Tag Archives: God

Nov 9 2012

Six Ways to Prepare the Body for Spiritual Experience

October 23, 2012 | By | 1 Reply

Anna Hunt, Contributing Writer
Waking Times

The human body is hard-wired in such a way that we have the innate capability to experience deep spiritual events, regardless of one’s religious or theological beliefs. However, the reality of life is that our bodies are constantly bombarded with toxins, chemicals and poisons, while our minds and psyches are constantly cluttered by media, distractions and group-think. Given this rather chaotic environment, it’s no wonder that it is so difficult for most of us to experience genuine spiritual events and that true enlightenment seems so unattainable and out of reach.

Spiritual experiences are profound events. They can heal our psyche and our physical body. They can instantly and permanently alter the way we view life. We become more closely connected with other living beings. We strengthen our essence and create positive change in our lives and in the lives of others. Yet, moments of clarity, enlightenment, spiritual clairvoyance, whatever you wish to call it, are not easy to come by for most. If we take steps to return the body to its more natural, more pure state, we can greatly enhance its capacity to receive spiritual experience and better feel the great mysteries and beauty of life.

The following a variety of measures you can take to enhance your everyday life and prepare the body to receive a spiritual experience.

    1. Food – Eat naturally, with many raw natural foods, whole grains and organics. Significantly reduce and/or abstain from canned and processed foods, as well as refined sugars. Abstain from red meat and pork, and in its place turn to chicken, fish, eggs and natural foods for your protein, fatty acids and B12.

 

    1. Drink – Reduce caffeinated beverages to one cup of coffee or tea per day, and significantly reduce or abstain from alcohol. Add warm water with lemon to your morning ritual, to boost the immune support system, balance pH and improve function of the digestive, lymph and urinary systems.

 

    1. Detoxification – Practice fasting and other detox methods. The day of the fast, drink only water or vegetable broth from sunrise to sunset. During the absence of food, the body will systematically cleanse itself of everything except vital tissue, which helps the body to detoxify. Other ways to cleanse the body may also be beneficial, such as colonics, enemas and liver cleanses. An herbalist, acupuncturist or a doctor of Chinese medicine may have some ideas on which plants and teas can be useful when detoxifying.

 

    1. Emotions – Approach emotions such as aggravation and anger with awareness, to control blood pressure and reduce stress in the body. When negative emotions arise, acknowledge them and then dissolve them using meditation techniques or simply “telling” them they are not needed. Practice kindness to others by proactively performing good deeds, without publicizing them. Cast aside expectations, and embrace the unexpected. Develop constant awareness of the emotional state to create space for improving reactions to situations that arise.

 

    1. Breath – Breathe mindfully and deeply, which will lead to a calm and centered disposition. Turning to an ancient practice such as Yoga, qigong, tai chi or meditation will help achieve a centered, peaceful state, help you calm the breath, and allow you to channel your prana energy towards the reception of higher states of mind.  Proper breathing greatly influences all aspects of life and is considered the foundation of good health and spiritual awareness.

 

  1. Exercise – Perform physical exercise often to repair, loosen and open up the body. The body houses our complex nervous system, which is akin to a complex receiver of information. Re-energizing this important system with regular and varied exercise will help to receive information, however, it is wise to respect your limits and not overdo it.  The improvements in blood flow and better health will positively affect all areas of life. Getting plenty of rest is also a key part of a healthy exercise regimen.

Our daily routines, how we act, what we eat, what we say, can be some of the hardest things to change, but taking small steps at first is a good way to start. Over time, it will become easier to live with conscious awareness, and, as a result, you will cultivate and liberate more of the positive qualities inherent in your true nature. Engaging mindfully these  6 influential aspects of life will improve your receptivity to the positive spiritual energies that are manifesting globally in this transformational time.  What now may seem as difficult or impossible will become a new, sustainable behavior, allowing you to become part of the great shift.

 

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Oct 23 2012

What Are We Without Empathy?

Empathy

Empathy (Photo credit: TonZ)

I was watching the other day a documentary about a serial killer and how he tortured his victims. I hate such types of programs yet what interests me about them is how the criminals they talk about can ‘have the heart’ to hurt fellow human beings or even anything living at all. The documentary explained eventually that when the criminal’s brain was scanned, it was concluded that the special place for Empathy inside his brain had been damaged in an accident when he was a child, for which reason, he was feeling no pity nor repentance while committing those crimes.

