Meditation To Overcome 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. While you cannot change your job, family or your life-situation, you can certainly learn to breathe more peacefully, thus reversing the process of excitation and avoiding the emotional hijack. It is not possible to learn meditation by thinking about it, any more than it is possible to learn swimming by talking about it. If you have to swim, you have to get into the water. Learning meditation and understanding your breathing patterns through pranayama are the best investment you ever make. In India, there is no excuse not to learn these things. Stress need not be the reaction to the pace of your life. You can learn peaceful responses that protect your body.

Joyful Living

In order to experience the spontaneous happiness that bubbles out of your heart like a mountain stream. We need to concentrate on the following seven actions

1.      Physical Wellness

2.      Emotional Wellness

3.      Personal Wellness

4.      Family Bonding

5.      Nurturing Workplace

6.      Social Bonding

7.      Dharmic Living

Great mountain and beyond, a green sunlit valley is a beautiful and enjoyable sight. Only when you climb the mountain can you see the beauty of the journey ahead. Hence in the same way only when you learn the seven actions of happiness, you can realize and enjoy real happiness.

Positive Mindspace

When the garden is clean, blooming and full of life, the snakes of anger have no place to hide; the thorns of greed get cleared away. Adbuta, or wonder, is one of the positive navarasas—the nine emotions. It heals and energises. To stand in wonder before the splendour of God’s creation is to be rejuvenated. The body and bloodstream are bathed in endorphins and serotonins which are Nature’s tranquillisers.’

Enjoy the nature - the chirping of the birds, the wind through the fluttering leaves, the murmuring river. The harmonious fabric of nature enfolds us in a blanket of pure beauty. The colours and shapes that flowed from the hands of the great Architect of the universe soothe us in positive emotions.

Life’s Greatest Gift

Happiness is a life’s greatest gift. There is joy to be found in the small things. Go peacefully amidst the noise and the haste. Enjoy the sweetness of everyday things. Events or people around us are not under our control. But our reactions, our responses to them are. Respond with love and peace. Focus on happiness and on cultivating happy people. Build protective walls against toxic events that threaten your tranquillity. Let the cells of your body be gently bathed in happiness, positive thoughts and healing energies. The Vedas speak of the self as a beautiful lotus growing in the muddy waters of life. With its roots in the muck the lotus rises above it, in perfect beauty and bliss.

Halt! Live Abundantly

The family provides the love and nurturing required for the survival of children. As we grow older, we crave nurturing, but are not adept at asking for it. We long for affirmation from the‘significant other’ in our lives. Affirmation is when important 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. It is important to make sure you give affirmations to all members

of the family, particularly the ones to whom you usually send devastating Heat Seeking Missiles (HSMs) like, ‘Why is your room like a pig sty?’ ‘Why do you always forget anything I tell you?’ Make every day an occasion to show how important your family is to you.

Reach out and ask for what you want. If you are Hungry, ask for food or treat your family to food. Eat together. The Family that eats together, stays together.

If you are Angry, talk about it when you have calmed down. Your family can be a shock absorber, helping you to process your feelings and resolving them. If you are Lonely, ask for a hug. Express your affection. Give a gift.

If you are Tired, rest. Take a break. Do not drive yourself to a break down or burn out. Get a massage. Book a pedicure. Go for a walk. Take a day off and catch up on your sleep. Learn Yoga Nidra. Invest in learning to Meditate.

Music – The Stress Reliever

Music has the power to purify the emotional field like nothing else.  Pranayama helps you sing without losing your breath. The mindspace becomes sweetly harmonious and no harsh words can be spoken there. Here is a quote from Rabinranath Tagore’s Geetanjali:

“I touch with the edge of the far-reaching wings of my song, thy feet which I could never aspire to reach”.

Every day we should choose the sounds that allowed into our field. Perhaps we could set a song for the day in our mind. Those who met us would see the sparkle of that song in my eyes and feel the rhythm of its harmony in our, limbs. Why should we allow foul language into our mind?

‘Shabdh or sound is Vani Saraswathi, the Goddess of Learning. Words are sacred to her. Choose to say beautiful words, to hear lovely words. Banish harsh, angry and foul language from the inner spaces of your heart. A sure happiness killer is stress, hence beware of it. 

Sustainable Environment

You can create a sustainable environment around you. This happens when you treat the Earth like a friend. Replace whatever you take from her with love. We need to stop doing many things to achieve a sustainable, clean environment. No Plastic bags, no empty shampoo sachets. Carry a cloth bag.

Each of us has a personal responsibility to fulfill. Each of us has a personal duty to do something to spread the message. Use all communications for life changing, life affirming activities, Stop complaining. Do…do Something.

