In this blog, we shall talk about gratitude, the antidote to mental illness. But what is this gratitude? How it is different from thankfulness? Gratitude is a feeling which comes from within and it can come for the benefits received by you or for nothing. Thankfulness is an act from the person who received the benefits. Gratitude can be expressed in thankfulness. A ‘Thank You’ with the feeling of gratitude has the power to transform your life and change its course towards positivity. It is a powerful cure to your mental block and illness. How? We shall talk about it further in the blog. Since the coronavirus pandemic has struck the entire world, thousands of people have been finding it difficult to keep a control on their emotions of hopelessness and agony. The necessary evil, i.e. the lockdown has also pushed many people into solitude and without human touch, most of them are finding it difficult to maintain a high life state. However, in such situations we often forget that no matter what the situation, one has numerous things they can be thankful for. Why should one be thankful for everything they have? Let me answer that question with a short example.

Mike, a young lad, had recently been offered his dream job. He was extremely excited as he joined the firm and wanted to display his potential to his best. Suddenly his company had some issues and to support his company he started shouldering more responsibilities beyond his job specifications. Everything worked in his favour, he was in constant touch with his manager, and he was being appreciated at great lengths as he worked at his best for a few months. However, gradually, he began to feel that the levels of appreciation have reduced. He began to feel as if he is working for no gains. He started to lose his interest and began to feel that his company and manager has probably taken him for granted. He felt as if he isn’t being respected and this eventually became evident in his quality of work.  “I am taken for granted in this company!”, “Everyone here is thankless!” This is what he thought. On the other hand, his manager had begun to believe that Mike had reduced his dialogue with him and has stopped respecting him. “I think he has taken me for granted. He is not feeling gratitude towards how well I trained him. Maybe he forgot how well I trained him at the start!”, his manager thought.

One factor became the sole reason for the dispute in Mike’s work life, i.e. Lack of Gratitude. One cannot feel the zeal to do well at a place where there’s lack of appreciation. It is a vicious cycle of negative energy. You attract what you believe in. Overload of fear, lack of appreciation, and negative energy swarms your life and seizes the functions of your mind. This in turn leads to mental illness. However, basing your actions on gratitude and thanking your surroundings for what you have instead of focusing on what you don’t, leads you towards abundance!

How does gratitude cure mental illness?

1) Improved Sleep: Balanced and sufficient sleep is a must for a peaceful state of mind. People who realise the importance of gratitude in their lives end their day by thanking the universe for everything they have. This creates a focus on things that are positive in life. Sleeping on positive and happy thoughts results in a satisfying sleep. Gratitude also releases stress and helps relieve anxiety and depression which results in better sleep. Gratitude in this manner improves sleep, thus, in turn, maintaining the balance of mind.
2) Self-love: Once you realize that you are fortunate to have a healthy body and mind, which are the key ingredients for success, and you’re fortunate in numerous terms for your life, your gratitude towards your life increases. This will reduce your self-criticism and will increase your self-love. You love what you have, and you begin to accept yourself the way you are. Focus on ‘what is’ than ‘what is not’ shoots up self-love and makes way for positivity in life.
3) Building effective social relationships: Gratitude is the key to building effective and fruitful relationships with society. Man, being a social animal, depends on society to a great extent for his well-being. When you begin appreciating and paying gratitude to the person next to you, you build harmonious relationships. Harmony and goodwill help an individual in maintaining mental health.

Begin paying gratitude in your daily life in the following manner:

1) Appreciate and accept yourself, the way you look, the way you think, your achievements as well as your failures. Begin by writing what you really love about yourself and meditate on those positive thoughts. Be thankful for what you have and begin focusing on working upon yourself to grow in life each day.

2) Appreciate your family, your friends, the society you live in. Pay gratitude to the person in front of you. It is not necessary to always show to them that you’re thankful. Being grateful at heart is conveyed through positive energy.

3) Pay gratitude to the universe for all the materialistic things you possess.

Where there’s gratitude, there’s abundance. Use the power of gratitude to fill your life with positivity.

Stay Grateful, Happy, and  Stress-free!

“Success needs hard work? Or, success depends on luck?" These are your thoughts as you wait at the bus stop for the 9.00 a.m. bus on a Monday morning, all set for your job promotion interview. You are sharply dressed in a crisp white shirt with a tie on, and a pair of black trousers.