This all drove me to wonder ‘WHAT are we without empathy?’, and the reason why I am choosing to use the word ‘what’ as opposed to ‘who’ is because the latter indicates that the individual is still considered a human being, which may entail that he or she may actually have feelings underneath the corrupted crust inside his or her brain.

So ‘what’ do we become without empathy?

In order to answer that, we should have a look at what Empathy means and entails.

Dr. Daniel Goleman in his world-famous book “Emotional Intelligence: Why EQ Matters More Than IQ” mentions an incident in Germany, whereby a bike driver had been hit by a car, and remained laying flat to the side of the road completely ignored. He said drivers in surrounding cars were looking at him without feelings/impressions on their faces awaiting their traffic lights to turn green.  It may seem surprising to you or to most of us, but obviously it wasn’t surprising to those fellow drivers who didn’t even care to take that poor biker to the hospital.

Some may say that in this day and age, chivalry has almost disappeared from our glossary. There may not be time for it basically. Also, since time equals money to most of us, then actions that may delay us, can be easily assessed as futile. Some may say that life has become all about money. Others may acknowledge that and still see that there are those who are considered leaders socially who always make this extra step that no one else seems willing to do, without asking anything in return, and despite the fact that he or she may be late to their appointments as a result.

So it boils down to one’s ethics too. So for example, if a manager appreciates the concepts of family, he may not accept that his employees remain after working hours trying to make ends meet, because he may value and acknowledge that his employees actually deserve a rest, family time and right to have a life. Therefore, meanwhile he may push his employees’ performance and urge them to progress with more passion, he would still remind them that work is just part of their lives, and not a reason to forget about life.

However, when we say ethics, we may associate that with a higher brain functionality, one that is totally contradictory to the basic needs (instincts) of a primitive mind. Yet in fact, ethics can also be an organic product of one’s feelings and one’s own level of emotional intelligence. It is like looking inward towards yourselves and emotions with the same lens, through which you look on other people’s feelings outside of you, thus, being able to establish an understanding or a connection between you and them. The more you learn to discern your emotions, the more expert you become in doing that, which in turn translates into better relationships and success in connecting with others. In other words, it is said that one who understands one’s own feelings is usually more effective in responding to other people’s feelings in return. This goes along the famous quote by Plato: “Know Thyself“.

So empathy basically is discerning your own emotions and learning to discern others’ the same way, to a degree that you put yourself in their place and imagine how it would be to be experiencing what they experience. Sounds too much, especially in this fast-paced age, but actually we see aspects of empathy wherever we go. As a matter of fact, it has been proven scientifically that we are wired for empathy. For example, if we watch someone down the street walking with a heavy stack of books or boxes, we automatically shrink our faces and imagine that we are the ones who are carrying that load.

Empathy is also proven to exit naturally in human from a very young age, like when a child sees another child that’s crying. It automatically starts crying too. If a child sees happy kids, he or she automatically starts mimicking that in return. Even most animals have different degrees of genuine empathy. We can see this in a mother animal caressing her children, or when we see two swans leaning their heads against one another forming a shape of a heart.

So how would a natural quality that allows humans, despite all of their differences (age, race, faith, gender, etc.) connect and unit with one another any time anywhere? How valuable is this unique quality to us? Are we willing to oppress it or improve it?  Is it worth stopping to help out someone who seems in dire need of help?

On the other hand, what happens if we oppress our own feelings of empathy? Does this make us less human? What would a person become without empathy? I was thinking of all these questions,and realized that human fixation can be as deep as a black hole. The more one looks inwards, the more experiences one is exposed to. It also depends on the way you are looking. For example, there are those who look inwards with a loner’s attitude, reminiscing of a happy past or negatively dwelling on how unlucky one had always been. The result of such perspective conjures up even more sadness, loneliness, sense of isolation and negativity. Also, too much inward fixation can lead to a major shift of attention to the outside world and the healthy human need to socialize with other people and integrate with new potential happy encounters. When one is too focused on pitying oneself, the less empathy one is going to feel for others, thus the more distant one may become to surrounding happenings and people around one or in the world.

