Category: Personal mastery

Expressing Difficult Emotions


“Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.” – Kahlil Gibran

George blamed his wife for not sufficiently demonstrating her love for him and felt sad but hesitated to express his feelings to her. Mary was routinely stifled by her boss’ aggression but was at a loss on what to do about it. Geetika was deeply troubled by her uneasy relationship with her seventeen-year-old son but struggled to get him to listen to her.

Till they found a new approach. If you too sometimes feel frustrated about not being able to share your real feelings with someone close to you, read on to find out how you can improve that relationship by expressing yourself differently.

Limitations of our approach

We routinely encounter situations where we either hold back our inner feelings or end up expressing them in an inappropriate manner – we generally fall into the classical trap of ‘flight’ or ‘fight’. Either way, we are ineffective.

In the first case, preferring to avoid any risk of confrontation, we tend to hold back our feelings. However, just because we avoid dealing with it, the problem does not go away. We still feel let down, sad and frustrated.

With recurring incidents with the same individual (partner, colleague, child), these feelings keep getting accumulated within us. Lacking the emotional bandwidth to deal with our disturbance, we sulk, internalize a sense of helplessness and feel like a victim. George and Mary suffered from this trait.

In the second, the psychological response to ‘fight’ the situtation, we accost the person apparently causing this emotional disturbance. We see the other person as the source of violation of our rights and blame them for it. Our comments tend to have an aggressive tone and are emotionally charged. This rarely shifts the other person’s behavior either. Geetika’s situation with her son was a testimony to this.

What are you after?

In any of these situations, you…

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Posted by Rajiv Vij | Personal mastery, Relationships, Self-growth | 2 Comments

Altering Your Karmic Cycle


“People often expect different results from doing the same actions” – Alcoholics Anonymous

Humans are creatures, or more like slaves, of habit. Besides well-ingrained physical habits, we also have deep-rooted mental ones – our attitudes, perceptions and beliefs that involuntarily guide our unique behavior. Our conditioned mental patterns are like our subconscious blueprint and they manifest in our life repeatedly.

As a result, we are prone to, and despite efforts usually find it hard to shake off, anger, fear, aggression, anxiety, envy or low self-esteem. For us to effectively break away from these traits, we need to comprehend what’s behind them.

Understanding karma is important

The notion of our deep-seated mental beliefs can be easily understood by becoming familiar with the concept of karma. It is valuable to grasp this concept to understand the inner mechanics of our thoughts and actions. Only by choosing to deal with our individual karma, can we work on creating a new reality for ourselves.

Karma is the notion of a cyclical process where our every action or intention leads to lasting impressions on our psyche, and these impressions in turn impact our future behavior- comprising fresh intentions and actions- leading to new lasting impressions being formed. Our actions are called karma and the latent impressions they create are termed samskaras.

The law of karma

According to the law of karma, all our motivations as well as experiences in the present are dictated by our cumulative stored samskaras of past actions and reactions. Why, with the same stimulus, some people instinctively get anxious and others don’t, why some children are pre-disposed to an ambitious drive while others to going with the flow and so on, may all be potentially pre-arranged in our karmic psyche.

We are born with this karmicpsyche and with every interaction with our environment, we continue to generate and store additional karma in that psyche. This is how our childhood impressions– of relationships, role of parents, money, success, and…

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Posted by Rajiv Vij | Personal mastery, Self-growth, Spiritual | 10 Comments

Loving What Is – The Secret Ingredient For Lasting Happiness


“Horrible #!@& shot”, screamed my golf buddy as he saw his ball disappearing into the trees. He had had a good round so far and felt this shot was going to ruin it. He was furious with himself and stayed flustered the rest of the afternoon.

Unfulfilled expectations are one of the biggest sources of unhappiness in human life. Our life is laden with these events – you miss out on the promotion you so badly hoped for, your partner and you have such diverse views that you can rarely agree, your child’s performance or behavior is at complete odds with your expectations, your favorite team loses the final, the weather in your much awaited holiday turns out to be lousy.

