Aug 31

5 a dayA while back I wrote a post about the 5 things you can incorporate into your daily life to live a more happier, and fulfilling life.

After practising it for a few months, I’ve realised that I completely hit the nail on the head with that post. I know it probably sounds like I’m blowing my own trumpet, :p but I have to say that through experiencing it more and more it’s been the main thing that has turned my life around.

Just as a reminder the “5 a day” things were

1) Meditate
2) Smile
3) Laugh
4) Give
5) Appreciate

In my opinion, these 5 things are just as essential as having your 5 fruit and veg everyday. There were days when I didn’t do 1 or 2 of those things and I found myself out of balance. However on the days when I practised all 5, I always ended up having the most superb, spiritual, fun and enjoyable days!

Whether this sounds like absolute crap to you or not, all I can say is give it a try…read my previous post on the subject to understand each one and try it for yourself to see what the results….remember that results speak louder than words or actions and I have said on many occasions “The only way to know, is to try for yourself”.

Most importantly, have fun, enjoy life, don’t take youself too seriously, and laugh like you’ve never laughed before! :D

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Aug 31
Those silent words…
icon1 Amit Sodha | icon2 Poetry | icon4 08 31st, 2006| icon310 Comments »

Here’s a poem that I wrote many years ago…i recently stumbled across it again and so I thought I would put it up! Enjoy! :)

Those silent words that people whisper.
in a room filled with strangers
I scan the room with spy like eyes.
and notice all the silent words.

Those silent words that never reach peoples lips.
They listen with interest
but wish they could run away.
and notice all those silent words

Those silent words that never materialise.
a hidden yawn digused as breath
the heaving chest is the givaway.
and notice all those silent words.

Those silent words that mean something else.
“excuse me, i need to visit the powder room”
translation - “my chance to escape”
and notice all those silent words.

Those silent words that end up in an email.
They said “so and so” to me.
a chance to laugh and forget it ever happened
and notice all those silent words.

Those silent words that mean so much.
the eyes that have so much to say,
but never get a word in
and notice all those silent words.

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Aug 30

Candy LoveIt’s been a while, I haven’t written anything worthwhile and now…now I’m not sure anymore, but I’m trying - every day is hard, it’s hard not to give in to the temptation of ending things and giving up. I keep telling myself that if I keep faith, if I’m good to others, if I’m patient - things will be okay… but am I fooling myself? I’m happy though - happy with who I am, even if I’m not a perfect size 8, my breasts are symetrical, and I miss my Mum - I miss Steven and I realised I’m in love. But it’s different because even the things I don’t like about him are fine with me now.. although that doesn’t stop me from telling him he should cut back on smoking - if not quit all together…

Read the rest of this entry »

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Aug 29

SleepI was watching BBC Breakfast this morning and one of it’s main presenters; Bill Turnbull is doing a 10 day experiment with Polyphasic Sleep. It’s a shame that it’s only for 10 days as he probably won’t start reaping the benefits of it because he will need more time to adapt to the new pattern. (He looked pretty out of it this morning!) I’m sure if he had more time he could adapt to the life but for someone who does presents the breakfast for four hours in the mornings it may somewhat be a tough challenge!

Steve Pavlina posted on his experiences of living a polyphasic lifestyle for just over 5 months.

When I first heard about Polyphasic sleep I was like…”Are you nuts?!” but I guess that it goes to show that it is possible but it’s just a question of whether you presonal lifestyle choices allow it or not. As much as I would love to try it some day I think it just wouldn’t be possible with the commitments that I have. My brother and I had a huge debate about this. His opinion was that it was completely unnatural to not sleep during the night hours just as the majority of the animal kingdom do whereas I believe that if people are living and doing it now and reaping benefits from it then surely it’s a good thing!

