Mindful Parent

Children need the security of a simple, dependable schedule. Ambiguity or lack of dependability in family life is known to affect the individual’s capacity to live in a secure long-term relationship in the future. The family provides the love and nurturing required for the survival of children Affirmation is important when people in our lives appreciate us and express it verbally, tonally, non-verbally. The opposite of an affirmation is a discount. You need at least ten affirmations for every discount for the maintenance of a healthy relationship. A home filled with discounts becomes a torture chamber instead of a sanctuary.

Healthy diet is very important for children’s growth. Forget grandma’s belief that fat children are healthy children. The Zero Heart Attack Path (ZHAP)diet is just as good for kids. A ZHAP home will provide the foundation for a healthy adulthood. These years are dangerous years when unhealthy emotional patterns are learnt. Food often becomes a source of solace. Be a mindful parent.

Emotional Environment for Happiness

In order to treat or prevent disease, it is essential to look into our emotional, mental and psychological environment, as our thoughts and emotions directly contribute to our wellbeing or otherwise. Meditation can clean up the field and contribute enormously to an individual’s psychological and physiological wellbeing.

How to create a positive field around yourself, your home and office?

Ø A mental process which draws a magic circle of love around all those who are participating.

Ø A prayer or mantra said together.

Ø A common exercise, a company song, common goals.

Ø A handshake, a friendly look, an encouraging word.

Ø Thinking, believing and acting in a positive manner.

Ø Laughter and shared jokes.

Give yourself happiness breaks every day: call an old, lonely relative and take her shopping once a month. Schedule a beauty parlour date for yourself, once a month. Read a great book. Listen to fabulous music.

Healthy Networking for Happiness

The world is in your drawing room, through television and internet it is clamouring to change your life with more and more sophisticated toys. As a popular saying goes, ‘What separates the men from the boys, is just the price of their toys.’ Simplify and go home to what you really need. The world is like a buffet counter at a five-star hotel. Let’s not grab everything on our plates. Let us be choosy, so that we may avoid spiritual indigestion and physical exhaustion. Let us put family first. Finding a job you love is one of the ways you can immunize yourself against health problems. A good marriage is a protective shield against health attacks. One should consistently cultivate the positive emotions of love, compassion, courage and peace, not merely avoid negative emotions in the family.

1. Budget for family time every day

2. Plan for meals together

3. Pray together

4. Plan an annual get together of the extended family.

5. Create a family face book page

Build Family Bonding

‘The family is the shock absorber of society, to which the bruised and battered individual returns after doing battle with the world,’ wrote Alvin Toffler in his classic ‘Future Shock’. The breakdown of the joint family has led to a loosening of extended family relationships. The large, amorphous, supportive joint family that supported a wide variety of people and bestowed unconditional love for the crippled, the old and the helpless, has been reduced to the nuclear family where everyone is in sharp focus.

It is our mission to restore the family to its traditional role as a place of rest and healing, in a new paradigm. There should be one person in the family who can cushion the blows of the outside world. Someone who is not too busy to listen, give support, and manage the daily tasks of living. This could even be a paid caregiver or cook. Networking with parents, in-laws, neighbours, domestic help and friends is the key for working couples.

Protective Friendships

Friendship can immunize you against heart attacks, confirms research by Dean Ornish, MD. Those with five or more close friends are more likely to avoid heart problems. The real epidemic is not heart attacks but attacks of loneliness and sadness. Those who feel their wives love them, are more likely to recover from a heart attacks says the same research.

The basis of social success lies in the ability to build successful, pleasantly harmonious, lifetime relationships with all. When you meet anyone, always look for what is good. Listen for value. Celebrate the positive in all interactions. Rest assured that God did not create you for the sole purpose of correcting others or making them unhappy. You are not the world’s policeman.

Belonging to a supportive nurturing group is the best protection you can have against disease and unhappiness. Being loved can prevent you from the flood of negative emotions that have the capacity to destroy you. Take steps today to make sure that you cannot be replaced by a blanket or a computer.

