These birds hunt for food in the mornings, I know. But why are some of them flying so high in the sky? I can’t help but wonder. Surely they won’t find food on the clouds. It seems they are just enjoying being birds. Have wings, will fly. Some are flying in pairs, enjoying companionship in the midst of clouds. The clouds themselves are continuing on their journey; those that were adorning the sky just a few minutes ago are not to be seen; new ones have appeared. They are drifting continuously, sometimes hiding the mighty sun, and covering up most of the blue sky.

A thought occurs to me: I am so preoccupied with my life that mostly I remain unaware of a great unalterable truth—that I am a part of a much greater whole. I am flowing in the river of an incredible consciousness, unconsciously! My attention turns to the wonderful trees and flowers and another thought arises. As humans, we think of everything in terms of its utility to us. We’ve become economists, all of us. “Does it fulfil any demand?”, we ask. If not, it’s useless. We haven’t spared even flowers, whose beauty cannot be grasped by the human intellect. We have made them into a commercial proposition—growing them for sale. We’re civilized, we say, but does civilization mean being so disconnected from nature? Why has greed overshadowed everything else? Why has it colored every thought and every deed of humans?

Going with the flow

Meanwhile, the white clouds have now disappeared from the scene altogether. But they are there somewhere, moving along to some place they themselves don’t know; they are surrendered to nature. If they are conscious, they are wise; they offer no resistance. I wish I could ride the clouds—it would be so much fun, moving at a gentle pace to I don’t know where. When I have no destination, it doesn’t matter where I reach, it’s still the right place. And that’s how it is with life. If I have no resistance to what is unfolding, I will never be anxious about where I’ll end up.

No wonder animals and birds don’t need psychiatrists, I reckon. They live in absolute uncertainty, accepting whatever comes their way. They don’t think about future and so have no anxiety. Their fears too are instinctive—when there is clear and present danger—unlike ours, which are mostly psychotic, created by our overactive minds.

It’s time to go, get ready for work. As I leave the scene, I realize that we can learn so much from Nature—if only we would pay attention.

The post Float like the clouds, fly like the birds appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

“I am good when I give to others. It’s better to give than to receive.” Myth or magic?

Although many of us have grown up believing that it is our solemn duty to give, give, and keep on giving to others, that is only half-truth—a myth that prevents us from living joyfully and giving fully. Instead, consider what the world’s great sages say: You have a duty to give to others and to give to yourself. When you are in need, you must also receive. This advice sounds obvious, but how many of us are even near the top of our own copious to-do lists?

The principles of giving and receiving that apply to our daily lives are no different than the principles that operate in nature all around us. “A field that has rested gives a bountiful crop,” said the Roman poet Ovid. The earth must receive enough sunshine, water, and nutrients before it can produce a bountiful harvest from the seeds we plant. After the earth has given birth to the harvest, it must then rest and restore its life force so it can give again. The same is true of your life. How can you give to others if you don’t first nourish and fill yourself?

In a way that you might not have considered before, that question is embedded right inside the first principle we are taught as children—the golden rule. The golden rule is found throughout the world’s traditions. The Mahabharata, the ancient epic of India, says, “Do naught unto others, which would cause you pain if done to you.” Islam affirms that a true believer “desires for his brother that which he desires for himself,” and Christianity teaches, “Love thy neighbour as thyself.” Yet, if we are to love and treat others as [that is, in the same way that] we love and treat ourselves, how does that leave them if we treat ourselves with anything less than love and affection? Put another way, we can’t really honor others if we don’t first honor ourselves.

Myth: It is always my duty to give to others.

Magic: It is my duty to give to myself as well as to others. By giving to myself, I am giving to others.

Here, then, we meet the first paradox of the inner art of giving and receiving—we are able to care for and love others best when we care for and love ourselves first. Like all true paradoxes, the two seeming opposites are not mutually exclusive but mutually inclusive.

There is a season for both giving and receiving. Ecclesiastes, known as “the Teacher,” tells us [in the words made popular in the song by Pete Seeger]: “To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;… A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing.” Our job is to recognize which season we are living in at the moment and honor its call.

Learning to give to yourself

Some of us are awesome givers but not very good receivers. We don’t ask for support. We don’t admit to others or to ourselves that we need any. We don’t even like to accept compliments. We reside on one side of the paradox [“I have a duty to give to others”], but we have forgotten about its complement [“I have a duty to give to myself”]. When that happens, the universe will step in to wake us up, to create balance, and to show us that we must honor ourselves too.

No matter who we are, life automatically apprentices us to the art of giving and receiving, and our lessons often begin with what we can see and touch—our bodies. They start with the questions: Do you love yourself enough to honor your body’s needs? Do you give yourself the nourishment, rest, and recreation you deserve?

If you don’t willingly give that to yourself, your body will eventually make sure you get it. I saw this happen to an acquaintance I would spend time with a few times a year at business meetings. At one meeting, I asked how she was feeling, knowing that she had been recovering from a recent surgery. “I’m good, but busy again,” she said with a frown. “If I don’t get some time off soon, I’m going to have to schedule another visit to the hospital!” My heart skipped a beat as I realized that she might very well fulfil her own prophecy. She hadn’t learned the lesson her body had tried to teach her the first time.

I’m no stranger to these lessons myself. When I was recuperating from my own unexpected trip to the hospital, a friend, who was a nurse, insisted on dropping by a few times a day to make sure I had everything I needed. She could see I was having a hard time sitting still and accepting the fact that I should rest, so she appointed herself my guardian angel for the week. I kept telling her that I felt fine and there was no reason I couldn’t get up. Besides, there were so many things I needed to attend to. She didn’t buy it. Looking me straight in the eye, she said, “Your job now is to sit still and relax.”

If we want to get in touch with our inner potential, we must also care for our bodies

She went on to tell me that she was just passing on a lesson she had learned when she had gotten sick. Like me, she had wanted to bolt from her bed and get going. A mentor of hers, catching her out of bed, sent her right back under the covers. “It’s where you belong,” she had told her. “You’ve been a nurse for so long that you think you should always be giving to others. Now you have to learn to receive.” I could identify with that. I suspected that my tendency to work so hard for so long was partly what put me into the hospital in the first place. After my friend left, I sat back, closed my eyes, and promptly fell asleep. She was right. My body wasn’t quite ready to start giving again.

