Network of Affection

Research shows that growing up with more siblings provides you with a chance to have a happier marriage. This may be because of the chance to learn the joy of sharing, caring, comforting others in trouble, adjusting with limited resources and an opportunity for fun, games and common amusements.

With the growing trend towards one child families, it is good idea to develop a method of providing a similar experience with children in a building, neighbourhood or circle of friends. The joint family provides a great opportunity for kids to build close relationships with other children and adults. Can we take steps to replace the lost joint family with intimate circles of neighbours and friends?

Just today, I was speaking to a friend a busy lawyer about getting together with his neighbours to deal with wet and dry garbage. He said “I don’t even know the 6 other families who live in my building.” A time has come in our own cities and towns, when a person can die next door and no one knows about it. Last week a newspaper article told  of a woman in a posh Bangalore suburb whose body was discovered 5 months after she died. Neighbours complained of a foul smell and authorities broke down the door to find her.

Action Plan to win tough times

·         Use this time to do more. Remember you will get good at something you keep doing. Most people better than you, have just spent more time doing, instead of complaining, dreaming or wishing. Do more.

·         Give yourself bigger and better goals whatever happens, keep a positive attitude. You probably talk more to yourself than anyone else on earth. Make sure your self talk is positive and nurturing

·         Encourage yourself, keep doing a little bit every day to realize your dreams. Every single day – like your exercises.  One day you will reach the top of the mountain.

·         Build your networks. Stretch out a helping hand to those who need it. Nothing like bad times to bring families and teams together.

·         Be encouraging and supportive to other people’s efforts. No discouraging word should pass your lips. Focus on your family.

·         Thinking during tough times forces us to think outside the box or even eliminate the box.

·         Create an environment that is replete with the positive emotions of love, courage, compassion, laughter, wonder and peace. This is the positive field that will nurture creativity and innovation.

·         Adapt and evolve. Remember nothing lasts. Especially not tough times!

Tough Times are the Best Times

We live in daunting times to those involved in the blood bath of the financial markets. This must be an impossible time. What are the mantras that can help us keep our equanimity in tough times?

I believe that tough times are the best times. The lack of resources forces us to innovate and come up with solutions that are optimally suited to our times. Tough times are good for the planet – there is less waste and more of the 3Rs –reduce, repair and recycle. These are times when you think about refusing things you don’t really need. And realize how much excess baggage you have been carrying. This is a time to reduce clutter of all kinds in your life and bring it to a Zen like perfection.

‘Tough times don’t last, but tough people do,’ said a wag. So this is time for tough love. Get everyone to adapt by processing on improving their skills, instead of complaining. Here are some actions for the tough times.

Action Plan to create a healing home

* Your home reflects how you are, and how well you are taking care of yourself.

•             Learn how to make mess and clutter disappear for good

•             Steadily raise the level of beauty in your home

•             Fill your home with a growing sense of ease and happiness.  Be nicer to yourself, your family and every day

•             Get what you want at home, more easily than you ever dared to hope!

•             Engage fully in life with love and kindness and you cannot go wrong.

•             Simple kindness to oneself and all that lives, is the most powerful transformational force of all.

•             Practice being kind to yourself. And go put fresh sheets on your bed.

Children’s Day

Children’s day is celebrated in India on November 14^th, Jawaharlal Nehru’s birthday. It is a day to celebrate the child. Children are the family’s greatest wealth and asset. Without Santhana Lakshmi (the goddess who bestows happiness in children) there is no joy in the family. The laughter, the mischief and newness children bring into the world is irreplaceable. As the Japanese say, ‘Children bring the ‘Oh!’ into your life’. It is also a day to pledge support for children suffering from abuse, violence, discrimination and death –all avoidable.

One child dies every 90 seconds in India - this means 1.7 million children every year. Many children are motherless because women in India have only a 50/50 chance of skilled help during childbirth. A woman dies in childbirth every 10 minutes in our country. The Taj Mahal, the greatest monument to love, was built for Mumtaz Mahal by Shahjahan in Agra. She died at child birth, giving birth to her 14^th child. The ‘State of World’s Mothers’ places India 76th on a list which shows the best places to be a mother. We lose more women every week because of this cause, than they lose in Europe, in a whole year. This is the same as having 400 Jumbo Boeing 747 planes crash annually. What is shocking is that one third of child death and 1/5^th of the maternal death are caused by lack of nutrition. 153 million children between the ages of 5 and 14 are bonded into child labour.