Explore Yourself

‘Every person has before him a hundred alternative futures. You can change that scene, by spending more time with your family. The mind is the only place where you can examine a germinal, fragile new idea, stretch it without breaking it or explore an explosive new idea without having it blow up in your face. Use thinking tools and imaging to analyse, reinvent and recreate life as it is today. You are a powerhouse of potential. The great Michelangelo was once asked how he created great statues. Old and half blind, Michelangelo stood before a block of marble, scarred and muddy from the quarries ofCarrara. He said quietly, ‘I have never created a statue. I just stand before a block of marble and study it with reverence. For I know that within every block of marble, there lies a statue, waiting to be liberated by the touch of the Within each of us lies hidden a masterpiece waiting to be liberated by the magic touch of attention. Only you can do it. Be your own ‘expert’. Do not build negative ideas about yourself through the comments of others. Your self-talk should be calm, happy and elevating. Choose to see and hear what is beautiful and encouraging.

Contentment - Path to Happiness.

Contentment with whatever you have is the greatest path to happiness. Comparison with those better than us makes us discontented. Comparison with those who are worse off makes us proud and arrogant. Shanti or a peaceful, calm mind, suffused with affection and compassion, makes our field a happy one while spreading like a fragrance to embrace all those around us. Everyone has only two choices—life-enhancing and lifedestroying. An event is not as critical as is your reaction or perception of it. It continues its life inside you, a nuclear landmine of memories that wreak far more destruction than the actual event. The more mindspace you allocate to unhappy memories, the more time you spend in the past while being a spectator in the living present, the more you miss the joy the present moment offers. At any given time, the past should not inhabit more than five per cent of your mindspace, and the future should not exceed ten per cent. Did you know that human beings are the only creatures who can think about the future? This ability should be devoted to a rational planning exercise, not aimless daydreaming that nibbles at your day like a rat in a godown of rice. We have a choice to look at failure and loss as a life-lesson, or to carry it with us till we are bent over with their crippling burden. They make us tired and discouraged to handle the opportunities of the present. They echo in our mindspace in a tone that is vicious, critical, chipping away at our resolve to do battle for progress. We need to change the way we talk to and treat ourselves. All of us need a tender, loving caretaker within who nurtures us, not an internal drillmaster who victimises us in an insulting and disparaging tone, sucking out all our energy, enthusiasm and happiness.

Happiness Breaks

Ambition and increasing peer-pressure ensure the ‘rat in a trap syndrome’, wherein you are trapped into running faster and faster to stay in the same place. The twenty-first century is the century of the Mind. The Mind is man’s last unconquered frontier. The Upanishads describe it as fast, fickle and uncontrollable, like a dozen swift horses travelling at breakneck speed. Mankind is paying a steep price for failing to learn more about the Mind before embarking on the race for success in the new millennium. Stress is the price we pay for success. Stress stalks the precarious climb up the corporate

ladder.

Focus on happiness, not the lack of it. I believe the focus on stress and unhappiness should be turned upside down. Instead of attracting unhappiness, we should plant a garden of happiness, by welcoming the positive emotions into our lives—love, compassion, wonder, courage, laughter and peace. Focusing on our unhappiness

only helps to provide more power and attention to the negative person, event or object that causes it. Take some happiness breaks. Focus on cultivating happy people and avoid toxic people. Build protective walls against toxic events that threaten your tranquillity.

Take care of what is yours and enjoy it.

Overcoming the Failures and Loss

No one can avoid bad times, but you can ensure that you look at this time as a time for growth and learning. When the mind-numbing pain that immediately follows loss has subsided, you can take proactive steps to provide emergency attention to heal your body, mind and spirit. Pour music into your soul. Touch people who love you. Explore new places. Reach into great books and study alternate futures. Pamper yourself and ask your loved ones for hugs. Meditate. Be silent. Plug into the universe. Let go. Let God catch you. Yoursankalpa or intention must be pure. Be clear about your goal. Be non-judgmental. Love and seek to understand with tenderness.

