The Element of Mindfulness and Its Hope for New States of Consciousness.

Picture Courtesy: Sylvia Sky

We live in a state of continuously changing consciousness.

We eat something.  We feel pleasure or disgust.

We listen to a song on the radio.  We feel delight or awe or emotion.  If the song has rhythm, our foot starts tapping.

We enter a church or museum – we feel awe and reverence.

We go to a movie.  We feel fear, we feel excitement, we puzzle over the plot twists.

Our favorite sports team or our political party loses a battle – we feel frustrated.

We play a chess or video game, or we try to solve an intellectual or human puzzle.  We are in a state of engagement. 

When I learned to meditate, it became one of my goals to alter, escape, control, heighten, or reduce the severity of these alternate states of consciousness – depending on whether I wanted more of them or less.

I started by becoming more mindful and aware of my state of consciousness. Noticing how my mind changed and my body changed in response to different situations. What my thoughts were. What my sensations were. And what my feelings were.

Then I thought about what the ideal state of consciousness for those situations would be. 

Here are some of the questions I posed to myself about situations, and the state of consciousness I thought would be appropriate. 

Does the situation call for delight?

When I eat one of my favorite foods, or when I eat something new which delights my palate, I want to be in a state of total attention and in the moment - so I can enjoy and delight in the food. I don’t want to be walloping it down mindlessly, while I think about the next task on hand, or while I fret and fume about today’s annoyance, problem or irritation.  

Does the situation call for non-ego?

When someone cuts me off on the road, or expresses road rage at me, because I am not going at the speed limit he or she wants to me go at, I want to respond with non-ego. Of course, this is tough to achieve; so what I want to do is the next best thing – to observe my reflexive angry ego internal response until it evaporates. Sometimes, it will leave leftover emotional residue which will take a little longer to wear off – I want to observe that too.  I feel strongly about road rage.  Horrible things have happened because of it.  A year ago, a bus and a motorcyclist got into a road rage spat which resulted in the bus and the motorcyclist knocking each other, eventually leading to the motorcyclist’s death and his body being dragged for a mile under the bus.  Please read my post How to Become a Low Maintenance Person if road rage is an issue for you.

Does the situation call for counting to 1000?

At work, someone shouts “you didn’t do this” or “why can’t you understand?” or “how come you don’t know this with all your experience?”  This happens because we are not perfect, and there are bosses and coworkers who don’t know how to deal with imperfections. At such times, we have to figure out a way to alleviate and reduce our instant internal defensive, angry fight or flight feelings and thoughts, until those feelings and thoughts go away.

Does the situation call for engagement?

When we are fully engaged in something, as when writing this blog, we may not need to watch our thoughts – our consciousness is in the best state it could be – on task, in the flow, as Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi would call it.  So far, I am glad to report, I have always been in that state when writing this blog.  Of course engagement carries its own challenges.  When someone disturbs us in the middle of something we are engaged in, and which requires our full attention, we have to learn not to lash out.

Does the situation call for attention?

When anyone is talking to us, they deserve our full attention - and not our distracted only-half-there minds.

Does the situation call for awe?

When we look at the stars and think about infinity, when we ponder the diversity, vastness, complexity and amazing beauty of nature, when we enter a hallowed place such as a museum, a church, a temple, we want to be in a state of awe.  My post How to Become a New Person tells you how observing a full moon and coming upon a rattlesnake while walking the trail brought on that state of awe for me. The next time you are in a situation which calls for awe, I hope you will give yourself fully to the moment.

Does the situation call for respectful silence?

There are some situations, such as when we are honoring the dead, or watching a couple exchange bridal wows or watching any solemn ceremony – when we want our thoughts to be respectfully silent.

Does the situation call for joyful abandon?

When we watch or listen to enjoyable entertainment, or we dance to music, we want to give ourselves to the moment wholeheartedly and without reserve.

Does the moment call for overlooking and forgiving and forgetting and not doing anything rash?

Our biggest challenge is responding appropriately to provocation – not going berserk when our hot buttons are pushed.  This is the greatest consciousness victory of all.

Meditation has done wonders for me in all these respects.

In my post TheElement of Challenge and its Hope for Pushing Us Out of Our Comfort Zone, I make mention of the best FRD I ever wrote. This FRD was written for a company which makes an interesting medical implant for epileptics.  The device is a battery the size of a dollar which is surgically implanted in the chest of the patient and has threads going to the vagus nerve in the neck.  The physician programs the device to deliver short bursts of electric stimulation from the battery along the vagus nerve to the brain.  Additionally, the patient is given a hand held device to control the stimulation themselves. VNT (Vagus Nerve Therapy) helps patients who do not respond to medication to control their epilepsy.  It reduces both the frequency and severity of epileptic episodes.

Meditation, likewise, has helped me reduce the severity and frequency of angry, defensive flight or flight responses.  I find that even when I can’t get rid of the response altogether, I am able to meditate until I am out of that state. This is a big deal.  It cuts short the fretting and fuming that follows.  And keeps me from doing anything foolish, which of course, is always a temptation in these situations. I use meditation to cope till I calm down. 

