Coaching – Page 5 – A New Beginning

The Other Side of Sadness

Don’t cry when the sun is gone, because the tears won’t let you see the stars.
Violata Parra, Chilean folklorist, early 20th century.

Met Death last month.

I asked, “What brings you here?”
He said, “My job.”
“But don’t you think it’s a bit too early.”
“Well maybe, but who cares.”
“I do.”
“Who are you?”
“A wife, a mother.”
He curled his lip and sneered, “Is that all you are?”
“Uh…. Yes, that’s all I want to be.”
“I’ll give you a new identity.”
“And what is that?”
“…. A rebel.”
“But who do I rebel against? You?”
“Yes.”
“But I’ll never win.”
“Trust me, you’ll never lose either.”

And he left, his job done.

Facebook entry of a young wife recently widowed.

A close relative died young last month. He lost the war to leukemia, leaving behind a young wife and a five year old daughter. The daughter still goes around asking and searching for her Dad. She believes he has gone away on a long journey.

Having watched him through birth, childhood and adulthood, I find my own emotions swing between a connection severing anguish and a “out of mind, out of sight” normalcy. Sometimes when I see myself normalising thus, guilt returns in waves. Am I a betrayer, is my self-centeredness making me forget a loved one? Or could it be that as I reach out to others in my normalcy, I initiate my inner healing?

I read the Facebook entry again. Is there some coping mechanism here too? Is it a way to confront and face the very intimate and intense feelings the widow holds? Could this creative piece of writing be a vent through which she in fact is acknowledging Death?

My thoughts shift to that path breaking book, The Other Side of Sadness authored by George A. Bonanno. Dr. Bonanno refutes the widely held belief that a surviving family member needs to necessarily go through several stages of Denial, Anger, Bargaining and Hurt before he or she can reach the healing stage of Acceptance. The good doctor contends that the person in grief would in fact find a surprising inner storehouse of resiliency that would take him or her to the shores of Normalcy. He further maintains that “the natural sadness that actually follows a death is not a thick soup of tears and depression but a fluctuation that is nothing short of spectacular, the prevalence of joy during these times can in fact be striking.”

As I muse on Dr. Bonanno’s thesis, I begin to see that while there can be no common pathway through grief nor a pre-determined structure for the grieving process, we may indeed share common responses. The Facebook entry for the widow and my periods of normalcy could just be the catharsis the doctor has written about. With this thought my emotional pendulum swings again. I understand the need to acknowledge my present emotion of normalcy just as I feel the urge to shout out to my widowed relative.

“Feel what you feel without embarrassment. It’s okay to be angry, to yell, to cry. It’s equally okay to laugh, to find your joy and let go when you are ready.”
In learning……….. Shakti Ghosal

Acknowledgement: The Other Side of Sadness: What the new Science of Bereavement tells us about Life after Loss by George A. Bonanno Ph.D, September 2009.

Connecticut, Delhi and HO’OPONONO……..

What we feel and think and are is to a great extent determined by the state of our ductless glands and viscera. ~Aldous Huxley, English author, 20th century

Over the last month the media streams have remained clogged with two events. First,the horrific massacre of school children and teachers in Connecticut, USA. Second, the barbaric rape and “murder” of an Indian medical student in Delhi.

As part of an increasingly aware and connected society, we remain quick to rationalise into the underlying reasons and ascribe blame. The flickering screens become full with debates and sermons as questions and suggestions fly thick and fast.

• Why does the U.S. Government not take up with the National Rifle Association and amend the gun ownership laws?
• What makes the Indian police so insensitive and ill equipped to take care of women safety on the roads?
• If, as it now emerges, gunman Adam Lanza displayed worrisome and awkward behaviour, why did his mother not do something about it?
• What was the trigger for the gang of rapists to have conducted themselves in such a brutal and violent manner?

…and so on, the list goes on and on.

We may sit in judgement and hold holier than thou perceptions. As we take time out to show our solidarity with the cause and impatience and distrust with the ‘powers that be’. Or we may choose to get involved with our hearts, indulge in emotional outpourings and feel we are doing our bit. Either way we do not take responsibility for what happened.

