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Be prepared…

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While growing up in Trinidad, West Indies, I was a Girl Guide. I was a troop leader and I guess, in hindsight I did learn a few things that have stuck.

The most important thing I learned was to BE PREPARED!

For what?

For what life brings.

Now it does not always work out that we can be prepared. Lord knows life has a way of throwing curve balls.

BUT, there are some things that are absolutely clear and the stuff you need is very apparent.

Going to swim? You need a suit, unless it’s skinny dipping time!

Going to lunch? You need money, unless someone else is paying.

Going to a conference with thousands in attendance for which you paid a hefty price? You need BUSINESS CARDS!!!!

I was recently at a conference with 1000+ attendees and almost 50% of the people I gave my card to said some version of “I left my cards at home”!

What does this have to do with you?

It all comes down to setting an INTENTION.

When you decide to do something, what is your intention?

Do you have a clear vision for what it is that you are doing?

For example, do you have a clear intention for that email that you want to send to a friend who always bothers you?

Do you have a set intention for dealing with the boss who always berates you in public?

As humans, we tend to allow our fears or our excitement cloud our bigger vision.

Folks were so excited to come to the conference that they lost track of the importance of leaving a trail…their business card.

Not only must you leave a trail, you must leave an impression. So you have to KNOW why you are attending and what you want from the conference.

If it’s just an excuse for a vacation then that is okay because that’s the intention. Accept it and speak it; give it voice and energy.

If your brain goes on freeze mode when you see your boss approaching, you must practice how to unfreeze your brain when you are not with your boss. Get a trusted friend to role play with you.

The point is, if you do not have a clear picture of how you want things to go, how can you get the help/resources you need to move ahead?

So make your plans and BE PREPARED!

 

Love and light,

Indrani

Sick to my stomach…

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Last night I sacrificed something I really wanted to do that was good for me, so I could go and have dinner with an angry, frustrated person.
I wanted to make him less angry by doing what he wanted to do.

At first I had said no, but he walked off with anger seeping from him as he was going to take his motorcycle in the rain during a storm.

So I went to dinner him (we had no electricity due to storms so dining in was not much of an option).
Dinner was tense but tolerable.
I ate too much and I tried to order something healthy but found myself just munching away to pass the uncomfortable time.

After dinner I was filled with self-loathing…for having caved into the compulsion to make someone happy and for falling into the same steps.
My body felt gross.
So to rebel towards how I had been manipulated I made myself vomit…so I would feel better physically.
I felt in control.

And then I ate some ice cream.

How messed up is that?!

Kay Walten

The Gift of Understanding Jokes…

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At first glance, this title seems simple enough.
Of course you can understand a joke. You crack up at Last Comic Standing and you get satire and you can deliver a nice zinger whenever you wish.
Or do you?
Can you?

I just finished Priscilla Gilman’s The Anti-Romantic Child, and I have come to appreciate the gift of this nuance called joking.

Priscilla comes to find out that her first born son has hyperlexia.
She realizes that his grasp of language nuance may be compromised. At this same time she is a Professor of English Literature at Yale.
Her two lives, Mom of Benj and Professor Gilman allow her to understand with painful clarity what we all take for granted.
“There are so many fundamental and important things that we have and take for granted- the ability to converse, to joke, to
decipher body language, to advocate for ourselves….the ability to have meaningful exchange with another person. We are so lucky!”

After reading this paragraph, I had to stop and reflect on the wisdom in those words.
I have NEVER been grateful for my language skills.
I never considered it anything special that I have quick wit and can understand satire, jokes and sense when someone might be lying. Heck, understanding that I even have the ability to lie is quite evolved. I take all language gifts for granted.

It broke my heart when Priscilla talks about all the challenges that Benj has like the ability to use the first pronoun, I and to call someone by their name is a skill. It means the brain is wired in a way that allows these things to happen seamlessly.

