Tension Free Life for 2018 -Part7 CAUSES

Often at times, the task in hand demands more energy than what your resource capabilities are. It demands more energy and it depletes your resource capabilities. On the other hand, you may expect a particular favourable result out of your action but in reality the result happened to be hostile. Both of these situations create doubts, worries and fear in you. Eventually, the stress response kicks in because of the worries, doubts and fears.

So, two common causes of stress are

1.            Task in hand demands energy far more than one’s resource capacity

2.            Result of the action is not in favour

Unique Identity

We have set of strong and weak points. A strong point helps in compensating a weak point. This is the law of compensation. We are in our lows in the stressful situations. We need high for the compensation. These highs sometimes we falsely augment with drinking, smoking, eating etc. These are created with the external resources. These highs are weak that loses their strength very fast with respect to time. So, these are the temporary highs which give relief only for the shorter duration.

A true high can be built by enhancing the inner strength using the internal resources. One way of doing this to build a unique self-identity.  Self-identity is that how one sees himself. Each one of us has some sort of talents or skills. All one needs to do is to enhance and sharpen the faculties to a point that he becomes unique by those talents. It is then good to associate him to those heightened talents.

.This attribute adds value to a person because he has proved to himself his worthiness. This self-identity helps in his low stressful life. Our identity changes with time and is not fixed. We can consciously build one that adds value to us. For example, let us consider that one is good in cycling. Now, he has to put conscious effort in enhancing and sharpening this talent. Over a period of time, his skill level has moved to a place where it fetches some unique position. He is different and becomes the new version of himself. This “high” effectively compensates the low period of stress.

Become unique by your talents. This “high” effectively compensates the low period of stress.

Technique 3: BRAIN SENSITIVITY

Stress is an automated process and it is emotion-centric. When the emotion is highly dominant, the thinking brain is completely bypassed. This is the reason, a person cannot think straight in a stressed out situation. Can we manage the emotion while we are in the stress mode? Then, it is possible to alter the emotional input to the stress circuit and hence the response out the circuit will be different. This is a leap step forward in handling a stressful situation. We are dynamically altering the stress response as it unfolds in real time.

The first step is how good are we in capturing the emotion? This means we are completely aware of our emotion in any given situation. With this emotional awareness level, it is then possible to manage the emotion. When one is in control of his emotion, he gets the ability to manage his emotion. Also, he gets the power to become aware of others emotions and he gets the ability to manage them in a better way.

How do we capture our emotions? Emotions are nothing but feelings and popup from the body as bodily sensations. The sensitivity to capture these sensations determines our emotional awareness. But, unfortunately, most of us lack this skill. We have the ability to capture gross sensations such as pain and pleasure but not the subtle & finer sensations such as throbbing, pulsating and tickling sensations. Better the brain sensitivity for the finer subtle sensations, higher would be the emotional awareness and greater the ability to handle a stressful situation.

If an electronic gadget such as a pulse oximeter is inserted into the fingers, it preciously detects the heart rate. This means there is a pulsating signal that is there in the index finger. So, if one gently touches the thumb and the index finger, he should able to feel his own hard beat. If he can’t feel this pulsating sensation but just the touch sensation then definitely the brain sensitivity is less in his case. A dumb pulse oximeter can able to detect the signal while our own brain cannot able to detect. It is now time to improve the sensitivity of the brain so that one’s emotional awareness gets enhanced.

Sensitivity Practice:

Duration: 3minutes

1.            Sit upright in a calm and quite place either on the floor or in a chair.

2.            Relax the body consciously and let there not be any form of tension in the body.

3.            Pay attention to your rise and fall of your breathing for ten breath counts.

4.            Gently, touch the index finger with the thumb finger. Retain this finger lock for next three minutes. Divert your attention to the touch sensation, that is the meeting point between the thumb and index finger. Initially, one may feel only the gross touch sensation but with consistent practice, one slowly witnesses the pulsating sensation of the heart. 

5. With consistent practice, when the attention is diverted to the middle of the palm, one might even witnesses subtler sensation of the nerve ending points.

6.            After three minutes, slowly come out this practice mode.

With the above practice, one can train the brain for the subtle sensations.

Technique 1 :Free up space

Having discussed so far the engineering mechanism of the stress response, the causes for the stress, the mind game in the context of the stress and the understanding of those three universal power laws, it is time now to move on to the methods, techniques, and tools to lead a tension free life. With the practice of the following techniques, tension free life is not going to be a far-fetched reality. It is very much practical.

Free up space:

As stated in “this moment” chapter, stress cannot coexist when we live in this very moment. In this very moment, we are somehow connected within. To illustrate this phenomenon, let us assume that you are on holiday trip to a beach resort. You are at the resort and when you slide the curtain of your bedroom window, you get a nice view of the deep blue sea and the sun has just begun to rise. The reflection of the rays of the sun can be seen on the ocean surface. The orange colour of the sun & blue colour of the sea, the combination is so mesmerizing and you are in that moment. Now, at this very moment, there is absolutely no sign of stress. You are somehow connected with the display of external energy which in turn lead you a connection within. Influence of mind at this very moment is negligible.

