Using BREATH as a power tool…

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breathe-400x267Use your breath as a power tool….it’s free and it’s yours to use as you need.

I was wandering around Manhattan the other day and I was window shopping.

Suddenly I felt myself drawn to a store and wandered inside.

I began to look at some of the merchandise and struck up a conversation with the owner of the shop.

He limped over to his desk and I said, “What did you do to your leg?”

He limped back over to me and told me the story.

Here is the short version…

He was hit on the street by a car and it’s a neighbor and he is going to court in a few days to establish liability so he can file a damage suit.

He then began to rile himself up about how his wife really botched the deposition and he wanted to kill her for saying stupid things and I said “STOP.”

I began to ask questions about his trial and allowed him to blow off some steam.

I then asked, “Do you want me to help you to stay calm tomorrow on the stand?”

He said, “YES!”

The first thing I said was this, “I need you to keep angry thoughts about your wife OUT of your mind. What’s done is done. I need you to keep thinking good thoughts about her. I also need for you to stop thinking words like “crucify ” and “I’m done in” etc. When you are in court, use your breath to provide space between your responses. Do not spit out your answers like a dog who is panting. Take your time. If the judge says to hurry up, say you want to respond responsibly and truthfully.”

I do not know if he will take my advice but here’s what I do know. He may not have lambasted his wife as he was getting ready. He may hear my words in his head. I may have averted some very awful verbal abuse in their household when he went home.

Can I be sure?

Never. There is never an “I am sure.”

This is what I can be sure about. My mission is always present. I am always looking for an opportunity to guide. I was lead into that store and lead to that owner and I did what I do naturally.

When we are on mission, we are ALWAYS on mission.

Don’t leave your mission at home the next time you venture out. Take it with you.

 

Love & light,

Indrani

LABL 010: Hope and the Importance of Maybe

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ILF_Wtagline_Logo copyWelcome to Episode #10 of the Live a Brighter Life Podcast!

In this episode of the Live a Brighter Life Podcast Indrani interviews Mark Silver. You will learn:

  • The importance of taking time to give your best answer
  • How to create something healthy out of dysfunction
  • The importance of both hope and despair
  • Why going from “no” to “yes” feels impossible
  • Why going from “no” to “maybe” is the first step

You can find out more about Mark Silver at www.heartofbusiness.com

Podcast Recording

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She Let Go…..

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A beautiful poem by Rev. Safire Rose

 

She Let Go

 

She let go. Without a thought or a word, she let go.
She let go of fear. She let go of the judgments. 
She let go of the confluence of opinions swarming around her head.
She let go of the committee of indecision within her.
She let go of all the ‘right’ reasons. Wholly and completely, 
without hesitation or worry, she just let go.
She didn’t ask anyone for advice. She didn’t read a 
book on how to let go… She didn’t search the scriptures.
She just let go.
She let go of all of the memories that held her back. 
She let go of all of the anxiety that kept her from moving forward. 
She let go of the planning and all of the calculations about how to do it just right.
She didn’t promise to let go. 
She didn’t journal about it. 
She didn’t write the projected date in her day-timer.
She made no public announcement and put no ad in the paper. 
She didn’t check the weather report or read her daily horoscope. 
She just let go.
She didn’t analyse whether she should let go. 
She didn’t call her friends to discuss the matter. 
She didn’t do a five-step Spiritual Mind Treatment. 
She didn’t call the prayer line. 
She didn’t utter one word. She just let go.
No one was around when it happened. 
There was no applause or congratulations. 
No one thanked her or praised her. 
No one noticed a thing. 
Like a leaf falling from a tree, she just let go.
There was no effort. There was no struggle. 
It wasn’t good and it wasn’t bad. 
It was what it was, and it is just that.
In the space of letting go, she let it all be. 
A small smile came over her face. 
A light breeze blew through her.
And the sun and the moon shone forevermore.

 

Love & light,

 

Team ILF

Self acceptance…and why it matters.

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selfacceptanceIn the book The Six Pillars of Self Esteem, Nathaniel Branden tells us that “self acceptance is more primitive than self esteem. It is a per rational, per oral act of self affirmation.”

I think in the caveman days it served to say to the tribe that we, too deserve to eat at the fire, to have a place in the cave for shelter and we have a place at the fire for community and camaraderie.

In modern times this means that girls have the right to eat the same healthy food as her brothers and father. She has the same rights for schooling and she has the right to expect and demand that she and her body be respected.

The women in our colleges have the right to NOT be raped. Parents of boys should expect that their favorite sons will be held up to face the music if they violate a women. (See this article about a horrific rape at UVA.)

“Self acceptance is my refusal to be in an adversarial relationship to myself.”

