Self Mastery is a state to live through ..

Of late I have been going through some great seminars on managing your daily energy levels, resilience, self-awareness, self-mastery, decision making and getting to peak level of performance. It's just great to see that my life is becoming fuller again - the Universe is speaking to me through so many different channels and fueling my depleted state to new awakening, new state of blissfulness and hopefully a new state of being where my past limiting beliefs are overwritten with new self beliefs, optimistic thoughts and breakthroughs that I thought was never possible. I strongly belief that am laying a new strong foundation for self and family that will change the course of my career, finance, health, personal and social relationships and spiritual alignment.

To start this new state of being, I would like to dwell a little on self-awareness. How much of us truly know our true self and what it wants. For years on, it was subjected to conditioning that created so many layers that you do not quite recognize you truly are. 

10 dimensions of self-awareness  

• Value Awareness :  Do we know our primary values, based on which we make our decisions ? If we don't understand that, then all values are important and that creates a challenge with decision making. Our values drive our behavior. 
• So, I go back to my childhood days and I clearly remember that soft, gentle and compassionate being I was till I got hardened and rough through life's challenges. I want to go back to that value of love, kindness, gratitude and compassion I was born with. I want my family and everyone around me to see that emanating in the decisions I take, in how I respond to situations, how I speak and most important how I look! Even I close my eyes and imagine Lord Rama or Vishnu, I see that slight smile, love and gentleness. 
• Secondly, I was conditioned to think that health is secondary. We should be just focused on studies, work and to advance in life and career. And over a period of time, you turn a beautiful human being into a clockwork machine running with speed and acceleration to achieve greater heights at the cost of health breakdowns. That first sign of that came to me few years and since then I have started working on yoga, walking. But I have not been consistent - but I had a WOA (Work of Art) moment when the instructor mentioned how his life's dream is to be able to enjoy long life with his kids and grandkids. So, he has made regular visit to gym as a habit. He does not feel demotivated ever again. I have been practicing sleeping for longer hours (6-8 hrs) and allowing my body to heal and recover from all the damages I have done to it working late, waking up early, not taking enough breaks, being relentlessly focussed to achieving my goals fast. May Lord Dhanvanthari help me to being the self-healer and help my family get better at managing their health.
• Thirdly, I would like to anchor my decisions based on new learning, experiences, cognitive thinking, expansion, growth, writing, sharing, speaking, communicating. The mantra - the more I share, more I learn. It's a 2 way process. Is it helping someone to learn something new, work creatively, build something constructive, read a new book, fill my spiritual vacuum, quest for the unknown and knowing more about self and the world. Through Maa Saraswati's blessing, I would like self and family to help people come out of ignorance and emerge in a new state of knowledge and wisdom. This is very powerful and important to me. 
• Finally, I would like to anchor - finance, investment, growth and returns as a key parameter to making decisions over savings and expenses. I was rather passive in my relationship with money and always though that if I worked hard, money will come to me. I was quite blind-sided till Tim woke me about the concept of abundant mindset and bringing about our relationship to money as an instrument to flow rather than being hoarded (which is what we were taught back then). I did not know how to use money to grow and create a life that I truly desire and deserve. Today, I imagine Maa Lakshmi abundantly blessing our family with gold, diamond, money, riches and fortune in a new home and many more, a new workplace, creating a new company and hopefully making millions of dollars. My new life starts now.               

• Passion Awareness :  What is it that you can do day after day and not get bored? Passions sometimes are developed through action. You can become passionate about something just because you are working on it for a long period of time. What are your passions? Passion is what you pursue. I have a triangular passion - for data, analytics, machine learning, AI, creating new products and using my right brain to develop new kinds of user experience, intelligence and intuition and that impacts millions of people (specially focused on earth and sustainability). I have seen myself doing work for nature specially trees and using data to AI to build awareness to the world and being that agent of change.
• Desire awareness - desire is the outcome you want ? 
• Pattern awareness - reflect on the beliefs that shape our daily habits, behaviors and ultimately our lives. 
• Social structure awareness - what kind of social structure, environment and energy that makes you thrive and brings the best version of you? 
• Thought awareness - do I observe my thinking and hear what am repeating to myself over a over again? Words have power and meaning - that changes our biology and creates the magnet of what we attract. Can I create those affirmative words that creates empowering thoughts that I can put on my playlist? The answer is definitely yes. 
• Emotional awareness - What triggers me, what makes me irritated, bored, confused, disgusted, frustrated, painful, worried, afraid, anger, sad over blissful, joy, calmness, admiration, adoration,  amusement, joy, interested, excited, satisfied, awe. I had a WOA moment when the instructor said we could label those emotions and then take a deep breath to choose a suitable response to channel those feelings to create the desired outcome. I think I need a lot of work to do on this and make this part of my daily being of remaining calm in situations, of not allowing my face to feel tensed, worried, telling myself "All is Well!", not getting triggered to old patterns of behavior and response of raising a voice, or speaking in haste without thinking and then regretting later. I also learnt how letting go and forgiving others can be great instruments in building that strong emotional bank that attracts friendships, attracts smile, laughter, love, fun, wit, playfulness, joy and peace.
• Body Awareness - I have never concentrated on this aspect. So, I would pull myself to do more even when I was tired. I would drive home from office in heavy traffic and then again run to take my kid to a music school. I would try to stay awake after dinner running late night calls (trying to explain or resolving a conflict) and then not getting sleep. Again waking up early morning to do the regular chores. I did not allow my body to rest and recover. Today, I learn to see how my body feeling about a situation, about a task, about what someone said, after what I ate. Am learning how powerful my body is connected to emotion. My body houses my soul and how important it is to keep it strong, healed and well oiled machinery to help me perform at my peak always.
• Action awareness - Do you have awareness of what needs to happen for you to stop taking action ? Do you now what gets you and keeps you in action?   

