Love update...

Well, i wish i had a better story to tell here, I was touched in such a deep way by someone I met in India that i felt it would somehow workout.  He comes to US often and i just wanted to hold on to that feeling or rather someone who made me feel really special and loved!  Something i have not really experienced in a long long time maybe even ever!  But to my great surprise it is just like my other experiences when i really like someone.  One i became really needy and clingy and started making a lot of assumptions that turned out to be incorrect.

I assumed he felt the same way and i think for one brief moment he did but that changed or it wasn't that strong....my heart just feels broken.  Although on the upside I look amazing preparing for the big meeting and my place looks great and I just feel good in general about myself.  So i am in no way apologizing for how I felt it was great but I really disappointed that everything i experienced was just in my mind and nothing in reality.  Now i will stay away from this until i feel like i'm doing things for the right reason.

I wish that one day now things would work out where i can truly experience mutual love with someone special and we both share in that feeling.  For now i am just sad...

i did say i didnt know how this story will conclude and was trying to be so open but hoping for more.  now i know the ending of this particular story and it is different than what i had hoped for but in God i trust and i know everything happens for a reason....Jai Ma!

=========July 1st
So the thing is that i had such an weird feeling after my time with the family today, all this practical way of living is just not for me.  and yes is it lonely but the thing with spirituality is that you cant do it half way, its all or nothing.  now i know that i feel very disappointed by the fact that A didnt return my feelings and that i felt so strongly that it was right for me.  But the reality is that maybe he just wasnt right for me, i actually feel that it felt so strong that how does one know what is the right answer.  When i feel strongly i just let me heart guide the way but it has not lead me to the right answer yet!  So i always wonder i dont want to be married if my heart is not in it, i hope i can strike a balance where my heart is in it and it has a positive outcome.  I want to bring joy to me and others...Jai Ma!

Patanjli - The father of Modern Yoga

Yogi and mystic Sadhguru explores the incredible life and capabilities of Patanjali, the father of modern yoga and the author of the celebrated yoga sutras.

Sadhguru: If you look at Patanjali, as an enlightened being, he can’t be more enlightened than someone else. There is no such thing. Realization is realization. But as a man and above all as an intellect, he is such an intellect that the great scientists of today look like kindergarten children in front of him. The breadth of his understanding of life is so big that you cannot believe that this is possible in one human being. In his mastery of language, mathematics and in his perception of astronomy, he is so fantastic. Today’s scholars argue that this is not one man’s work, that many people must have worked to make this happen because it is so big, it cannot fit into one man’s intellect. It is one man’s work. He is probably one of the greatest intellects ever on this planet.

He is known as the father of modern yoga. He did not invent yoga. Yoga was already there in various forms, which he assimilated into a system. Shiva, the Adiyogi or first yogi, transmitted yoga to the Sapta Rishis or the seven sages many thousands of years ago. He had the highest understanding of human nature, but he didn’t put anything down in writing. He was too wild to be a scholar. He found it was too difficult to put everything he knew into one person, so he chose seven people and put different aspects of yoga into them. These became the seven basic forms of yoga. Even today, though these have branched off into hundreds of systems, yoga has still maintained seven distinct forms.

The Yoga Sutras

Patanjali came much later and sort of assimilated everything. He saw that it was getting too diversified and complex for anyone to understand in any meaningful way. So he assimilated and included all aspects into a certain format – as the Yoga Sutras.

He just understood humanity inside out – not as people but as a total mechanism of the human body, mind, consciousness…

Sutra literally means a thread. Or in modern language we can say it is like a formula. Anyone who knows the English alphabet, even a kindergarten child can say E=mc², but there is an enormous amount of science behind that little formula, which most people do not understand. The sutras are like this, in thread form. Out of ignorance, people have just taken these sutras and are trying to implement it as it is. A thread is of no consequence by itself. There can never be a garland without the thread but no one ever wears a garland for the sake of the thread. The thread was given so that each master makes his own kind of garland. You can put flowers on it, or beads or pearls or diamonds. The thread is vital but that is not a goal by itself.

Unless you are exposed to the culture, it is a little difficult to understand what kind of mind Patanjali is. Even though the Indian scriptures like theVedas and the Upanishads are quite phenomenal by themselves both in terms of grammatical excellence and in their poetic beauty and content, the Yoga Sutras are an absolutely brilliant piece of work compared to any of the scriptures on the planet talking about life and beyond.