As stated earlier, without any external support, living in THIS present moment is a challenge because of the influence of the mind. But, it is an art that can be developed.  Mind when it is cluttered, it has the maximum outside movement. This is the time, the mind tends to swing from back and forth from the past to future and vice versa. The practice here is simply to free up space inside the mind. When there is a free space there is a way for the free flow of energy. How to create this free space? The answer is simple. Plainly, observe the mind willingly. One cannot control the mind. If one attempts to control the mind then the mind becomes violent. But, give the liberty for the mind to act in its own terms and just observe the wandering pattern. Observe the mind willingly but with one very important condition. Do not engage the mind while observing. This means, irrespective of the movement of the mind, we stay aside watching just only the movement of mind, our own thoughts without passing on judgments. Initially, when one directs his awareness, he will notice the chaotic movement of the mind from the past to future back and forth. But with the boundary condition, the mind does not know what to do after some time. This is the state we need very often. Over a period of time, one develops this distinctive skill to stay in the moment just on demand. It slowly then becomes his default state of existence.

Practice method:

Duration: 3minutes

1.            Sit upright in a calm and quite place either on the floor or in a chair.

2.            Relax the body consciously and let there not be any form of tension in the body.

3.            Pay attention to the rise and fall of breath for a period of ten breath counts.

 4.           Simply, divert your attention to your mind. What is the thought that surfaces out of the mind? Observe the movement of the mind and importantly, stay non-judgemental. The moment one tends to engage with the mind, the system of mind goes haywire. Stay here in this mode for three minutes.

5.            After three minutes, slowly come out this state.

This practice appears to be simple and even stupid. But, this has a profound impact in training the mind not to swing back and forth from the past to future. Swinging is due to the entertainment and voluntarily, in this practice, we force ourselves not to entrain with the mind. The above technique, when practiced for a consistent period of four weeks, changes the pattern of movement of mind. We slowly get the ability to live in the present moment.

THIS MOMENT

I got the opportunity to deal with many numbers of clients who have the chronic stress. Eventually, they all pose with some kind of psychosomatic illness such migraine, anxiety, hypertension, cardiovascular diseases etc. With all these people when I posted one single question. “Right now, at this very moment, in this split of the second, do you have stress? Uniformly, the answers were NO. I am now asking the same question to you now. Do you feel stressed at this very moment, this split of the second? If the answer is NO then we have the answer to handle stress. 

When we live in THIS present moment, we don’t feel stressed. Let us live the same way the next moment. We will not feel stressed in that moment too. Let us then extrapolate this pattern of living from moment to moment from now on. We will not be stressed out lifelong. But, this is not as simple as it looks.

The biggest hurdle to living in the present moment is caused by our own mind. At any given point of time, the mind has the movement. It moves from the past to future and future to past without stopping in this present moment. It is like a clock pendulum that swings from one end to another with a brief crossing at the neutral point. Both the ends of the swing are the locus of the past and future and the neutral point is the present moment.

Take an example of driving the car to the office. Strictly speaking, we need to be in the experience of driving the car, how we handle the break, gear and how we manage the traffic, how we follow the rules of the traffic etc. There is no great conscious effort is required in doing all of those above activities as we have repeated the driving for many years. So, naturally, we work on a kind of autopilot mode and do all those actions without any conscious effort. The mind is now free to fast forward to the event that is going to happen in the office or rewind to the past event that happened back at the home. This is the mind pendulum action.

Chronic stress is a construct of our mind. The pendulum action of the mind is the cause. Mind constructs the meaning from our own past experiences and projects those in the future. We need to train the mind to work in the present moment. This is again a skill and it is a learnable skill.

Alive: Mind seeks what we don’t have. There are so many other things which we have. But, still, the mind looks for something which we don’t have.

This is the effect of the distinctive attribute that human species possess which is called CURIOSITY. There is nothing wrong in becoming curious in life but on the other hand, one should develop the ability to be of grateful of what one possesses.

The value of the leg is known only after we break our leg in an accident. Until the time, the leg functionality is taken for granted. Human system and in general, this entire universe are complete orchestrated system and cherish the experiences of these every moment.

So, do not cherish stress, hectic life and so on. There is a flip side to it. Cultivate our awareness to cherish those other fine experiences to which we have taken those for granted. For an instant, in this moment, we are alive. In spite of all those ups and downs of the life, the life force is pretty much active in this very moment. Is it not a magic? It is the greatest realization.

But, have you realized this wonderful gift? Let us try to realize this by increasing the level of our awareness. Cherish life

ROUGH TERRAIN

Value: Imagine a life without stress. It is great and full of happiness & joy. But, how one knows that he is joyful? There should be a reference to measure the happiness. How happy are you? Without a proper reference, he may not even realise that he is joyful even though he is in a state of joy. Stress provides this reference. A state of joy cannot become meaningful without a state of the stressful situation.

The value of the shadow of the tree can be fully realised only when we walk in the harsh heat of the sun. Without the experience in the sun, our experience of the shadow has void meaning. Rough terrain makes you realise the value of smooth surface. We encounter stress to know the value of our experience of joy. The danger is that some of us are so much entangled in the mode of stress so that they lose the ability to see another side of their life. This is the sorry state of chronic stress. So, it is safe to have stress but it should not become chronic.

Balance act: Life is a cyclic pattern of on and off. The sun appears in the morning and vanishes in the evening. Moon comes in the night and vanishes in the morning. The modern digital world is a construct of this binary system only. It is just on and off. So, accept the stressful state willingly like how one accept joyful state cheerfully.

