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Saturday, 13 December 2014

Self Management Exercises


One can manage others only when he has the capacity first to manage himself. Self management is an art & a learnable skill. Self management is all about managing our body, mind and emotion. Thoughts come from the mind. Thoughts lead to action/inaction that gives rise to emotions. The emotions are expressed as feelings in the body.
Art of listening: You may want to touch your feet with your palms in a forward bend posture. This is your intention. But, the body may not be listening to your intention and you may able to touch only the shins or knees. Why the body is not listening? The simple reason is that we are not listening to the body. So, in order for the body to listen to us, we need to listen to the body first.
Exercise 1 : Mindfulness dynamic exercise such as yoga helps in developing the art of listening to the body. This is one such reason that why you see the practitioners of yoga do some fancy postures which a common men wonder about.  The simple guideline is to use the movement of your breathing as a tool to move your body. This way, one can feel the body sensations clearly with the body movement.

Mind & Emotions: Similarly, the mind when it is not managed gives rise to random thoughts. We are overwhelmed with the stream of thoughts and we eventually become the prisoner of our own mind. When emotions are not effectively managed, conflict arises which disturb the relationships with others.
Exercise 2: So, if we need to manage our mind & emotion, it is important to divert our awareness to the mind first. One can use some concentration exercise such as paying attention to the flow of breathing. Simply, become aware of the rise and fall of breath. The mind likes rhythm and the rise& fall of breath is a rhythm which silences the mind. With the silent mind, the emotions can be easily monitored as bodily sensations.
Exercises 1 & 2 help us in connecting to our body, mind & emotion.  We not only self manage but we get the ability to connect with others easily. We need this level of connectivity to really connect ourselves to our spirits. Without the connection to our spirit, it is difficult to identify the real purpose and meaning of life.

Self manage yourself by managing your body, mind & emotion so that you can connect to your spirit and the universe.

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