Tag Archives: mindful

Mindful Habits : Taking a Breather

October 10, 2017 Dinkrit Sethi Leave a comment

You are Mindful when you to train your mind to be empty.

You occupy the moment when you meditate to relieve yourself from momentary existence.

You observe more when you train yourself to think less.

Mindful-ness makes you observe your actions while you do them. This way of life is cultivated by sitting and observing your thoughts, understanding the nature of sensory triggers and habit induced instincts and finally learning how to distinguish yourself from these actions in the heat of the moment as a separate observing entity.

Over time we engage in lot of activities, which either become our passions or profession. For me it is business, health and writing, for others it might be something else.

While pursuing any kind of work or activity, you get so engrossed in doing, that you forget observing yourself as a separate entity from the activity or work that you do. In due time you are so lost that you end up believing this activity to be a natural part of your life, your calling, passionate pursuit, objective in life.

Failing to be mindful, you get engrossed in work and observe little, as a result you make these external activities larger than your own life. This sets you on a pathway of stress and worry when expected results are not met.

Taking a breather

It is essential to temporarily detach yourself from the activities you pursue, even if you love doing them.

When you take a breather, you take your energies out of the task and exist, be it for a few moments, as an absolute singularity. This is essential as it lets you create a distance between the activity and yourself. Which might be temporal but at the same time necessary to observe your singularity.

You will observe that your singularity much more than whatever it is that you pursue. Your activities don’t define you rather you define your activities.

Ego will never let you out of the vicious cycle of work and passions but it is highly recommended to take a breather from both once in a while. It might seem impossible and irresponsible to leave work and even more with passionate work, but if you don’t give yourself breaks you will let yourself slide in an infinite loop of doing.

By taking breaks you will boost your minds capability of observing. This makes you more mindful and make better life decisions when you are moving at the speed of life. If you dare to be mindful in the modern world you will empower yourself to find the best in every situation in every dimension of life.

I DARE YOU TO BE MINDFUL

I dare you to be more mindful in this world which forces you to worry about unfinished work. In a world where every action is mandatory to produce some end product. I dare you to be more mindful in this world where we act more and observe little. Where we are countering evolution and becoming work horses.

I dare you to be more mindful in the modern world where you are being hustled into becoming an ever working hustler.

(Disclaimer: It is to be noted that a “taking a breather” is a temporary phenomenon aimed at upgrading mindfull-ness and not aimed at making you lay.)

Mindfulness, Wellness

Realigning your awesome

April 9, 2017 Dinkrit Sethi Leave a comment

You inspired awe when you were born, and as time flew by so did your aura of awe. There was no right and wrong at that time, no good or bad, your instincts were appreciated and allowed to exhibit themselves in the most natural way. There was no self editing, self judgement and you just flowed in the most natural way.

As you grew up you were moderated and controlled, told to do the right things, corrected at every step by structures of our society, families, religions and governments all seemed to know whats right for you. These structures of society dictated your actions and their lessons, which you were better without, seeped through to your sub conscious. Thereby developing a self editing software which crippled your awesomeness. The same has been going on from generation to generation.

The social prison, which cages your thoughts, limits your natural genius, forcing you to relinquish your instincts and choose a mechanical life instead. The things which you notice least are the biggest influencing factors here. Religion, family, governments all impose restrictions on your free spirit. They make you believe social acceptance and long term stability are the actual purpose of your life rather than creativity and imagination,

The blueprint of your life is designed by someone else even before you can make sense of the world properly. By the time you understand how the word works, you have already gone too far on the path of mediocrity to take a step back.

But there is always freewill and choice. At any point of time in your existence you can decide to realign your life and get in touch with your own awesomeness once again. There will be sacrifices, fights, feuds and misunderstandings, but all are a small price to pay in order realign with your awesomeness.

Realigning with your Awesome

Weed out the society induced stresses from your brain. There are methods ad ways to observe yourself, to find whether you are in tune with your own awesomeness and working on passions or your alignment is off, and you base your life on fear.

If you are in alignment with your awesome self, you will work on faith rather than on fear.

Here are some ways of recognizing and re aligning with your awesomeness:

Pause: The first and most difficult aspect of realigning with your awesomeness is to take a break from whatever you are engaged in. Yes, the task demands you and it would be impossible for you to get away from it, but your life is more important than all the money you make.
Silence Logic- Your socially conditioned brain will talk you out of all your attempts of realigning with your awesomeness, so observe these thoughts and let them pass till they get muted by themselves. Meditation or just sitting alone with oneself will be effective in doing this.
Identify Bliss- It is not selfish to do whats best for you. After silencing the mind, it will be easy to identify things which make you feel blissful. These are the things you are genuinely passionate about. Things which you can work on endlessly, without expecting rewards.
Flow- Once you attain this blissful picture, just let your spirit flow in this direction. Observe the resistance that you will face but do whatever it takes to overcome it to let your spirit flow.

This is how you will realign with your awesomeness. A state of mind with effortless execution of all tasks, a belief system fueled by faith not fear. This state will help you follow passionate pursuits and empower you with a relentless obsession which will help you fulfill your purpose on the planet.

