Conscious Living Practice 23 - Practice Right Speech

Our words are powerful and we can use them to bring about a positive change into our lives and those of others by its proper use . By improper use we can do just the opposite. 

Many of us use words very casually without any intention. We do not pause before speaking and end up not using the power of words effectively.  

We can learn to pause before speaking ( It may not always be possible, but try to practice as much as possible ) and ask ourselves if what we are going to speak is:

T : True?

H : Helpful?

I : Inspiring?

N: Necessary?

K: Kind?

If not, we can refrain from speaking :-) 

As you practice pausing before speaking, you will realize that a lot of our conversations are irrelevant and unnecessary, not adding any value to us or the person who we are speaking to. By applying this rule, we will save a lot of energy and also avoid negative conversations that are critical, bring other people down, and are of the nature of gossip. 

I invite you to join me in working with our speech. I very well know that it is not easy and can take many many years to master. So what better time to start than now :-) 

You can keep a journal to note down how many times you paused and changed your mind about saying something. How often you expressed your appreciation and boosted the morale of people with your words. How often you refrained from critical remarks that brought somebody's self esteem and confidence down? 

Jack kornfield wrote in one of his posts which is very relevant to our current post  - 

" Notice the intentions that motivate your speech. Try to be aware of whether your speech is motivated by boredom, concern, irritation, loneliness, compassion, fear, love, competitiveness, or greed. Try to observe without any judgement. Then, after discovering which motivation is present as you speak, notice the effect of the speech. If there is competitiveness or grasping or pride or irritation behind the speech, what response does it elicit from the world around you? If there is compassion or love, what is the response? If your speech is mindless, as if you are on automatic pilot, what is the response? If there is clarity and concern, how is this received and responded to? " 

The above exercise can be a wonderful mindfulness practice and it will really make us more conscious of the impact our words have. Lets start to use our words carefully and create a positive difference to our own lives and those of others lives who we touch with our words. 

#consciousliving #practice23 # practicerightspeech

Conscious living Practice 22 - Take help

Sometimes we can get into situations that are very overwhelming for us. During those times, let us not hesitate to reach out to others for help. 

No matter what practices we have been doing, it is possible that we still encounter situations where we feel stuck and unable to find a way out. During those times let's learn to just reach out and seek help. In today's time people are more than willing to help. We just need to ask🙂

Our physical, mental and emotional health should be of utmost priority at all times. And if taking help is necessary in order for us to maintain that then so be it. 

Many women, even today ( I find this to be the case especially in the previous generation ) feel obligated to do all the house chores by themselves. It is not that their partners are unwilling to help but these women hesitate to ask for help assuming and taking way too much responsibility on their shoulders. This eventually results in poor health which doesn't do the family any good. It's time we learnt to discern where help is required and shamelessly ask for it. 

#consciousliving #practice22 #takehelp

Conscious living Practice 21 - Cultivate a growth mindset

In general we all tend to have a "pleasure seeking" mindset. While we know that all growth happens during adversity or being out of our comfort zones, we prefer to not have adverse time or to step out of our comfort zone. We are wired for pleasure. Draw your consciousness to this attitude. And ask yourself what would happen if instead of seeking pleasure, you sought growth?

Doing so will make you approach every difficult time/ disappointment/ adversity that you face as an opportunity to grow - to grow stronger, to learn to deal with difficult times, to increase your capacity to tolerate inconveniences. 

You would no longer wish life to be any different from what it is. But would learn to flow with it, growing every step of the way. You will learn to embrace life. 

When times are good, you can be present and enjoy the moments and when times are bad, you can learn to accept the situation and see what's the learning and growth opportunity for you there. So you are either enjoying( when life treats you well ), learning and growing ( when life is throwing challenges at you ). Of course you don't need to run after challenges just so you can grow😁, just learn to receive every situation in your life with grace and equanimity🙂🙏

#consciousliving #practice21 #cultivatingagrowthmindset 

Conscious living Practice 20 - Maintain healthy relationships

This post is going to be long because it is not very easy to explain "maintaining healthy relationships". So I am going to break this post down into questions and answers.

What is an 'ideal relationship'?

Today we live in times where everything is defined. What a good relationship is, what a bad relationship is etc etc. So we develop these ideas in our heads about how a relationship should be. The truth is that " No relationship is perfect". Perfect is a concept in our heads. Understanding this is key. Don't look for ideal relationships. Work with what you have got. 

What are we dealing with in a relationship? 

Humans, who are by nature fallible. If we hold everyone to very high standards, then we are going to feel disappointed a great deal of time. Learning to accept people as they are moment by moment can help ease out difficulties. 

What should be our intention in a relationship in order to be happy? 

