An Old Post – A New Slideshow
Last weekend I have uploaded my first slide show on Author Stream. I only came across the site last week.
Basically Author Stream is a slide show/power point presentation sharing site where members get to upload and share their own presentations while downloading or rating others’.
My first slide show is a re-adaptation of an old post of mine entitled ‘Reboot your life: 20 mental barriers to let go of’. I have shortened it to what I think are the 10 essential points out of those 20.
Here it goes. Hope you like it. It is free to use, embed in your site or share with others….so just go ahead.I might also keep putting some more posts in this format if I see that it goes well with my readers 
7 Kick-ass Steps to Getting More Done
In all the personal development literature, probably the hottest and most read category is productivity - specifically about finding ways to deal with procrastination and getting things done.
This week I came across an excellent article written by Carolyn Rubenstein of A Beautiful Ripple Effect about ways of getting more done. Make sure to visit her site as there are more top class articles and excellent advice to be found there. Carolyn is also the author of Perseverance – True voices of cancer survivors.
The article was split in a two post series which I would like to summarize here for your info.
Carolyn starts by explaining how one of the main reasons of having our work flow blocked or even procrastinate about starting is because we get engulfed in a mind pattern sometimes referred to as the ‘Analysis-paralysis’. This state is when we get overwhelmed by the details or by the weight of projects and deadlines looming in our brains.
This is where we get debilitated. We get detached from the flow process and the more we struggle the deeper we whirl in the analysis-paralysis mind trap. Cheer up though cause there are also really effective ways of steering away from these self-limiting patterns. I would like to list them down in point form for you here:
Pt #1 – Weakening the analysis paralysis
1. Change your perspective: More often than not, getting stuck in a rut is more an issue about our internal perspective rather than an external obstacle that we face. The mind sometimes gets in a loop while trying to solve a problem and hence we end up spinning wheels. Carolyn suggests taking a wider, different view of the issue. It’s like having your nose stuck to a painting & you’re only seeing certain details. You move back you see the whole painting afresh. Very important. See the problem from a different angle and question whether your expectations are realistic or overshot. If not try to realign them to middle ground.
2. Engage your right-brain: Now this is a point I totally liked. Being a right-brainer myself, I could fully dig into it. Analysis is the domain of the left-hemisphere of the brain. It’s linear, logical analysis while the right-brain is more intuitive, synthesizing ideas and joining the dots in a larger picture. And yes, it is more creative. When you get stuck in analysis-paralysis, you have to switch activity from left to right and stop what you’re doing to engage in more playful & creative tasks such as brainstorming & mind-mapping ideas on a whiteboard with colourful markers (something I love and really works for me!!!), drawing for a few minutes with crayons or pastels or jot down some fun & crazy ideas.
3. Move that body!: Simple, amazing & can only take a few seconds. Just move away from your chair and do any movement and exercise – stretch, jumping on the spot, aerobics, Tai Chi, walk, etc. Moving the body is like a portal to a more relaxed, aware and clear state of mind. This is why you feel that sense of well being after a walk or a run. That is also why people get entranced by dancing or moving their bodies to a rhythm. (more…)
10 Tips for Taking Risks Constructively
This is a guest post by James Adams
To get ahead, you need to take risks. Before jumping into a project, you need to assess the risks that you are willing to take. Here are ten considerations for smart risk taking.
1. Take lessons from the past
Every success and every failure has lessons to be learned. Is this a new project? If it is, there are others who have taken similar risks. Is this an improvement on an older project? What are the lessons that can be learned from the older project? Every failure is a teaching experience.
2. Set a time frame
When you prepare yourself to take a risk, establish a time frame within which you expect to see results happen. If you know that it takes at least two months to know whether something is successful, don’t start measuring results after the first month. Give your ideas time to come together.
3. Define success
Assessing the success or failure of a project means that the qualities of success have been defined. For that new website to be successful, what needs to be in place? Do you need to have X unique visitors? Do you need to make X in sales? Define your winning scenario.
4. Conquer your Fears
Fears lead to doubt. Doubt leads to inactivity. There are many people who are content to sit on the sidelines because they are not willing to take the risks required. You are willing to take those risks. Don’t let doubt and fear get in your way.
5. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket
Do not be so wholly committed to your project as to put everything on the line. Your venture could be a great success or a great failure. If your venture ends in disaster, have something in reserve from which to rebuild. Like in gambling, bring only what you’re willing to lose. (more…)
What does your autobiography look like?
I was re-reading a passage from “A complete idiot’s guide to Zen living” by Gary McClain and Eve Adamson when I was struck anew by a very simple concept (don’t be misled by the title – it’s an excellent book for both newbies or otherwise and it’s a reference guide I regularly come back to).
The idea was posed in a very simple question which read: If you were to write an autobiography what would you start the first chapter with? Is it going to be something along the lines – “Someday I’m going to be….” or something like “Today I lived…”?
The question is raw and simple as it can get yet it’s profoundly intriguing. The answer defines whether you are living in an illusory self-definition of yourself or one in which the concept you have of yourself truly reflects who you are.
Bang! It zapped me right between the eyes. It very much points at one of my failings and shortcomings. I don’t want to sound like I’m beating on my chest in guilt, but I do have to admit that I sometimes conceive of myself in terms of what I want to be or achieve rather than what I am doing at the moment. I envision myself by means of my potential self and not my actual self.
Did this ever occur to you? We are all driven by some goal or mission that we want to reach in life be that having a successful career, being leaders in a particular field, having a life full of rich experiences and inspirations and so on. And yes, we all day dream about it with our mind floating away into some imaginary future episode of our lives where everything is as we think it should be.
We project this future autobiography in our heads. We design the plot, characters and scene settings down to the slightest details and enthrall ourselves in this self-created fantasy minutes or even hours at a time only to have our playback paused or interrupted only by someone or something.
Isn’t this normal and kind of OK? don’t we all do that? Don’t we all have aspirations and dreams about how we want ourselves to be in future? Aren’t goals and visions of my self in the future necessary to make me thrive forward?
Yes and no. Yes goals are important and so is visualizing yourself having or living those particular goals but identifying yourself with what you want to be rather than what you are, presents a series of problems which are not apparent at first. Here are a few: (more…)
10 reasons why you are so special
One thing that constantly fascinates me is our ability to be unaware and oblivious of great wonderful things in front of our eyes on a day to day basis.
Sometimes we are so consumed by mundane problems and current affairs that we filter out a lot of information around us. This makes us lose sight of the bigger picture and the magnificence of grand things in our life journey – a journey we so often take for granted.
In many ways we lose out on creating meaning in our lives because of this simple yet inherent flaw in our nature.
Imagine how more meaningful life would be if we could every now and then step back and shift our awareness from the small picture to the big picture.
If we could escape for a minute from the reality of our daily routines, concerns and narrow habitual cycles (which we seem to drive on autopilot), we can gift ourselves with the knowledge of how special some things in life can be.
One thing which we fail to see is how special we are and I would in this respect like to suggest a couple of valid reasons why this is so. (more…)
Let your Body Talk – Accessing the Inner Wisdom of your Body
Most of us, myself included, grew up with the notion of our bodies as bio-physical machines that no matter how astoundingly beautiful,intricate and complex, they are in the end merely physiological.Nothing more, nothing less.
I had this general assumption challenged when I read Eugene T. Gendlin’s book called ‘Focusing’ a couple of years ago.
Gendlin considers the body to be intrinsically linked to the person as a whole and not just a separate physical system that answers to the brain’s command.He however keeps his literature free from metaphysical notions such as mind, consciousness and spirit.
The idea behind Gendlin’s concept of focusing is not novel per se. It intersects with several other key ideas from ancient philosophies such as the practice of mindfulness meditation. The difference is that he offers a series of simple practical steps to develop awareness of our inner bodily sensations and use this ‘felt sense’ to listen to the wisdom of our bodies through what he calls the six focusing movements.
In essence, the focusing method is a way to use awareness of inner bodily sensations as an entry point to an inner mental space. So far this is perfectly the same methodology as mindfulness meditation – using inner awareness as a way to get into the ‘gap’ between our thoughts and, to use Eckhart Tolle’s words, access an undercurrent of stillness beneath our frenetic stream of conscious jitter. This is the first of the six focusing movements, Gendlin calls ‘clearing a space’.
The way that focusing parts away from meditation and mindfulness techniques is its application. Focusing uses the awareness of inner bodily feelings, usually in the stomach,chest or throat areas, in relation with a problem or an issue.
