Do you need to love someone to be kind?

Is it necessary to love someone to be kind to them?

Perhaps we need to love ourselves to be able to be kind to others. We may love many, but we are unable to be kind because we aren’t we aren’t kind to ourselves.

How to refer to the dead in ways that are healthy

Usually, when someone dies, the rest of us get uncomfortable talking about that dead person in front of their family or loved ones. We don’t want to spark off some emotions in them, hence we carefully try to avoid mentioning them or anything that’s related to them. However, should we necessarily avoid talking about them? Is that the best way to move on?

When we so carefully avoid talking about them, I have seen that their loved ones usually feel, “how can they just forget all about my father/mother/grandfather/husband/“ etc. They may feel that people have conveniently forgotten all about the deceased and may feel bad about it. Referencing them in ways that are negative or regretful is also not healthy. Saying things like,

• “If you had done this, maybe he would’ve lived” – is an absolute No-No. Once the person dies, don’t pick up any topic that makes the family feel they should’ve done something to keep them alive. Death and life are not in our hands. If my time is over, no one and nothing can give me extra life. If my time is there, no one and nothing can kill me too.
• Avoid referencing in ways of regret – such as – ‘he should’ve seen this before he left.’ Or, he died too young, he should’ve lived longer. You may feel that, but when you tell it to the family, they may feel bad about it further.
• Don’t let curiosity get the better of you and ask them questions around the death – how did they die? How exactly did it happen – questions like these will make them relive the not-okay moments many times strengthening the painful moments further.
• Sometimes we go one step further by stopping the family of the deceased from talking or recounting their old memories with them too! That goes a tad too much! They may feel they don’t have the freedom to talk about the person they love so much. One may think, “I just don’t want them to think of the past and feel bad”. But you know what, we can’t abruptly stop talking about someone who passed away. It will look weird to avoid someone who we loved and lived with for so long. It’s a life – not a paper or an issue that can be pushed under the carpet and forgotten. It’s okay to talk about them, and feel that sense of missing them – and have a tear or two briefly. It’s a process of recalling, strengthening, and letting go. The more you try to avoid this, the longer it takes to heal. Like I always say, “It’s okay to be not okay.”

Find healthy ways of referencing and representing them because we can draw strength from it. Healthy ways of referencing are talking about the good work they have done, how the deceased may have inspired you some time, their strengths, their good work, and how they may be peaceful somewhere up above, watching over us. When we say things like this, we are remembering them in healthy ways. The concerned family too might just appreciate the fact that you still care to remember the goodness of the person and celebrate their life even after they are gone. That is gratitude. Trying to spend a life coping with their death may be painful. But trying to spend a life carrying forward their legacy might be helpful.

Just because you don’t talk about them, the other person won’t forget them. They’ll still think of them. Hence, fondly remember them rather than desperately try to avoid/forget them. Beyond that one moment of death, there is an entire life of theirs to be cherished.

For more tips on what to say and what not to say in these circumstances – please refer to an earlier blog – https://narmadarao.wordpress.com/2014/12/29/when-you-dont-know-what-to-say-2/

What happens when you ignore things that are normal

Something to reflect on –

• are you more likely to silently participate and enjoy when things are going normal or good?
• If there’s something not-ok, are you quick to take action or provide feedback?

If so, then that’s something you might want to reconsider. Normal doesn’t need to be ignored. Normal needs to be noticed too. Because you won’t like it if those so-called seemingly normal things go abnormal. We mostly think appreciation is reserved only for something excellent. No! Appreciation is in general for things that are in normal working conditions too. Because the opposite of normal would be abnormal. And you might not want that, right? Are you glad that things are normal? Do you express that?

It takes efforts to keep things normal! If you ignore normal, you can’t complain when things don’t remain normal anymore.

A simple example – when I was in the corporate world, I noticed this happening with the transportation team often. If they operate say 200 vehicles every single day for 25 days of the month and everything runs smoothly for 24 days – nothing is said. It is expected that they have to run properly. One day – a vehicle goes late or the driver misses pick up – all hell breaks loose on that team. From the employee to the manager, an entire chain of emails comes their way complaining of negligent behavior.