Empathy is said to bring people closer to one another by being able to identify with each other’s feelings and needs. It is also said to be the mother of compassion. Alfred Adler described it as “seeing with the eyes of another, listening with the ears of another, and feeling with the heart of another.”

Eyebrows can also help portray empathy.

Eyebrows can also help portray empathy. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Eyebrows can also help portray empathy. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

On the other hand, individuals with an abusive or aggressive past may lack empathy too, as their past experiences may have turned them into beast-like humans: aggressive, selfish or a victim to one’s own primitive instincts that once they get fulfilled, one may repetitively yearn for more. Some scientist once said such individuals become more like vampires or human predators. Vampires don’t have empathy, and the more they drain a human of blood, the more blood they crave.  However, both modes (the introvert and predator) can share one common tendency, which is to constantly seek sensual satisfaction through whichever way possible, and they can become not deterred by ethical or moral inhibitions that a healthy person shuns away from.

So all that brings us to the main question, which is the title of this article: What (not Who) Are We Without Empathy?
“A human being is a part of a whole, called by us “universe”, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest… a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”  Albert Einstein

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Oct 8 2012

Stress Makes Us Less Intelligent and More Physically Sick

One key reason why the sciences of Emotional Intelligence and Cognitive Behavioral Psychology are gaining more fame nowadays is because they are succeeding in explaining the physical implications of our beliefs and feelings. Feelings have been marginalized for centuries, as they have been considered to make ‘weaker’.

IQ or mathematical intelligence has been considered the key indicator of intelligence for ages. Yet, many intelligent and professionally successful individuals are still unhappy.

How about beliefs? What are beliefs?

Beliefs are the filters that we go on in life composing and looking at life’s events from behind them. These filters are also managing the way we feel and interact with those events. As a result, people whose beliefs are negative, end up with a poor health, and those with positive beliefs live longer, have healthier bodies and are generally more successful in surviving than those with negative beliefs.
Does this mean our health, success and happiness are all subject to operations that happen inside our brains, rather than anywhere else in our bodies?

Certainly! It has been proven that whatever the brain thinks and feels about a particular topic, it is interpreted and manifested in physical ways. Feelings trigger thousands of chemicals that flood our bodies and blood stream at the same time we are experiencing them. Remembering them also can trigger the same kind of chemicals.

Therefore, feelings should not be marginalized. Rather, they need to be viewed and monitored. The types of chemicals that are triggered when we are sad, mad, angry or stressed for example can have an even more powerful effect than an actual accident physically affecting the body.

Check out this amazing documentary that is definitely worth watching to the end by Dr. Bruce Liptop, who explains the Biology of Belief, and how beliefs can actually lead us to make less intelligent choices in life, get increasingly more sick, and jeopardize our lives:

Be kind to yourself. This is the real secret to a better health, a happier life and a more successful life path.

Cheers!

Sep 23 2012

Why Command-and-Control Leadership Is Here to Stay

HBR Blog Network
Why Command-and-Control Leadership Is Here to Stay

by Herminia Ibarra | 12:00 PM September 20, 2012

Comments (9)

Travelling through Zurich airport, one billboard always catches my eye. The ad for IWC luxury watches says “Engineered for men who don’t need a copilot.”

My friends who study advertising as both a reflection and shaper of cultural norms would not disagree with my impression: We talk about the death of command and control leadership, and praise the rise of a new, more collaborative, breed of leader. But when push comes to shove, being in control sells. Collaborative is vegan; directive is meat and potatoes.

When I was a PhD student at Yale, I studied with one of the fathers of situational leadership, Victor Vroom. In the 1960′s Vic developed the then-famous Vroom-Yetton model of leadership, a decision tree in which a few simple parameters (does the leader have all the relevant information, are the followers knowledgeable or inexperienced?) allowed the leader to choose from a menu of styles ranging from A1 (the most autocratic decision-making) to G2 (group-based decision-making, the most participative) the one most suited for the situation. An avid boatman, Vic had a large sailboat parked in the Caribbean. Its name: A1. On my boat, I call the shots.

An early proponent of participative management, Vic also knew when and how to be in charge. No one quarrels much with the wisdom of situational leadership anymore. Even if we can no longer pin it on a few simple dimensions — the world today is much more turbulent and complex — we all know that what works depends on the context.

