New Year 3 – Self-empowerment...

You may not know, but the reason you fail to fulfill your purest and highest resolutions for this new year is that you lack power.

Power is what makes you overcome the different barriers that life usually places on us. It is therefore important that you generate a routine of self-empowerment. I share mine as an example:

• Every day I wake up to experience raja yoga meditation for almost an hour. Meditation may not be your thing, but there are several things you can do such as praying, reflecting or walking in the middle of nature, with a clear purpose.
• A short while later, I study daily; it is a spiritual class which objective is to give me elements to change my life and live it better. Instead of receiving news, usually bad, focus on receiving a knowledge that uplifts you.
• During the day, I meditate and reflect on the daily class or other similar sources of knowledge; it is important for me to maintain this state of consciousness. Looking for the continuous flow of knowledge that uplifts you is fundamental in your work, even doing breaks for your self-improvement.
• An important thing I found out and included in my routine is to serve others in some way. Volunteer service generates an enormous amount of power.
• Finally, I OBSERVE MYSELF DAILY; I see what I could change and find out what I couldn't. Self-observation, even if it is not followed up with decisions or changes, may transform reality.

Understanding the self, others and life – a key for success

The first stage for success is to reach a point when the person really knows himself, in all its levels and dimensions: what he likes and what he does not, strengths and weaknesses, potentials, virtues, inner powers, capacity, etc.

However, it is not enough. Know thyself is essential, but it is equally important to know others and life in general.

Well, if you still feel don’t know yourself, then take your time to do it by exploring and talking with yourself, without any judgment or preconception.

Then, do the same for others: explore, talk and don’t judge. By knowing others you will be able to create lasting bonds and make the best of your lives on this planet, because you’ve probably have noticed our species, communities and societies are based on relationship more than anything.

Then, do the same for the rest of this blue jewel in the black ocean of space: explore reality going beyond any assumption; relate to nature in all ways possible, and don’t judge. This will guarantee your path in this world will be firm, but without hurting anything on the way.

And then success comes, as natural as a river flowing downstream... It comes from your dedication to understand reality and improve yourself, as improvement comes with real honest observation.

Success comes because it has been always around, you only needed to realize it.

Unintended victims

Any crisis generates victims, not necessarily in the real sense, but it exists to put some of the structure you have created down.

Although the victim is often related to the crisis itself, however, some of those who suffered are not a direct part of it. Relatives, friends, coworkers and even neighbors also go through a rough path too; and yes, generated by you.

To be more accurate, it is generated by your way of dealing with the crisis. They are not direct victims and many times, they don’t have any idea why they are in that type of distress. Why does this happen?

Crisis makes the experience of many different emotions to emerge and it is quite normal that you enter in a kind of emotional hurricane. So it is possible you also pull others into the same turmoil.

On the other hand, there is the hero syndrome; many people act in such a way that the problems they are going through are nothing. They just dismiss them, but inside they are burning and eventually, they may explode. A common reason is that they don’t want to hurt others… and yet, they do, because by protecting them they may hurt themselves. Consequently, those who love them will get hurt when they realize it.

There are a few tips you may follow in such a way that you don’t hurt yourself and don’t hurt others during a crisis periods:

1. A recent post that is being shared around expressed that any crisis has 3 elements: an expiration date, a teaching and of course, always a solution. Although you may not know the ending date, you can start to reflect and find out about its teachings.
2. At the extent you focus on the solution instead of the problem that will help you to keep your emotions in a balanced state.
3. Don’t deny the problems and don’t fear to call them by their name. A part of you knows it and it will be a disregard for your own self to diminish the situation you are living.
4. Learn to talk about your problems with people who are empathic and who can contribute with practical solutions or give you some support.
5. Whenever you feel strong emotions coming, just take some time off from your present environment. Relax a bit, empower yourself maybe by meditating and then go back.
6. Don’t hide your feelings and emotions… Talk about them in a way that is both open and comfortable for you, and get as much help as you can.
7. If you let the door of emotions open and they come out with a destructive force, after it happens, check what took place and whether anybody was hurt. It is good to hold a dialogue with your dear ones after such an episode, and forgiveness may be part of it.
8. Meditate… Meditate particularly when the crisis is not affecting you so strongly. There is a state called Detached Observer; it is a valuable one and it may help you to find peace and calm amidst the adversities. That will impact others positively.

This is part of a series of posts on self-care.

Solving very complex situations

Analysis and synthesis. Creativity and organization. Reflection and contemplation. Action and more action…

There are so many ways to solve situations that emerge, however as time go by, these are becoming more and more complex, and the used and overused old formula does not work at all times.