They are a tremendous document about life and the most uninterestingbook on the planet. It is the driest and dullest book you can read. It is not scholarly in the usual sense. Patanjali does not teach any practice in them. He did this intentionally, and his mastery over language and composition was such that he wrote it in a way that no scholar would be interested in it. The idea is, this is a formula to open up life. If people like the poetry and literary part of it, all kinds of people, especially scholars, will read it. Once they read it, they will make a 100 different interpretations of it.

The sutra will mean something only to a person who is in a certain level of experience. Otherwise it is just a bundle of words which don’t make any sense. Someone who is exploring his consciousness, if he is in a certain state of experience, if he just reads one sutra, it will be explosive. You are not required to read the whole book. If you read one sutra and make it true with your life, that’s enough. It will realize you.

And Now Yoga

Patanjali

Just to give you some sense of what kind of a man he is – he starts such a great document of life in such a strange way: the first chapter of the Yoga Sutras is just half a sentence, not even a full sentence. The sentence is like this, “And Now Yoga.” What do you make out of it? Intellectually, it doesn’t make any sense, but experientially what it is saying is, if you still think that building a new house or finding a new wife or getting your daughter married will settle your life, it is not yet time for yoga. If you have seen money, power, wealth and pleasure, you have tasted everything in your life and you have realized that nothing is going to fulfill you ultimately and work in the real sense, if you have gotten that point, then it is time for yoga. All the nonsense that the whole world is involved in, Patanjali just brushes it aside with half a sentence. This is why the first sutra is “and now yoga.” That means, you know nothing works and you do not have a clue about what the hell this is. The pain of ignorance is tearing you apart. Now, yoga. Now there is a way to know.

It is improper to call Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras a book because it is not a book. It is a complex arrangement of tools – such fantastic tools arranged in such a brilliant way that if at all something similar ever happens, it is too far away. Because someone with that kind of inner experience usually would not care or bother with scholarly nonsense. And someone who is so scholarly is usually so lost in his scholarship that he never has any inner experience. Never before has there been one person with an absolute depth of inner experience, but with that kind of erudition and scholarly mastery over language.

He just understood humanity inside out – not as people but as a total mechanism of the human body, human mind, human consciousness – everything – in such absolute detail and completeness. There is simply no better way to look at it. It is not fair actually because whatever you try to say, the guy has already said it! You think of the most brilliant idea and try to say something, but he has already said it. He did not leave anything for anyone to say about life.

The musician

They say he played a variety of instruments and was a great musician and singer. The veena was one of his favorite instruments and he composed many ragas. His intellect was such that he could find a way through anything. He was absolutely audacious in everything and did things in a challenging way that no one could break through.

There was another sage Vyagrapada who was his contemporary. Vyagrapada means “one who has tiger’s feet.” And there was someone else with a name that meant “one with horns on his head.” Once, in their banter, they got into an argument and teased Patanjali. He then took a challenge that he will compose music in any raga without using alphabets with “horns.” This is almost impossible but he composed a complicated series of music. If you listen to it, you will just see it seems impossible, but still the music sticks to the tones and tunes of the ragas without those alphabets. It is so incredible. That is the kind of man he was.

Chidambaram temple

In South India, there were five lingas created for the five elements in nature. Patanjali consecrated the linga for space which is inChidambaram.

In the yogic system, the snake is used as a symbolism for unmanifest energy or kundalini because till it moves, you don’t even realize that it is there. Patanjali was such a great being, for him divinity is not an upward movement. He is a cascade of divinity. He is a kind of human being that gods would be envious of. He is symbolically depicted in the famous half-man, half-snake form indicating that he has risen above the duality of life and attained to ultimate oneness, and in doing so, has opened the door for others to achieve the same. Half of his body has been symbolically made into snake, because he is not seen as a person anymore. He is seen as the very basis of the yogic system.