So for example, I might be having a creative block due to stress at work and I might use focusing techniques to ‘reach into’ the ‘felt sense’ (say a tight constriction in my stomach). The technique also involves staying with the felt sense for a while and using a ‘friendly nonjudgmental approach’ to get a deeper insight of my subconscious causes of the creative block. (more…)
How To Meditate Better Than Your Guru: The Feedback Solution
This is a guest post by Carol of Straightlinemeditation.com
Better than your Guru? Seriously, take your time to read the following method designed to help you break one of the biggest barriers of meditation: the mind’s uncontrollable wandering. For those who have tried meditation or practice it regularly know this problem very well.
You might have thought or believed that Gurus have come to a point in their lives where whatever action they pursue they do it effortlessly, perfectly and successfully. You might imagine that Gurus have achieved an absolute dissolution of mind and can sit down in meditation and instantly turn their mind’s activity on or off at will. Yet even Gurus are plagued by the mind’s natural tendency to wander and drift off in daydreaming and frenzy trains of thought. I would like to propose a method that is proven to solve this age-old problem: “Feedback.”
Why Meditation Needs Feedback
Attention is the key to success in meditation. Attention makes it work. When you sit down to meditate however, even with the best intentions, the mind wanders. Attention is hard to hold on to, but why? Why is attention so hard to hold on to? The answer holds the solution!
It’s because you lose attention without knowing you are losing it. In meditation, attention slips away unseen. To a research psychologist with an interest in skill learning, the solution is obvious: meditation needs feedback. (more…)
Don’t Think Money – Think Life
We all think about money some time or another don’t we? When a mail-blitz of bills hit our mailbox or our financial planner software shows us that we are going to scrape it very, very thin till next paycheck, we sit back, take a deep breath and get carried away by an inundation of worrisome thoughts or daydreams about an alternative life in which money comes down thick and fast from a tap.
This takes us down a narrow road in our mind in which we get locked by thoughts of money scarcity rather than solutions.
In the below points I would like to expose some truths but also some false assumptions about money and how it affects our perspective on life: (more…)
7 Ways to be Kind to Yourself
Kindness is synonymous with giving and being open and emphatic to others around us. This is of course true. Yet being kind does not stop at being kind to others but we should consider more often the possibility, or rather the necessity, of being also kind to ourselves. This may sound a little bit selfish, but actually it is important to learn and practice kindness on oneself before exhibiting kindness to others. It provides a healthier foundation.
In the following points I have summed up what I believe to be important ways to be kind to ourselves. They are also necessary paths to happiness, mental health and overall well being. Here they go:
1.Give yourself space to grow, learn, imagine and create:
This is the free domain and the highest potential of the human mind. You might be living in environments where play, creativity and thinking big is shunned or frowned upon. Your 9 to 5 cubicle job may be sucking your dreams dry and snuffing out your spark and enthusiasm for life but your outer conditions are no excuse really. So do yourself a favour and stop humming that tune. No one is stopping you from expanding your mental horizons but yourself. Think about it. Think hard. Let your mind roam free. Read, watch, dream, be inspired, loosen and broaden your perception and awareness.
2.Get to terms with your internal critic:
We all have it. Yes you definitely have one too. It’s that voice in your head that is always prompt to be judgmental towards your own behaviour, often calling you names and criticizing every action you take. “You made a fool of yourself!”, or “you’re too fat and old” or perhaps “that’s really a stupid ides”. The internal critic grows with us and becomes part of our mental makeup since we are young. It also has a positive role – that of keeping us balanced and in check with ourselves so as to prevent us from doing something crazy or dangerous. But most of the time it is a downer which makes us lose confidence, motivation and perspective. Be aware of it when it pops up and as you recognize it, thank it but dismiss it gently. Think about the same situation in more positive ways.
3.Let go of your guilt:
Guilt can be a strong emotion which ties us to our past. We might feel guilty of something we did or something we have not done but wished we could. In essence guilt is often a misperception of the truth, an emotional attachment which enslaves our heart. Although it can feel difficult to overcome guilt it’s not impossible neither improbable. You just have to remember that mistakes are part of our lives. It’s part of the contract, almost a necessity. The choice is between getting stuck in mistakes that we are all bound to do or whether we learn from them, untie ourselves from them and move on.
