Tag: mindfulness

Gratitude

Every week we practice our gratitude attitude at the beginning of the meditation session. So today, I thought we would actually discuss the benefits of gratitude. Believe it or not, the guy who started the gratitude rock movement was my coach and is a personal friend. Lee Brower based in Utah and all around an amazing guy. Lee Brower tells about gratitude rock in the movie ‘The Secret’. He took a little rock and decided that every time he touched it he would think of something he was grateful for. So when he puts the gratitude stone in his pocket in the morning he goes through what he is thankful for, and when he empties his pocket in the night and finds the rock he goes again through what he’s thankful for.

Lee started every meeting we had with a gratitude attitude and he kind of rubbed off on me so about 15 years ago, I started conducting every meeting with a gratitude attitude.

Let’s look at why creating a gratitude mindset is important. Gratitude creates a mindset of abundance. If you look at life from a scarcity point of view, life will eventually become measurable. An abundance mindset allows you to not chase things for the sake of chasing them. Oprah Winfrey once said: “If you look at what you have in life, you will always have more. If you look at what you don’t have in life, you will never have enough.”

Do you notice some people have this victim mindset? If something bad happens, they always ask why me? They blame everyone and their siblings for their problems including their co-workers, the government, family members, and so forth. People with a victim mindset are never happy no matter how much material wealth they accumulate.

On the flip side, people with a gratitude mindset focus on abundant opportunities available to them. It’s like a classic saying “why didn’t I think of that?” When we are grateful, we tend to focus on the positivity around us. That in turn brings abundance. People who are successful know there are enough resources in the world and stay away from competing for the same resources. A gratitude mindset allows us to leverage the resources we have as opposed to competing for them. It also creates awareness for the resources around us – develop an eye out if you will.

We have talked about this in the previous sessions I believe. But if we think about where we are in life, we are extremely lucky. If you have food, shelter, and clothing (roti, kapada or makan) and you are in good health, you are luckier than most people on this planet. Once you realize how lucky you are and begin to appreciate that, you will start noticing the opportunities around you. Because as they say; when a perspective changes, everything changes.  

So how do we develop a gratitude mindset? The first thing to do is to develop a daily practice. Every morning when you wake up or before you go to bed or at a dinner table, spend five minutes thinking about what you are grateful for and why. Why is as important as what here. Why allows us to dig deep and create a meaningful experience.

Another way to develop gratitude is to major our success. No matter how small, be thankful for it. Some people live in what I call a “gap” – the distance between where they are and where they want to be. I used to be one of those people. Once I started developing gratitude practice, I began to appreciate the abundance that I already had. So it is very important to not live in the gap.

And the most important way to develop a gratitude mindset is with intention. Be sure to make it a habit to appreciate everyone who you come across from your family members, coworkers, essential workers you come across in your daily routine, and so forth.

They say it takes 21 days to make a habit. So for the next 21 days, give your best to develop a gratitude mindset. You will see changes in your life for the better.

Mindful Speech

Some people talk a lot and others tend to be quiet. But all of us have a constant chatter in our mind this inner speech. So let’s discuss mindful speech both inner and outer. We briefly talked about asking ourselves Is it True? Is it Necessary? Is it Kind? Before we post anything on social media in Episodes 7 and 9. So let’s take this a little further. When we have any kind of communication with someone else, we must ask ourselves; is it True? Is it Helpful? Is it Necessary? Is it Kind? The answer to any one of these is negative, we should try and refrain from that speech. A speech can be any communication method be it social media, email, verbal, nonverbal, etc. This will help us bring a level of kindness to the world. More importantly, it will allow us to be less judgmental as we tend to judge everyone except ourselves all day long. It will also hopefully help us avoid exaggerated language. Because of the influence of marketing in modern society, we have all adopted this language of exaggeration. Either it is the best or the worst nothing in between. Do we really “love” that slice of pizza? Without that our life is somehow going to be incomplete? Is it really a slice of heaven? Do we even know what heaven looks like? If someone does not give us something, is it really ruining our life? My personal favorite is To Die For. Really? Will you die for that sweater? If we begin to pay attention to what we communicate, we will be able to avoid a lot of this.

