Tag Archives: Live a Brighter Life

The Dashboards of our Lives…

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mini-one-862815_640My first car was a Toyota Corolla.

It was a faded gray and it had roll up windows, an AM radio and no AC. The heat worked sometimes.

The dash board had a gas gage and a speedometer.

A manual steering wheel was the driving mechanism.

I loved that car!

It took me on my first long trip from Ohio to New Jersey after Graduate school. There was enough space to stuff my meager belongings and drive off.

These days I still drive an import, just not a Japanese import.

My car has power windows, power steering, power adjusted seats that can be heated or cooled, a lumbar support that I cannot live without as well as a head support.

Air bags in the steering and the doors.

The dash board….

Well this is a thing of beauty.

I have a speedometer AND I can see a numerical display of my speed on the windshield.

The rest of the dash looks like I am in the cockpit of an aircraft.

I know when tire pressure is low. I know when there is a snail walking behind my car because of the rear camera. The car tells me when I am too close to objects in front and in back.

There are bells and whistles… Real bells and whistles that I have NO idea what they mean. I have to remember the sound and look up the sound in the 2000 page owners manual that came with the car.

I will NEVER understand this car! I won’t even try.

This car was the play thing of very inspired engineers and when the first one rolled off the line they all applauded and pretended that all the future buyers would give a damn about all the fancy schmansy stuff.

We buy the fancy cars and very few of us really give a damn about all the bells and whistles BUT we would never go back to the old car, like that first Corolla.

Yet, in our private lives, we keep using tools that are as outdated as that Corolla.

The tools we learned as a child to manipulate our parents, we try to use on lovers and partners.

The tools we learned in High School when we were first dating are the tools we insist on using in relationships that are way beyond the immaturity of High School.

We scream and pout as if we were teenagers and expect that people will just give up their positions to keep us quiet and happy.

We expect those tools to still manipulate like they did in the past.

We refuse to better equip ourselves to fully step into adult relationships.

What do I mean?

The tools I am talking about  are readily available in e-books, book stores and libraries. It’s the billion dollar industry of the Self Help Movement; while most of us have purchased self help books, how many PRACTICE the tools inside?

It’s the practice of new tools and skills that will get us away from the “outdated dashboard” we keep going back to so that we can install a newer updated version.

Let me give you an example of what I am talking about.

I was never taught how to say No.

I was taught to be “nice” and say Yes to all that was asked of me and furthermore to be sure to do it with a smile on my face.

I did this for many years.

Almost killed myself doing this.

The few times I said NO to things, I did it with such anger and animosity that the people around me looked at me like a had two heads.

Like Medusa, if someone tried to get me to be reasonable, I felt like they were chopping off one of my heads and so two would grow in its place. The multiple headed monster was what I would become.

I stumbled upon the book The Power of a Positive No by William Ury quite a few years ago.

I read it, re-read it and read it again.

The simple tools for saying NO were right there.

But, would they actually work in real life?

How would I know unless  I practiced them?

I was at a small conference once where I told one of the participants about this book and how it changed my life and she said, “make it into a workshop. People, women need these tools and many won’t read the book. Give them a taste and then tell them to get the book and feast on it.”

Ok.

I called the workshop, “Not Your Mothers Assertiveness Training.”

I did the workshop.

A few paid to attend and the rest of the seats I gave away.

It was a hit.

People loved the work.

I encouraged them to buy the book and to inhale the wisdom inside.

I heard from them from time to time that they were indeed using the principles.

A few times when they called to complain that they were being forced to do one thing or another, I simply asked, “What’s your YES!” (read the book to understand this question)
They got it and did the required work to make the decisions that would work for them.

This book is a part of the Live A Brighter Life series of classes and I encourage you to get the recordings, listen and then get all the books and really do a deep dive into the tools. www.liveabrighterlife.org

We cannot keep going back to the outdated tools, the outdated dash board and expect that our modern lives be best served.

We must find the courage to learn new tools, practice them daily and install them on the dashboard of our beautiful new lives.

 

Love and light,

Indrani

Then there were two….

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I was speaking to a very dear friend the other day.

She said that she had 6 beautiful bowls that someone had given to her a long time ago.

The other day she noticed that there were only 3 and she realized that some of them were broken.

