Guilt

Here it is:

List of guilts, possible action plans:

• That I have not done anything in the past.
• Everytime you remember that you have not done anything in the past, do also remember that it can only be alleviated by doing something NOW. There cannot be any better way of healing the past.
• One more thing to not feel bad about this is - to think of building yourself by making use of as many things from past as possible like reusing goal list - for example.
  
• That I cannot achieve anything - a direct corollary of the above one.
• Think about the work done during the canned project. Think about the work done as a part of TA ship. Think about the script you wrote to your friend. It all shows that you too can do anything, provided you completely believe that you can achieve it.
  
• That I don't plan my day and even if I plan my day - I don't stick to my plan.
• Get the nearest goal and clearly define its ends. Now for each end, which is defined clearly, prepare a set of actions. Store all these in a place that you are sure to visit time and again. You fully know what your nearest goal is.
  
• That I keep committing the same mistakes again and again.
• Every time you become conscious of the same mistake committed again, goto your log and increment the counter for that mistake. This is the best way to become fully aware of doing the same mistake again.
  
• That I am sitting on the fence between atheism and religion.
• Ignore it for the moment. It will take time to understand this.
  
• That I am not interested in anything and don't find meaning in anything.
• No, this is a lie. You are interested in a lot of things. You are interested in programming, you are interested in problem solving, you are interested in getting organized, you are interested in becoming a critical thinker, you are interested in hacking, you are interested in knowing something about everything, you are interested in achieving a balance in life, you are interested in a strong body, you are interested in photography, you are interested in travelling, you are interested in meditation, you are interested in humor, you are interested in building trustworthy relationships, you are interested in becoming a professional, you are interested in getting a beautiful {l,w}ife, you are interested in sex, you are interested in GETTING THINGS DONE - WHATEVER IT TAKES, you are very much interested in seeing the best of you.
  
• That I waste my time a lot by futile gestures.
• Having something solid in plan to do - will not give you time for futile gestures.
  
• That I feel inferior to almost all others.
• No, this is also a lie. You are not inferior. You care about somethings that others generally don't care, you are generous, civilized. You are not consuming too much in this world.
• The best way to take away this feeling from you is - to do something concrete.
• That I don't have a goal to achieve in my life.
• It is high time you get a goal for yourself. Have different facets of life and achieve goals for those different facets.
• Go read past books where you have written goals and re-use them. In that way you will feel positive that whatever you have done in the past has not gone waste.
  
• That you don't work in office and don't like to, either.
• This is partly because of lack of planning, because of lack of respect for work, because of hate for both work and people.
• Think of the things that would make you feel good after you finish the work. Think of the ways of looking at work that will let you get both generic skills as well as get the work done in the work's context.
• A sudden sense of forgetfulness, depression and solitude.
• A lack of confidence in self.
  
• Feeling weak at the sight of exercise problems.
  

On Motivation

The author says, at the very beginning, these powerful words:

Powerful motivation comes in understanding that you can achieve anything you truly desire in your heart. It is the knowledge that you are destined to fulfill your every goal, which drives you to change. It is the action behind the attraction that makes the wish comes true.

Some tips on motivating oneself:

What & Why? - “Start with the end in mind.” To achieve a goal, it’s important to define clearly what that goal is. How do you know when you’ve achieved it? Define a measurable end.

Break it down to small achievable tasks - It is very easy, and human, to be overwhelmed by the sheer effort and energy involved in achieving a big goal. Especially if the goal consists of many unknowns or a long-drawn process. We tell ourselves it’s impossible or it’s too much work, and then we give up even before we take any action towards a goal. I’ve found it very helpful to always split the main goal into several milestones. Then breaking each milestone into a series of steps to achieve that milestone.

Take a Small Step - Even the smallest first step will help create momentum towards change.

Rewards & Celebration - Give yourself small rewards for each completed step or task. Then celebrate when you reach each Milestone! I use ice-cream, Chai, reading and internet browsing time as rewards for myself.

• Visualize yourself in 5 years without taking the actions to reach your goal. See yourself in pain. Do this for a minute, and then intensify the feeling. Feel the heaviness on your back. Do this for a few minutes, and then relax.
• Now visualize yourself having achieved your goal. What do you look like? How are you celebrating? See and feel the benefits it’s provided. Now, let that feeling intensify. Do this for a few minutes as the feeling intensify some more.