Chitta Vritti Nirodha

Patanjali defined yoga as Chitta Vritti Nirodha, which literally means that if you still the modifications and activity of the mind, you are in yoga. Everything has become one in your consciousness. We may be pursuing many things in our lives and going through processes that we call achievements, but to go beyond the modifications of the mind is the most fundamental and at the same time the highest achievement one can attain, because this releases a human being from what he is seeking – from what is within and what is outside – from everything. If only he stills his mind, he becomes an ultimate possibility. The mind becomes a plain mirror, not a wavy mirror. A wavy mirror will distort one’s whole perception of life. At least if you don’t look at it, you may have some idea how you are, but if you look at it every day, it will give you a completely distorted vision of everything.

Right now, most human beings are using their mind only between their memory and imagination. Memory and imagination are not two separate things. Memory is accumulated past, imagination is an exaggerated version of that. If you bring your mind to a state where you are neither contaminated by memory nor deluded by imagination, then it is a truly intelligent, penetrative mind. It sees everything there is to see – life and its source. For the survival process, your memory and imagination are good enough, but if you want to explore other dimensions of life, then memory and imagination are not sufficient because they are only a recycling of your past. Once you recycle your past, there is a pattern to your life. And it is an unbreakable pattern if your mind is just engaged in memory and imagination. Once you are trapped by a pattern, it does not matter who created the pattern, it is a kind of slavery. Essentially, realizing that one is trapped in psychological realities and missing out on the existential experience of the grandeur of creation is the first step towards liberation.

This is the reason why, of all the beautiful ways in which it could be expressed, Patanjali chose the description Chitta Vritti Nirodha for yoga – a technology which can take you towards your liberation or realization.

surynameshkar

Q: Sadhguru, you said we shouldn’t look at Surya Namaskar as a physical exercise. What’s its purpose then?

Sadhguru: The purpose is to generate your prana ^[1] in such a way that it radiates like the sun. The sun has no intention of either roasting you in the summer season, or giving you solar energy, or making your plants grow. The sun just burns; this burning radiates and we all benefit from that. This is the nature of the existence. And this is how a human being should be too – but he’s unwilling to be that way. He doesn’t radiate anything – he thinks he has to do. Petty human beings are just living on intentions which they think are lofty, which make them feel great. This is a poor way to exist. They find a little bit of fulfillment through their intentions, not by their way of being; they haven’t attained to such grandeur.

Surya Namaskar is designed in such a way that it makes your energies radiate. Then you don’t have to have good intentions; you don’t have to have any intentions. If you simply sit here, your presence is beautiful and beneficial. Nobody needs to think we should make use of such a person’s presence; anyway it is beneficial, whether others are aware of it or not. To what extent you radiate depends on whether you are willing to face the sun or whether you sit under a concrete block. So if you are radiating, what will happen? What does it mean?

Radiation means who you are is spreading in a subtle way. If I sit here like a cold block of meat, I’m just here. If I am radiating, in a subtle way, I’m all over the place. The more I am able to experience the existence, the more the existence is able to benefit from me – both ways it works; it’s a transaction.

So if I radiate, my being radiates in a big way. It is like a large umbrella that people can experience. And above all, I can experience the existence because who I am is not a piece of meat anymore, it’s radiating. If it radiates, prana will come in touch with akasha^[2]. You are doing Surya Namaskar because you want to become like the sun. Becoming like the sun does not mean you will burn up tomorrow morning. It simply means you will be in akasha. Right now you are just stuck to the planet, but if you become like the sun, you are in akasha; you are in the vast expanse of creation; you are not stuck to a limited space anymore.

So, does the akasha have an influence upon us? First of all, it is always holding us in place. Your understanding may be that earth’s gravity is holding you in place, but that’s not how it is. The idea that the earth is like a magnet, holding all of us down, is a simplistic way of looking at things. What is holding the earth in place? To think that the sun’s gravity is holding you is a very childish, infantile conclusion. The sun doesn’t even have a solid substance. What is holding the whole solar system in place? Why is it not falling off? That’s because of akasha. You want to be held in the embrace of akasha because that way, your experience of life becomes purely existential and universal in possibility; it is no more limited to the physical.

Maladihalli Swami, who first taught me yoga, used to do 4008 Surya Namaskars per day. Just like me he got into yoga for the wrong reasons. Right from his infancy, he had been a chronic asthmatic. He was just wheezing day and night. In those days, there was no proper medicine or treatment, and even if there had been, his parents would not have been able to afford it. They did whatever they could, but the boy was just wasting away.