So what can you do to celebrate children’s day:

1.       Write a beautiful letter to each of your children about how much you value them in your family

2.       Send a gift to their teachers with a letter thanking them for giving them the gift of knowledge

3.       Plan a special family outgoing, which they find interesting and exciting.

4.       Children are great imitators. Be a person worth imitating.

As Magic Johnson said, “All that kids need, is a little help, a little hope and somebody who believes in them”. On this day give some poor child some of these gifts.

Learn Breathing Exercises

Learn to breath perfectly is a practical, powerful pathway to better living. It is as simple as that! It is not some unattainable state that requires a lifetime of practice and sacrifice, but a potent source of energy that you can start taking advantage of right now today to dramatically impact your health, performance, and emotions.

The top athletes and performers use breathing techniques to elicit the absolute best from their minds and bodies. Top Secret performance improvement program that taught Olympic athletes how to use breathing techniques to focus their minds and identify and eliminate the anxiety and tension that were holding them back.

Restore Peace Defuse Anger

Anger is "an emotional state that varies in intensity from mild irritation to intense fury and rage," The instinctive, natural way to express anger is to respond aggressively. The three main approaches are expressing, suppressing, and calming. Expressing your angry feelings in an assertive—not aggressive—manner is the healthiest way to express anger. It means being respectful of yourself and others. The goal of anger management is to reduce both your emotional feelings and the physiological arousal that anger causes.

Simple relaxation tools, such as deep breathing and relaxing imagery, can help calm down angry feelings. Physical activity can provide an outlet for your emotions, especially if you're about to erupt. If you feel your anger escalating, go for a brisk walk or run, or spend some time doing other favorite physical activities. Physical activity stimulates various brain chemicals that can leave you feeling happier and more relaxed than you were before you worked out.

Put Your Family First

The family is the magic circle where all wounds are healed. There should be one person who can be a shock absorber in the family. Someone who is not too busy to listen, to support, to manage the daily tasks of living. This could even be a paid caregiver or a cook. Networking is the key for working mothers. Networking with parents, in-laws, neighbors, domestic help and friends. Spending more time with the family is a rule that should be non-negotiable.

Children however 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. Helping a child with their homework not only allows you to spend time together, but enables you to see what they are learning and how they are doing academically. Many children have extracurricular activities like sports or dance. By involving yourself in these activities and praising them on their participation you are helping build their confidence as well as strengthening your bond.

Sacred Place

When you consider yourself as sacred, you will treat yourself well. The space around you, your house, your office needs the same kind of careful attention. When a space is sacred, it magnetizes wonderful people and attracts beautiful events into it.

All religions sanctify space by holy water, prayer, dress and conduct. Hindus draw sacred symbols on the earth with rice flour or chalk (kolam) and a particular space can be set apart for the gods and prayer. A sacred space is defined by the rules of conduct laid down for those who enter, as in a court room, a church, a temple, or the parliament. Very few misbehave in such places. They are rarely able to cast away the weight of laws and customs built up over centuries around them. Some religions lay down rules of cleanliness and dress to enter sacred places, including a purificatory bath. A person who maintains such dignity and decorum in such a place, may be totally different in a bar or when at a party.

This is true about people in different interactions. Some people create a field, which accesses the best in us, while others access the worst. If you learn the secret of positive fields, you can improve your Happiness Quotient.

