Compare yourself ONLY to your best self….
Tag Archives: gratitude practice
Domestic Violence Awareness Month- Day 19
Happiness is inside of us…..
Domestic Violence Awareness Month- Day 18
What will you do to ensure happiness?
Domestic Violence Awareness Month- Day 14
Take a shot of POSITIVITY….
Domestic Violence Awareness Month- Day 11
Choose to be 5% more responsible for your happiness….what does that look like?
Domestic Violence Awareness Day 5
Surround yourself with beauty.
When people say NO to your passion… it’s ok!
Many of you already know that my work is about serving abused women by providing free empowerment classes.
If you didn’t know just read a few more blogs and you’ll get the idea.
My dream is to blanket the world with trainers who will deliver my programs FOR FREE!
My dream is to train others FOR FREE and have them serve women who are ready to move out of their situations.
I always planned to cover expenses….but not pay for the trainer’s time.
I saw it as a way for others to be Philanthropists…not simply volunteers.
This was MY DREAM.
So, I started the training process. I invited my first group of amazing women and we began the journey of my dream.
Life, however, had other plans for some of these amazing women. One by one, they discovered that my dream was not their dream.
So far, I have less than ½ of the number with which we began.
The miracle here is this:
I AM NOT TAKING THIS PERSONALLY.
Actually, I am overjoyed for those who have found a different way to serve, as they are all doing.
They have found their own urgency and their own whisperings louder than those of my dream and for that I am grateful. I am happy to see them follow their own yellow brick road.
I honor and am grateful for the time they gave and hope that one day I can partake in their dream and support them, as they have done me.
What’s the lesson here?
The lesson is simple….if you are clear about your path then the HOW and the WHAT will show itself in good time. The feelings of anxiety and angst arrive when we try to make things fit the way we THINK they should fit.
So, the next time you feel discouraged about a dream falling apart, do these few things:
- Take time to breathe into the pain of loss.
- Allow yourself to feel the grief without anger to yourself or others.
- Respond with love…you LOVE this person, remember that!
- Ask them how you can be a cheerleader for them.
- Support their passions.
Disappointment is never easy to take and you can turn around the feelings of loss by focusing on your dream, not the other’s decision.
Love and light,
Indrani
Lessons from Olga…..
She wouldn’t accept my offer of a bracelet.
She wouldn’t let me make a crown for her.
She refused to come closer.
She was one of the 200 or so students in one of the orphanages that my clown group visited.
There I was sitting on a step, making crowns from pipe cleaners. The kids were lined up for their crowns….girls, boys, small, big, some young and some older.
I am not sure when she decided to come closer, but there she was and ready for a crown.
I crafted her crown carefully and with an extra dose of gratitude for trusting that I would not harm her.
When the pipe cleaners were finished, I started making beaded bracelets for everyone. I made hers first and she carefully selected her beads from the small baggies that sat precipitously on my lap. As the kids realized that something new was being given, they quickly swarmed and began demanding their bracelet. She became my helper and as kids requested the color of beads, “rojo, verde, azul, blanco”. She quietly and efficiently fished the correct bead from the baggie and gave it to me to thread on the multi-colored string.
I hugged her and said, “Adios” and thanked her for her help. She smiled and her eyes twinkled.
The magic of this connection was that she did not know if she cared to connect or even if she trusted me. I did not base my success that morning on whether or not she would accept my gifts. I was there, loving and giving without thought as to what her role should or ought to be.
Should she be grateful that I had come all the way from America to visit that orphanage?
Should she care that I had spent money on these pipe cleaners and the baggie of beads?
No!
Her only job was to be herself.
My job was to be loving and present and joyful.
We both did our jobs well.
Now if only I can remember to practice this giving of myself in a pure and unattached way. A way that says, I am here for you, if you’d like to come closer.
A way that allows me to KNOW that chasing you or begging you or demanding of you to be a certain way is just unacceptable.
A way that tells me you are responsible for whom and what you accept from me.