When he was about 11 or 12 years of age, a yogi came by and the parents asked him to heal the boy. The yogi said, “Anyway this boy is not going to be of any use to you. If you keep him with you, he will die. Give him to me; I will take him with me.” He didn’t belong to the kind of people who are recruiting disciples. He wanted to walk alone; generally, he didn’t take anybody. But he took compassion upon this boy because he had his mission. This yogi was Palani Swamy – that’s my Guru too. So he took this young boy and trained him in the ways of yoga. The boy not only grew out of his ailment, he grew into a physically almost superhuman person – and he came and reminded me of yoga. [Laughs]

So if you radiate substantially, akasha is not only something that your planet is held in, it is something that you also swim in on a daily basis. Then your life is very different.

My sadhana is very, very limited. I neither have the time nor the inclination to do any physical part of the sadhana. Now this is going to make your eyes red. [Laughter] I do only one Surya Namaskar every day. Wherever I am, I just do one, and I can do even without that. I can just sit and mentally do it – even then, it still works. This is because even though you do have a body and you are limited to the physical laws, if you are in touch with what is known as akasha, that which is holding the whole system up, will also hold you up.

My sadhana is very, very limited. I neither have the time nor the inclination to do any physical part of the sadhana. Now this is going to make your eyes red. [Laughter] I do only one Surya Namaskar every day. Wherever I am, I just do one, and I can do even without that. I can just sit and mentally do it – even then, it still works. This is because even though you do have a body and you are limited to the physical laws, if you are in touch with what is known as akasha, that which is holding the whole system up, will also hold you up.

Life has left everything open for you; the existence has not blocked anything for you. If you are willing, you can access the whole universe. Somebody said, “Knock, and it shall be openedr” You don’t even have to knock because there is no door – it’s open. You just have to walk through it, that’s all. But because your instinct of self-preservation keeps on telling you, “Unless you build a wall, you’re not safe,” unconsciously, you go on building walls all the time.

So what you are battling with is neither the creation’s nor the Creator’s unwillingness to open up the possibility. What you are struggling with is just the concrete walls that you have built. That is why the yogic system does not talk about God, the Ultimate Being, or the Creator – it only talks about karma – because we are interested in what blocks you. We are not interested in talking about the Ultimate. If we talk about the Ultimate, you will go into fanciful imagination. We are only talking about what is blocking you because that is what needs to be attended to.

God doesn’t need your attention. There is nothing to do about the Ultimate; that which binds you has to be broken, that’s all, and that bondage is 100% your making. That is why we are only talking karma. You have no work with the Existence. You have work only with the existence that you have created.

– Excerpted from a Talk by Sadhguru

- See more at: http://www.sadhguruonline.com/blog/radiate-like-the-sun-sadhguru-on-the-power-of-surya-namaskar#sthash.v9LxTTqy.dpuf

Love and Obsession

For me these lines seem so blurred...I get so annoyed...ahhHHHHHH!

Why does this not seem to be easier???

So the last few days have been crazy with lots of mixed feeling because someone i really like is in here in town and i thought that we have a great connection.  I feel like we really connected before and that the only reason we didnt really get together was because we were around so many people but the reality is that even though we are in the same city he has not reached out to me in any way.  Not even a response to my text so I think that says a lot.  And the real reality is that he is young and may not be intrested and to top it all off.  Even if he is interested what are we really talking about me trying to chase him down.  So i guess i have been here before and know what this means although the build up is really nice because i got so much cleansing done and my place and my body look great!  That for me a huge achievement...i have not felt or looked this good in a while...

So i am wondering how did i get here again...Ahhhhhhhh
well just months before this i was so into SB and knew he was going to come and visit me and that he is the one.  Now this, do these men really make me feel this great is there only just one, or am i always feeling like i have met these amazing men and yet I cant be with them!  why not?  Some how when the guy starts to like me i start to really like him and then they go away.  This has been going on all my life and i want it to stop.  I want to like someone and i want him to like me and both of us to be in mutual love and adoration and be together, if i was looking at this i would say this is a self esteem issue i do deserve a price, i do and that is the way it is.  I do deserve a prize.  I am a prize and i deserve the best.

