The 4-day workweek: Why I choose to work only 4 days a week and you can too

Banner Photo Source: Shwetha Shankar on Unsplash

The 4-day workweek: Why I choose to work only 4 days a week and you can too

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This article is part of a series called “What truly matters” - all about finding out what’s really important in your life and then finding time to do it EVERY DAY. See preceding articles in this series below:
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Feb 11th The 4-day workweek: Why I choose to work only 4 days a week and you can too (You are reading it)
Feb 4th The process of finding out what's truly important
Jan 28th What decluttering your home shows you about the meditation process
Jan 21st: What to do with the uncanny feeling you feel in your stomach or in your body? What does it mean?

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Last week, I wrote about the process of finding out what’s truly important to you. I have been dealing with this question ever since I found myself feeling uncomfortable sensations in my stomach - a gut feeling that something’s not right and that something needs to change. (I wrote about this uncanny feeling in an article here and how you too can work through it).

What I discovered through this process was not something new - I had known this all along but now I became more fully and clearly aware of it. I became aware that one of the things I really want to do is to: ”Create videos, books, articles that help people live a life of happiness”.

But for that to happen, I need to make time for meditation, being in nature and being in silence. That’s because I can only help others through my own spiritual progress. I need to keep letting go and dissolving my negative mental states and shift into a positive state of love, equanimity, and inner-peace and then show others how they too can do this for their own lives. If I don’t intentionally allocate time in my life for that, then this cannot happen.

If you did the process of finding out what’s truly important, you too will have identified what is of essence in your life. But just knowing about it and being aware of it is not enough. You have to take bold steps and create the time and space in your busy life for it so that it actually manifests in your life. Otherwise, you become aware of it and then it gets put away in the back of your mind again or buried in some papers in a drawer somewhere. We need to make what’s important to us take up time on our calendar, it is to actually happen in our life.

Eight Hours a Week To Make Room For What’s Truly Important

So in order to offer these weekly classes to our community every Wednesday, we needed to block off one day a week for it. That means we have left 4 days left for our work week.

As I am self-employed running my web design and online marketing service, I do have a bit more freedom in planning my week. So, along with my husband, we decided to invest one day a week in writing, reading and meditating and volunteering once a week to facilitate a weekly meditation class for our community. (The classes are free to all - if you are in Boone, NC area you are welcome to come join us - see dates and location here)

And now we are both working only 4 days a week.

In other words, we have four days a week to earn our livelihood. We grew up around the 5 days a week work model and so this is an experiment. We know that we are not the only ones doing this kind of an experiment. Many companies are putting limits on the number of hours their employees work in a week, only to find an increase in productivity, creativity, satisfaction, and happiness of their teams. Some countries are even experimenting with a four-day workweek.

Make it Work for Your Current Schedule

This may or may not be possible for someone working a full-time job. But you can still carve out time in your workweek by getting a little creative. Start with an hour a day during the workweek. That’s five hours. Then, add an hour and a half on the weekends. That totals to eight hours a week. 8 hrs/week in this way = 1 day/week in our way.

Maybe it is only 3.5 hours a week for you or half an hour each day. You can carve out time in a way that works in your current schedule and still make it work. You will find that our lives are already filled with so many unimportant distractions that take up so much time - just remove those distractions and you will end up with more than enough time to devote to what’s truly important to you. Consider how much TV you watch or how much social media scrolling takes up your time. There are all kinds of distractions from useless conversations, activities that you said yes to that you only said yes to be polite, not saying no to all the people who want a piece of your time. It’s not easy, I know because we love our friends and the people in our lives. But you can start slowly, bit by bit.

How a 4-Day Work Week Impacts Our Income and Energy

How this change to a 4-day work week affect our productivity, income levels and time management is still something we are monitoring. Maybe our income will go down because there’s one day less to work on projects. Maybe it will go up because we’ve become more focused and productive (like all those studies show). I know that my time scrolling my Facebook feed has gone done tremendously this year because of our new plan because there’s just no time for it!

May be our current projects will overflow into the weekend. That actually just happened last week for my husband. He was working both Saturday and Sunday and now today is Monday and he is a bit ill because of a lack of rest. It sure is not easy to manage a full workload from a 5 day week into a 4 day week. Plus, our weekends are serious business usually - they are all about rest and recharging and so he is used to getting rejuvenated on the weekend to be at his best during the week. But without that weekend rest, it has affected everything. However, I know that this is part of our process. We have only started this new schedule six weeks ago. So there will be adjustment period and we may more such work overflows into the weekend.

But what I can say is that from volunteering our time once a week to the community towards a cause and a purpose that we deeply believe in (helping people find inner-peace through meditation), is very fulfilling for us. It has given us a deep sense of purpose and meaning.

And it has also contributed to an increase in actual physical energy on the days we do our meditation classes. We get a million things done on that day, starting from meditating in the morning, brainstorming topic for the class, drafting a 4 to 5-page handout, refining that text, printing copies for the participants, uploading the text to the blog, making a PDF version of the text for instant download, charging the batteries for the camera, preparing lunch, getting the gear ready (tripod, lav mic, extension cables, camera, water bottles), sending an email reminder to our group, driving to the center, holding our class, recording it, heading back home and picking up groceries on the way, transferring all the video and audio data to the computer, editing the two videos, rendering them, uploading them, publishing them, and embedding the videos on the blog and sending out an email with the link to the latest recording). All of this in one day!

On any other day, this would be a massive accomplishment leaving us drained. But on Wednesdays when we are holding our class for our community members, they give us enormous amounts of love, appreciation, encouragement, and energy. That’s how we can make it happen.

Saying No In Order To Say Yes

Of course, this has meant that we also have to say “no” to a lot of other invitations and activities - not because we don’t want to do them, or don’t want to hang out with the people in our lives. It’s just that we are still learning to get our most important goals accomplished in the time we have got. And to make time for what’s truly important to us has not been easy in light of all the external invitations and excitements all around us that we want to partake in. Brunch invitation from neighbors, lunch invitation from friends, a new art exhibit in town, this excursion, that gathering, that event, this conference.

But we have found that with a full-time workload, and working 4 days a week to come up with funds to pay all our bills, AND investing time in things that are truly important to us, we just cannot succumb to all of these invitations. That is why we have become more of a hermit/reclusive from the perspective of others, when it comes to social engagements. That doesn’t mean we don’t like to be invited to things. That always feels great to receive an invite. But we have just had to say no to a lot of things if we are to make time for our core goals and dreams happen - which already is not an easy task.

When you carve out a time slot in your calendar for the things that you want to pursue, the thing that falls under “most important”, you too will have to learn to say no to other very exciting things. And it may even disappoint others. But in order to make sure that what’s most important to you finds ample room in your calendar, you will have to say no to the other “distractions”. And saying no with love and compassion is an art and be sure to be kind in your refusals of invitations. People will understand when you outline what’s important to you and your own struggle with time to get that accomplished. You may even inspire others.

Find it! Find it!

Do take a few moments to do the introspective exercise I outlined in my previous blog post and then find the time in your calendar to devote to it. The exercise involves going over a handful of questions and seeing what answers emerge for you. Some answers may not be news to you. You may already know them. But the process will surely give you more clarity on what’s truly important to you. Then take out your calendar and find a time-slot where you can dedicate complete attention to this one thing that truly matters to you and take steps towards manifesting it in your life.

Peace,
Sophia

PS: If you’d like to see the books that inspire me, see the books I love here.

*There are affiliate links on this site. When you purchase via such links, I will receive a small affiliate commission without any extra costs to you.

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Now, it’s your turn to share:
Share with us how you are finding time for that which is truly important for you. Let us know in the comments how you’ve placed it in your calendar
and what you’ve had to say no to, in order to achieve this. If you are yet to make this part of your plan, tell us how you plan to do it!

I’d love to know so please share in the comments below.

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The process of finding out what’s truly important to you

Banner Photo Source: Quino Al

The process of finding out what’s truly important to you

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This article is part of a series called “What truly matters” - all about finding out what’s really important in your life and then finding time to do it EVERY DAY. See preceding articles in this series below:

Feb 11th The 4-day workweek: Why I choose to work only 4 days a week and you can too
Feb 4th The process of finding out what's truly important (You are reading it)
Jan 28th What decluttering your home shows you about the meditation process
Jan 21st What to do with the uncanny feeling you feel in your stomach or in your body? What does it mean?

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If I were to ask you, “What’s truly important to you?” what would you reply? And are you taking steps towards that which is truly essential for you?

This question has once again become important to me because recently I found myself feeling uncomfortable sensations in my stomach - a gut feeling that something’s not right and that something needs to change. (I wrote about this in last week's article here). Not knowing what that “something” is, I have begun an introspective process for myself so that I can follow this inner-calling, figure out what the cryptic messages mean and then go about taking actions towards it. But before I can take action, I need to unearth from deep within me, what that message is and what that new path is meant to be.

Not knowing what’s important in one’s life is a plague that many of us are afflicted with.

Since this uncanny feeling emerged at the start of this year (2020), I have read the book, Goodbye Things by the Japanese minimalist author, Fumio Sasaki who says that reducing our necessary items to a minimum is one way of unearthing what truly matters to us. It's not the only way and minimalism is not a goal but a process of getting down to what's essential. There's no judging involved about how many things you have because as long as you know what's important to you and you are living the life you want to live, then things around really don't matter. But for most of us, our things and our activities cover up what we really want to do with our time here on Earth. And so letting go of things is part of this process.

Today, I am sharing something that's part of my personal story and it feels deeply vulnerable to put it down on in a blog. But sharing this with you is part of my healing and I want to share it in hopes that it may add another spark to your journey of healing and inner-peace.

For me, this process of getting clear about what's truly important began several years ago when I would repeatedly go down a spiral of sad, depressing thoughts. I was living in Germany at the time (2005-2007) and doing my graduate studies at Jacobs University in Bremen - a very rainy city. But a bit of what was happening before I got to Bremen.

The Volume That Buries What’s Truly Important

There have been times in my life that I’ve felt overwhelmed with volume. The volume of things, the volume of activities, the volume of emotions with no time or a way to process them. Then, there’s also the volume of information, the volume of social expectations, the volume of people, and the volume of noise.

This volume clouds and covers up all that’s truly important, valuable and meaningful in one’s life. Have you ever felt this? And because of all this crowding and clouding that’s going on, I’ve felt confused, unfocused and unclear about my next steps, even sad, depressed and hopeless. This was the time when I was living in New York and working at the United Nations (2001-2005). Every day, my job was to talk about all the things that the UN was involved in and each morning we had an hour-long briefing about the latest world news, filled with details of civil war, violence, and poverty which we then had to convey to the visiting public by memory. This went on for four and a half years. And towards the end of this period, I had forgotten who I was, what I’d wanted to do with my life and had spent zero hours on anything creative. Having done my undergraduate studies at New York University in Film and Television production and being a creative person part of my identity, I had honed that creative bone for three and a half years. Now, I had not done a single piece of creative writing. I was feeling empty and didn’t really understand the pent up emotions that I was burying inside.

All of that exploded or rather imploded when I moved to Germany to pursue graduate studies and to be closer to the love of my life whom I had just met and who lived in Germany. I found it incredibly difficult to get out of bed to even get to my classes and then, in between class days I filled up my time watching movies that I rented from a nearby automated rental shop just to drown out the confusion and spiraling sad thoughts. (Yes, this was pre-streaming days when DVDs were still in demand)! There were times when I would find myself weeping at the plight of wild animals who were being hunted to extinction and stray dogs and cats in developing countries that were being neglected to a life of utter misery. The news would throw me into a downward spiral.

This was increasingly getting unbearable.

I did have thoughts of being freed from this life of suffering and misery but thankfully in retrospect, I was too depressed with a lack of energy to do anything about it.

The Miracle Of One Book

Life is miraculous and you never know when the next turn of good fortune comes your way. What happened next might look like a trivial matter but it had a life-changing consequence for me. I went to visit my boyfriend (now husband) who lived four hours away from the town where I was studying. He had a collection of books in his bookshelf.

While he went to work, I decided to browse his bookshelf and find something to pass the time with. And there it was - my turning point. Among the many books he had there, there was one that caught my eye. It was a book by Steven Covey called, “First Things First”, that he had received as a gift from his Dad.

Once I picked up this book, I couldn’t put it down. I read it at home. I read it at the cafe. I read it on the tram. And it’s a pretty thick book, probably, the first book I had read that was for leisure and not for some kind of a class assignment. Graduate school doesn’t really allow time for leisure reading, in my experience!

You can get the book here.

Anyways, this book by Covey had a certain grip on me. I can’t remember any more details except two ideas which I am paraphrasing:

1. He wrote in the book that we need to focus on what we can influence. I think he called it our zone of influence.

and

2. Take a few moments after something is said or done and respond consciously and with good intent, instead of reacting.

The first idea literally freed me from my suffering for world events that I could not directly influence or change. It reminded me that instead of having my mind worry about faraway matters that I can have a minuscule difference on (or none), rather focus on my immediate life, surroundings, people and on most importantly on myself that I can most directly and massively influence. This was life-changing and I could feel a kind of a burden lifting from my heart.

The second idea was all too new and unfamiliar to me but it did capture my attention. I had thought of reacting and responding as just two ways of expressing the same thing. To be alerted that there was a difference alone was eye-opening. However, it was only years later that I truly understood the distinction between the two and even now am still learning and figuring out how to truly respond with compassion, patience, and equanimity.

Over the next ten years, I found my way to visualization and meditation exercises that have gradually liberated me from the burden of my own thoughts.

What’s Truly Important To You?

To find out what’s truly important, we do need to dig a bit deeper. Quieting the chaos, calming the helter-skelter life and slowing down the running around from here to there, is an important component of the process. When you look outside a moving car, you see the outside world but in flashes. As you slow down the car more and more and eventually to a standstill, you begin to really see the details of the scene outside. This is what we need to for our inner-world as well. In order to really see what’s going on in there, we need to slow down more and more and come to a complete stop. Then the insights, the wisdom, the clarity arises within us. That’s how we can get in touch with what’s truly important to us, what’s truly of essence in our own lives.

Sometimes, the stepping stone to slowing down and meditating is clearing up our outer world. Reducing our belongings and activities to only those that we consciously choose to have in our live - like the Japanese minimalist authors such as Fumio Sasaki and Marie Kondo propound, can be one way to help us slow down, and to reduce the volume that is filling up our lives.