I look at my children and deeply appreciate so much more of all that they are.
I feel the fear that Priscilla Gilman has for the future challenges that Benj will face.

Her strength and fierce love of Benj is palpable, and when she said that she realized LOVE is the best medicine, I had to jump up and cheer.

How many of us take for granted all the little miracles that occur in our lives every minute of every day.
I invite you to take off the lens of ” yea yea, gratitude is great but” and SEE all that is within the things that we love.
Can we accept the people in our lives with all their short comings and still be courageous enough to simply love them.
Can we love ourselves for all that we are and not look first at the faults?

I am grateful to Priscilla Gilman for having the courage to lay bare the sweetness of all that she has learned.
I want a sequel, please. I am invested in Benj. I am invested in you and in me.
Thank you for turning on a light that I did not know was out.

What can you celebrate today about your own self that you did not celebrate yesterday?

Love and light
Indrani

Am I fired?

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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

What is your heart feeling?

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What are my eyes seeing?
What are my ears hearing?
What is my body feeling?

Whenever I find myself in a precarious position, whether within the family or in a business meeting, I try to answer the aforementioned questions.

It is not often that I have tons of time to really dive deep, but the simplicity of the questions allows the answers to float up into my mind.

Let’s create a scenario.

I have been asked to do something and I have done it to the best of my ability. I did it willingly and with an open heart. The event is over and I am sitting to rest and recover.

Someone walks into the room and says, “Yesterday went really well, but…”

Whoa!!
I was not expecting the BUT.

In this example, I can ask:

What are my eyes seeing?
My eyes are seeing a loved one standing in front of me with a cup of coffee.

What are my ears hearing?
My ears just heard BUT.
What else did my ears hear?
My ears heard that yesterday went well.

What is my body feeling?
My body is feeling heavy.
Why is my body feeling heavy?
My body feels heavy because I am expecting an insult, criticism or a “you should’ve done this.”

Ok…so there is it…I have created my own stress!
What do I do now?
If I really think that the event went well I can say, “YES, it was awesome” with such confidence that maybe the BUT will fall away!
Or maybe the BUT will still be offered, but it will not be about you.
It may be about them.
You can even say,
“I am not ready for any buts at the moment, so let’s save it for later.”

It really is up to each of us to do our best, stay out of thought clusters that mess with our hearts and to be compassionate to ourselves.

It is NOT in anyone’s interest to be as kind to me as I can be to myself.

So, what is your heart feeling when you show love and kindness to yourself?

Love & light,

Indrani

Is it cultural or just bad manners?

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A few weekends ago, I was lucky enough to spend some time with an amazing
group of people that I really like. We do not get together very often so this time was quite precious.

During one of our days together a group had gathered in the kitchen. We discussed topics from real estate to ice-cream and everything in-between. People were listening to each other and taking turns speaking. The conversation was flowing quite well. Then someone else walked into the room and decided to ask one of the group members a question.

This is how she did it:
She stood a good 3 feet away from the group and YELLED as loud as she could to get the other persons attention. He looked up having heard her voice and started conversing with her as loud as he could. He had to shout (or so he thought) because the original conversation was still happening. The woman then walked closer to the table and the new conversation was carried on over the existing one.

This dynamic was so amazing.
I thought it rude and distasteful.
Was it?
Could it be that this is how these people communicate?

I waited for her to leave and the group settled back into our chat.
A few minutes later this same woman approached someone else who was talking directly to me and with her loud voice asked him a question and he immediately turned to answer her.
Now I am upset.
I say in MY LOUDEST voice…”SO DOES THIS MEAN YOU ARE FINISHED TALKING TO ME?”
He turns to me and says “Oh, no!”
She seems shocked that I had to interrupt her. The woman then walked away.

Again after a few minutes, this same woman wanted to speak to another member of the group. This time she approached and whispered in the person’s ear.
She got it!
She stopped interrupting the entire room with her loud voice. She stopped hijacking an ongoing conversation because she thought her needs were more important.

