In the wake of a New Phase of Life…

I Love the word ”Nurture”…..

My son has a pretty Fiancee now… and I am at a juncture in life where a new and beautiful member is soon going to join my close knit family.

We were “Four” we will be “Five”… I love the nurturing component that we are so invisibly working on. Nurturing a relationship can seem confusing at first. But consciously working on it almost feels the same as nurturing your own self. It was so much easier when I decided to look at our relationship as three entities gathered together—myself, the new member and the relationship—it is so much easier to understand.

Each one of these entities needs to be nurtured.

Being able to nurture the “us” part of our life can be a little complicated with work, and life, being as challenging as it is. Yet nurturing can become almost second nature because it feels so positive when it’s working. The idea here is that welcoming the new person, who is so dear to your son, one you love more than your right eye, and the relationship that binds you…. There was a need to make it a part of your normal behavior.

Nurturing can never be difficult to master, especially if you grew up in a family that was very nurturing, however it’s an easy thing to learn and quite pleasant when you finally get the hang of it. It all started with a desire to be closer to the one who is loving my son so dearly. Letting the person know, expressing in verbal words, and not assuming that she is expected to understand the “unsaid”. It was very pivotal for me to let her know that I value the person in her and that she is a precious inclusion in the family. And all this, not in a pressuring way but in a manner that conveyed how much happier we both will be once our relationship feels nurtured.

Actions to show that you care, though some may take a little effort, is well worth it. Thinking of it as an interest-bearing account keeps me going. Once you put energy into your relationship, it pays back rich dividends like bonding-contentment, excitement, joy, and focus. You get back much more than you put in. The feeling is like the vast sky then!

Simple acts of communication, although we are in the same city and apart, like texting, e-mailing, sharing ideas about how to spend a worthy weekend, giving a hand in baby-sitting her pet dog, helping in events, were some of the ways that really helped me to let her know that I value her, and communicating this way, brought us so close.

Barriers diminished … as we embraced the fact that we were there for each other. We never met for days, even months but somehow I never felt we were away from one another. I learnt to carry the love of a growing relationship with myself during my busiest workdays; it made life a little sweeter.

This blog post is especially for all mothers who are getting ready to become mother-in-laws. Remember you have to pave the path, you have to reach out first, you have to create the bonding and treat the emerging relationship as the topmost priority in life.

If you want a powerful bonding, your relationship needs to be nurtured!! Any relationship needs support and space to work things out.

As a mother I had to acknowledge my own anxiety and find the courage to step back, remembering that relationships thrive best in an environment that is reliable, consistent, and non-interfering.

RISE AND SHINE !!

As a woman who wants to impact people/community around her with her expertise and skill set, I have seen myself constantly facing obstacles that challenge my motivation to market myself effectively. I started thinking about this about a year back. As I started working on my own website I started researching and educating myself on a totally new paradigm.  I knew I was heading towards “Self Promotion”. The “difficult” part was not in composing the content of my website, but while working on it, I was constantly debating. The questions that bombarded me were ‘Why was self-promotion such a difficulty for me?’, ‘Why is this simple act of letting the world know about my very own accomplishments such a task for me?’

Soon, I started talking about this silly concern to my support-system-friends and mentors.  I was reaffirmed that it’s very natural that we associate self-promotion with a negative connotation as bragging. More so, because of all the personal experiences people have had with big sounding braggarts, who have no evidence to back up their talk.

With hours of introspection I recognized the only barrier I was dealing with was within my own mind. It was a deep-rooted notion of “bragging” that came from my childhood nurture, a very cultural component, where I grew up hearing from my mother “I shouldn't be the one praising my daughter, others (which included neighbors and aunts and extended family members) seeing her, should praise her”! I soon recognized my fear was that I did not want to be branded as a braggart! It’s so tough when you want to promote yourself, to let the world know what you are passionate about and how you are looking to add value to others’ life as well as yours.

Although I knew my website reflects who I am, and what I do and everything that I genuinely think is a part of my journey, I constantly felt I was bragging. Bragging is difficult, especially for women. We've been taught it's not a good thing to do, yet our male counterparts see no reason not to stand up and let everyone know where they add value. I hope this will be inspiration for other women who struggle with self-promotion. “You are not alone”!!

