Opportunities are abundant

Some get a lot of opportunities in life either in their careers, relationships, material wealth etc whereas some others do not get that many opportunities. So, what is the difference between these two groups of people? What makes one to get many good opportunities in his life? I read this story about the sales persons somewhere.

Perception: Two sales persons were given a task to promote and sell the shoes in a remote village. The boss of the company assigned this task to the first sales man. The sales person went to the village and he noticed that none of the folks out there wore even slippers and hence the shoes was out of the question. The sales person was disappointed as there was no market requirement for the shoes. He came back to the boss and said the village had zero market potential for the shoes. The boss sent the second sales person and he visited the village. On seeing the people not wearing any foot wears, he sensed a great opportunity to promote not only shoes but also the range of their other foot wears. He reported to the boss that there was a potential opportunity to launch their products into this village. So, our perception of the event/situation is more important in converting those into opportunities. So, how to change our perceptions?

Abundance mentality: Opportunities are abundant and infinity. We don’t need to go anywhere to get the opportunities. It is just around us. All that we need to do is to have that special lens that can sense the opportunities. For this, first we need to create an abundance mentality within us.

WIN-WIN Situation: We need to develop a positive attitude that there are plenty out there in the world. Everyone has a share from this plenty. And, you can have your own share from these infinite resources. When one works with this mentality then it leads to a WIN-WIN Situation. It is a situation that not only allows us to grow, but also the people around us.

WIN-LOSE Situation: We deal with life most of the time in a Win –Lose pattern. This is like dealing with everything in life as a competition. Competition becomes healthy as long as it is restricted to short period of time like in sports. But, if we consider every situation in life as competition then it becomes a lifelong process. Lifelong competition or considering life itself as a competition is very unhealthy and it affects the status of our health as well.

SWOT Analysis: Many of us would have heard about the SWOT Analysis. This is the four quadrants matrix analysis of Identifying the Strength, weakness, Opportunities and Threat. Strength and weakness are the internal factor within us where as opportunities and threat occur from outside. Strength and opportunities are our comfort zone and weakness and threat are the discomfort zone. Remember the other blog on the growth. Growth happens to us only when we start to explore the discomfort zone. Once we develop an attitude to look at our weakness (W) as an area of our improvement(A) and threat (T)from the external world as a challenge (C)then these two areas (weakness & threat) become the opportunities(O). So, it is an art of converting SWOT to SAOC and SAOC to SOOO.

So, the second sales person has developed an attitude of abundance mentality, creating a WIN-WIN situation, limiting WIN-LOSE to a healthy short duration affair and converting SWOT to SOOO. Now, equate yourself and your life events to the above suggestions and see how to convert things into opportunities.

Survival mechanism: A function of the lower brain

I just now finished my vacation with family in two contrasting places, one in Shimla , a calm & cool place and another one in Juhu, the busiest suburb of Mumbai.

I would like to share my experience in the wilds of the Shimla. One can encounter beautiful forests around Shimla if one moves away from the center of Shimla by 5 kms. We.We accidentally found a nature trail near the resort in which we stayed. The trail started from the Taradevi railway station and extended all the way to the Tara Devi temple located on the top of the mountain. The 3 km trail took us deep into the forest. Usually, people reach these temples by roads.

The outside view of the nature trail

We didn't have any idea that we need to go through the forest to reach the temple. As we progressed through, we started to realize that we were heading into the jungle. As we moved further, we did not encounter any other fellow human being. It was really a different feeling to completely get isolated from human civilization. All that we encountered were the wild trees, flowers & bushes. We were able to hear the sounds of crickets, birds. Otherwise, it was dead silent except for the sounds of our own footsteps on the twigs & dry leaves.

The trail sometimes split into multiple paths & we could have easily lost the track of our destined path. Fortunately, the GPS helped us to locate our precise spot in the jungle. As we progressed further, on the back of my mind, two things flashed in my mind of the potential dangers. One was the possible danger of some miscreants & another was the potential danger of encountering wild animals. In both cases, it was certain that we could not avail any help.

Beautiful Wild Flowers

In spite of all these thoughts running in the background, there was a sense of beautiful connectivity that happened in the silence of the forest mainly due to the nice cool weather, the fragrance in the forest and mild breeze touching the body. It appeared that we were part of one creation along with the butterflies, birds, insects, the tall trees, the flowers and the forest. As we got connected with this nature & as we progressed further into the forest, even the trail appeared to be the greatest engineering marvel .otherwise, without the trail, we could have easily lost our path in the forest.

The inside view of the nature trail

 In the midst of the loud sounds of our own footsteps on the dry leaves, we were able to hear a clear distinct hissing sound. As we progressed further, we encountered a snake and it was crossing our path. We stopped & the snake also sensed her threat & we both were in direct contact with each other. We did not know whether the snake was poisonous or not but it appeared to be a very venomous snake. Since, it occupied our path, we expected the snake to move away from our path & it was reluctant to move. When we threatened it by pushing the dried leaves, the snake’s survival mechanism came into the scene & it started to coil & freeze her movement. We waited for some time to let her become calm & it began to move away from the path, after it realized there was no danger to it.

Meanwhile, we were able to feel the functioning of our own survival brain. Our sensitivity especially, the sense of sight & sense of hearing were at the peak. We got an instant boost in our energy level. Once, we crossed the snake, we covered the rest of our journey at double the speed due to the instant supply of energy due to the danger.