Learn and immerse yourself in knowledge. Learn all you can about your chosen field from books, internet, from people, competitors. Remain focused. Never give up. Help others, motivate them! Let others achieve their targets. Say no to negative people and emotions. Go on to achieve your highest potential. Look for the highest in others. Know your purpose on earth, the highest that God created you to become to question injustice. Stand up for those who cannot fight, speak for those who have no voice. Speak gently and with love. Receive his compliments, gifts and encouragement with grace.

Admire the beauty of Nature

This is a very useful, feel-good emotion. Welcome wonder into you life. Celebrate the beauty of the stars, and enjoy the wonder of the mountains. Greet the dawn and say goodbye to the sunset. The moonlight has been created to heal your wounds. Admire the beauty of Mother Nature and become a child again.

* Be alone in silence with nature at the beginning and end of every day.

* Enjoy a walk among tall trees and green gardens.

* Plant seeds and saplings. Distribute them.

* Set apart time for prayer to praise God for His glorious creation.

* Set apart time to enjoy beauty.

Better way to reduce stress

One way to break the pattern of stressful living and strive for personal wellness is to change the responses to tough situations. There is, of course, no way to make the situations less tough. Meditation and pranayama provide a way of reducing the automatic and violent reactions to stress. You can actually control autonomous systems like heartbeat and pulse rate, which were thought to be outside the individual’s control. Knowing and practising meditation can provide you with a silent space where you can retreat into peace: slow breathing, steady heartbeat, low pulse. This space is always available within a person who has learnt to meditate.

Modern Women in Dual Role

Women have moved into the workforce in an unmistakable wave. In modern societies today, many of them bear the dual burden of managing a home and career. The infrastructure necessary to help them: crèches, dependable childcare, help from husbands, gadgets to make housework easier, is not yet in place. This generation of transitional women is at high risk from heart disease, particularly during the menopausal years. Statistics show that women have fifty per cent chance of dying of heart disease, ten times higher than their risk of dying by breast cancer. Dual responsibilities have reduced the woman’s capacity to perform her role of a primary caregiver. Her ability to absorb and reduce tensions has been greatly compromised. A common response is the super-mom syndrome. This is a woman who feels that she can be a super career woman and a super-mom. Maintaining this dazzling image can have a damaging impact on the overall health of women in this transitional era. The changing structure of the family, the blurred role definitions are certainly risk factors in the emerging pattern of early heart disease. Huge reserves of patience are required to cope with this new, changed family structure. Most do not have these reserves.

Effects of Global Economy on Quality of Life and Health

The current development of the global economy indicates that the 173 countries of the world will soon share a single marketplace. Demand and supply will respond to the compulsions of global competitiveness. Every country is eyeing the Rs 1.2 billion-strong Indian market and its fabled 250 million middle class. No company can escape the restructuring, downsizing and blood-letting that is rampant today. The possibility of the pink slip stares every executive in the face.

It is being slowly realized that economic prosperity can lead to poverty in the quality of life and health. Is India gradually becoming a global back-office with uninteresting, boring, repetitive jobs being dumped on us? Is the joy of craftsmanship being replaced by the monotony of the assembly line? The expanding global economy and its resultant lethal workplace have created serious conflicts in the individual’s life. Many have to confront the question of how their values measure up viv-à-vis their need to own and have the world’s goodies.

Life was more happier when Apple and Blackberry were just fruits!

Work follows us everywhere. The blurring of work and leisure

has intensified in this era of twenty-four-hour access, when the

computer is just a fingertip away and the Blackberry and the cell

phone are as intimate as a heartbeat. The delicate tissues of the body

are constantly awash in the lethal chemical bath of chronic stress.

Interactive electronic devices have made stress continuous. Home is

no longer a refuge.

The revolution of rising expectations, fuelled by the global

perspective, provided by the media and internet creates unrelenting

stress. Einstein, Time magazine’s ‘Man of the Twentieth Century,’

warns: The concern for man and his destiny must always be the chief

interest of all technical effort. Never forget it among your diagrams

and equations.

