Author: Pratibha

Credits: Google Images

Hi,

Welcome to day 3 of the Self Challenge Week and I am with you.

My son loves watching Roll No 24, Kris, Krishna, and My Friend Ganesha and Bal Hanuman are one of his favourite movies. So, today, I am going to share with you one of the instances form our mythological epic Ramayana, which came to my mind when I was enjoying a conversation with my mother.

This instance occurs in Kishkindha Kand where Lord Hanuman had to go to Lanka and get the news of Mata Sita. Since the task was urgent and Hanuman had to cross the vast sea, he had no clue how to meet with this difficult challenge. He didn’t understand how he could solve this problem and cross the vast ocean in such a short span of time.

And while he was still brooding over the problem along with other Vanars, just at that moment, Jamavanta, the king of bears, came, and extolled the virtues of Hanuman and reminded him of his supernatural powers.

कहइ रीछपति सुनु हनुमाना। का चुप साधि रहेहु बलवाना।।
पवन तनय बल पवन समाना। बुधि बिबेक बिग्यान निधाना।।

Praising Hanuman, Jamavanta reminded him that there was hardly any task that he couldn’t do. This was not time to think, but to act. Since they already had a bigger purpose and mission to fulfil, therefore Hanuman must make use of his supreme powers and complete the assigned task without thinking about the obstacles and challenges in his way.

कवन सो काज कठिन जग माहीं। जो नहिं होइ तात तुम्ह पाहीं।।
राम काज लगि तब अवतारा। सुनतहिं भयउ पर्वताकारा।।

Immediately listening to words of Jamavanta, Lord Hanuman grew bigger in his size and took a leap to cross the vast ocean with his superpowers.

Now this instance has the following lessons for us:

Challenges reveal our hidden powers. Like this story, we too come across situations and challenges in our lives that make us feel fearful and intimidating, but it is also true, that it is during these times of hardships, we realise the latent powers, talents, strength, courage and intelligence inside us.

Hanuman is our superhero and superman, bestowed with supernatural attributes and qualities, in the same manner when we look at the people who have achieved great results in their lives, we feel, that they too have been bestowed with some superpower and super intelligence, however, it has all been the result of their courage to solve the issue and find the solution.

Having faith in Lord and believe in cause is important to meet the challenge. Whatever path we may chose, there are and will be challenges and tests to meet, but we must have immense faith in the Lord and belief in the cause and purpose for which we strive. It is then, we would be able to find out the way like Hanuman.

Hanuman had a purpose to find out mata Sita and he had immense faith in his lord Rama and had a bigger purpose for which he went on to the Golden city of Lanka and created havoc there. But it is his faith and belief in his lord and noble cause forced him to unleash his latent powers within himself.

Challenge is another name for adventure. While the two words have different meaning, however, if we consider, challenge as an adventure, we could really enjoy the entire episode.

The adventure has elements of suspense, excitement and uniqueness about it and therefore meeting a challenging experience, person or situation, could bring an unusual experience in our life and therefore we must be ready for such unknown experiences and lessons which may be bold and risky too, and which would be revealed in the due course.

Like in his way to Lanka, Hanuman also outwitted two daemons, Sursa and Sinhika and showed his brilliance and courage once again.

So should we be also prepared and thrilled to discover something new in our adventurous way about our own selves. And when the challenges and problems in life come, we should be ready to ask and think:

• How could we find Hanuman inside us?
• How could we instil unflinching faith in lord inside us?
• How could we find the bigger purpose and mission in our life so that we could push ourselves for that cause?
• And how could we find greatness inside us even when we have to do the smallest of tasks?

Now, don’t you think that challenges are destined and planned to find and reveal something bigger in life for us?

Credits: Google Images

Question.

Do you love stories?

I know your answer would be Yes.

Why?

Your answers would vary, because of one reason or the other.

So, I can say, while all of us love stories, the stories of love, romance, sacrifice, pain, adventure, hope and many other themes, the intensity of reading, writing, listening and sharing them with others, would differ from one person to another.

Question.

What makes a story good?

The five essential elements, which are: the characters, the settings, the plot, the conflict, and the resolution.

Now what happens in a story is this, the characters are introduced, the writer builds up the setting and environment which makes us feel the story real ( imagine your favourite fiction here). The story moves on the plot and then something happens, the protagonist of the story and the rest of the characters confront a crisis, unknown to them and that brings the suspense. The writer just throws different characters with different perspectives and personalities and when the time of crisis comes, these characters respond and react to the crisis which reveal what these characters are made up of, what they think and how differently they all think, why they all do what they do and what their motives and intentions are and what instigates them to do that? And then one among them becomes our favourite character.