New Learning: Growth of a person comes from his new learnings. Growth ceases when there is no learning from the experiences of life. If one repeats the same set of activities day in and day out, he will soon hit the wall. He gets bored. New learning means one dare to venture into those unknown zones. This unknown zone is a rough terrain to maneuver. Stress provides an opportunity of this rough terrain. Let us play here for our new learning and gain new experience.

Rough terrain requires good maneuvering skill. It is a learning ground. It is a learning opportunity to learn new things. Learning becomes our experience. The collection of those experiences is our definition. Rough terrain provides an opportunity to know the value of the smooth surface.

Stress provides the reference. A state of joy cannot become meaningful without a state of the stressful situation.

New learning becomes our experiences. The collection of those experiences is our definition.

GOAL & EXPERIENCE

Let us assume that you have a goal. You work hard in attaining the goal. Finally, after all your hard work that you achieved the goal. Naturally, you feel elated with your achievement. This celebration stays with you for days or weeks or months. But, this exuberance fades away after certain duration. Now, you may start a new goal and then the cycle continues. What is then the purpose of setting the goals and achieving those goals? Obviously, it provides the direction in life. Other than that any numbers of achievements become simply the anchoring tools that remind you of your specific skills in attaining the goals. It is like a medal collected by winning the competition. A medal is an exhibit of your distinct skill.

Then, what is that which stays with you forever in this game of setting the life goals and achieving those? It is those experiences, good or bad that one encountered in the process of achieving the goals. So, what stays with you is your experience in attaining the goal. In fact, each individual is the construct of these experiences. He is shaped as a personality based on these experiences.

If you ask any successful people of those who achieved certain very distinctive positions then it becomes so clear from their view that the position is not giving the happiness but the experience in attaining the position gives them the happiness.

This realisation is so important in setting up individual mindset while working in the solution zone. Remember that all our attempts at the solutions do not yield the favourable results.  Having realised the fact that the experience in attaining the goal is more important than the goal itself, it is then okay to face the unfavourable results. In obtaining a solution, one may not succeed but the attempt that one made is really significant which sets the experience in him.

In other words, try the solutions with conviction. It is important to give one hundred percent effort irrespective of the end result. It is guaranteed that one gains experience.

Accelerated growth: As per the focusing power of the mind, things get magnified and multiplied where one focuses on. So, it is dangerous to focus on the problem zone because the problem gets magnified and multiplied. It is pertinent to switch to the solution zone. Now, the solution gets magnified and multiplied. Here the solution goes right or wrong. When the solution is in the right direction, it puts us on the growth path. But when the solution goes wrong, it puts us in double growth path. Because here we get a chance to learn something new out of our failure. New learning aligns us in the evolutionary path. This is a must for the human. Without which, we cease to grow.

When the solution is in the right direction, it puts us on the growth path. But when the solution goes wrong, it puts us in double growth path.

Happiness comes not from the goal but from the experience in attaining the goal

Leadership Skills: Self Awareness

A good leader is considered as a person who is sensible to others. This in turn calls for a sensibility within himself in order for him to become sensible to others. Sensibility is a nature of awareness: Awareness of the sensations. Bodily sensation is nothing but the language of the feeling. The feelings are the outcome of our own emotions.

So, a self-awareness of your own internal world is a prerequisite of a good leader. A person cannot manage himself when he does not have the ability of what is happening within himself. So, self-management calls for the self-awareness. For any given experience/event, one should have the ability to capture in real time the associated emotions that run beneath. A person, who has the higher sensitivity, captures the bodily sensations in finer details. A person cannot manage others when he can’t self-mange.

So, here is the flow. Self Awareness -->Self management-->Awareness of others -->Management of others.

Mirror: External reality is majorly determined by our own internal mental & emotional state. Others, they simply act as a mirror/reflection of you. When you are calm, you radiate calmness and generate calmness in others. In this case.calmness is the reflection that you see in others. A good leader is completely aware of this process & he naturally performs his behaviour in tune with the process.

Bodily sensations: Bodily sensations and the feelings are the outcomes of your emotions. There is an entire gamut of level to this sensory perception that varies from gross to the subtle levels. Your emotion appears in the form of bodily sensation. Your ability to perceive this sensation gives full access to your internal world. Good leader enhances his sensory perception to an extent of even picking up the subtlest bodily sensations so that he is well self-centred. He somehow knows the means to connect to himself in finder details.

There are techniques available in most of the mind-body practices such as Yoga, taichi etc. One needs to invest considerable effort to master these techniques. It is a learnable skill.

Summary: You can’t manage others when you don’t have the ability to manage yourself. Self-awareness & self-management are the key leadership skills. Your emotion appears in the form of bodily sensation. Your ability to perceive this sensation gives full access to your internal world. Enhance your sensory perception to an extent of even picking up the subtlest bodily sensations.

“Higher the sensory perception better the level of self-awareness "

Life Goodness : Excuses of the mind

Goodness of life originates from your good habits. Forming a new habit requires an effort irrespective of whether a habit is good or bad. One needs to repeat the action/task related to the habit over certain period of time in order for the action to become second nature of him. Recurrence is the key in generating a new habit.