Now you may be wondering, “should I appreciate people for doing their job even?” Appreciate doesn’t mean go and give them awards. A simple thank you while getting off the vehicle will do! You are acknowledging their presence and their effort! And once in a while, taking time to talk to the team and thank them for their efforts to ensure smooth operations, being curious to understand what does it take from their end to actually keep this entire fleet running and empathizing with their challenges – all these are small ways of showing you care for what they do.

And honestly, you know what? When you do the above, on that one day when things go wrong, you will not be affected by it as much.

• One – because you know how tough it is in the background to keep things running normal. So, your understanding of the process makes you more understanding of the person or the situation.
• Secondly, by taking notice of these small normal things, you have generally been practising gratitude. Hence, when things go wrong, they don’t tend to disturb you much since you are in a more positive frame of mind.

It’s like this – if you blessed with a normal working brain and body – one way is to assume of course, ‘a human being is meant to be this way. So, what’s to be appreciated. This is the definition of a normal human and I am normal. God just did his job.’ However, do you also realize, that God has a choice not to do it this way too? What if he chose not to create you ‘normal’? Then you may not have all that’s working for you now, working exactly that way.

Give people the motivation to be normal. Pay attention to things when they are normal so that they strive for going better. If you don’t pay attention to things because they are normal, people might want to do something abnormal to get your attention.

Unfortunately, most of us assume bad things need to be corrected openly. Good things need to be observed and enjoyed inwardly. You may feel happy or grateful from within but might not find it necessary to express it to the concerned people. But should there be something not-so-good, you’ll be quick on your feet to seek clarification or criticize. We have to remember one thing – we have the right to criticize openly only when we also have demonstrated the ability to appreciate openly. That’s when you maintain the balance of energies and rapport too. It doesn’t matter what we think inside. No one will know unless we state it. Hence, please do state what you like. Give thanks more openly. Only then will criticisms also be welcome. Because you create a safe space for someone by letting them know that you appreciate them. Once they know you generally appreciate them, even if you give critical feedback once in a while, they may be more open to receiving it.

These are again, mostly unconscious patterns – based on what we are used to in our life. If you think you are being grateful and are expressing it regularly – don’t stop with that assumption. Please do confirm with your loved ones if they feel so too. Do they feel you are appreciative of them too? Often times, we can’t see our blind spots. We think we are something, but in reality, we may fall short of it somehow. So, get some feedback, understand, see what makes the difference. You mean well, you want to do well. Hence, seek clarification from people who matter since it might really help you align your actions with your thoughts in the truest sense of the word. Imagine you spend your whole life assuming you are being grateful to your loved ones. And your loved ones never felt recognized! What a shame it would be to realize that too late! You meant well but somehow couldn’t get the point across in time. Therefore, crosscheck and confirm while there’s still time.

Does luck play a role in success?

Yes! Of course!

But, as the old proverb goes – “Fortune favours the brave”.

Which means – Lady Luck will be on your side if you are brave to:

• keep trying despite facing rejections or failures
• take risks and go beyond your comfort zone
• receive feedback graciously and learn from it

Despite your best efforts, if Lady Luck hasn’t smiled, remember that she hasn’t smiled just “yet”. Not that she won’t smile “ever”. And if your efforts haven’t paid off, then you need to do something differently. The sooner you change, the faster you’ll learn and succeed. If you think you are right, you’ll feel bitter and left-out by Lady Luck. If you believe that she’s on your side, you’ll think she’s teasing you, and you’ll play along until she’s with you. Luck and love are always with you!

The biggest myth about confidence

Is that it comes from certainty of knowing you are right! We couldn’t be further from the truth. Being too sure that we are right, doesn’t denote confidence. It denotes something else.

It is important to never be too sure that you are right.

Be happy that you are giving your best. But don’t be too sure. If you are too sure, you won’t be open to other perspectives or other ways of doing what you are doing. You will get stagnated and sometimes even start rotting. And that feeling of being right makes you want to defend yourself to such an extent that you will be constantly fighting battles with the world. Eventually, whether you win those battles or not, you may not be happy since you are constantly fighting battles. You may just feel drained out and sometimes, frustrated even!

Confidence doesn’t come from getting things right or believing that you are doing right. Confidence means trusting oneself and one’s abilities. TRUST means reliability. Self-confidence means you are ready to rely on yourself any day because you trust that you have the capacity to learn, you have the capacity to change, you have the ability to find your way out of situations and you trust that life is constantly shaping you for your highest good.

