If a caregiver isn’t always present for a child, the latter can possibly develop an anxious attachment style. In this case, as an adult, the person may think that it’s important to cling to others for dear life or else, the person will lose the people around himself/herself. The following podcast goes over this aspect. https://www.spreaker.com/episode/21214106
Much love,
Geerish.
Our own Insecurities as adults can potentially be traced from early childhood. It can go as far as the time when our primary caregiver, most of the time, our parents had to be there for us.
In this podcast, we explore how the absence of our primary caregiver forms the belief that people will never be there for us. As adults, this gets deeply into our psyche and we end up not trusting people and thinking that people do not care and it’s not worth trusting them. Hence, we sabotage our relations and happiness in this way.
https://www.spreaker.com/episode/21182856
Much love,
Geerish.
https://www.spreaker.com/episode/21360642
Fear prevents us from reaching our full potential. In the previous series of podcasts, we traced back the fear from early childhood experiences and also explored the effects of PTSD in creating a fearful persona. In this podcast, we explore the most common fears experienced by us and we explain a great technique called Aware which will help you to overcome fear when you experience it. I hope that you find the information very useful.
Lots of love,
Geerish.
The 9 purifying breaths
The 9 purifying breaths is an ancient Tibetan breathing method which focuses on the release of anger, attachment and inner insecurities. As the right action is one of the pillars of the eightfold path in Buddhism, this practice is essential if one wants to adhere to the eightfold path.
How do we practice it?
Please find a video below where I explain how it’s done.
Lots of love,
Geerish.
The podcast talks about what it is like to live with PTSD and constantly believe that something bad may happen. It also talks about coping skills one can develop to get out of the vulnerable state.
Listen to “Self Sabotage series: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder” on Spreaker.
Much love,
Geerish.
Is the obvious statement true?
We have all heard the famous line that “you need to breathe deeply when you are feeling stressed”. However, how much of it is actually true? I have heard from different people that when they practice deep breathing, the practice just makes them feel more anxious. What if we are doing it wrong? What if the wrong knowledge was passed on from generation to generation? To explain how breathing affects the nervous system, I will need to refer to the nervous system.
Let’s look at the facts
The Automatic nervous system (ANS) consists of the Parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) and the Sympathetic nervous system (SNS). The SNS is associated with the fight or flight response and is triggered by inhalation. The PNS is linked to exhalation and the PNS is associated to calmness and relaxation. Therefore, the flight and fight response is activated by inhalation and if someone is panicking and the person breathes quickly and deeply, the person’s health will deteriorate as the body will go into the hyperventilation mode. Thus, we should be very careful about the whole concept of deep breathing.
What’s the solution?
The solution is to activate the PNS by exhalation while bringing enough oxygen to the body by inhalation. Thus, our exhalation should be longer than our inhalation so that the PNS is activated and not the SNS. There exists a procedure which I will describe below:
Repeat this cycle three times or till you feel completely relaxed
In the YouTube video below, I demonstrate the breathing technique and talk about the whole process again.
I hope that you find the article helpful.
Much love,
Geerish.
Who’s the inner critic and why talk about it?
The inner critic is a part of you who is always active and influences your life without you paying attention to it. It’s a sort of villain which doubts your actions, creates guilt and sabotages your full potential and your next great life. This is why it is so important to talk about it. As we go over the exercise below, you are going to feel uncomfortable at times but trust me, the house needs to be washed and we are going to do it together. Don’t worry about it and hold my hand while we ride the storm.
The moment of truth/The exercise
I am going to ask you to do an exercise now. You will need a sheet of paper, a pencil and a lot of courage to actually get it done. Draw yourself in the middle of the page. It doesn’t need to be an accurate representation of yourself. It can be an avatar of yourself or a cartoon like version of yourself. From your drawing, draw 6 thought bubbles coming out of it. In these bubbles, you are going to write down all the negative thoughts that you tell yourself every day or have been telling yourself for a long time.