In this blog, we are focussing on activities such as regular exercises, getting up early morning, yoga & meditation. These are the daily activities that are good to form as habits for a healthy life style. Without doubt, every one of us knows clearly the benefits of these activities. In spite of that innumerable list of benefits, only a handsome of people put an effort in generating these new habits. WHY??

Inherent nature: Evolutionarily, human are designed to live in the comfort zone. It is the characteristic of the mind which restricts us & makes a choice to stay in the comfort zone. No extra effort is required to stay in this comfort zone. But, forming a new habit such as getting up early morning or doing regular exercises demands for an additional effort. This means, one has to work against his inherent nature.

Contradictory Mind: Mind plays a vital role in making the choices. The same mind that motivates you to put an effort to form a new habit also withdraws you form the very effort where you transfer your energy into. Such is the conflicting nature of the mind. It gives excuses for you to stay in your safer familiar mode.

It is up to the individual to overcome this inherent force while forming a new habit. Unlike the western world, daily dose of physical exercises is not part of our culture at all. So, if one goes by the mass psychology, he will derive some good excuses to skip the daily routine. But, in the recent years, a new trend is getting in place where people spent considerable time out in the sun.

Summary:  New habits demand new activities. All those activities demand regularity. The inherent nature & the contradictory mind give excuses that evade you to perform the activities. So, you miss the goodness. Think twice before passing judgement on those excuses of the mind which hinder your progress.

"GOODNESS IN LIFE GETS HIJACKED BY THE EXCUSES OF THE MIND”. Be aware!!

Physiological Actions:

Imagine that your anger is really at its peak. There is a natural reaction of the body corresponding to this psychological change. In this changed state, your blood pressure increases, your face becomes red, your body becomes stiff and your heart beats faster. All these reactions happen so involuntarily and automatically without even your conscious control. In the same way, when you are in a state of extreme happiness, you will have great smile in your face, the cheeks blush, your eyes brightens & the whole body becomes radiant. This is also a natural reaction to your internal psychic state and you may not even aware of these changes as all of these happen involuntarily and so automatically.

Reverse effect: If one voluntarily and consciously changes his physiological state then his internal psychological state changes because of the change in the physiology. This is a powerful way to stay happy & confident in life. But, this requires a bit of self-practice & training.

For example, a simple smile on your face induces a state of joy. Keeping the chest up & with little shoulder drooped down increases the level of confidence. Keeping our eyes stable and looking into the eyes of the person standing opposite to you generates a powerful bonding. Having a stable posture with the spine straight adds stability to our mental state. Long deep breathing induces calmness in our thought process.

Changing the physiological state to change the internal psychological state is a voluntary action. Whereas, the internal psychological state that changes the physiology of the body is an involuntary reaction. So, train the body to drill your internal psychic state voluntarily.

Summary: A Change in the external physiological state reciprocates a corresponding change in the internal psychic state. An upright "chest up" posture induces an instantaneous confidence in you. Long deep breathing induces calmness.

Here is the simple strategy:

Alter your physiological body posture to get the required instant confidence in a weird situation such as meeting your boss/stranger.

"EXTERNAL PHYSIOLOGICAL STATE RECIPROCATES THE INTERNAL PSYCHIC STATE"

React vs. Response : Outdate to Update

Design: If you open up the books of neuroscience, you’ll come to know at a very abstract level that we have three layers in the brain namely the brain stem, limbic & prefrontal cortex. In simple terms, these are called as the lower, mid & upper brains. Each section of the brain has a unique function. The lower brain is called the survival brain, mid brain is called as the emotional brain & the upper brain is called as the thinking brain.

Evolution: Brain has evolved in few billion years. It starts with the survival first then with the emotions followed by the thinking ability. Considering the rate of growth of the brain, the brain has evolved very rapidly in the recent few million years. The size of the brain has increased to three fold during this period. The brain was five hundred grams few million years before and now it weighs one thousand five hundred grams. Most of this rapid development has happened in the upper section of the brain i.e. the thinking brain.

Living condition: All these neurological systems in our brain are pretty much intact even in today’s living condition. We survive, we become emotional & we think and accordingly the respective brain section gets activated. Unlike other animals, Human is a weak animal by nature. We can’t fly; we can’t run fast & so on. We always live in the dangerous situations & hence, our brain is evolved to look for the potential threads.

But in today’s scenario, we live in a very safe world in comparison to the living condition few million years before. So, the survival & emotional centres are slightly out dated mechanisms. The smartness rests in the way of how we utilise the recent development of the brain i.e. the thinking section of the brain.

React: If I react to a situation or to an experience then it is a spontaneous action from my brain which uses the lower & mid sections of the brain. So, we react emotionally out of fear, worry & anxiety for the given situation & hence, we engage the survival & emotional centres of the brain. This is an out dated mechanism in today’s safe world.

Response: Response is a simply a mechanism of giving a slight PAUSE before reacting during an experience. This pause brings the thinking brain into the equation. Once thinking brain comes into the play, it changes the way how you assign a meaning to an event and hence changes the very nature of our experience itself. This is the new way of leading the life using the newly developed part of the brain i.e the thinking brain.

This habit if it developed then it changes the way one experiences the life. So, learn to “Pause” gives an opportunity to “Respond” instead of “React” during adversity.

Keep life Simple & Easy!!

What you do first thing in the morning?

Your first conscious activity of the day sets the tone for the rest of the day. Your first activity programs your mind and develops the right kind of mind-set for the rest of the day to progress well. When you consciously pick up the right kind of your first activity of the day, over a period of time, say in a month or two, you will develop a new habit.