But could it be that as we come across such evil and darkness in the world, there lies a seed of responsibility within us? When we accept the status quo of injustice on the plea that this is how it has been? When we prefer to remain an onlooker to a crime perpetrated on someone else? When we spend our energy to protect our own cocoon only? When we expect the Government and the police to follow standards of morality and behaviour higher than our own?

My thoughts flit to Joe Vitale and his book “Zero Limits”. About therapist Dr.Hew Len and his handling of a ward of criminally insane patients. Dr. Len never saw patients but only reviewed their files. As he looked at the files, he would work on himself by repeating the following universal mantras.
• I am sorry.
• Please forgive me.
• I thank you
• I love you.

And as he worked and improved himself, the patients started to improve and heal!

Dr. Hew Len was following the concept of HO’OPONONO, a Hawaiian word dealing with “extreme responsibility” which requires the person to take total responsibility of his life including all people and situations coming into it. A ‘tough to swallow’ and bizarre concept on first sight!

But as I muse on the need to take responsibility of anything that shows up in our life, absolutely everything, I start seeing a continuum. Between extreme responsibility and that of reconciliation and forgiveness. I also come face to face with my Karma in that I must be willing to experience myself what I have allowed to happen to others, either by my inaction or inability.

And today in this new millennium, as we sit on the explosive powder keg of increasing disparity, isolation of the ‘left behinds’ in fast changing societies and values and technology driven, rapid creation of awareness and beliefs, could HO’OPONONO show us the way forward?

In learning……… Shakti Ghosal

Acknowledgement: Zero Limits: The Secret Hawaiian System for Wealth, Health, Peace, and More by Joe Vitale & Ihaleakala Hew Len, Dec. 2008.

Success…… Vision or Delusion?

“When your life flashes before your eyes, make sure you’ve got plenty to watch, be it vision or delusion.”

Anonymous

Success is such an empowering word. We think of it and we think of…. Happiness….Self esteem….Superiority….. facets which enthuse, inspire, pump the adrenalin. Success seems to be what we live for. What our parents and teachers always exhorted us to do. Scholastically, materialistically, competitively. Success brings forth visions of wealth, power, intelligence and with these the ability to control the outcome of events. All those external trappings. What the world judges us by.

But as I think of success, I also see within it the other paradigm. Of increased self awareness and self development. Of a positive intention and an alignment with a higher purpose. Of that mysterious inner process which ensures personal integrity and a commitment to values. The aspect of success as exemplified by Mahatma Gandhi when he said, “I must first be the change that I want to see in the world.” Success thus gets linked, not to the external world, but to an inner compass, an inside out initiative.

Which brings me to Vision and Delusion, those two aspects of our mind. We are conditioned to see these as the Good and the Bad on the same spectrum. We see great positivity in Vision but perceive delusion as something to be shed. So as vision becomes that which drives, delusion is that which keeps us lazy. Vision has logic and reasoning supporting it while delusion is immersed in randomness. If we go by this perception, we tend to associate Success with vision and not with delusion. But is this association valid?

My daughter has this linkage to success. She needs to wear an old watch with a jaded pink band whenever she is writing examinations. She remains convinced that wearing this watch has something to do with her succeeding. The thinking is, “I wore this watch. I succeeded. My success is because I wore the watch.” The watch deludes her into self confidence and purpose; its absence leads to nervousness and lack of focus.

A work colleague of mine has this high belief in his own capability. Every time he jumps into a fresh project, he deludes himself to over-estimate his own contribution and gives no credence to the positive role of other people or circumstances. So while he gets accoladed as an achiever, I notice him getting increasingly delusional from the success. Do I see shades of Hitler and Saddam Hussein who, in their time, were similarly deluded about their own great power and ability to control events?

Coming to my own self, I can see the several beliefs that have contributed to what success I have seen. Beliefs pertaining to people, situations and work. The other day, when a business associate was proposing a new process, I noticed an instinctive resistance building up within me. I heard myself countering that our prevailing processes brought success in the past so why change. Later when I thought about my negative reaction, I wondered if I had got trapped in my own success delusion, refusing to move with change.