Good luck Bill! ;)

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Aug 24

indicatorA while back I began writing about one of the book projects that I’m currently working on called: “The Driving ‘Ologies” and how the way we drive tells us much about our personalities, the way we act in certain situations and how we live our lives in general! The book itself is nothing too serious, in fact it’s intention, more than anything is to put a smile your face and make you think: “doh! I sometimes do that” or “I never do that” or “No wonder I keep having accidents!” :D

So here is my first installment for you to ponder.

Not signalling

————–

When you’re at a roundabout or about to take make a turn going in a different direction? Do you always signal, in good time, to let other drivers know what your intentions are? If so, it shows that you are the 3 c’s: Considerate, Consciencious and Cool under pressure!

Signalling early shows that you care for the well being of other road users and also that in life, you will take the time to sit down with people and discuss what decisions you’re contemplating. In a way, it’s to safe guard the feelings of others so they’re aware of why you’re making choices and so you explain to help them understand. It also shows that you respect the opinion of others and allow them to express their own fully without judgement. When faced with pressure, the signal’ers will always be calm, focused and have an air of “coolness” about them.

If you do not signal, first and foremost it is a sign that you’re lazy, selfish and totally inconsiderate, however you do have confidence in yourself which is a good basis for making any change within oneself. Without signalling you will put other people in danger and in the way with regards to life, you will totally disregard others around you and do as you please regardless of who it may hurt! The likely hood is that you will be lazy when it comes to many aspects of your life and wherever you go, you will find some way of taking a short cut!

Change is never easy and can only coincide with a willingness to change. Consciously decide to be a better driver and start by this first stage of someone who consistently signals clearly and in time to notify drivers of your intentions. Any task that you do on a regular basis often leads to a sense of automation. In some cases this is good, but, once in a while, switch on, and through a sense of complete active awareness, make conscious changes. This process will postively affect more than just your driving! :)

If you want to change your life, change the way you drive!

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Aug 22

Cosmic!Once in a while you get those experiences that just leave a massive smile on your face that you just cannot shake off and that feeling stays with you the whole day! I know that sharing this experience will entice various reactions such as: “That’s just coincidence”, or “That could’ve happened to anyone” or anything of the like but whatever the ultimate reason….or just a random event in the chaos…it’s timing couldn’t have been more perfect!! :)

I recently made a blog post about cosmic ordering in which I mentioned something about the T.V. presenter: Noel Edmonds who turned his life around through cosmic ordering. I also mentioned that through that I managed to “order” the volunteer work that I wanted to do, for which, I’ve now begun my training.

Anway, I was at the office as normal this morning and I did a few tasks before I had to head into the city to our office there. As I left the office I put on my Ipod and decided to listen to an audio book; Ask and it is given by Jerry and Esther Hicks and then I got to the tube station, got onto the train and sat down. As I was listening to the book, I noticed a copy of the Free Daily paper; The Metro. I picked it up and decided to have a quick flick through.

I didn’t see any interesting articles as I skimmed through so I put the paper back down again. I was focusing on what was being said in the book, about attracting what I want in my life and I started thinking about the things I wanted. For some reason I decided to pick up the paper and have a quick look at my horoscope. I don’t know why, it’s something that I haven’t done in a long time and I didn’t usually listen to the horoscopes anyway. But I skimmed to that page, before I got there, I had the thought: “Wouldn’t it be funny if it had something regarding the Law of Attraction?”…And here’s what was written…

“You need to work but good things are coming your way!! When Noel Edmonds bangs on about ‘cosmic ordering’ he reckons you need to work with the cosmos to get what you want. You just can’t wait.”

You can now understand why I had a smile on my face after I put the paper away! :)

Happy ordering! :D

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Aug 21

It’s a common thing to hear someone say that they feel somewhat stuck and are not sure of want to do with life. After all, in this day and age we’re inundated with choices of industries, courses, paths, hobbies, careers, religions etc etc etc so often the biggest battle in life can be settling on “what” choice to make rather feeling as if there are a “lack” of choices. Because I get to meet get to know people from a broad spectrum of the community I see people in all sort of situations even successful people who still feel a sense of almost being lost. A very simple solution to this problem is getting a bit of variety in your life! After all, if you’re just going to work, coming home, eating, watching t.v., going to sleep and waking up the next morning for work, it’s no big surprise that you feel a lack of self worth and in a place where you feel stuck and lost!