So there is a crazy fun side to my personality and when i'm totally free these men help bring it out in me and i love that.  that was the thing with Punit.  As my Guru says the things that make me the most uncomfortable are the things to focus on....so for that I am so grateful for A for teaching me so much about why?  but i am still disappointed because i still wish for so much more that is how i truly feel

So how quickly things change, now that I'm working on my own things I feel so much better than having anxiety over why i am not spending more time with A.  He is really focused and whatever it is, I just want to have a relationship with mutual attraction and love with someone where we are both really into each other and it feels special and good to be with someone so special.

I really want to perfect this way of Manifesting Love so i can teach the whole world!  My goal right now is to teach myself and I have come a long way in self love.  I also know that for me I need to teach as many people as possible

Adi Yogi - Shiva

In the story that follows, Sadhguru tells us about Shiva, the first yogi, and how he transmitted the yogic sciences to the Saptarishis.

Sadhguru: In the yogic culture, Shiva is not known as a god, but as the Adiyogi or the first yogi – the originator of yoga. He was the one who first put this seed into the human mind. According to the yogic lore, over fifteen thousand years ago, Shiva attained to his full enlightenment and abandoned himself in an intense ecstatic dance upon the Himalayas. When his ecstasy allowed him some movement, he danced wildly. When it became beyond movement, he became utterly still.

People saw that he was experiencing something that nobody had known before, something that they were unable to fathom. Interest developed and people came wanting to know what this was. They came, they waited and they left because the man was oblivious to other people’s presence. He was either in intense dance or absolute stillness, completely uncaring of what was happening around him. Soon, everyone left…

Except for seven men.

These seven people were insistent that they must learn what this man had in him, but Shiva ignored them. They pleaded and begged him, “Please, we want to know what you know.” Shiva dismissed them and said, “You fools. The way you are, you are not going to know in a million years. There is a tremendous amount of preparation needed for this. This is not entertainment.”

So they started preparing. Day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, they prepared. Shiva just chose to ignore them. On a full moon day, after eighty-four years of sadhana, when the solstice had shifted from the summer solstice to the winter solstice – which in this tradition is known as Dakshinayana – the Adiyogi looked at these seven people and saw that they had become shining receptacles of knowing. They were absolutely ripe to receive. He could not ignore them anymore. They grabbed his attention.

Sadhguru at Kanti Sarovar

He watched them closely for the next few days and when the next full moon rose, he decided to become a Guru. The Adiyogi transformed himself into the Adi Guru; the first Guru was born on that day which is today known asGuru Pournami. On the banks of Kanti Sarovar, a lake that lies a few kilometers above Kedarnath, he turned South to shed his grace upon the human race, and the transmission of the yogic science to these seven people began. The yogic science is not about a yoga class that you go through about how to bend your body – which every new born infant knows – or how to hold your breath – which every unborn infant knows. This is the science of understanding the mechanics of the entire human system.

After many years, when the transmission was complete, it produced seven fully enlightened beings – the seven celebrated sages who are today known as the Saptarishis, and are worshipped and admired in Indian culture. Shiva put different aspects of yoga into each of these seven people, and these aspects became the seven basic forms of yoga. Even today, yoga has maintained these seven distinct forms.

Transmission of the yogic sciences to the seven rishis

The Saptarishis were sent in seven different directions to different parts of the world to carry this dimension with which a human being can evolve beyond his present limitations and compulsions. They became the limbs of Shiva, taking the knowing and technology of how a human being can exist here as the Creator himself, to the world. Time has ravaged many things, but when the cultures of those lands are carefully looked at, small strands of these people’s work can be seen, still alive. It has taken on various colors and forms, and has changed its complexion in a million different ways, but these strands can still be seen.

The Adiyogi brought this possibility that a human being need not be contained in the defined limitations of our species. There is a way to be contained in physicality but not to belong to it. There is a way to inhabit the body but never become the body. There is a way to use your mind in the highest possible way but still never know the miseries of the mind. Whatever dimension of existence you are in right now, you can go beyond that – there is another way to live. He said, “You can evolve beyond your present limitations if you do the necessary work upon yourself.” That is the significance of the Adiyogi.

Editor’s Note: Download Sadhguru’s ebook, Shiva – Ultimate Outlaw, alongwith Vairagya, an album of sacred chants (also available as an Android App). They’re free!

