Make friends with your Mind
Stories of Role Models
My story is about making friends with your mind. Using it to run your life, instead of letting it run on its own.
Early on, my father gifted me a golden ring, with a question mark on it and said “Don’t simply believe things, ask questions to find your answers - Learn, Explore and Experience life.”
He passed away many years back. The ring - its message - has stayed with me all my life.
First it was books. I turned my curiosity to books. I read beyond the syllabus. I read with a questioning mind. Each book taught me lessons for life. While growing up they were my friends.
Self improvement struck a chord to me. I turned my questions on myself.
There were many beliefs that were of no use. “I am not good enough”. “I can’t do it”. Did I want to keep them? I decided No.
So I began to wander. To change myself.
Yoga was a household practice. I started there. Then, I explored yoga asanas, Vivekananda’s writings and Reiki. In between, the wanderer me, also visited Osho.
The mind did not settle down. I sought connection with nature.
Even today, I enjoy the solitude of the sun, moon, sky, stars, and nature. A lake laps its shores just 400 metres from where I live.
I sat through Vipassana. 10 days of silence taught me to observe and not to react to the impermanence of life. I bow to Buddha for his simplest equation on how we create misery, how to come out of it, how to find peace, harmony & happiness.
This is how I see it today.
If the mind wants to make hypotheses, run experiments and learn from it, who am I to stop it? By the way, if you want to see this systematically done, watch almost any TED talk.
Chances are that the TED speaker has formed, lived and tested the hypothesis before arriving on the stage.
For the day to day, when the mind is done running, it comes back and does my bidding. All I have to do is to not let it out of sight.
My watchfulness is my superpower.
This has allowed me to move across many things. I started my work in the aerospace domain. I moved to automotive, retail and insurance. My journey spanned from quality, process, strategy, PMO, agile, SAFe SPC and Vendor Management.
Currently, I work with the Chief of Staff (CoS) on strategic projects, Program Manage Org level initiatives & teach Agile with all the passion, I can muster.
All it takes is a learning mind - and keeping a watch on it.
Over the last 10 years, I have also learnt to express myself through painting. It is a quiet mind that paints. I love that feeling, so I keep coming back to do more of it.
My husband is an ICU Doctor. He spends his working life treating the critically ill. He sees life & death in close quarters.
He talks about the regrets expressed by the dying on their deathbed. We live as if we don’t die & finally we die without living.
Once he asked me, what would I do if he suddenly died? I had no words to express, so I asked him back the same question, ‘What would he do?’
He said, ‘We are all here for a brief period. No exceptions. So we should live life fully while we have it. Do the things that really matter the most.’
We have agreed amongst us, to do so.
So we made bucket lists. We both have ours and so do my children. Do you have one?
We keep ticking off items from our bucket lists.
Travel is big on our lists. Every year, we plan a new country to visit. We save the money we need. In the last quarter of the year we take the vacation together. There is so much to see, explore & experience, in this beautiful world.
I learnt to ride a Bullet Motorcycle last year.
Both my children are partners in staying curious by doing things together. We learnt about memory palace and could rattle off the value of Pi to 314 decimal places.
We are learning French & Korean. Our next project is to become ambidextrous.
It all started, because I made friends with my mind.
Before I go, here are my learnings -
Stay Curious, keep the craziness alive
Go after every small or big thing that drives you
Take chances, Celebrate failures,
Make a conscious choice to be Happy 😊 Invest time accordingly.