Keeping good company

Whatever you do impacts other people’s lives even when either you or they don’t realize that. The same is for you… whatever others do will impact you.

This is something to have in mind, particularly if you are a person interested in your improvement, since there is always the risk that for a step you take, another person influences you to go back two steps…

I am not talking about discriminating people, but here are some tips that may be useful for an experience of companionship:

• Understand your aims and goals in relation to that person. Is it just for fun? Do I want to have a project of life with him or her?
• Be honest all the time… Whenever either of you start to be dishonest, there is something wrong there and you need to assess it. What is preventing either of us of telling the whole truth? How can we build a safe space so that we can clear things without harming anyone?
• A relationship implies lots of compromise, but there is a point when compromising hurts a person’s principles or values, or creates a sense of loss. At that point, a dialogue may help in reaching to terms that both feel comfortable with. At what extent I feel I am sacrificing something – or I know the other one is sacrificing? In which way can we avoid the feeling of loss or feeling uncomfortable?
• Sometimes values don’t match. Yes, we have to learn and this is why it is good to be around different people, but the values should be at least aligned – complementing each other, similar or enriching the other’s life. About our differences, how much aligned are our values? If they are not aligned, how can we work out that?

And to be clear: sometimes EXIT is the best way for everyone… But, as a song used to say: Go gently…

Values: satisfaction from within

Values are not only nice words… they are effective means to accomplish success.

Every action comes into reality due to a value or another. Its role is narrowing the how’s in relation to the action’s purpose. For instance, if your purpose is to help other people, then your values will help you to define how to do it – by becoming a nun, a good parent or a visionary entrepreneur.

If your values tended in such a way that being a nun would make you act and help more people than being an entrepreneur, but you made the wrong choice and you are working everyday until ten pm, your life will lack in satisfaction and the sense of accomplishment. If you made a good choice and still working until 10 pm, you will feel happy everyday with the sense you are doing what you always wanted to do.

By following your values, your actions are full of meaning and they come directly from within – it is not something artificial, done just because of the present fashion or someone else’s wishes.

It means you need to pay more attention to your personal values and understand them very well.

• Differentiate what you really are from what you would like to be. In every culture, there are some values people assume everyone has and so, they don’t work on them. Be careful about it and very honest with yourself; if you don’t have a value or at least you don’t use it very often, it is important to accept it and work on that, developing it at a satisfactory point.
• How to develop a value? After identifying the value to be developed, or adopted, there are basically two ways for a person to do it. First, find a role model who helps you to understand what that value means in life – if I am honest, how does that look in a couple relationship? Second, to go on a spiritual path and by reflecting, contemplating and meditating, naturally improving the presence of a value in your life – by meditating, I feel more secure within, so honesty is easy, my words and actions express what I really am to other people, including my partner.
• Being a value keeper. Values are very fragile in the present environment where there are too many options and ways to perform an action. It is important to keep reflecting or meditating. Also, become a role model yourself, showing others how to tap into that value and make it part of your life.

By valuing your values, you are changing your own life.

Forgiveness as a key to a healthy life

Being healthy nowadays is a kind of a fashion, and it shouldn't be like that: health makes life much more pleasant and productive. It should be one of our first priorities.

Let’s understand that health is not restricted to the body though; it also implies a life with no diseases in mind, relationships and even finances. After all, we have experienced how much a lack of money at a moment of need affects the will to live.

So, being healthy cannot be guaranteed by going to gym or having a special diet. You do need more things to add and among them the cultivation of positive emotions.

Emotions can make us live life in a cheerful mood, enjoying every moment, or cursing everything that happens around, affecting our health in a way not even a virus could do.

Among positive emotions, there are those that generated a relief and help with healing. Forgiveness, although it is not strictly an emotion, creates that healing feeling too.

Forgiving someone or a situation changes you and it helps you to get some closure, speeding up your own moving on. But although it is so gratifying, it is not often used.

I feel the difficulty with forgiveness comes from several wrong perspectives.

• The victim forgives the attacker. That means, by forgiving I admit I was defeated. This first assumption comes from the idea of victory as the one smashing the other and because we live in a society where wars are not at all desirable, that idea is conflicting with our reality. In the day-to-day life, there are no real battles. There are some conflicts and problems, things that help us to refine our character, and forgiveness strengthen that part of our personality that is able to make us to move on, no matter what happens.
• Only the weak ones have to forgive, the strong ones win. So, forgiveness is even more attached to the concept of defeat. In fact, it is all the opposite. Anyone who has seen somebody forgiving another person is able to discern who is the strongest and, really, it is always on the side of the forgiver.
• By forgiving, I will forget the problems and they won't be solved. Forgiveness is often linked to the idea of a sort of amnesia. If something really bad happened, forgiveness helps you to heal your emotions and mind, but you would probably still need to see aspects of justice that is usually required. In fact, forgiveness will let you have a clear mind and a light conscience to rebuild your life.

