It’s not too late to join us for our LIVE Intro Course of Live A Brighter Life.
Our next class is May 6th and we will be learning how to say “NO.”
You can learn all about the classes and sign up here.
Hope to see you next week!
Love & light,
Team ILF
I am writing this blog on the heels of just having left London.
I had been invited to speak at a United Way Roundtable conference.
My topic as noted in the agenda was: The Empowerment of Women and Girls
HOW does this happen to a woman who was abused as a child and young adult AND who comes from a devolving country which back then was called “third world?”
The answer is both simple and complicated.
The simple answer is “one tentative step at a time.”
The complicated answer is “it does not simply happen, it must be dreamed and planned and worked on and you must never take no for an answer.”
Then, of course, you will be intrigued and we will have a deeper conversation.
Every SINGLE time I accept and complete assignments such as this, I pinch myself to see if it’s really real!
Then I write lists of things that I am grateful for about the event.
I even remember to be grateful that I am grateful.
This event in London made me feel grateful for phases of my life that one usually forgets.
I remember the early abuse because it shows my unique qualification for speaking to an audience eager to more fully comprehend violence against women and girls.
I remember to thank my family for supporting my vision and mission.
This time, however, the post comments made me remember the graduate school years.The two years inside of my now 61 years that I usually gloss over.
“How,” asked one very accomplished Russian businessman, “did you get the audience to totally focus on you? On your words? How did you make us hang on your every word for 20 minutes? How did you make us laugh even as you are talking about violence and telling us firsthand horrific stories? Are you a professor? Can you teach me to speak like this?”
I smiled and told him that I used to teach speech a long time ago.
I had even forgotten that I used to teach speech.
I then realized that I had subconsciously brought all my talents to bear on those 20 minutes.
I spoke to that International audience (French and Russian and Spanish and Mexican and Bulgarian and Korean and Canadian and American and British and Irish) of CEOs and COOs and CMOs and Bankers and Managing Directors as if they were the last audience in the World!
I spoke to their hearts first, with a complying story, then their heads with relevant data and I closed with another compelling story.
I used my notes as a guide not as a script. I tried to remember to make eye contact with as many as I could engage and as I left the stage I continued to make eye contact because I was not done until the next speaker was introduced.
How you do anything is really how you do everything.
What care will you take with your next “small step” so you will be especially ready for a “bigger step?”
I always remind myself that there are no final steps, only another step along the path.
I will take this opportunity to remind you to use all your opportunities to hone your skill sets for the next slew of opportunities.
Then, when you ACE your challenge, you will be sure that it was all your hard work at all those unseen moments.
Go forth and conquer your challenges.
Love and light,
Indrani
What is the basis of this question? The basis of this question is approval or disapproval.
Will people disapprove of my actions?
What actions are we usually concerned about? Actions that involve what society will think?
Should you stay or leave an abusive situation?
Should you give up your whole life to take care of others?
Should you continuously loan money to people who waste it and come back for more?
When we base our decisions on “what others think”, we make decisions that put other people’s happiness before our own. Our happiness will come last. There will always be someone else who needs to be accommodated.
How then, do you take actions that are in your best interest?
You MUST know what those best interests are.
Be strong. Be brave.
Love and light,
Indrani
When animals get hurt, their wounds heal a little thicker and stronger.
Maybe that’s where the saying “thick-skinned” comes from.
This thickened flesh is called Proud Flesh.
Recently, I visited a shelter for women who had been burned by fire, and survived.
Their scars were visible and clear and it transformed them into people they did not recognize.
These transformations not only took place on the outside, with proud flesh, but also on the inside.
Some of them realized how precious their lives were.
They realized how much their children needed them, in ways they had not before the incident.
They found ways to fight through physical and emotional pain and to come out ahead.
One woman lifted up her arm to me and I thought she wanted to give me a high five. The therapist then told me she was showing me that she had regained control of her muscles and that meant she was a winner. I ran over and hugged her so tight, I may have squished her.
We were both giggling.