If you were at that stage yesterday…then be happy and accept today as a new day to begin a fresh challenge. A good thing to do is start by trying out a few things. Voluntary work is always a good way to go. Even if it has nothing to do with what you’re interested in, (e.g. I do volutary work with children but I work in I.T.) it will still help you to develop your power of perspective and give you stronger resolve to make any decisions. The reason I say this is because it will give you the amazing opptunity to break down many barriers that you may have built up in your mind over time. It like smashing the comfort zone. If you stay in comfort long enough it gets you to a point where you you almost a sense of lethergy and disinterest with life. A place I’m sure where you don’t want to be! Taking up a fresh challenge will smash through some of those walls that you’ve built up in your mind Through working with children, my confidence has grown massively. Not only that I was given free training too which was huge boost to my C.V. but it allowed me to grow through having different expriences. I was put into a situation where I was put into a class of about thirty students and I had to give them a workshop on preparing for work experience. I was provided with all the materials but there was no handbook on how I was supposed to do this. I wasn’t taught how to deal with the naughty and the noisey kids, I was thrown in at the deep end and I loved every minute of it!

I also work one on one with children and I coach and mentor them to improve the quality of their existence. I can think of no bigger challenge than this. It takes a great amount of courage to sit down face to face with a child and get them to open up to you about the challenges they’re facing. Getting them to open up is only the first challenge though, It gets harder as you have you somehow find a way to get the trust of that child and then through the rapport and trust that develops over time, you can gradually begin to guide them and help them to be better than they ever thought they could be and get them to surpass any barriers they had. Once you see the results of something like that, guess what? You start to realise that you have an immense amount of potential within you too and you slowly begin to manouvre your life to a place where you previously thought you couldn’t be.

Experiences like those can ignite a spark within you and may give you some clues as to which area you would like to persue. Even if it doesn’t, what it will do is give you the opportunity of expanding yourself! It will increase your sharpness, mental clarity and also open up a universe of new possibilities. You will feel more open and alive and those previous feeling of being stuck and frustrated will slowly start to dissipate.

Another idea to try is hospital radio which is another thing that I am going to get into very soon. It’s been my dream from a young age to get onto radio and hopsital radio is a fantastic stepping stone onto bigger and better things. What more noble thing can you think of thank helping sick people get better through entertainment? You can truly turn your life around and start by doing asolutely anything…look in your local paper, go to the library and find out what things there are for you to participate in! A friend of mine was telling me recently that she joined a roller blading club! On the weekends they go to places like Hyde Park and explore and just go crazy on their roller blades. (She often comes back with cuts and bruises but she absolutely loves it!!) :p

Take a course, learn how to play an instrument, take up dance classes, try yoga or tai chi or some other martial art, go hiking, bike riding, go carting, bowling, paint balling, read a book of a genre that you never even thought to try before, start a website, join a club of some sort, start some charity work, do a fun run etc etc etc!! There is so much out there that the list could just go on and on and on!!

My biggest tip in all of this though would be to take a regular sporting activity and make sure you keep it up! There is nothing worse then starting a job and realising that your gut is growing in inches at the same rate as your age! :p Keep your self in good shape and taking up a sport such as badminton, squash, tennis, football, or anything along those lines. Playing a sport will keep you sharp and again help you increase your focus and clarity and give you the extra drive and ethusiasm to take your life in a new and fresh direction. Not to mention that you’ll meet lots of new people, make loads of friends and make some great contacts in the future that will maybe even inspire you or give you that idea or that “something” that you’ve been looking for! :)