Another way, is to do an introspective exercise of closing your eyes and allowing some questions to flow over you. You may hear, see or feel the answers bubble up to the surface in response to these questions. Some of these questions are:

What do I truly want in my life?
What do I want to create in my life?
What do I want to do with my time on this planet?
What’s of real essence?
What matters?
What is truly important to me?
What path can I take to find and create the above?
What one thing do I want to create, have or experience that will make all the difference?
If I could have it all my way, what would I truly want in my life?
If time and money were of no concern, what would I do?
If I only had six months to live, what would I do with my time?

You can journal your answers and see what emerges.

This is what came up for me:

What is truly important to me right now?

Time invested in meditation
Time invested being with hubby 
Time invested being with cats
Time invested being in nature, in silence

What do I want to create in my life?

Simple minimalist life with very minimum things
Happy life with no burdens
Lots of openness, spaciousness in my living environment
Creative expressions - in the form of writing and creating videos
Reading and learning about how to create a life of peace and joy
Creating more than enough income to support our life and needs (Cristof, myself, our cats, our parents)

What do I want to do with my time on this planet?

Create videos, books, articles that help people live a life of happiness

What path can you take to find that true peace, true fulfillment?

Write, create and publish
Grow a following of people who want to cultivate inner-peace and help them
Sell courses and books to make a leveraged income
First, simplify and declutter my things and my time

None of these answers was a real surprise, but to have this kind of clarity is very helpful as I move forward to create what’s truly important to me and experience it in my life.

Peace,
Sophia

PS: If you’d like to see more book recommendations, see my list of favorite books here.

*There are affiliate links on this site such as the one linking Steven Covey’s book. When you purchase via such links, I will receive a small affiliate commission without any extra costs to you.

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Now, it’s your turn to share:
What do you think you will find when you remove the
excessive things and activities that fill up your life?

I’d love to know so please share in the comments below.

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What decluttering your home shows you about the process of meditation

Banner Photo Source Roma Ryabchenko

What decluttering your home shows you about the process of meditation

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This article is part of a series called “What truly matters” - all about finding out what’s really important in your life and then finding time to do it EVERY DAY. See preceding articles in this series below:

Feb 11th The 4-day workweek: Why I choose to work only 4 days a week and you can too
Feb 4th The process of finding out what's truly important
Jan 28th What decluttering your home shows you about the meditation process (You are reading it)
Jan 21st What to do with the uncanny feeling you feel in your stomach or in your body? What does it mean?

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”There’s happiness in having less”. That’s the first sentence in the book, Goodbye, Things written by the Japanese author, Fumio Sasaki. This morning, I took up reading this book for the second time as I am freshly in a new wave of decluttering my home. As I read the first few pages, it dawned on me that the process of decluttering - at least decluttering in the minimalist way - is similar to the process of meditation.

Sasaki defines minimalism as having two parts: “1. reducing our necessary items to a minimum, and 2. doing away with excess so we can focus on the things that are truly important to us.” He points out that we think having more and more things will make us happy. Whereas saying goodbye to things is an exercise in thinking about true happiness.

He radically transformed his cluttered apartment filled with collector’s items, books, knick-knacks, and clothes into a streamlined, tidy, spacious home filled with only the necessary items that he needs. This process of clearing out his home allowed him to get rid of false pride over rare cameras or showing off books that he never had time to read and many other personal changes he outlines like reducing his alcohol consumption, stopping to waste time watching TV, losing excess weight and treating women better. He says in the book that he feels happier now and he attributes it to his minimalist life.

You can get the book here.

The way Sasaki defines minimalism is how the process of meditation can also be similarly defined: 1. reducing our mental chatter to a minimum. 2. doing away with the excess distractions in our mind so that we can focus fully on the present moment. It is the cluttered mind full of thoughts, feelings, and emotions that are unprocessed and in excess that removes us from our true happiness. It’s all the activities that we fill our lives up with. It’s all the experiences we feel we need to get a taste of. It’s all the places, events, attractions we feel we need to record. It’s all the things that we feel we need to see, touch or own. And there are countless other ways of filling up our minds and our lives.

When we can slow down, and start removing the excess that fills up our time, we can then sit down to meditate. When we sit down to meditate, we become instantly aware of the barrage of thoughts and emotions that seem to flood our awareness. Many beginner meditators seem to drop meditation after their first few experiences because they think they need to have a completely quiet mind in meditation. And since they notice the raucous cacophony of mental activity, they think meditation is not working. But it is working exactly as it is supposed to. In our daily lives, we are experiencing these thoughts and emotions but we don’t fully process them. We don’t have the capacity to do when we are moving so fast - just like when you are inside a moving car you can only see flashes of the scenery outside. It’s only when you stop the car, and start walking slowly and eventually when you stop and stand still, can you see the details of the scene before you. Similarly, when you sit down to meditate, you begin to see all that is filling up your mind.

And that experience is just like decluttering your home. You’ve decided to find the most necessary items like Sasaki or the things that spark joy like the author Marie Kondo and you’ve piled all the things into the middle of the living room.

You can get her book here.

Just like that, when you sit down to meditate, all your thoughts and feelings start rushing in to fill up your mental living room. When you are in reducing your belongings, you can’t just chuck out everything. In fact, Marie Kondo asks you to pick up every item and ask yourself, “Does this spark joy?” If it doesn’t, out it goes.

Similarly, in meditation, when you close your eyes and thoughts begin to arise, you need to look at that thought, observe it - as if holding an object in your hands. But unlike asking yourself whether it sparks joy, all you do is notice it. You are a silent observer. Notice the nature of the thought. And allow it to fade away like clouds in the sky. Some thoughts may be more intense, even more like strong emotions. In such a case, you work with these emotions. These emotions may be those of irritation, anger, sadness, frustration and so on. The Vietnamese Zen monk, Thich Nhat Than says that we need to care for our emotions, welcome them and care for them. How do you care for them? You take the role of a caring mother who holds a crying child to soothe it. Just by holding it and saying kind, gentle words to the distressed child, it starts to relax and calm down. You can do the same to your emotions that arise in meditation. Welcome those thoughts, emotions and give them love, give yourself love and compassion because you are experiencing them. In this way, your mind starts to calm down.

As you become more and more adept at the meditation process, your mind becomes calmer and calmer. Thoughts get processed just by your bare attention and awareness of them, allowing them to exist without judging or resisting them.

As the mind becomes quieter, space arises for peace and wisdom. Seeds of peace, compassion and wisdom that are already within you, start to blossom. You’ve removed the weeds of mental chatter and created the fertile ground for serenity and inner-peace to thrive. You are able to be present with what is, be present in the moment without resisting, just allowing and dissolving and processing everything your experience into peace.

This is the path of peace and happiness.

This is peace and happiness that we can experience here and now, not just sometime in the future or in the next life. So as I create a minimalist life for myself in my surroundings and in my mind, I begin to experience more and more peace, joy and happiness. Coming less from things and the outside world and more from within.

Peace,

Sophia

PS: If you’d like to see more book recommendations, see my list of favorite books here.

*There are affiliate links on this site such as the one above linking the Goodbye Things book by Fumio Sasaki. When you purchase via such links, I will receive a small affiliate commission without any extra costs to you.

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Now, it’s your turn to share:
Have you experienced the peace that comes from decluttering the mind or your home? What do these process have in common in your experience?

I’d love to know so please in the comments below.

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What to do with the uncanny feeling you feel in your stomach or in your body? What does it mean?

What to do with the uncanny feeling you feel in your stomach or elsewhere in your body? What does it mean?

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This article is part of a series called “What truly matters” - all about finding out what’s really important in your life and then finding time to do it EVERY DAY. See preceding articles in this series below:

Feb 11th The 4-day workweek: Why I choose to work only 4 days a week and you can too
Feb 4th The process of finding out what's truly important
Jan 28th What decluttering your home shows you about the meditation process
Jan 21st What to do with the uncanny feeling you feel in your stomach or in your body? What does it mean? (You are reading it)

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Lately, I have been getting this feeling.

It’s a feeling that you feel in the pit of your stomach. It’s an uncanny yet familiar feeling that you have felt before. It tells you a lot of things about your inner-world. The main message it’s giving you is that “something is not right”. It’s a signal that is so strong and so clear that it is impossible to ignore. You may not know what to do with it but there it is strong and present right there - in your body.

I thought I’d write here about it so that if you are feeling this too, you will somehow be brought to this article. Intuition works in magical ways. So does Google and search engine optimization! ;-)

So, I am trying to figure out what to do with this feeling. But before that, let me tell you a bit more about the message I am getting.

Message That I am Getting

This feeling, this pit in my stomach, is telling me at least two things:

1. something is wrong

2. and that it needs to change.

What exactly is wrong that this feeling is alerting me to? It’s how I am spending my time day to day and it’s about what I want to experience in my life.

You see, every year in December, I do an introspection process to close out the last year and to set intentions for the new year. For 2020, I envisioned that I am feeling:

1. Peaceful - in mind and body and surroundings
2. Light - of few belongings, detached to those belongings, and free of ill will, anger, resentment, etc.
3. Happy - in my relationship with hubby, our cats, family and friends
4. Spacious - of few commitments, more time to study the wisdom teachings and to meditate
5. Useful - sharing the teachings of peace, supporting monastics and being helpful in household life
6. Calm and balanced - easy means of livelihood that’s sufficient, peaceful, leveraged, satisfying, and fulfilling
7. Grateful - feeling gratitude for every $ of income I earn

I wrote this out on Dec 28th, 2019. And now it’s Jan 21st, 2020. I am feeling an intense awareness in my body that some things need to change and I have this knowing that the message coming from my body is related to these 7 items I listed back in 2019 that I want to feel and experience in my life.

What To Do About This Feeling?

Now, I am not exactly sure what needs to change in my life or how I will go about doing this. But I know that my body and mind are in alignment and each day I only need to take one small step with awareness and intention.

I don’t have all the answers about this process and I don’t have to because all I need to do is the next best thing. And the next best thing. And if I am open enough to hear inner guidance, I will know what exactly I need to do.

So this is something you, too, can benefit from. Are you feeling a strange feeling in your body telling you something? You may not intellectually know what it is or how to resolve it but you are very clear that this feeling is there.

Here are three things you can do about it:

1. Let it be.
The first thing you need to do is to not resist it. What do I mean by that? First thing to do is to know that this is normal and natural and that you don’t have to get rid of it. It’s here with some important, powerful messages and it may feel uncomfortable but it’s exactly what you need to go through in order to come out on the other side with the gifts and blessings that this message brings you.

2. Next, do some journaling.
Write down in your notebook how this feeling feels. Describe where in your body you are feeling it or whether it is non-physical, more like a knowing. Write this all down. Then, ask your inner-self questions around it.

1. What does this feeling mean?
2. Why am I feeling it?
3. What message do I need to hear?
4. What one thing I can do next to understand it better?
5. Is there an action step you want me to take?

Now for some of you, this may be a powerful experience where all the answers come pouring down. But for those of you for whom the answers are not coming, just be patient. Just give it a try and then come back to it another day.

3. Sit Still.
If the writing doesn’t work, then just sit still with your eyes closed and ask these questions quietly to your self. Then, be present to the first image that comes to your mind. Just the first image. Pay attention to it and make a mental note of it. For some, instead of an image, you may get this “knowing” or an inner-sense of either what the message means or what the next thing you need to do.

You Are Being Guided

Be open. Be alert. Be receptive. Your inner-self is trying to make contact with you. You need to quiet your mind, shut out distractions and put in the effort to listen in and to find out. You are your best guide. All answers are within you. Just get quiet and listen in.

That’s what I am doing. Listening to the message on what I needed to do next. Writing this article was the next action I was guided to take. I dropped everything and sat down to write and the words starting flowing.

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Now, it’s your turn to share:
Have you felt this feeling in your body that is trying to tell you something? What kind of steps do you take when this happens? How did you act on it and how did this change things for you?

Let me know in the comments below.

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Stopping the freight train of the mind

It is not always easy to meditate in daily life. There are responsibilities and commitments that are so time-consuming. 

But when there is a group of like-minded people who all want to train their minds in a conducive environment together, that's a golden opportunity. So finding a group locally in your area to meditate with is very helpful for your practice. Meditating together helps us water the good seeds within us - that's because your presence in the circle helps each one of us feel a sense of community and belonging, something we all yearn for. 

If you cannot make it to a group meditation due to other commitments and reasons, or there isn't a group nearby, do take time to refine your practice, nevertheless. Use a guided meditation from YouTube or sit quietly in your room and gently bring awareness to your breath for 10 minutes. 

These 10 minutes will go a long way, especially when done every day. And it is not about having the perfect 10 minutes - that's too heavy of an expectation for our practice. The only thing to do is - Show Up to our meditation practice. Even if those 10 minutes are full of a wandering mind, so be it. At least you showed up and made a meaningful effort to calm the mind. 

This reminds me of a story I heard one of the monks relay. There was a man who got a job and he showed up on Monday for work. At the end of the day, he returned home to his wife and complained that he didn't get paid and was thinking of not going to work the next day. On Tuesday, he did go to work but came home empty-handed. The next day, he did a whole day's of work yet no paycheck. He told his wife that he still didn't get renumerated for his hard work and was thinking of quitting. On Friday, he managed to bring himself to work and put in an honest effort. 

As he was leaving, he was stopped by his boss. She gave him his paycheck! Delighted, the man went home happy to his wife.

Sometimes, we too, think of our meditation like this man. On day one we want a calm, peaceful mind and go into deep meditative states. Each day we think - ah, it's not bringing me any results, why meditate? But it is only after repetitive training of the mind that it learns to quiet down. How quickly it calms down has at least something to do with how long and how fast it has been running around all those years. Just like bringing a bicycle to a complete stop is far easier than bringing a freight train to a stop, bringing a mind habituated to wandering takes longer to slow down than a mind that has been practicing for a while.

Eventually, one day you will experience peace and serenity and delight of the mind that surpasses all other worldly pleasures and comforts. So let's help ourselves now by training our minds slowly and gradually.

Much love,

Sophia

I realized the power of meditation when I experienced intense pain

Last week, I had to undergo an unexpected surgery. An intense pain developed over the weekend which sent me straight to the Urgent Care who sent me to see a surgeon. The reason I am telling you this is because it happened just before my March 27th presentation which is all about navigating pain through meditation.

Now, I felt that I was fit to talk about this subject because I used to have extremely debilitating menstrual cramps for years before I began using meditative techniques to reduce the pain and stress. But life had a different plan. 

Before the surgery was conducted, I went through excruciating pain over the weekend with nothing but my meditation practice and a loving husband to get me through it. Having never gone through anything like that before in my life, this was a brand new territory for me and a very potent learning ground. I hope to tell you more about the fruits of that experience in a future blog (or if you are in the Boone, NC area then on March 27th), but all I want to leave you with is this:

Meditation is not a luxury. It is a vital tool for navigating the real mess this life we live. Everything may be going well for you now so you may not feel the urgency of developing a meditation practice - I get it. We, humans, tend to do things only when we are fully convinced of its value. And if everything is going well for you right now, then that's really good. Take the opportunity of good conditions and practice meditation as much as you can.