The questions today are how we select “horses for courses,” and perhaps more importantly, how we assess whether talented individuals are capable of broadening their repertory of styles so that they can be effective in a wider array of situations as their careers evolve.

In the business school classes I teach, almost every leader we analyze is “situationally limited:” Her natural tendency tilts either towards the directive or towards the collaborative end of the spectrum or his past experience has rewarded one over the other. Inevitably we ask, is this way of leading sustainable as the company grows? Once the turnaround is over? As the environment grows harsher?

My students’ questions apply equally to the collaborators and the autocrats. But over the years I have noticed a subtlety. We easily infer that a competent autocrat can learn to become more collaborative. We have a harder time believing that a competent collaborator can become more directive.

In the end, we seem to want evidence that a leader can do without a co-pilot before we are willing to groom him or her for more collaborative roles. I wonder if that is not one reason why command and control isn’t dead at all but alive and well, at least at Zurich airport.
More blog posts by Herminia Ibarra
More on: Collaboration, Leadership, Leadership development
Herminia Ibarra

Herminia Ibarra

Herminia Ibarra is a professor of organizational behavior and the Cora Chaired Professor of Leadership and Learning at Insead. She is the author of Working Identity: Unconventional Strategies for Reinventing Your Career (Harvard Business Review Press, 2003).

Aug 28 2012

It’s More Important to Be Kind than Clever

I’m sure most of us do acts of kindness on daily basis, yet we may not think much of them and may allow time to erase those valuable memories. I think, in addition to writing what we are grateful for, in a gratitude journal, we need to document any acts of kindness that we offer to others, no matter how small they are. It reminds us of who we ‘really’ are, and how we ‘truly’ express that. Don’t you think? :) Read this by Bill Taylor about the importance of kindness as opposed to cleverness. Worth reading!

Source: HBR.org

It’s More Important to Be Kind than Clever

by Bill Taylor  |   9:00 AM August 23, 2012

One of the more heart-warming stories to zoom around the Internet lately involves a young man, his dying grandmother, and a bowl of clam chowder from Panera Bread. It’s a little story that offers big lessons about service, brands, and the human side of business — a story that underscores why efficiency should never come at the expense of humanity.

The story, as told in AdWeek, goes like this: Brandon Cook, from Wilton, New Hampshire, was visiting his grandmother in the hospital. Terribly ill with cancer, she complained to her grandson that she desperately wanted a bowl of soup, and that the hospital’s soup was inedible (she used saltier language). If only she could get a bowl of her favorite clam chowder from Panera Bread! Trouble was, Panera only sells clam chowder on Friday. So Brandon called the nearby Panera and talked to store manager Suzanne Fortier. Not only did Sue make clam chowder specially for Brandon’s grandmother, she included a box of cookies as a gift from the staff.

It was a small act of kindness that would not normally make headlines. Except that Brandon told the story on his Facebook page, and Brandon’s mother, Gail Cook, retold the story on Panera’s fan page. The rest, as they say, is social-media history. Gail’s post generated 500,000 (and counting) “likes” and more than 22,000 comments on Panera’s Facebook page. Panera, meanwhile, got something that no amount of traditional advertising can buy — a genuine sense of affiliation and appreciation from customers around the world.

Marketing types have latched on to this story as an example of the power of social media and “virtual word-of-mouth” to boost a company’s reputation. But I see the reaction to Sue Fortier’s gesture as an example of something else — the hunger among customers, employees, and all of us to engage with companies on more than just dollars-and-cents terms. In a world that is being reshaped by the relentless advance of technology, what stands out are acts of compassion and connection that remind us what it means to be human.

As I read the story of Brandon and his grandmother, I thought back to a lecture delivered two years ago by Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com, to the graduating seniors of my alma mater, Princeton University. Bezos is nothing if not a master of technology — he has built his company, and his fortune, on the rise of the Internet and his own intellect. But he spoke that day not about computing power or brainpower, but about his grandmother — and what he learned when he made her cry.

Even as a 10-year-old boy, it turns out, Bezos had a steel-trap mind and a passion for crunching numbers. During a summer road trip with his grandparents, young Jeff got fed up with his grandmother’s smoking in the car — and decided to do something about it. From the backseat, he calculated how many cigarettes per day his grandmother smoked, how many puffs she took per cigarette, the health risk of each puff, and announced to her with great fanfare, “You’ve taken nine years off your life!”

