Archive of ‘Blog’ category

Jealousy…The Green Eyed Monster Part I

  • image title

    Jealousy…The Green Eyed Monster Part I

The jealous are troublesome to others, but a torment to themselves.

William Penn

What can drain our energy so fast and drive us insane? Yup, you got it right….it’s Jealousy!

Jealousy can really drive us mad. I like the quote from J.R. Ward, Dark Lover – “Welcome to the wonderful world of jealousy, he thought. For the price of admission, you get a splitting headache, a nearly irresistable urge to commit murder, and an inferiority complex. Yippee.”

Amazingly, jealousy doesn’t only disturbs us mentally but physically too. Splitting headache, short breath, tightened chess muscle, stomach pain, and many more.

Let’ s try to understand more about jealousy. If we can describe what jealousy is, we can say that it is a combination of posessiveness, fear, rage, humiliation, insecurity, suspicion, and we feel threatened by our rival. We can agree with Shakespeare that is is ugly and a kind of a green eyed monster whom we have to beware of. The dictionary would say this about jealousy:

” A sentiment which is born in love and which is produced by the fear that the loved person prefers someone else” (Littré)

Well, that’s not exactly what they said in the dictionary. This is what is says:

typically refers to the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that occur when a person believes a valued relationship is being threatened by a rival –
Webster Dictionary

There you go. You’ll get the definition above if you type it in google. Now what can we do if we are feeling jealous? And why are we jealous? Master Osho says we are jealous because jealousy is born out of comparison where actually each one of us are unique and incomparable. When we become jealous out of comparison, we can become very mean. I would like to quote Osho’s story about jealousy:

An elderly farmer was moodily regarding about the ravages of the flood. “Hiram!” yelled a neighbor, “your pugs were all washed down the creek.”

“How about Thompson’s pigs?” asked the farmer.

“They’re gone too.”

“And Larsen’s?”

“Yes”

“Hum!” ejaculated the farmer, cheering up. “It ain’t as bad as I thought,”

We become devilish, we are happy when others are in misery too and we feel good about it. But when one is winning or successful, we become bitter about it.

According to the ancient scriptures, jealousy is regarded as the 6 passions or enemies of the mind. They are lust, anger, greed, delusion and pride. Jealousy is the combination of lust, anger, greed and pride. If we indulge in these passions we become jealous. These 6 bandits are not outside of us, they are very much inside us. Jealousy means dissatisfaction with ‘who am I’ and ‘what I have got’. Jealousy comes naturally and effortlessly when you compare yourself with others. Once you get trapped into jealousy it will suck your all energy and creativity.

In my humble opinion, if we are jealous over someone else’s achievement, that means we have just admitted that we have lost. I am not saying that we should compete, but we should make that person’s achievement as a catalyst for us to be better. Remember, when we stop comparing ourselves to others, jealousy will disappear.

So what happens if we are jealous in a relationship? Such as our partner is having an affair? Well, first of all, we have to better make sure first whether our partner is really having an affair or it is just our paranoia. I think a little jealousy is needed in a relationship. Because it can be sweet, spark some romance in the relationship and act as a compliment towards our partner. But when we are getting too carried away, we will actually drive our partner away. And….ironically, we will face the situation that we have always dreaded, that is losing our partner to someone else!

For those of us who starts to find our self reading our partner’s emails and wanting to know what is in our partner’s smartphones, just stop! Because it is demeaning to us.. Of course we have to find out whether our partner is cheating or not. If yes, then we have another problem. We have to work out on the relationship. We have to find out what is it that makes our partner want to be in another’s arms. Maybe we have been neglecting our partner or maybe driving them away…. (to be continued)

Dance Like No One Is Watching You

  • image title

    Dance Like No One Is Watching You

Last week, I had to get my toe nails pulled out from its roots! Ouch!

Yeah…I know how you feel when you are reading this. It had an infection and it broke in the middle. It had an infection and therefore for the sake if saving my beautiful toe,  I had to have it pulled off. It took 3 injections to finally make my toe numb!

Anyways, to cut the story short, my doctor, who is my friend, told me that I should better go and eat something before I take the pain killer pill that he subscribed for me. So I went to a food mall near my office. I detest the loud music. I mean I live the music but it was just too noisy. I chose to eat in a dim sum place since I have to lose weight, I opt for dim sum.