Most strangely the more I got involved in creating the website the more I felt an expansion within… a positive and feel-good factor. I could not deny that. I was discovering my small achievements and talking about them gave me such a joy of fulfillment!

Now that I have created my website, I am definitely one who wants to help spread the word that bragging or self-promotion will help you get to where you want to go next! So please don’t hesitate to talk about the great work that you are doing! I hope this will be an inspiration for others who struggle with self-promotion. Back up your work with enough evidence and shine in your own deserved glory! Does that mean you should exaggerate, put others down, and puff up your accomplishments to get ahead? No way! Focus on your own self! Look back at keep writing.

Please know, friends, that you are NOT bragging, when you are promoting yourself, you are just a savvy networker, who knows how to pave her path to make her dream come true!

So, below are some of the steps I documented for you, that really helped me to steer ahead to make my website. I sincerely hope this helps you too.

1. Make a list of your accomplishments including your skills and abilities. Doing this will confirm how talented you are and will get you motivated to build on your current successes.

2. Make it a regular habit of meeting with your boss, mentors and friends who love you for who you are and share your accomplishments. While they may know what you’ve done, they may know little about how you went about achieving it. So focus your communication on what it took to accomplish this successful outcome. This is how you demonstrate your value!

3. Start talking to people with a statement of what makes you unique and how it benefits others.

4. Write down the self-promotional activities that will lead to success. What you intend to do, to walk the talk, to provide evidence to your vision.

5.  Announce your goals to your friends and family or through social media, such as blog posts, Facebook postings, Linked-in updates or tweets. Sharing your goals will add a little supportive pressure to your marketing commitments.

6.Be the tortoise, not the hare and position yourself as the “go to” person for your area of expertise and share, share, share. Self-promotion is about building a long-term reputation for you. Establishing trust and respect from all, around you.

7.Just get started .

RISE AND SHINE BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE !

The reason why I wrote this Blog is to tell all of you get going with self-promotion...

The reason for my website is to reach out to everyone…

To connect, in order to add value….

http://sanjuktadas.wix.com/sanjukta-das

My Journey with my Team

In the journey of life, I see myself as part of a big team. Like any other big team, my life too has had its share of many complexities. Different people with varying levels of abilities have been part of the team. Within the team there have been members extremely supportive while there have been team members who have poured buckets of cold water. And when I look back, I recall how I found new ways to carry on with something that I was extremely passionate about. And when you follow your passion with a commitment, the end result is happiness. That has been the goal of my journey, of my team: Happiness.

As a team member, who can stay committed to the goal despite challenges and roadblocks reaches the summit chiseling his/her own persona along the way! In our day today life, there will be people and events crowding our life that might try to dampen our zeal.It is pivotal to be aware that barriers will come, but we should never give up our enthusiasm.

As Sri Sri so beautifully once said, when you light a candle, and you turn it upside down, the flame always goes up. Life is like a burning flame, it should always go up. Even if there are hundred reasons, to be unhappy, we need to overcome them all and be happy. At no point should we give up our enthusiasm or happiness.

 So in the journey of my life which I see as a big team, different members have had different roles. Like any other team, it comprises diverse people with diverse qualities. And the truth is that it is almost impossible to ever get a team that will be “perfect”. Identifying what are the good qualities in the team members, nurturing and supporting them has been my role within my "team".This has helped me unleash my potential and contributed to the team goal, which is being happy.

Again, I can think of no better example than Sri Sri. He finds something unique and good in each and every volunteer/team member  in The  Art of Living global team, and they contribute in their own special ways to His big vision. With infinite patience and perseverance he keeps gently coaching everyone to continue their efforts. Never once has he lost his cool or his faith in his team!

My Muse

The house that you call your “home” has such an impact on you. After a long day of interactive chatter once I step into my home there is such an indulging serenity within the premises. I find immediate consolation just looking around and being in that ambience of plants, paintings, books that I treasure… everything as I look around has such interesting thoughts, memories attached with them, that right away the stress from the mind slides away.

No matter how the ‘home décor’, there is always a sense of calling from your home. The ambience of a home is defined by who you are, and what your life style is. I am reminded of the fragrance of dhup sticks that my mother used to burn during her morning puja with sincerely picked flowers from her little garden. The lingering aroma, when I visited her, even in the late evening, always gave me the feeling of a temple.