Although we have been taught to think that spirituality encourages us to turn our attention away from the body and the material world to what is “otherworldly,” there’s a misconception wrapped up in that logic—a misconception that the world’s great teachers have warned us to watch out for. They tell us that if we want to get in touch with our inner potential, we must also care for our bodies.

Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav, for example, said, “Strengthen your body before you strengthen your soul.” More than two thousand years earlier, this same realization prompted the founder of Buddhism to develop one of the keystones of his philosophy—the Middle Way. Siddhartha Gautama, an Indian prince, left his wife and young child looking for something more than riches and material pleasure. For six years he was an ascetic, believing that the practice of intense austerities would lead him to his goal of becoming enlightened. Depriving himself of the nourishment he needed, he became so weak that one day he almost died of starvation.

Fortunately, a young girl found Gautama and offered him a bowl of nourishing rice milk. Realizing that his sacrifices and severe practices had not brought him closer to enlightenment, he gratefully ate the meal. Strengthened, he vowed to meditate under a tree until he attained enlightenment. Gautama faced many temptations during the ordeal but, with his strength intact, he succeeded at last in achieving his goal. After his awakening, the first thing he taught was that only when we walk the Middle Way—can we attain enlightenment, indeed any deeply held goal.

That universal principle of the balanced Middle Way applies as much to us today as it did to those who first heard it from the Buddha’s lips. We, too, must examine whether our extreme sacrifices and the habits we think are making us “good” are actually bringing us closer to the fulfilment and meaning we seek in life. Do you sacrifice the needs of your body because you have adopted the myth that “my one and only duty is to give to others”? Do you ignore the warning signs and messengers who are trying to get you back into balance? Do you think of your body as something you must love?

Nora, a biochemistry researcher, found that changing how she looked at her body changed her life. For years, Nora had struggled with all kinds of diets and regimes without any success. When she had a serious health scare, she told herself that this was the last straw. She had to get into shape. It was now or never.

Fast forward three months. That’s when I met a new Nora, with a triumphant smile on her face. She had astounded herself and her friends by losing more weight than she had ever thought possible in so short a time. “I tend to be in my head a lot,” she admitted, “and so I never took much time to pay attention to my body. Once I started doing what was good for me physically, I saw that it wasn’t about losing weight but about loving my body. That made all the difference. Being careful about what I feed myself isn’t hard when I think about it like that.”

The first step to bringing your life back into balance is to be able to recognize when you are out of balance

You don’t have to be overweight to identify with Nora. With the hectic pace of our lives, when something has to give it’s often our bodies that get the short end of the stick, whether that’s reflected in the meals we skip, the fast foods we gobble down on the run, the excessive stimulants we drink, or the exercise we never quite fit in. The problem is that when we don’t keep our body in balance, the rest of us—our mind, our emotions, our spirit, our relationships—suffer as well.

There is a scene in the book Zorba the Greek that sums up the importance of caring for our bodies. The earthy Zorba never does anything without total resilience and passion. Zorba’s boss has yet to learn the joys of his life-affirming lifestyle. When his boss, head buried in a book and in the clouds, claims he’s not hungry and doesn’t want to eat the delicious meal Zorba has just prepared, Zorba exclaims, “But you’ve not had a bite since morning. The body’s got a soul, too, have pity on it. Give it something to eat, boss, give it something; it’s our beast of burden, you know. If you don’t feed it, it’ll leave you stranded in the middle o’ the road.”

The illusion of being full

Another myth that makes it hard to give ourselves the attention we deserve is the myth that busyness is strength—that the more balls we can juggle, the stronger we are. When we seem to have the ability to keep pushing—to go, go, go—we believe that we can do anything. We think that we’re members of that special breed who are built to give and who don’t need to rest and take breaks as much as everyone else. This is, in fact, a trick we play on ourselves. The truth is often that the more driven we are, the less energy we really have.

Brendan Kelly, an acupuncturist and herbalist who specializes in Chinese five-element acupuncture, talked to me about how this works, because, admittedly, I’m one of those who has managed to fool myself. Like all healing traditions, there are many ways of looking at how energy works in the body and in our lives, and what follows is just one interpretation of the classic Chinese view of how the body, mind, and spirit work together. It’s based on the idea that the body naturally needs alternating cycles of activity and rest so that we can replenish our reservoir of strength.

Our modern, fast-paced culture adds to the illusion by encouraging the buzz of busyness

An abundance of activity in our lives creates what Chinese medicine looks at as “heat” in the body. The heat we produce by our constant busyness uses up our body’s “coolant,” which we need in order to maintain our internal resources and reserves. When we use too much of our reserves and have much more heat than coolant, we can start to have a variety of symptoms, anything from anxiety and insomnia to hot flashes, redness, or heat anywhere in the body. “This coolant is what the Chinese call yin energy, and it is one source, though not the exclusive source, for our internal peace as well as deep wisdom,” Brendan explained. “What happens when we burn out this coolant is that we are sacrificing the possibility of deep peace and wisdom for short-term activity and busyness.”

In other words, by keeping our lives full of activity without taking time to reenergize, we create “a lack of internal peace and we don’t have the ability to listen to who we are,” said Brendan. “Without enough ‘coolant,’ we cannot know who we are in our heart or express who we are in a balanced way.”

As you might expect, we can rebuild our yin energy [our coolant] by relaxing and creating a state of stillness, whether by giving ourselves more breaks or more sleep, engaging in prayer or meditation, or using certain healing therapies.