While waiting for my order to come, there was this cute little girl who was dancing in the middle of the hallway. She danced so carefree and not minding what others would think of her. She doesn’t even bothered whether others were watching or not. All she cared was that she was enjoying and having fun.

Woow…I envy her. How I wish we adults could be like that also. I occasionally do it without me realizing it. But what happens is that we adults gets judged that we are just trying to attract some attention. Well, it’s true that some of us adults don’t have an innocent motive like children do. However that doesn’t stop us from being able to dance too. We do dance in clubs and so on. But what I’m talking about is that we should just chose a place where we can be alone and dance like no one else is watching!

This morning, I danced alone to my favorite tune. I was really….I mean reaaalllyy dancing like I have never dance before. And I was really dancing like no one else is watching. I really felt wonderful after doing it. In a way, I sort of got my innocence back. It was such an uplifting experience.

Dancing is a very good therapy. I would also like to share it with my clients. I have developed a special dance therapy for creativity and also for stress release. I feel like there are certain body movements that produces some therapy effects. I’m really excited in exploring all this.

Dancing can be a healthy way to keep fit physically and mentally. It is good for people of all ages, shapes and size. Here are some of the benefits of dancing:

  • Improved condition of your heart and lungs
  • Increased muscular strength, endurance and motor fitness
  • Good cardio exercise
  • Improved muscle tone and strength
  • Weight management
  • Stronger bones and reduced risk of osteoporosis
  • Better coordination, agility and flexibility
  • Improved balance and spatial awareness
  • Increased physical confidence
  • Improved mental functioning
  • Improved general and psychological wellbeing
  • Greater self-confidence and self-esteem
  • Better social skills
  • Balancing the brain hemispheres

When you dance away and just cut loose, it becomes a meditation on its own. When we dance in such a way, we are letting ourselves to freely express ourself through the dance. We release all tension and when that happens, creativity arises. You see, tension is a trapped energy. It needs to be released.

I remember once a Master Osho said about dancing as a meditation: “Dancing is no longer a doing, but a happening. As you continue to dance, you may start to forget that you are dancing and to feel that you are the dance. Unlike those times when you are still aware of the separation between you and the dance, between you and the music, it becomes a meditation when the divisions dissolve and you are totally involved, totally merged into the dance. You do not need to do anything to force this shift; just allow it to happen”

Dancing meditation or therapy is a great way to liberate feelings of positivity and joy. When we free the body, we allow the mind to expand and our hearts will open up and our spirit will fly. So Celebrate and Dance!

 

It’s All About Mind Training!

  • image title

    It’s All About Mind Training!

Have you ever awoken to the same thoughts over and over again for the course of almost everyday? And most of the thoughts that reoccur are mostly negative thought. Isn’t that horrifying?!

Well, I first did not realise it for years. Several years ago on a fine one day, I woke up with the same reoccurring thoughts about my anger towards a beloved one. The thoughts would linger even until I was having my breakfast, and worse… it would continue throughout the day if my mind was not kept busy with other things. I was so engrossed with the train of thought. Trying to rationalise, look for more faults so that the blame and anger would be justified. And if the feeling of anger subsides, I would still find excuses and reason to validate my anger towards that person.

That is how the mind works. That is what the Ego wants to hang on to. Did you know that we have circa 60000-70000 thoughts per day and 90% of the are negative thoughts? And these 90% of the negative thoughts plays in the head like a broken record player everyday! Ironically is that every thought you think and every word you say is an affirmation.

When I realised this, I knew I had to make a stop to it. Then I discovered that those negative thoughts became automatic, that is why some people would call it as Automatic Negative Thoughts (ANTs). I read about this is in an article which was taken from an Australian yoga magazine. If those negative thoughts appeared automatically, that means I have developed a habit for it. If it is a habit, then it could be my character. And if it became my character, that would become my destiny. Whoa….no way will I have such kind of destiny! No-uh!

So, I had to stop this bad habit by training my brain to lessen those negative thoughts. That’s where I came about to be acquainted with meditation. It is strange that at first I was not too keen on the word meditation. Because I heard from a lot of people that meditation is like a ritual for a certain religion. Yeah right! Those people who talks in that sense means that they need to open up their horizon and start reading and discovering a whole new world of the neuroscience.