The above provide glimpses of how success gets linked to the outside. But what about success that comes from within?

When we look inwards for that inner success, I believe this requires a balance between mental, emotional and spiritual dimensions. Success here gets closely aligned to our core values. It is this alignment which allows a clear vision of the future. Of innovative action and a sense of direction. Mahatma Gandhi had such a vision when he undertook the novel path of non-violence to gain India its independence from its colonial masters. Decades later, this also became the power of Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech.

So I come back to the question, “What does success mean to us, a vision or a delusion?”

I believe true success would need to embody both external and inner facets of our existence. Which would mean that both delusion and vision would play a role. If delusion panders to our emotions, makes us feel optimistic and helps us to aim higher, vision allows us to dream the future and inspires action with imagination and insight. So as our success remains a product of both sides of the Vision- Delusion polarity, the kind of success each one of us achieves depends on the mix of vision and delusion we have created within ourselves.

Could this be the reason for the thin line we often notice between a visionary and a delusionary? Could this have been the reason for the visionary brilliance of Nobel laureate John Nash as he grappled with his schizophrenic delusions, so eloquently portrayed in the film Beautiful Mind?

My Bad is stronger than my Good.

“I’m an accumulation of every single thing I’ve done, good and bad.”

David Millar, Scottish Road racing cyclist champion

Morals preach at me, “Love thy neighbour…… Do Good unto others…” I stand brainwashed to believe that Paradise beckons as I align my thoughts and actions to the goodness of my values.

Millennia of Religion and philosophy have depicted human life as that eternal conflict between the Good and Bad. The Goodness of Creation and Harmony ranged against the Badness of Destruction and Chaos. As I look down from the metaphysical level, I recall ‘Good’ and ‘Bad’ amongst the earliest words I learnt as a child. All my fairy tales and comic books dealt with the likes of Krishna vs. Kanksh, Superman vs. Lex Lothar et al. I go through life and see my ‘Bad ‘instincts of jealousy and fear battle against the ‘Good’ strivings of my intentions and fulfillment.

I surf the news channels and notice how much thoroughly ‘Bad’ and negative information is investigated and followed through as compared to ‘Good’ and positive developments. Almost as if we are waiting to imbibe and carry away all the bad impressions and stereotypes. Could it be that we get attracted and these are quicker to form within us?

My colleague wins a lottery and feels elated. The euphoria however scarcely lasts for a couple of days and I can sense that the feel good level quickly returns to what it had been before the lottery win. The same person however gets into a prolonged bout of unhappiness and blame game when he incurs a loss in the stock market, a fraction of what he had won.

I remain witness to how a loving relationship between my friend and his spouse so easily degenerates into a break-up from a single anger-driven destructive action. Several positive overtures and communications fail to heal the rupture.

As I drive on the crowded roads, I become enraged from a single case of rash driving. As I leave the scene fuming, I scarcely notice the multitude of folks who give way and allow me to pass. My emotions can scarcely be quelled, be it by such good behaviour or kindness. The ‘bad’ memory remains vivid and I continue to rant about it on the dinner table, hours later.

As I go through life, do I see a Bad Good asymmetry? A negative bias towards Bad. Be it in the reports in media and in everyday events as above…

I look inwards and sense that I too am more motivated to avoid bad self perceptions than to pursue good ones. I muse and wonder why this is so. Could this be because ‘Bad’ signals that I need to change? And does my ‘Bad’ intuitively push me to adapt and change myself in line with a situation or environment? So does ‘Bad’ condition me to become more flexible and adaptive to an ever-changing world? Is this why my Bad is stronger and thus more relevant than my Good?

What is out of harmony and how do I restore it?

But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads?

Albert Camus, French philosopher, early 20^th century

Harmony. The word itself brings forth visions that soothe and caress. Of wafting melodies. Of the gurgling of a mountain spring. Of the swaying of flowers in the wind. Of a synchronicity of notes and music.