Possible Categories of thoughts
Since it can be actually hard to do it alone, I am going to give you some categories and possible negative thoughts from these categories. Please take the ones which you can relate to and modify them as per the emotions you feel as you read them. My advice is to actually do it with all your heart and let some tears, anger or frustration come out. It’s all part of the process.
Most common negative thoughts
Time related
There isn’t enough time
Life moves so fast that I can’t keep up
Life is frantic and uncontrollable
I have too much to do
Critical thoughts about myself
I am totally inadequate
I should be more smart, attractive, successful or rich
I am not worthy of success in life
I should be more like that person in my life
Thoughts about the world
The world is an awful place
The world is brutal and uncaring
People are the worst and cannot be trusted
There is no place for kindness in this world
No one can be trusted in this world
No one cares or loves me
I give myself too much and never get the love back
Thoughts about my actions and past
I am a failure
I didn’t achieve and I am pathetic
I should have listened to my wife/husband/parents/boss/friends and not do this
Thoughts about lack of purpose
I don’t know what I am doing
Where am I going with my life?
I feel like I am getting nowhere
What’s the point of doing anything? Nothing is fair anyway.
Interpreting others’ love and appreciation
No one loves me or cares for me
My partner/family member/friend is thoughtless and inconsiderate
I am so lonely
I will never find real love
Nobody cares about me
My life has no purpose
I don’t exist to people
The outcome
After that you have done this exercise, you may well realize how much junk you keep telling yourself the whole day. Our experiences are shaped by our thoughts and your current life actually represents the thoughts you are having right now or is a result of your past thoughts. Now, all thoughts shouldn’t be replaced by sugar coated ones because this make us deluded. However, your thoughts shouldn’t put you in victim mode as well. The truth is that if you believe deep inside you, that people use you to their advantage, That is the kind of people you will attract in your life. If you take full responsibility of your success or failure and take action, you will be surprised by how powerful you will feel and you will be struck by the kind of people who will enter your life.
What to do next?
You draw yourself again on a fresh page now and write down the kind of thoughts you will tell yourself so that you live a life you really want to live. If the thoughts are completely trash, change them completely. However, if some have some truth to them, you may rephrase them. For example, “no one loves me” can be thrown away while “I have too much to do” can be phrased as “I am going to prioritize my heavy workload so that I do things which actually produce results”. My friend, you have so much potential. Trust me. Don’t grow old and be regretful about the past. Take action now.
Lots of love,
Geerish.
A process for motivating you to take action
As human beings, we are motivated to take actions if the result is going to make a major positive difference to ourselves. We also take actions when we scared that not taking action will put us in a very bad position. Hence, both positive and negative outcomes can be amazing triggers. In the exercise below, we will use these two triggers to push ourselves to take actions.
So Let’s do this amazing exercise together.
Stage 1: Think of a time in the past when you were scared to take action and you took action and the end result was amazing. Feel the emotions again. Possible examples are major events like having a child, learning to drive or starting a new business. Awaken the inner hero in you. We have all achieved great things in the past and reliving them can be an energy booster to motivate us again.
Stage 2: Think about something you need to do. Write it down. Think about three best possible outcomes if you took action. Write them down. Feel the outcomes. How awesome you’d feel if you really met your goals, Isn’t it? Let these emotions become a part of you and make you want the goal you have set more and more. You really want to feel these emotions and you are going to do everything to get them.
Stage 3: Think about the 3 worst things that can happen if you don’t take action. Feel those outcomes again. You really don’t want to live those. Don’t you? Therefore, you need to take action so that you don’t have to live through those.
If you want an audio file for the same exercise, you can play my podcast on the link below. You can also subscribe for latest podcasts for no cost at all.
Much love,
Geerish.
We are all set goals. Don’t we? Do we meet them though? As per the University of Scranton, 92 % of people who set goals do not actually achieve them. Why? I have a new set of questions to make you think a bit.
Do we feel empowered by the goals? Do we know how to get there? Do we really need these goals? Are we driven to get them? Do we believe deep down that we deserve them?