It was when I could continuously place my attention on my breath, that I could feel relief from the intense physical pain. It was in those moments that I realized how far I still need to go in my practice. But I also became aware of how far I had come. Had I not been practicing meditation so far, the pain would have been completely overwhelming for me. 

Meditation is a balm that you can apply now so you can handle any injuries in the future with ease and find relief from suffering.

Love,
Sophia

Mindfulness for solving biz problems

Hello there,

This morning I conducted a live FB chat with my friend Julienne DesJardins for her FB Group Solorpreneur Strategy. We talked about how to use mindfulness to solve business problems and as a result grow your business and impact.

I'm sending out a worksheet with a mindful process and examples of how you can use it in real-life scenarios. If you'd like that, please fill out the form below. You will also be automatically added to my newsletter list from which you can unsubscribe at anytime. So here it is:

Please fill out the form with your contact and some of your current issues that cause emotional distress and mental anxiety or in general make you uncomfortable.

Download of Mindfulness Worksheet for Business Growth

Mindfulness for Business Growth

Thank you. If you have specific questions, please add them to the form above as well. I will be emailing you the worksheet in a few hours. 

Peace,
Sophia

Create Your Happy New Year!

The New Year brings the energy of a fresh start. Like turning to a crisp blank page in your notebook or walking on untouched sand or making the first brush stroke on a blank canvas, we have a brand new year to do, create and be that which we want. Resolutions and plans are a great way to anchor those new goals. And I certainly have done my share of those in the past. But it has not always worked for me because the focus of those goals was too much on an end result and nothing else. 

Instead, this is what works for me: 
Starting with the question, "How do I want to feel in 2019?", I journal whatever answers come up. Then, from there I identify what action steps will help create those feelings for me. And then schedule it as a task in my calendar which puts focus on what actions I will take rather than the end result I am aiming for. When you take those actions on a consistent basis, you start to get inspired, you build your confidence and enjoy the process. And often, you enjoy the process so much that the end result becomes irrelevant. This lightness about it all then makes it all the more possible that your goal, the end result you are wanting to create, actually comes to fruition in your life.

Putting it into action:
For example, one of the things that came up when I asked, "How do I want to feel in 2019?" in my recent introspective break was this: "I feel that my home is utterly neat, clean, bright, minimal and streamlined". Then I ask myself what action steps will I need to take because a neat, clean, bright, minimal and streamlined home will not just appear to me sometime magically in the year! I wish ;-) Well, the answer was: On Saturday mornings, take an hour or so to clean out the pantry and for caring for the home. Now this action step goes straight into my calendar as a weekly action step. And each time, I complete that task, I will get the feeling I was going after in the first place. This then goes on to have a cumulative effect week by week which will result in a continuous feeling that I want for my home.

This was an example from my personal life but I apply it also to my business, my health, my creative aspirations and any other aspects of my life that are important to me.

Here are the steps again:
1. Ask, "How do I want to feel in 2019?" Write down your response.
2. Ask, "What action steps will I need to take to help create those feelings for me?” Write down answers and pick one or two tasks.
3. Schedule it in your calendar as a daily, weekly or a monthly task (or even an annual task - ex. big family reunion). 
4. Repeat it for all aspects of your life that are important to you.

The most important step: Step 5
What I love about us humans is that we are constantly wanting to change things, make them better. But what I also have noticed about myself and others is that in this quest to make things better, we become so caught up that we forget one thing. And that is to be kind to ourselves. Making resolutions and plans and action steps is all great but if you will beat up yourself at every missed step, then you are not being kind. I'd rather play the piano really badly while being kind to myself than be a piano virtuoso who is impatient and unkind to herself, you know what I mean? So please remember that if you skip the gym or miss your daily commitment to journal (or whatever action plans you've chosen for yourself), just brush it off, consider it a learning lesson and start fresh again. Each day is the first day of your life - we don't have to wait for the next new year's day to start again! ;-)

Be kind to yourself and create a happy new 2019!!

Love,
Sophia

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Want to meditate with me in Boone? We have new dates for a monthly event.
I am super excited to announce that the Life Long Learners' group in Boone, NC has arranged with the Lois E. Harrill Senior Center to host a monthly Meditation + Presentation event! Here are the dates we have confirmed and I'd love to meet you there. The events are free of charge and during each event, you will participate in a guided meditation, hear a short presentation on the topic of the day and have time for sharing your personal experiences. 

Time: 2 pm - 3 pm, 4th Wednesdays
Venue: Lois Harrill Senior Center, 132 Poplar Grove Connector # A, Boone, NC 28607
Cost: free to the public

Dates:

Jan 23rd, Wednesday:  Starting Fresh - Why you need a daily meditation practice and 5 steps on how to set it up in your life.

Feb 27th, Wednesday: Practice of purification of past negative karma. 

Mar 27th, Wednesday: Understanding the Buddhist concept of impermanence, Karma, and breath meditation to deal with physical pain.

Apr 24th, Wednesday: Living wisely today to experience a peaceful death - whenever it happens.

May 22nd, Wednesday: Putting Meditation into Perspective - Understanding Buddha's Noble Eightfold Path to Enlightenment.

PS: If you want to check if the Center is open or not during inclement weather, please call the Center at (828) 265-8090.

See you there!

050: Why I am taking three weeks off and the 8 mistakes I’m learning from

Why I am taking three weeks off and the 8 mistakes I’m learning from

I usually don’t write about the entrepreneurial journey here on the blog but I do think it is relevant because, you, as my reader, get to know a bit more about the person behind the words and videos that show up on this site. I am taking my first three week break of my working year starting this month and going into October and I feel this is a good time to share what the backstory to this break is.

The journey begins
My current journey began back in August 2016 when I got hired to set up my first email marketing platform for a client. From then on, I was completely hooked into making it happen with an online business. I made some rapid progress in those early months and I worked long hours without a break. I was making revenue that inspired me to keep upgrading my skills and my services. I enjoyed it.

Hardly did I know that such non-stop perseverance comes with a price. Often you will hear about entrepreneurs working so hard that they lose sight of their health and their family. In my case, because of some earlier established good habits, I always made time for my family and my health. But there was something else that was close to my heart that I completely ignored and dropped from my schedule.

And that was: learning about the nature of the mind and meditating.

I completely ignored something close to my heart.

Now, I love to learn so during the time when I was working on projects for clients, I continued to read books and articles and took trainings on all things online marketing and web design. But my inherent need to understand how my mind works got completely off my priorities.

I no longer sat in my living room reading about my favorite topic. I hardly invested time for meditation. And the result:

I lost my drive for my business. The immense enthusiasm that I held for my business and working with clients faded away to such an extent that I couldn’t connect with my purpose.
”What am I doing all of this for?” “What is my purpose"?” “What is the meaning of all of this?”

Overwork and ignoring my need to learn about the mind led to me losing all drive for my business.

I sank in a hole in which I wanted to shut down everything and just go be with my cats (I love my cats immensely, you see). I know that sounds crazy. But I dropped into a mini-depressive state where things that used to excite me didn’t any more.

I decided to take a break from business - but in my mind I was shutting down my business.

The shutting down begins
This all started in August 2017. The business that I had worked so hard on building - I was now in the process of ending. By October 2017, I wrote to all my clients that I will no longer be doing email marketing projects. I deleted all my client projects and emails. I made a note in my calendar to cancel my business email when the date arrives for renewal. By January, I embarked on recording 12 meditation audio tracks for my personal development site - this way I was taking my mind off my business completely.

I had ended the renewal of my domain sophiaojha.com and even cancelled my annual Squarespace plan to host this site. I wanted to shut everything down but I still had one client whom I had promised to help with his email marketing set up. He had already hired me many months ago but he was waiting upon his designer to get the site ready before I could start on my project. This client was truly a blessing in disguise and because of that open project, I had to keep my site open until end of Feb.

This is Mighty playing in the snow, experiencing his first winter! Watching him play with this leaf took away much of my entrepreneurial blues :-)

This force-break helped me to heal my lack of enthusiasm. And as a result, I gained immense clarity and focus for what I did want to do in my business.

By March, I had more than 6 months of healing from my lack of enthusiasm and energy. I had gone deep within myself, understood the symptoms and re-connected with what I wanted to do with this one life I have to live right now. Slowly I was recovering from my lack of enthusiasm. In fact, I was getting so much clarity and focus about what I did want to do in my business.

What I realized was: I realized that the problem was not the business or the topic of my business. It was how I was running it and how I was not fueling my inherent needs (see point 7 and 8 below). I saw at least 8 things I was doing “wrong” that zapped the life out of me in my business.

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8 things I did wrong that led me to shut down my service-based business last year (which you may want to consider avoiding in your business).

I am sharing this with you so you may see if you are falling into these traps yourself and avoid them before they get out of hand.

1| I was undercharging.
I had put a lot of time in getting good at what I do. But because I was at the start of my business, I undercharged for my services. (I’ve read we, women, are really good at that. Suze Orman inspires us to do better!). This undercharging meant I worked more and more but didn’t see the proportionate increase in my revenue.

2| I was over-delivering while undercharging.
So, not only was I undercharging for my services, I would do double the amount of work for the same rate, in order to take care of my clients. I recognized that they too were solopreneurs like me (felt camaraderie for the common entrepreneurial journey) and delivered twice than what I was charging. Yes, it is said that women are the hardest workers in any team and I surely fit that description. Often, clients never noticed that; although I noticed how late I was going to bed.

3| I was underreporting on my timesheet.
There were (and still are) some clients that hired me for 10 hr packages. I don’t know what it was but I tended to state 15 minutes if I worked 25 minutes. I still tend to under-report my time (working on fixing it) and I think that added to the stress of my work over the course of the ensuing months.

4| I did things extremely fast but didn’t charge for it.
As I got better at what I did, I got extremely fast. I could set up an entire system in an afternoon what otherwise would have taken days. I had cultivated laser-focus and an ability to shut out all distractions. I delivered super fast but still charged the slow-coach rates. So again, I was doing much more in the small amount of time than before. And, I also was not good at articulating this added-benefit to my clients that my speed had increased even though they were paying me the same rates as before.

5| I squeezed in people on my calendar even if it was already full.
I got really stressed because I didn’t learn the art of scheduling people. I would put in several projects next to each other giving me no breathing room. I would respond to client questions right away even when I had a 100 things already in the pipeline. This made clients happy but made me unhappy. I am getting better at this but still a weak point that I need to get ironed out.

6| I didn’t schedule in me-time (reading time).
Everyone needs time off to do things they love. I love reading books on the nature of the mind. But I never made time for it. I was excited about my business but paid a price for not scheduling in me-time. The price was: I had to come to a complete stop for 6 months in order to recover from ignoring my inherent need for learning.

7| I didn’t go where my heart was calling.
I actually began my business with the goal of building websites. But as I was busy catering to incoming email marketing projects (which I am good at and still enjoy as well), I didn’t take the time to blog and make tutorials about web design (which I am changing now). I love designing websites and I love the visual language that translates onto the screen to convey a message or sell an idea. I am now doing more of that and I am happy about that change.

8| I didn’t take a real break.
Vacations? What vacation? I didn’t take a vacation and so never truly unplugged from the internet and from computers for more than a long weekend. Just like those old MTV unplugged sessions from the 90s, I realize I too need to completely unplug; take a break from life-as-usual. And finally this year, that’s exactly what I am doing.

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Refuel. Recharge. Take A Break.

So, I am now finally taking a three-week break and traveling to my birth country, India. I will be spending time in Northern India in the beautiful Himalayan mountains and be without internet or phone access for most of the time. I will be in Dharamsala which is also the adopted home of the Tibetan leader and inspiration, His Holiness, the Dalai Lama. This is a very special time and I wish to return with much inspiration and energy back to my home in the North Carolinian mountains.

This has been a very vulnerable post for me to share all of this with you. I hope that in the sharing of it, you too will become aware of how you are doing things in your life and business. And I hope you are following your heart and taking care of your needs while you build your business, too. Please share in the comments what challenges you’ve had to face or are currently facing so we can support and inspire each other.

~ Peace Sophia

Related Content:

10 Steps To Building A New Meditation Habit

10 Steps To Building A New Meditation Habit

Photo by Jay Castor

We all know the benefit of meditation, especially a daily meditation practice. It has good effects for our health, our mind, our relationships and practically every aspect of our lives. So if we know it is good for us, why can't we do meditation every single day, without struggling to fit it into our daily hectic lives?

There are many answers to this question. We may intellectually know that meditation is good but don't have enough personal experience with it to seal the deal, so to speak. Or we may not have easy access to a meditation practice. Or we may not know how to go about picking a meditation that fits our life. Or we may not know how to build a daily habit. We may think that because of physical illness we cannot do meditation. Or that we need to sit cross-legged in order to do it in the first place. And there are plenty more reasons...

So how does one go about navigating this new world of meditation? Here are some tips that can help you tap into the juicy benefits of a daily meditation practice that await you.

1. Try different kinds of meditation

If you are just starting out, I highly recommend that you take a taste of the various kinds of meditations there are out there. You can try breath awareness, yoga nidra, mindful walking meditation, body scan technique, creative visualizations (I've got tons of free videos on my YouTube Channel for you here), shamanic meditation, anapana meditation, loving kindness meditation, gratitude meditation, vipassana meditation and so on. Try meditations with music or without music. Just see what you feel drawn to and start there. You don't have to try all. Just find one that you like to begin with and then you will find that the right practice will emerge for you in time.

Here's one

2. Start small

An important tip that can help you on your meditation journey is to start small, especially if just the idea of sitting for a long period of time causes you unease. Even just one minute is good enough. You can always progress into longer sessions. But what is more important in building a practice is consistency. So I'd suggest that I'd rather have you meditating 1 min every day of the week rather than an entire hour once a month. You will find it much better to ease into a longer practice by being aware of your current needs. Here's an example of a short meditation in a moment:

3. You don't have to sit cross-legged

This one is such a big myth. You don't have to be an acrobat or any where close to accomplished in twisting your body in any way. You do not have to sit cross-legged during meditation. Yes, sitting with a straight back vs hunching over is a good idea. But what's most important is to sit comfortably. Find a position that your body feels good in and start there. It That means, you are allowed to sit on a chair or a couch or a bed or anywhere that feels good. You can lean against the wall, use cushions and any support you need to keep your body relaxed. And now point 4 is the big one:

4. You can change your position

There's such a misconception out there that during meditation you've got to sit in one position without moving and force yourself to stay still. This is not a gentle approach and in my experience not beneficial in building a practice. See, if you need to move, move. You need to stretch your legs, do it. You need to change your position do it. Over time, it will become easier to sit in one position for long stretches of time. But don't force yourself into it, especially not as you are starting out. So be gentle and move when you need to.

