Let’s stop being overly affected by others, and focus on our emotional resilience and well-being. People’s words and actions can impact us, but we can minimise this influence. Here’s how: Understanding Compassion: When someone is suffering, we often feel compelled to share their pain. However, true compassion involves helping the person while maintaining a positive energy. Instead of becoming absorbed in their sorrow, we can offer support and guidance to uplift them. By staying positive, and discerning our part in the situation we prevent the spread of negativity and provide more effective ass ..read more

Perception and Perspective: Seeing Things Differently Have you stopped to think about how perception and perspective shape our reality? Perception encompasses what we notice and how we interpret events. Perspective, on the other hand, is the vantage point from which we view these events—a product of our past beliefs, personal experiences, and cultural backgrounds. It can be said, that our perceptions and perspectives serve as the lens through which we navigate our experiences and relationships, how we interact with them and let them colour the decisions we make, ultimately contributing to the ..read more

Breaking Free from People-Pleasing Do you often find yourself saying yes and people-pleasing when you want to say no? Do you put others’ needs before your own, leaving yourself overwhelmed and exhausted? If so, you may be caught in the cycle of people-pleasing. In our quest to please others, we often sacrifice our authenticity and well-being. Seeking validation and approval becomes a way of life, tethering our self-worth to external expectations. However, this cycle will ultimately perpetuate feelings of frustration and resentment, as we neglect our own needs to fulfil those of others. How to ..read more

Do you consider yourself to be a creative genius?  No.  Yet, everyone is creating all the time, we just don’t know we’re doing it! Being our creative selves means being conscious of what we are creating. Creativity is expressionCreativity is an expression that comes from within, and we share that expression with others. It could be a song, a poem, a film, a photo, a sculpture, a painting, a sketch, a doodle, a sentence, a home, a room, an atmosphere, a career, a team, a project, a thought that turns into action, that turns into life itself. Your creative potential It’s not until we ..read more

Love is…it just is, isn’t it?  Simple to say it, but a bit tricky to live it, right? Why? Because we have the habit of holding expectations, especially when it comes to others. Our relationships are filled with expectations. And without realising, we create a web of expectations and trap ourselves in this web, and creating our own heartbreaks through our disappointments and frustrations. The good news is, there is a way out of this web. When we see ourselves as we truly are, we see that we are love. Pure love has freedom in it and no expectations. Then we can be detached observers of the ..read more

Self-care… is it not just an excuse for self-indulgence?  Well, it is not: the World Health Organization defines self-care as: “the ability of individuals, families, and communities to promote health, prevent disease, maintain health, and cope with illness and disability with or without the support of a health worker.” So, this is about taking care of ourselves, in the most fundamental way.  This is not new… so why are we hearing so much about it lately? The pace of life, driven by technology, the pressures of work and the state of the world have made us have less time to care for ou ..read more

Some traumas shake us to our core; affecting our sense of self, the way we trust ourselves as well as our trust in others.  Trauma is individual and depends on our individual histories. We could have fifty situations we are resilient in, and then one where we are not. Let’s look at trauma compassionately. Suppose we are in safe place ‘A’ and we get moved into place ‘B’. Our safe and comfortable place A is taken away from us. We no longer feel safe in place B.  When this happens traumatically, we may find ourselves living in a limbo between A and B.  We are attached to A because ..read more

How do we develop a more authentic sense of confidence? Generally, what happens is that we hook confidence onto external things. When things are going well, we feel confident, but when things are not going well, in any area of our life, we lose confidence. So, let’s start by asking ourselves ‘who or what do I base my confidence on?’ Maybe we base confidence on our physical appearance, or material possessions, and then there’s our relationships and how well they’re going – and many of us know how a breakdown in relationships can cause a huge sense of crisis. Then there’s our mental and physical ..read more

How does a successful optimist work?  First, we need to know what success means. What does success mean to you? Is it about money? Your job? Your role? All of this is temporary success because it stems from the outside, on comparing myself to others and if I’m basing my success on comparisons, then whose standards am I using to judge my own success by?   When we look at others, we are comparing our inside to their outside. So, let’s look at some of the alternatives. A good quality of life. Feeling happy no matter what. A sense of humour. Able to laugh at oneself. Feeling content ..read more

Dadi Gulzar, the Additional Administrative Head of the Brahma Kumaris passed away on Thursday, 11th March 2021 in India, at the age of 93 after a prolonged illness. Dadi (elder sister) started on her spiritual journey at the age of eight, when she began to learn the art of Raja Yoga meditation. It was a combination of innocence, courage and humour that characterised her story of travelling through India at the age of 16 when she opened a meditation centre in Lucknow. She was known for her openness, humility, calm nature, clear thinking and so much more…. For the past 84 years, Dadi shared her ..read more