Facing your Past

Written in 2012

After 5 years or so I saw a lot of my old friends and I have lived my past DC life to the fullest!  I was the Social Queen and loved and lived every second of it....before i moved to SF 10 years ago.

Its sad actually I have never been in really connected love!  I used to be so into this guy here and we dated but I was and am still am into the persona of things that it can be blinding.

This morning i taught a class and it was less then satisfying, it was ok.  I thought and visualized a class full of top notch executives but it was just people from other countries government workers.  I find the government workers to be so depressing in terms of living in the middle. Not that there is anything wrong with them but people who are just happy existing.

So the reality is I live the life of someone who is just like them, i go back and forth because that is not who i want to be.  I love being surrounded by overachieving people.  That feels glamorous!  So its not just the fancy clothes i miss since there is none of that in sf but its the mindset of doing what you love.

So the reason i have not yet ventured into a truly give your heart relationship is because maybe fear but also knowing who to give it to.  I loved SB with all I had but it was not real since i was never with him but I will say that it allowed me to be happy with that feeling.  connecting at the soul level...have the time of my life, fun, sex, laughter, kindness, inspiration, ambition, friendship and really feel deep within.  That is what i long for, to truly and deeply love...

So why do i love people who break the boundaries and thrive and achieve anyways well, i am like that also at least in my head.

Meditation LOG - Aparna

June 19th - Since i've started meditating more, I have decided to keep a log and I have to say today is the first day i did a 60 minute meditation!  I had such a beautiful experience today, when i did Sadhguru's tape on Love.  The love the i feel is radiating within my self and that is what people are drawn to not the other stuff i'm trying to chase.  Its a very different place to come from and I want to stay with it ....forever and ever.  THE LOVE THAT I FEEL IS RADIATING WITHIN MYSELF...

After a night of just feeling lonely and restless this is so nice....i wish to be here more....ahhhh!
Amazing what just one hour can do with some preparation...!

June 23rd - I am proud of the fact that i meditate for an hour last night and it was a good way to clear a lot of random stuff from the weekends events like my cousins shower etc.
This morning i did a 2 hour session i should say of some good stuff...the message that kept coming up is that all these people and helping millions of people is only possible by engaging with people.  My guru used to always say to me - live with total involvement!  well i am beginning to see what he means i get my energy and inspiration from people so i need to Become love with people...let my love energy radiate to all around me...

June 23rd So blessed to teach Yoga tonight...I love the feeling of watching people transform in front of my very eyes....so Happy to be able to make that happen for people ...i hope i do that in all that i do each and every day...Watch people transform in front of my eyes...thank you God!

June 25th - Lighter meditation today- only one hour and then Bikram Yoga class
Sadhguru says the mind can only take you deeper into judgment which shows you what is wrong never what is right...?  So as your mind wanders its easy to go into negative spiraling thoughts...

July 17th - OMG, wow i feel so wonderful all the chatter is gone.  this is the most amazing meditation i've done and yes it eased me into my period.  Thank you God for making me a wonderful human being.  I love you more than life itself.

Career coaching...example

Part of a series on The Happiness – Success Connection

In the past eight years, I’ve heard from hundreds of professionals who’ve worked with other career coaches and consultants to no avail. They failed to generate the change or success they wanted, and wasted time, money and energy.  I believe there is one key reason for this – that the vast majority of the “work” people do today to achieve more success and happiness is the wrong kind of work.

Through my training as a therapist and energy healer as well as a coach, I’ve learned that this ineffective type of work focuses only on outer tactics, behaviors and actions, such as: spruce up your resume, build a great support network, apply for the right job, learn how to interview and negotiate for yourself.   Sadly, none of these outer tactics will bring you the success and fulfillment you long for if you’re not doing internal work as well to stretch yourself, to recognize how you habitually trip yourself up, and address it.

Doing the tough inner work – of knowing yourself intimately and committing every day to shaping your habits, thinking and behaviors in a more positive, life-affirming and connective way – is what makes life more satisfying and your career filled with more meaning, purpose and joy.