One of the stories stuck with me. One woman’s husband suspected her of infidelities that were all untrue. He wrapped his hands with a cloth soaked in gasoline, set them on fire and then he rushed and embraced his wife so they would both die. She managed to get away and her daughters are proud of her. She has healed and she is teaching her girls to be strong and fight back.
While at the shelter, the girls sang and danced for me and the mom, stood proudly on the side beaming with both her thickened skin and her thin skin that was not scorched. Her girls hugged her around her waist and one said to me “This is my mother.” The pride in them was palpable and the joy in her eyes could’ve lit up a whole city.
This woman has found a way to transcend her tragedy and focus instead on the love that still exists in her life.
When I think of my own life, I wonder at how I have overcome my hardships and am thrilled at the lessons I have gleaned from them.
One of my biggest gifts is Presence. The presence of mind to see, hear, taste and feel what is happening in the moment.
Recently, I had such an awakening. While steeped in the “tea” of the argument, I saw all the stuff around me. I noticed who was doing what, how they were responding, how I was responding and how I was processing the storm that was raging around me. I heard a soft voice say, “Save yourself” and I immediately stood up and left the toxic situation.
How could I hear that soft voice?
I could hear because I was listening. I was tuned into everything around me and NOT to defending myself.
There was no defense needed.
I was being accused.
I was put on trial.
I was convicted.
However, I remembered that I WAS NOT in a court of law. I was in my life. MY LIFE!
I choose to leave. I was already convicted, so what was the use of sticking around?
I offer the tool of Presence to you.
*******************
Try to stay in your own business.
How do you know if you are OUT of your business? The moment you ask, “Why is he/she acting/doing/behaving like…..”
These questions are a sure sign that you are trying to be in someone else’s head.
Devote your energy to questions like…
Why am I doing this?
Why do I want this? Or not want this.
What pattern can I see here that distresses me?
Do I really want to change that pattern?
Am I ready to suffer the emotional pain that I will feel when I attempt to change the entrenched patterns that are causing emotional turmoil?
***********************
Try to stay out of defense.
You know that you are defending yourself when your words just want to erupt. It feels like you cannot hold them back. Your mouth is controlling you, instead of you controlling your own mouth. You feel
that if you speak THIS ONE thing to THIS PERSON, then you will be vindicated.
Know this!
Both of you or a whole LOT of you are no longer in HEARING mode. Only mouths are working, and it is verbal diarrhea. You are puking and pooping all over each other AND you must leave the situation. If you
feel that you will be physically attacked if you try to leave, then you must call the authorities.
You are unsafe. You must get out.
Try to realize that NO AMOUNT of explaining can stop your accuser from
lambasting you.
*******************
Try to, as the soft voice said “Save yourself!”
How do you save yourself?
First, go to safety, a different room or house or city or country.
Only you can decide how far you must go to get away from the madness.
Then call a few trusted friends with whom you can weep and grieve.
Expect the pain to be severe and swift and expect to feel like you will die or at least drown.
It will also feel like you cannot breathe.
Yes, even breathing will take effort.
Your friends will remind you to breathe.
They will remind you about how wonderful you are.
You need SUPPORTIVE people.
Do not call people who will judge you or reprimand you.
Remember to treat yourself like a trusted friend.
Remember too, you must change to affect change.
Einstein said the definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome.
You must DO something different to GET something different.
Allow yourself time for healing.
Stay connected to you; stay present by not building cases against the other person and stop going over old scenarios of past hurts.
That is a waste of good energy.
Go for a walk.
Meditate.
Pray.
Give these techniques a try and let me know how they work for you.
Love and light,
Indrani
I had the GREAT fortune to attend the Omega Women and Power Conference last month.
The line-up was powerful enough make activists faint!
-Eve Ensler
-Isabel Allende
-Sally Fields
-Elizabeth Lesser- Co-founder of Omega
Elizabeth Lesser gave a house raising key note and one of the points that resonated most with me was this…
The guilt belongs to the perpetrator.