By forgiving, you are clearing your own path and open yourself for new experiences, a better life and more opportunities.

Deep change, a key for a REAL better life

For improvement in your life, there are many different ways such as getting a new job, take a few courses or getting involved with an exercise routine.

But all of this only touches the surface, and surfaces change too; after being able to improve your life in some area, something else happens and there is a tendency of going back to the former situation.

Some researchers say that our brain is not able to differentiate reality from thinking and feeling. So, it is possible that by making small changes and getting some improvement in life, people just get happy with that. They don’t try to go further and make deep changes.

However, deep changes are what we really need to experience a life that is worthwhile and meaningful.

There is a simple way to start your deep change and as a consequence, to step into a much better life. There is no simple way to make the change happens and there is definitely no easy way to reach transformation, the final result of a change. But this is a start…

1. Identify the things that will make your life better after changing them. You can check for your own heart and the emotions that make you sad, or the moments when you have caused harm to others. Maybe the ways you behave with your body or your pocket are indicators of things to change.
2. Elaborate a bit on that. Clarify them and choose the ones that will really impact your life.
3. Now, talk to yourself and go deep into that. For instance, if you think your mother had anything to do with you being uncomfortable with your body or the new government is the reason you are not well financially… well, think again. You need to reach a point of domain where reasons are within your reach and not on anybody else.
4. Maybe the former step will take a while, but you will reach a moment in this reflection process where you are able to identify something that is inside you. It is part of your personality, character or it comes from time to time, but it is you. And that is good, as you can change yourself.
5. Visualize, think or write about how your life would be with that part of you changed. That is an important step. An example is someone who gets projects done by getting worried; if that person choses to change his way of being and don’t worry anymore, how will he accomplish his projects? So, it is not only a question of eliminating something, you have to develop something too.
6. After visualization, you have to make a decision about what you have to eliminate from yourself. Sometimes, it is just you have to change it into something else. Other times, you really have to erase it and there are many forms of doing it, depending on you. For me, meditation works. For other people, reflection and even therapy is the solution. A common ground exists however: the will to change that part of yourself.
7. It is good to think of what you will do to yourself when you fail in this process of change. Although I wouldn’t recommend whipping, you have to have some kind of light punishment to help you with that. For instance, a week without television… It works!
8. It also works if you give yourself a small prize when you have a special victory. Nothing big, a chocolate bar or spending some extra time with your child would be enough.
9. Last piece of advice on these steps to perform a deep change: develop something in yourself that compensates whatever you are erasing. In the former example, that person may develop some planning skills to do the project. Sometimes, it is a bit fuzzy, particularly when it has to do with a part of your personality, so take your time and understand what has to be done. Then, do it!

I must say there is no real final result in this, but I am sure you will reach transformation and improve your life in the best way possible.

Values: a key for good relationships

Values are invisible, so it is difficult to understand what someone’s values are or even your own.

And yet, it defines three important things in our lives:

• The way a person accomplishes his dream. Values help defining methods and forms to reach goals.
• Present activities and the idea of satisfaction. That is the reason some people get fulfillment in tasks that others hate…
• Time a relationship lasts. At the extent others are aligned with your values, that will help a relationship to last longer than others.

If we just focus on one of these items, we may realize the power in values.

It is not necessary that others share your values exactly, but they must be aligned. In this case, we have to consider values not only as honesty, but also some that are more complex. For instance, an outdoor lifestyle is a value.

That value is easy to understand in terms of relationship, because if a person like that marries or befriends someone whose value is indoor lifestyle, there will be a problem. However, if the other person has a value of enjoying life as much as possible, then it won’t be difficult for the relationship to live on.

Before getting into a serious relationship with another person, compare your values and see if they match. If they don’t, and you still want to keep them around, talk. Dialogue is a wonderful tool that helps aligning values very well.

Let’s consider the former example of clashed values, understanding that the other person is a friend of yours. Sit down and plan activities that will make the other happy, but it wouldn’t make one of you suffer.

Going deeper, it is important to think in long term and long term means seeing reality in a different way. For instance, different values can teach you other virtues you don’t have and they are important to live a life of harmony – yes, harmony, because you cannot have really harmony in this world when people have equal values… Harmony is a conquest, a victory of the soul over his or her personal desires.

Even deeper is the spiritual perspective with which you can live with anyone, no matter what their values are. Only condition is that you know exactly your values and how to mold yourself into a peaceful and rich coexistence.