She felt happy that she had 3 left.

She began to tell her young daughter who had been helping with her dishes.

She turned away to do something and heard the awful sound…

CRASH!

She froze and realized that something had broken.

She did not know what it was. She turned to the sink full of dishes and saw her sweet daughter, shaking and fearful and she heard these words, “Sorry mom it was an accident, I did not mean it. Sorry mom.”

My dear friend said, “Now there are two.”

And then she smiled.

The worry on the daughter melted away and the mom showed her child how easy it was to show compassion and to to teach her child that mistakes can and will happen.

As my friend was telling me this story I saw the realization on her face that her child had been shaking because she fully expected to be yelled and screamed at.

My friend knew that she had been a teller and she had parented with anger in the past.

She also knew that she had been intentional in the way she had been parenting the past few years and that she had significantly changed the energy in the family.

She had been able to forge a deeper connection with her son and she had been showing her daughter what unconditional love really is.

Here, at this moment, it meant that she loved her daughter MORE than she ever could love those dishes.

She chose to NOT break her child.

She chose to parent with understanding and respect.

I have known this woman for a long time. I know how hard this woman has worked to get to a place of peace and tranquility.

I applaud her willingness to change the way she used to parent and to seek new ways and to know that she was doing the best for her kids.

Most people say, “My parents did it this way and I turned out ok.”

My view is why just settle for OK when we can be wiser and better than OK?

Let us thrive as parents and constantly better ourselves so we can raise a brighter generation. One that will know more than we will ever know and will be in charge of the welfare of our grandchildren.

 

Love & light,

Indrani

Brighter Life Bit #19: Shame and expectations

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ILF_Wtagline_LogoYou can listen to the original teaching at the 11 minute mark of the Class 3 recording. You can download the audio from iTunes here or from the ILF website here.

In the last Brighter Life Bit you made a list of the different shame categories (the who, and what that cause you shame). The next question to ask is “why do these people and things cause me to feel shame?”

The answer is: Expectations.

The expectations of who you are supposed to be and how you are supposed to be compared to who you want to be and how you want to be.

Look over the different people, events, and things that you wrote down as triggering your feelings of shame, and beside each write down the expectation you are supposed to meet for each of these triggers:

  • Body image – I need to look like the magazine model
  • Money – I need to make more than $X
  • Teachers- you need to get more than 70% to be successful
  • Family – you need to take care of us, not yourself

To understand your feelings of shame you need to name it, and recognize that you are experiencing shame. Speaking (or writing) these expectations into the world is a big step towards changing how shame affects your life.

You can bring your own shame triggers, and the underlying expectations into the world by sharing them with the ILF community in the comments below…

Brighter Life Bit #18: Who and What causes you to feel Shame?

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ILF_Wtagline_LogoYou can listen to the original teaching at the 3 minute mark of the Class 3 recording. You can download the audio from iTunes here or from the ILF website here.

Brene Brown defines shame as:

“an intensely painful feeling or experience of believing we are flawed and therefore unworthy of acceptance and belonging.”

Or, to put it even more succinctly:

“Shame says, ‘I am bad’.”

In what situations are you telling yourself “I am bad?”

What people in your life make you think “I am bad?”

Understanding the situations and people in your life that trigger thoughts of shame is an important step in building your shame resilience (we will discuss this more in the Class #4 Brighter Life Bits).

Take some time now to write out a list of the “what’s” and “who’s” that trigger feelings of “I am bad” in your life.

Then, you can share some of your list in the comments section below.

Self Responsibility…….

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sunset-401541_1280Self Responsibility… The “Philosophical Principle (that) entails ones acceptance of a profoundly moral idea. In taking responsibility for our own existence we implicitly recognize that other human beings are not our servants and do not exist for the satisfaction of our needs.”

The above quote is from the book Six Pillars of Self – Esteem by Nathaniel Branden.

Can you take some time to read the above sentence out loud, maybe more than once.

When I first came across this sentence in the book, I was stopped in my tracks.

If the above is true, and it is, then all of us who have been abused in one form or another would KNOW without the shadow of a doubt that we were wronged.

We would not have to ask others for their opinion of whether we were enough wronged as to take swift action and demand justice.