5. You don't have to get rid of your thoughts

This one was my biggest hurdle for the longest time. I heard Deepak Chopra and Eckhart Tolle talk about the gap or the space between thoughts and it just frustrated me because all I experienced was a series of thoughts. No space between the thoughts! It felt like a far away dream to have no thoughts during meditation. Thankfully, I found out that meditation is not about getting rid of thoughts, rather it is about observing them. You observe the arising and disappearing of thoughts. Over time, the frequency of thoughts naturally declines and you get less and less thoughts. But that happens organically, naturally. You don't have to get rid of your thoughts - that is once again forcing things to be what they are not. So, don't get rid of thoughts, just observe them!

6. Do live in-person meditation sessions at a yoga studio

A really good way of starting a meditation practice is to go to an in-person studio where meditation sessions are held. A possible starting point is your local yoga studio or your local YMCA. For those of you living near Boone, North Carolina, you can try out Neighborhood Yoga Studio. They have many possibilities for meditation sessions. You can also come to my in-person workshop at the Appalachian Regional Library in Boone where I am doing free workshops (sponsored by the Library). 

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Try my Daily Live Sessions:

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7. Go on a 9 or 10 day retreat

I dabbled in meditation for five years before I went to my first 10 day meditation retreat. Of course, as much as I'd like to have done it earlier, I had to arrive at the right time for it to happen. This retreat was pivotal in my meditation journey because it was total immersion in one type of meditation; in this case, it was vipassana. A full-immersion meditation retreat that is all about learning and practicing meditation. And that's a great way to get started as a beginner because you learn the foundations of the practice from step zero and then go on to build it. You also find out quickly if this type of meditation jives with you or if you should rather move on in your search for a meditation practice.

Two recommendations:
1. Dhamma.org for 10 day meditation retreat to learn vipassana meditation inspired by S.N.Goenka, Burmese Indian follower of Burmese teacher U Ba Khin and his teacher, Burmese Monk Webu Sayadaw. They have retreats all around the world.
I've done three of these retreats in the past two years (two 10 day retreats as participant and one 5-day retreat as a server).

2. Buddhist Society of Western Australia: 9 Day meditation retreat in the tradition of Thai Forest Monks led by Ajahn Brahm and Ajahn Brahmali.
This one I'd like to do in this year.

8. Use triggers and tracking to build your new habit

Once you've honed in on the one meditation practice that you want to focus on, use the best information out there about building a new habit. Leo Babauta with his Sea Change Program and Shawn Achor in his book, The Happiness Advantage teach how to build new habits. What has worked for me is a two-pronged approach to building my habit: 1: use triggers and 2: use tracking calendar. Create a system in which you use triggers to build your habit and then track it every day. A trigger example: After waking up in the morning, brush teeth. For me, I apply this to meditation. After breakfast in the morning, meditate one hour. Use the tricks and processes that productivity and personal development masters have identified to build your new habit. Blog: How to use systems to build your meditation practice.

9. Try guided creative visualizations.

I've found, both for myself and for the individuals in my live workshops, that creative visualizations are a great place to start. A lot of us begin our meditation journey by going straight into a silent meditation practice. If it works for you, great. But for many of us that seems really daunting. We are overpowered by our thoughts and feel frustrated by the process. You can always give silent meditation a try but don't allow the challenges you face there to deter you from doing your meditation practice. Just give guided creative visualization a chance. These are great because they serve as a stepping stone to silent meditation
They are much easier because you are using the voice of the meditation guide to literally guide your mind to focus on a a limited set of thoughts. If you don't connect with creative visualizations, that's fine too. Just go with other guided meditations such as the ones by Abraham Hicks or Jon Kabat-Zinn. See Blog: Why guided meditations are a useful stepping stone to silent meditation practice.

Here's one example of a creative visualization:

10. Be in nature

Take time off to be in nature as often as you can. Stroll around in a park or in other natural settings and just watch the sky, the trees, the waves, streams or the landscape. What does this have to do with building a meditation practice? Well, nature has an amazing effect for calming the mind. The effect of being in nature continues to help you when you sit down to meditate.

11. Be kind to yourself

Finally and, I'd even say most importantly, it's crucial that you stay kind to yourself. Meditation is habit and a new enhancement of your lifestyle. There will be challenges but you've got to help yourself trust the process. Don't use meditation to hurt yourself. As you move through the habit building phase, let go of expectations and be kind to the process of calming the mind. Be especially, kind and patient when you miss a day of practice. I used to be filled with guilt when that happened and now I am much more kind to myself in that regard.

So, my friend, I hope these 10 tips are helpful to you as you build your meditation practice. Feel free to jot down your questions in the comments. Let me know what challenges have you face when building a new meditation practice.

Inner-Peace Chats: Get My Help To Carve Your Meditation Habit Plan

Building a daily meditation habit has been a life-changing phenomenon in my life as I see its healthy effects in all aspects of my life, including a big drop in mental and emotional stress, almost zero worrying and a deeper sense of ease about life and its many challenges.

I want to create resources on reflectionpond.com to help you live a more harmonious, peaceful life. And so I'd like to help you create your customized Meditation Habit Plan. This is part of my Inner-Peace Chat series where I speak with you via a video call (such as on skype or zoom) and find out a bit more about your lifestyle so we can customize your meditation habit plan. 

This is something very useful if you are starting out brand new or have been dabbling in meditation for a while but now want to get into a daily habit. I will identify how you can build a system to make meditating a no-brainer activity. And I will also share from my meditation journey of 8 years so that you can understand why it's been challenging to build this habit. At the end of our one hour session, you will know exactly what to do in order to incorporate your unique meditation practice into your life.

Based on what you need in the moment, in this Inner-Peace Chat, I will guide you through a process and a meditation to help you understand what is blocking you from building a daily habit and how you change it to truly benefit from a continued practice.

I invite you to take this opportunity, which at the moment, is the only way to get one-to-one time with me. 

So are you in? Go here to see a bit more detail and reserve your spot.

Why a 15 min daily meditation session is good enough?

Photo by Bryan Minear

Hello there my friend,

You know that meditation is good for you. But you've got a busy, very busy life. Just finding time to have lunch seems sometimes difficult for you because of all the things that need to get done. Then you here that meditation helps you and that an hour a day is the recommended time for really good results. And you think, "One hour? Are you out of your mind? Just the thought of doing meditation for an hour is making me anxious. I don't think meditation is for me!".

Please don't throw the whole meditation thing out just because you cannot do the "recommended" hour. I used to think that way and it really slowed down the process for me. I would think that because I can't do the full hour, why bother?

But, you know, it doesn't have to be a full hour. Just a few moments of mindfulness is good enough. Even just a minute several times a day can help you train your mind to become stronger, calmer and more able to deal with your life.

That's what I realized when I read the author Jon Kabat-Zinn's book, "Wherever you go, there you are." I did my first little book review back in 2010 on YouTube where I share how it was so liberating to know that I can just be fully present for a moment and that is already good enough.

So start there: Take it moment-by-moment.

Now, let's say you have been doing this "momentary" mindfulness exercises where you are fully in the present with whatever you are doing and now you want to take it to the next level, so to speak.

Then, I suggest that you think of investing 10-15 minutes towards calming your mind daily. Yes, d.a.i.l.y. A daily practice helps you ingrain the process of meditation in your mind. You will be building the mediation muscle by repeating this every single day. Just like any physical training, or learning anything new takes repetition, so does meditation.

Someone in my Live in-person workshop said that they have it harder to be calmer when the meditate by themselves. And that triggered a series of inspired thoughts for me. I thought, "How about offering a live meditation session every single day at the same time to help people like this one participant who wants to meditate every day but finds it hard to do without some support?" 

And the answer was as resounding yes. Starting on Monday, March 19th 2018, I've begun a daily LIVE meditation session called Daily Meditation with Sophia on YouTube.

Here's a link to the YouTube Channel where you can see the upcoming scheduled events. Or start of with these below:

These live sessions take place every single day at 12 noon ET. I start off with 2-3 minutes of introductory banter and then jump right into the meditation so that you can have at least 10-12 minutes before it's time to wrap up at 12:15 pm. I do stay on to chat more, share a few tips and answer any questions from the chat - until around 12:20-12:30pm. Then it's off to lunch!

I've designed these sessions to last from 12 noon til 12:15pm so that anyone on a tight lunch break schedule can take a sip of calm and then go eat something and head back to work. It's meditation for a busy lifestyle which seems everyone seems to have these days. It gives you enough of a break to build a daily practice without being overwhelming which a long 30 minute or an hour long session can feel. 

So do come and join me or catch a recording each day:

Also if you'd like to learn how to become a Patron of Reflection Pond and of these daily meditations, take a look here.

Why you cannot get rid of karma and what to do about it

Photo by Ashley Batz

More and more of us are becoming aware of how "karma" is universal; not connected to any one spiritual tradition. I can see that from the stats on my blog. 33% of visitors on my site are interested in my blog post on how to break karmic patterns. Clearly, we are realizing that karma is active in our lives and we want to do something about it. We want to get rid of karma.

One of the reasons we want to do that is because somehow the word has spread, especially in Western countries, that Karma = results of our bad actions in the past or in a past life. Karma then creates fear. Are we then subject to the unknown bad actions of our past life? Are the bad actions of our current life irreparable and we are destined to suffer from its consequences? This is not fully descriptive because it is incomplete and as a result this way of looking at karma is inaccurate. It just creates fear and anxiety and is not really productive.

So then what is Karma? And how can one get rid of it? First, I've got to say that we cannot get rid of karma. Why? Because karma is an inherent part of how life works and we cannot get 'rid' of it. It's like saying, "I keep falling when riding a bicycle. I want to get rid of gravity". Ridiculous, right? In the same way, it would be like saying, "I fell into a karmic trap. I want to get rid of karma."

Once we realize what karma is, then we will understand how silly it is to want to get rid of karma. Karma, in short, is a cycle of cause and effect. What you sow, you shall reap. If you plant a seed for a mango tree, you will get a mango tree (all other conditions for its growth sufficing), not an apple tree. This essentially is karma. It is like gravity. It is part of the structural nature of life. 

So then, instead of getting rid of karma, we can work towards understanding how karma works and how to use it for our spiritual progress. There are ways to lessen the effect of past karma and create a better future for us in this very life and also in the next life. These ways have been identified in many, varied ancient spiritual traditions and written about by many well-known authors of our current time. Deepak Chopra is one of the most read authors and if you like to go deeper on his approach you can read my in-depth blog post where I detail the many aspects of the Law of Karma and how to break karmic patterns.

How does karma work?

How does karma really work? And how can we use our understanding of it to reduce the negative impact of old bad karma?

Simply said, karma just describes the process of cause and effect in our lives. We think good thoughts and take good actions and it results in the appreciation of good actions and thoughts in our lives. (Appreciation, in this context, means expansion of or an increase in). Similarly, when we take on bad actions, we get bad results.

Good thoughts + good actions = good results

Bad thoughts + bad actions = bad results

So the equation is easy to understand, isn't it? And so, to create good conditions for us in the future, we have to sow good seeds of good thoughts and good actions. This is not just about giving a donation or helping out a friend, although those are wonderful things to do. What this also means is how we respond to a certain situation, how we dissolve negative emotion through present moment awareness, how we practice forgiveness, detachment and equanimity and kindness to ourselves and others.

This is about how we think, how we handle stress and how we deal with disappointments. It is about creating a way of life that is wholesome, beneficial to our well-being and of the people, animals and environment we effect. This is not something we learn in school, although some schools in India I have heard are teaching secular values. If we are lucky, this would be something we absorb from our parents, teachers and religious institutions. It's a skill, like a muscle, that can be trained and developed.

When we learn to practice sowing the good seeds, we find that things in our lives develop more harmoniously. Relationships get better, our health improves. And problems get less intense. But problems and challenges are a part of life and they do sprout from time to time. However, because of the good seeds we are sowing, we find it easier to deal with those new problems. So for instance, if we are dealing with a crisis or a challenge, we find that we have more mental and emotional energy and inner-resilience to deal with it. We don't become distraught, overwhelmed or feel helpless like we may have felt before. We find a deep inner-strength and mental focus and resilience that helps us to handle that new situation more positively and constructively.

Reducing old bad karma

Alright, that seems like a recipe for creating good karma. But how about reducing the impact of bad karma from current life or of those from other lives? There are times in our lives when we realize that there is challenge that we are finding hard to overcome. For instance, it could be a health situation that you are facing. Or it may be that you find yourself in an unending cycle of similar situations over and over again. A good example of this is finding a 'perfect' partner but then breaking up, finding a 'perfect' partner and then breaking up. After a while you realize, "hey, this is clearly a pattern", and you begin to research ways to get out of it. This karmic pattern can also take the form of a series of similar emotional challenges. I've in the past, for instance, found myself in the cycle of worry, especially, around my cats. Clearly, my cats and my relationship with them is part of a karmic cycle and I've worked hard on breaking that old pattern I kept falling into. 

Dealing with unknown roots of karma

And what if we don't know what bad karma we did or are continuing to do unknowingly which is causing us to fall in to the same patterns. Is there a way to break this old karmic pattern or are we destined to 'suffer the consequences'? 

Thankfully, from my experience, and from my studies of Buddhist thought and great thinkers and writers, the answer is: yes. Yes, we can influence the effect of our bad karma; both in reducing it's negative effect on us and in making us more capable of handling them.

Before I give you some processes and inspiration on how you can approach this, I want you to consider some people out there in the world who you would not have imagined to be cheerful and happy. I've seen inspirational talks by people who have no arms and legs doing wonderful things to encourage and inspire young people with their stories. And they seem so content with their situation. I can hardly imagine the physical let alone emotional challenges one might face dealing with such a life circumstance. But instead of feeling hopeless and helpless, these inspiring leaders have walked through the tunnel and come out on to the other side. They have made peace with their reality and taken massive steps to make the best of their situation to help and inspire others. They are the shining examples of how we can overcome negative karma and thrive in our lives.

Here's an approach towards healing the effects of bad karma and breaking old karmic patterns. How do you know you are in a karmic pattern? There are two ways to find that out. One: You keep falling into the same problem over and over again. And two: You've been facing the same problem for a very long time.

