An Incognito Gift

Wherever you are, you are vibrating energy. This is the energy of thoughts. Thoughts that you have in your mind create vibration. It is energy. Mental or spiritual energy. You keep generating this energy within you consciously or subconsciously. You are contributing energy to the atmosphere all the time. You can feel the energy of people who always have vision very clearly in life, they are very optimistic, they always have hope and never lose hope. Those people always think positively n matter what happen. They always focus on solution when the are facing a problem. They never lose their faith. Without say anything, when you meet such people you can feel their energy, very powerful. In the same way, when you meet people who are problem-focused, not having a clear vision for the future, not having enough faith, they lose hope, without them telling you, you can feel their energy. It is vibration. Energy creates vibration.

Whatever energy you have in you, you are contributing the energy to the atmosphere. If you want to change the atmosphere, change your thoughts. Create only good thoughts. Thoughts that elevate. Thoughts that uplift. The stronger the thought, the stronger the vibration is created in the atmosphere. People will pick up those vibration automatically. This will become an incognito gift for everyone. The best gift. If you give this gift, everyone will accept this gift. No one will reject your gift.

You always have a gift to give.

If your energy level is low or you are weak, you are picking up the energy, but if it is high, you are contributing. Which one do you prefer?

I am the captain of my soul

“I am the captain of my soul”. You might have heard this many times. I think it was said by the late Nelson Mandela. It is a very good quote. What does this quote mean for you? How to become the captain of the soul?

To become the captain means to lead the soul. You need to know what the soul is, only then you can lead the soul. What is soul? Soul is you, the living being in your body. The soul is not the body, but the spirit living in the body. It is in your head. Someone said to me that the soul is in the middle of the forehead. We can not see our soul because it is not physical. Our physical eyes can only see what is physical. Soul is a form of energy. Some say that a soul is a point of light. Very subtle but you can feel its existence. You can feel your existence, do you?

What is in the soul? Mind, intellect and heart. Know your mind and know how it works. It creates thoughts. Know your intellect. Intellect is said to be the eye of the soul. Some call it as the third eye. The eye is for seeing. What does this third eye see? The true and the untrue. It is the intellect that can discern between truth and falsehood. The wisdom is created by this intellect through churning the thought. To churn is to think deeply, then it becomes an experience. It then creates feeling accordingly. You keep that feeling or that experience in your heart. The three (mind, intellect and heart) are in fact in one. It is one with 3 different functions.

So how to become the leader of the soul? Understand the process of creating, churning and experiencing – thought, feeling and wisdom. Take a lead in each process. To take a lead means to be aware. This is internal awareness. This is self-awareness. How much do you need to develop this self-awareness? You have your own answer. I leave it to each one of you.

Have a nice weekend!

New Year Resolution 2020

This is still January. Let me write about new year resolution. I hope it is not too late. Do you have a new year resolution? Do you write it down? Do you revisit your resolution? A resolution is basically a goal to achieve, a target. It is ussually a personal one. How much did you achieve your last year resolution? Did you evaluate as the year ended? Or did you forget your resolution as months were passing by.

I made a review on my last year resolution. I was fortunate that I wrote them in a quite detailed way, so it was doable enough, though I was too optimistic for some resolutions. I put them into several categories – career, health, finance, spirituality. I broke down each category into a list of smaller goals and what I wanted to do to achieve. Last year, I got myself introduced to the idea of living as a minimalist. And I set myself for less spending as my goal, for this I set a maximum shopping for clothes into 5 pieces only. Later I thought that it was too optimistic. I didn’t have to wait till mid year, that I had missed my target. When I shared that I had failed for this one resolution to a friend, she laughed at me and I became a little bit discouraged. Did I give up and drop my resolution? No. I knew that I had failed (gloriously), but I still kept on with the resolution, 5 new clothes only! Every time I bought a new cloth, I noted down and put it on a list with the price I paid for and also the date of the purchase. I kept that list. And I wanted to know how much I would have failed. And at the end of December 2019, do you know how many new clothes I bought in 2019? 16. A lot more than the target.

So this year I made the same categories. I learnt from last year. Now I feel I know myself better, I have a sense on how much I can keep on with my resolution of 2020. How about you?

How to control your mind

When you have negative thought about a situation, usually it is followed by negative feelings like worry, fear, stress, impatience etc. Or the other way around, when you notice that you have worry, fear, stress or impatience….it is the sign that you have negative thought. You might have nurtured this negative thought for quite sometime. When you suffer this, your mind is not relaxed. You might experience the thoughts are spinning so fast in the mind. You might soon also notice that your heart beat is increasing. That is what happens when we are stressful. Have you experienced this in your day to day life?

You might have an appointment with someone and you are trapped in a traffic on your way to meet that person. You might arrive late. What do you feel? Stressed. When you feel stressed your thought tends to be faster. You need to control the speed. To control means to slow it down. How? Control the mind. The mind is inside our head, we can not touch it. It is to control the awareness. Be aware that you are the one who is sitting in the control room inside your head. You are holding the switch of your awarness. Keep this awareness.

It is when you forget this, the situation controls you. It controls your mind and also your heart beat.