A truly confident person has the least resistance or reluctance. They are ready to flow because they know nothing can break them or damage them. Even if something goes wrong, they trust that they can build themselves back.

A lot of people who believe they are right, don’t have confidence. That belief, if anything, makes us become arrogant (for lack of a better word). They demonstrate too much strength for the fear of being broken. It’s like a fragile bubble. They are more fearful of being proved wrong. Hence, they have a strong guard, trying to protect themselves from anyone or anything that might cause any damage to their perception, or their belief about themselves. And it’s all unconscious fears and patterns that make us be so.

A confident person is okay to be proven wrong because they see their learning in it. They are not judging themselves. They are observing and learning.

It’s like a good mother and child relationship – a mother loves her child no matter how it looks, or what it does. It is unwavering. A mother believes in her child and constantly encourages the child to realise its potential. Never doubts it based on achievements and failures. Is able to see beyond the external measures. A mother recognises the inner beauty and inner strength of the child. Can you be that mother to your own self? Can you truly understand and acknowledge yourself as a deeper human being beyond your world achievements or social stature? Can you be kind to yourself? Can you let go of the need to prove knowing that you are already accepted? Can you believe that you are unique with unique gifts that you can offer to the world? You don’t have to be better than anybody. You have to give your best every moment. And for that – you have to trust yourself. If you can, then confidence is yours!

This is why you shouldn’t try to avoid a thought or an emotion.

Have you ever noticed what happens when you try to avoid a thought or an emotion is, we get more into it? If I want to avoid thinking of someone – you’ll observe that you end up thinking more about them. If you want to avoid feeling a certain emotion like anger, sadness, or disappointment, you end up feeling more of it. Your best attempts to resist, help you do only that much – Resist temporarily and eventually succumb to it big time. Hence, it’s time to find better ways than trying to resist or forcefully stop something. 

The more you avoid it, the more it will seem like a monster lurking around the corner, which is ready to attack you anytime you drop your guard. Instead, observe it. When I say observe, it doesn’t mean hug it, identify yourself with it, and dwell in it. Imagine this, look up at the sky – you see those white clouds floating? What do you do when they are floating? You try to make out some familiar shapes at times, but otherwise, you just see them pass, don’t you? You don’t try to own them, avoid them, or chain them. Thoughts are something like that. Can you just observe and let them pass. Don’t give any importance to them. In trying to avoid them, you are giving a lot of importance to them. The minute you give importance, the size of the cloud, or the thought will increase. If you avoid a gentle drizzle, you might get caught up in a storm. To win the war, you have to let go of the battle. Observe the thought, don’t own it. It’s a floating cloud. Don’t act on it. Don’t judge it. Don’t evaluate it. Just dispassionately let it pass. If it helps, look at it from a distance, where you are a bystander and the thoughts are random clouds. Imagine they are black and white. (Add some funny song or tune to it mentally – if you think it helps). But don’t spend too much time paying attention. Let it pass.

Likewise, any emotion too. Like loneliness, or fear, or anything else. Avoiding it will be like an active volcano – any slight trigger and you’ll be waiting to erupt. Face it so that you will emerge on the other side and will be able to see clearly what it was all about. The ones that you are ready to face, cannot threaten you. The ones you try to avoid are the ones that scare you. To face it, you need to believe in yourself that you can see this through. You have gone through a lot in your life and emerged out of it until now. Trust that you can do this too. 

The thoughts and emotions that eventually kill us are the ones that we have desperately tried to avoid. Face them, stand tall – know that you are much bigger than any thought or emotion. Each cloud is a small fraction of the sky. The cloud can never engulf the sky. The sky is much more massive. The cloud can cover up the sky for a short bit but it has to pass. It doesn’t have the stability or the power in itself to stay stuck to any part of the sky ever. Just like your thoughts and yourself. Don’t fear a thought. Don’t fear an emotion. They cannot damage you without your consent. Don’t give your consent. Remind yourself you have an infinite number of thoughts apart from that one silly, odd thought that seems to question you or threaten your existence. If you stop holding on to this one, the next thought will immediately come in – and in that, you might find something nice for yourself.