Technology influence: As per the research, our ability to stay attentive and focussed has diminished drastically in the last two decades. One of the prime reasons is the amount of distractions that we encounter in the form of information overload on day today basis. Many of us have developed the habit of watching whatsApp, Facebook status, emails and other social media as their first activity of the day. What it started as a simple activity few years before has now become your inborn habit. The moment one opens up the mobile, he will be bombarded with millions of information in a short duration of time. Brain tries to process all the information simultaneously but without any productive result. In that short duration itself, we tend to jump from Facebook to email to whatsapp etc.

First activity of the day: If you have seen your first activity as one of the above then it is good to relinquish your mobile at least for an hour when you get from the bed. In the worst case scenario, we sleep with the mobile by the side. This is one such activity that really degrading your ability to focus. It is good to consciously select your first activity of the day that aids in your development. Some of those activities are mind-body practice, reading good wisdoms, morning walking, collecting your role model attributes etc, meditation etc.

Strong base: By starting with your development activity as a first thing in the morning, you will get clarity and proceed the day productively and efficiently. That 15 or 30 minutes which you spent yields ten times equivalent time during the day. So, do not see the duration purely from the perception of time.

So, consciously pick up the right kind of the activity that aids in the development rather than distracting your growth.

Reconfigure : Experience the abundance of the life

Our experience of the external world is determined by the way how our internal world is configured. We are an integrated system where the body, mind, emotion, intelligence and ego work together to experience the life. Yes, one can experience the abundance and the positivity of the life if he knows how to train and reconfigure himself to tune to this abundance.

Many years before, I was introduced to the practice of “forgiveness”& “gratitude” exercise by one of my spiritual friend. I did not buy the idea of practicing this exercise as it was not at all convincing and compelling to me. But, he insisted me to practice for at least a month and he said, “The practice has the ability to reconfigure the brain to act and think in a positive way that helps in observing the abundance of the life”.

After few days of the practice itself, I started to witness the shift in the way how I was experiencing the life. Now, after seven years of the practice, I can confidentially say that this is one of the greatest gifts given to me in my life by my dear friend. This practice has the ability to assign a powerful meaning to your life experience and the way how we perceive the event in a positive framework of mind.

Practice method:  Now, I have integrated this practice at the end of my daily yoga practice session. As a process, it takes just three minutes of our time.

Forgiveness: Just, recollect on the previous day of at least three such events/experiences that really hurt my feelings. The first step is to bring to my awareness the person or group of people who are responsible for the event. Next step is to simply forgive them and also ask for the forgiveness from them in case if I have done something wrong unknowingly without my conscious knowledge. Simultaneously, pay attention to the bodily sensation and our emotional state as we go through this process.

Gratitude: Same like “forgiveness” practice, just recollect from the previous day life experiences, three such events that make you to feel happy.  Again, get the person or group of people who are responsible for such events in our mind and simply say, “thank you” for creating such a happy experience to us. Simultaneously, pay attention to the bodily sensation and our emotional state as we go through this process.

My experience:  We are given two buckets of people. One bucket is for the people to show our forgiveness and another bucket is for the people to show our gratitude. In the initial days of my practice, the number of people in the forgiveness bucket were more (at least ten times) than the ones in the gratitude bucket. This scene had changed within a month of practice where the count in the forgiveness bucket was going down and there was an increment in the gratitude bucket. Now, after many years of practice, I can confidently say that the people in the forgiveness bucket are negligible whereas the gratitude bucket is full & overflowing with the people.

Now, we are suddenly surrounded with many good people and eventually, we start to experience the goodness within and around us. So, practice & enjoy the abundance of the life!!

Use this trick to stay focussed in life?

If you are busy with many different activities in life but still you do not have a clear direction in life then it is a time to do some sort of self-auditing to understand what is happening in you. For doing a self-auditing of your activities, please follow the tool mentioned in my blog on Personal Effectiveness : A self-exploration tour .

Let us consider that you set the goals and have a clear definition of your purpose of life. But, sometimes your daily activities are counterproductive and of “no use” or hindrance to the actual purpose of your life. In such a case, you are simply thrown away everywhere in life & it is a clear sign that you are defocused in life. As per the research, approximately 80% of our daily activities are counterproductive when you become defocused in life.

What is the cause for the defocus? Why your intention and action are polarity opposite to each other?

When you set a goal, you have a very high expectation and you put your heart and soul to achieve the goal. You implement right kind of actions for you to get the desired results. It is quite natural that you expect a directly proportional result based on your action. It takes a beat on your motivational level particularly when the results are not in line with your expectation. There is a direct relationship between the reward centre of the brain and the motivation centre of the brain.

In reality, since the action is brand new to you, the perception level of your action gets magnified. Consider a case that you have not done running at all in life. Now, you are given a task to complete a one KM run. This is a new action to you and it is perceived as a paramount task whereas the same task is perceived simply a meek by a regular runner. Your magnified perception of the action produces a magnified perception of the reward. In reality, this does not happen as the system has a time constant to adapt to the new state. In case of running, your body has a time constant to adapt to the new state.

