Tag Archives: happiness

Is your EXCUSE bigger than your JOY?

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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.depression via Jeffrey BlacklerAlamy

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

When a LADY says NO….

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The lady said NO.
She said NO to 15 other designers.
She said NO to lots of unknowns.
She said YES to HERSELF.

She is Michelle Obama.

She dressed herself so that she could feel her best.
I want to believe that NONE of the dresses had the names of the designers attached.
I want to believe that she picked on the grounds that made her the happiest.
Why?
Because there is always someone ready to say… (And they did):
“She should’ve given someone else a chance…”
“She should have been more aware of launching someone else…”

I am GLAD Mrs. Obama was strong enough to say YES to the DRESS that made her GLOW!!

What permission did Michelle give to women everywhere?
Choose for YOURSELF!
Do not be influenced by the hallowed pundits or the voices that would have you tow a certain line of action.
CHOOSE the best thing for you!
Choose with strength and softness and LOVE of yourself!

Michelle Obama… You were on FIRE in the RED Jason Wu, and I am sure you knew that you floated into that ball on a cloud of modern feminism.

The modern feminism that allows women to:
Choose for themselves.
Choose what they want in their lives….especially when the whole world is looking at them!

We can take a page from her book and make choices that show self respect and self love and do it with grace and humility.
Love, light and Choices!

Indrani

Daily kick start for your brain…

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Daily kick start for your brain…

I usually write in my gratitude journal right before bed but last night I came home late and was extremely tired. I decided to go to bed and I promised myself that I would write the entries when I woke up the next day. So here I am at the kitchen counter, the house is silent and my coffee is warm and welcoming.

I do a quick scan to remember the main things that I was grateful for from the day before and I easily access a few nice memories.
I wrote them down; happy to keep the promise I made to myself for completing my list.
Then, I pause and I scan my brain again and KAPOW!
All of the other things that I was grateful for all downloaded at once and my brain said “HELLO!”

It was a fascinating experience.
I wrote down all the items that I wanted to capture and then realized that something had shifted internally.
I woke up joyful… so that was not what had shifted.
I woke up grateful…so that was not what had shifted.
I woke up ready to exercise…so that was not what had shifted.

I sat back for a few breaths and finally realized what it was that had shifted.

I seemed to have been filled with hopeful expectation for this new day and wondered in a flash what great things were about to unfold.

Hopeful expectation for this new day!
Can any start to any new day be ANY sweeter?
I think not.
There were so many days in my past when I woke up with trepidation, angst and fear for what the new day would bring. I scoured my world for all the BAD things that would go wrong… and I would find each and every one of them. I found horrible things around every corner, just sitting for me…waiting to be discovered.
I painted my life with all the pain and the heartache I could find.
I coated myself with every single bad memory and bad experience I ever had.
I was miserable.
I could NOT enjoy the positives right before me.
I did not have the training to see the positives in my life.
It was this daily dose of dissatisfaction that finally brought me to me knees and the pain finally got large enough for me to seek help.

Help came in the form of:
1. Intense exercise that lead me to training for my triathlon.
2. Consistent meetings with an amazing therapist.
3. A decision to put the love I felt for my children at the beginning and end of every day and as bookends to everything I did for them during the day.
4. A decision to speak differently to my children. I spoke more softly and kindly. I treated them as the precious gifts they were.
5. I began to fully comprehend the short amount of time I had here on earth with the folks that I loved.

Yes, I did all these things simultaneously. I began to develop the skill of pushing the negatives out of my zoom lens of life and began to zoom in on the good that was all around me.

Now, I have the ability to scan my brain for great memories and they are immediately delivered into my conscious mind.

This is a life affirming skill.
I invite you to try it.
It is not easy but mastery will save your life.

Where should you start?
Go for a daily walk…even if it’s just for 10 minutes. Leave your cell phone at home and just walk. Notice the glory of nature along the way…even if you are in a city.
Even in a city you can hear and see birds and notice weeds popping up between the slabs of concrete.
Look for the messages that say, “You are here…and here is a good place to be.”