“Shall I be successful in the interview today? Will I get the promotion? What can I do to prove my worth?”

You notice a man with the magazine that has “Top 100 Most Influential People” as its lead story.

Will this prompt you to think deeper?

Success, for you, at that moment would be equal to getting the promotion.

However, success is not the matter of one moment. It needs investment in the form of diligence, the way a seed needs constant nurture to grow into a tree.

Think of an individual who is successful according to you, and notice their traits. Do they respond to your question confidently or do they fumble? Do they seem passionate about their life, or do they complain? There are a few traits that are common across all successful individuals:

1. Learn to appreciate yourself and the universe!

What we sow, so shall we reap! This is a universal law known to everyone. Whatever we give to the universe comes back to us in equal proportion.

An animal trapped in a mirror box growls at his own reflection, thinking it to be another animal. Its scorn comes back to it from all sides, multifold. The universe is no different to a mirror box. Learn to appreciate the way you are and learn to respect others.

You decide the way the world treats you!

An individual who understands this law is bound to succeed in life.

2. Open up your mind, be receptive towards others’ views, and take risks!

Listen carefully what people have to offer. The stereotype of staying aloof in order to focus on career and be successful has not led to much success in the real world.

Today, we constantly gather information, but once our minds are full – we stop listening, our mind gets saturated and we suffer from brain fog. It is important for us to empty our minds to enhance creativity. Adequate amount of sleep is one way of providing rest to a tired mind.

Our life revolves around the beliefs and ideas we inculcate. However, being dismissive to new ideas and the risks they bring along is not a good sign.

Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook once remarked, “…the only strategy guaranteed to fail is not taking risks!”

You need to gear up to take risks in order to grow in life. Fear of stagnancy is much higher than the fear of loss in successful people!

Listen to understand, to gain knowledge, and to achieve wisdom.

3. Focus on daily, short term goals! Start small, and scale them higher with discipline!

Think of your life as a Kids Bank Account. You save little by little hoping to draw a fat saving amount in the future. Focusing on daily goals and working towards them opens the gateway for greater success in life.

However, if you fail in some instances, this should not pull you down. It is immensely important to remain motivated on a regular basis. Remind yourself of your goal every time you seem to lag behind. Action aligned to discipline gives results.

Every day should end analyzing your highs and lows during the day. Achieving daily targets provides the push to move forward towards the larger goal. Spending some time meditating on yourself and seeking some ‘me time’ on a daily basis is a habit to be developed for achieving greater heights.

4. Stay in the present , discarding the junk from the past! Accept your failure, forgive yourself, learn and move on!

When was the last time you felt you’ve conquered the world? Do you remember the feeling of that extreme happiness?

Remember your high points in life and strive every moment to feel the same way. Focusing constantly on aligning yourself to positivity is a way of life for successful people.

Be a wise judge of what to keep and what to discard from past memories, and keep moving ahead in life. Failures are memories to learn from. No one has ever grown in life if he or she decides to stagnate.

As Winston Churchill says “Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm…”, accept, forgive yourself, learn and move on!

An eagle can foresee a storm. Instead of hiding away, it flies to a high point, sets its wings in such a way that the winds lift it higher than the storm itself.

Failures are the storms in your life, above which, a successful individual soars like an eagle!

Success in life mandatorily needs clarity of vision, intention and dedication. Elon Musk, CEO of automobile giant Tesla Motors, has a mission to enable global automobile transition towards sustainable energy. Despite numerous challenges, he has begun to live his vision. His mission resonates with the universe, and hence possesses utmost potential for success!

Every successful individual has stories that are stepping stones to his success!

When are you planning to begin writing your own story?

If you want to understand how and where to start, let’s have a conversation.

You are the autobiographer – Create your success story and as you do so, Stay Healthy and Stress-free!

Have you ever stopped and wondered how many conflicting thoughts you deal with every day? You want to:

Finish an important report for your office  OR Go for your exercise OR Watch your favourite TV show  OR Finish some house chore...

Then you decide to settle for watching TV.

At times, you may want to finish some plumbing activity at home but suddenly talking to a friend or watching soccer becomes more important.