These new circumstances require a new approach. One possibility is to explore a spiritual perspective and here are some ways:

• Experiencing a stage of detached observer. Connecting to the self helps into watching whatever is happening with detachment, as if it is someone else doing. The easiest way is just to be aware of the present environment a person is for one minute, focusing on the present.
• Meditation, contemplation or reflection. Focusing the mind into something that is beyond the physical helps get in touch with spirituality and, eventually, to find solutions for very complex situations. There are many ways to use any of these tactics, but you may want to check the Brahma Kumaris' way, which is my own method of meditating.
• Yoga and deep focus. No need to forget about all that is around, but by doing yoga or simply focusing deeply into something else, different than the circumstances, it helps the self to find a deep solution, reaching into the roots and seeds.
• Prayer from the heart. When prayer comes from within, the mind gets clear and it is possible to take hard decisions. It is important to not recite old prayers learnt by heart or, if it is so, feel them.

How to change your behavior?

Can you stop eating your nails? Hummm… I knew you would act just like that! Did you lose your job again? Can’t you make something about the way you treat other people?

When people want you to change, that means your behavior. However, it is not that easy as you probably already know.

Behavior is influenced by the way we think and see the world, which may be called attitude and awareness. So, if you are able to change any behavioral feature but you did not change your attitude and awareness, that will come back when you less expect.

For instance, if you are able to stay at a job longer than normally, that is something to celebrate. However, part of the reason you used to lose your job was your bad temper and it happens in this job each person is nice; what will happen when your boss hires someone who starts to upset you then?

The inner concept you have about yourself tells you something like this: whenever someone starts to create problems for you, just move away from that person. That means your time in this job is limited by those circumstances; when you change your awareness, you will be able to keep any job.

This is why this idea of quick change or 21 days to get rid of a habit is a myth if you don’t change those invisible aspects along with those nasty habits.

How to change the way you think? How to change who you are? That means deep reflection and inner work; it means you need a method that helps you with that too.

In my experience, the easiest part is attitude and there is a basic 3-step process that may help a person to do that:

1. Identify. First of all you have to understand your attitude; it works as a template for your thoughts so that when you react to situations or you start to reflect on something, those thoughts will work a pattern. Identifying and understanding the pattern is the first stage of a personal change. OK, I have the tendency of being pessimistic…
2. Check and change. During sometime – ok, it can be 21 days… – you will be your own observer. You may use some tools like meditation or a journal, but the main important point is to be aware of those patterns; whenever a bad attitude emerges, stop a few seconds or minutes and review it, replacing it with the thoughts or ideas you would like to have instead. I think I will lose this job… Wait a second! Why am I even thinking like this? I will work with quality and intensity, and I will prepare myself better by studying and researching, improving that quality.
3. Dare. After a while, you will feel things have changed and bad patterns are not emerging as much as before, or have completely disappeared. That is the point when you have to challenge yourself and get into a situation where you will test your ability, see what happens with you and go back to the first stage of this process. I will go and talk to my boss, seeing if there is the possibility of losing my job, but I will do that from a positive point of view, knowing how capable I am.

With your awareness, it is a similar process, but deeper and subtler. Meditation is probably the best tool when you feel it is not enough to change attitudes, and the reason is that by meditating, you have another perspective of who you are, beyond all labels you have tagged in yourself; so, you can identify that you want to change, being an observer and eventually, challenge yourself to see if the change really happened.

When both have changed you will feel a behavioral transformation. Even if one of those – attitude and awareness – has changed, you will feel some level of transformation.

The power of reflection

Reflecting is a powerful tool. Before taking over his first term, President Obama talked about in relation to leadership and I guess from time to time all of us start to think on things we have to think about… Clear?

However, the power does not come by thinking or speaking. Reflection is something much more complex and at the same time, very simple to do: you let your thoughts go deep and deep into the roots and branches of any situation.

Still, that concept is not enough. After all, people who are used to brood onto something do that all the time and yet, they don’t look so powerful.

For instance, let’s say your company is starting to cut jobs and yours is in risk. A normal person would probably think something like this:

Oh no, they are going to fire me! What can I do, I don’t have any qualifications!! They can’t do that, can they?

Now consider an optimistic person:

Nah… they are not going to fire anyone. It is just another rumor. How can they fire us, who else are going to do the job? In fact, I think I am about to get promoted…

A reflection process would start like this:

They are firing people… let me understand the owners’ point of view. Of course, they have to save their investment and by cutting some people out, they will save money. However, if they save money like that, the remaining people will get more tired and productivity in the middle term will decrease, causing customers to go for another place.

The three samples are based on real thinking process. The main difference between reflection and other ways is that the person goes into a Detached Observer stage.

It is like playing chess: your strategy only works because you are out of the chessboard. Maybe if you were part of the game, you wouldn’t sacrifice that horse… Reflection means detaching from reality, without ignoring it, and then let your own thoughts go for its solution or conclusion.

Maybe your lifestyle does not allow you to stop and reflect, but at least once a week you just should do exactly that: just reflect about life, understand its process and find the best way to deal with it.