Now, here’s how we trick ourselves. The less strength or resources we have within, the more we may sense an internal inadequacy, as if we just don’t have enough to keep going. None of us likes that feeling, so we tend to push even harder to make up for it. We pump ourselves up with stimulants, fill our days with activity, and create more external busyness. All of that masks the feeling that we’re really running on empty. The busyness, the activity, and the stimulants conceal our internal depletion and create the illusion that we have more energy than we do. Our modern, fast-paced culture adds to the illusion by encouraging the buzz of busyness. We are skilled at creating all sorts of products and elixirs to help us keep on buzzing. But all along, the internal buzz that we label as energy isn’t real energy. Instead, it indicates a lack of real energy.

“The extra heat in the body gives us the impression that we have more energy,” says Brendan, “but we don’t have more energy—just more heat. When you use heat instead of real energy to propel you through the day, what you give up is a sense of internal well-being.” What’s the difference between that and a state where we are truly energized and full? When we have ample inner resources, we don’t rush to and fro. Instead, we are at peace and have inner stability because we feel full and secure. We take care of what needs to be done, but we aren’t consumed by the compulsive need to push beyond what our bodies can handle at the moment because we know that we cannot continue to give to others if we ourselves aren’t full.

Myth: My drive to stay busy and my ability to keep doing more means I am strong.

Magic: Stillness creates strength.

A classic image that is sometimes used as an analogy for this process is that of a fire [heat] burning beneath a bowl [our body] that is holding water [our yin coolant]. The fire heats the water and creates steam, which represents what the Chinese call ch’i, our vital energy or essential life force. The ch’i is the sustaining energy we need to live. When things are in balance, the fire creates a natural warming effect. But if the fire becomes too hot, the water begins to boil. If this goes on too long, the heat literally consumes the water and dissipates the energy we need to bank our inner fire. Once the water is boiled away, we can literally collapse because we are not able to produce any more energy, or ch’i.

“When this happens, the results can be dramatic,” says Brendan. “One month you feel that you have a lot of energy and the next month you fall off the cliff—you’re in bed and you can’t move.”

Are you running on full tank or are you running on the illusion of a full tank? Do you let your tank become empty before you fill it up again and therefore run the risk of stalling out? Do you let your light go out because you don’t have enough oil in your inner lamp? In short, where do you put yourself on the list of priorities in your life? Too often we relegate our needs to the bottom of the list, if we’re on the list at all. We take care of our duties and obligations to others first and use the energy that’s left over for ourselves. But, truthfully, how often is there any energy left over?

During the natural ebb and flow of our week, we all need relief

What if we reversed that order? What if we made sure our lamp had enough oil in it first before lighting the way for others? Wouldn’t that help us keep our lamp burning strong so we could give more light to others? To do that, we must learn to recognize our inner needs and then draw healthy boundaries so we have the time and energy to fill those needs. To renew ourselves so that we can continue to give, and give well, we must embrace the paradox that saying no will enable us to say yes.

If the idea of saying no makes you cringe, know that this principle comes straight out of spiritual tradition. The greatest teachers knew how to say no. Like all of us, they needed time alone to recharge and renew. Even an indefatigable missionary of mercy like Mother Teresa taught that renewal is a prerequisite for strength. She said that renewal is what gives us the energy to continue serving others. She observed that “the contemplatives and ascetics of all ages and religions have sought God in the silence and solitude of the desert, forest, and mountain” and said that we, too, are called to withdraw at certain intervals. It is when we are alone with God in silence, she said, that “we accumulate the inward power which we distribute in action.”

She was following the advice of her own teacher. Jesus did the same after he fed the multitudes the loaves and fishes. He told his disciples to go into the boat ahead of him, and “when he had sent the multitudes away, he went up into a mountain apart to pray: and when the evening was come, he was there alone.” With a somewhat lighter touch on the same topic, John Barrymore once joked that “God said it is not good for man to be alone, but sometimes it is a great relief!”

During the natural ebb and flow of our week, we all need relief. That’s when drawing boundaries [saying no politely, of course] is appropriate. When your energy is ebbing, it’s time to shift gears from an active orientation of giving energy to a receptive one of receiving. It’s time to plug back in to your energy source and do what most reenergizes you—whether it’s walking in nature, listening to a favorite piece of music, playing a game, or simply closing your eyes, doing nothing, and taking a long, deep breath.

Getting to know you

Instead of pushing yourself beyond your limits and pumping yourself up with more stimulants so that you can fulfil more commitments to others, honouring yourself calls for a different habit. It asks you to become conscious of what you need, right now, inside and out. In order for you to do what you must to regain balance, and to remember to do it tomorrow and the next day and the next, you first have to know yourself.

“I know myself”—it’s one of the most profound statements we can ever make. Self-knowledge, after all, is the ultimate goal extolled by mystics and masters the world around. Inscribed in the forecourt of Apollo’s temple at Delphi was the famous command “Know thyself.” The Book of Thomas the Contender says, “He who has not known himself has known nothing,” and the Zohar, from the Jewish mystical tradition of the Kabbalah, encourages, “Go to your self, know your self, fulfill your self.”

One of the reasons you may not take specific actions to fill your own needs is simply that you don’t really know yourself at the most basic level. You don’t know how you really feel and what you really need. While “knowing yourself” is a lifelong goal that has deeper and deeper layers of meaning, you can take tiny steps toward that goal every day. Here’s a simple question that can help you refocus on what you need to do to come back into balance: What do I need right now to be happy?

When I’ve asked myself that question, I often answer that to do my most creative work, I need quiet and I need regular doses of fresh air out in nature. Yet awareness alone is not enough. If I don’t care enough to honor myself, to put those needs on my priority list, I won’t remember to turn to those antidotes when I begin to feel cranky and anxious. When things start spinning out of control, unless I make a point of asking myself that question again and again, I forget to fill my lungs with fresh air. I forget to take control and create the quiet I need by turning off the phones, refusing to look at my e-mail, or physically moving myself to a quiet spot to work.

A friend who works out of her home reminded me of how empowering it can be to know yourself and then act on that knowing. One day I asked her when was the best time for us to meet. She immediately replied in a straightforward way, “It’s better for me to meet in the late afternoon. If I go out in the morning, I am tempted to start doing errands. I stop here and there on my way back to my office, and I just don’t get the work done that I need to do.” She knew that much about herself and therefore she could set up a schedule that was best for her. Like many of the methods for honoring yourself, this doesn’t sound difficult, but it takes practice. The change starts with watching yourself, getting to know yourself, and then translating that knowledge into action that honors your needs.