Love yourself

Now turn inward and start a personal affirmation account for yourself.  Give yourself a big hug for being the most hard working, kind and special person in your life. Invest in a note book which will document your love affair with yourself.

v  Write a love letter to yourself. Recognize your unique beauty, your capacity to do your best and all the gifts that make you such a fabulous person. “Love yourself first and everything else falls into place,” said Lucille Ball.

v  Start a gratefulness dairy where you record all the things you are grateful for. Thank God for His blessings.

v  ‘I can,’ is a hundred times more important that IQ. Celebrate your smallest successes. Stop that nagging, critical voice in your head that keeps picking on you. Speak to yourself kindly and lovingly.

v  Stop worrying. The way to be happy is to stop worrying about things which cannot be changed.

v  Plug into the Source of all power, through prayer and meditation and acknowledge that you are a child of God, made in his own image.

v  Explore, dream, discover: at the end of your life do not regret all the dreams you have failed to pursue.

Wellness Activities

There are many steps that will take you to a state of optimum health. A complete medical checkup once a year can provide accurate information about the state of your body to your physician. Make sure this becomes an annual habit. Listen to your body. If you are tried, rest. If you are hungry, eat. If you are lonely, communicate, ask for a hug.  If you are angry, deal with your anger constructively, resolve it.

So far, both doctors and their patients have focused on reducing LDL cholesterol as a key part of their treatment regimen. However, new research at Baylor College of Medicine shows that having too little HDL cholesterol may be more damaging and may even be more predictive of heart disease than LDL.

Aerobic exercise and strength training can increase your HDL if done correctly, regularly. Maintain optimal body weight: Obesity can increase LDL cholesterol levels while reduce HDL. Losing weight can help increase HDL. Eat more monounsaturated fats: Increase intake of fats such as olive oil, homemade peanut butter, avocados.

Love yourself

Now turn inward and start a personal affirmation account for yourself.  Give yourself a big hug for being the most hard working, kind and special person in your life. Invest in a note book which will document your love affair with yourself.

v  Write a love letter to yourself. Recognize your unique beauty, your capacity to do your best and all the gifts that make you such a fabulous person. “Love yourself first and everything else falls into place,” said Lucille Ball.

v  Start a gratefulness dairy where you record all the things you are grateful for. Thank God for His blessings.

v  ‘I can,’ is a hundred times more important that IQ. Celebrate your smallest successes. Stop that nagging, critical voice in your head that keeps picking on you. Speak to yourself kindly and lovingly.

v  Stop worrying. The way to be happy is to stop worrying about things which cannot be changed.

v  Plug into the Source of all power, through prayer and meditation and acknowledge that you are a child of God, made in his own image.

v  Explore, dream, discover: at the end of your life do not regret all the dreams you have failed to pursue. 

Know Yourself

 “It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or demons, heaven or hell,” said Buddha. This is the season to clean up our lives, burn out all desires and conquer our evil habits. Control your tongue, for “The tongue like a sharp knife. It kills without drawing blood…. Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.” Overcome the snakes of jealousy and the grasping fingers of greed. Wipe out lust. Start on a clean white canvas of purity. Paint the positive navarasas of love, compassion, wonder, laughter, courage and peace into your life.

As Buddha said the way is not in the sky. The way is in the heart. Do not look back or lose yourself in the daydreams of the future. Concentrate your mind and be a full participant in the present moment. Enjoy each moment!

Women’s Day

Mothers, sisters, daughters and other women beloved to us make March 8th a special day of celebration, a day to show, respect, appreciation and love to women. This day cannot be dismissed like all the other days that make Archies cards such a successful business.

Even before women appeared on the corporate scene, women were the secret, hidden ingredient that made life worth living. So all of us, men and women, should use this day to write letters of appreciation to all the special women in our life, for the beauty they bring into our lives, for their delicate subtle strength and grace under pressure, for their tact and capacity to love, care and selflessly give, till there is nothing left to give. Thirty countries observe it as a National holiday. It is a day to celebrate beauty and motherhood! In Portugal a ‘Girls night out’ is customary.

Let us make this a happy day by honoring the women who work with us: our domestic staff and professional colleagues. One hundred and two years have passed, since the first celebration.  Remember seventy percent of those living in poverty are women. I like the UN theme of last year, “Empower women - end hunger and poverty”.  Choose a disadvantaged woman who works for you and change her life by helping her build a happy, educated family.