They are all potential sources of discontent. Essentially, any mismatch between our expectation and reality leads to disappointment. We feel frustrated, angry and sometimes bitter – a perfect recipe for being unhappy. Unfortunately, we routinely encounter such situations in every day life and even the smallest of mismatches contributes to the accumulating unhappiness.

The cause

At a deeper level, this discontentment is linked to our deep identification with our egoistic mind. Our mind routinely conjures up images of the future, elaborating on the potential rewards of our actions, which would take us closer to our dream of greater success and happiness. In the process, we build strong attachment with specific outcomes – the promotion, the child’s strong performance, the favorable weather and so forth.

Additionally, conditioned by our judgmental nature, we see things as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ and operate from the belief that one outcome is necessarily better than the other. This makes us further cling to the one outcome that we believe is most desirable. Any mismatch is then unacceptable and perceived as a serious setback.

The case for cultivating acceptance

Deeper acceptance means surrendering to what is – not what…

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Posted by Rajiv Vij | Personal mastery, Self-growth | 9 Comments

Yeh Dil Maange More! (…Or This Heart Craves for More)


Do you sometime notice a sense of restlessness within you – a subtle feeling of wanting more from life; a desire for more success, more happiness, more wealth, more comfort, more love, more acknowledgement, more friends, more wisdom, more time, more fun or more healthy years?

Initially, I thought this was a fleeting feeling that arose from time to time, but I have now come to recognize that its subtle presence can be a persistent one; it’s undercurrents a constant companion. While this feeling is the source of fuel that moves us forward, it is also the cause of our discontent in life. How we quickly get used to any new circumstances in life and start nurturing these cravings from thereon.

If we had been dreaming about buying a Toyota Corolla, no sooner than we get to buy it, we get used to it and start eyeing the Camry. Not that the guy driving the Camry is any happier as he’s wondering when is he going to get his next upgrade.

3 Reasons For Our Discontentment

1. Belief that more is better

In our achievement-oriented society, more is often synonymous with better – the underlying belief that the person with more is likely to be happier; that more success, more money equates to greater happiness. Further, the capitalistic philosophy of ‘winner takes all’ and its tempting, instant and disproportionate rewards make us constantly yearn for more. Further, high decibel advertising touting the latest consumer products reinforces our sense of inadequacy.

As a result, we subconsciously dedicate our life to seeking perfection in all aspects of our life – from perfect looking teeth and perfectly shaped body- even if it means undergoing cosmetic surgery- to the most desirable perfume and the perfect partner. In the process, we develop a lop-sided sense of priorities and end up living a poor inner life because we are constantly thinking…

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Posted by Rajiv Vij | Personal mastery, Self-growth | 12 Comments

‘MOODS’: The Make-up of Our Unhappiness Gene


Happiness has been a conscious pursuit of mine lately. Driven by a quest for deeper meaning and in search of a purposeful life, I left the seductive life of a corporate executive some years ago. Since then, examining, exploring, and experimenting with happiness has been kind of a hobby. I have also developed a happiness test (please click here to check your happiness score) and have pored over the positive shifts my clients- and I personally- have experienced on the happiness scale over time.

Born to be happy (or unhappy)
I have come to believe that some people are simply born with a happiness gene. They lead a happier life irrespective of their circumstances or their station in life. They are happy whether they are materially successful or not; marry a loving partner or not; win or lose; are healthy or ailing and so forth.

However, they are a minority. For the rest of us, we instinctively drift towards unhappy feelings, as if we carry a dominant unhappiness gene that’s continually ready to assert itself. The consequent unhappiness ranges from subconscious undercurrents of incompleteness, constant desire for more and lack of joy to substantive sadness, anxiety and moments of depression. However, any of us can discover real happiness – just that for the majority of us, this requires making a conscious effort.

From some of my work in this area, I could not help observe the key symptoms of this unhappiness gene. Developing an understanding of these has been very helpful in working through my personal moments of confusion, anxiety and unhappiness as well as those of my clients.