Now try to remove the element of conflict  and crisis from the plot of the story.

Questions.

Would the story be same? Would it still appeal to us? Would we like the characters? Would the story be able to create that level of suspense that we expected? Would we still be hooked to the story till the end?

The answers of all these question we know.

Questions.

Now share with me who is your favourite character or hero? And would you love that character had he/she not faced any crisis.

Answer will be NO.

The point that I want to highlight in today’s post is simple.

Conflict refers to challenge. And challenge, be it external or internal, gives momentum to the story and shapes the character. What happens to the character and how he/she deals in that moment of crisis is the crux of the story.

And as Seneca says, “As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.”

So, what matters is, how good the story is, and that is determined by level of crisis and challenge dealt by the characters.

Likewise the story, we all are the lead characters in the stories of our lives. The stories of our lives have the beginning, the middle and the end. We all live at different places, have our families and live in environments, which constitute the setting of our story. The plot is created by the supreme power. But how we all face the crisis, conflicts and challenges in our life determines our future and reveals our own values and principles to us. It is in the moments of crisis and challenge that we decide what are the things which are of paramount importance to us, what all matters most to us and then we move towards the resolution. After resolving one issue, we get ready for the next crisis.

Questions.

Do you find the element of crisis in your life? Do you think that dealing with the crisis will make you a stronger and a better person? How would you like to deal with that crisis and how would like your story to end? And how would you like to be remembered as a character?

Find answers.

Now it’s your turn to ask.

Ask.

Question.

Credits: Google Images

This is interesting.

No matter how hard we try to make our life smooth, comfortable, meaningful, goal oriented, purposeful and devoid of distractions but there are certain things which come in our life and make it hard, difficult and full of challenges.

So, here is the question:

Can we imagine our life without challenges?

I know, we can’t.

In fact, we can say that challenges in life are the things, situations and experiences which make our life more beautiful, colourful, funfilled, exciting and full of surprises.

Although, we can say that we do not like the way challenges come in our life and show their appearance, simply because they make us feel uncomfortable, appear as life threatening problems and strain us to move out of our comfort zones, but what if we change our perspective towards them?  What if we consider them as the harbingers of life lessons? What if we consider them catalysts of our success equations? And what if we consider them opportunities for shinning our character?

Couldn’t be that truly great? Of course, it would be.

Now why I am saying all this, is because of the fact that most of us are afraid of facing challenges in life. These challenges in life may come from anywhere, in any form. Many a times, they may even come from the situations and persons from which we have least expected them.

They may come without any prior information and may not let us know when and how they would move. They just pop up and when they come, we get stressed, feel out of sync, feel messed up, lose control of the situation and get distracted form our bigger goals and true purposes in life.

So, what is the point?

The point is, if we all can try to develop a perspective towards challenges in life, we could truly learn a lot from them.

Therefore, keeping the benefits of challenges in mind, I have decided to come up with the 7 DAYS SELF CHALLENGE WEEK  from 1st July to 7th July on this blog.

Why?

Because together on this community, trying out new things, would be great fun. In that coming week, we would try out different things.

We would try to eat the ugly frog in the morning. We would try to be more productive in a day. We would try to beat procrastination. We would try to connect with our inner selves. We would try to listen to people around us. We would try to be accountable for the things that we do in our lives. We would try to come out of our comfort zone. And we would try to do the things that matter most to us.

And by the end of the week, we would be able to analyse ourselves, we would be able to see how far we could stretch ourselves and we would be able to know our strengths and weaknesses.

I know, alone this exercise could be little boring and frustrating, but believe me when we would do it as part of the community, it could become interesting and engaging.

So, I invite you all along with your friends and members of family to join this 7 DAYS SELF CHALLENGE WEEK, where we would learn, try out new things, may fail in certain pursuits but will celebrate together about all the things that matter most to all of us.

I am ready.

Are you ready to join in?

Credits: Google Images

Hi,

I am back after enjoying my summer vacations. My vacations were great, full of fun, where I met some personal challenges and also learnt life’s beautiful lessons. There were certain things that went well, as expected; and certain things, that didn’t. Overall, vacation time was rewarding and exhausting together. Since travelling is part of vacations, today I would want to highlight 9 lessons that travelling experiences can teach us.

If I say that our life will be meaningless if we do not travel, it would not be an exaggeration, you know it. Travelling is a great learning institution in itself. Many travellers have proved it time and again. And it goes without saying that it is during those travelling experiences, we start taking a journey to our inner self, and gradually understand that knowing ‘thyself’ is the most important pursuit on the road to achieve success, happiness and satisfaction in our life.