Canada’s carpet floors does not allow dhup-burning in my home, and yet I have friends who have walked in to say ‘there is something very peaceful in this home’. I smile, as it reaffirmed my beautiful belief that a ‘home’ where there has been singing, chanting and meditation, has a different influence on the mind, than a place where there has been argument or turmoil.

I am also reminded of those days, five years back, when I took the challenge to give up a beautiful colonial style bungalow home in India. A home that was a cushioned haven to us, was dismantled, to fly across the globe with just two suitcases to settle in a new country. As days slipped by, a passionate dream sizzled in the heart of a mother to give back the two teenage boys, what I stole from them… a “home”.  A home that will create a nest of comfort to cradle our bodies and minds.

An empty house we bought… and slowly and steadily started matching our wish-list to give back to ourselves a home that would embrace, nurture, sustain and inspire us.  Slowly and steadily the soft snug places came back, colourful rugs and durries with Gurjari cushion covers got back, romantic corners with ethnic lampshades and original folk paintings returned. How beautiful was it to see little by little my dream was taking shape…interesting shelves to display my artistic collections, a decent sound system as we could afford and a personal music collection that defines who we are. Guitars, drums, djembe, harmonium became our precious inmates. Bright orange and blue pottery adorned my kitchen soon… and lush green plants smiled at me… red and white flowers delighted my patio while cute beds of pretty pink and deep purple petunias welcomed visitors into our ‘home’.

Mantra chantings and meditation sessions started indoors, and the more we got engrossed in it the more beautiful my home became!

I know everyone’s list is different…. But what was pivotal to me was, I was given a second chance to create my cozy home. Taking the time to figure out what and how I want it to be, was a beautiful journey. In retrospect I also see that as I continued in my journey of an interior decorator of other people’s lives, by teaching Art of Living courses, the universe kept transforming my intentions into reality doing the interior decoration of my life and home, so that my boys got back a personal nest that comforted their body and minds.

Today as I linger around and see the books, the African masks, the hanging bronze south Indian pradeeps, the dokhra artifacts, the Madhubani and Warli paintings, hanging flower pots in a summer patio, the bamboo chimes and Philip Fraser’s flute playing in the background, I recognize “passion” has been my loving muse.

With passion as my muse, I continue to decorate other people’s life and my home!

The Sky Is Yours.....

I think most people in life need someone to tell them they can do it. Empowering people with a hope that they can accomplish their dreams is one of the greatest gifts we can give to someone.

When we give hope to others, it lifts them to a higher level.  They become bigger on the inside, which empowers them to do greater things on the outside.  Without that empowering hope, that you can accomplish the seemingly impossible, you tend to give up.  But when hope fills you, it puts possibility in sight.  You will never accomplish something you don’t believe you can accomplish.

Two weeks back  I saw a bird revisiting her nest again and again to bring in food for her little ones. This weekend I saw her sitting near the nest but her babies have flown out. They were out there on the sky soaring, or trying to soar as best as possible.

Life is like taking that flight, if you get scared and let go you will crash.  But if you hang in there and keep going you will learn how to fly and enjoy the flight of life and make the most out of it.  You may not know everything there is to know about life and the flight ahead of you, but you don’t have to know it all, you just have to step out and go! If you are waiting to have all the money, all the talent, all the opportunity, all the people, all the resources, or all the wisdom before you start your flight, you will never start.  You will never fulfill your dreams if you are waiting to know everything before you step out to fly.  Have faith that the little birds who start flying are also taken care by the universe and suspend the need to know everything.  Just step out in faith and FLY! If the seeds of a dream were sown in your heart It is for a reason.  Not to be an idea, but for it to be a reality.

Get on your dreams and start flying.  You may fall down and get dirty, but get back up and get going again. The whole sky is waiting for you. You will never go anywhere in life by sitting there and worrying about all the possible barriers, step out and push yourself into greater things! Don’t be discouraged about the things that are in your heart to do just because you haven’t done them yet or even know how to do it. 

Have faith and take one step closer to where it is you need to go and the next step will present itself.  Take that first step and start flying……. The sky is yours !

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