Being around these people can be infectious, and their energy will impact you.

On Meditation, Again

The author starts with:

However intellectual and sophisticated the term is, and when we express it, what we are all seeking is nothing but achieving peace within ourselves and the feelings of blissfullness.

As quoted by some people:

“Meditation is nothing but a preparation to rediscover the state of Bliss that is already inside you,”

“Every moment of conscious breath is meditation.”

Some of the benefits of meditation, the author (as well as the research) claims are:

• Clarity and Decisiveness. With reduced ‘mind clutter’ and confusion, I was able to make quick and firm decisions.
• Slept Less Hours - To achieve a restful sleep, before I use to need more than eight hours of sleep. While I practiced meditation regularly. I would sleep for six hours and it was plenty. Often, I sleep less than that.
• More Energized - With meditation, I felt more energized even though I was sleeping less.
• Saves Time - even though time was used to actually do meditation - but because I was sleeping less, I had more time to do other things. And I was doing them with more focus.
• Blissful and Relaxed- I felt genuinely happier with everything else going on. Sometimes I could feel my face flowing from contentment.
• Centered - I felt more connected with my core and inner being.
• Health - which is the only proven “side effect” of mediation.
• Awareness and Creativity - People tend to be more alert to their environment and become more conscious and aware. Not to mention, you become more pleasant around other people.

The author asks a fundamental question, later:

We would waste hours browsing on-line or flip on the tv, but we would not spare 5-10 minutes of quality times with ourselves?

The author warns:

What I learned from this is that if we allowed ourselves to make even one excuse (no matter how minute), it’ll be a lot easier to buy into excuses the next time, and it’ll snowball from there. The trick is to form daily routines and do whatever it takes to “protect yourself” by not allowing your habit to be knocked off.

Another Great Suggestion

Whenever you get depressed or disappointed at your ridicule or doing the same silly thing again and again, say to yourself:

under construction and calm down.

Mine would be:

Michael under construction

:-). Thanks to Reason4smile for the suggestion.

Feeling Guilty?

In a nutshell, this is what causes disappointment - when you regret something, you are feeling guilty. And this guilty feeling has eaten so much of me that whenever I sit to do something, I feel guilty of the possibility of not doing it properly, guilty of not having done some other things, guilty of this confusion - quite an amount!!

Somebody has made an attempt to tackle this guilty feeling. It basically starts with all the symptoms that I have got:

Have you recently felt guilty for something you didn’t do? Guilty for not replying to emails? Guilty for not reaching all your goals for the day? Guilty for having spent hours browsing the web aimlessly and not having enough time to do something important? Guilty for telling someone you’d call, but never returning the call? Do you beat yourself up for it?

What happens with this guilty feeling:

Thoughts like these have the power to bring you down. They carry an energy that weighs down on your mind, because part of you is constantly thinking about it. The guilt begins popping up in everything you do.

The author observes the nature of the guilt:

Self Inflicted - All guilt is self-inflicted and created by the mind.
Open Issue - Guilt is often caused by open issues that were not addressed.
Feeling of Debt - Often times, we feel guilty out of a debt in our lives. Whether it’s social debt, monetary debt, or unfulfilled responsibilities.
More Beneath the Surface - The perceived problem causing the guilt is just on the surface. Typically, there are unresolved issues or other meaning beneath what we see on the surface.

And proposes some ways of dealing with guilt:

Fully Experiencing the Feeling - As with overcoming any emotion, the best way is to fully experience the feeling. Spend a few minutes in uninterrupted space, close your eyes, now fully and deeply feel the guilt surge over you.
Seek to Understand Why
Focus on What You Can Do Now - Focus on things you can do now, instead of things you have not done.
Brainstorm Action Items - What are some tasks you can do to remove this feeling of guilt? Write them down.
Prioritize - Once you have your list of action items, prioritize them in order of importance. What will cause the greatest relief of your pain?
Planning and Scheduling - Once you have your list of action items prioritized, schedule them into your calendar. Plan to tackle each one of these items, with the high priority tasks first.
Be Realistic - Realize that you only have a set amount of time each day. Be realistic with what you plan to get done. Please be gentle with yourself.