I will do my very best to extract all the wisdom I have got to prepare something for you because I really want you to succeed and live a life you don’t regret. Everything we will discuss should be viewed more as a process rather than a quick way of fixing things. People nowadays want quick solutions rather than a solid way to build their lives. For example, all these fancy energy bars, energy drinks and cereal bars instead to eating a very well balanced meal. If you want something, you have to work for it, sweat if off, bite the dust, learn and grow. That’s how it has always been and will continue to be. As from now, you either read it, philosophize it, take no action and continue playing the blame game or you hold my hand, let all these things sink in, draft your plans and take actions to make things happen so that you awaken your highest potential, the hero you are and who I want to see.
What are goals and how to create higher level ones?
Goals are meant to inspire. They should be something that make you jump out of your bed, something that makes you want to go to work even in your worst physical and mental state. It should be something that will make you go through your worst day at the office, your business or your personal life. It’s something that acts as an anchor, something that makes you feel more than a man or a woman. Something that will make you feel unbreakable, unshakeable and beyond definition. Become something that people freak out when they cross your path because you are so pumped by your goals.
I will now go through examples so that I can explain my points and show you what I consider low quality and high quality goals.
Example 1- My goal is to get a decent job, earn enough to pay the bills and retire peacefully.
This is very standard and lacks the drive to make you go through the bad days. It has a limited mindset and doesn’t encourage one to get out of the comfort zone, take risks and grow. You may be having all the titles at work, the money and the fame, but if you are not growing as a human, you are dead. People equate money, fame and social status to happiness but I know a lot of people who are rich with a heavy bank account but miserable. True wealth is actually genuine happiness. If you are genuinely happy, you are winning the game my friend. For example, Robin Williams had all the fame, money and love but was depressed. Whitney Houston had all the fame and success but was miserable again.
Example 2- My goal is to have the courage to get through the lousy job I have.
No matter how bad your current job or private life is, if you have a negative mindset and just complain, you are already losing the game and letting others control you. Change the mindset to “ I have a challenging job and it makes me better every day”. It’s the same situation but a different mindset is being used. Make sure you are in control and your thoughts will dictate your life. Ensure you have thoughts which empower you. If people want to judge you, let them do so. If people want to hate you, let them do so. Why does it matter to you? Do you need a pat on the back? Why expect a pat on the back? Forget about people. They don’t know you as you know you. Why care? Keep your intent pure, sharp and work. Let them dwell in their own nonsense. People want to be entertained and judge rather than grow. Dont be one of them, If you are reading this, I know you are not one of them.
So what’s a high level goal?
Let me share mine:
My goal is to be confident, passionate and work to the best of my abilities and be the best version of myself. I want to live a life I don’t regret when I grow old and make a real difference in people’s lives by uplifting them selflessly.
This is the goal that drives me every day, guides my actions, gets me through the bad days when people beat me down or backstab me. It’s what keeps me going and will drive the rest of my live. It gives me chills up and down my spine and make me feel like a superhero.
In my head, I am the richest man in the world. I teach what I love, have people who actually love me more than I love myself, have the best friends, family and students. I actually think of them more than I think about me and it makes me feel so empowered. As I am pouring my heart in this article, i am currently wanting you all to win, get all you want and succeed more and more and more. Life has a higher purpose and becomes so magical. Hence, do set them well as they will guide the quality of life you will be having.
Let’s set some goals together
I recently ran a workshop on setting personal development goals and I will give you some pointers and show you how I broke down mine so that it has a purpose and emotion to it and it really drives me every day.
Some pointers for setting personal development goals are as follows:
Consider character traits, attitudes, skills, what do you want to master? What do you want to accomplish?
How do you want to grow as a human being, spiritually, as a husband, wife, boss or employee?
Traits you’d like to develop can be courage, honesty, responsibility, drive, determination, compassion, understanding, patience, courage and loyalty.
