Tag Archives: right speech

Staying in YOUR OWN business will reduce SELF ABUSE….

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office-336368_640Some of you will have read the title of this blog and have no earthly idea where I will be going.

Others of you will say, “But of course, everyone knows this!”

Still others may just be amused that the title may seem trite.

Let me tell you a story to make this topic come alive. A few years ago, at a business conference I heard a CEO of a large company recall an instance of how this manifested in the C suite.

He was sitting and engaged in his work when he was interrupted by his personal secretary to say that someone from Marketing had a very serious issue.

Being a benevolent CEO, he stopped his work and took the unscheduled meeting.

The Marketing employee came to to tell the CEO that EVERYONE in the Marketing department hated the manager. She listed (painfully) a long string of names of those who had been wronged and how they were wronged and just how affronted she was at the whole state of affairs in the Marketing dept.

The CEO, leaned back in his chair (sure fire behavior that she had lost his attention) and asked her ONE question.

This was it…”Were you appointed by the WHOLE department to bring these atrocities to my attention?”

The answer was a halting and faltering “no.”

He continued, “No one asked you to come to me with this litany of complaints.”

She said, “no.”

He said, leaning forward, “What is YOUR specific problem with your job?”

She blurted out that someone who did less work than she did was making more money than she was.

The CEO, then simply told us these words, “If she had come in with ONLY her problem, we would have looked at it and made a correction. The fact that she was in everyone’s business was so unprofessional that she threw herself under a bus.”

I heard that story many years ago.

I really had not assimilated it to other life incidents as efficiently as I did a few days ago while I was mediating between a home owner and a domestic helper.

I started with the domestic helper first and I asked what her concernS were and she began a litany of past ills NOT against herself but against others she had heard about.

She told me about “Mary” who was underpaid and about “Janice” who was put upon and “had” to ignore her own family and on and on.

I could NOT find a way into this woman’s issues and her individual problems.

Every time I tried to speak she blocked me with another litany.

I then asked her to STOP.

I said I am going to tell you a story. I told her the story from the CEO, the story above. She was enthralled.

I asked her, at the end of the story, to tell me what the CEO was disappointed about and why.

She was able to identify that the employee was in everyone’s business but her own!

Then, I said “Are you in other people’s business with all the stories you were telling me and not able to identify your own issues?”

She agreed that she was indeed NOT in her business.

I had been observing her facial expressions and body language as she retold the stories that were not hers to tell. She was agitated and closed in and contracted.

When she began to be in her business she was open and her face was not contorted. She was actually able to smile and laugh at some of the humor that I was pointing out.

The moral of this story is:

When we stay in our business we practice self care at its finest.

Byron Katie has a great worksheet for understanding whose business you are in.

Please visit www.byronkatie.com/judgethyneighbor

You will be amazed at what you discover.

 

Love & light,

Indrani

Shareworthy: Calling all teachers…..

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child-636022_1280If you are a teacher, you must check out our good friend Tanya Kelley, Ally to Teachers Who Are Burning Out.

Today we are sharing one of Tanya’s posts, called Ending Well, which is a great read for teachers of all kinds. Tanya also offers a free group coaching call called I’m SOOO DONE with that child! Click here to learn more or to sign up.

Happy End of Year to all of our teacher friends! And happy reading!

Ending Well

by Tanya Kelley

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Cheers to you! As you take down the artwork and fancy writing assignments. Cheers to you! They’ve come so far since that first day you met them. Cheers to you — the year is over! And the 2014 / 2015 class picture takes its place with the others. Whew!

Maybe you’ll see them next year, but it won’t be the same. You’ll have a new class. They’ll have a new teacher. There are some students you hate to see go. But frankly, when it comes to others, you think, “thank heavens I will not have to deal with that child next year!” And in the same breath, the talk among your grade level team is thick with speculation about who is going to get the problem students next year.

Ending well is a process of letting go of the worst of times and the best of times and preparing to embrace a new class. It is also an opportunity to deepen personal and professional wisdom. If you’re willing to go there, it means taking a moment to linger with the memories and spirit of your problem child before moving on. If you decide to do so, above all, be gentle with yourself.