Bezos’s calculations may have been accurate — but the reaction was not what he expected. His grandmother burst into tears. His grandfather pulled the car off to the side of the road and asked young Jeff to step out. And then his grandfather taught a lesson that this now-billionaire decided to share the with the Class of 2010: “My grandfather looked at me, and after a bit of silence, he gently and calmly said, ‘Jeff, one day you’ll understand that it’s harder to be kind than clever.’”

That’s a lesson I wish more businesspeople understood — a lesson that is reinforced by the reaction to this simple act of kindness at Panera Bread. Indeed, I experienced something similar not so long ago, and found it striking enough to devote an HBR blog post to the experience. In my post, I told the story of my father, his search for a new car, a health emergency that took place in the middle of that search — and a couple of extraordinary (and truly human) gestures by an auto dealer that put him at ease and won his loyalty.

“What is it about business that makes it so hard to be kind?” I asked at the time. “And what kind of businesspeople have we become when small acts of kindness feel so rare?”

That’s what’s really striking about the Panera Bread story — not that Suzanne Fortier went out of her way to do something nice for a sick grandmother, but that her simple gesture attracted such global attention and acclaim.

So by all means, encourage your people to embrace technology, get great at business analytics, and otherwise ramp up the efficiency of everything they do. But just make sure all their efficiency doesn’t come at the expense of their humanity. Small gestures can send big signals about who we are, what we care about, and why people should want to affiliate with us. It’s harder (and more important) to be kind than clever.

Aug 17 2012

Vanity vs Gratitude

I’ve been watching lately some Hollywood’s box office movies. I soon realized there were many similar messages they were sending to the young audience they are intended for, for example:

- Bullying individuals were pretty people, whether boys or girls.

- People with brains (not particularly keen on partying wild and showing off) were either ugly or ‘needed a makeover’ (needed to be fixed in one way or another).

- Promiscuous individuals are more popular and successful (mostly well off).

- Dressing as minimally as possible (especially if one has a great body) is a sign that the guy or girl is attractive, confident, sexy, cool, popular and successful, like a guy with his shirt off or a girl whose dress is open and short, etc.

These were some of the messages that jumped out at me repetitively as I was watching.

This has also brought me to think that perfecting all those requirements (great body, money, fancy clothes or cars, etc) to look and be successful or popular do not really lead to happiness. Most of the time, those perfect-looking people are looking for something that makes them feel complete inside.  If they couldn’t find it, they constantly look for sedatives (a wild fling, drugs, pills, alcohol, etc.) to help them get through time, forget and move on. They also look ‘cool’ as they do so. So this does highlight the spiritual/emotional gap that results from their lifestyle and the daily choices they are making.

This led me to contemplate the difference between vanity and gratitude. I realized that being vain means contributing every blessing one has to oneself, such as saying to oneself: I am beautiful because I am better, I have a nice body because I am not lazy and I workout, I have a big house and a big car because I am successful and rich, I have a sexy partner because I wouldn’t settle with anything else, I have a career because I want power, I have children because I want others to see the great parent I am and that I am ‘on-top-of-it-all’, I have great health and I am powerful, etc. Meanwhile, as this sounds like self-confidence, it does also imply a great degree of vanity and superiority; like I am the origin of everything I am and have. What contradicts this idea, however, is that there are ‘other’ attractive, hard-working, ambitious, confident, and cool people who may not be as successful, rich, healthy, fertile, etc. as they are.

I believe we are constantly driven to believe that we are the cause of our own blessings, like the recent books titles implying that we are our own god, genie, diva, miracle-maker, etc.  Whereas achieving one’s goals may lead to one’s happiness, it does not imply that the achievement of our goals ‘made possible’ was entirely attributed to us. What popular movies usually imply is that when you are, perfect-looking, sexy and smart, you are bound to succeed in life. On the other hand, I have seen and known real people with real lives who may just be doing a bit more than what those in movies do, and they may not look as 100% perfect as they do.