The Practice of Living in the Present

We get more anxious when we believe that our past defines our future. That our mistakes, concerns, failures of the past are going to impact our future. While our past and future debilitates us, this moment, THIS moment empowers us. Living moment is the only real part of creation.When you are not placing your attention on the things around you, but rather on yourself, on your heart and in this living moment, you create a space to fully channel your energy to create whatever you want. 

Being present is a gift. I have seen my attention hover in meetings, my passion dwindle when others get ahead of me, my thoughts shifting to that negative news of something that happened. Today we are drinking from a hose of information and being present is really hard when you are constantly being fed with notifications and triggers that get your dopamine going. Hence, I have seen myself repeating old patterns and behaviors over a over again. Today am making new empowering beliefs around areas of life that I hope to renew with abundance, creativity, love, recognition and fortune.

• Health - Full night sleep, yoga, meditation integral to morning routine, eating moderately, not snacking when something triggers me emotionally or feeling drained, doing more aerobic exercises - like running, biking. So, getting into weight training and feeling healthy, strong and wonderful internally.
• Career - I want to have lasting relationships at work where people enjoy working with me, my boss thinks of me as his/her right hand whenever there is something new to do and I get the recognition, good recommendation and vibes from team, clients and stakeholders and senior leadership. Also, work that has a long term impact on customers and communities.
• Money - I would like to have a more healthy relationship with money where I can make it flow, make the right investments that grow and save on taxes. I would like to balance between essential expenses vs luxury ones so that we can enjoy the fruits of labor and hard work. To start with am going to have a weekly checkin on my finances.
• Love relationship - I already made the promise to have very loving and healthy relationship with spouse and kids and build the trust, growth mindset, kindness, gentleness, patience and perseverance with empathy. This areas is a very strong emotional bond which I cannot break - so need to ensure external environment or nothing triggers a meltdown at home. Us remaining calm, labeling our emotions and channeling that energy with thoughtful response will go a long way in creating the life of our dreams.
• Social relationship - I would like to have a strong network with professional and people who can help me when needed. I would like to have meaningful relationships with friends and be of help to them when required.
• Spiritual alignment - This one is very big for me. Everything that I read, hear, speak needs to be strongly aligned to my spiritual values and growth.

Bioengineering

High performance means a person is able to perform at the peak state more consistently. I realize that I have been performing at that peak state for over 8 years now but now my being needs oiling, rest, recovery. While we always hanker after the next big thing in our career and lives, we do not know always realize the impact of that decision on our body and mental well-being. Being able to mange the energy flow, the information flow, the money flow, the people flow and rising high in each of those areas requires skill, habit and self-awareness and self-mastery. 

Self Mastery is not a place to get to, self mastery is a state to live through. When you think about self mastery what do you imagine?Do you imagine yourself having more clarity about your life vision? Do you see yourself living in a fitter and stronger body? Do you imagine yourself in a loving partnership which grows and evolves beautifully? Do you find yourself living in abundance? Do you see freedom? Do you see joy? While I started working on my being since May 2021, I have not been consistent and lacked integrity. I allowed external triggers to get the better of me and lose control, mind and body balance. I hope and pray that this time I will work harder with more diligence and prioritize this for success in all aspects of my life. Om Jai Ganesh!Today I commit to self-master to create that beautiful life for my family as they mean everything to me. Self mastery means you are a master of your own life. I own this the destiny of my life.