What is my harmony? It is intrinsic to who I am. What I feel, what I think, what I say and what I do. It is a ballet of all these aspects of mine. When I am in harmony, these pieces fit and the alignment between my inner and outer self comes into being.

As I reflect on ‘What is out of harmony and how do I restore it?’ I realise this holds the power to set the ultimate goal for my inner self. As I try to align my inner self with my outer behaviour into a harmonic resonance.

Am I in harmony? I shine the light of this question inwards and seek. Where is the disconnect in the way I feel, think, speak or behave? Yes, at times I do feel out of sorts- frustrated or confused. At other times I feel upset or overwhelmed. I see this happening mostly in my relationships- at work, at home or amongst friends. I see the disharmony between what I feel and think and the way I am conditioned to act and speak. These are clearly not on the same page. I notice that what comes in the way is my ego. That ego which is always putting up a façade and trying to project a different image of “ME- SELF” than what I really am inside.

But my ego has its usefulness. It creates a resistance, sometimes aggressive, sometimes passive, sometimes positive and at other times negative to any perceived attack on my self. And I do find this resistance gives me stability. Stability about “Who I am”, “Who I want to be.” And at other times “Who I do not want to be.” As I further think of this, I realise that I am also offering some kind of stability to the attacker as he tries to push, pull or grab some aspect of me. The attacker expects and needs my resistance for his attack to work. I seek to be part of the conflict and this makes me feel emotionally powerful. I justify to myself that I need to maintain my ego because otherwise the attacker would see the weak real me.

I time travel into the nineties. Fresh into a new job, I was having an awful time with this guy from the corporate office. I felt powerless in front of his overbearing and bossy attitude. An attitude which made me feel like a scapegoat every time we interacted. Then one day the volcano burst- an outburst from the usual reticent me. And it was too late to pick up the pieces. Years later, I came to realise that the corporate guy had similar qualities to a school teacher in my childhood. This teacher used to bruise my confidence (ego) by always judging and criticising me in a discriminatory manner. My reaction in the workplace came from the perception that my ego faced a similar hurtful situation. I had played the script of offering resistance to my attacker to perfection.

But does my past justify how I need to react in the future? Or is this my excuse to maintain disharmony in my life?

What thoughts and beliefs do I engage in that create disharmony in my life?
Does disharmony in me cause conflict with others at work, at home or at play?
Do I tend to blame others for my disharmony?
What if I let my ego down? What could happen?
What if the other guy sees the real me?

As I ask myself these questions, I start gaining clarity. I see them as issues to be dealt with rather than excuses.

I realise that to restore my harmony, I would need to offer no resistance, or as little as possible, to attacks on my ego. This is initially a frightening prospect with my deep rooted fear of getting hurt taking control over me. But I delve deeper…..

When the other person decides to attack me / my ego, he is breaking the harmony of our joint universe. If I choose to offer no resistance, I move to a place of harmony as I leave my attacker out of harmony in his relationship with our universe. I believe that as he is left alone without any resistance from me to give him stability, nature would restore harmony in him. Without my ego for him to attack, he would have to stop.

I see now that harmony empowers the highest level of Self Management in me. As it supports me to act from a place of integrity; a place where there is no fakeness or self-deception. Harmony allows me to be at peace within my own skin. But I also notice that to achieve harmony, I need to begin with my values. What’s really, really important to me?

Ultimately, to answer the question, “What is out of harmony and how do I restore it?” I need to first answer, “Am I living my values?”

In learning…………….. Shakti Ghosal

What if……..

If thought is the fabric from which reality is made, then faith and intention become the mechanisms by which we focus and project thought.

– Anonymous

What if we were spirits, balls of energy? What if prior to being born, we could choose the Men and Women who would conceive us and help us with our values and beliefs? What if we could meet up with all the other spirits who would also be born to play enabling roles in our future life? What if we could choose our destiny?

What if…..

Grounded back to our reality, we see “What if….” as the yearnings of a meandering soul. Or a delusionary dream that needs to be closeted in the attics of our minds. But what if we did carry a master blueprint containing all our yearnings somewhere in our DNAs? Or what if the dream did have moorings in our wakefulness?