To create more happiness and success, there are the 8 inner experiences and processes you need to explore – and modify –  as these affect everything you see, think, and perceive:

Your expectations

I hear from strangers every day telling me what they hope and dream for in life and work, and what they expect.  The trouble is that their expectations are more often than not based on faulty logic and reasoning.  They think that once they make a certain amount of money, or get a promotion, or find a new husband, or get rid of their toxic boss, or lose 20 pounds, they’ll be happy.  It doesn’t work that way. The outer change you crave is possible only after you change how you’re operating in the world and your inner experience, including your expectations.   If you expect that good should come to you, but you’re not actively participating in bringing about positive change, you’ll be sorely disappointed.

Some common faulty expectations I hear daily are:

- I don’t need to fight hard for what I want – I’ll just get it.

- I’m loyal to my company – I know loyalty will come back from them in return.

- Once I become a VP and make six figures, I’ll be happy.

- If I pursue work I’m passionate about, it has to work out.

- I’ll never be let go – I’m too valuable.

None of these expectations will be met if you don’t understand the full context around these outcomes, and take the right action to bring into being what you desire.  You are 50% of every situation and every relationship.  Are your expectations grounded in reality, and are you owning your 50% and doing what’s necessary?

Your definition of happiness

One of my favorite authors — positive psychology expert Shawn Achor — explained this week on Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday, “Happiness is the joy we feel on the way to reaching our highest potential, and happiness is a choice. “ I couldn’t agree more.  (Here’s more about Shawn’s groundbreaking work in experiencing more happiness in your life.)  If happiness is defined only by outer goals and events, it will be fleeting, unsatisfying and unsustainable.  On the other hand, if you can redefine happiness (and choose to see it) as the feeling you experience as you strive to reach your highest self and highest potential – now that’s something deep, enduring, and enlivening.

Shawn’s extensive research and other recent discoveries in the field of positive psychology have shown that our society’s concept of happiness (work hard and you’ll be successful, and happiness will follow) is completely backward: Happiness fuels success, not the other way around. When we are positive, our brains become more engaged, creative, motivated, energetic, resilient, and productive at work. This isn’t just fluff.  This important discovery has been borne out repeatedly by rigorous research in psychology and neuroscience, management studies, and the bottom lines of organizations around the world.  Shawn teaches how we can – in five easy steps — reprogram our brains to become more positive in order to gain a competitive edge at work and create more success, happiness and reward in our lives. These steps are:

1. Bring gratitude to mind – Write down three new things that you are grateful for each day

2.  Journal – About a positive experience you’ve had recently for 2 minutes once a day

3.  Exercise –  Engage in 15 minutes of mindful cardio activity

4.  Meditate – Watch your breath go in and out for 2 minutes a day and

5.  Engage in a random, conscious act of kindness –  For example, write a 2-minute positive email thanking a friend or colleague, or compliment someone you admire on social media

Do these steps for 21 days, and you will begin to see a lasting shift in your mindset towards more positivity and happiness.

Your decision making

Decisions are fundamental tools that help you face life’s challenges, uncertainties and opportunities.   And the quality and efficacy of your decisions will determine how successful, fulfilled and productive you’ll be.  Your decisions can only be good and productive when you focus on the right problem.  When you are facing a decision, make sure you identify the deepest root of the problem, and address that directly.   If you hate your career and have for years, for instance, look carefully at the source of the problem, and what has contributed to your staying stuck in a professional life you dislike intensely.  Don’t focus only on contextual issues such as a toxic boss, a back-stabbing colleague, or a lack of stimulating responsibility.  Those issues might make your current situation less appealing, but they’re not at the root of your long-term career dissatisfaction. Something deeper is.

Don’t skimp on this process and take the easy way out.  Address the most critical issues and problems you need to resolve.

Your goal setting

The most important part of goal-setting is that your goals are natural outgrowths of who you are and what you care about.  If your goals are in conflict with your authentic values and beliefs, you won’t achieve them. You’ll sabotage the path to these goals, because deep down, the attainment of them feels wrong. Or, you’ll break yourself in the effort to bring about the goal only to wake up to the realization that what you’re left with is empty and meaningless.

Look at the goals you have in place in your life – do they make you feel alive? Do they represent the highest version of you? Will you be proud of yourself for attaining them?  Do they inspire you? And are these goals within your reach, or are there so far down the chain of destiny that they hold no juice for you, because you can’t even believe in your ability to attain them?

Make your goals S.M.A.R.T. – specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-related – and reflective of your highest potential.  Set exciting, juicy 3-month, 6-month, one- year and five-year goals.  Get someone you trust and admire to hold you accountable to meet them.