Rant

We’ve all had students who get under our skin. We breathe a sign of relief and the shoulders visibly let down when they are absent. We’re exhausted by the turmoil, conflict, strife, and high level of demand they bring to the classroom. We don’t want to feel that way. We maintain our best professional demeanor. But inside, we rail. We rant. “Why does it have to be such a struggle, every day? It’s so unfair!”

Consider a rant-o-rama. Basically a rant fest. Grab some paper and something to write with. Set a timer for 2 – 4 minutes. Rant about this problem child. Use your ugliest handwriting, caps, underlines, exclamation points, and emoticons. Stamp your foot if you want. Have a little tizzy fit now that the pressure is off. Or score your place in Monday’s “The Year’s Over and I’m SOOO Done” call at 10:00! Click here.

Reflect

Later, when you have some time to quietly and calmly reflect, set aside 5 to 10 minutes. Approach this reflective time with a spirit of curious inquiry.

How is it that this child had such an ability to rile me up? What do I wish she could have been or done instead? Besides this child, what other people or situations bring up these same responses for me?

If you sense another rant-o-rama coming on, consider whether it would be beneficial to go back to that step, or it it would be best for you to return to a calm, reflective place of curious inquiry right now. Or, you might decide that now is not a good time to reflect. Remember to be gentle with yourself!

You may think, “Why even go there? The year is over. I never have to deal with her again. It’s not worth my time and energy.”

Here are 2 reasons why you might want to go there:

  1. Because there will be a next time! The universe has a sense of humor, that’s for sure. You’ll get another chance to deal with a similar personality or set of circumstances. Wouldn’t it be nice if the cray-cray is a little less intense next time?
  2. Because going there give you a chance to know and do differently next time. A small shift can make a difference.

Release

Find the smallest thing that you can to admire, appreciate, or like about your mighty little tyrant. Mixed emotions are welcomed:

“Well, she did have this outrageous spunk — totally out of line in the classroom, the little brat — but she would be fabulous as my defense attorney, if I ever needed one!”

“Dang, if he wasn’t stubborn! Once he made a decision, he followed it through — too bad he missed out on what I could have taught him this year — but man, was he committed!”

And finally, allow yourself a touch of what you’re admiring, appreciating, or liking about the child. In your own adult, grown up, wise and beneficial way, bring some of the child’s spirit into your world. Because maybe what she was trying to show you all along was that a little outrageous spunk every once in a while is not such a bad thing.

Written by Tanya Kelley. 

Visit Tanya’s blog here.

Does this make you angry?

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2015-05-15_1552The day started off like most days, I brew a pot of coffee
for my wife and I and she turns on the tv and gets ready for
work.

We were both in a great mood.

In an instant I was pissed off, angry and appalled.

Why?

Watch for yourself!

Let me start by saying that I love a good joke, BUT this is NOT funny.

Not in the slightest.

It is disrespectful and the people that did this are gutless, cowards.

They are not men.

And when given the opportunity to acknowledge and apologize, they choose to dig their heals in even deeper.

I did not choose to wake up to this, but I choose to stand up and say this has to stop NOW.

So what can we men do?

When we hear or see something that makes us sick, we need to say and do something.

They need to know that is not cool or funny, and hear it from us men as well.

This is not a feminist “thing”…..it’s a respect thing.

We all need to Man up.

 

1901511_1022259281136811_1508448638574535038_nShawn Shepheard

Author of “Life Is Sweet – Surviving Diabetes and a Whole Lot of Other Crazy Stuff!”

http://www.sugarfreeshawn.com/life-is-sweet/

Men need to become better leaders…and as a man this is terrifying

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I am sitting with a bunch of guys in a dressing room at the local hockey arena. Everyone is taking a break from a game of men’s floor hockey, drinking a few beers, and telling tall tales.

Then it begins…comments about the wives and women in our lives:

“I came home the other day and the house wasn’t even clean. What the hell is she doing all day while I am at work? Sitting around growing her ass or what”

“I told her I was coming here and it was blah blah blah, you never spend time with me. Of course I don’t, all you do is nag”

“Did you see that girl in the bar Thursday night….she had huge guns, they were amazing”

“I totally took her home, banged her, and showed her the door…”

And so it goes. Degenerating into inappropriate jokes and comments that no one in that room would say in public or outside of a room of a bunch of men drinking beer and kidding around.