Paying attention to our communication is great. But, if you think about it, the majority of all of our speech is internal. We talk to ourselves more than we talk to anyone else. We think about things that happened or things that may never happen. So let’s start to develop a habit. When we catch ourselves having an internal dialogue, we should ask ourselves; is it True? Is it Necessary? Is it Helpful? Is it Kind? And again, if the answer to any one of these is No, let’s just stop that internal dialog and try to just be without thinking anything. Personally, I find it helpful to ask Is it Necessary? Every time, the answer seems to be No and I stop that internal dialog. One useful tip is to use our MAC technic here as well. If we are alert looking out for this internal dialog, we will then can be mindful in asking the question so that we can stop that internal dialog. You will be amazed at how your day improves just by keeping a tab on your internal dialog. Some people ask if we should continue if the dialog is positive. In general, we want to avoid that internal dialog as it may start out positive but as you all know, our mind wonders and can get the negative drift anytime. If we make a sincere practice to scan for our internal speech, we will be able to tame our mind a lot faster and our meditation practice will improve as well.

Our Daily Problems

When you think about our daily problems, they fall into two categories: outer problems and inner problems. If we understand the difference between outer problems and inner problems, we can begin to look at a solution for a peaceful life. Let’s take some examples. Say our car breaks down. Some people get really anxious when their car breaks down – creating an inner problem. This is a result of a strong attachment towards an object. We have so much attachment towards our things that we begin to identify with our possessions. When a car breaks down, it can be fixed by a skilled mechanic. It just needs the right person to fix it. However, when we begin to get unhappy because of the breakdown of the car, no one can fix that. We are the only ones responsible for our inner happiness. If we control our mind and realize that car is an inanimate object. It has no feelings, so it has no problems as such. Yes, it is broken but by itself, it has no problems. It cannot express its disappointment. It is completely an outer problem. On the other hand, if we look at the breaking down of a car objectively, take it to the right shop to get fixed and not let it disturb our inner peace, we will come out ahead.

Let’s take another example of our body which is much closer to ourselves than an external object or a situation. Now, this is going to be uncomfortable for a lot of people because all of our lives, we have identified our body as I. Let’s say we get diagnosed with a disease. Getting a disease or hurting our body is an inner problem most of you will argue. But it is actually our body’s problem. We have this strong attachment to our bodies that makes us think that we are our bodies. We believe our pain comes from our body, but the body cannot feel pain without the mind. The body is also an inanimate object just like our car. You may have heard stories of Indian yogis who let their Doctors perform surgery on them without anesthesia. These yogis do not feel any pain because they have overcome their self-grasping and understand that they are not their body. We, on the other hand, grasp our bodies a little too tight!

If we let that outer problem affect us internally, it affects our happiness creating an inner problem. Our unpleasant feelings are the result of our mind. They are arising out of uncontrolled desires or attachment, anger, and self-grasping. What do I mean by that? When we become upset about an external object such as a car breaking down, surely, we are responding to our attachment to our car or our attachment towards a meeting we are headed to and so forth. It is certainly our attachment that is driving these feelings. If we learn to objectively separate our attachment, we will not get angry and we will be able to maintain our inner peace. For example, I was in a car accident a few years ago. I hit a car in front of me on a highway. I walked out asked the other driver to make sure he was fine. And then knowing he was fine, I apologized to him and he said it’s just the car! What a beautiful way to look at it. I am sure he had somewhere to be and was delayed because of me. He knew the car was going to be fixed by insurance. He did not let an outer problem affect his inner peace. How many of us can remain peaceful like that? That is what keeps our inner happiness.

It is never too late to start controlling our minds. If we make a determination that we will not let outer problems disturb us, we should be able to make a habit – remember, it takes 21 days to make a habit.

What is Meditation?

Meditation is not about being still or art of sleeping vertically:) Meditation has nothing to do with having an empty mind OR sitting in lotus position OR chanting in a language I don’t understand OR Buddhist, Hindu or religious. It is simply a method to train one’s mind. It is training our minds to become aware and in a calm state through mindfulness. #mindfulness; #meditation