My humble suggestion is that you start to create a personal list of values, understand them deeply and compare them with the people with you right now. Then, talk, dialogue and enjoy the adventure of living with others.

Empathy and society

As we evolve as humans, we become more and more aware of what is happening with our relationship with others and the need of a new society.

Our way however is not straight as we would expect. As I write, the big trend is to live alone, to work alone and probably to share society as we understand using Internet. I do hope that is not the case of whoever is reading this, but it is the case of so many.

And I can relate to it, as I would probably prefer to not have much interaction with others, but life is wise and I am kind of in the spotlight most of the time. I started to appreciate others’ company not that many years ago, learning to deal with so many differences, all because I do believe in the power of a community with empowered individuals.

This is why I feel at some point, these lonely people will find their way into the new society we are building – more tolerant, more interested in people than in things, greener and better. It may take time, but I have that certainty it will happen.

So, if you want to be part of this new society, you need to learn a very important skill that is not so natural after all.

Although many people describe empathy as feeling what others feel, I disagree. I don’t think I can feel what a mother feels when she loses her son, or someone who just finds out he or she has cancer. But I do care, and out of care I look into the depth of that person, of that soul.

Sometime ago, a friend lost her child and it was in a bad timing of our relationship, since she did something I could not approve. Still, I just put that bad sensation I had aside and I gave her unconditional support, from the heart.

Empathy makes the best of us emerge. It makes us to be unconditional and understand the other in dimensions we wouldn’t imagine there are. It binds us together as a big family, with respect for each other’s thoughts and perceptions.

Former societies were not formed on the base of empathy – from which solidarity comes. History shows they came from mutual interests, ethnic similitude and other very physical and visible traces.

One of the few cases I know of a society based on empathy is related to the flight of Zoroastrians from Persia. According to the legend, King Jadi from Gujarat, India, in the initial meeting between with the newly landed emigrants denied asylum to them. The King motioned to a vessel of milk filled to the very brim to signify that his kingdom was already full and could not accept refugees. In response, one of the Zoroastrian priests added a pinch of sugar to the milk, and Jadi Rana accepted the refugees.

This is an example of empathy from both sides, by the use of wisdom: the King trying to explain why he could not receive more immigrants, and the priest, showing that they would just melt into the Indian society. Whether it is a legend or not, centuries later, the Parsis (as they are known), have adapted to India. Their importance in terms of neutrality has created many stories hen religion conflict affects India, where families of Parsis risk themselves to save other people.

As a suggestion, just look at another person. Right now, if you can, otherwise, just think of her or him. Understand their need and see what you can do, from the heart, even though you cannot do that right now. Feel the sensation of mercy and the desire to help others, and extend your mental hand…

One day, we won’t need empathy, as it will be natural to care, but right now it is an important skill to be developed. Our society is the basis of humankind and it needs our help to reinvent itself.

Being a voluntary is having a new life

As a volunteer of many years, I can’t imagine what life could be without that great feeling of doing things without an immediate reward, or no physical reward at all.

As a human, we need to do four things to be in balance:

• Working and earning an income.
• To work without an income.
• Processing what is happening.
• Awakening or broadening awareness.

Without one of these aspects while living your life, you will feel some emptiness, but it is by not volunteering that you would lack the big satisfaction whilst being productive. You would probably be complaining eternally about your work and how underappreciated you are.

We are used to think of productive people as the ones who have proper skills, who went to a good college or work hard. In reality, it comes from a deep realization you have on a specialty you own, what can be called a calling, or vocation. When you are working based on your calling, all is good and what is not good, is a challenge you know you can overcome.

That energy we all have, it wants to come out, flow along our community and change life as we know it. We use some of that to get our livelihood, the result of our combined forces of mind and body.

Another part is used without waiting for an income. In fact it gives back, that is my experience: smile, gratitude, blessings and good wishes are my salary for being available to people, and cooperate as best as I can. But of course, I need to pay for this computer and smiles don’t work with it…

This subtle income is powerful and it changes you and other people’s lives. If you are not into volunteering, here are some suggestions:

1. Check for your own specialty, that thing you know how to do or to be that is unique.
2. Look for places where it will be appreciated, either because it is necessary for them or to complement what they already do.
3. Do a trial. Work with an organization or two for some time and check how you and others feel about your presence there, and your invaluable contribution.
4. After making a decision, create a routine in relation to what you are going to give there.
5. It is better to not exceed, otherwise that can affect your livelihood and, remember, balance is the key word.

After volunteering for one year or two, share your experience and help others to receive the same energy you are.