We are not occupying Earth to spend most of our lives behind desks and jobs to ensure weekly and monthly sustenance. We are not here to spectate events, news, shows and the lives of those around us. We are here to contribute, and an awesome mindset will definitely contribute. My book 6 ways to the world elaborates on other ways of realigning with your awesome, read it now.

Wellness

Chasing Dreams- No Days Off

August 4, 2015 Dinkrit Sethi Leave a comment

The calendar was created to organize time not to dictate the pace of your life. The modern work perspective gives too much impetus to Monday morning blues and Thank God its Friday. Most of this created by stability chasing people who work halfheartedly towards the realization of someone else’s dreams. For them the bigger the break the better it is, the longer the weekend the more fun filled their life is. They might end up with a lot of money living this incomplete life, but do they really feel fulfilled at the end of it?

If you partake in any endeavor thinking about anything else except the task, then the job is not meant for you. You are not doing it with enough passion for you to make a difference into your own or anyone else’s life, you are easily replaceable and even if you succeed you will never be fulfilled.

The Dream Catching Trap

There is a small group of dreamers, the people who started the companies you aspire to work for. How are they different, they never fell for the trap. They dared to dream beyond the trap set by the enumerable organisations and companies wanting to enslave them, and the colleges and institutions wanting to train them to be enslaved.

For these dreamers work was more pleasure than pressure. Unlike others they took no days off cause they had a vision of greatness for themselves. They dint take up ordinary tasks just to find stability, they were devoted to their dream, intoxicated by their ideal, fanatics who dint cave in to the demands of society, who dint work thinking about the lunch hour, who worked free from the bondages of time.

Their future vision of themselves is what propelled them to sacrifice. Empowered by their imagination of a mesmeric future they never cared about the how, they kept doing what needed to be done.

From fear to freedom

But as life moves on these daring dreamers perish, evolution has introduced fear into genetics. The dreamers of the past have been replaced by a set of soft individuals who choose to be enslaved so that they can complain, who chose to let go off their dreams so as to be protected, who chose to fulfill someone else’s dream halfheartedly rather than chase their own wholeheartedly.

Have faith in your own vision, believe in your self, let your intuition guide you before someone else captures your imagination and leads you to the path of mediocrity and bored working hours.

If you are not willing to put in 110% effort for 25 hours a day, 8 days a week on the fulfillment of the task that you are working on with a smile on your face, then you are wasting your life and time.

Success vs Stability

As smarter people in need of your time and energy sugarcoat jobs and make them appear lucrative, it becomes impossible for people to follow their passions, knowing the short term pay off wont be as great.

You fail to understand that this short term barter will dent your psychology and condition you to be dependent all their lives, You become mental and emotional wrecks but still bare with everything that is thrown at you at the work place because you will never be able to embrace freedom, to act by yourself.

Instead of reading articles like “6 ways to build a charismatic aura” you will read “6 ways to avoid working on weekends” or “6 ways to deal with a dictator boss” or “6 ways to use Facebook at work”.

Discover your dreams and start working on them, just like anything else in life you will face roadblocks and obstacles, but if you are bale to bare with it for long enough, you will manage to lead a fulfilling life where all your dreams will come true.

Wellness

The inevitableness of suffering

April 25, 2015 Dinkrit Sethi Leave a comment

Wie viel ist aufzuleiden! (How much suffering there is to get through!)” These lines by Rillke highlight a painful truth about of life. It is impossible to avoid suffering, even the ones who live too carefully in order to protect themselves from life’s suffering , suffer from the anxiety of impending death.

Your vacation on this planet comes with a distinct set of sufferings that you have to go through irrespective of who you are. As life slowly reveals its true colors to you, you find out that there is more to it than the cartoons, a fragment which you never account for as a child, and out of nowhere you find yourselves in soups you had never imagined.

There is no king, no beggar, no monk, no murderer who can escape suffering. Suffering is omnipresent, like the air we breathe, the water we drink, the happiness we relish and the love we share. You might run and hide from it, but you will ultimately have to suffer the quota dedicated to you in order to learn your lessons and find your meaning.

The education associated with both the mental and physical suffering is a vital component for an individual trespassing this planet. With this being said it becomes vital as to how you react to suffering.

Willing yourself on

Yes most people think that they are targets for mystical forces playing paint ball. They are so overawed by the slightest of sufferings that they lose their head, forgetting the generic nature of suffering.

Yes there is some honor in suffering, you can either become a rebel , making life difficult for people around you, or accept your share of sorrow and move on.

It is essential to accept the struggles, sadness, sorrow and suffering as you enjoy the ecstasy, enjoyment, excitement and entertainment that life has to offer. Once you learn to accept this reality you learn to accommodate instead of questioning it, bear the pain rather than complain.

Share the load, life’s burdens will appear lighter

Once you have stopped questioning as to why one suffers, you will start looking for ways to adapt to the suffering.

As an individual you have to find a why to bear the pain, to survive the storms, it can be a solitary purpose, an ambition or a relationship, family and friends. Once you find a why you will survive anyhow.

