Journey Towards Innerself

My inner journey is taking me to places which are strange and totally unknown. There are challenges and manifestations. The path is sometimes cozy and difficult at other times.

Massive revelations, new horizons, and stellar black holes are being experienced as I advance and cross billions of galaxies. Everything is amazing and unique. My perceptions and beliefs which were drawn since many births are reshaping and leading to the complete overhaul.

The soul is really eternal and witnessing the body around it. I feel finding new definitions for everything I come across and the true calmness is apparent and sustained for longer periods. Since childhood, I heard many times that the sky is the limit, but now I can envision that sky may be only the beginning, real journey is far bigger, better and divine.

Observing and expressing in words all these simultaneously is a difficult task. The journey took me

Life - Stuck up or Straying ?

Dealing with Feelings of Stagnation and Wandering

Most of us occasionally find ourselves feeling bored or experiencing a significant decline in enthusiasm for life. If this feeling persists, it’s important to take it seriously and assess whether you’re stuck or simply straying off course. Life presents us with many questions—some have straightforward answers, while others do not—and it’s often these unanswered questions that leave us feeling this way.

Life is full of ups and downs, but those who possess clarity and the ability to overcome indecisiveness can better manage their state of mind and navigate life’s uncertainties.

Symptoms of Feeling Stuck or Straying:

1. Aimless Wandering: Some people frequently go out without any specific purpose. This might also include taking unnecessary leaves from work without any real reason.

2. Irritability: Their behavior becomes more irritable, especially towards family members and close friends.

3. Procrastination: Even when there’s work to be done, they delay it. This procrastination is a common symptom, reducing their overall effectiveness.

4. Excessive Use of Social Media: They become addicted to social media, spending hours updating their status and chatting with people who aren’t significant in their lives.

5. Increased Consumption of Alcohol and Drugs: To escape their feelings of being stuck or lost, some may start drinking more or even resort to drugs.

6. Seeking Happiness in Strangers: Interestingly, such individuals may look for happiness in strangers rather than in their trusted friends or relatives.

7. Irregular Eating Habits: Their eating patterns become irregular, leading to a decline in their overall health.

8. Lack of Interest in Work: Even if their job is secure, they lose interest and start applying for other positions.

9. Sudden Aggression or Depression: Their reactions become unpredictable, with sudden outbursts of anger or bouts of depression.

10. Seeking Unnecessary Approval: They may lose confidence in themselves and start seeking approval from others for every little decision.

11. Blaming Themselves and Others Without Cause: They may start blaming themselves or others for no apparent reason, and this habit can become ingrained over time.

How to Overcome These Situations

If you notice these symptoms in a friend or relative, it’s important to take steps to help them. While there’s no one-size-fits-all solution, here are some strategies that might help:

1. Be Practical: Practicality is key. Whether it’s work, goals, or other aspects of life, everything should be achievable and realistic. Often, things don’t work out because they aren’t practical, which leads to feelings of being stuck.

2. Avoid Negative People: If someone is already struggling with indecisiveness, being around negative people will only make things worse. It’s better to avoid such influences.

3. Consult a Trusted Mentor: If you have a mentor you trust, seek their advice. Share your feelings and symptoms with them.

4. Engage in Creative Activities: When all other avenues seem closed, turn inward. Creative activities like gardening, painting, writing, or reading poetry can be very therapeutic.

5. Refresh Your Goals: If your current goals seem out of reach, reassess and create a new list of goals that you truly want to pursue.

6. Evaluate Your Direction: If you’re feeling stuck, make sure your efforts are aligned with the right direction. Reassess your path and start anew if necessary.

7. Start Small: Begin with small, manageable steps. Expecting major results immediately is unrealistic.

8. Know Your Limits: Understand the resources available to you and set your limits accordingly. Knowing your boundaries can prevent feelings of being stuck.

9. Read Inspirational Books or Watch Motivational Movies: Inspirational content can be incredibly uplifting. Seek out books or movies that provoke thought and offer motivation.

10. Change Your Environment: Spending time in a serene, natural environment with close friends or family can rejuvenate your spirit and bring new energy to your routine.

11. Keep Your Hopes Alive: Above all, maintain hope. Remember, nothing is permanent—neither the good nor the bad. Challenges are opportunities for growth, and something new and better may be on the horizon.

It’s important to understand that feeling stuck and feeling like you’re straying are different experiences, though they can happen simultaneously. The key is to recognize your current situation and take steps to overcome it. By following the suggestions above, you can gain clarity and regain control of your life. If the issue involves another person, consider the situation from their perspective as well. What seems right for you may not be the same for them. Stay positive, and work towards making your life more balanced, lively, and vibrant. 