We are encouraged to believe that ‘things’ make us happy, but it is the opposite; it is us who bestow meanings upon things, and not vice versa. That being said, I don’t negate the psychological factor that does make us feel more confident when we achieve a goal, like having a great body, sexy clothes, wild friends, or being popular in our circle, etc. Yet, these are not happiness-making factors. Therefore, feeling vain because of the blessings you have does not mean you are happy or complete, especially that nothing is permanent in life; health, wealth, beauty, a successful career, etc. may be lost at any time, as we have seen during this recent recession, which has led a lot of people to fall prey to depression, mainly because when one sees oneself at the centre of that self-portrait, one is only focusing on one’s self and the fulfillment of one’s needs, wishes and desires. This emphasizes that one lives by oneself in this world, in isolation from others and ‘their’ needs and wishes that we can help them with. In other words, vanity thinking is seeking happiness through attaining proclaimed happiness requirements without seeing or caring for anyone else in the picture but oneself. It is the opposite of empathy, which growing our sense of self-worth and genuine happiness through seeking a noble life purpose through helping others and being attuned to their needs and wishes.

In coaching, coaches are encouraged to support clients to recognize blessings (minimal to bigger ones) in their daily life. They say it is proven in the science of the human psyche that feeling grateful significantly enhances one’s brain capability to think more productively and positively, and elevates negative emotions, like sadness, sorrow, anger, etc.

Feeling grateful means – even if you don’t believe that there is a God in the world who distributes blessings upon people – that you appreciate and count the privileges you have got, i.e. that you feel privileged because you have so and so of blessings that other people who are just as smart, successful, charming, attractive, healthy, fertile, well-off, etc. may not have. Therefore, when one gets oneself out of the centre of the fancy self-portrait one has drawn for oneself for years, and starts thinking that whatever one has is a privilege that deserves feeling grateful for. Then, one starts feeling that one has been endowed with them, and not ‘entitled’ to them.

This offers a fresh perspective on life and everything you have. If we believe we are entitled to what we have, we may take them for granted and become blind to the minimal and bigger privileges we have got. However, if we see everything we have as a privilege, then we start thinking positively about everything we consider about our lives, bodies, health, partners, etc. Simply because we start appreciating what we have, we grow our sense of satisfaction about it. This is where the feeling of gratitude develops. However, I’ve had someone asking me: But if I don’t believe there is a God in this world, who will I feel grateful for?

It was a pretty tricky question, because I personally do believe that there is a God in this world, and my feeling of satisfaction and gratitude towards everything He has blessed me with is the secret behind my resilience in life, despite all challenges. I pondered upon the guy’s question, then decided to ask him back: If you don’t believe there is a God in this world, who would you feel grateful for? It can’t be you who is the causing factor of everything you have got. For example, you were not the reason behind your good looks when you were born. Nor is it up to you to stop yourself from having cancer or an accident, because we have seen perfectly healthy people dying due to both of these despite their healthy, organic and safe lifestyles. If you didn’t die in an accident or by cancer, old age will do the trick. But how do you know until when you are going to live?

He was silent for a while, and contemplated my questions, then said: I definitely feel I am grateful for having what I have, simply as I see my friends don’t have half of what I have, even though we almost worked in the same companies and graduated from similar reputable universities. Then, we went on to talk about luck. This is definitely taking me away from the core subject of this article, but it was a conversation worth mentioning, as it helped us delve into deep thoughts and questions typically people – on the run – don’t bother themselves to think about.

All in all, vanity is feeling we ‘control’ what we have, and this is a false conception. The recession has taught us that nothing is fixed and permanent. Not only that, but also diseases, airplane crashes, earthquakes, etc. Vanity – or thinking one is the source of his/her own blessings – may lead one to severe depression if things do no go the way s/he intended them to do.