So let us see how travelling can help us understand our own selves better, since in words of Danny Kaye, “to travel is to take a journey into yourself” and after knowing this axiomatic truth, shouldn’t we start travelling now onwards? Of course, we must. And here are the 9 lessons that travelling will teach us.

1. Live each moment. This is the first and one of the most important lessons that travelling experiences will teach us. From getting our tickets booked, to boarding our flight, train or bus, we start experiencing and enjoying each part of our travelling journey. On Road, in metro, on shopping streets or boating in drizzling weather, we become one with our goal, our journey. It is the pursuit and the journey that brings enlightenment and happiness and we savour and live in the present and do not think about the past or future, our only concern seems to be capturing each moment of our journey and that’s what makes our journey more too special.
2. Learn to be adaptable. The food, the climate, the culture, the people and the place where we stay force us to come out of our comfort zone. We see how quickly we try to adapt ourselves to the new place and soon, instead of looking and sounding like an alien from a different planet, we try to acclimatize and adapt ourselves to the culture of new place and people. And that’s what a skill and a new learning calls for. In fact, it would not be an exaggeration to say that our travelling experience can even change our entire programming and conditioning of mind to an extent where we find our newer self.
3. Love for adventure. Travelling and being a part of different adventures like bungee jumping, Para-gliding, scuba diving, glacier climbing, rock climbing, skiing, biking, and zorbing to name a few, require courage and our boldness quotient to be too high. And after experiencing these moments we understand what Helen Keller says that, “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.” We feel that our love for adventure and life had increased manifold and we experience our ever ready mode for all the unexpected and uncalled challenging experiences in our life to confront and be in control of.

   Credits: Google Images

4. Love for Nature. While marvelling at the Seven Wonders of the World, we appreciate and acknowledge the architectural human feat but suddenly when we stand in front of the Niyagra falls or Himalayan Range of mountains we observe the vastness of the nature and the world. The beauty of the species and the birds and the plants and the nature make us realize our own limitations and how we have been confined so far in these. Suddenly our own feelings of envy, jealous, selfishness, fears, anxieties and worries look small and meaningless. In that moment we appreciate the beauty of Wordsworth Daffodils and The World is Too Much with Us and understand the greatest lesson of compassion and love taught by the Mother Nature.
5. Experiential Learning. Cancelled flight or delayed train,  unpredictable avalanche, silent night walks, night desert safari, confrontation with wild life animals which we have witnessed only on the National Geographic so far, they all become part of our memory and experiential learning. These gruelling and awesome travelling experiences give us abiding life lessons, which are difficult to erase from our memory.
6. Learn Man and Manners. Travelling allows us to meet different people. We make friends with them and some of this friendship might turn into the most lasting relationships of our life. What we know may not help us and our entire learning may require a new theory and definition. It is not inside the class room that we learn the best and the most but it is our travelling experiences which act as the best workshop for learning the technical and the non technical stuff of life. We understand the human psychology and human needs and realize what it means to be on the road to self actualization.
7. Love for History, Art, Culture and Cuisine. While travelling, our history lessons may suddenly conjure up in front of us when we visit the cities of Italy, Paris and Rome. Moreover, in our visits we also find developing of our sense of appreciation for the art, craft, stone work, tattoo making and many indigenous art works of a place which may hook us for too long due to their exquisite beauty. The rich cultural heritage of a place will allow us to understand our own culture from a different perspective and the food and cuisine of a place may convert us into a foodie or a connoisseur. With all these experiences, don’t we feel rich and awesome at heart already?
8. Memories. We treasure memories. We make friends. We meet different people and get the opportunity to experience and learn from other culture making us feel richer, wiser and content. Time is more precious than money. When we calculate the amount of experience and wisdom and training gained in our travelling we decide that our travelling decision was the best. Soon we embark on another such quests.
9. How to be Smarter. Travelling makes us a newer one, a smarter one and a better one. We become more global and cosmopolitan and gain a newer perspective to analyse and judge things, man and matters. Once we finalize our destination, book our tickets and reach to that place, we know and understand what it means to plan and prepare, well in advance. The same preparation and principles also apply in life. If we know where we want to go, we will reach there for sure. Travelling experiences teach these life lesson in the best and the most beautiful way.

So, it is not how long the journey is but how beautiful and memorable it is. We get life once and we must experience the best. We must visit the best places. Taste the best food. Have those life transforming experiences. And such things happen when we travel.

Hence, instead of waiting for our old age to come and execute some of our travelling dreams or postponing our travelling plans for tomorrow which never comes, we should get ready, decide the place, get our tickets done and be ready to explore our inner self once again, even when our vacations end. After all, “The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page,” says Saint Augustine.