Now, with my new realizations around Gender Based Violence, and the treatment of women, I need to stand up and say:

“Ummm….hey guys…this isn’t cool, you know. Aaaahhh…talking about your wives this way isn’t helping how your son sees women. That, ah.. that girl in the bar is someone’s daughter. Do you want someone talking about your daughter that way?”

Silence.

Dumbfounded silence mixed with shock, and looks of “who the hell invited this guy?”

 

Jackson Katz, in the Ted Talk below, clearly explains why focusing on women when talking about gender based violence is wrong, and why this focus needs to shift to men, and what men are doing (and not doing about it). He also clearly explains that men need to become leaders around this topic, and that the true battle will be won, not in public, when we are openly defending women, but within the small groups of men where so much of this harmful talk continues in a “safe zone”.

I hear what Jackson is saying, and it terrifies me. I want to be this leader. I want to make sure my son’s view of women is healthy. I want to protect all the daughters out there. I want to help eliminate violence against women.

Writing for Indrani’s Light Foundation – check.

Helping train others to help women in shelters – check.

Speaking out about gender based violence in social media – check.

Share the message with local schools and other people – check.

Stand up, in the moment, in a group of guys, and call them on their bullshit statements.

Gulp.

That one I NEED to work on, and it isn’t going to be easy.

But I am going to try.

If you are a man, or have men in your life who could use help developing this leadership, and taking this plunge, share Jackson Katz’s video and let’s get started.

Link: http://www.ted.com/talks/jackson_katz_violence_against_women_it_s_a_men_s_issue?language=en#t-284753

What to give up for lent….it’s not what you think.

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Mother-in-lawThe days between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday marks the Lenten season for Christians.

Many people “give up” something for lent. Many stop eating sweets or stop drinking or some other behavior modification.

Few people give up “being nasty” to others.

That maybe be too harsh a thing to say, but it needs to be said.

I recently met a woman whose son was getting married and she “asked” to go to the bridal dress shopping expedition. The future daughter in law was nice enough to take her along. When the bride found the perfect dress, she asked the mother in law what she thought and the response was… “It’s not to my liking.”

The bride went ballistic and shouted at the mother in law that it was NOT her wedding.

As I was listening to this story, I wondered why the mother in law was not giving up something other than sweets for lent.

She was so ferociously attacking the bride-to-be and calling her names to whom ever was listening, like “hoochie” that it was very hard to be sympathetic to her hurt feelings.

Personally, I know what the bride felt like. When I was getting married, none of the saris that I wanted were “good enough” for my future in laws.

Luckily, I was quite stubborn, and with the help of my future husband I got exactly what I wanted.

Parenting is hard at all ages and when kids are grown up enough to start their own families we all get to enter a new stage of parenting. This time we get to try to be nurturing to complete strangers whom our children have chosen.

We have to give up judgments of what they should or should not do.

We have to help the young people to sort through their own lives.

This is the only way forward into a new stage of non aggression with the new family member.

I wished this women would give up bad mouthing her future daughter-in-law for lent instead of cookies and candies.

I believe that I suggested she give up negative thinking instead of sweets and she said that it would be too difficult.

Is that not the idea for lent? To make a sacrifice that smarts a little?

So what have you given up for lent? Let us know in the comment section below.

Make the sacrifice count. Make the sacrifice make you a better person.
Love and light,
Indrani

To be assertive or to not be assertive…a task we face every day of our lives.

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uWowpolSelf assertion is not aggression. It is not banging people over their heads and claiming that you are better than them.

It is also NOT accepting others views of you.

“Self -assertiveness means the willingness to stand up for myself to be who I am openly, to treat myself with respect in all human encounters.”
Nathaniel Branden.

Let me tell you a story.

A few years ago a very dear friend of mine asked me to speak to his religious women’s group.

I knew that his faith did not allow women to see their priests for reasons I cannot fathom.

He knew what a strong and upfront woman I am and that I speak my truth.

I told him that I would gladly speak on any variety of topics BUT if it came up about their treatment of women with seeing priests that I would absolutely be truthful about how I felt.

He seemed to accept what I said and we agreed that he should get a different speaker.

However, his friend who had accompanied him to my home,  did not agree with me at all. In MY home he dared to challenge my point of view and was forcefully trying to make me agree with their views on women. I remained quite calm for about 15 minutes and then something happened.
I stood up and told him that this was my house and I was allowed my views in my house and he could not get me to change my mind.