An interesting data point while we are on this topic – we have around 12000-60000 thoughts per day. And we aren’t fully aware of all of these thoughts. So what makes you think that one particular thought about that person or about that feeling is going to kill you or make your life impossible? It’s your excessive attention to it. The importance you are attaching to that one thought is making you feel like you can’t exist with it. While all the other thousands of thoughts aren’t threatening your existence because you aren’t giving them that importance. In fact, you may not be paying any attention to them even! Let alone giving them importance!

You have to face it to emerge out of it. Yesterday’s blog on impact bias also says how we overestimate the emotional effect of any incident. So, it is not going to be as bad as you are imagining. You own yourself. The thoughts don’t own you. They are mere, powerless clouds. You give them power by giving them importance. That’s when they come down on us like a storm. If you stop feeding those clouds, you’ll have clear skies. A gentle rain once in a while, will not hurt you anyway. 🙂 Wishing you pleasant times!

You need to know this if you have the fear of losing someone you love

As kids, we live mostly in the present. We don’t usually tend to have responsibilities or many cares to get carried away with. Hence, we tend to be more in the present and enjoy the simple pleasures of life. However, as we grow older, things change. We have responsibilities, dreams, future, and past to think about. And as we grow and get into strong attachments, the thought of death or loss seeps in too. Not so much our own death as much as the death of someone we love or losing someone we love. That thought becomes an acute fear for some of us too.

I had a friend who once made an SOS call to me. His father was diagnosed with a rare kind of disease and didn’t have much time to live. Perhaps a year was what the doctors had said. All hell broke loose for my friend. He was very attached to his father and couldn’t bear the thought of his death. He called me thinking I had lost my father already and dealt with that loss. So, he wanted to understand what’s that entire process going to be like.

Honestly, death and life mean different things to different people. Even if I go through a ton of deaths personally, I can never explain to someone how it would be like for them when they go through something similar. Each to their own is best applicable here. In fact, even though I dealt with one, I truly wouldn’t know how I would, the next one. I can imagine, dream, prepare, but nothing would be like the real experience.

Why is that? Because we have something called the ‘impact bias’. We over-estimate the impact or intensity of future emotional states based on our current understanding and current life situations. But when it finally happens, our estimation might not be even close to reality. That’s because as humans, we tend to rationalize anything that happens to us. As a result of it, we learn acceptance and understanding of the event. And hence, the emotions that we feel towards that incident, significantly reduce over time. The feeling might not go away but the intensity certainly comes down. We can’t hold on to the intensity of any feeling beyond a point because we tend to rationalize or add logic to make sense of whatever has happened to us. Hence, impact bias is called a bias. Not a reality. It is a misguided perception.

If someone means a lot today, I spend significant time with them and they make my life easy, I obviously cannot imagine living without them tomorrow. The thought itself may send shudders down my spine. But the good news is, god forbid, even if that happens one day, I won’t be as devastated as I imagined. I’ll quickly come to terms with reality and grab hold of myself. The time taken might differ from person to person. And how they make sense of it might differ, but we do tend to change the way we view it.

This holds true for our so-called good incidents or dreams coming true as well. We attach more significance to them and imagine ourselves being super happy when we would achieve something. But when it finally happens, we actually don’t feel as excited as we thought we’d be and the effect runs down pretty quickly too. That promotion that you always dreamt of, might have created happiness but only for a shorter period of time – until your mind finds something else to run after. The wedding that you always dreamt of too, has its effect only until a certain point. Once that effect wears off, you wake up from the fairy tale and may find reality business as usual for the most part.

So, rather than living in the fancy dreams or fears, if we recognize that this is the moment to seize since this is the only moment that’s real, life’s going to be quite stress-free. Also, you won’t save your happiness for a later date or postpone it for any reason. You will experience life in its full bloom right now.

Nothing is ever as good or as bad as we think them to be. Don’t try to prepare yourself for what might happen – life is preparing you anyways. Live this moment to the fullest. If you give it all you have, you won’t have the past to regret or the future to be fearful of. People come and people go, life continues to go on!

Is it okay to show tough love?

Tough love is okay at times, if you ensure (not assume) that the other person clearly understands that there is only love and nothing else behind that toughness.

If you are all the time, or predominantly showing only tough love, and never explaining the reason and not demonstrating much of kindness and understanding, it would be tough for the other person to understand that you love them too. They are only seeing toughness. Love is questionable as far as their experience is concerned. But if you are able to alternate between tough love and kind love, people will be able to understand that you are operating from a place of love.

