Happiness

What is happiness and why are we not happy? Even though we thought when we get married to the person that we love, we will live happily ever after. We are not happy, well may be if we buy few houses we will be happy and/or when we have success in our career we will be happy. Then we say when we become a millionaire we will be happy. But we are still not happy. Why, why are we postponing our happiness??? Some people even go into the loop hole of “Why me?” that won’t do any good to you at all.  You have to understand life is happening for everyone, in a similar or different ways. Everyone will tell you they have problem.  In fact, there’s nobody without any problem in the world. For each individual, their problem is the biggest problem.  Often clients, who call me, tell me that they have a really big problem (I’m not exaggerating). But for them it is a big problem. We have to respect and understand that, otherwise we can’t assist them at all.

We are always jumping to catch the next moment as if that’s going to be a permanent solution for our happiness. Therefore we miss out on the reality, which is NOW.  If you really think about it “now” is the only reality. You can only experience anything in the now. Therefore yesterday, and tomorrow are only a concept and the reality is only “NOW”.  For the logical mind to identify and separate events we mention times and in a deeper level “now” is the only reality which is in our experience and in existence. However most of us know this and still tend to catch the next moment and it creates only anxiety and disappointments. We are constantly trying to do something for the next moment and trying to fix everything outside of our control. We don’t realise the inevitability of that event and we tend to get angry or beat ourselves up for what happened.

For example: When you’re driving, if someone cut you off on the street most people get angry and some people’s whole day is ruined just because of this simple incident. They just keep on blaming that incident and /or something else happened to them on that day. I even remember when I used to work in the corporate environment; people say damn, I had a bad client/ customer today, so my whole day is ruined.  We don’t remember to realise the inevitability of that moment and just let go of that thought and come to reality. How stupid are we?  Am I telling you not to take any action?  Not at all, you have to plan and prepare and do things. What I’m pointing out here is that how stupid are we if we are trying to go back and change something that already happened?  We need to realise the inevitability of the past and do the things which is in our control. We can definitely learn from our past, but cannot go back and change that particular event. However we can take responsibility and change the things for the future.

When we start looking at ourselves and the way we are carrying on with our life, we have been always longing for something more. Sometimes we are not sure what that is, so we put a name tag on it and call it “goal, passion, interest, greed, achievement… etc”. What we want with our life is conditioned and programmed in our unconscious mind based on our culture, upbringing, environment, medias, friends and what we learnt from our past experiences. However, when we achieve what we’ve desired we are still not happy. Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev says “even if you become a King/ Queen of this whole world you will still long for something more than what you already have or try to become more than what you are now”.

As we grew up, we think that when we finish our high school we will be happy.  When we finish it, we realised that’s not it, we have to go to university and/or find a job. We again tell ourselves when we find a job I’ll be happy then when we find a job we tell ourselves if I find a girl/ guy I’ll be happy. Then we find someone, we are still not happy after few months/ years we start to wonder is he/she’s the right one and then tell ourselves if I only build a house I can be happy. We have a beautiful house, may be we even buy two or three more houses and we are still not happy. We tell ourselves, may be I missed on having fun and I have to go out and enjoy my life and catch up with my friends so we go clubbing or hang out with friends a lot because we don’t want to miss out on anything, for a short while it feels good, and then when we go home we feel lost, lonely and sometimes even feel depressed. Some people think well, I have to get away from all this stressful life and travel and see all the beautiful places and feel the need to have time and pamper myself.  But after coming back, the reality hits them and when they really sit down and think about it, it was an escape in the first place (cannot generalise everyone). It was like dealing with the side affects and putting patches rather than working with the root cause of the problem and getting rid of it. For most people next step is to take drugs or/and alcohol because they have done everything that they knew that will give them happiness so they start drinking and/ or using drugs.  It puts you in a loop hole of depression and unawareness, in a very dark place. So for most people life goes something similar to this. Life goes on like this without really experiencing the real nature of “YOU”.  I’m not discussing about whether it is right or wrong. I’m simply discussing about what most of us do and how it is connected to our happiness.