‘MOODS’
MOODS is an acronym I have coined to capture the five key traits of this so-called unhappiness gene. It stands for Me, Overwhelmed, Obsessive, DIY and Set in stone. Let me elaborate what they mean and some quick thoughts on what we can do neutralize them.

Me
‘Me’ represents our self-centered instincts to take…

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Posted by Rajiv Vij | Personal mastery, Self-growth | 11 Comments

Anger: The Temptation and Its Antidote


Anger is a strong feeling of annoyance, displeasure or hostility. Instigated by any number of triggers – someone cutting our lane on the freeway, a child not following our advice, the spouse saying something that appears hurtful, a colleague’s aggressively worded e-mail or somebody’s actions that simply appear unjust, it’s an emotional state that ranges from minor irritation to intense rage.

The temptation

We are easily tempted into anger. Often, the underlying factor bringing up anger is a sense of lack of control – a perceived threat to getting what we want. This temptation for control is rooted in our ego and in our attachment with specific outcomes.

Further, anger originates from the tempting belief that the real source of our unhappiness or provocation is entirely external to us and is hence targeted at an external object or person. It’s always someone else’s inappropriate behaviour that’s the cause of our anger. At least that’s how we rationalise our outbursts anyway!

Anger also resides in the conviction that a burst of aggressive energy aimed at the other person would improve the situation. The child would change his/ her ways, the subordinate would start behaving in a desirable manner and the spouse would listen to us more often.

Its toxic impact

Anger is an emotional illness and has some serious consequences for us. While small and occasional releases of cortisol can provide the body a quick burst of energy during emergencies, uncontrolled and frequent anger has a host of harmful effects on our personal and social well-being.

The physical effects of anger include increased levels of heart rate, blood pressure and breathing rate. Anger also activates the release of stress hormones, including adrenaline and cortisol, which in turn impair the ability of the brain to function optimally. Anger creates blood sugar imbalance and suppresses the body’s immune system.

When angry, we are unable to make judicious choices – in such a state, sometimes, we are indeed out of our mind! Further,…

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Posted by Rajiv Vij | Personal mastery, Self-growth | 3 Comments

Chasing A Crooked Shadow


“There was a man who was so disturbed by the sight of his own shadow and so displeased with his own footsteps that he determined to get rid of both. The method he hit upon was to run away from them, so he got up and ran, but every time he put his foot down, there was another step, and all this while his shadow kept up with him too without the slightest difficulty. He attributed his failure to the fact that he was not running fast enough. So he ran faster and faster, without stopping, until he finally dropped dead. He failed to realize that if he merely stepped into the shade, his shadow would vanish, and if he sat down and stayed still, there would be no more footsteps.”

This parable from the Chinese philosopher, Chuang Tzu, aptly captures the common reality of our lives. So many of our experiences, particularly during the impressionable years of childhood, are based on negative feedback on who we are – supposedly incompetent at many things and incapable of brilliance on numerous occasions and so on.

It’s not difficult to imagine then why we grow up feeling incomplete and constantly strive to become perfect – when we can finally convince ourselves, and others, of how good and wonderful we are. This insecurity and sense of incompleteness drives us to chase bigger goals. However, because of the lack of deeper fulfillment, each summit we climb appears only like the bottom of the next peak.

Further, since the reference for determining our greatness is always others, the reality that there’s always someone who’s stronger, richer, more beautiful or more knowledgeable than us is hard to swallow – “we are disturbed by the sight of our own shadow and weaknesses.” What do we do then, we try even harder – “but the shadow, the footsteps and our sense of lack won’t go away.”

Till we make the paradigm shift. Not by…

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Posted by Rajiv Vij | Personal mastery, Self-growth, Spiritual | 3 Comments

Simplify Your Life This New Year!


This is the season for resolutions. I reckon you have considered one or two yourself. Unfortunately, as the year progresses, most New Year resolutions tend to fall by the wayside and end up as mere intents. Here’s an insightful approach towards creating a life that’s not only happier and more fulfilling, but one that also automatically responds to your most meaningful resolutions.