I would also suggest keeping some sort of journal or diary. The reason for this is perusing your entries often helps bring further clarity and perspective on any given situation. It’s also a good way to gauge the progress in your life. It really hit home for me when I read some diary entries of mine from a about 5 years ago and some diary entries from about a year ago…they were almost identical and my goals were exactly the same. It showed me that I had made no progress whatsoever and that nothing had changed in my life. At first when I saw that I became a little depressed but afterwards I realised that it was great gift! Seeing that made me realise that life can be incredibly short and unless I chose make something of it for myself, I would wake up one day and realise that my entire life had floated by and I missed out of almost every oppotunity to be happy and live a fulfilled and enjoyable existence. If you can begin to keep a journal, and update it regularly with your fresh desires and goals and monitor it regularly, ticking off your achievements and desires as you go along then you will find that over time you will feel much happier at having reaching and surpassing these milestones that you set out for yourself.

These are just a few starting points but the key is to become active. Switch off the t.v. turn off the computer…and go out there and meet some new people and enjoy the entire universe outside your front door! :)

I wish you happieness, success, and most of all love for life!

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Aug 16
Thank you Steve!
icon1 Amit Sodha | icon2 Daily | icon4 08 16th, 2006| icon3No Comments »

I saw this post on Steve Pavlina’s blog today and decided to do a quick blog post regarding this. Firstly, for anyone who comes here regularly, if you haven’t been there already, go to his site and read through Steve’s articles. He is an absolutely unbelieveable writer, focusing primarily on personal development but what he does write is very clear, concise and easy to follow.

Steve’s blog is rated at the 147 mark on Technorati and he gets along the lines of 1.3 million visitors a month…something tells me that he must be doing something right! :) His gentle yet firm guidance and directions are reaching people all over the globe and helping countless people. Like I said, if you haven’t already, then go along and visit his site and read some of his articles….if you like me like to snooze the alarm clock 30 times a morning before you get up…then may I suggest that you make a start by reading his aritcle on How to become an early riser! ;)

I just wanted to say thank you to you too Steve, you’ve been a massive inspiration to me, your articles and wisdom are amazing!

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Aug 15

MarathonYesterday I sent in my application form for the London Marathon. :) The London Marathon is a 26.2 mile running race around London which will take place next April and since I only have 8 months to train for it I’m going to be focusing a large portion of my energy and thoughts in that area.

I have never undertaken such a big personal challenge in my life and that is why this is so important to me. I’ve set myself this challenge because I want to effect a huge amount of change in my life because my past habits and tendencies led to me being incredibly lazy and in a poor physical condition. I realised last year that if I didn’t change my ways that my body was about to pay the price, I could literally feel diabetes, among other things, creeping up on me!

Last month I managed a 3.5 mile fun run for charity and that was a huge milestone for me in terms of improving my overall health and getting my body into shape.

Now that I’ve sent off this application, I ask that you help enhance my intention and give my chances a little bit of an extra boost. The other reason for posting this up is to make a public commitment. I know that the more people that I tell about this…the more people will hold me to it and push me forward in this endeavour.

Wish me success! :D

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Aug 14

SoulI’ve always been a firm believer that attaching labels to the body and limiting ourselves as a result of those labels has the potential to create constraints in not only our attitude to other people but also the way we interact with other souls and the way we think about ourselves. So recently I made a conscious decision coupled with the effort to put aside any labels the we associate with the human body and remember each individual as a being made of non-corporeal energy. A spirit, a soul, an angel, whatever you wish to call them, that was the vision I attempted to see everyone with. I also remembered that all beings are part of the body of God all interconnected through this massive energy field that we live in, that we call, the Universe. I’ve had this belief from a very young age and I recently put my mind to work on ways that this could benefit myself and others.