To break this bad karma, you need to:

1. Recognize the pattern:
Identify what exactly is going on and notice if you keep running into a similar problem.  Do you always find yourself broke? Do you keep falling for the same type of guy and it ends up not working out? Do you constantly get overlooked for a promotion at work? Does your business always seem to be running out of clients?

2. Take responsibility for it:
Once you identify the problem, take responsibility for it. Remember this is not about blaming or criticizing yourself. But it is about recognizing that there were certain knowable or unknowable thoughts/actions you took in your past that is resulting into this situation. Be very kind to yourself in this stage, especially, when it comes to ill-health or other things that we experience, we often fall into guilt, thinking we are the cause of it. No, this is not about making you guilty for it. But it is about helping you see that you can take positive actions to create a more harmonious life for you in the future.

3. Reflect on possible counter-actions:
Now you can take some time to reflect on what counter-actions you can take to turn around the pattern you keep falling in to. So for instance, if you constantly feel broke, brainstorm what actions you can take to break that feeling. One hint in coming up with some counter-actions is the golden rule. Begin by thinking, what could I do for somebody else in a similar situation? So in this example, you might come up with: help my friend who is also dealing with feeling broke to come up with some income-generating ideas, or learn about budgeting and share it on a blog. I'll get really person here and share that I kept falling into a deep negative thought pattern of sad thoughts and depression. So I started this blog you are reading, to help others dealing with a similar situation get out of negative thoughts and cultivate more healthy, mental habits. Thinking about what you can do for someone in your shoes, is a great inspiration for new action. 

One example of this are very inspiring: Denise Duffield Thomas who created the Money Mindset Bootcamp, wanted to create financial abundance for herself and her family. So she started teaching other women how to do so and she broke out of her old pattern of being broke.

4. Take positive action:
Now that you have reflected on what good actions you can sow, you can begin to schedule specific days and times in your calendar to actively take those actions. This is really key because we all have very busy lives and if things are not carefully planned, often they don't get done, especially, things like taking new positive action. Get a friend or partner to be your accountability partner if you need it. But get going on this as soon as you can.

5. Cultivate present moment awareness:
This may be the most powerful of them all along with step no. 3-4. Cultivating present moment awareness is all about learning to be in the present moment. When you are doing something, bring your complete attention to what you are doing. Fully listen to the other person instead of planning the next sentence you want to say. Practicing meditation is great way to learn how to do this because you learn to calm your mind, learn to be aware of your breath and to be an observer of what is.

So this is a good starting point on how to begin breaking your negative karma and build good karma. Remember that karma is not your enemy and you don't need to be afraid of it, just like you don't need to be afraid of gravity, or the sun. Once you understand how it can be used positively in your life, you realize that karma is actually your friend.

In the comments, share with us what repeating pattern are you noticing in your life? And if you've figured out ways to break it?

Create Your Masterplan of Action (not available anymore)

To help you find out how you can identify your karmic patterns and then create your custom plan of action to break out of those patterns and build better patterns, I'm starting a new one-to-one offering called the Inner-Peace Chats.

In this session, I offer you my presence and guide you on how identifying what you are stuck at, what the karmic pattern you've found yourself in and how to break out of it. This is one of the key foundations for cultivating deeper inner-peace and sense of resilience.

The Inner-Peace Chat is a comforting conversation during moments where you feel weak, distraught or simply in need of an uplifting boost. And according to what you need in the moment, I will guide you through a process and a meditation to help you deal with the impact of the Karmic pattern and help you move through it.

It will be an hour-long process and you will receive in your inbox a customized plan of action that will help you ground your new realization and create new karmic seeds for greater harmony and resilience in your life.

How to use inner-peace techniques to solve business problems

How to use inner-peace techniques to solve business problems

Photo by Sean McAuliffe

I've written extensively about creating inner-peace in our lives using meditation. Today, I want to share with you some inner-peace techniques that you can use in your business in order to nurture and grow it. You can extrapolate these ideas for applying it to an environment where you are employed as well. And I will have more specific articles for you as well.

The mirror

We all know that a business is a reflection of the people it is made of. How a business is run, how it's customers are treated and what kind of products and services it generates stems directly from the company's people, especially the leadership. This is ever more so true when you are small business owner or what is more and more common today, the solopreneur. (Solopreneur is a business owned by a single individual and perhaps a small team of freelancers). 

Just like life is a mirror of your inner mentalscape, so is your business. Your mindset and attitude towards life will directly affect your income; your impact and reach; and your sense of fulfillment you gain in your business. As they say, to create abundance physically in our lives, we must start with an abundant mindset. Similarly, to create a healthy and happy business, we need to have the right attitude towards our business. 

It all sounds really wonderful - change your attitude and change your life. But when the rubber hits the road, that's when we realize how difficult it is to implement this wisdom. When clients are being over-demanding, when your proposals your send out are coming back rejected, when your virtual assistant (VA) or teammate or business partner does a blunder, when your list is not growing as fast as you want or when your launch falls flat on its face, that's when emotions start flying. That's when stress and overwhelm begin. That's when feelings of, "I am not good enough" start arising. And this is when the seeds of self-doubt finds fertile ground to begin germinating.

Of course, with a daily meditation practice, you can help yourself handle business issues that arise with more calm, and more wisdom. But while you are building that habit and while the benefits of your practice accrue, it may take some time. So in the meanwhile, I've got some a simple tips for you, practical techniques that you can take up in different challenging business situations.

Inner-Peace Mental Technique:
Make peace with the business situation

I'd like to share with you an example from the real world that can help you see how to use this technique of making peace when a challenging situation comes up.
 

The Challenge
 Let's say that your are a web designer and you've started on a project for a client. You've sent her all the instructions on what she has to deliver back to you. Logos, about page text, example of sites she likes, features she absolutely want and all the other little details are to be filled out by her. You've blocked out two weeks to do this when you are not taking up any other client.

But you notice that things are trickling in very slowly and the client is dragging her feet in delivering all the content. You begin to feel a bit nervous about completing the project on time and about this delay pouring into your next project. You send reminder emails but it is not happening. Now it's two days before the start of the project and you still have nothing. You begin to feel strong negative feelings for this client. You start getting thoughts of, "Ah, I wish I didn't have this project. Why is it so complicated to get going on the project! Ah, I never prepared for this situation and so I am bad and being an entrepreneur" and so on...

So this certainly a difficult situation any one could be facing in a business. You've set up processes to improve efficiency because you are a solopreneur and have hundred different hats on. But then here comes a client who derails all that by delaying on just one aspect of the whole process - the starting content you need to begin your work.

Bringing compassion to yourself and the others
All you can do at first is make peace with the situation. The first thing to do is take some deep breaths and make peace with the situation. What this means is that you don't fight what's happening but instead you accept it. Yes, this client is not sending me the info. You loosen up your thoughts towards the client. You also accept the feelings that this is causing in you. Yes, I'm feeling stressed about this. I feel my forehead tightening and my shoulders feel restricted. Bring awareness in this way to what you feeling emotionally and how your body is feeling that emotion. 

When a situation like this happens, there are a couple of players involved. There's you, clearly and then there's the object that is causing the stress or the problem. In this case it's the client and her delay. But it could be a tech failure, or low capital, or miscommunication with an assistant or a collaborator. Whatever the "other" part of the equation is, is the object.
So now what you need to do is to loosen up your mental energy towards that "other" object. In this case, you notice your thoughts towards your client - anger, impatience, frustration, even hurt and disappointment. By observing those thoughts, you begin to loosen their grip. And then you can actively send loving energy to the object, in this case the client.

The way to do this is by closing your eyes and imagining the client's situation. It may be that this client was always told by her family that she will never amount to anything and she's worked so hard to find a niche, and work nights and weekends on this side business while keeping a full-time job. Now she is finally ready to get visible and be found and hence, she's hired you to make her a new website. But her sabotaging thoughts are coming to overwhelm her and become her own obstacle to success. You recognize this as a possible cause for the delay and you remember times when you too have had to overcome your sabotaging thoughts. You realize how challenging that is and there, a light of compassion emerges within you. You send that light to your client. I understand you. I know it's hard. I believe in you. It's alright. You are good enough.

This way, you notice that you are not so upset about the situation. You have compassion for this client. Poor client, how challenging it is to get out of our own way. I understand this. I send you my good, positive thoughts. I send you peace.

How can I help?
Now you've truly loosened your energy towards her. You may find that as soon as you do this, you get an flurry of emails with all the information you need. Or may be that doesn't happen. But then, you've freed yourself of the negative energy this situation caused in you. And now are beginning to get proactive. You start thinking, "What can I do to help this client?" So you decide to give her a quick call to find out what's stopping her. You realize that she herself is waiting on your freelancer to deliver her the logo and she felt too embarrassed to tell you that because she wanted to deliver a perfect report back to you with all complete content. 

Now that you know this, you break things down for her and you tell her the least necessary items you need in order to get going on your tasks. In this case, since you know the color palette and fonts of the logo, you can begin work even if the logo is not complete. This moves the process forward at least and breaks up the stagnant status the project was long sitting in.

You can see how you've now made peace with the situation and saved yourself from further delays. 

But let's say, the client never returns any info to you and you really cannot begin on the project. In this case, you can comfortably tell the client that you will have to push back on her project at the next available slot as you cannot loose time waiting. And these two weeks that you had blocked off, you can now use for taking care of other parts of your business like organizational issues, financial updates, blog content creation, updates on your website, etc. You actually are grateful for this "extra" time to catch up on some things you had to put off because of client projects. And you can then regroup with the client when she is ready.

Making peace with what is, is a piece of wisdom that comes in really handy when you are running a business. There are other tools of inner-peace and equanimity, that you can use in your business to move forward, increase your revenue and have greater impact with your business. As they say, mindset is key for success. If you'd like to learn more practical techniques like the one I shared today, see examples of how you can use it and get live help on your own business mindset challenges, come to my free Live Masterclass. More information on how you can sign up is here: 3 Mental Peace Techniques You Can Use To Grow Your Business.

Look forward to seeing you there. 'Til then, rock on, my friend!

Much peace,
Sophia

PS: Feel free to share in the comments one challenge you've been facing in your business which you know can be changed with some mental technique of dealing with it! 

Building Your Sense Of Self-Worth Using SMST

Building Your Sense Of Self-Worth Using SMST

A powerful way to build a sense of self-worth in your life.

As working professionals, parents and online entrepreneurs with a vision, we all have a never-ending list of to-dos and projects. Running a business or a project, naturally means coordinating and managing multiple moving parts. At the same time, bringing a project to its completion is essential for feeling a sense of progress and a sense of accomplishment about our work which feeds into our sense of self-worth.

But more often than not, there’s a constant supply of things to do. Projects take weeks to complete and as soon as one hits completion, there’s another one on the horizon. When we are also juggling home and family duties along with personal care on top of our business and careers, then there seems to be no end to all the tasks that need to be done. This cycle ends up overwhelming us, draining our energy and over time it can zap our motivation and drive for the very things that we most wanted to accomplish.

Photo by Teddy Kelley

In the face of all of this never-ending lists of tasks, how then do we feel any sense of completion or progress?

Personally, I have felt this exact scenario play out over and over again in the course of last eight years. Thankfully, I have found for myself a solution that works. And I hope it will help you as well in building a sense of accomplishment and a track record that you can look back upon over the course of time.

Every day before I go to bed, I really like the feeling of “Ah, what a good day it was today.” And I noticed that if I had a long open list of to-dos hanging around at the end of my day, even after toiling the whole day to get things done, this good feeling of a job well done would evaporate, no matter how much I accomplished that day. It felt like I could never beat the magically-growing list of tasks. And that left me utterly unsatisfied with myself.

So this is what I came up with:

Choosing A SMST At The Start Of The Day
(or the day before if you can)

SMST stands for Single Most Satisfying Task. So, I started choosing the single most satisfying task to be done that day. Now there are two key parts of this phrase that I want to highlight:

1. Single: Yes, single! You must choose just one thing that you want to accomplish in that day, not any more. Now of course, you will most likely end up doing more than that one thing in that day. However, this is not about the entire list of to-dos. It is about picking the one thing that if you completed that day, will make you feel accomplished at the end of the day. So if everything goes wrong and you are not able to get to do all the things on your day schedule, you can say to yourself: “Ah, thank goodness, I at least got this one thing done.” So your day is always rescued from chaos - because you got at least one important step forward. And most likely, you will do plenty of other things any ways. But this one thing anchors you and gives you the feeling of progress. So it is important that this one thing is important to you which brings me to the next point:
    
2. Most Satisfying: This is a key phrase because not all tasks are created equal. Some will move you forward but you don’t care much about them in the big picture. This task has to be most satisfying in the sense that when, at the end of the day, you look back and see this one thing crossed off, you know that you have made real progress. Of course, this task can’t be too huge that it cannot be done in that one day. It also can’t be so huge that all other obligations and tasks of that day are neglected. There’s certainly got to be a balance.

The critical thing that can make this work is to start with what matters most to you. I’ve got more details on how to figure out what matters most to you in this blog post where you can also download a free worksheet. You can use it for both personal and business goals. After you complete this worksheet, in a matter of minutes you’ll know exactly what matters most to you and this will determine what is the most important task you have at hand.

Once you know what the most important project is, then you can more easily determine what is the SMST or the single most satisfying task is. So for example, from the above worksheet, you find out that writing your first book is what matters most to you. Then, you can set an achievable goal for each day; let’s say that's writing a 1000 words or showing up at your computer from 9am to 11am. There you have this clear goal. You sit down each day for an hour or two and produce these 2 pages (at least). After you accomplish your SMST, record this in your tracking calendar. Many productivity and habit coaches teach that tracking your new habit is a foundational element of building a habit because it creates a visual chain that you can see and don't want to break.

Now of course, during the rest of the day you will most likely produce a lot of other things and complete a lot of other tasks. But even if you don’t, you will have those 2 pages under your belt and you can then go to bed with a sense of satisfaction: “my day was productive. I got 2 pages forward in completing my book”. Then you see the results in your tracking calendar over time and that really makes you feel motivated to keep going.

Why us this SMST tool again?

This sense of satisfaction, completion and accomplishment comes in tiny bits each day and is crucial for a sense of self-worth. And it builds up over time. As you see all the key things you have done over time, you really begin to value yourself more. Why? Because you begin to respect yourself more: Oh, wow, look how I persevered daily for 6 months and created this x (end result such as a book). Of course, in the big picture you are worthy and valuable regardless of what you accomplish, because you are a precious human being. But at times we are not able to recognize that in ourselves and we feel useless or not a contributing member of society and that can bring us down. Or we feel so overwhelmed with everything that we cannot see all the things we are already doing that is of value and helpful to others. And so, such a daily device of SMSP is very useful in building a sense of self-worth and a daily sense of fulfillment with our lives. Not only do you build a sense of self-worth, you also get moving on your goals more easily!