I see two pathways. One arising out of faith and the other from our intention. Which path to follow becomes our choice.

Our faith leads us to the realms of spirituality .We conjecture that situations do not happen randomly nor people come into our lives by chance. As we move through this maze of situations and people, we can choose to see our life journey as a blueprint ordained by a higher purpose. With this choice comes the realisation that the reason we are here is to heal our beliefs, learn from them and not to master and forcibly change them. Such a perspective does allow us to make peace with areas of our life which we find confusing and out of control.

But were we to move on the pathway of intention, we can choose to see our life as something we create and are responsible for. This becomes the essence. As we step out with positive intentions to make a choice, we start understanding the underlying reasons why we fail to do so on many occasions.

I get reminded of that wonderful Arbinger Institute publication, “Leadership and Self Deception: Getting out of the box”. While the book focuses on leadership in the organisational context, its argument applies in our life situation too. The book states that people respond to “how we feel about them” and not because “how we treat them.” Let us halt here and absorb the import of what is being said. “Feeling inside” has far greater impact than “action outside.” The genuineness, or otherwise, of what our true feelings or thoughts are, seeps out irrespective how or what we show on the outside.

We “get into the box” as we allow our lives to be dominated by our insecurities and start projecting our failures on to others to try and protect ourselves from our own reality. This then becomes our strategy of self deception and “keeps us trapped inside the box”, away from the truth of our attitude towards others and its crippling impact on our relationships.

As an example, if you are in an abusive relationship, this could be due to your belief that you are unloved. If you believe you are unlovable, you will attract those ‘into the box” who can help you to demonstrate this belief because you have it, not because it is the truth. Abuse is one way that this belief can be played out.

But intention does allow us to choose to become the observer of our beliefs and changing them once they are no longer working for us. And as we change ourselves inside, what we attract on the outside also changes. And this becomes our pathway to move “out of the box.”

So, do we move on the faith path as we reconcile and make peace with our troubling beliefs and other aspects of life? Or do we follow our intentions as we face failure and turbulence in our efforts to implant new beliefs and a life change?

What if….. we could make this choice?

In Learning……… Shakti Ghosal

Acknowledgement:

* Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box – An Arbinger Institute publication, 2008.

The Transience of our Permanence

They say when you get a lover
You begin to lose a friend.
That the end of the beginning is the beginning of the end.
They say the moment that you’re born is when you start to die.
And the first time that we said hello began our last goodbye.

Roger Whittaker in The First Hello The Last Goodbye, 1976.

Have you wondered why most fairy tales end with the lines, “…..and then they lived happily ever after.”

Somewhere these words leave a warm feeling inside of permanence and stability. As we go through life, we like to moor ourselves to our family, our home and our possessions. We see permanence and derive comfort from the known just as we feel discomfort in transience and avoid the unknown.

But we are born and live through a world always in transience. And buffeted by the changes, we also keep changing. I remember the lines made famous by Bob Dylan in the sixties.

“Then you better start swimmin’ or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’.”

Yes, we better start swimming and we do swim. But we do this because we are somehow conditioned to maintain the permanence of our situation and not because we are conscious of “times they are a – changin’.” So while our rational mind does notice the kaleidoscopy of transience happening all round us including our own self, our emotional core tries to hold onto the solidity of our perceived permanence.

I wonder about this as I ask myself, “Why do we long for this permanence when we know we are in transience?” Does the answer lie in religion? For religion does seem to offer sedateness amidst the noise and striving surrounding us. Religion tells us that permanence lies in loving God and loving one another. But love is a feeling. So does religion signify permanence of our feelings as it speaks of the transience of our physical selves?

“That nothing walks with aimless feet;

That not one life shall be destroy’d,

Or cast as rubbish to the void

When God hath made the pile complete”

Lord Alfred Tennyson in “In Memoriam A.H.H.”

Throughout history, our quest for a stable mooring has created philosophies which have debated about human consciousness and its permanence. At the individual level, this has been termed as our “soul” and that oft asked question, “Does our soul persist when our bodies fall?” has remained unanswered. I believe the reason we hold onto this philosophy is because it helps us reconcile the dread of the ‘physical death’ transience of our bodies by hooking onto this faith in the permanence of our conscious ‘souls’.