Credits: Google Images

Scorching Sun. Summer Time. Long days. And short nights. It’s now vacation time.

Anvay’s vacation has started and within two days he has already driven me crazy.

Hats off to all school teachers and to their level of patience and tolerance. Kudos to all of them. May God keep their spirits always high and may God give them enough strength . We moms, are nothing in their front.

Since it is vacation time, it is time to think and plan the ways to make our vacations engaging, meaningful, full of fun and energy boosting. So, here are some of the things that I quickly brainstormed for today’s post and rest I would want you all to add on, so that we all could make best use of our vacation time.

1. Vacation= family trip. Vacation time is more or less synonymous with going on trip with all the members of our family. So, this is the time of the year, plan a trip and go to a place where you could enjoy the pleasant weather and scenic beauty and refresh yourself for the rest of the year.
2. Vacation = Meeting cousins. This used to be my childhood vacation plan. I am sure it would have been your as well. Every vacation, we used to visit to Grandparents place and Nani maa’s house. And there, listening to ghostly stories and sleeping on terrace at night, used to be our most favourite time. I have beautiful memories of my childhood at my grandparents home and they are one of the best memories that I have. After all, as it is said, “you can always make money, but you cannot always make memories.” So, enjoy this memory making time and create and generate more memories with your cousins and relatives all this summer season.
3. Vacation=Meeting with friends. Well, there can be no better therapy of rejuvenating your body, mind and soul than meeting your school or college friends and remembering all the crazy and amazing memories with them. All stories of our past and all things that we did at college and school days, we could take this, down the memory lane walk, along with our school and college friends and I am sure we all would have amazing time unlimited with all of them. So, be on the memory roller coaster ride with them and enjoy it. Plan this out. This would be truly a great fun. In short, party with friends.
4. Vacation=Adventure. If you are an adventurer and has already your bucket list ready, then it is the time of the year when you should start challenging yourself and be ready to move out of your comfort zone. Sky diving, bungee jumping, scuba diving and many more which you know better than me, try out something truly daring. Go to camping out with your friends. Anything which you want to try new, try this year out!
5. Vacation= Rest & Recreation. Take proper rest. Sleep as much as you can. For recreation, do whatever you have planned so far. You could watch Movies or make your own family movies. And if you are like me, you too would have a long list of movies, which you would want to watch, watch them all at this time of the year. This could be the best time. Listen to your favourite music albums and yes, shall I tell you to pick up your favourite novel, book or wisdom literature book? Now, is the time to enjoy them thoroughly.
6. Vacation=Learning. If you want to learn a new skill or start a new habit. This is the time to start. You can join any hobby classes or any other online course to master a new skill within two months. Or if your have to appear in an exam at the end of the year, then use this time judiciously to prepare for that exam. Don’t waste your these days. These days could be truly productive and fruitful for you. Squeeze and extract best out of the 24 hours on a day.
7. Vacation=Renovation. If you are not going anywhere, then you must clean your room, redecorate it and check your junk Quotient. This is the time, when you can patiently redecorate your room and home the way you want. Remove the clutter and energy trappers from your room and feel great after redecorating your dream home and room. Why not to give it a new life and look through our creativity in summers?
8. Vacation=Volunteering. Yes, this is important. If you have time, then give your time to any volunteering work. You could help some NGO or engage in a cleanliness drive or get associated with any cause that you believe in. You would feel accomplished and great after volunteering even for a single week. Try this out. This is truly one of the best things that you could try this summer vacation. You could plan it with your family members and friends as well. Together with them, you would feel wonderful and amazing.
9. Vacation=Connect with self. Relax. Take rest. Sleep as much as you can. Have fun. Meet friends and relatives. Enjoy volunteering. But don’t forget to connect with your inner self. Meditate. Communicate with your own self. This is truly important. Do I need to re-emphasize it again?

And yes, you could try and do many other things in your this vacation and while you do all those things that you want to do, don’t forget to share it with others. I would ask for your progress . I would want to know what you did, which book(s) you read, which movies did you watch and what skills did you hone or sharpen this summer?

Amidst all these, don’t forget to keep yourself hydrated, drink lots of water, enjoy ice creams and multi coloured shakes because you would not want to have heat stroke in the middle of your summer vacations.

And yes, last thing, keep sharing your ideas and plans and what you all do and did. And if I get delayed in my response, then understand that I am away from home and will join you soon after my summer vacations.

Wishing you all a happy and amazing summer vacations !!