Ashok Madrecha

Connect or Reconnect Well

Life demands connecting and reconnecting with variety of people. It is very important to understand how we connect or reconnect with people. It is well-known fact that if we respect someone, it makes him happy and if we hurt his ego it would invite his anger. If we salute or shake hand with smiling face it makes a lot of difference. If an employee while attending his or her duty says good morning to boss, it makes difference. If two friends are meeting after a long time then they would notice each other how they are reconnecting. Successful people always balance their life by maintaining their behavior in right direction. I noticed many cases where promotion of particular employees was kept on hold explaining no reasons and the only reason was that the employee did not know the basic knowledge of how to connect well. Not only in job, it affects our personal life too. Take an example, a person arranged a party and invited many friends. One of his good friend could not come due to sickness of his spouse. The friend called and expressed his inability to come. While attending call, the person simply said OK and not even bothered to ask about health of his friend's spouse. Here we miss out badly and forget how to connect properly. If some sweet words can heal someone than why not to say and win heart too. Is it necessary to have some academic educational for all these gestures.

Sometime thinking of who will start first makes thing complex. Life is like a river and there are only two sides. We all too have to move and flow between these two sides only. My point here is that these two sides are always facing each other and they have to stay internally well-connected for the flow of the water. The same is true when we interact with someone and our inner self remains well-connected to communicate better and have a nice relationship too. The connecting or reconnecting naturally makes a lasting effect. There are different way to connect by meeting personally, talking on phone, gifting something, helping someone by extending a favor and so on. Let us connect better to have balance in our life. 

Pursue your goals

Every time when you feel things will move, time will change, just see whether you are pursuing your goals on a sustained basis or waiting for the destiny to change repeatedly. If our expectations are high then efforts too must be more timely and focused.

Never conclude your victory or defeat without putting enough efforts. Time plays it's role but our own initiative makes a difference.

Goals may be anything, study, reaching a particular position, winning heart, become an influential leader, targeting an award, mastering a skill or profession and so on. Higher the goal, higher would be the need for efforts. Sitting pretty in your drawing room and thinking of changing everything with miracles must be avoided. Instead wholehearted persuasions of the goal will lead us to build our own incredible empire we dream upon. One can say, coming out of comfort zone would be the first step to pursue his or her goals. At the beginning, the journey may be very boring but after crossing some milestones it would become interesting more and more.

There are four reasons for not achieving goals

1. Lack of burning desire : there are people who get influenced by changing circumstances for instance, Just after reading newspaper headlines or meeting someone they set their goals and don't know what they wish to achieve. One should live the dream.

2. Setting wrong or unpractical goals : Be practical while setting a goal. Decide short term and long term goals and focus on what can be accomplished early. Unpractical goals will lead us to frustration only.

3. Efforts in wrong direction : even after putting all out effort goals are not within reach then certainly our efforts are in the wrong direction. Rethink your strategy and make suitable changes in your action plan.

4. Lack of resources : most of the time we find people complaining about the resources. We must first assess all three points above then think about all those who achieved their goals and ask ourselves whether we are the only one who are deprived of resources. Proper planning and action in the right direction on a sustained basis will surely lead us to great success.

Let's move and strive for the best.

Cultivate a hobby

When life seems to be at standstill hobby can be an answer. Most of us have some hobbies but we don't pay much attention to them due to many constraints. Truly speaking hobby is like communicating with one self and if cultivated properly it provides valuable meaning to life.

One can choose a hobby or hobbies as per his or her wishes. We find people enjoying with painting, writing, playing some games, walking, gardening, speaking, advising, counselling, singing, traveling, meditating and so on. When we do something as per our choice, it makes us like talking to ourselves and we start expressing in true senses which bring out stagnancy set in our life. Now we must see one important fact that while choosing hobby ensure that whether it is really communication with oneself or it is just killing our time. For instance watching a television series is not a hobby it can be fun. I feel we should not classify such things in the hobby though one can find these very essential for him.

My point is that hobby should increase your inner pleasure and satisfaction level as you advance in devoting into it. There are many people around the world whose hobby took them to height and they converted it in their profession with great success too. In most of the cases people surrender and compromise with their hobbies and eventually they loose charm in life. Once charm and inspiration lost, it becomes difficult to come out of negativity which haunts on a sustained basis and this makes us compelled to think about our hobbies which enables us to talk with our own soul really.

