I decide!

When asked to describe yourself, do you generally begin with - 'people say that I am ...' or 'my friends believe ...'?

I've been doing it my whole life without even realizing it, until AP pointed it out. What does it mean? Well, you are defining yourself basis other people's opinions of you. Is it the right way to see yourself & define your self worth? I'm sure you know the answer to that.

It is a very dangerous way of being! These other people come with their own baggage, do not necessarily see the big picture and are not mature enough to make judgments about themselves, let alone other people. You have set your feelings & self worth up for a very bumpy roller-coaster ride by doing this. If someone praises you today then you feel elated & special but if tomorrow someone accuses you of being selfish or greedy your self worth is in the gutter.It's a very difficult place to be as you are not the one deciding the way you feel about yourself.

In order to grow as a human being and be the master of your feelings, this ownership of your self worth needs to be transferred back to you. You need to stop seeing yourself from other people's eyes and find your own eyes. I'm currently in the process of defining my center. It's a very challenging task and the progress is minuscule. I keep slipping back to what others are saying/thinking. But I'm trying not to focus on what other people say. I try to look at the objective truth myself  and decide what it means about me.

 There will be a day when I will be the only definer of who I am, what is my worth and how I feel everyday. Until then....

Holiday!

I'm off on vacation for the rest of the week. Wishing all of you fun times during the Diwali weekend.

P.S. This is where I can be found :)

Receiving!

I'm a terrible receiver. I'm very uncomfortable accepting a compliment. I don’t let other people pick up the restaurant tab, always insisting on paying my part. I feel very hesitant to ask for any help as I feel like I'm burdening the other person.

Most of us give easily, but often have resistance to receiving. It's not our fault, the focus has always been on giving. Since we were little children we have been trained to give to others, to think of others before ourselves and to refuse gifts or compliments. I remember being lectured in school on 'it is better to give than to get'.

However, constantly giving is not as selfless as we have been taught because if you give constantly and never allow yourself to receive, you cannot nurture yourself and replenish your ability to give. You tend to feel drained and taken for granted. But in reality it is you who is not allowing yourself to receive, always taking the provider position (it is your home state and hence familiar).

In order to be happy you need to have a balance between the 'give-take' in your life. You need to train yourself to be willing to receive without feeling the need to give back, knowing you are worthy and deserve to receive.

Next time, try to gracefully accept something someone has offered & feel special that you are worthy of someone's generosity.


P.S. The inspiration for this post is the following quote from Nelson Mandela's Inauguration speech 1994:
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Back!

I have resurfaced!

There are many reasons for my disappearance. The big ones:

- I have a psycopath for a new boss who believes I should spend every waking hour in office obsessing about market share and 'killing' the competition,
- there is a new project that I'm working on with my friends and it's taking up the little time left after work,
- my patterns. The serial quitter patterns ( I've written about earlier) have been at play and hence I decided to park writing for a while.I'm making an effort to start again. Let's see how it goes.

Courtesy my new exhausting situation at work, I have been watching a lot of TV lately. Being a passive activity, it allows me to give my mind a holiday. There was something that I watched a few days back, perhaps experienced is a better word to describe it, that really made me want to sit up and think.

I watched the live rescue of  the 33 Chilean miners stuck in the mine, half a mile under the earth's surface, for over 69 days. It was a very powerful experience! I was truly moved by the courage and fearlessness of these people. I get goosebumps every time I think of it. Trapped with bleak chances of rescue (first contact was made on day 23-24 I think), not knowing if they will ever see sunlight or their families for 70 days - I'm amazed at the strength of the human spirit. So glad it was a happy ending!

A near death experience can make one fearless and help clearly understand the truth of life and what matters in the end. One of the miners put it so beautifully - 'the only things that matter in life are family & friends, seeing your children smile and the beauty of mother nature. When you know that this may be 'the end' these are the only things you value and yearn for'.

I am thankful this wisdom is available to me without the scary experience. Infact most people are aware of this truth and talk about it but it's generally at a very superfluous level. I have met very few people who have been able to imbibe it and change the way they go about life. I aspire to change the way I approach life, the time & effort I spend on nurturing my key priorities. Somehow I'm not able to make permanent changes. I keep getting caught up in the rut and pushing my priorities for later. I need to find a way to change that for good. Any suggestions/advice?

P.S: I was thrilled that I could understand the Spanish note the miners sent up :)

Play/Pause...Stop!

