and perception on food. This is the second of the series of blogs on diet. In my twenty five years of experience in corporate world, I spent most of the time in Lab researching & designing products. After I moved to health industry, I have continued doing Lab work but this time my body & mind have become the subjects for my research. This has given me a lot of ideas and insight in understanding the human psychology, physiology & human engineering in general. In the last six years, I have realized many fine details of the human system and life in a broader spectrum. This blog explains yet another such  realization and a very significant aspect of diet, the kind of food that we consume.

We live in the solar system and solar energy is the primary source of energy for all the life forms on Earth. We are not only a part of the solar system but in fact, we are just the representation of the sun. When the mirror is broken, one can see the complete reflection of the sun in each and every broken piece of the mirror. Also, this is similar to the sun’s reflection in the dew drops on the leaves. In each and every dew drop, one can witness the reflection of the sun. In the same way, each and every one of us inhibits the characteristics of sun and reflects the sun just as the broken pieces of the mirror or the dew drops. In fact our true purpose of life is to realize this inherent power, characteristics of the sun within us. This signifies the practice of Sun Salutation.

In fact, each and every living being on this planet is just another form of the sun. Solar energy is one source of energy but it takes many different forms. The light energy from the sun is converted into chemical energy, it generates fuel required for the plants and release of oxygen from the plants to the atmosphere by a process called photosynthesis. Photosynthesis maintains atmospheric oxygen level and supplies the energy necessary for all life on Earth.

So, in a way, one can say that the light from the sun takes the form of plants. The chicken and other animals feed on plants. So, the plants take the form of the animals. We human beings feed on livestock, plants and hence animals take the form of human being. So, in this food chain, there is just one single source of solar energy which takes many different forms as plants, animals & human being.

The grains, plants, leaves, peas, stems, chicken, lamb & other form of meats are all available naturally. All these natural foods are just true representation of sun. We get true representation of the sun and we are in tune and in fine sync with the solar energy provided we consume the natural food which has that kind of true representation.

But, in today’s scenario, where there is an abundance of food, vast majority of the food available in the stores are processed. In fact, 75% of the products that are available in the stores are all processed. Processed food is not the true representation if it loses its energy i.e the life (prana) within it. Say for example, processed peas. If we put this pea in the garden and if it sprouts then there is a life in it. Even though, the peas are processed but they are still the true representation of sun because of prana. If the process is extended to a level where the peas lose the life, say for example frozen peas then the identity of true representation is lost in this food. As a next step to this process, to add flavor or to get clear colour to the food, some of the processed foods are refined. This is another dimension to the food that makes it unhealthy. Examples are refined oil, white sugar, Maida, etc

More is the process involved in food making, more is its distance from its natural energy. Obviously, we can’t take all the food in its natural form. We need to process and cook certain foods like meat so that they become viable for the human digestive system. It is alright to have processed food as long as it has life in it.

Refined food is nothing but processed food which is extended to a degree where it adds certain aesthetic to the food while it kills the energy level in the food. Avoid such refined food and in case of processed food, keep the number of processes involved minimum so that the food stays closer to its original self without losing its authenticity.

Certainly, I am not here to advocate you to take leaves and vegetables like animals all day. But, try to consume food which is in its original and natural form at least one meal in a day. By doing so, we stay closer to the sun and are in alignment with the nature.

So when you take a meal next time, before putting the food into your mouth, please see where that food falls in the chain. Remember when the food is closer to the sun, more natural our body becomes. More the food is refined, more unnatural the body becomes. Unnatural body is the breeding place for many different diseases.

So, go one step closer to the sun and become natural. Practice today and climb the health ladder.

Personal Effectiveness: A self exploration tour

We all have our set of goals and ambitions in life. We strive to achieve those by all means. We have good intention and interest to become great in life. We work towards that. We all want to have great health, wealth and great relationship with those around us. We try by all means to reach there. We all want to be energetic and enthusiastic in life. We move towards that. In the process of striving to achieve this optimal life, we sometime witness that the path is practically difficult to travel and isn’t easy as in theory. What is the gap that sets us apart from theory to practice?

Before getting into the answer, it is important to understand and to become aware of where we have positioned ourselves in life now. We do multiple things in a fast paced life and sometime because of the speed, there is a good chance that we might lose the sight of our progress in life. We are so engaged in multiple activities and sometime, at a given time we don’t even know what exactly we are doing. Some of us think that keeping ourselves busy is quite good. When we have such a paradigm and our mind is set in such a direction then there is a time, even when a free time is set in to us, we force ourselves to become busy by voluntarily taking up some task to engage ourselves. Now there is something to keep us occupied.  Let us stop from this mad rush, look back and do a kind of a review to get better clarity for a well directed life goals.

Start of this New Year is such a right time to do this work out as making resolutions are common in our sights during this period. We need some tool to do this self exploration study and what better tool becomes more effective than the one defined by Stephen Covey -‘Time management’ Tool. In reality, this tool is to manage Self even though, this tool is called time management.

 Your goal can be anything for this New Year from losing weight, better career advancement, good health, better financial wealth, good relationship, etc.  What is more important is to understand what this tool is all about and how to utilize it for your own benefit. This tool gives you clarity of where you are now in your life and how to position and prioritize your tasks for a well directed life.

Tool works on two parameters: ‘Important’ and ‘Urgent’. Any event or task which you undertake can be categorized in one of the following categories. 1. Urgent and important 2. Urgent but not important 3. Not urgent but important and 4. Not urgent as well as not important. So, it is totally a four quadrant matrix.

Quadrant I is a burnout zone. For example: deadline, crises and pressing meeting. We will be stressed out when we stay here for a prolonged period of our life. IV is more of a time wasting ‘Escape’ Zone. Activities like watching TV, browsing net etc. We naturally come to IV when we have spent quite a bit of time in I.

Quadrant III is Deception zone where certain interruptions like a friend inviting you for a dinner.  It is not necessarily important to encourage every invitation that comes to us. Sometime, we should know how to say NO. This is called deception because it appears to be urgent but in reality it might not be.

II is the growth zone. It is all about your goals, purpose and meaning to life, improving quality of work, life and relationship. It is an empowerment zone. Activities carried out in this zone provide great control to our life. In I & III, our life is being dedicated by other external forces/society around us.  IV activities are not only time wasting but nonproductive to us.

Our mantra should be in such a way that we need to minimize I & III, avoid IV and maximize II.

Now, take a tour, make an inventory of the list of activities that we do, say for a week. Categorize the activities that we do in our life and fill up in the four quadrants. Once this is done, we gain better visibility with greater clarity of where exactly we spent time in life.

I & IV are opposite zones. I is more of stimulation and IV is of a relaxation. Usually, a person jumps to IV to relax if it turns out to be that the major amount of activities of him happened in Quadrant I.

II is the personal development growth quadrant that sets a direction in life. More the time one spends in II, better the management of remaining three quadrant activities.  25 %( 20%) of our efforts yield 75 %( 80%) of the results .This is called 20 -80 principle. For example, 80% of the traffic happens in 20% of the roads, 80% of country wealth is in the hands of 20% of the population, etc.

“Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least “– Gothe.

So, let us spend time in quadrant II which matters the most. Let us work less and achieve more for this New Year.