Mental Stamina: Attention Towards What Matters

#Mental Stamina # Resilience # Practice # Time # Attention # Positive Energy

Have you ever felt that suddenly penny dropped and you can now cling on to that powerful life- altering point of view? We talk a lot about yoga and building stamina. What about building the mental stamina? What is so interesting is that even if you intellectually grasp the right thing to do, the hurt and impact of threat, bullying or power of others’ dominating imposition does not completely evaporate until you practice to annihilate such impact.

Find that strength within you, practice! Practice comes with strong reminder that serenity is in your heart and no one can rob or replace it! You are the owner. But you can’t find it at times, till you dig deeper, with mind over matter. No external source can feed you as much as you can! You have an internal well that springs the strength, the real deal. Your strength is fire proof. You must find it. Just like in a fracture, others’ help is like a cast as your bones heal, but you have the strong bones. Use the support like a comfort blanket by valuing the team of people who care about you. The real truth is, a lot of people offer superfluous advice, often in their self interest and complicate your life. Not all advice is practical, possible or do-able.

Don’t feed your attention to negative energy. We all can be so sensitive, but say we can learn the power to withstand and laugh off a bully’s ridicule with formidable strength, on one single occasion. The actual incident of facing unsavory situation has come and gone. But the sad thing is, the effects of negative experience linger on with fragility. It may be a classmate bullying in school, it could be an ex-wife or husband who is bringing on threats with foreboding fear, or it could be someone else or something else  that is puncturing your safety zone, the peace bubble. The cesspool of negative after-thoughts on being bullied will creep under the feet, if you allow yourself to stay stuck.

Any stress ridden incident is like a toxic ball. The attention we give to such situations is like oxygenating or pouring water to foster the toxicity. Spend less time thinking about it if you have no control. Trying to gain control when you cannot, will make you irrationally and nervously agitated and engaged in negativity. Nothing will last forever. I would let the negativity of the toxic ball die with not giving any oxygen to it. By not tending to it. Problem solving is recognizing where your energy must be invested.

Feed attention to positive energy. I would let negativity perish through mere awareness, deflection and shifting the healthy energy to where your life matters- where your role matters- where you build things. Positive energy is assuming positive attitude.

Time is money. I believe that our time is incredibly valuable on earth and if we are to bring joy to others and ourselves, treat time on earth as cash! Time is like cash, for us to use well. I prefer not to waste it on destructive things as only we have the power to choose to not feed hurt and let it perish! You have better things to do than to play a monkey in someone else’s circus (as a Polish friend says)! Often, in my mind, using time is not necessarily doing productive things. Being at peace is good, right?! Listening and simply observing is just as awesome. Like mental yoga. That would generate a well of experience and depth. One friend asked me, Mani, I love what you write, but you need a lot of discipline to stick to all that you say. Indeed, discipline is the practice that I am talking about. Discipline is to do what will help you- taking baby steps to save yourself and thrive. Life is way bigger than a specific negative trigger. Truth is a lot of great things are right in front of you to count your blessings, rejoice, treasure, and nurture…you know that already. The real value in applying this train of thought is in PERSONALIZING the strengths and knowing what these great things are in your life and having the vision of what you want to build and execute. Design your life- like trying out what you like, creating your dash board, with say, types of work that you like to try out literally as someone wrote in WSJ last weekend. Dream it and do it. Practice mental stamina like yoga, through mind and time. Be kind to yourself, won’t you? Think positive. Think creative. Rise above!

ps. All this is just a reflection, not meant to be advice…just may be to reflect…