Then the author finally proposes a 6-step action plan for dealing with guilt (I am writing everything down here for my reference):

1. Create your guilt list: List out all the things you feel guilty about. Keep writing until you run out of guilt-related thoughts. Do not edit your thoughts. Write down whatever comes to mind. By having them laid out on paper, we can see them clearly, and come face-to-face with our self-inflicted guilt thoughts.
2. Brainstorm your guilt battle plan: For each guilt, ask yourself, “What can I do about it?” Describe the actions that you can take to eliminate or reduce this guilt. You might have to break the actions into smaller steps. If you’ve tried, but can’t find a resolving action, then list out positive and realistic statements to reason with this guilt. (Especially for the things that are in the past, which cannot be changed)
3. Create your values list: List out things most important to you, starting from the most important. I used the term things broadly, which can be replaced with people, feelings, opportunities, actions, and commitments that you value.
4. Fuel your values: For each item you most value, list out action items you would like to do which contributes towards that item.
5. Create a guilt reduction action plan: Scan through the action items from both lists. You might find some common action items that exist from both lists. Write these action items out on a separate sheet of paper. These are the higher priority action items that will give you the biggest return for your time, since they contribute towards things most important to you as well.
6. Habituate these changes: Put a weekly schedule beside each item from step 5. Even if you don’t do follow it, this will create the space in your awareness which will allow positive change to happen. (Using outlook calendar to keep track of schedules is a very good thing)

And finally, the author essentially says what I have told in my previous post, but in a better way:

Regardless of what we think the external circumstances are, the real cause of guilt lies within ourselves. We have the power to choose what to focus our attention on, but we often react instinctively and forget to control our perspective. And in the reactive patterns, we unconsciously give attention to guilt and accidentally welcome it into our inner space.

It is possible to stop yourself in your reaction, and witness your inner space as you react. With practice and conscious awareness, it is possible to undo our conditioning for instant reaction, and eventually eliminate guilt completely.

Came to Know About Quite A Few Things Today

Got a perspective on why meditation is important. Generally it is the impulsive reaction to things that causes stress, disappointment, depression - for example, we may feel like saying something (or not saying something!!) but later regret for it. We may feel like beating up somebody but regret for it, we may feel like doing it, but regret later. In all these examples, it is the impulsive mind that causes us to spring into action (or inaction!) which we would not have done if we are conscious and controlled about what we are doing.

That is where meditation comes in. Meditation is just active consciousness. Meditation is basically focusing on something intensely. If we diverge, we calmly bring our minds back onto the thing we are focusing. By repeatedly doing this, we become quite aware of ourselves as to why we do somethings (or not do somethings). We begin to slowly understand ourselves and learn to be at peace with ourselves. All it takes is some practice.

And one more revelation is that meditation need not be allocated some time for it. Meditation can be done while you are on move, can be done while you are working, can also be done while you are talking or about to get to sleep. But these won't be peaceful meditations as bringing focus onto something becomes a bit difficult in these cases.

So, the point to be carried away is that I should learn to meditate.

Psychology Today

on attention, meditation:

"Meditation is about paying attention," says Kabat-Zinn. Cultivating concentration doesn't just stabilize and clarify the mind, it can also improve creativity and productivity while enhancing relationships. Imagine if you actually paid attention 100 percent to your spouse!

The strategy that starts you on this road is mindfulness, which means both cultivating nonjudgmental awareness of a specific object and seeing deeply into things. A common approach is to focus on an object or on the sensations of your own breathing, noting every inhale and exhale, and patiently returning your attention to your breathing each time it wanders.

...you use the self-monitoring process that psychologists call metacognition: awareness of awareness. It's what lets you know when, on the one side, you're starting to drift off and need to muster fresh interest and, on the other, you're getting distracted and need to bring your attention back. As you gradually fine-tune your concentration, you notice the habitual chaos of your thoughts and, gradually, the calm that lies behind them. "Awareness trumps thoughts," says Kabat-Zinn, "because you can be aware of your thoughts."

Even among novices, studies show, a brief meditation session can be more effective than a nap in improving performance on tests that require concentration. But its benefits don't stop there. Meditation can radically transform emotion.

Meditation, however, promises to break this apparent chain reaction by allowing us to recognize "the spark before the flame." Through many hours of quietly observing the customary tyranny of the emotions, you may gradually familiarize yourself with the quiet of your mind—the part that one day might choose not to be tyrannized. Says Ricard, "You become familiar with the way emotions arise, how they can either overwhelm your mind or vanish without making an impact."