Was it this obsession with permanence which made the Egyptian pharaohs build pyramids five millennia back? Is it the same mindset that makes us store photos, videos and momentoes even today? Almost as if we need to keep our memories hostage in the inanimate world to reassure us of our permanence. This attitude of permanence has led us to develop a ‘content storage’ mindset. When asked, we quip back, “I am in a hurry…… things are moving fast….. I would always come back to savour these memories later.”

So how do we reframe our perspective from this mere ‘content storage’ to a higher ‘content experience’ mindset? I believe we can do this as we focus on pure experiencing with less and less obsession with storing. We then move into a state of heightened mindfulness. Where we let go of permanence and immerse in the flows of transience.

I think again of this transience- permanence polarity and I start noticing symmetry.

As I get up in the morning and look out, I derive this intense comfort from the permanence of the palm trees surrounding the pool and the curved pathway moving away on both sides. This has remained changeless since many years. But looking out of the window, I also see a pair of pigeons nesting and laying eggs and delight at the transience of this.

A memory I have held dear and which offers a soothing balm during stressful times, is of me sitting on the banks of a clear running stream, my legs resting on an immersed stone. While the running water may be seen in transience around the permanence of the stone, for me it is the timeless rushing (permanence?) of the stream as it erodes the stone (transience?) into smoothness, that leads to a deep inner peace.

As I reflect, I realise that these symmetries of transience and permanence are the moments when I gain the expanded consciousness of my here and now.

Dream Barriers

“All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity; but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible.”

T. E. Lawrence, 1922

Have you had this kind of a dream? A dream about a friend sitting near a window at the corner coffee shop and reading a magazine article about YOU. What is he reading? In your dream, you do your best to look over his shoulders to see. But the harder you try and closer you get, the alphabets keep receding away. You never really are able to decipher as you try again and again. Always with no results. Have you woken up from such a dream…… with a sense of loss?

Dreams can be so compelling at times. Compelling and stuck at the same place. As Alice discovers in Through the Looking-Glass when the Red Queen tells her, “Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place.” So what is the purpose of dreams? Do we use dreams to compensate for the under-developed parts of our waking life personality, as Carl Jung had theorised? Or are dreams merely a safety valve of our mind seeking clarity on the way forward?

I recall the movie Inception which operated in a three layered “dream within a dream” sequence. And the reason for protagonist Cobb to set up this situation was because he needed to break successive dream barriers to access deeper levels of victim Fischer’s mind and implant a specific thought. Cobb knew that implanting the thought into Fischer’s mind would bring clarity of purpose and the desired action and results. Inception made me reflect further. What prevents an enabling thought from entering the mind under normal circumstances? And why is it necessary to go down into deeper levels of the mind?

Which brings us to the aspect of dream barriers. As we dream with open eyes, we may not “see” these barriers coming up, shaping our thoughts and actions.

Dream: If only I could get that CEO position.

Barrier: I am not successful and good enough. I would be exposed.

***

Dream: If only I could own that lovely villa on the beachside.

Barrier: I may not be able to afford it. Also I really do not deserve it.

***

Dream: If only I could handle my investment decisions wisely.

Barrier: I do not have any skills or resources in that area.

***

Dream: If only I could set up a successful business.

Barrier: I don’t believe it is possible so why bother.

***

Dream: If only I could give up my job and live the life of my dreams.

Barrier: What will my family and friends think of me?

***

Do we see that most of the barriers are internal, all about me? Do we see that it all boils down to my beliefs? And these beliefs have been developing inside me from the time I was born, lying below the surface. And today, they are at the core of who I am, my thoughts, attitudes and behaviours. So every time, I dream up some desire, my lurker friend, the underlying belief, rears up to push me in the opposite direction, negating my resolve and ensuring my dream does not come true.

I am reminded of a workshop in which the instructor asked, “How many believe that it is possible to follow our dreams?” Most participants said, “Yes.” But when asked, “How many of you believe that you can make your dreams come true?”, only one hand went up. Do we see the gap between possibility and probability? This is the extent to which our beliefs can queer the pitch.