Body and Stress

Any of the big five emotions—kama, kroda, madha, lobha, matsarya (lust, anger, arrogance, greed, jealousy, respectively) can flood the body with the chemicals of stress. Stress is destructive. Stress is ageing. Stress is a killer. Let us consider the most common emotion of this century— anger. What happens when you are angry? Thirty-six chemicals pour into the blood—lethal chemicals like adrenaline and histamine. Blood rushes through the heart, blood pressure and pulse rates shoot up. The rate of breathing increases. The body gets ready to fight or flee. Digestion is switched off. All parts of the brain, except the primitive ‘lizard brain’, are switched off.

The force of blood-flow in an enraged person causes minute tears in the tender fabric of the arteries. Fatty deposits find a convenient place to park themselves to repair the tears, and cholesterol, the plaster of paris of the body, slowly builds up to occlude the artery. Soon the tender flexible artery becomes stiff and hard, preparing the stage for a heart attack.

Be Happy - Get Relieved from Stress

he twenty-first century is the century of the Mind. The Mind is man’s last unconquered frontier. The Upanishads describe it as fast, fickle and uncontrollable, like a dozen swift horses travelling at breakneck speed. Mankind is paying a steep price for failing to learn more about the Mind before embarking on the race for success in the new millennium. Stress is the price we pay

for success. Stress stalks the precarious climb up the corporate ladder. The fashionable corporate high of fast-track leaders—eyes shining, excess nervous energy, multi-tasking, dynamism personified—is achieved at the expense of a tissue-destroying ‘fight or flight’ response. These individuals do not manage to have ‘rest and repair’ periods between emotional hijacks. Constant pressure fuels the adrenaline rush and damages the arteries. It adds to the flow of chemicals like cortisone and adrenaline in your blood. No one can be n a constant ‘fight or flight’ high and not destroy themselves. Today, twenty-somethings are dropping dead from heart attacks. A bypass surgery in the thirties has become a status symbol. The personal cost of stress includes burnout, chronic, disabling illnesses, crippling tensions in family life, and a loss of personal fulfillment and joy. The casualties are often children who live in the high-tension, pressure-cooker climate created in the homes of corporate high fliers.

The twenty-first century is the century of the Mind. The Mind is man’s last unconquered frontier. The Upanishads describe it as fast, fickle and uncontrollable, like a dozen swift horses travelling at breakneck speed. Mankind is paying a steep price for failing to learn more about the Mind before embarking on the race for success in the new millennium. Stress is the price we pay for success. Stress stalks the precarious climb up the corporate ladder. The fashionable corporate high of fast-track leaders—eyes shining, excess nervous energy, multi-tasking, dynamism personified—is achieved at the expense of a tissue-destroying ‘fight or flight’ response. These individuals do not manage to have ‘rest and repair’ periods between emotional hijacks. Constant pressure fuels the adrenaline rush and damages the arteries. It adds to the flow of chemicals like cortisone and adrenaline in your blood. No one can be n a constant ‘fight or flight’ high and not destroy themselves. Today, twenty-somethings are dropping dead from heart attacks. A bypass surgery in the thirties has become a status symbol. The personal cost of stress includes burnout, chronic, disabling illnesses, crippling tensions in family life, and a loss of personal fulfillment and joy. The casualties are often children who live in the high-tension, pressure-cooker climate created in the homes of corporate high fliers.

Attitude decides altitude

As a famous saying goes, ‘Attitude decides the altitude.’ An attitude transplant is required to fill your blood with the chemicals of bliss. Soar on your positive attitude. A positive attitude takes you to higher altitudes. If the climate inside you is positive, it radiates all around you.

To create positive actions

• Pray together

• Sing together

• Listen with empathy

• Exercise together

• Practice yoga and meditation

• Deal as an equal

• Eliminate status and rank

• Give up all rights to punish or discipline