The post Living in balance: As within so without appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

Human beings are, by nature, creatures of habit. Searching for a life that is both predictable and within our comfort zone, we rely on routine and, for the most part, learned thinking patterns. We create pathways in our minds in much the same way that a path is beaten through a grass field from repeated use. Because these patterns are automatic, we may believe these habitual ways of thinking and behaving to be beyond our control. Thus we rationalise our responses to life and fall prey to forces that limit our potential as human beings. By viewing ourselves as relatively powerless and driven by instinct, the possibility that we can create, or at least co-create, our own reality becomes difficult to grasp. Instead, we often lock ourselves inside our own mental prisons. We lose sight of our own natural potential and that of others. In essence, we become prisoners of our thoughts.

Yet we can reshape our patterns of thinking. Through our own search for meaning, we can unfreeze ourselves from our limited perspective, find the key, and unlock the door of our metaphorical prison cell. We can change our perspective once we realise that we do, indeed, have the freedom to choose our attitude toward whatever is happening in our lives.

The responsibility for choosing our attitude lies solely with each of us. It cannot be transferred to someone else. This ultimate responsibility applies both to our personal and our work lives. We have made this claim over the years to various business and government clients, especially in cases where workers, including executives and managers, seem intent on complaining about their working conditions rather than doing anything to change the situation. We all know people who habitually define their work or job in a negative way.

Take, for example, Bob, who would appear to many to be a fairly successful bank executive. However, his work journey has taken him through some dramatic twists and turns, causing him much stress. Bob rarely, if ever, seems positive or optimistic about his job and, by extension, his life. He complains incessantly about his responsibilities, his colleagues, his customers, his community, and just about every other aspect of his working life. Bob’s colleagues and family hear nothing but stories of misery, negativity, and despair.

Unfortunately, Bob seems unable and unwilling to see that he is creating his own reality, that his constant complaining is hampering his work success and negatively affecting his family and his personal life. One by one, Bob’s friends have drifted away from him, not wanting to surround themselves with such negativity. His family perseveres, enduring through a sense of obligation but certainly not through a sense of joy.

The responsibility for choosing our attitude lies solely with each of us

Complaining about a miserable job around the water cooler or starting a “bitch and moan club” at the office might offer moments of camaraderie, but it doesn’t nurture meaning— for oneself or for others. The idea that work is neither fun nor fulfilling takes a huge toll on our ability to bring meaning to our work. When we habitually complain, we make meaninglessness a habit. Before long, we are so deeply invested in complaining that any opportunity to see the work experience as a rich part of our lives vanishes. Instead of taking the time to find meaning, we take the time to find and focus on meaninglessness. Such complaints trivialise our experiences— both at work and in our personal lives. When we complain, we disconnect. When we complain, we hold whatever or whoever we’re complaining about as a shield. We therefore perpetuate victimisation and helplessness.

What is a serial complainer to do? The first task is to become aware of when and why we are complaining. The second task is to stop complaining! This doesn’t mean we won’t complain once in a while; it means that we become aware of when we are complaining and that we are choosing to complain, choosing to be negative. This does not mean that we deny our burdens, our grief, and our worries and sign on to a Pollyannaish, blindly optimistic perspective of the world. Viktor Frankl certainly had the opportunity to complain. He could have chosen to be negative. However, he excavated the darkest despair and discovered meaning in his circumstances. He didn’t have to create the meaning— it was there waiting to be found. He knew well the meaning of unavoidable suffering through his experience in the Nazi concentration camps. He knew the darkest human behaviour and, at the same time, the brightest light of human possibility. Frankl carried the awareness of both potentialities, which deepened his humanity and created in him a deep and abiding faith. He saw people rise out of the most depraved circumstances and offer all they had to others. Viktor Frankl saw the manifestation of spirit on a daily basis.

When we habitually complain, we make meaninglessness a habit

When we recognise that we always have the ultimate freedom to choose our attitude, we are free to choose whether it will be negative or positive. By releasing our negative attitude, we release energy that can then be used to connect more meaningfully with others. When we authentically connect more deeply with others, we create a new community of support and possibility. When we make this kind of authentic connection, we can’t avoid meaning. It’s waiting for us around every water cooler, in every elevator, cubbyhole, taxicab, conference room, and corporate boardroom. When we open ourselves to meaning, when we stop to appreciate ourselves and others in meaningful ways, we immediately enhance the quality of our own lives as well as the lives of those around us.

Ten Positive Things Exercise

One of the simplest yet most powerful tools we use to reinforce and apply the “Exercise the Freedom to Choose Your Attitude” principle is our “Ten Positive Things Exercise.” To begin, think of a situation in your personal life or at work that is particularly stressful, negative, or challenging for you. Now write ten positive things that resulted from or could result from this situation. Write down any thoughts that come to mind, without filtering them for realism or social acceptance. Try to list as many positives as you can, going beyond ten if possible. Feel free to determine or define what “positive” means to you. After you have completed your list, review it and let the positives become possibilities in your mind. This requires letting go of your current blocked or old ways of thinking, moving beyond disappointment or frustration, and perhaps even abandoning anger. This exercise can open you to a higher level of optimism, no matter how challenging your personal circumstance.

The “Ten Positive Things Exercise” can be applied to many situations. Imagine doing this exercise with this instruction: List ten positive things that would happen if you died today. Most people are not used to discussing, contemplating, and exploring the positives associated with someone’s death, let alone their own! Having done this exercise with many groups, we can assure you that once people get over the initial shock and resistance, they relax and actually have a great deal of fun looking for the positives in what is perhaps the most catastrophic situation imaginable. Many people start to see a silver lining or hopeful side in something even as terrible as their own deaths. On one occasion, we had a participant state as a positive: “My wife can finally marry the person she always wanted to marry!”

If we can find something positive to say about our own death, it should be easier to find something positive about our work situation, family life, and so forth. Use this exercise to help you find the positives in such varying and challenging circumstances as losing your job, being in a car accident, and others.