Procedure: Once we have set a goal, you need to know why you want that goal. There’s a process called the 7-layer exercise or the journey from the mind to the heart in which you are able to connect the goal set to your core being and experience the emotion linked to the goal. In the process, you set the goal and ask why it’s important. Once you answer, you ask why again. You repeat this 7 times till the purpose comes up and you are now in your heart. My secret is that I keep that emotion alive daily so that I make a difference every day. Here we go.
Goal: I want to be confident and passionate.
Why? I want to be working to the best of my abilities
Why? I want to live a life without regret
Why? I want to be the best version of myself
Why? I want to prove myself
Why? I want to be appreciated
Why? I want to be loved
Why? I want to feel I exist
When I actually wrote that down, my hands shook and my heart melted. When I actually taught it and gave this example to my lovely students, a few tears rolled down my cheeks too. This is the power of goal setting when done with your heart, your soul and with full conviction. Once you really set the goal and know the purpose, there’s really no stopping you and doors will open up, you will meet people, you will get all that you need without asking. All the universe asks from you is that you know your purpose and you do your very best.
Lots of love,
Geerish
Do you feel drained constantly, day in and day out? Is it becoming quite frequent now that you don’t want to get out of your bed to go to work? Do you feel like you are not going anywhere with your relationship, career, health or business? If all these questions seem to strike a chord deep inside your soul, I am probably asking the right ones.
We are always meeting requirements and getting stuff done. When we reach the end of our days, we are completely exhausted to look after ourselves. How do we get out of this pit? The problem lies here; we live our lives but we do not evaluate critical aspects of our lives and we perhaps do not ever ask ourselves what we really want in our lives. Maybe, we knew but we forgot as we continued coping with the chaos around us. At one point of my life, I knew teaching was the thing I had to do. I would teach for free because I felt alive while I did so. During my high school days, I would teach during break times and felt so happy to help people around. These were early signs that I would be an amazing teacher (not being cocky here folks) but you need to know your worth. You bloody need to in a society which tends to look only at your weaknesses but that’s another article.
What I do now is that every time I feel beaten up, I go back to what is really important to me. That stays my drive, the thing that can make me move during very hard days. It’s like focusing on the rope that will get you out of the waters when you are drowning. If you just focus on the threat of you drowning, you are already dead. You need to know what makes you tick as knowing it, you can devote all your energy to that goal and other things become not so important. When your goal isn’t clear, every minor thing that happen during the day will upset you and you will use emotional and mental energy on them. You need to find your highest purpose and invest totally in it. Trust me, nothing will be able to shake you if you do so.
Introspection exercise
1.
Find a quiet space and pour all you heart out with this exercise. Ask yourself what you don’t want in your life. This question can be linked to your career, health, private life, politics, the environment or any other thing that influences your life. Hence, what is it that you don’t want. I am pretty sure that the link will be very long.
This exercise helps us to understand that we don’t want a lot of things and spending time thinking about them is a waste of time.
2.
Now write down what you really want in your life. It’s not a negation of the previous statements in part 1. It would have been too easy if it was. It’s something that will liberate you. It’s beyond the trivial answers that you may give like better health, more money, more fame and so on. You see, each of us is born to accomplish something here and each of us has a special skill and agenda hidden deep inside of us. You need to find yours. What is it that thing that you want deep inside?
When I dug mine, I realized that I wanted to make a difference in the lives of people and all my actions in fact are guided by this. I would even go far by saying that I help people who try to cause the most damage to me as well.
3
Let’s evaluate some key aspects of our lives which need to be in harmony so that we are living happily. Hence, please spend some time writing down where you are in your life when you consider the following:
Love
Intimacy
Health
Career
Family
Be very honest while you write down where you are with each aspect as if this exercise is done well, it will be game changer for you.
Once you have those written down, start to make small changes starting with the one needing the most attention right now. No need to do a 360 degrees change in your life. Do small changes over the coming weeks so that you end up having a major shift in your life over a year. Review where you are every month so that you stay on your path to the new version of yourself.
It’s time for you to take action now.
Lots of love,
Geerish.
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