Relationships are not meant to make us happy. They are there to help us grow. They help us learn more about ourselves as well as the other person who we are dealing with. If we set our intention to learn and grow through our relationships, then our relationship will be a success. 

Why are people, sometimes even close people rude to us, and how to deal with this? 

Sometimes people close to us are rude to us, not because they are inherently bad. But maybe because they are in some sort of emotional pain. And are expressing themselves negatively. Always remember only somebody in pain can give pain to others. Happy people spread happiness. This is an opportunity for you to be compassionate and respond with love. You can also apply loving kindness practice and send out blessings to this person acting out his/her pain.

However, if somebody is being abusive ( physically or emotionally ) then you have every right to protect yourself, or find a way to minimize or completely cut contact from the abusive person, if that's possible. If the abusive person happens to be a close family member then you will need to find ways to minimize contact, as your own physical and mental health should always be of top priority. First share a good and healthy relationship with yourself. 

What are the ways in which I can nurture my relationships?

- Respond to people with love : This takes effort and practice. We get easily irritated with people very close to us like parents, kids and spouse and tend to take them for granted. See if you can practice 'responding with love' with them a great deal of time. All learning should first begin from your own home. 

- Respect All : Treat everyone equally. Inferior and superior are all egoic concepts we have created in our own heads. We are all the same going through different individualistic life paths. We all will die one day, along with that will go, all the identities that we have created. All that really matters is how harmoniously we learnt to live with our differences. 

- Share your time : Time is the most wonderful gift you can give anyone. Call up that friend, visit a relative, invite friends over for coffee or dinner, play with your kids, dance with your spouse. And use this time, to be mindful. Give the person who you are spending time with your undivided attention. That would be the most wonderful way to nurture the relationship you share. Make it a habit to find creative ways of nurturing the relationships you have. The more energy you put into something, the better the result.🙂

I will close this post with a wonderful article on 'how the porcupines survived the ice age. Read and reflect how it applies to our own relationships 🙂

https://www.google.co.in/amp/s/betterlifecoachingblog.com/2010/12/17/how-the-porcupines-survived-the-ice-age-a-story-about-our-need-for-relationships/amp/

Conscious living Practice 19 - Exercise Caution

The other day my friend told me about an incident she witnessed where a young girl was crossing the road wearing headphones in her ears and unable to hear sounds of vehicles, accidentally bumped into a cyclist, hurting herself. Now, clearly if she had exercised some caution, the incident could have been avoided. Just like her, if we were to scrutinize our own lives, we would realize that we too sometimes miss exercising caution, where being cautious can be of help. 

Today onward I invite you to start building awareness to being cautious. This will definitely involve you to be mindful and take necessary steps to live a courageous but cautious life. 

Some examples of exercising caution : 

- Be mindful while walking on the road of vehicles around. Walk on pavement meant for pedestrians.

- Be careful while driving. Drive on the lane meant for driving and never overtake from the wrong side.

- Wear helmet while riding on a bike. Your head is the most precious part of your body. Protect it.  

- Do regular medical check ups. If you haven't done one in a long time, then schedule one now. 
- When the weather is cold and wind chilly, cover your ears and keep yourself warm.

These are just a few examples, I am sure you can think of many more where you can exercise caution. 

#consciousliving #practice19 #exercisecaution 

Conscious living Practice 18 - Minimize Procrastination

We all have that one task that we know we have to do, but keep putting off. Work accumulates over time and begins to hang over our head like the sword of Damocles. There is a very popular Doha of poet Kabirdas which most of us must have read in school. It reads -  kaal kare so aaj kar, aaj kare so ab, pal mein pralaya hoyegi bahuri karoge kab. It means : 

"What you have to do tomorrow, do today. And what you have to do today, do now. If the moment is lost, then how will you do the work". Basically, do whatever needs to be done now.

A very wise advice and something that can simplify our lives if we were to adopt it. 

I invite you to become a little more conscious of the tendency to procrastinate and to try to minimize it by trying to accomplish those tasks that you have been putting off🙂 

#consciousliving #practice18 #minimizeprocrastinstion 

Conscious living Practice 17 - Solution oriented approach

I felt this was the most relevant follow up practice to, Acceptance. When situations are difficult, it doesn't serve us to deny reality. Once we have accepted reality for what it is, we can have a 'solution oriented approach' and look at what we can do, to improve our situation. 

Problems are a part of existence, so instead of focusing on the problem and lamenting over it, let us train ourselves to focus on the solutions. 

The following image of what's in our control and what's not, is a very useful reminder that we can use in our life:

Join me, from this day on, to first accept anything that life throws at you. Time taken to accept a situation will depend  on the magnitude of the situation. Be gentle and patient with yourself. Once you have taken that first step, become solution oriented. 

#consciousliving #practice17 #solutionorientedapproach