You get demotivated when you do not understand the magnified perception of the action and the time constant (time lag in getting the result) of the system. In case of demotivation, you get a focus shift where you may drop the current goal and take up a new goal. With the new set goal, the same process repeats again. Over a period of time, this becomes your new habit where your penetration level in achieving the goal stays unfortunately at 10 to 20% level. This is the cause of your defocus and how you are thrown everywhere in life.

Way to stay focus: During the initial phase of goal achieving mechanism, it is important to expect and look for reward with SMALLER magnitude. This activates the reward centre of the brain which in turn triggers the motivation centre of the brain to take further actions. Over a period of time, the brain gets hardwire with this new pattern and hitting a winning streak becomes your new habit. This builds the right momentum in you to take further actions. The compounding effect of the smaller results generates the desired BIGGER result too. With each new action, you have not only progressed one step closer to your goal but you have increased your penetration level in achieving the goal. You stay focused with this smaller shift in your perception of your action and reward.

Want to have an authoritative life? Design it.

The mental state plays a crucial role in the expression of the genes. There are many scientific evidences in the recent times of how the mental disposition changes the expression of the genes.

Certain health disorders such as heart disorder, diabetes, arthritis, mental illness etc. are attributed as hereditary genetic problems. Most of us and including the science believe that the hereditary genetic problems pass on from generation to generation. Hence, if our parents have such disorders, we believe that we stand a good chance to get the disorders as we carry the defective genes from the parent.

Mental State: This may not be case as per the newly evolved field called “epigenetics”.  As per epigenetics, the expression of genes depends not only by the genes but the environment in which they thrive. One such environment for us is our mental state and the faith that we hold in our consciousness.

If we have a faith and believe that we get arthritis just because our parents and grandparents have had the disorder then just because of such a strong faith and thoughts around that faith are good enough to create an environment for the gene to express and hence we get the disorder in our body sooner or later.  Alternatively, if you have a faith and belief that the expression of the genes are pretty much in our conscious control then we may not get the disorder even though you have the defective genes passed hereditarily to you.

Brain Characteristic: Our survival brain protects and keeps us in a safe environment. Because of such a characteristic of the brain, it is natural that we worry always of the potential dangers around us. When it comes to health disorder, there is no exception and we tend to worry too much and allow unnecessary thoughts into our minds and we believe the ideas of others and prevailing science. If you believe the ideas and develop a faith that certain health disorders are hereditary and hence, you will get in near future then it is guaranteed that you get the disorder pretty much simply because you have developed a faith in such ideas.

Personal experience: I am here to share my own personal experience related to the expression of genes. I have come from a family with diabetes genes inherited. Also, I have developed a strong fundamental idea over a period of years that my mental state is an important deciding factor in the expression of my diabetes genes. To make this idea more practical, I have created many conditions and ambiences to test & prove and convert the idea into a belief and faith that generates my newly developed mental state. For my faith and belief to become stronger, I tested myself with all the practices that a typical diabetic person should avoid.

My Steps: Most of us get health disorders mainly because we are poor listeners of signals from our body. Like many others, I was not a good listener of my body signals. First, I developed an art of listening to the signals from the body by means of yogic techniques. Secondly, I tried all the possible practices that a diabetic should avoid like eating sweets, running marathon etc. All, I did was smartly listening to my body as I subjected myself to all the prohibited test conditions. Finally, I started believing my body and the signals than the ideas and diversified sciences around the disorder. Now, I am proud to say that I am not only diabetic but a person who is fond of eating sweets.

So, strong belief and faith are required to have such a strong mental disposition to create an environment for the genes NOT to express. For this, one needs to test himself practically all the adverse conditions to develop such a faith.

Want your Mind to serve you diligently?

For most of us, the mind works as a master. Mind generates thoughts that direct our life. Eventually, we become the prisoners of our own minds. Falsely we identify our “SELF “to our own Mind. In reality, we are bigger than the mind. Our Mind and Body are just the instruments that are supposed to serve us for our growth. In most of our cases, we could not able to control the Mind and the Body and hence the Mind and Body regulate us.

Purpose of Mind: Mind is an instrument and its sole purpose is to protect us. The mind identifies the threat and danger and keeps you away from the hazard. This enables you to lead a comfortable life and stay in a comfortable zone which is nothing but a familiar least resistance zone of the mind.

Characteristics of the Mind: There are two important characteristics of the mind which I would like to highlight here and see how to exploit those characteristics in order for the mind to serve us for our growth.

1.       Mind works as an Auto Servo Mechanism. The mind simply revolves around a centre point. This centre point is nothing but what you are interested in. Your interest has an emotional base. The emotions could be positive such as positive growth, happiness & pleasure or negative such as fear, worries & anxieties.

2.       Mind what it focus on that grows. If you focus on, say for example, to stay healthy then the world and information related to health grow and the whole new dimension of the health related world blow up in front of you. Such is the power of the focus of the mind.

For the mind to serve us, all we need to is to exploit the above two characteristics of the mind.

1.       When you set a goal that aids in your development, the first and foremost requirement for setting the goal is to add the positive emotional base to that goal. By doing so, you have tagged your interest with a positive emotional base and it becomes your centre point of your auto servo mechanism of the mind. Now, the mind works preciously like an auto servo goal achieving machine.