A tiny tape recorder resides in my head.

It's constantly chattering away. The favorite tapes are - self doubt, fear of failure/rejection and constant worry! It's most active when I try to fall asleep at night and wake up in the morning. It also chatters away when I'm alone but usually gets drowned out with all the other distractions the world presents.

I've been trying to get rid of it. I've tried many things and here are some which are working for me:

- Morning Pages
I came across Morning Pages on Julia Cameroon's website - www.theartistsway.com. She designed it as part of a creative discovery & awakening course called the artist's way. Morning pages are 3 pages of conscious writing first thing in the morning. They can be about anything that comes to your mind and are for your eyes only.  I complete 3 months of morning pages on the 14th.
When I wake up in the morning, my head is full of thoughts, fears, to-do lists etc. Sometimes it gets  overwhelming. Now I reach for my diary every morning and scribble away. It makes me feel a lot lighter and stops the chattering - I have taken it out of my head and poured it into the diary.

- My best-friend: my breath
I was introduced to the concept by PG. It is about being aware of your breath. It's a great tool to come back to the present moment. After a few days of practice you will experience the chatter stops as soon as you start to become aware.
Your breath is your best friend and will stay with you till your last minute. Make a connection with it, become aware of it and find yourself always in the present moment. I highly recommend it. I try to practice it all the time - when I'm alone, while driving, on the metro, while trying to fall asleep.

- Cut it
As soon as I realise the negative thoughts creeping in, I tell myself aloud 'Cut it'. To amuse myself, I snap my fingers as if they were a pair of scissors. Then, I try to think about something I like - the beach at Phi phi, the trees at Lodhi garden or just AM's morning smile. This conscious thought replacement comes with a lot of awareness and practice. But nothing worth having comes easy in life.

I have my patterns. Every now and then I give into the chatter and don't 'Cut it'. But I forgive myself for it because it's not easy to 'fight your own mind with your own mind' (this phrase - courtesy PG). I allow myself to fail  once in a while as long as I know I'm making progress.

That's my story. What does your tape recorder play? I would love to hear what  you do to make it stop or play the good stuff. Do share it with me in the comments section.

Home-state!

Maybe a part of you doesn't want to be happy. Maybe that part makes you feel comfortable in the unhappy state.

AP suggested this during a conversation. I rejected the outrageous suggestion. How could it possibly be? I want nothing more in life than to be happy. I even have a blog about finding happiness. The thought perturbed me. I needed to get to the bottom of this. Could this be true? Do I really not want to be happy?

That's when I stumbled upon Sonja Lyubomirsky and her insightful research which helped me understand my precarious situation. She is an authority on happiness research and has a 5-year $1million grant from the  National Institute of Mental Health, USA to conduct research on the possibility of permanently increasing happiness. According to her research, happiness springs from 3 sources. She explains it so well that I'm quoting her verbatim for the explanations.

- Genetic set point
 50% of the happiness is resultant of our genetic set point (set point means your base level of happiness). Lyubomirsky says:" The set point for happiness is similar to the set point for weight. Some people are blessed with skinny dispositions. Even when they're not trying, they easily maintain their weight. By contrast, others have to work extraordinarily hard to keep their weight at a desirable level, and the moment they slack off even a bit, the pounds creep back on. So those of us with low happiness set points will have to work harder to achieve and maintain happiness".

- Life Circumstances
According to Lyubomirsky, "only about 10 percent of the variance in our happiness levels is explained by differences in life circumstances or situations--that is, whether we are rich or poor, healthy or unhealthy, beautiful or plain, married or divorced, etc. One of the great ironies of our quest to become happier is that so many of us focus on changing the circumstances of our lives in the misguided hope that those changes will deliver happiness. Research shows that trying to be happy by changing our life situations ultimately will not work because of a very powerful force that psychologists call hedonic adaptation." I already have a post on the concept. Check it out if you haven't already read it.

- Intentional Activities
The remaining 40% is determined by our intentional activities. Focused effort in this space can increase your base level of happiness. Lyubomirsky says, "We can't alter our genetic set points, and changes in life circumstances don't have a lasting impact on our happiness, but we can increase and sustain our happiness through intentional activities.If we observe genuinely happy people, we shall find that they do not just sit around being contented. They make things happen. They pursue new understandings, seek new achievements, and control their thoughts and feelings.In sum, our intentional effort-ful activities have a powerful effect on how happy we are, over and above the effect of our set points and the circumstances in which we find ourselves. If an unhappy person wants to experience interest, enthusiasm, contentment, peace and joy, he or she can make it happen by learning the habits of a happy person."