Credits : Google Images

I have suffered from this syndrome many a times. I am sure you too would have. Now what to do?

Simple.

Diagnose the problem. Confront the situation. And solve the issue.

But before anything else, let’s see what is this Ostrich Syndrome and what to do with it?

Sticking its head in sand, the ostrich imagines itself safe from its predators. By doing this, it remains in the comfortable position and imagines itself to be safe from the impending danger.

Although this term is a myth now, but we, as individuals suffer form this syndrome in many ways. Instead of facing the challenges, roadblocks and issues in our day to day life, we apply this passive approach called the Ostrich Syndrome. We hide. We escape and we procrastinate until the danger or the problem comes too close.

So, be it our personal life or professional life, relationships or health issues, financial decisions or spiritual crisis , we have one area or the other in our life where we do not take the right actions required at the right moment. We wait. And we imagine that the problem will be sorted out automatically. We delay finding the root cause of the issues. Result. We all suffer form this syndrome called the Ostrich Syndrome.

I have many personal anecdotes which will explain my this tendency, but for today, I have one such incident, it is of the time when I was in grade XI. The Year was 1999.

It was my biology exam. I had always loved this subject but due to my unexpected poor performance in class X, I developed Exam Phobia. Since I was extremely afraid of exams after the results of class X, I got so scared of this paper that I decided to be down with fever. I did the worst. I behaved as If I had some neurological disorder or some psychotic trauma.I did not eat, nor did I turn the pages of my copy or the biology text book.

The entire purpose of this episode was not to appear in the exam. All I wanted to do was to escape from it and did not sit in the exam. It was according to me a situation where I suffered from this Ostrich Syndrome.

Yesterday was also one such case, details of which will be shared in coming posts, but the point is, I could now identify this syndrome. In this syndrome, instead of taking hold of the situation, we react or over react, we avoid or escape but do not respond to the situation.

So, now I hope that you too would be able to identify the areas in your life which calls for your action and proactive confrontation with the dealing of Ostrich Syndrome.

Therefore based on my recent confrontation with the problem and suggestions from my friends, here are the 6 steps that we all can take to avoid this syndrome and take hold of the problems and situations in life.

1. Zoom in and look for this syndrome. Just like we zoom the camera and focus the object to take the image, in the same manner we must zoom on the broader areas of our life which need our immediate handling of the problem or the situation. We need to be our own inspector and detector.

We must focus on finding out the root cause of the issue or the problem. If we could reach out to that, the problem could be sorted out soon, without much delay.

If we find ourselves too emotional or inefficient to deal with the challenges or the issues, we must seek the help of our mentors, parents or friends. Their experience can be of great value to us in diagnosis of the problem. Ask. Ask and Ask for their help.

2. Ask the Right Questions. Asking questions is a great way to propel yourself straight into the core of your problem. You win half the battle if you know what are the right questions.So don’t be afraid to ask questions.

Ask questions such as: What is holding you back from taking the control of the situation? Whose help you can seek to solve the issue or the problem? What strategy you could use?

Ask questions related with why, what, when, where, who and how. Dig deep into them. You will surely get the pearls of your answers.

3. Focus on the Outcome. Imagine of the time when the situation will be solved and how happy you would feel. Focus on the outcome and the time when the situation will be under your control and how relax and fulfilling you would feel.

If that outcome is truly rewarding and fulfilling you could push yourself for the action rather than hiding your face and escaping from the situation. This focus will force you to take hold of the situation and take immediate action.

4. Make a commitment. If the issue is too important in your life and you have been avoiding it since very long then you must make a public commitment.

By making a public commitment and talking to people about it, you will be forced to work on doing the project or solving the issue or the challenge. If not, then your own integrity and public image can be at stake. At any cost, you cannot afford to spoil that.

5. Take Action.  Taking action is a must. Don’t think for too long. Consistent actions will give you confidence and faith to move on the right track. Don’t wait for the right time or the right moment.

Because as Napoleon Hill says that “The time will never be just right.” So, make your each moment right. And take action.

6. Check your  own progress and revise it if needed. After taking consistent action for some time, it is important for you to keep a check and momentum of your progress. For this, analyse your actions taken, ask for the feedback and if needed, revise the whole plan.

If you feel alone, join the group of like-minded people. You will be motivated and committed to take consistent actions with the group then. Accountability will be important here.

Take little steps each day and do not get exhausted. If something is not working, change the technique or the strategy and be flexible in your moves. Once the results start showing up, keep going.

You will be happy to walk on the path that will make a big difference to your own life and the life of others. You will feel amazing when you see yourself confronting the real life challenge and see them contributing to your life.