2.       Do not take bigger action that leads to a failure. Instead, take fewer small actions that are easily achievable in moving towards your goal. Now, since the actions are achievable, you get the rewards in the form of small results. The rewards activate the motivational centre of the brain. This motivational part of the brain releases dopamine, happy hormone which motivates you to take further actions. Now further actions yield further rewards and this over a period of time becomes cyclic routine. So, your focus on the goal increases and it opens up a new world in front of you which has not been previously discovered.

So, all you need to do is to set a simple action of formulating a positive emotional base while setting up the goal and splitting up a goal into easily achievable micro goals. The mind acts like a diligent server then uses the above two characteristics to do the rest of the work in taking you towards your goal.

A Modest Mind shift to ease the enormous STRESS

We are solely accountable and responsible for the actions that we do in our life on a daily basis. There is no argument to this. When we cross the set limit and become over responsible and over accountable then the problem starts. You know what I am talking about? You live and take some heavy actions as if the entire world is operating just because of you. You operate as if nothing moves forward in this world without your presence.

Examples: One can see the above pattern especially when it comes to jobs, kids’ education, our own health and also the welfare of the children. When it comes to work, some of us take up the job and proceed as if he only can do the job in perfection as he believes in his own ability. He is worried to delegate the work to others because of the fear of the end result when it is executed by someone else. Similarly, parents overprotect the children when it comes to their welfare and literally lead the kid life in a direction that the parent’s desire and in that process they shadow the individuality and the freedom of the kid. When it comes to the health of the individual, again we use all the possible means to reach the ideal perfect health state but in the end we lead a miserable unhealthy state because we miss the simple art of listening to the body.

Fact 1: All these over accountability and over responsibility are simple acts of delusion.  The thought that leads you to cross the boundary is just there ONLY in your mind. It is valid only for you but NOT for others. You have created a world that exists just in your mind and it doesn’t exist anywhere else.

Fact 2: The plain fact in reality is that all things in life will be carried on and executed beautifully even without your presence. Even without you, the kid’s welfare will be taken care by default. In your work, even if you go on a month holiday and then after a month, you will be surprised to know that the work was done seamlessly even without your presence.

Fact 3: The greater fact is that the world was functional before you came here. It is functional as you live now. World will be FINE after you leave this place also. The simple thing, all that we need to do during your stay here in this short interval is to ask a  simple question,” what is the value that I can add up that transforms the life’s of others?”

Overstepping: How does one know that he has crossed his boundary? All that one needs to know is to see whether his action/inaction is causing the unnecessary worries, fears, doubts and anxieties. If you see any of the above symptoms then simply you know that you are crossing your limit. Don’t become over accountable and over responsible.  In fact, this is the main cause of the most of lifestyle diseases such as back pain, diabetes, migraine, etc.

One can drop tonnes of weight from his shoulder if one comes in terms with the above mentioned facts and that alone provides the right mind shift in him to blow out that unnecessary stress. Let us not the play the role of Hercules who carries the entire weight on his shoulder.

No Tension Formula:

Intention + Action = No Tension

Have a clear INTENTION in life and take the right ACTION keeping in my mind the positive outcome without any doubt then there is no tension in life.

SECRETS to RETAIN & MUTIPLY your Perfect WELLNESS state

Setting a Health & Fitness goal and achieving our desired goal is one part of the story. But, to retain the health in the same good state is another part of the story. On many real life cases, those who achieved the good health and fitness level fall back again to that imperfect health state from where they originally started from. Weight management is one such case where many of us use certain methods to achieve the perfect fitness level but in a matter of a year fairly a substantial set of those achievers fall back to the undesired fitness level again. This not only demotivates us but has a nasty effect on our emotional wellbeing. But, on a positive note, there are some who not only set& achieve health goal but also have the ability to maintain the desired state. This is really GOOD. To add to this, there are some who not only maintain but they move on to reach the ultimate of their health & fitness level. This is really AWESOME. Want to know the SECRET of these AWESOME club members?

Constant flow:  Perfect health fitness level is a high energy state. The energy in this state is awe-inspiring. It has great influence in all other dimensions of our life such as wealth, money, relationship & spiritual growth. The first set of rule is to allow the energy to flow from you to others.  Let this good energy gets in through you and flows out of you seamlessly. All we need to do is to act as a MEDIUM for this energy to flow immaculately without any blockade.

It multiplies: As we stay in the constant flow mode, we act as a water spring. As one takes more of the water from the spring, the spring generates more of the fresh water. All we need to do is to give the wisdom to as many people as possible for our goodness to multiply.

Go Giver: We work on ME-MINE-OTHERS dimensions. Initially, we act as a GO GETTER to acquire the desired wisdom in the ME & MINE dimensions. “ME” is the dimension where we upgrade our skills & “MINE” is the dimension, we upgrade our environment where we spent our energy. Once when we cross this stage, it is important to act as a GO GIVER in passing on the acquired wisdoms to OTHERS. This completes the cycle. So, we have to be a GO GETTER as well as a GO GIVER.

Higher Penetration Level: We have to make it as our duty to talk about this wisdom the people to whom we meet and feel about the goodness & be gratified. The magical world opens up beautifully for us to stay there for ever. The penetration level is really deep with the simple act of the above said duty.

Energy Booster: We have our own great moments and sometimes even dull moments. In our dull moments, surprisingly with no logical explanation, the right source of positive energy from the external world hits us to take us back in the right track. This external energy is nothing but the positive energy that we threw out to the external world in our past. It is now coming back to us to put us back in the desired state.