Me and We of Relationship

Relationship in life is common but but its longevity is little uncommon. We have so many relationships like husband and wife, man and women, brother and sister, son and father, mother and daughter, sister and sister, brother and brother, pupil and teacher and the list goes on. We build our relationship either by birth, by our contacts or may be due to some other reasons.

Most of us would agree on this truth that a good relationship makes a person happy and a strained relationship causes tension in life. This truth emphasizes the need to understand why a relationship breaks or get strained.

You would be surprised in many cases of couples coming to me for consulting before buying a house their first sentence was like " Sir We wish to buy a good house and plan accordingly, please suggest us. This We and Us are very nice words to bond them and this leads them to success in planning a good house too. let us go further, after some time many of these couples are now changing from this We and Us to Me and mine like words which are the root of serious damage to any kind of relationship. Later on I hear such words from them Sir, its me who bought the house and the other one says its me who manages the home now point here is that We is lost and Me has taken place of We. If anyone in a relationship changes priority which has bearing on others then be careful and see whether we are on verge of adopting this Me instead of We. Please count how many time you are using words like Me, Mine, and compare this count again after some days and see are you readying for a break up ? If you are sure that use of such words are higher then cautiously shift to We and Ours. This will make lot of difference. Journey of life would demand some changes in attitude and everyone should take note of this. behaving like I am always right is a myth and we should try to break this and not these precious relationships which are bestowed upon us. 

Status or Stress ?

Journey of life comprises of so many achievements, wealth, respect, recognition, image, brand, skill, and so on. Collectively all this makes a person different and it creates status . As a human being we try to keep it up and up. We should ask ourselves at what level we are comfortable with this status or I would say it so called status in other way. The reality of life is that if we under unknown pressure try to keep on maintaining this status, it creates stress, so ideally it should be spontaneous and not an obligation on constant basis just to show off and impress others by engaging our positive energy.

Other side effects of  "So called Status" which I personally observed are:

1) Jump in level of attitude instead of gratitude
2) Lesser communication with friends and close relatives
3) Feeling loneliness even after crossing many milestones in life
4) absence of humour and increase of monotony
5) Constant irritation with self or others
6) Living artificial life
7) Chasing unwanted objects for more status
8) Developing health hazards

The list above is just illustrative, you can add more and more points at your end. Point to be noted is that achieving something in life is not wrong in itself  what we miss is we put ourselves in chasing something which is not that much required primarily though it may be necessary . We must draw a line in between the both to make life more easy, balanced,simple, and enjoyable.

Express Completely

Life provides us opportunities to express ourselves on varied fronts, be it social, academic, carrier wise, public forums or at personal level. Many of us not even recognise these opportunities and defer our decision to work on that and this all leads us to live without effectiveness. We as human being are most intellectual creature of the nature but our intelligence if not used properly can work against our own. 

Some questions we may ask to ourselves :

What debars us expressing completely in our deeds ?

Why hesitation takes prime place while working?

Why we do not create a sound image of ourselves?

Do we perform half heartedly?

Are we really interested in what we are doing ?

Do the outcome inspire us to  work towards it?

Is it a person , location or situation compelling to work ?

Are we so much compelled that we can not make the change we imagined ?

If we can find honest answers of all these questions from ourselves , a kind of clarity we can have towards the life we really wish to live.

whatever we do, barring very few exception of diplomacy , express yourself completely to the extent you can and it will culminate into a big success even you did not sought sometime. half way expressing brings monotony in life , be it job, carrier, education, society or even loving someone.

Crowd puller or crowd follower

 

Why we live our life unsatisfied most of the time. If observed carefully, you will notice that we are either crowd follower or crowd puller. In both situation we remain part of crowd and try to justify ourselves that this is right and this is wrong. Crowd in its own has no brain still it behaves but unpredictably. What if a person too starts behaving in manner like crowd ? Peace would go away and fun of life too. He would always think what others would think if I do this or not do. Is this right way of doing or not according to crowd around him ?

How to remain part of crowd but behave independently and prudentially is what one should seek.Generally leaders are crowd pullers and public is followers but balancing life demands enough maturity to achieve independence constantly.

Let's go further .. Since our childhood we are moulded to think always in default mode like what is hot and cold, love and hate, up and down, good and bad, elder or younger, big or small, black or white, yes or no and it goes on.. This is what I would say crowd mentality . there are number of opposite combinations but you can't predict what odd combination would be picked up by the crowd. So we have to be independent to think and act accordingly then only we can say our journey towards balancing life is going on.