So the first question you might obviously have is why? Why even bother doing this at all? The reason is that looking at people a different way other than just their physical bodies opens up a whole new world of possibilities without limitations. Also what this will do is create relationships, in general, on an equal level with everyone that you encounter. As much as I respect and honour any individuals choices and will acknowledge them how they choose to see themselves, I know from my personal experience what works best when it comes to interacting with people. In my mind it is because of the many many labels that we attach to our physical forms that many tensions and problems around the world arise. For example, the most obvious one is skin colour, we all know what kind of effect that can have on attitude of a person when they have the thought “I’m brown skinned and that person is white and so we’re different and brown skinned people are generally like this and white people are generally like that” etc etc. I hear these kinds of words on a daily basis and for me, it achieves only 2 things, animosity and a feeling of distance or separatness. Seeing someone that way and feeling that way about them serves no purpose for me or the other person what so ever. Thinking of them as a spiritual being enabled me to feel complete equality between me and the other person. It also allowed me to be loving with great ease.

It isn’t always possible to do that with every person that I saw while I was driving down the road or while I was walking along the street so when I first started this exercise I decided to try it with 10 people, then 20 the next day and so far I’m on about 100 people a day. Obviously I’m not keeping an exact count but what I’m trying to do is create a habit within my thinking to see people that way.

So the next question is how? Well at first I decided to actually think these following words when I looked at someone: “This being in front of me is a being of incorporeal energy, that being is me and is the body of God. Secondly I visualised their body as a body of light, almost like how you might see a ghost in a movie. I’ve been practising this for the last week and so far I’ve noticed some interesting results:

1) I feel much more confident and relaxed in my interactions with others. Because of the equality that I feel, it’s become much easier and enjoyable interacting with people.
2) I feel like I have a lot more time and energy to give to people. I literally feel more physically energised and I feel much happier in the process
3) I also feel much lighter and open to people. I notice now clearly how restricted my behaviour was with others compared to now.
4) It also seems to be having an effect on other people too. Just today I’ve had two strangers say hello to me as they were walking by. That never usually happens on my day to day basis, I can’t conclusively attribute it to this exercise but like I said, it seems to be having an effect.

I will continue practising this on an ongoing basis with the aim of making this process a habit and seeing other people as beings of light and energy and connected to me as I are to them. If you’ve never tried this before, give it a go, see for yourself the effect it has and what the results are for you! :)

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Aug 7

RelationshipsBuilding relationships is something that we will do throughout our lives in just about every area possible. No matter where you go, what you do, you will be surrounded by people. (unless you decide to become a hermitt but even then you’ll still have a relationship with your surroundings.) :p

Regardless of whether you work, are self employed, unemployed, a family wo/man etc. you’ll constantly be in a position of being around people and because of that you will want to build strong and lasting relationships that benefit both you while keeping confrontations to an absolute minimum. These 5 tips are generic and can be applied in all situations no matter what they may be. They include spouses, kids, colleagues, clients, or in any other form that you can think of.

1) Clarity: Be absolutely clear about what you want from that you relationship and discuss that with the other person. Clarity brings with it direction and purpose. Without that you’ll be lost and won’t know how to use that relationship to bring equal benefit to both of you. Clarity is power and for any duration there is not you will notice distinct confusion and tension. If you establish the clarity early on both parties will know exactly where to stand and find it hundreds of times easier to bring up issues instantly as they arise.

At anytime you find difficultly establishing clarity and then get to the source reason. Is it just your communication? If so, find some common ground, something that you both appreciate and use that as a basis for future examples and to build your clarity. There will always be something, otherwise you would not both be in the same situation! :)

2) Honesty: Don’t lie just to please another person and on the same token don’t just disagree for the sake of disagreeing. The hurt that comes from it in the long run far outweighs any benefit. If you agree with someone for the sake of agreeing, you not only undermine yourself and your confidence but you may end up causing tension if a later date you decide to disagree with any previous agreement. Be as honest as you can without being confrontational.

Say how you feel and learn to speak your mind. Honesty is not just about telling the truth but about being open about you feelings. If you don’t like an idea, don’t just say you don’t like it…be a bit more constructive and imaginitive in the way you offer yours without dismissing or undermining the other person.