The Carbon footprint is measured by the CO2 or other greenhouse gases created by an object, person or action. Each of us needs to aim at a lower carbon footprint. MCAfee estimates that 78 percent of all incoming e-mails are spam. 62 trillion spam messages are sent every year! The turning point is here. If we do not read the warnings, revolution is at our door. Let us not be caught unawares. We can still save planet Earth ourselves by being proactive.

Your Future

The children of today are tomorrow's future. 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. Most working couples say, ‘I wish I had more time at home.’ If they cannot go home during working hours can their homes come to them? A classic turn-it-upside down thinking tool. Can children meet their parents for a picnic or lunch at the office? Can couples plan business travel together? Can the office incorporate a Saturday children’s day into its schedule to improve participation of the family? An open house for them to see the world their parents inhabit?

The teenage years of a child are a crucial time when family can make all the difference. This is a time of acne, broken hearts, a newfound interest in the opposite sex, in looks and clothes. The children of this century are much smarter and grasp things faster. 

Role of Women

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. Only joint efforts by the couple and the involvement of elders and the extended family, or community support can adequately fill this gap. To succeed today, women have to look like a woman, think like a man and work like a dog. It is a challenge all women have to meet and survive to enjoy success.

Invest in Happiness

You can buy happiness by spending your money using these seven principles:

1.       Spend on experiences instead of things: holidays instead of jewels, movies instead of curios

2.       Spend on small every day pleasures, instead of saving till you are blue in the face, to buy the one, huge, dream house. Do not ignore the roses and the chocolates. Drink that great cup of coffee and wear great clothes.

3.       Don’t spend a lot on long term warranties.

4.       Pay now and consume later. Anticipation helps you enjoy the pleasure twice. Waiting for a time share holiday, planning your monthly movie or weekend getaway, adds to the joy.

5.       Look into details before making big investments.

A house on the beach, sounds good on paper. But if the traffic jams are terrible, you have to drive there, pay for the security and the caretaker and then think again.

6.       Avoid comparison shopping and keeping up with the Joneses.

7.       Spend on others. It will make you happier.

Reality of Life

We have so much waiting for us. Each of us comes into the world with a need to learn many things. Life is the ultimate classroom. Each of us has different problems to solve, tests to pass. Events will swirl around us uncontrolled, regardless. Our response is something we can control. Choose to say beautiful words, to hear lovely words. Banish harsh, angry and foul language from the inner spaces of your heart. Perhaps you could set a song for the day in my mind. Those who met us would see the sparkle of that  song in our  eyes and feel the rhythm of its harmony in my limbs. Why should we allow foul language into our mind? 

A Garden of Love

The family provides the love and nurturing required for the survival of children. As we grow older, we crave nurturing, but are not adept at asking for it. We long for affirmation from the‘significant other’ in our lives. Affirmation is when important 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. It is important to make sure you give affirmations to all members

of the family, particularly the ones to whom you usually send devastating Heat Seeking Missiles (HSMs) like, ‘Why is your room like a pig sty?’ ‘Why do you always forget anything I tell you?’ Make every day an occasion to show how important your family is to you.

Creating Joy in Family Life

Today everyone has a chance to maintain links with the extended family through the internet. It is a nourishing and often supportive network. Today, however, the family, as the ‘shock absorber of society,

to which the bruised and battered individual returns after doing battle with the world,’ in the words of Alvin Toffler in his landmark work Future Shock, is going through a transitional phase. The breakdown of the joint family has led to a loosening of extended family relationships. The powerful mother-in-law of

the joint family is emerging as the subdued caretaker of children, helping the educated daughter-in-law augment the double income of all upwardly mobile young couples. 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. Much like the modern corporation, there is no place to hide, no place for passengers, and everyone has to pull their own weight.

It is our mission to restore to it its traditional role as a place of rest and healing, albeit 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 mothers.

Steps for Personal Health

1.       Take care of your health. You cannot deliver a prize-winning performance with a broken-down body.

2.       Force the world to look at issues like: What kind of world are we leaving for our children? Where have leisure, poetry and caring been banished? Why has the door been shut on the smiles and joy of our children? Why do we have no time for our friends or small acts of kindness? Why are deadlines so terrible that they extract death as the price? None of us would mind dying for great causes, but to die for a power-point presentation, seems slightly frivolous.

3.       Do not get stereotyped into how others see your role: as a mother or an all forgiving rescuer in the workplace. Encourage men to discover their so-called feminine qualities of sensitivity and caring. Do not stereotype men!