I’m sure what I wrote here may push some buttons. If it is getting pushed, it is good, we have to stir it before throw it out; so I want you to ask yourselves why am I getting pushed or feeling uncomfortable with it?

So, who are you?  What do you really want?

To me, trying to be happy by external events, people, and wealth are like having a shower every time you feel thirsty. It will cool you down for a bit but it won’t quench your thirst. In a long-run it can be dangerous for you. But this is what most people are trying to do, and believing because everybody’s doing it so they have to do it as well - just to fit in.

One of my recent realisations was finding out what I really want for myself.  What you really want for you is for you to find out. To start, you can ask with the question, “Who am I?” It is not about finding out theoretically but actually experiencing it.  You want to take responsibility for your own life or just keep on adding more and more and still going to feel empty? I guess you want to take responsibility. Don’t you?

I want to stop here and if any questions or comments I’m happy to answer it. So you get something out of it rather than I tell you how to be happy. Usually, depending on the situation, if someone ask me for help I ask them are you expecting me to console you, give you solution, or simply just talk about it?  I don’t believe in any of these. I can certainly guide a person towards where they want to go; so they can always empower themselves and use the tools. Nobody can do anything for you unless you feel the NEED to do something about your own life.

If I say something you can either choose to belief or disbelief it. If you belief it, it won’t really make much difference and you carrying on with your life believing that you know. But unless you put it into action and “experience” it as a truth for yourself you won’t really know it. If you disbelief what I say, it won’t do anything for you either. You just closed the door to even check if there’s anything more to you and your life.  I don’t want you to belief or disbelief what I’m saying here. Just keep an open mind and consider what I wrote here.  That will guide you to the experiential truth if you want it.

Who's driving your bus?

“Nobody can hurt me without my permission”

Everyone wants to be happy and enjoy their life; however most of us rely on happiness from outside. We tend to blame the outside situations and other people for why our life is so miserable. Why is it the way it is?  If we take responsibility for what is happening in our life, then everything changes over night. When we rely on external events and other people we give our power away to someone else or some events.  Then if it doesn’t go according to how we want it we then blame others as well.  The question is who’s driving your bus?  

You may ask me so how about those who intentionally hurt me, how about those rapists, murderers and all others who commit crimes against humanity.  I’m not denying these things are not happening. These challenges are going to be always there around you. However, when you realise consciously or unconsciously you’re responsible for your life you will stop blaming others and start looking within yourself for solutions. It is not to beat yourselves up or anything, but to get your power back. Realising I’m responsible for everything happening to me and around me gives the power. 

Some of my client’s and friends say that they already know all these and it didn’t work for them. So I usually catch them when they react to things or behave in a certain way, some people don’t like it and they feel confronted and some people just laugh at themselves for doing what they did and correct themselves.  When they react, it shows that they are not practicing what they’ve learnt, and it was just something that they learnt and it is just there as an old file in their memory. Some people think they know it and they have done it all but they don’t really apply it in their life or practice it, which shows that you don’t really know it.

I allowed myself to be used, and/or I allowed myself to be in a certain situation in my life that created lots of problem in my life. I choose to be there either consciously or unconsciously. I knew this theoretically for a long time; however when I really started living this way my whole life changed. There’s only happiness and bliss.  Some people even ask me if I’m drunk when I’m out or in a party when I haven’t even touched any alcohol or anything. I just laugh even more, and some of my friends even say you had enough, you have to drive, so drink some water now... hahaha.

You may ask me, don’t you react? Don’t you get angry? Don’t you feel this or that...? I don’t like to give my power to anyone to control my life. I don’t allow anyone else to decide how I should be feeling. Sometimes, I may have some sudden reactions; however it only last for few minutes or seconds.  It used to ruin my life for days or/and even weeks before. Certain things happened in my life ruined my daily life for years. Nowadays I don’t give the privilege to anyone to make me feel angry or sad or anything less than what I am.  That came with awareness of who I am and lots of practices.