3) Respect: Respect is pretty self explanatory but I’ll my two cents…people often have a habit of seeing any situation from only their perspective. Open your eyes as much as is humanly possible to see the situation from the other persons view point. Learn to open your mind to new possibilities and expand your horizons to encompass the other persons view. Truly get into their mindset to understand their viewpoint.

There is nothing worse than narrow mindedness and the mindset that; “my way or the high way!” Don’t allow yourself to get into that frame of thinking, it will limit your life for all time and you’ll miss out on some of the truly magnificent and diverse bits of life. Keep it open and keep it flexible.

4) Gratitude and Courtesy: There are many ways of looking at this one but simple gratitude and courtesy in any relationship will go miles and miles and miles, basically a long way! In my native toungue of Gujerati, the languange construct is completely different to that of english…there are no litteral words that equate to “thank you” or “please” however the tones makes an enormous amount of difference. So as well as showing gratitude and being courteous to the other person in words, keep a check on your tone and body language…any falsness will gleam through kinda like wearing a pink jump suit in a forest while trying to remain unseen…quite frankly, it just doesn’t work! :p

5) Gesture: There is always time to show someone as surprise gesture. Whatever the context or relationship, a friendly gesture once in a while will again go miles and miles in developing and maintaining that relationship. If you work with a team of people…treat everyone to some Krispy Kreme’s one day…that will lighten up everyones day. If it’s a partner, treat them to a weekend away! If it’s your kids, take a day off work and spend the day with them doing something fun that they’ve never done before! Whatever it maybe I guarantee that this one action above all will give all your relationships a massive boost and help strengthen them for the future.

Above all I will say that there is a golden rule to apply to all your relationships and that is quite simply: That all relationships will be as productive and successful as you choose to make them. So value them all and enjoy them for the possibly short of long time that they may be part of your existence….as either way, that truly isn’t that long! ;)

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Aug 1

SmithOk…here’s a thought that’s been stirring around in my mind for a good long while, I’d say months maybe even a year or more! I’m not sure how even to verbalise this question accurately while conveying the meaning of what I’m saying but I’ll give it a shot.

When you watch a movie, could be any movie, and you have the classic battle of good and evil. Lets say there’s an evil tyrannt who wants world domination and who wants nothing more than to destroy the good people and let the world be overun by the armies of darkness. Ok now, lets say theoretically that the armies of darkness won the battle….what then? Their purpose is fulfilled and they have nothing else to achieve. If they’ve wiped out all of their enemies and there’s no one left for them to fight…except themselves, however they are governed by the same belief systems so there wouldn’t be any point…so what I’m trying to say…once they’ve achieved their goal….in effect, they’ve attained their utopia and in so doing…they’ve eliminated any reason for their being? So you might then get one, who might say to the leader; We’ve eliminated our enemies…now what? We will live by your system of goverenance, again whatever that might be, but they would be in effect living in a society that is still goverened by a leader, with rules and with people then wanting to establish new goals, like, having family and a home??? :p

I probably haven’t made any sense what so ever but basically it’s come fully circle…until that system of goverenance is challenged….by what?? Good or a source of yet even more evil??

The closest example I can think of right now is the Matrix Trilogy…when Agent Smith achieves his goal of destroying Neo, as he said it earlier in the film that purpose was the key for life…and so once he fulfilled his purpose, he died because there was nothing else left for him….and even then…if he didn’t die, the world would be full of Agent Smiths….and so what then??? Once everyone was turned into an Agent Smith an all other life on earth was dead…what would they do then….start living happily ever after???

I know this must sound totally crazy but the more I think about this the more I being to understand the opposing ying yang forces and that without the other, neither would have a purpose.

Does a warrior without enemies have a purpose on this earth?

Your thoughts? Am I mad? Does this sound totally whack or have you ever stopped and actually thought about this?

That’s enough of my random ranting for today…have a great day!! :D

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