So my dear friends, I have these two worksheets for you. One is to help you figure out what matters most to you. And the other is to help you daily identify your SMSP and then track its completion. You can put this in your bathroom or closet wall or right next to your computer.

Steps for using the SMST Self-Worth tool:

This is how you use it:

1. Find out what matters most to you.

You can choose one for personal and one for business or combine them into one. 
Ex: Being more active. Taking time for mental wellness. Writing a book.

2. Determine what task you can do to implement that into your life.
Ex: Writing everyday or Walking or Meditating everyday

3. Then identify the SMST or the single most satisfying task.
Ex: Walking for 20 minutes from 7 to 7:20am right after brushing teeth. 
(Shower and Breakfast is from 7:30 to 8:30)
Ex: Meditating for 30 minutes from 8:30 am to 9am right after breakfast.
Ex: Writing 2 pages from 9 am to 11 am right after meditating.

Tip: It is important to create triggers. A trigger is something that happens right before your new habit. So 'right after breakfast' or 'right after meditating' are both triggers. So once you have breakfast, you know what happens next. This is not something you have to think of each time, its' pre-decided and because you don't have to decide this every day, the new habit has an easier time to form.

If you create a clear trigger for your SMST then it is more likely to happen. I’ve found that it’s an easier way to build a new habit. As you can see in the above example, with triggers and clear tasks, you can even build three different habits on top of each other. Start with one habit at a time though. When that one's in place, add another. Don't go doing all three new habits at once - that's not sustainable in my experience.

4. Then, record and track it in your calendar (see free calendar download).
Ex: Walked for 20 minutes from 7:15 to 7:35am
Ex: Meditated for 30 minutes from 8:45 to 9:15. 
Ex. Wrote 1.5 pages from 9:15 am to 11am.
The idea behind tracking is to simply see how you did, not for judging yourself for being late or even for missing out on it completely.  Tracking encourages you to pick the habit again and keep going but if you miss, just start again.

Do this for at least a week and see how it feels. Give it a try and if you feel more accomplished continue it for another week. 

I hope my dear friend that this approach of choosing your daily Single Most Satisftying Task is helpful to you and that you will use the What matters most worksheet along with the Record & Track SMST calendar to build your sense of self-worth and a sense of completion and fulfillment at the end of the day.

So after going through the What Matters Most worksheet and the SMST Tracking Calendar, tell me in the comments, what is your SMST for today? I'd love to know!

What is Inner-strength and how do we cultivate it?

What is Inner-strength and how do we cultivate it?

In today's article, I explore what it means to have "inner-strength", whether it can be something we can develop; and if so, how do we go about cultivating it to deal with life's challenges:

What does it mean to have inner-strength?

Resilience, perseverance and tenacity - what all these words have in common is that they give me a sense of deep inner-strength. It’s the power one has to deal with difficult situations; to give their all to a business idea or a goal; or to dedicate everything they’ve got in taking care of their family. It’s the strength one has to fight injustices; or to work for humane treatment of humans and animals. It’s the perceived strength one must have to overcome life’s challenges.

We do need that inner-strength in today's modern life, don't we? From dealing with the cranky child to the colleague who is always running late on projects to the customer who seems to be communicating with us with anger and impatience, to the spouse who seems to us to be nagging us - and then all of this and more happening all at once!

Anatomy of inner-strength
If we look at the anatomy of inner-strength, it’s hard to outline what it exactly entails. But one can see it in those who embody it. These people may not be very tall or physically fit, instead they might be slender and frail-looking. They may not have a fierce look on their faces, instead, they have a kind and gentle face. Inner-strength comes in all shapes and sizes. But what they do embody is a kind of a quiet inner-fortitude with which they calmly deal with whatever comes their way.

This inner-fortitude can take the form of compassion when dealing with an unruly child. Or kind words spoken to a worried stranger.  It can be silence in the face of insulting words. Or it can be in the form of strong action in the face of injustice. It can be the choice of non-violence in response to aggression.

When seen in this way, inner-strength sounds really interesting. Wouldn’t you want to have that kind of strength to handle what life throws at you? I have seen the results in my own life where practicing the action-steps of cultivating inner-strength has greatly helped me deal with depression and lack of enthusiasm for life as well as self-doubt and a sense of overwhelm when faced with obstacles on my path. Truly, developing inner-strength has saved my life. But it can also help one deal with other low-level but can help us keep moving forward regardless of what situation you face - from a difficult boss to an ailing health. 

Is one naturally born with inner-strength? Can this be developed at any age?

We may have a tendency to have a certain level of tenacity or inner-strength that's innate - something we are built with. But, I've found that it is also something that can be developed; it can be cultivated within us just like a new plant can be cultivated from a seed. The reason for this is that the source of inner-strength comes from our mind. The way we train our mind leads to how well we develop our inner-strength, something, I believe, we can do at any age.

Photo by Frank McKenna

Components of inner-strength

Regardless of what form inner-strength takes, the source of it is from within. It’s the inner-capacity to assess a situation, observe our own thoughts and emotions as a response and it’s the ability to respond wisely and compassionately to what we are experiencing. Inner-strength is ultimately the capacity to train our minds and meaningfully harness the immense power of our mind in day-to-day situations. 

The process of demonstrating inner-strength
Here is a trajectory that starts off with mindfulness and ends up with inner-strength showing up as compassionate action:

1. Being mindful

2. Observing emotions

3. Responding instead of reacting

4. Bringing compassion

5. From there bringing compassionate action

So as you can see, the components of inner-strength show up in a certain kind of process of being.

5 Action steps to build inner-strength

What you see above is also then, a path to developing inner-strength. The more we practice the above, the stronger we get from within when faced with challenging situations. So this is how the process translates into action steps along a path:

Building our capacity to be mindful
This way we are more in the moment and present to what is going on. This can be developed with either mindfulness and meditation practices.

Building our capacity to observe
When we are present to what's going on, we can observe our own thoughts and emotions. By staying with those thoughts and emotions, we help take off their edge and as a result keeping those strong emotions in check.

Building our capacity to respond instead of react
When we are able to observe, we are also better able to respond with consideration and forethought instead of impetuously reacting to what's going on.

Building our capacity to bring compassion to the situation
This means bringing in patience, understanding, forgiveness and loving-kindness to ourselves, the event and those involved.

Building our capacity for compassionate action
From this compassionate attitude, we can generate the inner-strength to take compassionate action.

There you have it, each time we practice along this path, we build our capacity to better deal with the challenges of life until there comes a time where things that use to be immensely stressful and distressing, we now find much more easier manageable to deal with. The irate customer doesn't bother us as much. The unruly student is much easier to engage with. The nagging wife or husband is no longer a source of stress. The slow colleague doesn't upset us as much. Instead, in each of these situations we are more gentle and kind, leading from our place with compassion and taking constructive actions to deal with situations. 

This is the power of building up our inner-strength through regular practice!

A Process Worth Developing

Establishing inner-strength within oneself is a process and it is a practice. It entails a journey of self-discovery through introspection, a letting go of negative patterns, a practice of ingesting high-energy, uplifting content daily, a practice of meditation to cleanse and calm our minds, as well as a deep sense of awareness of our body and gentle caring of it. 

This inner-strength is like a rose plant that we tenderly care for daily with gentleness, repetition, and awareness. This skill comes in handy when we are in difficult situations but to develop the skill we must practice in easy-going situations - during times when the pressure is low. Just like the athlete who trains for a big event, we too must train for the big events in life.

I call inner-strength a skill because it is something we can learn to refine and because it is an art form. It is one of those things that we never learned growing up unless we saw adults embodying this invaluable treasure. I’ve always been an optimist never thinking that I would run into a difficult situation. But when I hit a challenging moment, I found myself without an anchor and without the resources to deal with it. By trial and error, I painfully realized over time, that these situations were doubly difficult for me because I had not learned the art of inner-strength. I did not know what to say, how to deal with my thoughts and how to handle my own emotions. I had no knowledge of ways of thinking and being that could help me resolve those challenges and I had nobody I could look to for help. And that is a very dark place to be in. 

Inner-Peace Chats: A New Way To Move Within

That’s why I want to create resources that can help you prepare - not pessimistically expecting a challenging moment, rather realistically understanding that difficult moments do arise and we need to help ourselves come through those moments stronger. I'd love to offer you my presence and guide you on cultivating deeper inner-peace and sense of resilience. I've created something called the Inner-Peace Chat which is a comforting conversation during moments where you feel weak, distraught or simply in need of an uplifting boost. And according to what you need in the moment, I will guide you through a process and a meditation to help you deal with the emotional upsurge you are experiencing. 
 

It will be an hour-long process and you will receive in your inbox a customized action plan to cultivate inner-peace after our conversation. 

This new offering, the Inner Peace Chat is in a beta-phase which will be a higher investment down the road, after I've done a few chats and refined my process. Right now, you can be part of the founding group with at the early-bird pricing. I invite you to take this opportunity, which at the moment, is the only way to get one-to-one time with me, unless you are part of my larger an online program, Happiness Gameplan. 

Want to get started? Go here to see more details on Inner-Chat and reserve your spot.
 

Much peace,

Sophia

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Why we need to think of expectations differently

Photo Credit: Sophia Ojha Ensslin

I grew up around the notion of "expectation". Expectation followed me around no matter where I went and what I did. I was expected to do good in school. Cross that. I was expected to do great in school. I was expected to excel at work and career. I was expected to be a good, kind person. I was expected to be contributing member of society.

And these expectations ⏤ from family, from school, from society ⏤ all have played a role in who I am. Needless to say, I adopted many of these expectations as my own, to the extent that at one point in my life, I couldn't tell if the things I was working towards were coming from my own expectations or those I absorbed from society. In any case, I always had high expectations of myself and the people around me.

Expectations Are A Trap

This happens to a lot of us. Somewhere along the way, expectation becomes a way of being. We bring our expectations to how our lives should be, how the world should be, how the people around us should be. And too often, these expectations come back to bite us in the you know what! Oh, and I have been bit many, many, many a times! Not so much by society's expectations of me anymore, but my own expectations of the world.

I've come to realize that having expectations of life is a big, dangerous trap. Now, I don't expect you to believe me (pun intended). Reflecting on how I have hurt myself and hurt others because of my expectations, has made me realize that when we set expectations on things and on people, we only create an invisible tension between us and the people or the situation or ourselves.This tension comes from wanting things to be a certain way and then realizing they are not the way we expected them and then feeling angry, hurt or upset or a host of other emotions as a result. 

Waiting Vs. Breathing

Now, don't get me wrong. I do have aspirations. And there is a strong and clear difference between having aspirations and having expectations. Aspirations pull us upwards, they lift us from where we are and help us create for the better. We can aspire to earn a promotion at work and so we take initiatives, stretch ourselves to build our skills or reach out to colleagues to build bridges. We may aspire to a happy home life and so we build presence so we can listen to our loved ones, we invest time to maintain a healthy environment and we care for the wellbeing of our family. We may aspire to create a better world and so we donate our time and resources to worthy causes, we pick up litter in our pristine forests, we hold the door for a stranger. 

"Aspiration" according to Merriam-Webster Dictionary:

1a : a strong desire to achieve something high or great
1b : an object of such desire
2a: drawing of something in, out, up, or through by or as if by suction: such as
  a:the act of breathing and especially of breathing in

Notice how the definition of aspiration starts with "a strong desire to achieve something high or great". It is positive and uplifting. Just like it's second definition, "the act of breathing"!
Aspiration is also another word of breathing, especially breathing in! 

Expectation on the other hand is "the act or state of expecting : anticipation," according to the dictionary. So I looked up expecting and this is what Merriam-Webster Dictionary showed for it:

1. archaic : wait, stay

2: to look forward

You can notice the difference. Expectation has a more stagnant feel to it. It is the state of waiting and that's an uncomfortable state of being, at least in my view. Waiting vs. Breathing. Which is more dynamic? Which is more alive with life-force?

Aspiration Is Uplifing

Aspiration is a beautiful thing. But when it thwarts itself and warps into expectation, that's when the drudgery begins for you and those around you. Aspiration when coupled with expectation causes heartache, breaks up relationships and causes deep mental and emotional distress.

Whereas aspiration coupled with detachment, frees us. It helps us soar to new heights of creativity, of beauty, of kindness, of wisdom and of compassion. Detachment is an art, a way of looking at things which enables us to take action without being cemented to an end result.

I've written about and created videos on helping you dig deep into the art of detachment with these useful posts:

Deepak Chopra's Law of Detachment (video and blog)
Letting Go Of the Need to Know what happens tomorrow  (video and blog)
My own journey of Showing Up with detachment (video and blog) and
In learning how to Assess Your Efforts Not Results (video and blog)

In relationships with others
So when we aspire for a beautiful relationship with another, we make positive, constructive, meaningful effort to make that happen, but we also let go of how it turns out. What the other person does or how the other person receives our efforts are not under our influence. We can, however, observe and except how they respond to us. This is detachment that frees us because we are accepting of what is and how they are.

In relationship with ourselves
This way of being also applies to how we relate to ourselves. I know that many of us, myself included, have trained ourselves to have high expectations of us. I know many women and many moms who carry very heavy burdens of what they expect from themselves. But when we fall too deep into pasting layers and layers of expectations over us (best mom, best wife, best home care taker, best career woman/ professional/business woman, best community member, etc), then we have only buried ourselves under a ton of bricks ⏤ not freed ourselves to be all that we want to be. That's when expectation thwarts aspiration. 

In relationship with meditation
It's also a trap when it comes to our meditation. We sit down to meditate and have expectations. We all know the benefits of meditation so we sit down expecting to have a relaxed experience. But sometimes, the mind is so active, it is difficult to quickly relax. It may take time. Add to that the expectation and there goes any sense of calm and peace. But instead, if can allow the meditation experience to be as it is, then we have created a kind, benevolent space for our mind to relax. No expectations. Just accepting how things are.

This approach can be applied to anything in our lives. Whenever you find yourself dealing with the pain and distress of having expectations of yourself or of others, remind yourself of this trap of expectation. And then intentionally choose to be kind towards yourself and others. Allow your aspiration for how you want things to be to help direct your words, thoughts and actions but free yourself of attaching to how you expect things to be. 

This is a way to inner-peace. This is a way to relate with our world, our life, the people in our lives and with ourselves with kindness and compassion.

Don't be fooled by the insidious trap of expectations. Welcome aspiration with a detached, kind attitude. This will help you focus on positive thoughts, words and actions and better deal with the reality at hand. 