You will notice a pattern: Most often you chose a ‘less’ important work.

It is almost like you have two personalities. There is a part in you that wants to proceed as per your beliefs and then there is this other part which asks you to go against these beliefs. It is like if you have Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, both in you.

Two or more conflicting thoughts in your mind at the same time creates tension. This tension is directly proportional to the:

1. Importance or attachment to the subject or event
2. The degree of the opposition of your conflicting thought and belief
3. Difficulty to resolve the conflict of thought

Let us look at some real-life situations to understand this a bit more.

Let us say, you are married, and you strongly believe in the institution of marriage. However, you get attracted towards another person in your office then this will create a lot of stress in you, as your belief in the institution of marriage is strong and getting attracted to another person is totally contradicting this belief (nearly a 180-degree turn). As you cannot avoid this person in the office, the chances to resolve this conflict is a challenge. This can result in the failure of your marriage.

Students who know that this is the right time to study but waste it in video games, chats etc. will be a victim of these conflicting thoughts.

You want to quit smoking or control eating fatty foods, but you do exactly the opposite because of your conflicting thoughts.

There will be many instances when you set out to achieve something but fail because of the wrong choices you made. In these cases, you have been a victim of conflicting thoughts.

So, conflict of thoughts is one of the biggest reasons for the failures you have faced since your childhood till now.

Now, how to control your conflicting thoughts?

Awareness development towards that aspect of your life is the only way to resolve the conflict. If you want something in your life, you need to:

1. Be aware of ‘how passionately you desire’ it: Strong willingness to achieve something is the first step towards avoiding conflicting thoughts and takes you closer to success. This is also useful in overriding other conflicting thoughts.
2. Be aware of ‘how much you are ready to change or transform’ for it: This is another aspect you need to be ready for before you start a new endeavour. Every new achievement in your life changes or transforms you. The more significant the achievement, higher is the change or transformation in you. So, you should be ready for changes in your life otherwise this will create conflict in your thoughts and result in failure.
3. Be aware of the process: You need to be aware of the process to achieve what you want. This will help you in your success.
4. Ready to Learn: New endeavours will bring you the possibility where you will need to learn new things and now that you are ready to change, you will need to be ready to learn. Learning brings growth and change.
5. Accept the results: With the approach, you have taken, you need to be very much aware of the shape and form in which your results will appear. You must accept your results as they come, as the process and effort have been done by you. Sometimes your mind dreams of a result without considering the process you have followed, or the detours you have taken in the process. So, accepting the results paves the way for future success.

There was a Fakir (wandering saint) in a city and he was known to be a God-realized soul. There was a man named Nitin who always asked this fakir “When am I going to see God?” or “Show me God please”.

One day the fakir was going to take his bath when Nitin crossed his path and asked the same old question, “Please show me, God”.

The fakir smiled and said, “Come, I will show you, God, today.” Nitin was caught by surprise, but he became excited with the thought of seeing God. He followed the Fakir to the river when the faqir asked him to take a dip in its waters. As Nitin took a dip, the fakir held Nitin’s head and neck with both hands and forced him to stay underwater. Nitin’s first thought was that this might be the process, but when he realized that the fakir is not going to let him come out of the water, he started to struggle with the fakir, so he could come out for some air. After a lot of struggle, the fakir released Nitin and allowed him to take some deep breaths.

Once Nitin felt better, the fakir asked, “How do you feel?”

Nitin got very angry, “Is this a joke? I almost died.”

The fakir asked again, “Answer my question. How did you feel underwater?”

Nitin said, “What do you expect? I felt I would die of suffocation.”

The fakir smiled and said, “This is the kind of desperation you should feel till you see God. A desperate passion, a longing, a sole aim that consumes you day and night. Your mind should not have any conflicting thoughts about other priorities in life. Your focus should be clear. And for this, you need high levels of awareness.”

So, in a nutshell, to avoid failure due to conflicting thoughts you need to be aware of:

1. What it takes to become successful
2. The changes or transformation it brings
3. Learnings it brings in your life
4. Results it can bring to you

Once you commit to the above, you will never face conflicting thoughts on your path to success.

See you next week. Till then, Stay Aware, Stay Healthy and Stress-free!!