On the other hand, gratitude is appreciating and seeing life for what it is. This inspires us to see even the most mundane blessings as gifts that we did not sweat for. For example, silence at night is a great gift. I have lived in countries where building and constructions workers do not stop working on weekends or even in the evening when people put their kids to sleep. Other countries are war-stricken, and kids have to sleep despite sounds of bombs and gunshots that become a habitual happening in their neighborhoods. Not only silence at night, but on the weekends, in the evening, the ability to clearly hear birds singing early in the morning, the soft breeze that gently touches your cheeks as you stand in front of a water landscape, the beauty of nature, the cuteness of our kids, the genuine care of our loved ones, our ability to hear, see, touch and smell, etc. There is so much to be grateful for, and I do not believe we – people on the run – are the causing factor of them all. We are too busy to see these simple blessings but they are there. Believe it or not, it is us who can make the choice to appreciate them or not, to think that despite any hardships we may be going through there are still some good things to derive from them and to enjoy around us, and finally, I personally find the gift of life as the best gift ever, because every minute is a chance to turn oneself life around the way you want. This is an opportunity that is unavailable in any other domain in our lives (work, parenthood, commitments, loans, etc.)

What do you think?

Aug 9 2012

Empathy & Team Spirit

I found this masterpiece online today and wanted to share it; teaching school kids how to empathize with one another, work in a team and carry self-responsibility.

Fantastic clip!

Enjoy!

Jul 26 2012

Who Would You Be Without Your Story?

 

Byron Katie so wisely repeatedly asks her clients: “Who would you be without your story?”

This question has fascinated me the moment I heard it.

Of course this question can be understood in two ways: One way is who would you be if whatever happened to you in your life (that forms your life story) never happened?

The other meaning is the implication of what kind of person you have become as a result of having experienced your story in your life. In this article, I am using this meaning.

I have dealt with so many people who told me their stories in such heartfelt manner that was bound to capture my listening. Their fears, worries, pains, and memories formed unique constellations of meanings and emotions that demanded my respect and admiration for the strength they did not know they had.

When people talk about their problems, they do not immediately realize that the mere thing that aches them is the source of insight in their lives. The human psyche and brain are two miraculous creatures that are worth nothing but respect.

I see with people shedding their tears over stories that break their hearts. I hear people talk about themselves as if they were inferior or less perfect than others whom they admire. I deal with people who feel deep sadness or shame for leading unproductive lives, and wishing for ones that are more perfect.

I always listen to them with so much respect and say: Who would you be without your story? If you meet someone who is going through exactly the same story, you’d have so much knowledge and support for them, which will help them find solutions, like you did.

Our stories differentiate us and make us unique. Our ways of reacting to them is the signature we leave in this world. Why feel ashamed of it if with the knowledge you got out of it, you can help tens of people going through the same circumstances?

It’s important not to dwell on the past, but to harness the experience you got from it in ways that will help others around you. We all have problems, but the best of us are those who use the seed of knowledge in planting trees, whose fruits can brighten (benefit) other people’s lives.

I always invite people to remember who they really are and who they truly wish to be in this life.

In conclusion, there are two powerful questions that sum up what a person is all about:

What is your story? (Past)

and

What legacy do you wish to leave in this world? (Future)

 

Jul 24 2012

TEDxNASA – Rita King – Creativity and Design of Identity and Community

Very Interesting!

Jul 7 2012

Pondering Upon Worthy Thoughts

 

Trust vs. Doubt

Trust is like the OK order that a brain sends to the body and universe to start fulfilling a particular wish. Trust is feeling mostly safe about the decision you want to make, or the goal you wish to fulfill. It of course not devoid of fear, but it is a feeling of excitement and safety mixed with a hint of fear that leads us to trust something, someone or even ourselves about something or to do something.
Doubt on the other hand is like an interrupting set of signals that hamper the emotional coherence of the mind and body. Doubt originates from fear and gives birth to indecision. We say we want to do something, but we delay, postpone or withdraw from doing something altogether.

Trust is mostly safety around a particular idea or perspective. Doubt is mostly fear around a particular thought or perspective. A coach can do a great job with the client if he can explain to them that trust and doubt are choices the client may be making, whether subconsciously or consciously. Once one realizes that these ‘are’ choices, one may want to start questioning them. With the coach’s support, a client can feel safe to explore other positive perspectives until a remarkable shift from significance to lightness happens that can truly change client’s life.

Awareness is a key factor is shifting from doubt to trust, and this is a large task a coach can offer to his clients.

Responsibility vs. Blame

Many people know what their problem is and what the solution is but they remain in denial of it falsely believing things solve themselves out with time.