Do you know that you can choose your own thoughts, reactions and emotions to pretty much everything? You don’t have to freak out, overreact or even react in a negative way. Perhaps not every time or instantly especially at the beginning when you start practicing this. Sometimes a knee-jerk reaction just goes off, or an old thought habit kicks in, but you’ll realise it and only last for few minutes or seconds and you’re back to taking responsibility for the way that you feel and behave towards any situations and life challenges.

As you realize that nobody outside of yourself can actually control how you feel you can start to incorporate this into your daily life and develop it as a habit. Thoughts become your behaviour and when you do it few times it becomes your habit and then it becomes your second nature. 

Aristotle says “we are what we repeatedly do, excellence, then not an act but a habit”.  When you learn to manage yourself in every possible way, it becomes easier for you to create the excellence in whatever area that you want.

Be the change you want to see in the world

 

"Be the change you want to see in the world”

 

If you change yourself, you’ll inspire your loved ones to change. If you change your loved ones, you will inspire your friends and others around them to change and the whole city and the whole country can be changed. You will change your world and its all starts with you. If you change your world, you change the way that you perceive things around you. Not only because you are now viewing your environment through new lenses of thoughts and emotions but also because the change within can allow you to tap into resources that you didn’t realise that you had before. When we are stuck in our old thinking pattern and self pity we won’t have any options but go in a loop of thought forms, and stuck in there.

The problem with changing your outer world without changing yourself is that you will still be you when you reach that change you have strived for. You will still have your downs, negativity, self-sabotaging tendencies, excessive self criticism, and all sorts of negative emotions including anger and sadness. So, first we have to focus on our negative emotions, and all the old baggage that we carry within us and get rid of them.

How can we do that? Well, most of us don’t want to even go into their emotions and analyse or do anything about it. We simply ignore it. Until we are pushed to the edge most of us don’t want to take responsibility for their own problems. It becomes much easier to blame others and carry on with our life with a victim mentality. Most of us carry on with our life like that; it only takes away the power from you and gives the power to someone else to control your emotions.  We can get rid of those negative emotions by going back and learning the lessons from those events, understanding and accepting we are all human and let go of the negative emotions and take the learning with you. 

You can also sit down and think about each and every emotion that you have and what are the causes of it?  Important part is, not to blame anyone (including you), if you blame others for the cause you will never move forward in your life and you will be stuck. But if you take responsibility and say, okay this happened now I can look at the events from my past and take the learning and let go of all the negative emotions. This will give you the power to be in charge of your own emotions and in charge of you.

Our ego likes to be tamed, and it uses our negative emotions as it’s’ lenses to see the world. Our ego wants attention and if we don’t practice character building, ego may grow more powerful. Your own ego is possessive of you, so it loves to divide things, to find enemies and to create separation it may start to try to create even more problems and conflicts in your life and world. And we then start to believe what we see is the only reality and start arguments and conflicts with others around.

Carl Jung says “Perception is Projection”. He was saying that our perception about things around us and the things that we see around us is only our Projection of us. We are projecting to the world what is within us. I belief that is something to think about and consider.

If we want to see a harmonious and peaceful world, then we must be the change that we want to see in the world.

You can read bit more about it on my previous blog post: http://aumcare.blogspot.com.au/2011/07/if-you-do-what-you-have-always-been.html

Stuttering Child and Parents

Recently one of my colleagues asked few of us if we have worked with any stutterers. It reminded me of the time when I worked with one of my friend’s daughter. So I thought I'll write it here.

My friends wanted their daughter to learn her mother tongue, so they didn’t speak to her in English until she went to Kindergarten. I’ll call this girl Jane. Just few months before they send Jane to kindergarten they taught her little bit of English. When she started to speak English she started to stutter.  