Reflecting on this theory and my patterns, I have come to accept that the low, worrying, unhappy feeling is my 'home-state'. It is the programming in my genetic code! Hence, I keep finding ways to go back there. It's natural because everyone feels most secure and happy in their home.

But there is a part of me that wants to change that. It wants to adopt a new home-state. It's possible. All it needs is a daily concerted effort and commitment.

Patterns!

Serial Quitter.

I came across this word while reading a book and it stayed with me. We seemed to connect and I decided to adopt it as a part of my identity.

I'm  constantly looking for and taking on new activities. I have a need to fill my life with new activities. The programming in my head tells me that if I'm engaging in quality 'things-to-do' then I'm moving closer to my ultimate goal. I feel a sense of panic if I'm not 'constructively' involved all the time. In fact, I was once advised that, 'You are a human being and not a human doing, so just learn to be.' One more thing to learn to do ;)

At any given point, I am busy with at least 3- 4 projects. These days I am learning Spanish, attempting twenty laps at the swimming pool, learning make-up on youtube, figuring out what I want to do next with my life, planning a holiday, trying to finish reading the 6 books I bought last week...

Projects ( I like to call them projects as it sounds more important than the regular sounding activities, hobbies etc.) require patience, commitment and hard-work  to accomplish. These aren't my strengths!

This is where my patterns kick in. I started because I believed it would take me closer to happiness, but as there is no instant gratification, I become frustrated, I quit, I brand myself 'good for nothing' and trash my self-esteem. After much serial quitting I have been able to identify my pattern and accept it.

Now, when the frustration starts to build up, I just let that project be. I have realized that if I keep at it my impatience will get the better of me. I will give it up never to try it again and curse myself all night. So I have learnt to just let it be, telling myself that I'm taking a break from it and will come back to it later. I know once I've been on a break for a while, my mind will again come back to believing that doing this will make me happy. When that happens I go back and start again. I won't beat myself down anymore with the self-judgment that I'm no good!

Have you been able to identify your patterns? Are you killing your self-esteem by constantly judging yourself  basis everything you try to do? It takes time and effort to identify and accept these patterns. I would love to hear your story. It might help us all learn something about our patterns.

Hedonic Treadmill!

Think about all your fancy possessions. Is there any one you can think of that makes you smile whenever you see it, that can brighten you up when you have had a bad day, or can keep the low feeling at bay because you have it? I have lots of things I love but none would fit that description.

Sometime back, I came across a term 'hedonic treadmill' while reading a book. The concept seemed intriguing and I decided to find out more about it.Wikipedia defines it as follows:

'Hedonic Treadmill is the tendency of humans to quickly return to a relatively stable level of happiness despite major positive or negative events or life changes. As a person makes more money, expectations and desires rise in tandem, which results in no permanent gain in happiness.'

Basically, when we get used to something it stops feeling nice.Human beings are blessed with the gift of quick adaptation.So we get bored of our luxuries fast and find new things to run after.Come to think of it, I got Rs 2,000 per month as pocket money from my parents when I was in college. Today, my disposable income has jumped manifold but my happiness levels have not.

Researchers believe that money, up to a certain point, makes people happier because it lets them meet basic needs. The certain point they are talking about is $10,000 ( roughly Rs. 500,000) per year. Most people I know make way more money but are still running after  more money because they believe more will make them happier. Once you are past that point, stop trying to accumulate more to enjoy tomorrow. Make that money work hard, today, to achieve your ultimate goal: your tryst with Mr Happiness!

Scientists studied 9 major categories of consumptions and their correlation to happiness. They discovered that the only category to be positively related to happiness was leisure and experiences: vacations, entertainment, sports, concerts, foreign language lessons, cookery classes, etc. Spending money for an experience produces longer-lasting satisfaction than spending money on the fancy LV bag. Experiences helps build & strengthen your center and if it is a group activity it strengthens relationships, which in turn leads to happiness. The quality of people’s relationships has the strongest correlation with their happiness.

A famous professor Richard Schoch said," If we crave material luxuries, then it will become harder and harder to be happy. No shoe will be stylish enough, no car fast enough, no house palatial enough because in the chain of desire there is no last link."