All of the above happened without anyone else being mindful. I am sure that if I had asked someone what they thought, they would have said, “Well, that’s just her”.
Does it make it okay to disregard the activities that are already happening?
I do not have the answers to these questions.
I do know, however, that my time is as important as hers and my conversations as scintillating so I will not accept constant interruptions.
That’s just me.
If you find yourself in this situation, do you take charge?
Is it easier to just be quiet?
Is it culture or bad manners?
Would it be okay to interrupt people anywhere or is it situational?

We spend our whole lives engaged in some form of communication. I am at a stage where I want my encounters to be meaningful. I have no time for idle chatter or people who jump in and hijack my moments of encounter. I will try to not be rude but I will say something.

When we choose to spend time with people, let’s really BE with them. Let’s really listen to what they have to say. Let our body language say to the world that something special is happening and that others should wait their turn or ask permission to interrupt.

I am going to go out on a limb here and say if as women we do not speak up in the home to get our points heard, how will we be able to speak up in the board room?

There is ample research that women’s voices are overlooked in the board room and others get credit for ideas that were not theirs.
The time to practice having your voice heard is at the kitchen table.
The loudest mouth in the room is not necessarily the smartest.

So speak up, we need your words and your wisdom.

Love and light,
Indrani

The SWEET SPOT….

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I have just devoured Susan Cain’s book QUIET. I really hesitated before I ordered the book and then took a few hours before I cracked it open. I say a few hours because I am a voracious reader and when a book arrives it feels like Christmas morning and I must take an immediate peek.

I hesitated because I am an extrovert and I really wondered what I could get from a book called QUIET or if it would even be enticing to me.

I LOVED it. Susan Cain weaves research, true stories and her personal experiences together in such a way to make me not able to put the book down. There were many parts of it that stood out, and one of those is when she discusses “Sweet Spots”.

“You can organize your life in terms of what personality psychologists call ‘optimal levels of arousal’ and what I call ‘sweet spots’, and by doing so, feel more energetic and alive than before.” Susan Cain

Huh?
What does this really mean?
Do I really have the ability to have a life that feels good, does good and is good for me?

Is this not being selfish?
Should I not just do what is expected of me and shut up?
Doing what is good for me may be considered rocking the boat.
We are born into families that we do not choose.
We are sent to schools that we do not choose.
We have teachers and professors, who hold our academic lives in their hands, and we often would not choose them for ourselves.
We have extended family members who make us crazy and we did not choose them.

“There’s a host of research that introverts are more sensitive than extroverts to various kinds of stimulation, from coffee to a loud bang to a dull roar of a networking event- and that introverts and extroverts often need very different levels of stimulation to function at their best.” Susan Cain, page 124

Does this mean that we can decide what stimulation levels are good for us and choose career paths accordingly?
Does anyone teach us this in high school? Do we know that when we are picking majors for our college education?
We all know people who went into Law or Medicine only to hate the profession.
However, they find themselves in debt so they stick with it to pay the bills.
Little by little a piece of them dies. They have forgotten that they arrived there by choices and choices can get them out.
Very often, the thought of making different choices for our lives leaves us feeling paralyzed and unable to even think, let alone act.

Imagine if we accepted that we all had sweet spots and we are all capable of diving head first into work/ activities that activate these sweet spots.

Allow me to use myself as an example.
I am a coach.
I am a really good coach.
I hate to sell…I feel like hiding when I try to “sell” coaching packages.
I can, however, talk to every woman’s shelter and every support group in this whole world about my foundation, Indranis Light. I can do this because I am
absolutely sure that my life coaching classes are a crucial piece of the puzzle within the “abuse victim mindset”.

This is my sweet spot. I never tire of telling anyone who is willing to listen how important it is for us as a community to help women find their voices and step into their power.
I feel personally responsible to the younger generation of girls to teach them (through their moms) how to protect themselves from abusers.
I will suffer any amount of personal affronts in the pursuit of my goals for the foundation.

