Harvey described the heart as a pump. This was a mechanistic view which indicated that if the heart ‘broke down’, it had to be repaired like a machine. It did not take into account that the heart is a living organism sensitive to feelings and can recreate itself. As Deepak Chopra writes, ‘The body is a river,’ a swiftly changing river, which can reinvent itself by replacing unhealthy tissues with tender new tissues at the cellular level? Our understanding of human life and growth is becoming organic. Building a life is not like putting up a building, but more like growing a tree: slower, organic and evolutionary. It cannot be done in a hurry. Like Nature, human development in order to be healthy has to follow a slower, more stable timetable. Those who seek to speed it up beyond a point will have to pay the price. The price may be their own lives. Many have died to live up to some unrealistic modern myth of yuppydom and success.

Analyse Existing Ways

Another interesting challenge today is for all human beings to develop the feminine principle. New leadership models require the development of the right brain, which is intuitive, holistic and creative. Most of these traits, along with nurturing and inter-personal skills, were previously relegated to a lower status in a predominantly macho world. The change in leadership styles required today, have made these very traits important. The Indian model of ‘ardhanareeshwarar’— a god who integrates the male and female elements in himself—is an ancient Vedic concept—follow the logic through. The popular advertisement for Raymonds (the textile giant) shows the complete man as a man who can deal with a baby as comfortably as he can with a balance sheet. It shows someone who can laugh, and is not afraid to shed a tear. Accessing their feminine side is a challenge men today face to deal with the transition to a more humane model of leadership. Giving up the ‘stiff upper lip’ can be very liberating.

Explore Innovative Ways To Fulfill Dual Role

Indian women have moved into the workforce in an unmistakable wave. In modern societies today, many of them bear the dual burden of managing the home and a 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 of breast cancer. The traditional shock absorber of the family, particularly in Indian families is the woman. Dual responsibilities have reduced her capacity to perform this role. Her ability to absorb and reduce tensions has been greatly compromised. The tensions building up in a nuclear family can have a negative impact on health. The two-income family brings an increased pay check, while insidiously increasing the risk factors for heart disease. Huge reserves of patience are required to cope with this new, changed family structure. Most do not have these reserves. As women climb to higher levels of the corporate ladder, alternative strategies have to be found to maintain the nurturing capacity of the family. Only joint efforts by the couple and the involvement of elders and the extended family, or community support can adequately fill this gap. This is a never-discussed pressure-cooker situation, hazardous to health, lethal for the heart, building up in modern families.

Human Life

Harvey described the heart as a pump. This was a mechanistic view which indicated that if the heart ‘broke down’, it had to be repaired like a machine. It did not take into account that the heart is a living organism sensitive to feelings and can recreate itself. As Deepak Chopra writes, ‘The body is a river,’ a swiftly changing river, which can reinvent itself by replacing unhealthy tissues with tender new tissues at the cellular level? Our understanding of human life and growth is becoming organic. Building a life is not like putting up a building, but more like growing a tree: slower, organic and evolutionary. It cannot be done in a hurry. Like Nature, human development in order to be healthy has to follow a slower, more stable timetable. Those who seek to speed it up beyond a point will have to pay the price. The price may be their own lives. Many have died to live up to some unrealistic modern myth of yuppydom and success.

Defects of Globlisation

The current development of the global economy means that the 173 countries of the world will share a single market place. Demand and supply will respond to the compulsions of global competitiveness. Every country is eyeing the one billion strong Indian market and its fabled 250 million middle class. No company can escape the restructuring and blood-letting, the downsizing rampant today. The possibility of the pink slip stares every executive in the face. It is being slowly realised 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? The joy of craftsmanship is being replaced by the monotony of the assembly line. This expanding global economy and the lethal workplace have created serious conflicts in the individual’s life. Many have to confront the question of how their values measure up against their need to own and have the world’s goodies.