Your commitment to action

Certainly, it’s important to consider carefully before you take action, and weigh all the options before you.  But once you’ve thought it through and evaluated the best next step, you have to take the step. This is where so many fall down.  They think, think, think (and rethink) but fail to act.  I learned in my therapy training that all the insight in the world doesn’t necessary change anything.   Anyone who has endured a challenging childhood or troubled family life knows that. We can look back and understand very clearly what was going on in our families and why, but that doesn’t mean we’ve healed ourselves from the trauma of it just because we understand it.  To do that, you have to take action – and a very different type of action than you’re used to.  You have to commit to putting one step in front of the other each and every day on the way to a more expansive life that reflects and honors your talents, passions, interests, values, and your non-negotiables. (Take this self-assessment to learn what you want to commit to going forward.)

Your risk tolerance

If you won’t risk, you won’t grow. And if you don’t grow, you won’t be happy. Happiness comes when you stretch out of your fears and your complacency, and believe in yourself enough to work toward reaching your highest potential. That doesn’t happen if you stay imprisoned within your comfort zone.  People who are afraid of risk also blunt other positive emotions and life experiences as well, such as vulnerability, connection, intimacy, love, and self-examination. What actions are you avoiding because you’re afraid to risk?

Your openness to failure

Everyone on this planet has faced a fear of failure numerous times – it’s a universal human experience.  But people who inspire you do so because they pushed through the fear, crushed it down, and kept going through failure to the other side.  I hear this question constantly, “But what if I fail at this new direction?” My answer is, “Then you fail. So be it. You’ll learn from it, grow from it, and you will never be the same after it.”  There are simply no guarantees in life, so stop holding out for them.

I also tell them, “You can’t unring a bell.”  Once that special bell of knowledge and experience has been rung, you’ll be forever changed and much stronger and wiser because of it.  Embrace your fear of failure, and move through it. Failure doesn’t kill you – it strengthens you, and teaches you how to proceed differently to get to where you want to go in a better way. (Here’s billionaire Sara Blakely’s story about how embracing failureprepared her for her amazing success.)

Your self-love and self-acceptance

I’m all for gaining more clarity about our power gaps, missteps, foibles, and challenges.  But I’ve seen that having a strong dose of self-love and self-acceptance is critical to happiness and success. You simply can’t experience a good, happy life if you reject yourself constantly – if you put yourself down, put yourself last, and make your thoughts, emotions and experiences wrong.

So many people I speak with doubt their instincts, and act against their better judgment.  They say “no” to themselves and to what they believe and want because they honor the opinions and judgments of others over their own.

Happiness and success come in much greater abundance when you start from a place of simply loving who you are (warts and all) and accepting yourself in the face of your imperfections.  From that place of acceptance, you can more readily achieve a deeper connection to the world around you, and move towards your highest potential.  You don’t need a new personality – you need to open your eyes to who you really are (which is amazing, talented, and important in the world).

What (or who) stops you from loving and accepting yourself?

Do the work of revising these 8 critical inner processes, and you will be on the path to creating the lasting happiness and success you long for.

(To build a happier, more rewarding career, visit kathycaprino.com)

The World's 10 Happiest Countries

To identify what you’re passionate about, dig deep and answer these questions:

1. Look carefully at what you’re drawn to in life. What do you read, watch, listen to, follow?
2. What agitates and upsets you in the world and compels you to DO something?
3. Where are the people who inspire and uplift you? What are they focused on?
4. If you could take one college level course or program for free on anything at all, what would it be?
5. In what areas are you drawn to helping others?
6. What “mess” in your life can be turned into a “message” for others?
7. What skill or talent do you wish you had, that would be exciting to pursue?
8. What area do you secretly fantasize about being involved in but feel foolish to say it out loud?
9. If you knew you couldn’t fail and it would all work out beautifully (financially and otherwise), what would you try?
10. What did you adore doing as a child that you’ve let slip through your fingertips?
11. What (or who) holds you back most from pursuing what excites you most?

Before my current career, I lived through 18 years of a corporate life that was devoid of passion and purpose, and that led to depression, illness, and misery. I can tell you without a shadow of doubt that being lit up by your work is a far happier and more productive way to go.

careers, Methodologies, People and Change, success factors