The married woman who is forced to be a servant to her husband and in-laws would know that she is not there for their implicit or explicit exploitation. She would know that she had the right to say an empowered NO.

If she could accept that she will not be made into an unpaid servant, how might she approach marriage differently? Might she ask the intended in-laws how they expect to treat her? Might she tell her future husband that she will not be forced into a life of servitude and sexual slavery?

I really have no answers to these broad issues but I do know that we must empower women BEFORE marriage to ask harder questions than “do you have a job and where will we live?”

The college woman who is gang raped would know that she needs to report the crime as often as she needs to until something is done. She would have to find the courage to stand against the friend circle who will most likely accuse her of being disloyal and being short sighted about her reputation.

Where did I get these examples of what the friend circle might say? It comes directly from the report of the gang rape at a frat house on the UVA campus.

The 18 year old woman was made to question her loyalties. She was made to stay silent about the horror that was done to her body and her mind by silently suffering.

If we could get women, especially High School and college women, to respect themselves as much as they respect what their friends say, we might be able to bring more rapists to face the music.

Please do not think that I am putting the burden of this whole thing on the shoulders of the survivor of the rape, I am not. I am, however, sure that taking responsibility for extracting justice for a crime that was done is one of the most powerful ways to begin the long and arduous process of healing.

We cannot expect society to change without each individual taking a stand for what is no longer acceptable.

This is how we got rid of slavery.

This is how women got the vote.

This is how dictators fall.

It is only speaking up, as often as we can, and as loudly as we can, that will bring change. It will still be slow, but we can never. ever give up.

Ever.

Love and light,

Indrani

Live a Brighter Life – Lesson #1, Setting Boundaries, in Action

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ILF_Wtagline_Logo(Amy Dier and Jeremie Miller will be teaching an Online Live a Brighter Life Class starting April 29th. Sign up here for free! http://indranislight.org/engage/intro-course-live/)

The Live a Brighter Life Classes will change your life.

I realize that is a REALLY big claim to make, and I am not one to overuse hyperbole, so I mean every word.

However, I realize that statements like this are not overly helpful, so I would like to share a personal story from the Setting Boundaries class, and SHOW you how these classes changed my life.

My family and I were eating in a sushi restaurant in Spokane. The restaurant staff was almost all Asian, with the head sushi chef being Caucasian.

At one point, the head sushi chef walked up to one of the waiters and told him to set up four spots in front of him at the sushi bar for some regulars coming in. The waiter, with a thick accent, asked for clarification and the head chef lost it on him.

Holding up four fingers in the waiters face, the head chef shouted “Four people. One. Two. Three. Four. Learn some Engrish”

I was blown away, and in normal circumstances would have just grumbled to my wife about it and continued eating. Then I looked at my son’s shocked and confused eyes. My stomach twisted, and the teachings from the “Setting Boundaries” class popped into my head.

I have a strong boundary around bullying, but I have been very squishy with that boundary. I hold that boundary firm when teaching and working with teenagers, but I don’t hold the boundary strong in everyday life.

Well, that wasn’t going to work this time. I asked to speak with the manager, explained to him what had happened, that I couldn’t believe it was allowed in his restaurant, and that my 6 year old son had witnessed it.

The manager apologized, talked to the chef, and then the chef came over to apologize, telling us that he and the waiter were friends and they were just joking. I still couldn’t drop it (to my surprise) and talked to the chef about violence and abuse and asked if he was 100% sure the waiter was “OK” with being treated like that, and if he had thought about the effect such “jokes” could have on other people listening.

He apologized again and said he would talk to the waiter.

My wife looked at me and asked, “Where did all that come from?”

The only answer I had, “The Live a Brighter Life teaching I am listening to.”

This huge shift in enforcing my own boundaries comes directly from the Setting Boundaries class. If you find yourself in need of strengthening your own boundaries (and who doesn’t need to work on improving boundaries) you can sign up for the Live Online Live a Brighter Life class right now http://indranislight.org/engage/intro-course-live/

We start April 29th. See you there!

Heat stability, the power to thrive under pressure.

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I love having conversations with professionals in different fields of study. One such exchange was with a few chemical engineers, who were explaining to me about chemicals that are heat sensitive or heat stable.