“An attitude of basic self-acceptance is what an effective psychotherapist strives to awaken in a person of even the lowest self esteem. This attitude can inspire an individual to face whatever he or she needs to encounter within without collapsing into self hatred, repudiating the value of his or her person, or relinquishing the will to live. It entails the declaration : “I choose to value myself, to treat myself with respect, to stand up for my right to exist.” This primary act of self affirmation is the base on which self esteem develops.”

When we cannot dig deep enough to uncover this basic self acceptance, we fall prey to what others want to say and do to our minds and our bodies.

We must, at all costs, find the strength to face ourselves and to declare: “This is the day that I stand for ME.”

Will you practice standing up for yourself in small ways?

Maybe at the grocery store, or at the doctors office or perhaps with the your child’s teacher.

If you practice in small places, the larger places will not seem so very dire.

 

Love and light,

 

Indrani


P.S. Read The Six Pillars of Self -Esteem by Nathaniel Branden. It is worth every minute of your time.

A lesson from our neighbors…..

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When we raise our voices in unison to support our competition it is the highest human connection.

Can we envision a day when everyone everywhere raises their voice to say,

“No More Violence against women! Ever!”

“No more abuse to children.”

I will continue to dream of this world.

No one told the Canadians to sing the US Anthem when the sound system broke. They JUST DID IT.

Please, let’s Just End Violence.

Let’s Be The Change.

Love & light,

Indrani

Can neuroscience help us with Domestic Violence?

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neuroscienceAs events unfolded weeks ago with the Ray Rice video and then his being fired and indefinitely suspended from the NFL and THEN the social media message that his abused wife wrote, I wondered if neuroscience might be able to save us from this scourge of women seemingly unable to protect themselves from their abusers.

The video (here) clearly shows Janay Rice being knocked unconscious and Ray Rice dropping her body like a sack of rice outside the elevators. He does not bend down to check if she is dead, he does not cradle her in his arms to show remorse.

He does nothing to show us that this was a big mistake and he is so sorry.

Then Janay Rice sends out a social media blurb blaming the rest of the world.

WE are the ones to blame.
WE made her blameless husband lose his millions in salary and endorsements.
WE are at fault.

We may be asking ourselves where the disconnect is, but the sad truth is that is no disconnect.

Abused women VERY often protect the abuser and return to the den of abuse.

They have all kinds of reasons:

  • They still love him.
  • They have no where to go.
  • The children “need” a father.
  • No one will ever love them.
  • He didn’t really mean it.

It goes on and on.

I have heard law enforcement officers say they are sick and tired of being called to an altercation only to see the woman recant her charges and bail out the man she just had thrown in jail the night before.

This is why I am wondering if brain mapping and neuroscience can help us to find the answers.

Perhaps neuroscientists can hook up some abused women and see which areas of the brain lights up and try to explain to these women the flaw in their thinking.

I know, I am grasping at straws.

I am grasping at straws because here we HAVE the incident ON FILM and still Janay Rice is making excuses for the behavior of her then fiancé.

She actually married him AFTER this incident. She KNEW he was an abuser and still she chose to be his wife.

She could have gone public with therapy and they could have created a scenario where remorse and forgiveness played a big role.

They could have become ROLE models to the millions of couples who are in this situation.

She is not unique. She has made decisions that millions of abused women before her have made. She choose to try to erase the incident and to move on with life.

I do believe that she is doing the best she can. I do believe she loves him and KNOWS that he has goodness and decency. He is not a monster. He has chosen some monstrous behaviors.
She needs to understand how to do better and that’s where I am hoping that neuro scans can help.

Yep, me with the neuro scans again….because I just really need to believe that we can find a way to help women make healthier choices.

When pigs fly right?

I am hoping that we do not have to wait that long.

 

Love and light,

Indrani

LABL 009: Your Difference is Your Beauty

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Welcome to Episode #9 of the Live a Brighter Life Podcast!

In this episode of the Live a Brighter Life Podcast Indrani interviews Karen Walrond. You will learn:

  • why you should enhance what you love, not hide what you hate
  • how to start seeing the beauty of being different
  • how Indrani’s daughter’s basketball career ended (listen just for this story if nothing else!)
  • how to look through your own eyes and not your abuser’s eyes
  • how seeing your own beauty takes away the power of your abuser

You can find out more about Karen Walrond at www.chookooloonks.com

Podcast Recording

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Just fly the plane…..

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unnamedAt times I get tripped up by fear and worry.

I cannot move ahead, I am scared to do so.

A friend of mine said to me recently, “Kay, just fly the plane.”

I thought about those words, “just fly the plane.” I thought if a pilot worries and is in fear about how the plane stays in the air, they would never get off the ground.

They rely on their training, experience, trust in the equipment and instinct… they take off.

I need to get on with living life without obsessing, over-analyzing and worrying and just do it.

Can you drop the worry and fly the plane?

 

Love & light,
Kay Walten