But usually people look for external supports and end up overcompensating in order to avoid suffering. This is the reason several religious offices are running idol worship centers like corporate houses.

A better way to do this is by sharing each others burden irrespective of status, class and religion. When suffering is common to all then people should unite and share the load as a whole, irrespective of man made socioeconomic differences.

Understanding the rules of the cosmos to your advantage

There are certain absolutes of this universe which we cant fight, only accept and adapt to. Suffering being one of them has to be treated similarly.

The earlier you accept these laws f the universe the faster you can adapt and save yourself from falling into stress and depression. Learn to embrace the suffering just like you embrace the pleasures. Life is bitter sweet.

6 ways to everything, Uncategorized, Wellness

6 ways of burning out the burn out

April 9, 2015 Dinkrit Sethi Leave a comment

Everyone is tested, the strongest go through phases of weakness, the fittest fall ill, the optimists fall victims of doubt, lovers become haters and the helpful become helpless. Burn outs are an unavoidable part of the modern lifestyle, it is then imperative to prepare oneself for the impending burn out rather than be dumbfounded when it hits you.

Life has the unique ability of testing your resolve, irrespective of how big, strong, happy and rich you are. Even the most contended hearts, stable minds, fit bodies and effervescent souls aren’t immune to the tests of time. No matter who you are you will have that one miserable day, how you respond to it will define the rest of your life.

I have been keeping myself fit for more than 7 years now, and rarely have I missed my training schedule at the gym or spared myself from a no nonsense diet over this phase. Yet last Wednesday, I was lying in bed neither fully asleep nor fully awake, my body in perpetual pain and mind in unrest. I was developing a new symptom of illness every other hour. It started from the throat, went to the muscles and skin to swelling on my fingers and finally to my head and spirit.

I usually consider myself quite inspired but I couldn’t find the inspiration to leave my room or look for remedies. This BURN OUT had burnt me out, and I was too dispirited to get out of it. So I kept sliding, my health went from bad to worse and my thoughts followed suit. After 5 days of suffering, I realized the only way of surviving the burn out is to burn it out.

I thought it would be great to use my experience as a springboard to help others who face burn outs in different aspects of their lives.

Here are 6 ways of dealing with any kind of burn out, it could be stress, illness, depression or anything that pulls you back from enveloping yourself in joy and happiness:

1. Understand that Burnouts are a part of our lives

Life is a trick so at times you might stumble, you got to go through some pain in order to become you.

It is OK to feel a little off color at times. You cant work at a 100% efficient 24/7. Take the burn out in your stride and try to stick to your routine as much as possible. No one is excused from pain and suffering because thats what makes you appreciate normal life. .

2. Filter and moderate what comes your way

Yes you are gifted with wings, but you cant perpetually flutter,

When you just let things slide, you are headed for the gutter.

The modern world throws endless bits of information your way. Your mind processes at least 10000 more information than your grand father’s used to and even he had problems. With all this bombardment on your sub conscious,you are bound to feel perplexed even if you don’t recognize it consciously. Your responses to all the information overdose balls up till it divulges itself as a burnout. Be sure to filter the information you expose yourself to.

3. Survive to fight another day

You wont be immortalized as a warrior when you fight a battle you are set to lose,

Sometimes surrendering in order to live to fight another day is your best move.

Yes we keep struggling till we have nothing left, we reach a stage when the burn out cripples are soul and every thing we see appears negative, it is better to recognize the signs of the storm and prepare rather than wait for it to hit you. Survive by assessing your state of being on a constant basis, don’t let yourself get carried away by the burn out because it is better prevented than cured.

4. Swallow the bitterness as you savor the sweetness

Good wont be good if it weren’t for the bad,

You got the gift of life, you enjoy when the ride is smooth, try to withstand when it drags.

You are lucky to be alive and be granted the opportunity to experience all the wonders of being alive. Keeping that in mind you should stand tall when the bad weather comes and don’t curse fate and time, because the same fate and time is responsible for making you experience this blissful life.

5. Build a repertoire of goodness for the bad times

The Love and care which roots from you comes back to you when you most need it.

By selflessly helping others in their time of need you can be rest assured that you wont be facing your burnout alone. There will be someone to take care of you if you have managed to be there for someone at sometime. Spread goodness and joy and you will be surprised at how the universe will come to your aid when you most need it, in the form of a friend, a message or a subtle change around you, enough for you to burn out the burn out.

6. Fighting fire with fire

At times when you think all is lost you got to fight fire with fire, its all about assimilating the spark of your soul, with the strong will of your brain and your hopeful heart full of desire.

You wont get out of the rut until you want to. Burn outs compel you to submit to life’s miseries till you are completely destroyed. They are capable of altering your perception and damaging common thought process turning you against yourself, so the most useful trick for me while facing a burn out is to burn it out before it burns you out.

Be stubborn and strong when it seems all wrong, see the opportunity to add to your persona in the time of stress and depression, don’t let the burnout bog you down and make you miss out on the things you like to do.

Burn out the burn out before it burns you out.

THE URBAN YOGI