Sooner or later, we always calm down. When enough time has passed, we even are able to laugh about distressing incidents.

When I came to America, I had a driving instructor from hell.  Once she got mad at me because I changed lanes without looking at the front and side mirrors. She swung the front mirror away from me and yelled, “obviously, you don’t need this.  You didn’t look at it once”.  I was terrified.  She regularly terrorized me and the other students during the lessons.  One student even started crying. I couldn’t wait for the driving classes to end.  Now I laugh about it and Rosie says I am a good driver because of the instructor’s harsh lessons.  Driving Boot Camp :)

Meditation has been such a win – win for me.

Not only am I able to deal better with provocation, I am also able to experience more awe and wonder, more “aha “moments, more delight, more cheerfulness, and more connectedness.

But then you know this from my post Connected Minds.

Connectedness and compassion is the best state of consciousness – when we feel connected and we care for others - we typically don’t need anything else to feel life is worth living.

It’s a fulfillment in itself.

As I said in my post The Element of Vision and Its Hope for Lighting Our Path, there’s not a soul in the world who can’t provide me with some information for my blog.

This is a wonderful epiphany.  An epiphany filled with joy and hope.

I am not unique –countless other people in the world are at the exact same point as I am. They have learned to become aware of their consciousness and experience positive changes in consciousness.

Changed consciousness is available to any and all humans in the world.

You don’t have to go to a monastery and train under a monk or priest. I didn’t. I just read a book and started from there. But if you think it can help, go for it. Alternate ways of thinking and being are just a question of letting the genie out of the bottle. And you may have to try different things to get the genie out of that bottle. 

Join a Bible Study Group.  Go on a retreat.  Give yourself the creative pause I recommend in my post The Element of the Creative Pause and Its Hope for Turning Us Into Idea-Generation Machines. Do what Trevor Blake suggests in his mind-blowing book Three Little Steps.

If you have a desire to find new ways to think and be, sooner or later, you will find new ways to think and be.  It’s just a question of time.

As always, thanks for reading and have a great day and week…..M…..a Pearl-Seeker like you.

The Element of Vision & Its Hope For Lighting Up Our Path

Picture Courtesy: Mediation by the Lake by Nat Sakunwororat

Recently, I’ve been thinking about vision.  Vision is a corporate buzzword.  CEOs are expected to “articulate the company’s vision”.  At work, you might hear someone say, “What is your vision for your department?” Or… “What is your vision for yourself?”

Anyone who spends a few minutes thinking about vision in the context of their personal life will understand that vision is subject to change. 

You have one vision for a period of time, another vision for another period of time, another vision for another period of time.  In fact, our vision may keep changing all our lives – depending on where we are, what circumstances we find ourselves in, and what we are doing at the time.

When my copywriting career started, I was young and answerable to no one but myself.  My desires were focused on money, recognition, professional status and power.  I looked up to and sought the conventional trappings of success.  My vision for myself was to see myself in a well-paid position with professional status.  My vision was to come up in life by hard work and ambition. I admired people who made it possible for people like me to move up in life.  I would say to anyone who cared to listen:  “Dhirubhai Ambani is doing more of a service to society than Mother Teresa. Look at all the employment and business and wealth opportunities he is creating.”  I couldn’t understand how anyone could think any different. 

As my career progressed, there were times of burn out. Sometimes I wanted to run away from the fancy title, money and executive benefits, and become a school teacher in a hill station school.  The roller coaster of being considered as creative as 'your last campaign' was getting to me. Besides, by that time, I had realized, that along with money, recognition, professional status and power, was unwelcome stuff - such as resentment and jealousy; and people waiting to take you down a notch or two. 

My vision changed and I wanted to be my own boss. I wanted to have the power to make my own decisions about where I worked, for how much time I worked, what assignments were worth pursuing and how much to charge for my work. This vision was realized through my creative shop Purple Patch.

When I had Tanita, my vision changed again.  I took a career break for 11 months after her birth. I then moved to America. A challenging time awaited me. I had to learn how to survive, rather than thrive. Learn to drive. Check.  Learn to cook. Check.  Learn to do laundry.  Check.  Learn Microsoft Excel. Word. Power Point. Check. Get a job.  Check.  Keep the job.  Check. Cope when child got ill.  Check. Cope when daycare was closed. Check. It was both exhausting and financially challenging, but I found ways to make it work.  As soon as I became a Commissions Analyst, I realized that my life could become saner and more satisfying, if I could get to work from home. It would cut day care and gas expense.  I would be able to work around doctor’s appointments and school appointments and house repairs and paying things and renewing things.  I would be less exhausted.  I paid a high price professionally though, watching as promotions and raises and recognition passed me by, even while I was jumping through hoops to make it work.  I was in the bind that Ann Marie Slaughter talked about. You can read her answer to Sheryl Sandberg’s “lean in” here. Later on, I would come to appreciate the sacrifice, figuring out what my friend Julia Kaplan was subsequently able to articulate for me (Read my post The United States of Friendship - Part 8 - for more) – “some things in life are priceless.”