“Understanding your sweet spot can increase your satisfaction in every arena of your life,” this bit of wisdom from Susan Cain should be the ground on which we stand to investigate if we are living in our sweet spot.

Martha Beck also teaches us about living and working where our “essential” selves are happiest. Some of my friends have made incredible switches from one profession to another, like Dr. Sarah Seidelmann who left medicine to become a life coach and took a big pay cut but increased her happiness ten-fold. She even went with me to Gesundheit Institute last year to speak to would be medical students about her choices and her new life.

Sweet spots may not be easy to find and when discovered even harder to follow.
When we are in the sweet spot we are in “flow” according to Mihaly Csikszenthmihaly (chic- SENT-me-high).

I love the visual of being in flow. It makes me think of not fighting the currents or not arguing with people who do not understand me. It makes me feel safe to take a chance or to stretch a little because being in flow is safe and I am at optimum performance.

Susan Cain tells us that “people who are aware of their sweet spots have the power to leave jobs that exhaust them and start new and satisfying businesses. They can hunt for homes based on the temperaments of their family members – with cozy window seats and other nooks and crannies for introverts and open living-dining spaces for extroverts.”

Imagine a world where our temperaments were free to be 100% engaged….a world where we did not have to feel shame about being “shy” or “a loud mouth”.

The first step on this path is to begin to notice yourself: at work, at social events, within the family, at church.
Where do you sit?
With whom do you feel comfortable?
Do you feel like running and hiding from wherever you are?
Do you long to be a part of a different group?

Make good observations about yourself. Put yourself under a microscope and take good field notes.
Then begin to make small changes.
Perhaps sitting in a corner booth in a restaurant is more comfortable that sitting in the middle where everyone can see you.
Perhaps your extended family members are all extroverts and you are an introvert and it exhausts you to be around them. In this case it would be a good idea to increase your quiet time. Take more time for your own self, time to gather strength to be used later while with the family.
Perhaps it is the opposite. You might be outgoing and feel bored with your family. So go tire yourself out, get your fill then you can be in a restful space instead of wanting to scream from boredom.

It really is worth the time to get to know YOU. It is then that you can begin to manage your energy and feel good about the YOU that it is the world.
Love and light,
Indrani

Nice to meet you…

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I recently met a person who seemed intelligent, respectable and personable. This person also seemed to cherish their
family and love life. I thought to myself, hmmm….I could be friends with this person.

But then someone gave me an unsolicited opinion that the person I met was a liar, bad news, and would bring me down. They insisted that I would regret being friends with this person. No specifics in why, it was said cut and dry…just like that. These judgments were offered up to protect me.

Immediately I was filled with self doubt.
Did I misjudge this new person?
Had I been duped?
Had I made a bad judgment in character?
Do I trust too easily?

I felt bad about myself.

These thoughts have been percolating for a few days now. After much thought, I realize that I have a great gift.  I can see the best in people from the start.

If I was to meet you on the street today I would look at you warmly, smile and engage with you.
I do not weigh heavily on other peoples experiences with you.
What matters is how you interact with me.
And if your interactions with me are negative then I may choose not to be around you.

In my world I do not want to immediately look at your face when we meet on the street and distrust you.
You have given me no reason to be on guard.
You are not perfect, nor am I.
You may have hurt others or made mistakes in life, and so have I.

When we first meet we have a clean slate with each other.
It is up to us what we write on that slate and how we interact together.

Hi, my name is Kay.  It is nice to meet you.

Re-purposing behaviors…I want that!

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A couple of months ago I spoke with writer Paul Carr about his journey to quit drinking. I know that he has created some controversy and this post is not taking sides on those issues.