Meditation is not religion! I like the explanation that meditation is not religion by Deepak Chopra and Oprah Winfrey in this interview http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rp1DGDaHvHg

Meditation is not about levitating or will be in conflict your religious beliefs. Because in all religions meditation exists. The monks do it, the Sufis do it, etc. I would say that meditation is actually a form of “mind training”. It is true that a lot of people are apprehensive to the word because it is something “new” in the western world of psychology which is adopted by the whole world. But I remember a quote by Carl Jung, “What the East knows about the human mind is at least 2000  years ahead of western psychology”. So, you know how it is. People are afraid of the things that they don’t know. But once they are well informed, the fear disappears.

Let’s go back to “mind training”. The habit that I have developed in thinking of the same things over and over again for everyday in my certain period of life means it is a form of a repetition that reoccurs. So the only antidote to is to train the mind to not think that way. It is quite and exhausting job If I were to try to block all those negative thoughts that comes in my mind. The thing I need to do is not to directly grab the mind and try to tame it. There is another of a more simple way, and that is through controlling the breathing. When we are able to control our breathing, automatically we control the mind! A-ha!

You see, there’s such a clear connection between the breathing and the brain – which is used to express the mind. I will talk more on that in my next article. To make the story short, when I have succeeded in training the mind, I can catch glimpses of the thoughts. And the more I control my breathing, the thoughts lessened. And then when that happens, I was able to reprogram my old pattern of thinking negative thoughts :)

Therefore, I would recommend that everyone should be thought mind training. It breaks the pattern of negative self talk too. Imagine what life could be if we rid of all those negative self talks and negative thoughts. Life would be like a breeze…

You’ll Find A Treasure If You Look Closer

  • image title

    You’ll Find A Treasure If You Look Closer

I needed to get some recharging from Nature that I decided to head for the beach. Another reason is that I wanted to capture Bali’s Sunset with my Olloclip lenses.

To my amazement, I was not the only who wanted to witness Bali’s Sunset. It was so crowded! There was a group of people who played soccer, and another group who was practising martial arts, couples, sate sellers, families, etc.

It was quite difficult to take a picture of the sun with an Iphone without capturing anyone who passes in between the sun and I.

So I decided to change strategy. I took out the macro lens from my olloclip and started to look for other objects. Since the easiest thing available was the sand, so I took a picture of it. To my awe, the result of the picture is this picture. Of course it doesn’t have the writing on it, but look at those beautiful colorful crystals!

I was so amazed to look at the close up picture of the sand that it hit me on the head….hey! This is how we miss a lot of things in this life, it’s because we don’t take time to take a closer look of what things are made off. That is why a lot of us are so depressed, unhappy and miserable!

Have we taken the time to take a closer look at ourselves? I don’t mean about looking at our physical self through the mirror. But looking at what lies inside of each one of us. We should be like the sand, we are made up off beautiful colorful crystals…a real treasure.

We have been conditioned to look at ourselves from the outside…at the outerworld. Not a lot of us look at the inside. I mean…what’s there to look at? It’s dark and no stimulation for the senses. Exactly!

We are so used to with the noises, visuals, tastes of the hustle bustle of the busy outer world that darkness and silence just scares a lot of us. I guess we forget that one can only recognize and see the light in darkness.

Why do I connect depression and unhappiness with all this? It’s because a lot of us are still disconnected with our true self. We are crying for the loss of our so called ‘treasure’ of; childhood, loved ones, relationships, jobs, wealth, memories, etc – and we seek all of that from our outer world. We forgot to look closer at ourselves of what we are really made off. We may be like the sand i described, consisted of a precious thing. We never seek within.

If we only take a closer look at ourself, we will find a treasure within. Hiw do we do that? Start by closing our eyes and limiting ourselves from any sense stimulation that excites us too much. This is the Only way to access it. People call it meditation, it is a process where we start listening to ourself….the real Self and not to our Ego.

Read more books about it, gain more knowledge about it. Start the journey within. It will take time, patience and practise. You will only be good t anything if you practise. Get to know yourself and get acquainted with yourself. Soon, you will discover a treasure within…

1 2

Open

Information & Consultation (Phone/WA) +62-878-7711-1139 and +62-851-0080-1595

Visit Us On TwitterVisit Us On FacebookVisit Us On YoutubeVisit Us On Linkedin