Become a Transceiver: A transceiver is a transmitter and a receiver. Let us simply stay as a transmitter in passing on the wisdom to others and that is our duty. And, stay as a receiver when we need the energy from the external world to uplift us in our dull moments of our life. A beautiful human wellness network is formed when each one of us follow this simple pattern. So, here is my request for all my old clients who have achieved their perfect Health & Fitness level. Become a transmitter of the goodness that you acquired to at least TEN people to create a RIPPLE effect and form this powerful Human wellness NETWORK. This simple act of you not only retains your wisdom but it MULTIPLIES your wellness.

Strategies to achieve a perfect Health

We all have good intention to have a great health. But, reality is always different and sometimes, health is just the polarity opposite of what exactly we intend to have. In some cases, we even suffer poor health. What is the reason to have such an opposite effect or not to have a desired perfect health condition? In many cases, when it comes to health, our behaviour is different than our intention. Behaviour and intention are not in alignment. For example, we may want to lose weight but our behaviour in dealing our daily life activities such as exercising, diet may not be in alignment with our intention. So, on long run, our resolution does not yield the desired result and hence, we fall back to the same original state where we originally kick started.

Conscious mind: Intention, goal setting and desire are the conscious decisions from the rational part of the mind controlled by the left hemisphere of the brain. This is such an easy part do it in the whole of setting and achieving the goals. This is what exactly we do when we set our goal such as New Year resolution. We human are innately programmed to set our life in an evolutionary path that seeks growth and hence setting a goal is always easy. The next step to have a perfect health is to have some sort of planning, strategies & processes. This second step is also under the complete control of the left hemisphere of the brain. So, our health goal setting, planning & strategies put together are all part of the conscious mind.

Subconscious mind: Our action based on the planning is also a decision controlled by our conscious mind. Now, we may have to take series of actions to achieve the desired perfect health. This is a phase where most of us fall apart. We don’t get the momentum to carry forward with the same intensity as we have had at the beginning. This is the phase where most of us fail and we fall back again to the same original state. Our old HABITS which are engrained deep within us become the root cause for such a failure. Our habits determine our present behaviour patterns. We are habitual animals and our habits are determined mainly by our own BELIEF system. These two components namely the HABIT and the BELIEF are controlled by our subconscious mind. We really need an enormous energy to change our belief and habit patterns.

Success of Health: We can only prosper very well to have a perfect health only when we keep our belief, habit, and our action plan & health goal all in perfect alignment to one another. If we work on the same old belief and habit then we may expect the same old result. We need to break this old habit patterns.

Two tactics: To break the old pattern, we need to have a good start point to achieve the goal and secondly the right momentum is required to take us in the right direction. A good start point can be achieved by means of affirmation and visualisation techniques. Our desired health goal needs to be affirmed and visualised very often to generate the essential happy emotion within us. All we need to do is to creatively visualise the feeling of having achieved the desired health & fitness?

Secondly, to gain the momentum, we need to develop a reward procedure where we intentionally look for a small positive result out of our action. In general, it is normal and natural that we tend to lose momentum as we move towards in achieving our health goal. Searching out for the small positive progress helps in building up the momentum. On long run, all those small positive results when compounded together yield the desired big positive result.

Experience a better life with daily two questions daily

Life is one complete learning experience. Learning experiences become limited when we do the same things in routine each day. To have wider variations of the life experiences, it is important to try new things and do the existing routine work differently. It is our mistake to expect the results to be different while we go on with the same things in life. We have to do things differently to get different results.

Resistance to change: The tendency of human is to show resistance to the changes. We take the shortest and least resistant path in life. Due to this characteristic, we eventually fall back to the normal routine of life even though we take up new challenges initially.

Way to go: There should be a motivational factor to try something differently. Our goals in life act as strong motivational factors. Whatever things we wish to try differently should be in alignment with our goals. Say for example, if our intention is to lose weight to become healthy then losing weight becomes our motivational factor to try some new physical exercises. Here, the new changes will become effective only when we develop the ability to capture the minute details of the developmental changes. Again, our tendency is to expect bigger and grosser results and when we fail to see the minute developmental changes, we tend to lose the interest and we fallback to our routine life. So, the key point here is to look for the small delta differences (minute developmental changes) for the new change to become effective.

Daily Two questions: Daily, make it as practice to ask the following two questions. A) What did I do differently in life today? B) What did I learn from today’s life experiences? The first question is related to our conscious effort whereas the second one is the effect of our conscious effort. This is similar to throwing a fishing net (our conscious effort) and our catch (different color fishes, different sizes etc) in the fishing net is the effect of our conscious effort which we can call as our life experiences.

Areas to focus: Once we decide to do things differently, it is important to focus in all the dimensions of life or at least, those areas where we have our weakness. In general, one can focus on health, fitness, material wealth, finances, relationships, skill development and spiritual development. Instead of focusing on all the different dimensions of the life, it is better to start with the areas where we have our weakness. If one asks the above two questions very specific to the areas where we have weakness then one notices a remarkable twist in those specific areas of life.

Journaling the points: When one practices, it is important to register in writing all the points related to the two questions: What did I do differently and what did I learn from today’s life experiences. Writing of the experiences triggers the higher center of the brain, the so-called thinking brain. This directs our awareness to certain explicit activities.