Don't be fooled by expectations.
Embrace aspiration instead.
Focus on your actions.
Thoughts, words AND actions.
This is a way to peace.
This is way to accept what is.

So, my friend, please share with me in the comments how you respond to this article. I'd really like to know your experience of accepting what is and letting go of expectations.

Much peace,

Sophia

Being Kind To Yourself

Photo by Evelyn Paris

What is kindness?

What comes to your mind when you think of the word “kind”? What does kindness mean to you? 

When I first think of the word kind, I think of action - kind actions done to help others. When people help the homeless or other groups. When people pick up litter in the park. When people hold the door open for someone when entering a building. Or when someone lets another car come into their lane while driving. It’s the kind action a nurse takes whenever taking care of his/her patient. It’s the nice words of encouragement we say to each other.

And all of this is really wonderful and worthy of being associated with the word kind.

But how often do we think of ourselves as kind? We do a lot of kind things for others, but do we consider ourselves as a kind person? If you do, that’s wonderful and please keep it up. But for so many of us, we are so critical of ourselves that we don’t even allow ourselves to think of ourselves as kind. We say, “oh, I wasn’t kind that time when xyz happened” or “There are others who are kind but I do my best to be kind”. We have some variation of that statement in our minds. Why? Because we have really high standards of what can be considered kind. Or thinking we are being humble, we never give ourselves the acknowledgement. This has certainly been my case where I did not see myself as a kind person because all I could see was the times that I had been less than kind.

But what if we began to look at ourself as a kind person - that would be a very kind thing to do. We would recognize and notice all the kind things we've done or said or thought.

A First Step In Cultivating Kindness

Starting there would be a wonderful first step in cultivating kindness towards others - considering yourself a kind person.

Now what exactly does it mean to be a kind person?

After you recognize that you are indeed a kind person, it is time to cultivate more kindness towards yourself.

One of the ways to do this is to say encouraging words to yourself. If you are feeling down you can be kind to yourself and say to yourself, “It’s okay to feel down right now. I am here for you.” If you are faced with doubt about yourself, remind yourself why and how you have demonstrated in the past that you can do it. Say to yourself, “You can do it. I believe in you. No matter how this has turned out in the past, the important thing is that you don’t give up. Keep going”.

“A single act of kindness throws out roots in all directions, and the roots spring up and make new trees." ⏤ Amelia Earhart

If you find yourself feeling impatience towards yourself, then say to yourself, “It’s alright to feel impatience. It’s just an energy and it will pass.” And then deliberately give yourself more time for whatever you feel impatience about. Imagine yourself to be a gentle cow or a mama sheep and how they take care of their young. Imagine yourself to be just filled with kindness from head to toe. Then say kind words towards yourself.

This is an important practice for cultivating kindness towards ourselves. It is important because it seems like we are our own worst critic and barrage ourselves with non-nourishing, hurtful words. We need to take deliberate actions in changing that. And by doing so, we fuel ourselves with good, encouraging energy which builds our self-confidence and we begin to feel good about ourselves. When we feel good about ourselves, we are more relaxed and when we are more relaxes issues and problems don’t bother us so much. And as a result, we are kind towards others as well.

So today, my invitation to you is to keep “being kind to yourself” in mind. Whenever you hear yourself being impatient, irritated, angry, critical or in any way unkind, bring yourself to some kind thoughts. This may or may not be easy to do since we often are quick to judge ourselves. But with practice, we relax into this way of being. We practice being kind to ourselves and be begin to enjoy being ourselves and even begin to love ourselves more.

So what do you say? Will you be kind to yourself today? Share your thoughts with me in the comments below as I'd love to know.

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You are invited to join my free email course: 

On being present with our own big dreams

Photo Credit: Sophia Ojha

Why is it that we get distracted? Not when we don't know what we want in our life but precisely when we get clarity and understanding of our life's mission, it seems that distraction rears it head. 

We all know about the writer or creator or blogger who needs to have her home cleaned and laundry put away before she can even begin prepping for her work. She needs to make sure the bed is made, the dinner is prepared and all the other nitty gritty of life is in order first. Only then can she dust off her canvas or bring out her laptop to begin the daily practice that her craft requires.

Do you resonate with this? I certainly do. And I am becoming very aware of this recently as I have become intensely clear about the project that I am committing to.

It's not that all those tasks are not important, on the contrary, they are the foundations of life. But why do we have to do them in order to get on with our life's work? It's as if we are running away from the very thing we want.

Picture this - imagine you see a cartoon figure of a man who wants to reach for the door. His arms are reaching towards the door. At the same time, his legs are moving away from the door. It's a very confusing thing to be experiencing, if you are that man. Because on the one hand, there's crystal clear clarity about what we want in our life. But on the other hand, we are finding other things to do that consume our mind, attention, energy and our time ⏤ leaving us deflated and even more confused about our situation.

So how do we resolve this?

The best way to untie this entangled mess that we find ourselves in, is by going into deep reflection about the situation. By asking ourselves the questions like, "what do I need to understand in order to break this pattern?" or "what steps do I need to take in order to implement the big main task, my current important project?" Questions want answers and your inner-self will guide you with the right answers that will help you specifically move through this.

When I ask myself these questions, this is what I discovered:

What I need to understand is this:

For the longest time, you've been wandering with doubt and confusion about your life's purpose. You've been unclear about your next steps and you've been impatient with yourself in the process. You've also beat yourself up for 'not being there' already ⏤ meaning not having achieved 'it'. 'It' being this nebulous, unclear ideal of achievement that even you don't know what it’s supposed to be. You've also struggled to follow your heart and suffered from the pressures of family and societal expectations about being a successful career-woman and a fantastic housewife with all the i's dotted and all the t's crossed.
 

You've had 15 years of dealing with all of this plus your own pain body filled with pain and suffering both from that of being born a woman and the suffering you've picked up of all the animals in distress along with karmic pain and suffering that has followed you for millennia. All of this and infinitely more you have dealt with while trying to get focused in a world filled with loud distractions of a gazillion kind. 

Remember you had no training or education or guidance growing up for any of this. You are figuring it out as you go ⏤ like the rest of humanity. 

It's been a tall order. But you've tried. You’ve made efforts. You worked on figuring this thing out. This thing called life. You've reached out to books. Watched 100's of TouTube videos, Ted talks and meditation sessions. You've walked countless miles in the forests. You've meditated countless hours. You've searched and finally, you've come to a certain clarity and a sense of purpose.

But that clarity and sense of purpose is all new. It has no real deep roots. All the other things that have become a pattern in you are deeply rooted⏤the distractions, the noise, the doubt.

Once you realize that you are transitioning to a new way of being, it will become easier for you to walk into that new pattern. Just recognize that you are transforming into a different pattern. And this transformation is happening right now. It is happening every time you shift yourself slightly, steer yourself ever so slightly towards the clarity and purpose that you have found.

So all you need to do is to simplify your goals and simplify your life in such a way that all that is loud and distracting, minimizes and fades away. What remains is just you and the task at hand - the task that you chose to have as your main task at hand. 

So what steps do I need to take in order to implement my big, main goal?

Help yourself in these ways:

1. Write clearly in your day plan when in the day you will be doing your work.

This time is just for your writing or creating or whatever you “work” is. Nothing else. All else, unless an emergency, can wait until their turn. This especially applies to doing the dishes, running errands and all the other things of life ⏤ important but not to be done when it's time for you to create.

2. Reduce your responsibilities and tasks in all other areas of life as much as possible.

This will mean that you bring the volume down on your other projects that are not as important as the main one that you've identified. If you can completely let go of other projects, that will simplify things even more. But we do need other engagements other than our main task ⏤ because creativity needs space to breathe and germinate. So let's say you are a painter, when you are doing your other project ⏤ say gardening, that's when you get inspiration on how to resolve something you are working on currently. So don't completely take away those things but certainly reduce other projects.

3. Remind yourself of your goal or task several times a day.

Especially, when you have a newly found clarity about your life, it's important to write it down in your journal or notebook that you keep with you at all times and read from it several times a day. This clarity is ever flickering until it becomes solidified in your consciousness, in your awareness. So write it down and refer to it several times a day so you know exactly what you are doing and why you are doing it. This action will also fill you up with ideas and energy for implementing those ideas.

This I hope is helpful to you in dealing with your own distractions. Getting distracted is an old way of being. It’s habitual and has arisen in your life as a way to deal with all the confusion, the sadness, the doubt and the suffering you have experienced. What better way to dim the light of suffering than putting your mind to something entertaining like a distraction? Or so it seems. It does give relief and for that purpose, distractions are a breath of fresh air in our too often sad, difficult lives. But they are only a temporary relief ⏤ not something to get used to as a permanent solution. We recognize the benefit of distractions and use them wisely in times we need to put our minds at ease with something other than what we are dealing with. In the end, we each will find our own way of getting focused and clear.

And I hope the introspection questions I shared here with you will help you find your own unique answers. 

I would love to hear your thoughts on this. Do you get distracted? If yes, what do you think distraction does for you? What have you found to be your unique solutions to distractions? And if you are not distracted anymore, tell us how you found a way to be present with your own big dreams instead of getting drowned in the noise of distractions?

Much love,
Sophia

5 Life lessons that bring peace of mind

In recent months, I've had many realizations after going through periods of doubt, sadness, frustration and impatience - mostly around work. But only last week have I begun writing things down as part of my daily journaling practice.

The results of this daily writing have been incredible. Not only have I begun feeling greater ease within myself, I am also finding clarity about larger life principles that feed into that sense of ease and inner-peace. And I'd like to share these with you so that you too can benefit from contemplating these ideas and insights. Hopefully, they bring you inner-peace and a calm mind as a result.

5 Life Lessons That Bring Me Peace of Mind:

This insight and understanding that I've gained through my moments of doubt can be laid out as 5 life lessons. These are as follows:
 

Photo credit: Melanie Magdalena

1. Learn to be in the present moment:
Just to preface this life lesson - it is a deep learning and to master it may take a lot of practice, as I am finding out myself. But every moment you are in the present moment, serves as a stepping stone towards deeper peace. 

Being in the present moment is all about being fully focussed on the here and now. Bring your complete attention to what you are doing right now. Whatever that may be, be completely dedicated to that one thing. As if you were nursing an ill animal back to life and your entire being is required to help it make it through. You will drop everything else and just be fully there for it. (Replace "animal" with any loved being in your life - child, husband, friend, mother, etc.)

So you are completely "with" that other person or being. If there's no one with you then you are being fully present with yourself. Being there with your complete attention. Like the teacher and monk, Thich Nhat Hahn reminds us to say, "Darling, I am here for you". Taking that idea towards yourself.  

This is not an easy task as thoughts come in from all directions. But don't try to get rid of your thoughts. Just be present with them as well. You are experiencing thoughts from the past - be with it. You are experiencing thoughts about the future - just be with it. It's completely allowed. And that in itself is the key. Allow them. Allow them to just be instead of wanting them to not be. The side effect of this approach often turns out that the thoughts quiet down. But even if they don't that's fine. At least you were present to them. You showed up to your own party, so to speak! You were the witness to your own life and that's enough. Really. That's good enough.

Being in the present moment = being witness to what is.

I am continuously learning to be in the present moment. And the more I realize I am here, now, the easier it becomes to "tackle" life. How so? Well, then I only have to deal with that which is in front of me, not the barrage of goals, tasks, aspirations and dreams, problems and struggles of my entire life. No, I am present to just this, just this that's in front of me. This one thing. And I CAN handle this one thing. Easy!

Photo credit: Natalia Luchanko

2. Focus on being helpful

This is absolutely powerful. Once I begin to bring this guiding principle into my focus, things tend to change. As soon as I say to myself, "Focus on being helpful", then all the pressures of being perfect, successful and the rest just fade away for me. Try it in your own life. When things start to get frustrating or overwhelming or in any way difficult, just ask yourself, "How can I be of help in this situation?"

That shifts your focus from you and your problems to how you can be of use, of service to others. And don't get me wrong this is not about taking away attention from your problems or ignoring them. Not at all. It's more about shifting your focus to solutions and being of service instead. 

If we bring this idea into our daily focus, not just on those days when we are having a hard time, then we begin to make this a part of our way of being. We cultivate it as a habit and it becomes a part of who we are and you begin to think of yourself as someone who thinks of how he or she can be of help. 

This self-image is very conducing to mental peace. Why? Because you consider yourself in a positive way. Too often, we have a harsh, negative perspective of ourselves - often too harsh! But when we begin seeing ourselves as somebody who is helpful to others, you inadvertently begin to like yourself a bit more. You then learn to be kinder to yourself and can bring more compassion and patience towards yourself. So even though having the focus of helping others is a wonderful virtue to cultivate for its own sake, it has an immense positive effect on us and how we view ourselves. Then this positive view gives us peace and positive outlook for solving our own problems.

You see - this is how the golden rule works! You help others and as a result you begin to help yourself.

Photo by: Saksham

3. Love what you do

This is an antidote to all the confusion that's caused by the sayings "Find what you love " and "Follow your bliss". In themselves these are great sayings that give guidance to many. But to some, including myself, these statements have caused confusion and even frustration. What if I don't know what I love? What if I don't know what is my bliss?

I've felt this many, many, many, many times in my life as I took upon very different things as my work. From being a United Nations Tour Guide to a meditation instructor to working in an office (very short time) to online marketing consultant and so on. 

I'd feel excited for these things for a bit and then over time - sometimes years, sometimes months and sometimes only after a few days, lose complete interest. Part of the reason is because I completely immerse myself into something and then get burnt out. I would ask myself, "If this thing that I am completely immersing myself in is supposed to be my bliss, supposed to be my "calling", then I could never get burnt out. It would keep fueling my interest and my energy because after all, I've found my thing, my purpose! But this way of thinking was not helpful because inadvertently, I did lose all steam for that one thing. I'd lose my drive, interest and enthusiasm. And may be it's just be being a Sagittarius or may be it this way with many others - if I am not interested or excited about something, I just cannot be involved. I've got to get out of there. If there's nothing that pulls me to be engaged in something, I will voluntarily withdraw myself from that endeavor.

So this way of being caused a lot of stress, uncertainty and even sadness because I could no longer be certain that what I do next will hold my attention for any set period of time. I was painfully aware that it could disappear or fade away anytime. So what to do?

First, I had to learn to let go of the notion that there is one life purpose. I had to let go of the idea that there's one thing that I will be doing all my life. That's just not going to work.

Instead I had to learn a new approach: love whatever I am doing now.