This definition of chemical stability comes from Wikipedia: Chemical stability when used in the technical sense in chemistry, means thermodynamic stability of a chemical system.[1]

Thermodynamic stability occurs when a system is in its lowest energy state, or chemical equilibrium with its environment. This may be a dynamic equilibrium, where individual atoms or molecules change form, but their overall number in a particular form is conserved. This type of chemical thermodynamic equilibrium will persist indefinitely unless the system is changed. Chemical systems might include changes in the phase of matter or a set of chemical reactions.

The instances of abusers going completely crazy  and killing the individuals that they are blaming for the fury makes me think of chemicals that are NOT stable.

Abusers are NOT stable people. We never know when they will fly off in a rage, and decide that they must take drastic action and kill and maim people.

I am not an expert on what happens inside the body when people are in rage.

I am willing to guess that they feel like they MUST react and must react fast. They may feel like the other people are “winning” but if asked they probably cannot even verbalize what the game is that the other is winning!

How can we encourage abusers to learn to be heat stable?

How can we teach them that THEY are the only ones in control of their own behaviors?

How can we empower abusers who have not had any training in self management to be able to manage themselves?

We must start with YOUNG people. We must start in schools. We MUST at least START.

Here at Indranis Light, we have started. We have FREE classes.

Here is the link: http://www.liveabrighterlife.eventbrite.com/

Send the link to someone who is suffering from abuse.

Send the link to the young people in your life.

Send the link to women whom you suspect  are suffering and oppressed.

Do SOMETHING that will cost you nothing. Send the link.

If you are afraid that your friend may never again speak to you, take the chance anyway.

Take the chance. Do something. Send the link.

Here is the link again.

http://www.liveabrighterlife.eventbrite.com/

We are on iTunes. We are FREE on iTunes.

Please do something.

 
Love and light,
Indrani

Plagued by thoughts….

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*Psst.. Did you know you can highlight any sentence in this post to automatically share it via Twitter or Facebook? Go ahead, give it a try!**


Woman-with-question-marks-15742269Often times, when I least expect it, I get flooded with those questions that I have an inability to answer and they haunt me.

More often than not, those questions have to do with my mission…to end gender violence.

Some of the niggling questions have to do with the relationships between men and women and why women continue to accept abuse and why men continue to think they have the right to abuse.

In my work, my passion for ending Gender Violence, Intimate Partner Violence and Violence against Children, I have more questions than answers.

All the questions begin with WHY?

WHY would a grown man rape a child?
WHY would educated women stay in abusive relationships?
WHY would a mother-in-law abuse her daughter-in-law?
WHY is society still pretending that this is a problem for “others”?

The WHEN question is …

WHEN is enough enough?
WHEN will CEO’s investigate their managers for domestic violence before hiring them?

WHAT can YOU do?

You can begin by eradicating violence in YOUR home and community.

Here are some classes to help get you started, pass this link around to EVERYONE you know.

www.liveabrighterlife.eventbrite.com

NO ONE is immune to be on the receiving end of violence.

Share this blog with all the people you love, ask them to share it with people they love.


Thanks for taking up this cause.


Love and light,
Indrani

The cost of higher education……

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A new study from Population and Development Review finds that educated Indian women face a heightened risk of Intimate Partner Violence.

According to a Population Council Journal Article, Abigail Weitzman, a graduate student at New York University, found that compared to women with less education than their husbands, women with more education face 1.4 times the risk of IPV, 1.54 times the risk of frequent violence, and 1.36 times the risk of severe violence. She found a similar pattern for women who were better employed than their spouse. And women who were the sole breadwinners in their family faced 2.44 times the risk of frequent violence and 1.51 times the risk of severe violence as unemployed women whose husbands were employed.

“In global development efforts, there is a large emphasis on women’s employment and education. My research suggests that there can be a backlash, including violence, toward women who attain greater education or earnings than their husbands,” says Weitzman.

This article is available free of charge for a limited time at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1728-4457.2014.00650.x/pdf.

Education and employment for women is so important for cultures and nations to thrive….but the result of a backlash of increased domestic violence is not acceptable. What can YOU do to help move us to a world free of such violence?

Our free Live a Brighter Life Empowerment Program for Living is a great place to start.

 

Love & light,

Team ILF