Try these:

• List ten positive things that would happen if you lost your job today.
• List ten positive things that would happen if your department at work was eliminated.
• List ten positive things that would happen from a breakdown in the production line at work.
• List ten positive things that would happen with an across-the-board 20 percent budget cut at work.
• List ten positive things that would happen if you were in a car accident.
• List ten positive things that would happen if your credit card was lost.
• List ten positive things that would happen if your romantic relationship ended today.
• List ten positive things that would happen if you gained weight.

Each of these situations can be viewed from many different perspectives. No matter how desperate the situation or condition may be, we can always find something positive upon which to focus our attention. When we view the situation in a different light, new ideas, solutions, and opportunities are more likely to come to the surface. Our experience with conducting this exercise in group settings has shown that the positive energy among participants increases dramatically as they learn new things about themselves, each other, and the specific situation they are facing. Everyone learns to release themselves from their self-imposed thought prisons and, as a result, recognises that ultimately we are all free to choose our attitude, no matter what the circumstance.

Many people start to see a silver lining or hopeful side in something even as terrible as their own deaths

Exercise in Action

We have effectively used the “Ten Positive Things Exercise” in many different settings, in a wide variety of life and work situations. Here are two examples of the exercise in action.

Father and daughter

The first example involves a client-training session we were conducting in Alaska with the U.S. Forest Service. At the end of the first day of a two-day session, we overheard comments from one of the more reluctant participants, Paul; he was not interested in the training and didn’t feel that it was relevant to him. The “Ten Positive Things Exercise” had been introduced and practised that afternoon, and Paul obviously was not impressed.

The next morning when we returned to the training venue, we noticed Paul sitting beside two other participants, laughing. When we asked him what had happened, he reported that when he went home the evening after our session, he was shocked to learn that his teenage daughter had received a tongue piercing and was now sporting a new piece of jewellery in her mouth. Angry and upset, Paul argued with his daughter and wife; in short, he had a terrible night with his family. When he returned to the training session, looking tired and depressed, he confessed to his two co-workers what had happened. Immediately, they asked him to list ten positive things that might result from his daughter’s action of piercing her tongue. Working together, he and his co-workers identified many potential positives to be gained from Paul’s stressful experience (for example, his daughter was alive, she wasn’t pregnant, she wasn’t in jail, she had shared this event with him, and so on). By looking at these optimistic realities, Paul fostered an entirely new and positive attitude toward his daughter and even our training session! Doing this exercise put this situation in perspective for Paul and helped him to see that things could have been worse for his teenage daughter. He soon changed his attitude about the piercing.

Free even in the prison

The second example involves a unique twist. I (Alex) had been asked to conduct a workshop on the principles outlined in Prisoners of Our Thoughts for inmates at a state penitentiary. The idea of discussing ways to escape one’s inner mental prison with actual inmates, some of whom had been sentenced to serve years in prison, was an unusual and challenging opportunity. “Okay, everyone, I would like you to list 10 positive things about being in prison,” I told the group of about two dozen inmates, who looked at me like I was crazy. In a room designated primarily for education and training purposes, the inmates sat at tables arranged in a circle. Each participant had been given a pad of paper and a small pencil (confiscated at the end of the session for security reasons). They began writing. Some inmates grumbled and others laughed at what they had been asked to do, but all of them participated in the exercise in one way or another. As expected, some participants were unable to find anything positive in their incarceration, at least not until they heard what their fellow inmates had to say. Some inmates were very serious in the way they framed their responses to this exercise, while others let their imaginations soar with a sense of humour that might have seemed out of place under such circumstances. Here are some examples across the spectrum of what they shared:

• “Society is now protected from me since I’m locked up.”
• “I now know what I don’t want to do with (the rest of) my life.”
• “I can be a role model for others so that they don’t do what I did.”
• “I’m no longer homeless.”
• “I’ve learned who my real friends are and who aren’t.”
• “I’ve been reborn and now value life and freedom like never before.”
• “I get to work out a lot.”

Of course, these reflections comprise only a snapshot of what the participants shared. The exercise lifted the heavy weight of the energy in the room and tapped into the human spirit. The participants no longer had to think and act only as prison inmates, so each person could experience, even with a sense of humour, the sharing of his authentic thoughts and feelings with the others. The experience enabled them to explore what some might call the silver lining in their current predicament. By being challenged not to be prisoners of their thoughts, each participant had the chance to exercise the freedom to choose his attitude despite the circumstance of being incarcerated in an actual prison.

This article has been adapted from Prisoners of Our Thoughts (Third Edition, Revised and Expanded) by Alex Pattakos and Elaine Dundon; Published by Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc. Used with permission from the authors.
Buy this book.

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Published by: Simon & Schuster

ISBN: 978-1476785462

Pages: 224

Price: INR 353

When we hear the word “creativity”, visions of paintings, poetry and music float through our minds, our conventional wisdom suggesting that it is a special gift. However, creativity expert Barnet Bain holds the view that everything we do is a process of creativity.

In The Book of Doing and Being, he walks us through a series of over 40 practical exercises while providing eye-opening insights into recognising and reactivating that spark we all possess, that we call creativity, no matter what our job involves.

This is a book best read in small doses. And reading alone is not enough. As the author suggests, the book can be a helpmate in our journey of rediscovering our creative self. Have a journal handy and jot down your thoughts as you work through the exercises in this book.

Starting with a call to become aware of our hurdles to creative expression, the author provides what he calls a Self-Inquiry Practice to help us identify if the barriers to our inspiration are hand-me-downs or self-imposed, i.e. more of a habit than a conscious choice. When we often trust popular culture to give us an understanding of our world, we diminish our originality and eventually suppress our inherent artistry.

Whether it is the way we care for the people we love, or how we brainstorm in a boardroom, we have an innate desire to improve the world in some way, based on our values. The author urges us to jot down a Life Wheel to serve as our values map—a tool for identifying our goals, desires and  priorities, not only in career and finances but also in family life, love life, health, relaxation and spirituality—represented as seven slices in this life wheel. As we tailor this wheel, reflecting on how much attention we would like to give to each slice, we are better able to recognise our deficit areas that need attention.