We need to be willing to tackle our limiting beliefs. Remember, it is these beliefs that create our thoughts and then actions. So like in the Inception movie above, could the trick be to delve deeper to examine our beliefs, let them go and in their place, implant positive, enabling thoughts into our ‘dreams’? And, what happens when we start developing a positive belief and thought structure? We improve our self esteem. We reduce our fear of failure. We have more courage to take responsibility of our actions.

So can we become Lawrence’s dreamer willing to act our dream and make it possible? And can we envision our dream with such clarity that we can read what is written about us in that magazine of the future? Are we willing to live our dreams……. and our future?

In Learning………..

Happiness and the Theory of Relativity

“Learn to let go. That is the key to happiness.”

– Buddha

The other day, I chanced upon a report on the Happiness Index 2012 based on a global poll. What intrigued me were the results.

On the top of the heap, as the happiest, are folks from Indonesia,India and Mexico. An Indonesia repeatedly ravaged by earthquakes and tsunami. An India struggling with one of the highest malnourished young population. And a Mexico racked by drug cartels and violence.

And at the bottom of the rung with low happiness levels are countries with some of the highest human development indices viz.Germany, Japan, France and Italy. The results do seem to fly in the face of our belief that happiness is a function of wealth, quality of life, health, education etc. And if this be not so, what really are we looking for when we seek happiness?

I get down to finding out what happiness is all about. Is it that warm fuzzy feeling that we get inside when we feel pleasure? Is it the lightheadedness on achieving that long cherished goal and recognition? Is it the contentment of our current situation, be it our family, work or surroundings? Or could it be the exhilaration offered by our material possessions?

As I reflect, I realise that we carry this hugely relative view regarding happiness. On one end of the scale we see it closely linked to pleasure. And so we aggressively seek it, doing everything in our powers to possess it. On the other end of the scale, we try to achieve happiness through “high thinking simple living” moral posturing which denigrates pleasure as something shallow and non-spiritual.

I drill and probe into this relativity surrounding happiness.

My thoughts veer towards the age old fable of the Buddha and the young woman Kisagotami. The story goes that when Kisagotami’s first born dies, her desperate attempts to seek out medicine.to revive the infant takes her to Buddha. Buddha, hearing her pleadings, tells the woman, “To make the medicine, I would need a handful of mustard seeds from a house where no child, husband, parent or servant has died.” As Kisagotami goes on her quest, she realises that hers is not a unique predicament. She leaves the body of her child in the forest and returns. Buddha helps Kisagotami to “let go” of her perceived source of happiness- her child, to gain a higher view of happiness.

I see how I, like Kisagotami, instinctively position myself at the centre of my universe and hold on to all I have. So no matter what is happening out there, it comes down to how it will impact me. I notice this every time that inner voice complains, “Even though there is an economic downturn, why should I lose on my investments? Why does my child’s school not provide her the extra support? Why does it always happen to me?’ And so on…. I notice my self centric view and the need to hold on is really at the core of my perennial happiness hunting mission.

Me…. Mine….. Myself…..Acquire……. Protect.

Our instinctive happiness mantra. Words and thoughts close to our core. All contributing to our “me-first” perspective. Do we see the need to shift away and increase awareness of many other perspectives around us? As we make this shift, our “me first” point of reference loses ground. And this is when we enter into the world of relativity. Similar to what Einstein conceived a century back, this is a world where each of our reality is relative and all points of view subjective to the beholder. A world where the sheer act of noticing can change the outcome.

We cannot have happiness without unhappiness, pleasure without frustration. Just as we cannot have well being without catastrophe. All on a continuum, all relative to each other. As we shine the light of this realisation on our “narcissistic self”, we see the relativity of our self concept and its reactions like anger, anxiety, doubt and grief, conditioned as we are to hold onto them. As we do this, our sense of solidity of the “self” collapses into a realm of relativeness.