This post is about him being astute enough to treat himself to something expensive JUST beyond his normal sober reach. He mentioned during our chat that he bought a lovely pen that was just shy of $1,000.00. He said that some people were upset that he wasted money on something like that.

His take was that he had wasted $1,000.00 on many bar bills and had nothing to show for it at the end of the splurge except a nasty hangover.

I agree with him. I agree that we spend money on things that we think will make us hurt less, fear less or some other magical thinking.

When we continue behaviors that “we have always done” without stopping to wonder if those behaviors still serve us, we are being quite robotic. We are unthinking. Perhaps not thinking allows us to pretend that “all is well”. Often, though, not thinking just keeps us trapped in the same old hurts, pain, and challenges.

A few years ago I met a cabbie in Philly who told me that she longed to go to Jamaica on holiday. I asked why she had not gone and she said that she had too many bills, including rent on a storage unit she had for quite a few years. I asked her what she was storing and she said furniture for her kids and her books.

I asked her if the kids wanted the furniture and she said that she did not know. I calculated how much rent she had paid over the course of the rental agreement and she almost choked. Suffice to say it was many trips to Jamaica.

I felt her pain.

While back in Philly a few months later, I called her to pick me up. I asked her about the storage unit and if she had gone to see it. She said she had and that the furniture had been eaten by termites and her books were ruined with moisture. I felt so bad for her.

I gave her a little tidbit of coaching. I told her to pretend she still had the unit and to create a special Jamaica bank account and to pay into it each month what she was paying for the rent on the storage unit. I explained that she already knew how to budget her monthly income for the rent, so she could use that knowledge to make her dream vacation come true.

There is a lesson to be learned here.

What behavior can you re-purpose for your happiness and joy, and not just do it mindlessly as you have been doing?

 

Love & light,

Indrani

Why can’t you read my mind?

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When my kids were very young I told them
that I could read their minds. That got them to “own up” pretty quickly to who had done what. That lasted all of 3 days. I must admit…they were pretty smart for their age.

One thing that was worse however was that I expected other people to read my mind and to automatically know what I expected and what made me happy. I mean, if I actually had to ASK for what I wanted, then what was the good of it? I not only expected it, I was UNAWARE that I expected it. Further, I had NO idea what I really wanted! So even if someone did something awesome, I could not fully appreciate it.

The first inclination I had that something was really skewed with my thinking was when a therapist asked me “what I wanted from life”.
What?
What kind of stupid question was that?
“I want what everyone wants!” was my sarcastic quip.
“Really?” he replied. “What does everyone want?”
“People want to be happy! I want to be happy!”
He, in his infinite patience replied, “So what would make you happy?”

Then I was stumped.

I DID NOT know the answer to that question.

My brain felt like it was on the spin cycle and no one was going to press the done button.

That was the beginning of my quest for what would make me happy.

I tried to continue to please everyone, but with GUSTO. I mean if I really LOST myself in making others happy…then surely I would be happy?

It did not work.
Some of those people that I was DYING to please STILL were not happy.
They wanted more and more and still more.
I tried to find the “more” and I became LESS. I had less energy for my dreams, less energy for my self-care and less connections to the people I cared about. In trying to please the FEW, I neglected myself and everything else that was important to me.

The term “DYING to please” was very real to me. I put anything healthy for myself on the back burner. Hell, it was NOT even on the stove top. It was stored away with all the junk that I no longer needed.

I had to learn to put myself back on the stove, then FIRST on my list.
I had to learn to say out loud what it was that I wanted and not expect people to read my mind.
I had to learn to set very clear boundaries around what I would and would not do.
I had to learn about what made me happy.

I saw everything as a lesson. Some lessons I loved and others I hated.
I did less and less of what I hated and more of what I loved.

This is how I learned to speak my truth and how to stop expecting others to read my mind.
Thinking back now, I can’t believe that I ever wanted someone to be able to read my mind.  All my secrets would be fair game and that is a scary thought.

Love and light,

Indrani