Life being what it is today, many of us get overwhelmed and stressed. We cope by conjuring up a mixture of thoughts and feelings that numb these powerful emotions, acting like anaesthetics. We learn this numbing mechanism at a young age and rely on it to handle feelings that overpower us. The four emotional anaesthetics—self-pity, blame, guilt and control—work to undermine our creative self. However, if we are cognizant of this fact, we can certainly learn to thrive under distress.

Neuroplasticity, the ability of our brain to form new neural connections at any stage in life, allows us to compensate for injury and disease and reclaim our functions. Similarly, the author proposes Creative Plasticity, an imaginative malleability that welcomes and enhances creative flow. The four exercises in this chapter essentially serve to rewire the brain through relaxation. Be it mindful breathing to promote alpha brain waves, or a nap, or a nature walk, or a sojourn at a favourite body of water, we can all find what relaxes us and helps us refocus. Another practical and easily doable exercise for rewiring is to change our routine—write with the non-dominant hand, drink beverage from a different utensil than the preferred one, sleep on a different side of the bed, sit at a different spot at the family dining table, take a new route to work. By approaching common things a bit differently, we can rekindle the flames of creativity.

In the chapter, “Engaging the Muses”, we encounter the nine Olympian muses—not the relics of made-up ancient world, but the creative forces that are outside our structured, logical framework. The muses await invitation. Despite the obstructions that hold us back, if we are willing to move forward and are raring to go, the muses will accept our invitation to co-create, working with our subconscious intelligence. Even if we don’t believe in Thalia, the keeper of joyous humour, or her counterpart Melpomene, the protector of tragedy, we can certainly extend the idea of the muses to mean that we are inclined to give laughter a chance, and that we are prepared to face adversity with courage.

Barnet Bain notes that, “when the dynamism of doing comes together with the receptivity of being, creative innovation cannot be stopped.”

The Book of Doing and Being ends with urging us to be brave and to “let go”—of a job, an identity or a way of being or relating, especially when it is difficult and full of complaints. The fear of what we could lose by letting go of the familiar is not easily offset by the promise of where we think creativity can take us. As a reassurance, the author acknowledges that creativity is a gift—a gift that is given to everybody, if we are open to receiving it.

This was first published in the January 2016 issue of Complete Wellbeing

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Wikipedia defines a safety net as a device that “protects people from injury after falling from heights by limiting the distance they fall, and deflecting to dissipate the impact energy”. The net was first installed as a safety device during the Golden Gate Bridge construction during 1933 –1937 to prevent construction employees from falling to their death.

Humans design all kinds of safety nets in life to protect themselves in case they have a metaphorical “fall”. It would seem that safety nets make people working above it more courageous and inspire them to work harder and be more successful in the knowledge that there is something to protect them if they make a mistake. That’s true in theory but in practice, a safety net encourages failure. It becomes a hammock that makes people lax and lulls people into complacency. Knowing that there’s something to fall back upon, they tend to become less alert, practise less and are more likely to make mistakes and fail. Why? Because failure is now a “safe” option.

Success usually comes to those who don’t think about failure. They don’t give themselves an option to hesitate. Hence they are not focussed on preventing failure but on attaining their goals. Because of this courageous mindset, they usually succeed in a big way. But if you think courage is synonymous with recklessness, this adrenaline-pumping issue will make you change your mind. It will make you see that courage is the only thing that makes life worth living. On the other hand, the stakes of timidity and comfort zones are way too high—though we may continue to breathe and exist, we end up losing out on life itself.

In the New Year’s first cover story, Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval share true accounts of grit and greatness. The stories will arouse your latent valour and make you re-think about the safety nets that might be preventing you from living to your highest potential. “Too often, our typical default setting is to fear disaster, rather than actually plan for it,” they write adding, “We live life avoiding what we fear, a hundred times a day. And what we fear often comes down to failure or rejection.”

Best-selling author of Bangkok 8 and its sequels, British writer John Burdett experienced firsthand how comfort makes you lackadaisical and sets you up for failure. He urges aspiring novelists to shun security and treat comfort as their enemy, an advice I relate to, not just as a writer but as someone who values life. He says, “It is quite amazing how hard the subconscious works when it is made to understand that this life is not a rehearsal, there is no safety net and no assurance of any final closure. It is also quite appalling to realise how catatonic the imagination can become when we hedge our bets, opt for the safer direction at every fork in the path.”

As you read this issue, I hope that you will regain your nerve to step out of your comfort zones and live life the way you were meant to—boldly.

Wish you a joyous 2016!

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One day, a young friend paid a visit to the prominent British philosopher Bertrand Russell, and found him in a contemplative mood. “Why so meditative?” he enquired. “Because I’ve made an odd discovery,” replied Russell. “Every time I talk to a savant I feel quite sure that happiness is no longer a possibility. Yet when I talk with my gardener, I’m convinced of the opposite.”

That’s a profound observation by the Nobel Prize recipient. When it comes to pursuit of happiness, the more learned we are, the more illusive it seems. If only we could sit back and relax, and resist the charm of the storylines in our heads, we would realise that life is quite simple. This is what the great Chinese philosopher pointed to when he said, “Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.” Yes, we make it complicated by thinking and analysing too much. We mix up our priorities, then wonder why life is not working out for us; we live a life fabricated out of mistaken ideals, then complain about the lack of fulfilment; we chase worthless objects in the hope that they will bring happiness, then the illusion breaks apart.

But life need not be so full of complications. That’s why, on the occasion of our 9th anniversary, we decided to turn our attention to the basics—the stuff that true happiness is made of. Susan Biali, an internationally recognised medical doctor who is also a life coach, gently reminds us of the nine elementary factors of happiness and wellbeing that we tend to overlook in our busy everyday living. These “building blocks” as we like to call them, don’t come as a revelation. In fact, we miss them only because they are so obvious. And yet, mull over them calmly and you will discover that maybe you need to revisit the priorities in your life and make some much needed changes.