Please give this a try. You will be happy you did.

Love and light,
Indrani

Sometimes I feel like a pilgrim….

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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

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

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

The Ulysses Contract….

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Allow me to refresh your memory of how
Ulysses saved himself from the sirens.
He made his men lash him to the mast of the ship and plug their own ears with wax so that they would not fall prey to the sirens or follow his pleas and demands to be untied and ultimately die.

He saved himself and he saved his men.
The siren’s song was legendary.
Men who became bewitched by the sirens singing steered their ships upon rocks and perished. Ulysses knew what was waiting. He knew that he had no choice but to take that route.

So, instead of “hoping” for the best, he made a plan.
His plan was a two part plan.

Why two parts?
He KNEW himself. He knew that even though he was lashed to the mast he would have screamed and shouted demands at his men until they untied him…and how dare they disobey the “King of Ithaca”?

What can we modern folk learn from this ancient warrior?
Are these lessons even applicable today?

YES, the lessons are still very applicable.

Do you have any cravings?
Do you have any addictions?
Do you “invest” money while watching home shopping network?
Have you ever been caught by an infomercial?
Do you eat unhealthy foods?

Any of the above can be a situation under which you could make a Ulysses contract with yourself.

If you eat the cheesecake…you will do extra time on the treadmill.
If you spend too much on HSN…you will NOT watch the channel for one week or one month.

Be aware that the second part of the contract requires that you make someone a part of the plan so that you ensure success.

Take a look at the events in your life that occur frequently and ask yourself what sort of plan you can put in place to make better decisions and have happier outcomes.

There is a country western song with these lyrics “tequila makes her clothes fall off”.

In this case she needs to wear a body suit that is mighty hard to take off if she wants to still drink tequila.

Cute undies just may not be enough 🙂

What are your challenges? What’s your tequila?

Love and light
Indrani

If I shave my head, will I still love myself?

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A few weeks ago, I was watching the 10th episode of the Amazing Race where the fast forward called for the contestants
to shave their heads. The team who pulled this coveted gem chose not to use the fast-forward, which would have brought them to the top of the line.

Why did they not use it?

The female member of the team could not reconcile shaving her head because she had spent $500.00 on hair extensions.

I have been thinking about that choice quite extensively.

Here we have a woman who is an amazing athlete. She has survived for 10 episodes and has undertaken and conquered tasks that she could not have even imagined doing just a few years ago.

BUT how does she see herself?

She sees herself as the woman with a big nose and a need hair for extensions to look pretty.

As the whole world looks on and admires her, she sees nothing more than a big nose and her need for hair extensions.

What kind of message did she have to internalize for her to reflect so microscopically on her gifts? What kind of words had she been exposed to that caused her to digest all the marketing that we women are bombarded with?

I am getting old and much of that marketing no longer applies to me, except that they keep trying to get me to look younger.

I see the younger generation and I cringe at all the unlearning they must do to have a healthy acceptance of self.

I see the toddlers playing with dolls that have more boobs than an Amazon woman, and wonder when they will want their breasts enlarged.

I see all the beautiful celebrities who have undergone plastic surgery only to emerge looking like someone else.

I do not know what we can do as a strong feminine presence to stop this delusion of “what a woman should look like” but I do know that as thinking parents we must start pointing out these atrocities to our kids.

It is easy to think that they’ll figure it out, but will they figure it out before the scars of “not being good enough” make an indelible mark?

I am not saying that I have the answers.
What I do have is lots of trepidation about why, as a society, we are still so focused on outer appearances.

To that Amazing Race contestant, I say:
“honey, you are strong, beautiful and brave. Those things have NOTHING to do with your nose or your hair extensions.”

Oh, and by the way, that guy you are racing with showed the most love and acceptance any one could show under those circumstances. He accepted your decision without any negative comments. He is the poster boy for “support your partner, no matter what.”

Love and light,

Indrani