An Inspiration

My friend wanted to introduce me to her long time good friend. It was interesting, she said : “I am sure you will like her. She is a feminist.” I said to her that I was not a feminist. And she quickly clarified : “No,no, I mean that you might get an inspiration to write through meeting and talking with her.”

I think she is right. I get an inspiration to write in my journal book or in this blog mostly after meeting and talking with people. So I always love to meet people – new people, long time contacts or strangers. It is always interesting to talk with them. I believe that each one has hidden amazing things that we do not know until they are talking with us.

I always remind myself that anyone I meet always has something I could learn from. And I never miss the lesson.

Thank you, Amanda.

A heart-to-heart sharing

Someone asked me to moderate a panel discussion last year. I don’t remember the topic of the discussion specifically anymore. I think it was about having self respect and maintaining humility at the same time. There would be two speakers. I prepared a list of questions the night before for the discussion.

In the next morning I thought I would like to talk to each speaker and share the list of the questions. The first speaker said : ”You can ask me anything.” She didn’t want to see the list. I thought it was good for me, so I could ask any question. Then I talked to the second speaker. He wanted to read the list. He went through the questions one by one and he asked me to take out one question from the list. It was a very personal question. I asked them to share their personal stories on maintaining their humility while dealing with difficult people. Whether they succeeded or not, it wouldn’t matter. I realized that not everyone found it easy and comfortable to share an honest story about themselves.

We always could learn from other’s story. I believe that we can learn more from someone’s experience than just from information. Infomation is a theory and experience is a practice. Because experience is coming from the heart so it will inspire people more. Sharing an experience is always much better than sharing an information. It is a heart-to-heart sharing.

My holiday project

I remember when I was on a holiday, I was staying in a Greek-style hostel. It was small but very cozy. The living room was just great, It was an open space and very clean…… and the most important thing was it had no television. I really liked it. The staff was very nice and super friendly.

I found myself sitting on a cushion outdoor, enjoying the blue sky, the air and nature, relaxing and enjoying myself. Well, what is in your mind when you hear the word of holiday? no work, relaxed and having a happy time. Suddenly I realised that I had been doing nothing there except relaxing. I asked myself “Would I spend the whole holiday doing nothing and just relaxing?” I said no. I had to do something. I had to create something, not just passing the time.

I then got an idea to write journals during the rest of my holiday instead of just having a relaxing time. I thought writing journal is entertaining the mind, and also the heart. So it is a way of an internal relaxation as well. Probably we need internal relaxation more than just a relaxation for the body. I would call it as my holiday project. To give me a sense of a project, I put a number, 50 journals!

The next morning I woke up at 3 am and got shower then started writing. Morning time is the best time for writing for me. I switched off my mobile phone and kept the door and the window closed until about 9 am. I heard from my room other guests were talking out there, they might be having their breakfast. When I just switched on my mobile phone, I got a message from the reception. He wondered how I was. He reminded me to have my breakfast. I smiled. He might be thinking of me being unconscious in the room. He is really a kind-hearted person.

In the evening I was sitting on a cushion in front of my room, writing journals. Antonia from Germany who stayed next to my room came from rafting asked me “What are you doing?” then I shared to her how I had the project. She smiled and said “Good luck!”

Knowledge is power

It is said that knowledge is power. You might have heard this many times. But how do you experience this practically in your life? You might have read so many books with great advice to become a better person. You might have attended seminars, trainings and workshops and that you felt so inspired. You were inspired to make a change. You really wanted to make a change in you. But, do you experience that a change is easy? Is it to change yourself easy? I think a change is difficult. You might reflect on yourself after sometimes and ask yourself “have I changed? how much have I changed?” You might not see so much change in you. You wished to become a much better you, but it didn’t happen the way you wished to happen. Then, knowledge is not power yet. It doesn’t have power to change you.

Knowledge will become power when you use it to really make a change in you. To change means to change the mindset. To know is the first step and to change the mindset is the next step. Only when your mindset is changed by your new understanding, then you can say knowledge is power.

Dealing with guilt

Everyone must have made a mistake in her life. Big or small. To other people or to the self. The feeling left after realizing the mistake is a guilty feeling. From the back of you head you might hear “I shouldn’t have done this. I shouldn’t have said this. I shouldn’t have sent the email……” but it is all done. It is like the milk has been spilt on the floor.

What can we do? Don’t waste your time having the thoughts of “I shouldn’t be careless, I should have been mindful”. It is like you are hammering yourself with this negative thoughts. If you nurture yourself with this thoughts, you will become weak. Get up and clean the floor. Focus on what you can do next to improve the situation, not focus on what has happened. To get up and clean th floor is to forgive yourself and move on.

Mirror

You might have experienced being treated badly by someone, or someone might show a rude manner or just a little bit impoliteness to you. Don’t get hurt, stay calm. They are revealing who they are not who you are. Don’t let their behavior bring you down. Rudeness is a false show of strength by a weak person. The weak ones have rudeness inside, and they will show what is inside. The strong ones have gentleness inside, so they show gentleness.

To stay calm means to remain strong in front of the weak one. To stay calm also means to become like a mirror for others to reflect themselves on you. They can see the pictures of themselves clearly only when the mirror is still.

Become a mirror like this. Don’t react. A cool mind reflect dignity and strength.