While explaining the need to cultivate emotional resilience, Susan highlights the importance of conscious commitment to live in a balanced, mentally healthy place. “As soon as life gets crowded, most people push sleep, good nutrition and exercise out of the way, to make room for what we think is ‘more important’. We’ve got it backwards! We should see these good health basics as the foundation of our day, the non-negotiable framework of balance in our lives, rather than considering them as disposable options,” she says.

Of the nine building blocks, you may discover that you have a few of them already in place—these are the aspects of your life that are going well. You now need to make a conscious effort to get the remaining blocks to interlock and fit with the existing ones. The changes may not happen overnight but once you are committed to the new blueprint of your life, it’s only a matter of time when the structure of your life will become sturdy and durable—with the wherewithal to resist small and big tremors that will strike from time to time.

Happy Diwali!

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Published by: Rupa Publications

ISBN: 978-8129135759

Pages: 152

Price: INR 200

If only sprouting wisdom teeth indicated wisdom, it would have been enough to simply declare with conviction: “Henceforth, I will always act as I’ve learned.” But you know as well as I do that this is not how life works. Those wisdom teeth are a futile pain and only a fool would call himself forever wise. A man seeking wisdom will always be ‘work-in-progress’, because learning is gathered on the go, much like fruits from a tree—they are there, waiting to be picked. Only, we need to be able to see them around us, in our days of work and play, family and friends, and even strangers who we meet.

But then one wonders, where is the time, or the patience, to just observe the wonders of nature, or a child’s pretend play? By introspecting these minutiae is how [and why] books like Satish Mandora’s Why the Vada Seller Refused a Sale get written.

This collection of short stories helps you look at ordinary happenings with awareness for their life-changing ability. Written in fuss-free language, the book is divided into five sections which, according to the author, are the five crucial aspects of life: Awareness, Energy, Action, Communication and Relationships.

Mandora asks, “How many of you on your deathbed would say, ‘I wish I was in my office’?”; a simple point about how we have lost sight of what truly motivates us to work. He emphasises the importance of inviting enthusiasm into our lives—a ‘great high’ which ‘if you can’t make it, fake it’ till the energy becomes a real part of your everyday, he says. Because we humans are wired to connect, we create the atmosphere where good cheer is as contagious as low spirits are. Then, wouldn’t it be good to be conscious of our moods when we walk into a room full of people? Or, to learn how to make an effort to create positive energy? To this end, he rejects ritualistic regularity and instead suggests embracing actions which speak to us and define us. Being obsessed with being regular because it is the ‘done thing’ dampens life.

‘Leader… do you really need a title?’ tells of his experience with a music shop staff, portraying how the value of a purchase can also be measured in the goodness of people helping you procure it, and that designations don’t count. In ‘The Discipline of Freedom’, the author explains how freedom to do what we want borders on selfishness; instead, freedom that ensures that another’s space is not violated is what is worth celebrating.

In the daily grind, we rarely remember the dream, but it never quite dies. Through slices of his own life, Mandora reminds us of things we have forgotten. A child who calls a crow a singing bird is correct in her own imagination, by her own sense of music, even if marked wrong by the class teacher. Or how important it is to ‘forget’ your phone at home when you go for a family dinner; or to know the difference between ‘eating’ and ‘savouring’. Or even to be aware of the subtle difference between discipline and compliance at work.

It is people who matter little to us who can open our eyes to important truths. From children to old people, family to strangers, waiters to CEOs, the presence and actions of people who surround us lend us with these insights, says Satish. Their ‘foolishness’ is important too, because doing things differently speaks about the creativity of the doer while nurturing tolerance in the onlooker.

As a mother, a most beautiful reminder in the book for me was what the author learnt as a co-participant from another mother in a programme by Dr. Newton Kondavetti – “Whenever she made a mistake in interacting with or understanding her daughter, the lady would apologise to her child and add, ‘I hope you understand that I’ve made a mistake. I, too, am only a 10-year-old mother.’”

‘Why the Vada Seller Refused a Sale’ is a bedside read that you can turn to during idle moments or when taking a break from busy ones. Some instances of ‘preach what you practice’ seem to have been written with very young readers in mind.

The frequent references to the author’s training workshops and their success tend to break the flow of the narrative at times. However, overall the book is replete with constructive suggestions and while some come across as simplistic and idealistic, many seamlessly become a part of the readers’ streams of consciousness.

This book details how wisdom travels, across countries and times, to strike a chord with unknown minds and add to the work-in-progress that we all are.

This was first published in the March 2015 issue of Complete Wellbeing.

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Meaning comes alive

Published by: BenBella Books

ISBN: 978-0525954187

Pages: 255

Price: INR 1350

A couple of months ago, on the occasion of our 8th anniversary issue, we wanted to choose a topic that would connect deeply with everyone alive. So we settled on ‘finding meaning in everyday life’. We then started looking for someone to write the cover story on such a profound and universally relevant topic. As providence would have it, we found Alex and Elaine, who had just finished writing their new book on that very subject. We invited them to write and they accepted, and wrote one of the most significant cover stories in Complete Wellbeing.

Their new book The OPA! Way is now in stores. The book expands on the ideas presented in the cover story. But it’s not a run-of-the-mill self-help book. Far from it, The OPA! Way is an insightful odyssey that takes you back to the basics in a delightfully non-preachy style and tells you how you can weave joy and meaning into every single day.

The book is based on the authors’ travels to Greece, the land of philosophers, where they learned the secrets of living a life filled with joy and meaning. What makes the book come alive is the narration—every chapter starts, and is interspersed, with personal anecdotes of the authors’ experiences and encounters with Greek folk. As they share their stories, we accompany them to the narrow lanes of Greek villages, visit Greek kafenios [cafés], spend time at the village plateia [public squares] and meet a variety of ordinary Greek folk who, through their words and actions, teach us that living joyfully each day is far easier than the struggles that most of us have become used to.