I said we would have to agree to disagree.

He was shocked.

He was shocked because I DARED to stand and face him with conviction and clarity.

I am willing to bet money that NO woman had ever confronted him in his whole life and certainly no one had ever questioned his views on women in his faith.

He had never met a women who knew and understood her right to be assertive.

Nathaniel Branden tells us, “To practice self-assertiveness is to live authentically, to speak and act from my innermost convictions and feelings as a way of life – as a rule.”

Yes, this is what I did quite instinctively and with clarity of head and heart.

I am asking you, dear reader, to identify the areas of your life where conviction and clarity are lacking and to begin to take small steps to embolden your walk in your own life.

First you must talk the talk.
Then you must walk the walk.
Then you must encourage others to do the same.

Love and light,

Indrani

Stopping sexism towards men – A solution for gender based violence?

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Sexism is a term normally associated with women. It affects women in the workplace, on the street, in the media; it affects women in so many different ways, that we often forget an important piece of the sexism puzzle:

Sexism affects everyone: bisexuals, transgender, lesbians, gay men, and yes, even straight men.

Watch Laci Green as she unpacks and explores the idea of sexism against men and the effect it is having on everyone.

Watch and imagine what effect it would have on gender based violence if men no longer felt that they NEEDED to hide emotions, be powerful, and do manly things like fight, fix things, and have lots of sex to prove how masculine they are.

Could part of the solution be as easy as realizing that: there is no man or woman or gay or lesbian or transgender. There are humans.

Have you ever been sexist towards a man? If you are one of our male readers, have you ever experienced sexism?

We would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

 

Love & light,

Jeremie Miller

When the nasty “Know It All” person rears their ugly head, be very targeted in your response….

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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!**

Finger waggingAllow me to set the stage.

A couple weeks ago I buried my father.

I had the highest honor at the funeral to have delivered his eulogy.

It was, BY FAR, the most important speech I had ever and will ever make in my whole life.

I wrote and rewrote and edited and practiced and was generally very anxious about the whole day, but especially that I would do the greatest job I had ever done as a public speaker.

I wanted to rely on my memory but I choose to bring up the iPad and I stuck to the script because I was afraid I would lose my composure.

A dear friend had advised me that the eulogy should educate the congregation about the greatness of my father.

I spoke to my siblings and I spoke to his friends and to many young people that he had mentored and I composed my poetry on my Dad.

During the delivery, I spoke clearly, pausing to breathe and to allow the words to flutter like and angel’s wings over my family and dear friends who were in attendance.

I managed to get through almost 97% of it before my voice cracked and the tears began to flow.

Almost everyone came up or called up to tell me what a beautiful honoring I had done for my father.

Ok Dear Reader,

The stage has been set.

Fast forward to the actual night of the funeral. My siblings and children and nephews and mother are gathered in the humble living room in Trinidad and a friend of my mother comes to visit.

She walks in, loudly announcing that she has spent the whole day in church and has just offered up prayers for my mother.

THEN, she looks at me…

“Indrani,” she says loud and clear, “the eulogy was lovely BUT you should have said how devoted and loving your father was to your mother.”

The WHOLE room of people fell silent.

Everyone is now looking at ME, for my reaction.

Let me remind you Dear Reader, that the funeral would have been less than 8 hours prior and we were all still raw and in pain.

My sister, God bless her, sits upright from a slouched and relaxed position and says, “I MUST DISAGREE WITH YOU. You clearly did not hear the beginning when MY sister talked about their marriage of 62 years!”

The “nasty know it all” woman began to defend her position…she REALLY DID begin to defend her position!

If I wouldn’t have been so pissed I would have been laughing.

I then spoke up in a LOUD and VERY CLEAR VOICE.

And this is what I said….

“I have had many comments on the eulogy and everyone has said how lovely and honoring it was. I must tell YOU, you are the ONLY critic. I MUST give YOU a prize for the honor of being the sole critic.”

I then arose from the sofa, I walked to the dining room table and I picked up a piece of crumpled paper and I PRESENTED it to her.

I said, “THIS is your prize. Congratulations for criticizing the eulogy I spoke at my Dad’s funeral.”

Dear reader of this blog post, YOU should have seen the look on her face.

She could NOT believe that I was indeed defending myself against her attack.

She scampered out of my childhood home as fast as she could.