We complicate life
Driven sometimes by ambition and other times by a sense of inner incompleteness, we instinctively immerse ourselves in a myriad of pursuits. We often act out of the fear of losing out, compared to our peers or our social network.

We would rather be overwhelmed than miss out on the slightest chance to please the boss, make more money, enhance our status, accumulate more clothes or gadgets, or go to the extra social event. We also find it hard to let up on instantly responding to text messages, checking our e-mails or facebook accounts multiple times a day or randomly watching television.

What suffers in the process is our attention to our most important priorities – the ones that actually make us feel fulfilled and happier. No wonder then we are unable to see through many of our resolutions, the New Year ones being no exception.

First, the familiar lesson
“A philosophy professor stood before his class and had some items in front of him. When class began, wordlessly he picked up a large empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with rocks, rocks about 2” in diameter. He then asked the students if the jar was full? They agreed that it was. So, the professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles, of course, rolled into the open areas between the rocks. The students laughed. 

The professor picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled everything else. “Now,” said the professor, “I want you…

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Posted by Rajiv Vij | Leadership, Personal mastery, Self-growth | 7 Comments

Demystifying Death


Death is not a subject we often think about or are even comfortable talking about. In fact, a number of contemporary sociologists believe that despite widespread liberalization of thought in modern times, death is one of the topics where the extent of taboo has actually grown. What is death?

An important law of physics, the law of conservation of energy, states that the total amount of energy in a closed, or isolated, system remains constant over time. What this means is that in such a system, energy cannot be created or destroyed. It can however change forms. We also know from Einstein’s theory of relativity that mass and energy are one and the same thing. Thus, we can infer that in a closed system, the total mass and energy of the system stay unchanged over time.

Given that the universe is such a closed system, it is understandable that there is no new energy or mass being created inside it; there’s instead a shuffling and metamorphosis of forms that’s happening constantly. Take the example of a snowflake, an ice cube, a water droplet and a steam vapor. What do you notice is common in here? All these are nothing but different expressions of the same entity. While the underlying essence of each of these forms is water, we attach different labels to each of the forms and, in the process, get distracted from connecting with the truth.

This is what explains death. The universe is constantly evolving and, in the process, continues to take different forms– galaxies, stars, planets, animals, plants and humans. All the forms arise from the universe and dissolve into it, but are neither born nor die. Death is a concept of the mind and of its identification with the body form.

Consider the life cycle of a butterfly. It starts with an egg that gets fertilized and hatched into a caterpillar; the caterpillar grows in size, sheds its last skin and…

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Posted by Rajiv Vij | Personal mastery, Self-growth, Spiritual | 5 Comments

Discovering Your Calling


In one of my earlier posts (Are you following your calling), I had talked about the difference between pursuing a job, career or your calling and the impact pursuing your calling has on your level of happiness at work.

Now, following your calling is understandably easier said than done. How do you even go about the crucial step of discovering your calling? If you are not one of the lucky few, who somehow landed themselves in what they truly love, what can you consciously do about it?

Here are some steps that can support you in that discovery.

Set aside time for reflection
I believe each one of us is uniquely gifted and has a special purpose on earth. However, we get so caught up in the treadmill of our fast-paced lives that we fail to discover this purpose. Slowing down is essential for developing deeper clarity.

You need to create time and space to reflect on what is most important for you – do you want to be more successful or make a significant contribution; do you want more money or be happier; do you value social recognition or inner fulfillment; what role does family and community have for you and so forth.

Plan for those reflective moments, maybe 10-15 minutes every day or at least some every week.

Create a powerful vision
As is said, “If you can see it and believe in it, it will happen.”

We all have fleeting ideas, from time to time, of what we would like our life to be about. The idea of a vision is about articulating them cogently.

Write a note, describing in vivid detail, what you envision your ideal life to be like – not just work life, but your entire life. What kind of work would you be engaged in, what would you like most about it, what would your typical work day look like, what would you be busy with outside of work,…

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Posted by Rajiv Vij | Leadership, Personal mastery, Self-growth | 4 Comments