Sometimes, we act tough out of love, but soon forget why we started and become very agenda based. “If you fulfil my criteria, great! Else, face my wrath! ” – and when I say my criteria, this could well mean things that we want others to do so that they are healthy and happy. However, we get on to an agenda to change someone – treat them like our pet project and that throws everything out of gear. This kind of love creates more fear and makes people want to hide, lie or avoid any situation that involves a confrontation. If people in your environment are showing these signs – then that’s a sign for us to understand that we may have overdone the tough love and it’s time to soften up a bit.

The common mistake we make is by assuming that people understand there’s love behind all that we do. Why assume that? It is our responsibility to communicate love just as much as it is for them to understand. Only when we communicate, will we be making understanding easier for the others. We can’t not do our bit and expect them to understand our incongruent actions or words. If you are most often expressing frustration to someone about how they are, they are going to feel like they aren’t good enough for you. That nothing they ever do will be considered good by you! That’s not a very productive state to get someone into. The more you communicate love, the more you encourage, the more you emphasise on things that you love about them, you will work your magic on them. You will have great rapport and hence, enable them to do better too.

Show tough love when needed, but ensure it doesn’t create deep wounds or fears in the other while you do so. Remember that tough love is only to make someone stronger, not to break them.

How to control eating and talking

Some people have this black hole effect unconsciously. Are you one of them?

For the purposes of this article, we are going to use this particular definition of a black hole – which refers to a place where things are lost never to be seen again.

Which, in human terms means – are you one of those who commit and forget all about it. Or anything that comes to you can be forgotten since one cannot expect you to remember and return (in case of an object), or reply/respond appropriately (in case of communication), or realize (in terms of feedback). And all of this, not because you didn’t want to. You have the best of intentions always. But you may not be paying attention to some things in a manner that matters to people.

1. This means – if you borrow something, you are very less likely to remember to return it. Not that you intend to keep it, but just that it doesn’t occur to you to return it unless asked. And sometimes, not return it even upon asking since you may have misplaced it or damaged it.

2. In terms of phone calls, emails, messages are you one of those who follow one-way traffic rules? Where you can get in touch with people whenever you want, but it doesn’t hold true the other way? Again, not that you intended it that way. But you have unconsciously become one of those who only communicate when you are open for it and might miss calls from friends and family and forget to call back too. Another way is, regardless of what they say, you mostly have the same expression/response. So, they may find you unreadable and hence be led to assume that you don’t really care or understand.

3. In terms of feedback, any feedback that comes to you – it doesn’t affect you in any way. Your shell has become too thick over the years for various reasons. So, you continue to be the same despite several reminders and feedbacks from people. So, people may get frustrated trying to communicate with you. That’s because they do not know if there’s any point to it at all since there’s no response or reaction from you at a deeper level. Every time they talk to you about it, you give the same/similar response like the previous time and continue to repeat the same thing again in the future.

The next step in either of these cases is quite self-explanatory at one level – that you lose credibility. But that’s something we all are aware of, aren’t we? There’s more to this though.

The other repercussions are,

• You may miss out on important people you love.
• You might end up being alone, not because you don’t care. But because you never explicitly communicated and showed that you truly cared.
• You may either be over-confident of yourself as you don’t remember any of the things that matter to others. So, you may not even realize you are unconsciously hurting others.
• Or, you may lose confidence in yourself since you repeatedly keep hearing from people that they don’t trust you at some level. Whenever you commit, people might laugh it off and say, “As if that will ever happen. It’s okay! I know you!”
• You may feel bad that people find it difficult to trust you. Or people misunderstand you often despite your best intentions.

Hence, it is so important to not be a black hole – which means people should never feel communication with you is a lost cause or a pointless affair. It’s necessary to be more transparent, open, communicative, and expressive. It is not others’ responsibility to understand us. It is our responsibility to make ourselves understood. Secondly, if you think you have a chance of forgetting either keep reminders or ask to be reminded by the concerned person. Give importance to what matters to others. Only if it matters to you, will you keep your word at it. And the only way you can make it matter to you is respecting and valuing what people value – especially the ones who you care about. No matter what intentions we have, if we make it painful for others, we will be left with much pain eventually!