                                (Watch the video to see the survival mechanism of the snake)

It was really a nice experience to test the functioning of the threat mechanism, accumulation of energy and activation of sensations of the lower part of the brain.

In real life situation, this mechanism is activated all the time as we perceive any incident as a potential threat. In most of the cases, the threats that we encounter may not be as real as in the wilds. In fact many of the modern life style diseases like heart attack, High blood pressure, diabetes etc are caused due to the frequent activation of this survival brain. If one empowers himself by engaging the higher faculties of brain like the power of discrimination to stay away from slipping into this survival mode very often ,then one can have better healthier life.

Can you give an appointment to YOU?

The title of this blog is a bit strange but yes, it is a fact that many of us do not allocate time to ourselves. You need time for yourself, to review your vision & mission of life and understand what is happening within your internal world &the world around you.

This is like pausing your daily regular activities momentarily and listening to your inner world by making a connection to your deeper self. Imagine a scenario where one drives a car at a speed in a highway. The scenes around him appear blurry and in low definition when he drives at a high speed. The same person can experience the details of the scene in high definition when he drives at slow speed. To add to this, the scenes around him become a lot more clear and vivid when he really stops the car. This small pause of his driving is an energy centering process that allows him to continue the journey with the refreshed energy. Similarly, our clarity in life reduces as we run at high speed. Sometimes, we run so fast that we forget the very reason for our run itself. A pause in life allows us to consolidate & center to our inner self. This gives a revitalizing energy to start the life journey again knowing clearly our vision & mission and the direction of our path.

Why do we run so fast in life? There are many reasons for us to run at higher speed. The information are abundant in todays world due to the technological advancement. The technology itself is moving at a high speed and in order to catch up with the technology, we also tend to run at that speed. Secondly, we see around us and we sense others running at super speed & we tend to mirror their behaviors. This is called social mirroring. Thirdly, we get a sense of accomplishment by keeping ourselves busy all the time. See for yourself what you can do when you have some free time. Most likely, we engage ourselves with internet, some games, chat with friends etc and we become busy and under utilize the power of the free time that we have got. Finally, when we are not clear about our vision and mission, in particular, the direction in life then we distract ourselves in search of meaning to life with the abundant of information around us as & that keeps us busy again.

With all of the above reasons, we assume different roles and wear different masks as a friend, neighbor, player etc and hence, we are not to ourselves. In all of the above cases, there are the transference of energies flowing back & forth between you and the surroundings. The ‘Pause & Listen” act is an energy centering process where we are to ourselves without assuming any other roles & masks.  In this case of this ‘Pause & listen’ act, you stay closer to yourself and you are listening to your inner self. Not only your “self awareness” is better but the awareness around you i.e the “social awareness” is also better which gives you  a better control of your life.

There are many ways one can shift into the energy centering process. In my case, Yoga practice has offered me to center my energy. You can use any method that makes you to stay closer to yourself. For example, this could be like going for a nice outing & watching the natural scenario, a quite walk in the early morning, listening to calm music, dancing, cooking or it could be anything. Energy gets centered as long as these activities connect you to your deeper self, then the process of energy centering starts within you.

So, it has become obligatory to have ‘Pause & Listen’ everyday in our life. More importantly, we need to be regular with this activity that connects us to our deeper self. Then we find a better meaning to our life. Even the so-called successful people run from pillar to post in search of fulfillment of their life when they miss to recognize the power of this simple act of ‘Pause & Listen’.

So, can you give an appointment to YOU now?

Smile Please

We all know that how our psychological behaviours affect our health and immunity system.A stressed out person has more health issues than a person without stress.In fact, most of the lifestyle diseases are caused due to stress. There are many ways to improve the psychological or emotional well being of a person that has a positive influence.This blog focuses on one such area for a positive emotional well being:The influence of our physiology on our psychology. Smile : There are totally 43 muscles in our face. One can differentiate between a fake smile to real smile with the muscles that get activated by the smile. While a fake smile activates the muscles around the mouth ,a real smile activates the muscles around the eyes in addition to the muscles around the mouth.As per the research ,when these muscles are activated, the mood of a person changes for good. In fact, smile is contagious.If one genuinely smiles then that initiates smiles in others. As per the Neuroscientist, this contagious effect is due to the activation of ‘Mirror Neurons’.In fact, in this process of smiling, we are not only confined by our body boundaries but we extent ourselves to reach others. This is a great example clearly to know that we are all ONE. when we live with this kind of perception, the reality and the world around us are much more happier place.

Posture & Balance :At a moment, when we feel that our confidence is low , few corrections by having upright posture , chest expanded ,shoulder up and a straight look provide the required confidence in a person. Also, to get a sense of balanced mind state , try balancing the left and right sides of the body along the spine axis. For a good health , it is important to be aware of the way in which we balance our postures.In yoga language, any imbalance in posture is defined the ‘’leakage of current or energy’’. A perfectly balanced posture aids in decreasing the ageing process too. Perception:Our emotions are stored in the nervous system throughout the body. A proper balanced postures affect the nervous system and hence the psychology or the moods of a person.When one experiences these psychological changes within him , his perception of his own body changes.He knows that there is a universe operating within him and in each one around him . Our social relationship and the quality of relationship with others improve when have a perception that each one of us is an universe. Naturally,we respect each other. So, pay attention to your physiology , your postures and gestures if you want to create happiness around you, change the mood,feel confident , get balanced , decrease the ageing process and improve the lifestyle diseases.