Every chapter of The OPA! Way is sprinkled with generous doses of wisdom that strike a deep chord with our fundamental humanity. As an example, when you meet someone for the first time, the conversations are about making you comfortable and establishing a human connection before asking about work and accomplishments. So, instead of asking, “What do you do?” which is the common introductory question in the west, they might ask, “Which village are you from?” Throughout their travels within the country, Alex and Elaine were recipients of kindness from total strangers—people they would meet on the streets, or in cafés—they encountered gestures that reinforce the basic goodness of humans, despite how hopeless it seems to those of us living in large cities.

Even though the book flows like water in the river, it has a basic structure. Divided into five sections that include an introduction to lay the foundation of the book, followed by the three main sections—connecting meaningfully with others, engaging with deeper purpose and embracing life with attitude—and finally concluding with a summary of the key OPA! lessons. To emphasise the ideas and insights that they gained, the authors extensively use quotes of Greek thinkers and philosophers including Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Heraclitus, Epictetus, Pythagoras, Hippocrates and many more.

Another endearing aspect of the book is the Aesop’s fables that spring up every now and then, making a point that is at once simple and yet intense. The tales, although familiar, seem fresh and different in the context of the ideas presented in the book, leaving you to contemplate on the meaning in the little things in life. The chapters end with a short OPA! affirmation to help us remember the essence of the ideas contained in them.

Indian readers may find a striking similarity in many aspects of the Greece and India—and may also recognise, albeit somewhat unhappily as I did, that we have been fast losing the heritage that makes our culture and tradition so rich and fulfilling. In blindly following the west in its mindless pursuit of wealth and possessions, we are paying a heavy price. But the good news is, we can all return to sanity.

The OPA! Way is a reminder for all of us stop and reflect on why and how we are doing what we are doing. It tells us how we can bring greater joy and fulfilment into our daily lives by following the timeless and universal values that put us back in touch with our glorious humanness and our innate potential for bliss. Read this book if you feel empty or incomplete—or just to enjoy the many heartwarming stories that bring a smile on the lips.

Buy The OPA! Way

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What is happiness?

What is happiness, you ask. It is something to seek within—a state of mind. It’s a harmonious balance of the various spokes in the wheel of life. My definition of happiness is to achieve my mission statement:

To be with family and friends, leave a legacy, achieve and maintain mental, emotional, physical, spiritual, professional and material wellbeing.

Meaningful relationships with family and friends make life worth appreciating and sharing. Leaving a legacy for future generations helps make the world a better place. ‘Busy hands are happy hands,’ says an old saying. But I reckon that the moment one has some free time and resources, it is important to give back to society. It is important to actively work for and espouse various causes, and pass the baton to future generations, so the good work gets carried on. Enjoying the ‘here and now’ might confer temporary happiness, but enduring happiness comes more easily out of thinking and acting for others.

Happiness is realising that learning to live a life goes far beyond simply making a living, and that the simple pleasures of life are priceless—enjoying a beautiful sunset, hearing from a long lost friend, watching a tiger in the wild, an eagle soar…

Learning from history should not mean carrying the burden of unhappy experiences. It is also important to remember past successes, to reinforce confidence, while enabling the visualisation of future successes. A bright and successful future awaits the person who decides to learn from the past and look ahead in life, with all the health, wealth and happiness life has to offer. This enables us to live in the moment and experience the joy of living, as well as look forward to a future of boundless, endless possibilities.

Happiness is also about understanding and applying The Law of Attraction. Eloquently brought out in the movie ‘The Secret,’ it says that thoughts manifest into reality, and we become what we think about and focus on most.

What is motivation?

The dictionary defines it as, “a force that drives character to overcome conflicts or a set of forces that cause people to behave in a certain way?” Motivation is simply “a reason for doing something.” In a rousing commencement address to Stanford University students in 2005, Steve Jobs shared some very personal stories about his life. Given up for adoption when he was born, Jobs was fired from a company he started, and diagnosed with terminal cancer. Tremendous motivation led him to unbelievable efforts, resulting in him being recently named ‘CEO of the Decade.’ He said, ‘Sometimes life hits you on the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. You’ve got to find what you love.’ Indeed, wonderful lessons in motivation –‘Find what you love’ and ‘The triumph of the human spirit in the face of adversity.’

Most of us spend a great part of our life working. It is critical to foster an atmosphere where the best talent is recruited, retained, nurtured and unleashed. An environment with open and honest communication, mutual respect, fair recruitment and appraisal policies, growth opportunities, customer orientation, and a strong set of values and ethics go a long way in creating a strong sense of belonging towards an organization. The best workplaces promote meritocracy, and have an environment that promotes collective responsibility, ownership, mutual cooperation and benefit, unimpeachable integrity, camaraderie and a win-win proposition for the employer and employee. The result: inspired employees who take individual and organizational performance to another level, where everyone works with passion, honesty and inspiration.

Productivity and motivation in an organization are greatest when there is a confluence of the heart, mind, body and soul. Organizations should strive to create that environment where employees bring not just their bodies and minds, but also their hearts and souls to work. Once that is achieved, we can have a paradigm shift, from employees heaving a sigh of relief every Friday afternoon (‘Thank God it’s Friday’) to a charged up ‘Thank God it’s Monday’ – where all employees want to and are able to give their best, every moment. Motivated employees relish the prospect of both challenges and opportunities.

Motivation and happiness are inter-related. Motivated people are far more likely to feel happy, as they have a purpose and direction in life, and are far more likely to actively seek happiness.

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With the help of scientific studies, Health psychologist and Stanford lecturer Kelly McGonigal explains why the self that’s really good at change is not the self of self-crtiticism or self-bashing but the self of self-acceptance. For instance, she cites a study that found that if you eat a doughnut and feel bad about eating it, you are more like to eat a whole box of doughnuts. This happens because of the way we bash ourselves up after we have let ourselves down. We feel that the self that we are can’t really be trusted. We feel worthless and hopeless and therefore go ahead and indulge more. The scientific term for this phenomenon is the What-The-Hell effect.

Kelly McGonigal then proceeds to tell you how mindfulness can help you to cope with this self-defeatist tendency and build self-trust.

About the speaker

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