Loving whatever I am doing now has a lot to do with knowing the big picture. If I can be aware of why I was doing something, what was the purpose of it and what is the end result I am working towards, then I could more easily learn to love what I was doing. That connects back with being in the present moment and focusing on being helpful. Those two are the building blocks of this third life lesson. It helps to know the big picture - the why. That brings me to the fourth life lesson - Focus on the end results.

But before I share about that fourth life lesson, there's one more thing I'd like to share about loving what you are doing. When you take the approach of loving what you are doing, you remind yourself that this thing that I am doing has a purpose, a reason and some benefit. I remind myself of the benefit this action brings to others. And even if you can't find yourself to love it, remember that only when you are content with what is, can you break free from it and move towards the new reality you want to create. You begin to create a new reality as soon as you are detached from it and accepting of what is currently happening so that you can begin to take conscious, inspired action out of presence and detachment and not out of a negative mind state of resistance, frustration, anger and such.
 

Photo Credit: Luis Del Río Camacho

4. Focus on the end results.

This is something that you may have read or heard from many a new age book or personal development guru. The idea has certainly been made popular by the book and film, "The Secret". The idea that simply resonates with us - visualize the end result.  Most recently, I heard Mike Dooley talk about focusing on the end result in his book, Playing the Matrix. 

I too have found from personal experience that focusing on the end result is very helpful in my day to day life - I will explain more below. But before I share how that is helpful, I've got to share a word of caution.

Visualizing the end result alone is not enough for the everyday person. 

There are countless stories of mystics and saints who have instantly manifested things and situations and healings just by visualizing it. They create an image of what they want to see and instantly it comes into being. You can thing of any of the famous saints, nuns, monks, zen masters, yogis, sufi mystics, shamans and so on, in every corner of our globe where miracles have come to pass.

These individuals demonstrate to us the power and potentialities that each human being has within her/him. They embody mastery of mind over matter, the power of visualization. They were also very advanced meditators - someone who could go into deep states of stillness.

But most of us are not that far advanced on that path. That means, although we too can visualize and work with the still, quiet mind, it is not enough to quickly bring into reality that which we want to create just with the use of visualization alone. We need something more - which I will talk more in detail in the final life lesson below - taking consistent action.

That's why visualizing the end result alone is not enough for those of us who are not very advanced in using our mind's powers fully. That's why we need all these other life lessons to work in sync with visualization. 

So now that I've gotten that out of the way, let's talk about visualizing the end result.

Why is it important to know the end result? There are tons of reasons for this. The most obvious one is this: so that you know where you want to arrive at and so that when you take action you can assess whether you are moving toward or away from your desired end result.  

But focusing on the end result also does one magical thing for you - it frees you from the nitty gritty reality. What do I mean by this? You see, when you focus on let's say inner-peace, or financial well-being, you keep your eyes set on the big picture. You keep your focus on how you want to experience life. And it frees you from the nitty-gritty of the "how" your end result manifests. 

See, one of the great miseries on the path of realizing one's dream comes from our being too attached with how something happens. Let's take for example, Sunita's vision. Her End Result is "living in a state of inner-peace". Now does it matter really if she experiences this through following Christian teachings or Buddhist teachings? Does it matter if Sunita experiences deep inner-peace by going for walks in the woods everyday or by meditating every day? If the end result she experiences is inner peace, it doesn't really matter "how" it came into being, does it?

Take another example. Say for example Alex wants to experience the freedom of being able to write for 5 hours a day. That's all he wants to do and wants to be sustained sufficiently - meaning, he wants that all his material needs are easily fulfilled. So what if now, as he focuses on his end result of being able to write every day for 5 hours, his wife's, Tanisha, online business takes off. She is now, single-handedly, making the income of a two-person household with plenty left over to save for retirement. Tanisha is overjoyed that she can help her husband live a fulfilling life of a writer with her successful business. This leaves Alex the freedom he was envisioning to be able to write for 5 hours a day and not have to go get a day job. Nor does he have the pressure of having to create a New York Times best-seller. All he has to focus on is writing every day.

So now does it matter whether Alex achieved his end result through the financial success of his wife? The same end result could have been achieved in a gazillion different ways:
he gets a huge inheritance,
his real estate investment that he made 10 years ago is suddenly providing a monthly income that pays for all his and his wife's needs,
he gets a book contract which leads to a big success securing his future financial needs,
he gets a part-time job as an editor that pays all his bills and leaves him 5 hours to write daily,
his YouTube channel earns him a monthly income that covers all his family's needs, 
and on and on.

It doesn't matter how the end result manifests, as long as it does. And when we focus on the end result (while taking action and doing the other things I mentioned in Life lessons 1-3), then we are able to be detached as to how our dreams manifest. We give life an opportunity to make things happen with greater freedom. 

It's like the story of the drowning man. Do you know this one? I've heard it a long time ago so some details I have added in to make the story understandable. So here's the story which goes something like this...

Once there was a big flood that filled the streets of a residential area. A lot of people were rescued or were able to flee in time. But there was this one man who got stranded on the roof of his house. This man was a man of faith. He had faith that he would be rescued. He knew that in his heart. 

Soon, a rescue team passes by. They are in a small canoe rowing their way through the streets. The spot this man and offer him to jump into the canoe. The man says, "No, thank you. I have faith that I will be rescued". Surprised, the rescue team moves on to find others to help.

Then, a speed boat passes by. They, too, notice the man and offer him to take him to higher ground. He says the same thing. "No, thank you. I have faith that I will be rescued." Stunned, the guys move on.

The man continues to hope and pray and visualize him being rescued.

Next, a rescue helicopter come by. They spot the stranded man and hurl out a hanging ladder for him to climb up. Again, the man refuses. The helicopter team flies away, astonished.

Unfortunately, to make a point in this story, the man drowns.

The story, of course, doesn't end yet.

The man goes to heaven. He meets God. The man is shocked that inspite of his faith and belief and all the visualizing, he still drowned. So he asks God, "Why didn't you come to rescue me, God? I had so much faith in you and I visualized being rescued so clearly."

God nods and then says, "Boy, I did come to rescue you! I first sent you a canoe, then a speed boat and then even an expensive helicopter. But did you climb on? No! You did nothing!"

The man realizes his error. He did not take action. No matter how clearly he visualized his being rescued, the final step - taking the action to step on the rescue vehicle - was all his job. Plus, he was attached to the "how". I have no idea what exactly this man visualized. But it certainly didn't look like a canoe, a speed boat or a helicopter. Because it didn't match his very specific End Result Visualization, he didn't accept the help that did come his way.

How often do we do that? We don't take action. We just visualize. And we fail to see the help that is right in front of us. We imagine some complicated, struggle-filled, hardship-entailing solution when the simple answers are right in front of us. Do you relate? I certainly have done this and every time I fall into this old trap, I try to remind myself: "Don't judge what is in front of you as not good enough. You never know, this may be your canoe, your speedboat, your helicopter!"

And that's why visualizing the end result and then letting go of "how" that end result manifests, is very helpful in my every day life. Because it is freeing. Because it helps free up the infinite, gazillion ways of how that end result could manifest for us. And isn't that wonderful? Why be attached to how something unfolds when another way may be easier, faster, happier, more splendid and marvelous than what we could have carved out for ourselves?

So let go of the how, and simply focus on the end result, and then take action. More on that next.

Photo by: Cristy Zinn

5. Keep Taking Action

This is the final life lesson which I've mentioned in the last section - keep taking action. Taking action - any "good" action is helpful to you on your path moving forward. Even if you take a misguided or "wrong" action (I don't thing there's a wrong action, only a misguided action, perhaps), you can recognize your ways and make adjustments. It is important to take action.

For instance, last summer, I volunteered at my local real estate association to facilitate a six-week mastermind group for 10 or so committed professionals who wanted to make inroads in their real estate investment goals. My job along with my husband who was the co-facilitator, would be to gather interest in the program, set up the application process to find the most committed people - people who were committed to show up each week, organize the meetings, recruit speakers who were advanced investors and facilitate the flow of each meeting. This turned out to be a lot of fun but also a lot of work. Every participant benefitted immensely - they made new best friends, got partners for their investment projects, got valuable information and mentoring from experienced investors and most of all, the built a sense of confidence in themselves and found encouragement from each other to go ahead. 

As a facilitator, I learnt a lot - both about real estate but mostly about myself, my skills, areas to develop further, dealing with nerves while speaking to a group which were all older than me. ( I am working on dissolving this mental pattern of "I am younger than them - what can I offer them"). But most of all, I learnt that I don't want to immerse my time in the subject matter of real estate. I loved facilitating and organizing the mastermind and the results of success that each participant felt because of joining the group, but I didn't want to be surrounded by the topic of real estate - that one thing became clear.

As much as the subject matter of real estate is interesting to me (I am interested in a lot of topics), and I love to learn about it, I just don't want to spend all my time in that topic. This I would not have known, had I not gone out there and volunteered my time to create this mastermind. It was an idea that I followed through on. I took action. But then I realized I needed to recalibrate.

The important lessons I learnt from that summer is priceless and I know it will help in my next endeavor, whatever that may be. But I had to take those steps. So starting that mastermind was not a wrong action, not even misguided - because it was guided by the intention to help others and learn by experience the art of facilitation. In the end, I realized I needed to move on.

I am sharing all these details to demonstrate that we don't have to know the right steps. We just need to take the next steps with the best intention and the best of our current knowledge and understanding. Then we can recalibrate. 

This reminds me of airlines and how pilots are constantly course correcting. They start off at New York in the general direction of Atlanta. They are headed South but enroute, based on the new information they receive, they adjust their course. Finally, they land at Altanta airport precisely as desired.

Similarly, we've got to have an end destination in mind (Life Lesson 4). Then we've got to start the engine and move forward. Assess what's happening and then based on the best information we have at the moment, course correct and adjust our actions. In the end, we will arrive precisely as imagined, even though the path taken may have been unclear and nebulous!

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So, my friends, I hope that these five lessons are insightful to you as they have been for me. I wish for you to have a peaceful, happy, life - a life that you want for yourself. If you'd like to discuss any elements that I've shared here, please make your constructive, helpful comments below. 

Warmly,

Sophia


 

My cat didn't come home last night.

Lola, our 3.5 month old kitten went outside yesterday afternoon with all her brothers and sisters and her mama. They all returned but she has yet to come back. It is now the next morning 4 am.

She is the youngest and the smallest and the cutest of them all. 

She has missed her dinner.

I miss her. I kept listening all night to any sound on the door to see if she was back. I called out for her.

Clearly, I am attached. And I know that attachment is one of the root causes of suffering according to Buddhist thought. I am suffering.

Something happens in life. We don’t like it. We want it to be different than it is. We want it to be like we want it to be. And when it is not, we suffer. We are sad, angry, upset, restless and overall feel not so peaceful and content.

This is dukka or suffering. It is also the First Noble Truth. There is suffering in this world. I am suffering because my kitten is not home and I want her to be home. I am suffering because of my attachment to the good feeling I have when my kitten is home with me.

Do you know how this feels? Is there something you are suffering about?

While I am not at ease and sad, I also know in my heart that there must be a way out of this. First I know that things change. Nothing is constant. There is impermanence. Could this fact of life be my lifesaver? My refuge from my own pain?

Impermanence means that whatever I am going through is not going to stay this way for all time. The intensity of what I feel may change and even slowly dissipate. I may overcome this situation and find access to peace and even to joy and laughter again.

So that flicker of hope already helps me in seeing the bigger picture.

That means whatever is going on, there is a root cause for it. The cause is inside my mind. The thoughts, the reactions, the sensations that emerge in response to the things in the world are part of the root cause of suffering. So that means, if I remove the causes, I can remove suffering. 

That’s the Second Noble Truth. There are certain things that cause my suffering.

So how do I deal with these causes of suffering. I must stop these causes that are inside my mind. I must learn to train my mind which is best done through meditation. In meditation, I can train my mind to simply observe. This is a ray of sunshine right now in the middle of my suffering - my yearning for my kitten to return home, my sadness emerging from her absence, my fear of her being in trouble without help, my desire for her to not suffer, my desire for her wellbeing at all times and not knowing if she is well, my inability to help her in case she needs my help - all root causes of my suffering.

But there is a way out.

There is a way out of suffering. That’s the Fourth Noble Truth. There is a solution to it. We CAN dissolve suffering and pain. There is a way out of this.

Does that give you a sense of hope as well? Whatever you are going through, there is a way out of it. It is not permanent and you can do something to change it.

So that means, I can take steps to help myself out of my own suffering. By observing and accepting what what I am feeling, I can dissolve it. By not having craving and not having aversion towards it.

I have to learn how to not crave things - in my case, how to not strongly want Lola to be back home.

I have to learn how to not have aversion to things, in my case, how not to dislike that she has not returned.

No craving, no aversion. 

Does that mean I must walk around like a feelingless ball of rock?

No.

It means I must learn how to deal with reality again. I must learn how to accept life first. I must learn how to be fine with what is. And this comes from not believing all my thoughts. Accepting my feelings and my situation as they are without judging them as bad.

By observing my breath. Specifically speaking, observing how the breath touches the area above the upper lip and below the nose. If I can just observe that area and how the incoming and outgoing breath touch it, I can help myself out of craving. This is one of the practices that the Buddha taught and the main practice that Webu Sayadaw, the Burmese Monk of high stature who was thought to be enlightened, taught.

When I am focussing on the area above my upper lip and below the nostrils, I can feel my mind slowly calm down. It is like a wild, turbulent ocean with big waves going everywhere, calming down slowly and become a serene, peaceful body of water with undulating waves making a soothing sound as they roll across the beach.

When I observe my breath and how it touches that area, I notice that my breath slows down. I take softer and softer breaths. I feel a wave of calm.

When I observe my breath and how the incoming breath and outgoing breath touch the area below my nose and above the upper lip, I feel my body slowly dissolves. I feel vibrations, very gentle sensations at times, at times heaviness in my legs, at times I feel I am floating and without a body. But for this, my body is sitting upright, without any movement - very very still.

These are moments of extreme peace and contentment.

This is the Third Noble Truth. Nibbana, the cessation of suffering.

This is the outline, a script, a recipe, a formula for getting out of suffering and being at peace that the Buddha gave us 2500 years ago. It is not about believing in a God or following a religion. It is about a practical solution to our every day human condition - suffering and coming out of suffering.

Right now, my kitten is not home still. It is 4:49 am the day after she went for a walk. I hope she is resting under some bushes in the forest behind our home. I hope that she will be back home. But right now, I am fine. I know that this is not permanent. I know that this too shall pass.

All I can do is observe my breath. I will do that now. Will you join me?

Update: The little kitten, Lola, came frolicking back home later that same day and began playing with her sister and brothers! As if she had never left :-)