A way that shows me to stay true to me and allow you to stay true to you and hope that in our separate trueness we can still share love, peace and harmony.
Thanks Olga, for these big lessons.
I will hold your smile in my heart forever.
May you be well.
May you be happy.
May you be peaceful and at ease.
May you be free.
Love and light,
Indrani
Is your EXCUSE bigger than your JOY?
I was chatting with a dear friend a while back and I heard myself say that sometimes people’s excuses are bigger than their Joy.
Wow, I thought, that’s good…
What do I mean by that simple sentence?
I mean that some people like to wallow on the “poor me” side of the street. The pity party gets to be an all-nighter, then an all-dayer and maybe even an all- weeker.
When this happens JOY has no place to live and thrive.
JOY is pushed out for days and weeks and months and maybe even years.
There is always a reason why, the negative aspects should be the main focus. There is always a reason why YOUR problems are SO different, SO unique and SO difficult that finding a way out is impossible. It is much easier to keep making excuses.
You see, when you can come up with loads of excuses, you at least FEEL like you are doing something. You ARE expending brain power and psychic energy. Unfortunately it is only to create more excuses and better excuses. You are exhausted from creating the excuses.
You are too exhausted to find the positive aspects of your life.
Yes, your excuses are bigger than your JOY.
Guess what?
This is easy to fix.
Are you tired of being sad and unhappy and creating more excuses?
I invite you to step back from the precipice of, “My life is so awful” and step into “What positive things DO I still have in life?”
Those positives can be as simple as:
-Two legs that work.
-Two eyes that work.
-Someone who loves you, like a child or a parent.
-A beloved pet.
-Your ability to read good books.
Yes. It. Can. Be. That. Simple!
It is really ONLY up to you. Only you can decide if your JOY will be the antidotes for negativity.
Won’t you try it?
What do you have to lose?
Love and light,
Indrani
Sometimes I feel like a pilgrim….
Sometimes, I feel like a pilgrim…. far from home, in a strange land and surrounded by strangers.
I do.
I sometimes look around me and wonder who I am, what brought me here and often, why it’s still so hard to make sense of the tensions swirling.
Sometimes I feel like I should be home, free of all challenges.
I mean, after all, have I NOT gone through enough over the past 5 decades?
Then, it occurs to me…
HEY, INDRANI… You got this all upside down!
The negatives happened and yes, you have the scars to prove it. BUT the positives happened too!
Why are you NOT counting those?
Ahhhh, so you (voice in my head) want me to PRETEND that the negatives didn’t hurt?
You want me to forget the pain?
No, says the sweet voice, I am just asking you to replay the positive tapes as often as you replay the negative ones…then maybe you will create new neuro-pathways for magic to happen.
Say what?
What are neuro-pathways? How can they create magic?
It’s quite simple really…what you focus your attention on will begin to fill the spaces of your mind and the mind will eventually allow less and less psychic power and energy to flow toward the negative memories.
Yes, it can happen.
It happened to me!
One of my favorite books, The Happiness Advantage puts it like this, it’s like “getting stuck in a positive Tetris effect”.
The author says, “Just as it takes days of concentrated practice of a video game, training your brain to notice more opportunities takes practice focusing in the positive. The best way to kick-start this is to start making a daily list of good things in your job, your career and your life….write down three good things that happened that day, and your brain will be forced to scan the last 24 hours for potential positives…in just five minutes a day, this trains the brain to become more skilled at noticing and focusing on possibilities for personal and professional growth and seizing opportunities to act on them.”
You don’t have to take my word for it. Read the book The Happiness Advantage and absorb the wisdom for yourself.
So instead of this negativity thing that some of us have going on…let’s try a positivity thing.
Why?
Why not?
If you are going to fill your brains with the past, why not have it be the positive past?
Give it a try, you have nothing to lose but stress and more stress.
This could be the best gift you can give yourself, the gift of the positive bias in your life.
Happy Thanksgiving y’all!
Love and light
Indrani