Improper balance of Work and family

Ambition and increasing peer pressure ensures the 'rat in a trap syndrome', where you are trapped into running faster and faster to stay in the same place. This note is dedicated to those involved in the daily rat race that life has become. It will help you avoid the ill effects of a fast-track career in today's competitive environment. It will focus on innovative approaches to de-stress, both on an individual and group levels. 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 cellphone 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. I was talking to one of the brilliant young men in a fast-track company. He said, ‘No one takes you seriously if you leave office before nine pm. The fellow who stays on till twelve pm to answer his last email, received at 11.45 pm from the boss in the US, is a winner. The fact that he had an car accident going home makes him a corporate hero!’

Anger – Destruction of Body and Mind

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. The heart 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'is switched off. Primitive man who was confronted by a tiger needed this state of high alert to survive in the jungle. Today, this desperate Mayday response, this most primitive survival response, is used frivolously, not to save life, but in response to office politics or a traffic jam. As the blood rushes through the heart, during an anger attack, it raises blood pressure. 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—cholesterol, the plaster of paris of the body, slowly builds up to block the artery. Soon the tender flexible artery becomes stiff and hard, preparing the stage for a heart attack.

Enhance Self Awareness

Here are some suggestions on adjusting your emotional attitude towards yourself: Loving another equal and an adult, is transforming—tune in. Listen to yourself, nurture yourself. Discipline gives you true freedom. Forgive yourself. Live in the present. Now. Every minute. Love and work are the most precious gifts you can give another. A gift of yourself is the greatest gift you can give another. Ask for help. Network. Do not pretend to be in total control. Periodically reinvent and renew yourself. Try hard to keep promises and commitments—your internal sense of justice will punish all infractions. Cacti can be as beautiful as a rose bush. Love them anyway. Explore the concept of acceptance of self. Love yourself. Accept yourself, your body and mind, as you are.While trying to improve both, affirm and love yourself as you are today, here and now. Accept your whole life, as a divine gift, good and bad as it is now. Love others. You are the mirror, in which all your loved ones see themselves. You can soothe and inspire them by reflecting back an image that is lovable and competent. Calvin Cooley, renowned sociologist has described the Mirror Image thus: ‘I am what I think, you think I am.’ If you are constantly putting down others, they can be mentally destroyed. Their unhappiness can harm your mindscape. Accept your family as they are. Unrealistic expectations about your child can put unrelenting pressure on him. Mills and Boon expectations of your spouse can make them feel unloved and inadequate. They can then become cranky and difficult. You do not need revenge. Let go. Go forward and live. Compete only with yourself. Take pleasure in others’ growth and achievement. Keep the child in you alive, stroke and liberate the playmate, cuddle the baby in you.

Enhance Prana into Your life

Prana is the life force that flows in all living things. When the life force leaves the body, the body dies. Kirlian photography has captured pictures of the pranic aura. Meditation and a calm attitude cause prana to flow through all our activities smoothly. When prana is in full flow, the person is full of vitality and energy and enthusiasm. Prana is nurtured by freshly cooked, healthy food. Pranayama is very pro-prana. Prana is fed by breathing pure fresh air. Moderate exercise and yoga helps develop the life force. Eating too much, consuming stale food, exercising till you are ready to drop dead, constant arguments, overworking, getting emotionally upset, breathing polluted air, all interfere with the smooth flow of prana. Moderation is the rule. Prana enhances the positive field and the vital life force flows freely through it. It creates a powerful positive field—a field of all possibilities where any seed of an idea will develop rapidly.

Empower Your Mind

MindsPower process focuses on stimulating fresh thinking in managers and leaders with the goal of bringing new power and perspectives to their organizations. In strategic planning assignments, the client’s own planning team works out the plan, knowing that the important thing about a strategic plan is not the paper it is printed on, but the process it creates within an organization. The process facilitates culture change, whether the transformation is being driven by shifting paradigms in the market or by internal events like mergers or acquisitions. Many companies use the process to create profitable new products and processes, often drawing on MindsPower’s unique research process for tapping the creativity of customers. Product development assignments not only assist with the birth of new ideas, but stay with the company all the way to the market. Companies use the process to create or revitalize quality improvement programs. Another important area of work is corporate transformation, by developing high-performing managers and teams and promoting cross functional teamwork. This often involves mounting an Innovative Teamwork Program, which enables people to invent better ways of working and performing together. MindsPower programs are often tailored to the specific needs of each company.