"Awareness gives you your life back. You can then decide what to do with it."

Some Revelations?

Today while I was about to sit for supper, I felt that everybody arrogantly asserts themselves. I was reading a blog and got this feeling.

I don't need to impress anybody. I don't need to worry that I am not like other people on this planet. I am unique in every respect. And I deserve it. I don't need to agree, I don't need to conform, I don't need to worry.

I am free, I am free.

What Chemicals?

I can explain myself in terms of these chemicals:

• Lots of Seratonine (which means loads of sleep)
• Very little Neropinephrine (which means lots of apathy and not interested in anything)
• Moderate Dopamine (which means some interest in getting excited and feeling good)

These are the three main chemicals that influence our feelings and emotions in mind.

Ways to Improve Learning

Scott H Young has an interesting piece on how to improve learning. He suggests some ways to improve our learning capabilities:

• Use holistic learning - relate what you have learnt with the things you already know. This will enhance our neural network connections.
• Visualize - even if it is difficult to visualize, persist and visualize. Visualizing information, by far, is the most efficient form of storing information, knowledge and its connections.
• Mindmap - where you take a pen and a paper and visualize it more concretely.
• Metaphors - try to find analogies - not only will it create Aha! moments, but also allows us to apply all those that is applicable to analogy.
• Test it - this is religiously followed in almost all the educational institutes - exercises.
• Teach it - explain it to some virtual person or to some actual person who wants to listen. It will really make you rethink in your terms which is what one should actually be doing while learning.
  

Some Techniques to Cope with ADHD

For those of us suffering from ADHD, there are some good techniques available to overcome it. Basically everything boils down to variety and curiosity to the mind.

• Play games - a good way to focus attention, divert from addiction etc.
• Think pictorially or visually - a good way to stimulate the brain.
• Solve Crossword Puzzles daily - a good way to stretch the brain.
• Take deep breaths - not only does it give more oxygen supply to the brain, but also increases awareness.
• Avoid toxins - like coffee, tea etc. as much as possible, Drink water instead.
• Practice multitask - this advice is different from other similar ones which say do multitask. Practicing always helps.
• Have a good posture - sit up straight.
• Think stretchingly - pick any two random objects and try to connect them. See as many relations as you can.
• Relax - do nothing.
• Do something new - like picking new routes, learning a new skill, doing an existing thing differently etc.
• Walk - increase the physical activity and keep yourself active.
• Eat often and in little amounts - eating large meals shunts blood to the digestive tract.
• Listen to different kinds of music.
• No substitute for practicing.
• Besides avoiding fat, avoid carbohydrates - as it ends up in sugar.
• Take a lot of Vitamin B

Some things

that I have realized today.

• Human beings, though have formed allegedly great societies, do not seem to be good at having a long term vision. Especially the mass Indians. Whatever they do is only for short term benefits and almost always leading to long term sorrow/pain to either themselves or others. That is the reason why, with only basic human instincts, it is difficult to sustain given the fact that a man can do a lot more in this modern age than in the stone age where is more challenged.
  
• Practice makes a man perfect. Look at the timing with which you do it. Look at the neat way in which you drive your bike. It is all just practice. If one keeps on practicing, then it will make the man indeed perfect. We don't sustain practice because we want instant gratification. Discipline is necessary to transcend basic human desires in order to achieve a much bigger feat which only a disciplined person can see better.
  
• While we are changing our habits, our minds give a lot of resistance. A hell lot of resistance in fact. Either we can succumb unconsciously or we can be conscious and endure the pain in opposing our neural network signals. Again, discipline and consciousness is necessary to do this. The moment we lose consciousness, we will be doing what we were doing. Also only through consciousness (of the fact that enduring the pain is the only way to break habit), things can be fun. It is a challenge to ourselves. We are fighting against ourselves.
  
• We are given a fixed time on this planet - say 70 years. How much of ourselves we can expose, how much of learning we can do and how much we can achieve is very important. We can either live unconsciously in the current societies with all the matrices shown by it or we can live consciously within our matrix. Yes, everything is a matrix. Instead of getting influenced by other matrices, its much better if we can be in our matrix itself. That will give long term happiness - of having achieved the things that we always wanted to.