So we come back to the question, “What is happiness?” I believe it is an attitude floating in relativity. An attitude to accept pain and disappointment as part of pleasure. An attitude to move away from self obsession while being obsessed with our core values and commitments. An attitude to retain our faith as we face ridicule and hurt to that “me –first” self. An attitude to welcome the Good without being possessive along with the Bad without being disappointed. The attitude to “let go” when it no longer serves us.

Could it just be that such an attitude gets fostered in an environment full of uncertainty and challenge? An environment which simply does not allow us to seek refuge in our individualistic cocoons. An environment which allows us to “let go.”

Could it just be why the Happiness Index 2012 has thrown up the kind of results it has?

In Learning……… Shakti Ghosal

I AM…….

The words “I am” are potent words; be careful what you hitch them to. The thing you’re claiming has a way of reaching back and claiming you.

~A.L. Kitselman, American author, early 20^th Century

Some days back, on the seventieth Birthday of the iconic Mohammed Ali, I watched some of the old grainy footages of another time, another place. Of a newly crowned world heavyweight champion declaring, “I am the Greatest!” Did these words come from a space of vanity and arrogance? Of projecting a ‘bigger than life’ aura as a shield against racism and perceived injustice? Or was it simply to frighten and unnerve the opposition?

In my childhood, my parents and teachers told me, “Do not fall prey to self arrogance, be humble. Shun personal greed, be generous in giving, be of service.” And there were enough morals like ‘thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself’’ floating around to reinforce the belief in me that anything to do with ‘Me, mine, I am…etc” reeked of selfishness and a self serving attitude and thus needed to be hidden from view.

And as I have gone through life, I have had my share of successes. In areas of family, work, money. I have run these races and done better than many. And at times like these, as I have looked at the other faces, did I feel those twinges of guilt deep down? Was this the underlying belief rearing its head to derail me from further success?

It was only the other day that my moderator Leon led me to the TBOLITNFL website featuring “The Deuce Lutui Story”. This is a story of Coach Steve Hardison and his coaching relationship with footballer Deuce Lutui. TBOLITNFL means ‘The Best Offensive Linesman in the National Football League’ and this is what Deuce transforms into. Watching the site video is a moving experience and brings home the sheer power of ‘I AM….’

For Deuce Lutui ‘I AM….’ resonates with the infectious positivity of ‘Personal Internal Commitment.’ As Steve Hardison writes to Deuce in one of his E mails, “Your commitment is so profound and so deep and so powerful. I believe that if we took a blood sample right now and put your blood under a microscope and looked at the individual blood cells you would see letters floating in your blood cells. Do you know what letters you would see in the blood cells? These letters: TBOLITNFL :)”

I reflect.

‘I AM…’ is about ME. But does it only relate to my personal internal commitment? The ancient Vedas of India speak of Soham which means, “I AM…” Soham is a Universal mantra with its breath like vibrations creating a bridge between the individual’s senses, actions and his awareness. But at a more fundamental level, Soham also celebrates that deep underlying essence of Being. The Being that does not need to react, that just is and is part of the universal consciousness.

I see the connection.

“I AM…” is what I am committed to, what I am passionate about. It is about rewiring my long held beliefs, my internal sinews and muscles as I proclaim “I AM…” to the outside world. But my senses and actions come from the space of Being. “I AM…” therefore is neither my arrogance nor my selfishness. “I AM…” is no longer a zero sum game in which my wins are at the cost of someone else. I make the transformational leap allowing my personal commitments to be at peace with my values of humility, generosity and service to others. “I AM…” is my tryst with the universal consciousness.

I realise now that Mohammed Ali’s declaration so many decades back had more to do with his belief in himself and his personal internal commitment than the opposition or the outside world. AsLeonbeautifully sums it up, “Failure to commit to I AM… is high cost of low living”.

I am an inspirational leader of men.

I AM…..

I am a loving and positive minded husband and father.

I AM…..

I am the best CEO and Executive Coach for this age of discontinuity.

I AM…

“When you truly want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.”

Paulo Coelho ‘The Alchemist’, 1993

In learning……. Shakti Ghosal

Acknowledgement: http://www.tbolitnfl.com

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