Preserving Our Forest

New Ways for Corporate Women

Woman managers need to appreciate that it takes heroic energy to rock the cradle and rock the corporate world. First pin a badge for bravery on yourself for attempting it. Then, promise you will not even begin to tread the path that leads to the joyless land of being a super-woman or super-mom. Enlist your men and families as willing accomplices in the challenging task of reconstructing a corporate. Workplace that lovingly accommodates the needs of humans, for families, for music, poetry and time for just standing and watching the world go by! Be kind to yourself. Love yourself. Conquer fear and overcome the need for instructions. Pursue the ability to adapt and be a leader of proactive change. The New World is not for those who are what Nehru called unwilling victims, dragged to be sacrificed on the altar of change. Be leaders to be accepted as such. Banish forever your fear of being centre stage, your reluctance to accept that you are where the buck stops. Relearn and re-install the software of the human heart that your mothers embodied. The New Woman of the past decade must not forsaken her heritage of loving and caring for the tough hard-bitten so-called ‘male boss model.’ Both men and women managers need to put the human being at the centre of all business processes.

Tips to Work-life Balance

1. Take short relaxation breaks, at least thrice a day. 2. Eat fresh, energy-giving foods. 3. Take a walk outdoors during lunch break. 4. Stay away from politics and back-biting. 5. Involve your spouse and children in your work. Bring them to the office during lunch break or on a Saturday. 6. Spend time reading and improving your mind. 7. Get involved in activities that will benefit others. 8. Develop an absorbing hobby or skill—driving, dancing, gardening, carpentry, painting, amateur radio, etc. 9. Keep in touch with your close friends and extended family, use the power of the internet. 10. Plan to cut off from work on weekends.

creating a positive interpersonal field

Develop the capacity to pick up subtle verbal, tonal and non-verbal signals from others. Learn also the ability to send out soothing, nurturing signals to others, thus creating a positive interpersonal field. In order to develop this skill, practice working with people and listening to them with the same attitude as you would a beloved child, or respected parent. Your word, tone, glance should be completely focused on the person. Don’t dilute the interaction by playing with your Blackberry, talking on your cell phone or fiddling with your laptop. When you are with someone, pay complete attention. Anything less will only elicit a lukewarm response. Those who can create positive fields around themselves attract and build lifetime relationships.

Valuing Human Effort

Young and handsome Ananda become the leader of a monastery when Buddha left his physical body. The townsmen were skeptical. They felt he was too young and frivolous. They went in a group and asked him what the old bed sheetswere to be used for as the monastery had just been given new ones. Ananda said, ‘I had them cut into towels for the monks. ‘When those get worn out, what will you do?’ they asked. ‘I will fold them, stitch them and use them as doormats for monks coming in from the rain.’ Still they persisted. ‘What will you do when those too get worn out?’ ‘I will have them cut into strips to use in the kitchen to handle hot vessels.’ ‘Why do you take so much trouble over old bed sheets?’ they asked. Ananda reflected for a while, then he said, ‘The life blood of some mother, some human being has been poured into making those sheets. That human effort should be treated with respect,’ he said. The townsmen left satisfied that Buddha had chosen well.

The Healthy, Nurturing, Home

A healthy home should be a healing space, a nurturing positive mind field. It can be a place where all wounds are healed. Alvin Toffler wrote ‘The family is the giant shock absorber of the family to which the bruised and battered individual returns after doing battle with the world!’ If your home is not a sanctuary but a battle-field do something about it. Get help, your work. Have a rule to avoid difficult topics during meal times or bed time. Music, if is soothing, can be a powerful force for peace. The very walls absorb the vibrations of the music. Mantras can do the same for your home. I sometimes feel that if music can be infused into the mindspace so that it plays quietly in your mind, as the background to your day, it can have a really soothing affect. Avoid violent, depressing programmes. Just as you would not allow a terrorist into your home, do not allow such movies into the sacred space of your home. You surely are the protector of the field that exists in your home. Make your home fragrant with incense. Clean and sparkling and beautiful. Respectful of the sacred forces that can animate your home.

FROM ZERO TO HERO

Handling and learning from failure is a skill that will ensure you achieve your goals. Like boxing, in life also there is no dishonour in falling down. You lose only when you fail to get up. “Learning to fail well is important”, said Rahul Dravid, renowned cricketer at a camp for teenage cricketers. World Mental health day is celebrated in October. The key element of mental health is the capacity to deal with the ups and downs of life. The capacity to deal with failure, enhances our capacity to have healthy relationships, make good life choices, maintain physical health and well being. So how do we recover from failure and even make it a stepping stone to success. Embrace the experience of failure. Feel the pain, grieve and learn from it. Then get up and go. If the failure shatters you and makes you feel there is nothing left to live for, get professional help from a therapist. Never failing, means you are not leaving your comfort zone. Failure, properly handled, is good for you and makes you a more compassionate person. Focus on the present. Be gentle with yourself. Take care of your health. Introduce a few happiness breaks into every day: activities that definitely make you happy. Meet positive friends. The past is over and no one knows the future. The present is yours to shape. It is a gift. Enjoy it. Get help to develop a plan for what to do next. Lay down the burdens of yesterday and develop choices for what to do tomorrow. This is a time of freedom, when you can recreate your life and leave behind what you don’t like. Choose to do something you love that you have never pursued seriously. Something that makes you feels blissful. Do something for others. It will give you jolt of bliss. Reach out to someone who cannot do anything for you. Failure can be God’s greatest gift to you. Enjoy it!