The lesson of this blog is this…

DO NOT allow nasty people to hijack your beautiful brain. Bring out the big response, stand on your sacred honor and let your brilliance fly.

Love and light,

Indrani

What stinks?

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via Sourpuss-Jenny-Erickson-S.-ExchangeEver walk into a room and instantly notice that something smells?  Stale smoke, mold, mildew. A habit like smoking lingers…so even if you are not the smoker and you are breathing the smoke second hand, you can be effected.  The toxins stick.

Toxic people and situations stick to stuff.

Abuse not only affects the victim and those who may be witnesses but as a party several degrees removed, you still can sense the anger and fear. Perhaps it is a broken lamp, a noticeable bruise or wound, a torn piece of clothing, a broken window…the violence now affects you.  You may feel scared, fearful, and angry at the perpetrator. You find yourself walking on egg shells in a play that has ended but the signs are still there.  Now you have the toxins.

The toxins of verbal abuse resonate beyond the fight.  A husband and wife argue. The wife saturated with the toxins of her husband’s venom then pushes those toxins out to her children. You are at the playground or school and you see the kids now fighting using the same words they heard at home, the name calling, the demeaning talk.  Now those toxins from the original argument have affected those who are unaware of the verbal toxins of the home. Now they have affected innocent people outside of the original dumping ground.

We expose ourselves to third party toxins from events, habits, situations we never knew existed but we walk away changed and not for the good.  Some of those toxins may even trigger dormant hurts from our past like shame, fear, and helplessness.   We have to rely on our sixth sense, our intuition or our gut to remove ourselves from these poisons so that we do not suffer or get injured.

Have you ever been in a room where you could feel the tension and you know something just happened?  Have you felt the shame as someone calls another worthless, and you take on that shame as if it was your own?

We need to listen to our intuition to save us from the ugly toxins that surround us.  Do you have the courage to walk away in these situations?

Total recall…or false memories

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black-blackandwhite-fun-grey-memories-favim-coThere is a new movie out called Total Recall. I have not seen it and this is not a commentary on that movie.

Rather, this is about what we remember and what we choose to forget.

I know for a fact that three people will have three different interpretations for any particular event. They may get the facts right, like who married whom, but their memories of the service and wedding will be different.

I am wondering if what I remember is really what happened or could I have been convinced that I remembered wrongly?
People are quick to interrupt us and tell us how “it really happened.” I have been witness to many a marital fight that was based on who remembered “correctly.”

How have my memories been changed/affected by what others tell me?

When a child reports abuse and is told that it did not take place, how do they reconcile the feedback vs. the facts. When someone tells you that you were “rude” such and such a time and you don’t remember it that way, what do you do with the information? When an abused woman tells her mother-in-law that she is being beaten, will the mother-in-law believe? And how will that change the intensity of the woman’s memory in the moment?

Do you ever doubt your own memories?
Have you ever been challenged on your memories and have you felt like you are losing your mind?
By this I mean, you really, with absolute clarity, recall some event, only to be set upon by others, hell bent on changing your mind.

I don’t mean the give and take that happens between good friends, or people teasing you. I mean the mean-spirited verbiage that can erupt when you least expect it. I believe that people attack our memories when the memory makes them uncomfortable. Of course, I have no empirical proof of this statement…it is simply an intuition that I have having lived for more than 58 years.

Will they try to talk us out of our memory if it was a favorable memory to them?

Do you ever talk people out of a memory they have of you?
What would you hear if you asked a TRUSTED friend about something you both experienced together?
Would you be surprised at what they remembered? Would you be happy or upset?

Would you think that they judged you?

Would you judge them or yourself based on their recollection?

I have found that memories are like water….they slip away quietly but leave evidence of having been there.
I am oftentimes surprised by the amount of time I waste trying to wrestle a memory from its hiding place.
When this happens, it usually means that I am trying to “build a case” to prove something in the present.
I have come to loathe “case building.”
I hate when I do it and I despise when someone does it to me.

So, the next time you remember something, ask yourself these helpful questions:

  1. Will this help me to navigate what’s happening in the present?
  2. Why do I feel the need to unearth this memory now? Will it be a joyful experience?
  3. If it will bring me pain, what can I learn from the pain that I haven’t already learned?

Life is but a series of memories…make sweet ones.

 

Love & light,

Indrani