The GUILT belongs to the PERP.
WOW…
For every woman who has ever been violated…
For every child who has received or witnessed abuse…
For everyone who has ever been the focus of a bully…
You do not have to feel the guilt.
The guilt needs to be given back to the abuser.
Perhaps you are still at risk and cannot say this out loud. Say it to yourself as you are standing in front of them and being betrayed.
Remember to take yourself out of harm’s way and stay strong in your energetic resolve to give the guilt to the true and rightful owner…the abuser, that’s who.
In his book The Power of a Positive NO, William Ury gives us these 3 strategies to help us form and deliver a NO that is supportive.
Ury tells us that we “cannot say a proper YES if we cannot say NO.”
When I first read that line, I had to really think about it.
This is what occurred to me…if I am NOT ALLOWED to say NO to you, then any request is really just an order from you.
If I have to obey my orders, why even put it in question form? Just say to me…
DO this!
DO that!
At least then I know what I am dealing with, dictators and tyrants.
It is my experience however, that few tyrants WANT to be seen as tyrants. They want to be seen as benevolent and caring. They really believe that all their demands and orders are for our own good. They may think of themselves as the parent and us as children and therefore need to be TOLD what to do and how to do it.
Here is an easy test. Think of someone in your life that you have not said NO to. They “ask” and you do, without any real choice in the matter.
Now flip the roles in your head. Are you allowed to tell them what to do and will they do it?
If, for instance, they say “This room is filthy, clean it up!” and you are expected to hop to it and clean it up, can you say the same, in the same voice? Will they hop to it and clean it up?
Please do not try this with an abuser!!!
William Ury says that we must:
1. Change what is not working… by learning to say NO
2. Protect what we hold dear to us…like not being a constant slave
3. Create the new way we want to live.
He informs us that by learning to say a Positive No, we will be able to make significant changes that support both our internal power and our external relationships.
I wish you list of energy to change, protect, and create the life you say you want.
Love and light
Indrani
A few weeks ago I received an email from someone I barely knew regarding my classes in which she has never attended.
Her information came from some of those who had taken my class. These people had some sensitive nerves touched and decided their pain was my fault! The email was mean spirited and made accusations that were untrue.
What was I going to do?
Was I going to retaliate?
Was I going to react?
The first thing I had to do was control my mind chatter and control my emotions. I felt the tears stinging at the edges of my eyes and I blinked them back. After a while the tears did not need to show themselves. I got hold of my thoughts and I formed my next steps.
I decided that my steps would be based on my TRUTH.
My deepest truth about the work that I do is that IT IS NECESSARY! The pain of an abuse victim pales in comparison with the slight pain that I was feeling.
I asked myself, “Indrani, how far would you go to reach a woman who needed to hear what you have to say about resilience and courage?”
My answer was “as far as I need to.”
So how far would I go to reach the women that I had come to reach?
I replied to the email and decided that I would go as far as I could go without damage to myself.
What kind of damage? EMOTIONAL damage!
So I took that mean spirited email as a CASE study and I sent myself to NEGOTIATION school.
I had taken a class in negotiating a few months ago, so I began to apply the principles.
A negotiation is a two way street where everyone compromises and therefore wins.
So what did I want to WIN?
I wanted to win a chance to share something with the women.
What did this boss lady want to win? I had no idea!
I only had the email to guide me so I looked at what they were AFRAID of.
I charted what I read alongside what my true work was.
I very carefully began to craft my response and I held in my heart the women who would be in my class.
I did the class that afternoon for 2.5 hours and returned the next day for 3.5 hours. The women that took part asked me to stay longer. They even called the boss lady to ask and she said NO. She said that “they were not ready”.
How did she know?
I have no idea!
They felt sad and I left.
I felt like both she and I won.
I won the respect of the women and she won the time frame constraints.
As I write this I am resting in my hotel room, looking at THE VOW.
It seems like a great title because it lines up with the VOW I made to myself to honor my truth.
Love, light & truth,
Indrani