In Honour of Gurus

Innovation Sutra at Mysore

Invitation to the Book launch of 'Innovation Sutra' at Mysore on14th September 2014 at 6.00pm. Please come with your family and friends.

Innovation Sutra at Bangalore

Invitation to the Book launch of 'Innovation Sutra' at Bangalore on 13th September 2014 at 6.00pm. Please come with your family and friends

Everything Changes

Change is the only certainty in an uncertain world. This year you will change, merely because everything around you will change. What you can decide is, whether you will lead the change or become a victim of it.

Think about proactively changing things in the following areas of your life.

1.       Personal

2.       Family

3.       Professional

4.       Social

Personal: Create goals that will improve your skills and build on your strengths. Tap into the passion that you have kept tightly leashed because you had no time. Did you always want to learn to play the guitar? Sign up now. Was Bollywood dancing what lights your fire? Do it. Sign up for a distance learning programme.

Family: Ask your family members to suggest change each of them would like. Try to see if it can be done. Don’t be a casualty of the corporate rat race.

Professional: Have a chat with your team mates. Volunteer for a tough blue sky job. Create a daily ‘huddle’ in your workplace so that everyone can meet and talk for a few minutes every morning. Make sure everyone participates. Work on making it a fun place.

Social: Create a face book page for your family and friends. Keep in touch, share pictures, keep them informed and interested and involved in an interesting activity: a get-together for all your friends, an annual family reunion, a pot luck meet and eat for all your neighbours.

Things will change anyway. Make sure they change in the way you want. And remember a butterfly is not an improved caterpillar. Just as a sunflower is not an improved seed.

Action Plan to Protect Against Deadly Disease

Make friends with a young doctor and visit him to ensure health maintenance and well being. Take steps to do live in a clean and unpolluted place.

2.         Ask for vaccines needed to immunize your family. Make a special visit when you are travelling to a new, vulnerable area.

3.         Follow a sensible happy life style and get your doctor to check key parameters that indicate health.

4.         Do not ignore minor symptoms. Talk to your doctor friend, with whom you develop a trusting lifetime relationship.

5.         Do not treat yourself. Do not get medical advice and prescribe medicine from the internet.

6.         Take care of your teeth: with increasing life span, you will need them for a long time. Invest in daily yoga, exercise and meditation.

7.         Build a warm, nurturing web of relationships.

Dedicated to Health

 It is not surprising that Ananda Shankar Ray’s Laboratory did the initial research to escape from mosquitoes. In India, with the emergence of highly resistant mosquito species that are unaffected by the most toxic bug killers, it has a kind of poetic justice that an Indian associate professor of entomology has found a way to make a human invisible to mosquitos’ most powerful hunting sense – smell. Featured in Nature, the scientist however lives in California!

This discovery was quickly turned into an innovative skin patch called the Kite mosquito patch an inexpensive sticker, which is non-toxic patch which is now produced by Olfactor labs. It disrupts the mosquitoes carbon di-oxide detection mechanism and protects against malaria, denque, filaria, West-Nile Virus and other deadly diseases.

The human body is a magical creation, whose continuing health, in spite of the dangers that assail, it is really a miracle. So keep this invaluable asset each of us in gifted with, at birth, protected against easily avoidance but deadly diseases. Health is your responsibility. Take care of your body temple. It is the only home you have.

Turn it Upside Down (T U D)

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” This is a quote from Mahatma Gandhi. When he suggested non-violence as a way to make India free. It was revolutionary thought because usually, most of us will meet violence with violence. He suggested the exact opposite of what most of us would do. And it worked. Because as he said, “An eye for an eye only ends up making whole world blind.”

As his birthday approaches let us use a thinking tool called Turn it Upside Down. I will help you consider a course of action that is the revolutionary opposite of what is usually done.

So look at your life and think about turning it upside down. Think mostly about giving and loving rather than wanting and taking stop complaining. Give thanks in gratitude for what you have. Don’t sell your ideas. Let your ideas be a magnet that will draw others to them. Focus on maintaining abundant positive physical, mental and spiritual health, instead of dealing with illness. Finally remember that as the Mahatma said, ‘The best way to find yourself is to love yourself in the service of others.’