Many women face the predicament I faced when Tanita was a young child. How does one cope with one’s job and the child and household chores? Unfortunately, this is still a “woman’s question”. Even when women have the resources and luck to be able to turn to a family member, a nanny, a housekeeper, a daycare provider, those jobs are still done by women, and for only a part of the time.  Home and hearth are still a woman’s inescapable responsibility. Women stare at us from detergent ads, household goods ads, ads for food preparation.  We accept it as status quo. While most men (even today) remain in an "anything goes" Peter Pan state about child rearing and house upkeep.

(Is the answer robots? Is the answer men and women both, should work part time, or telecommute, during the challenging raising a family years?  It does seem that in most households, men have to be incentivized to do more - that’s all I know.)

But back to my changing vision….

When my mother died in 2005, my vision changed.  It was focused inwards  - on the kind of person I wanted to be. At the time, I was unemployed.  As my post The Element of the Creative Pause and Its Hope for Turning Us Into Idea-Generating Machines suggests, unemployment can be a time of transformation and profound change.  Instead of burying myself in grief over my mother’s loss, I thought about what I could do to honor Mummy’s memory.  The answer came to me. My post The Path to Change tells you what that answer was.

In 2010, as the American economy was reeling, and the pace of layoffs continued unabated, my vision changed again. I decided to free myself from the ball and chain of being an employee. I left the job at which I had been at for 5 years (from 2005 to 2010), did the Xactly Administrators course and became an SPM (Sales Performance Management) consultant. I have been an SPM consultant ever since.

Beginning June 2010, I had a creative pause that was to last a full 7 months.  I reaped rich rewards from this creative pause.  You can read all about it in my post The Element of The Creative Pause.  I learned to meditate.  I also started blogging. 

My initial vision for my blog was just to start writing again. But the blog outgrew that vision. It became a platform for me to share ideas, thoughts, stories (serious and funny), and life experiences, and to invite others to share their ideas, thoughts, stories and experiences as well.

Many different people were to contribute to this vision – through encouragement, feedback, ideas, and guest posts.

My friend Nadya planted the seed in my thoughts by telling me I had a talent for internet research and I should use it.

My nephew Vikram said I could blog about books.

Family and friends (and friends of friends) have kept me going with encouragement and feedback.  And some of you have provided such thought provoking feedback, new posts came out of it.

Then there are all the marvelous guest posters who have contributed articles, poems or stories to Minoo Jha Life Strategies.  Some of these posts are a huge draw on my blog. A shout out to Ajay, Cindy, Don, Anita, John, Shantel, Gurshuran, Jim , Juliet and Jacinta in this regard.

Ideas for posts have emanated from different corners.

Cousin Vinita telling me the story behind her soap making business.

Subhakar commenting “Minoo, how I wish I could blog”.

Anita asking me to review her Kindle book, On Becoming Vegetarian.

Mr. Yellum creating Santa Teresa High School’s first Girl’s Golf Team.

My blog bears the imprint of so many different happenings and events in so many different people's lives.

I never realized how limitless a blog could be in that respect.

Its power to weave more and more lives in.

Truly, there is not a soul on this earth who can’t give me an idea from which I can create a post.

Take a few moments today to think about the vision for your life in the next few years.

It can be in one area of your life, or in all the areas of your life that matter to you.

What initiatives can you think of to make that vision happen?

Make a list – ranging from sensible to wacky.

Think big.

If you have a vision of good health – what is that vision?  To live to age….? To make the most of the health you currently have?  What are the initiatives you can think of to make that vision happen?  Don’t be afraid to do your best.  Don’t second guess yourself.

If you have a vision of self-development – what is that vision?  Become less awkward socially?  Learn a language? Dust off a skill you have not been using? Or learn a new skill? Climb a mountain?  What are the initiatives you can think of to make that vision happen? 

If you have a vision of rebuilding your life – what is that vision? Set yourself up in a stable home? Spend your time productively. Successfully conquer habits which are holding you back? Accomplish milestone after milestone, until you can put the past behind you? What are the initiatives you can think of to make that vision happen? 

If you have a vision of building a strong family or a strong society – what is that vision? Communicate more? Become an activist. Think of ways to put a strong foundation under your kids, or under the youth of today? What are the initiatives you can think of to make that vision happen?  

If you have a vision of being a person of faith - what is that vision?  Praying x number of times a day? Visiting the Holy Land? Following the Holy Book? Being a better child, parent, spouse, friend, employee? What are the initiatives you can think of to make that vision happen? 

If you have a vision of leaving a legacy - what is that vision? Is it a number? Or does it go beyond that?  Read my post The Element of Releasing Our Inhibition & Its Hope for Discovering Our Creative Self for some food for thought.

Put your vision down on paper. It will light up your path. And sooner or later, it will ripple out to pull in the energies of like-minded people, today in your corner, tomorrow in the world.

Happy Visioning.

As always, thanks for reading and have a great day and week…..M……a Pearl Seeker like you.