Truth is these people are more prone to blaming themselves for not achieving their goals and committing to solving their problems. Blame, of self or others, can become habitual plaguing one’s personal and social skills. Blame is a type of judgement, which once it labels oneself or someone else with a negative conception, it shuts the brain from having to deal with it. When one says: “I am lazy. That is why I still haven’t done that”, he is not carrying his own responsibility but rather blaming and bullying himself in a way that makes it thing look justified.

Blame is such an unhealthy behavior that doesn’t lead one to success. A coach needs to heighten client’s awareness around the recurrent lack of productivity resulting from not carrying the responsibility of the delay in committing to the actions client sets for himself.

The magical contrast between blame and responsibility is that once one acknowledges his the part he plays in any situation, it becomes clear for him to find solutions, and more possibly commit to them.

Commitment vs. Trying

This reminds of that scene at The Matrix where Morpheus tells Neo: Stop Trying to Hit me, just hit me! This refers to intent being the origin of one’s actions. Many times we are driven by our inner autopilot mode to doing things. Most of the time we do things because we know we ‘should’ or ‘have’ to do them. Sooner or later, the energy that feeds those actions fades and we are back to point zero. I also once heard a sports trainer saying: Stop trying to lose weight. Just lost it! Trying to lose weight is more torturing than actually committing to a particular diet with a strict regime of sports. That is because of our perceived hardship as we diet or work out.

It is very important for our intent to keep shining through the path we are progressing in. If we don’t have a target, then we’re moving ahead in vein. We’re moving in a direction without passion, willingness and determination.

Committing means maintaining our intent behind wanting to do a particular action, and trying is lying to ourselves (not being true to ourselves) about doing something in pursuit of something we are still not convinced of.

It is very important for the coach to keep checking in with the client on where they ‘truly’ wish to go, and what they really want to do. Often times, we opt to do things that we are not convinced of or not in favor of. Combining intent with commitment gets one on the way to achieving one’s goals.

Creating Action

The difference between evading and taking action is whether or not a client rides the commitment vehicle to get from point A to B. What I mean by that is that the distance between A (the current where client is) and B (the goals the client strongly wants to achieve) is the commitments list a client need to fulfill in order to achieve mobility (moving from A to B).

Client’s committing to action is like riding a vehicle that is charged by all those positive feelings (motivation, honor one’s values, resilience, etc.) to get to where s/he really wants.

After making sure to heighten client’s awareness around his/her underlying beliefs and helping him/her shift from significance to lightness, a coach can always show the client where they are on the distance line between A and B. If a client gets distracted, bored, etc. in the middle of the road, or if client starts going back to A, a coach can clearly show them that by explaining that client is returning to A (maybe out of fear) and is getting farther from B (their goals).

A coach can use acknowledgement, powerful questions, paraphrasing, etc. to heighten client’s perspective at different stages of creating action. A coach needs to remain at all times attuned to their client to be more able to support client to maintain their momentum.

Underlying Beliefs

This is the hot zone both coach and client need to get to and heal in order for the client to accept to think of other options than the ones he so fixedly believes in. Underlying beliefs are called like that because they lie so deeply inside, and the process of unearthing those beliefs is an on-going one, whereby a coach has to really hold that safe space for the client to re-question them.

Underlying beliefs keep showing up along the coaching process, but that’s a good sign that the coaching relationship is getting somewhere. The problem is when the client is completely aligned with their inner critic to an extent that they don’t see their negative underlying beliefs as unproductive or disruptive to his/her success. This type of client may require more patience from the coach and constant re-framing of perspective to help client to really shed light over those hidden beliefs.

It can be one of the most enjoyable yet draining phases during the coaching relationship yet the more the client commits to it, and the faster his/her progress becomes.

If we imagine that the brain is the Control Unit that makes all the choices that the body executes, then underlying beliefs are all the equations that form the matrix by which the Control Unit operates. People may spend all their lives making similar choices. However, once they gain awareness around their underlying beliefs, and have the opportunity to re-question them in a safe space, one’s life may dramatically improve by adopting new and more positive beliefs that actually get them where they really want to be and do what they wish to do.

It is important for the coach not to show the client any form of judgement, such as implying that a particular belief is right or wrong. There is no right or wrong in beliefs, but there are ones that are productive and those that aren’t, and this is a perspective that can empower the client to ditch negative beliefs in favor of ones that are more positive and productive.