I found out that Jane was stuttering because her parents and grandparents were panicking about it and telling me how Jane started to stutter recently. Those words her parents used were all negative and they were pretty much saying there’s something wrong with her (Front of Jane). When I had the time alone with Jane, I asked her how come she’s speaking like that and she wasn’t speaking like that few weeks ago. Jane told me “because I’m a stutterer, that’s why I am speaking like that”. I was bit disappointed with her parents because how come this little girl knows that word without anyone telling her that she’s a stutterer. While Jane was trying to speak to me, both her parents were panicking and very anxious and said, “see Haran, she can’t talk… she can’t even say her name… ask her to say her name…”  I asked Jane to tell me her name; she said “J… j… j… j… jjjaa…. Jaaa…janeeeeeeee” and she was talking like that all the way. Her parents were telling me (front of Jane) that she may end up like this for ever and that is what the doctors are saying and she needs to go and see a specialist.

I stopped her parents and told them to stop panicking like that and talk front of her with all the negative information. I advised them that if they talk that way, it will plant negative belief and low self esteem (negative seeds) in Jane. However Jane’s parents were not listening to me. They told me “Haran, you don’t understand, she can’t speak…. She’s stuttering… she is a girl… and it is going to be really hard life for her... “. I stopped them again and said please don’t talk like that in front of her. 

Jane was sitting on my lap and telling me about her day. I asked Jane to talk like how she used to talk; Jane looked at me and said “I can’t talk like before… I’m a stutterer”.

At one point I thought I’ll try this particular NLP technique on Jane. I told Jane’s parents that I’ll work with her and see what happens. I did some NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) technique for few minutes with Jane and then asked her to tell me her name.  Jane told me “Jane” and she started to talk without any issues. I showed her parents how she was speaking without stuttering. 

Jane’s mother was panicking again and telling me… “No… no Haran… the doctor told me that she needs to see the specialist for this” I told them “She’s speaking perfectly now, what else you want and stop talking negative and belief that she’s perfectly healthy and speaking properly now”. However Jane’s parents wouldn’t listen, particularly Jane’s mother was just so negative about it. I told them, if they want to take Jane to the specialist they should go and test. However they must stop telling Jane or other’s (especially when Jane is around) any negative things about Jane.  When I left their place on that day, Jane was speaking perfectly. 

After few days I went there again and Jane was still doing great. After a week or so I went back there and Jane was stuttering again. I asked her mother and she said “Jane is seeing the specialist at the moment”. I worked with Jane again and she stopped stuttering and showed that to her mother again and she said “She needs to go to the specialist next week”. I told her it is good that she goes to the specialist; however she (mother) needs to speak to her daughter positively. When she started to speak without stuttering, she supposed to encourage Jane rather than saying “no…. no… no… she needs to see the doctor and thing that can discourage her and you need to believe in Jane first”. 

What I did was I reprogrammed Jane to belief in her and bring the skills from her past and use it now. However, children can be easily programmed because they don’t have the analytical faculty developed, therefore even though I have done some work on Jane, they can be easily reprogrammed. They don’t know what is right and what is wrong. Therefore it is very important that we use positive, encouraging and loving words when we are with children.

See, I’m not a medical doctor and none of my services are intend to replace the orthodox medicine.  If there’s any symptom of any issues/ illness I’d suggest you to see a Medical doctor. What I’m trying to say here is that I met so many people who are very negative towards their children and their life in general. Don’t tell your children they can’t do something. Always encourage them and use positive words. If they are not doing well at school, what can you do? Rather than teasing them or making fun of them or even punishing them; teach them that you are there for them and make it easier for them to talk to you so you can find out what you can do to assist them. If you tease them or tell them they are dumb; it only creates low self esteem in them.

Any of you had any friends so negative with their children? What do you think?