Two Perspectives

Two Perspectives on Journaling as a Tool for Transformation

Dr. Amit Nagpal, New Delhi, India, and

Dr. Janet Smith Warfield, Florida, USA

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Dr. Amit Nagpal’s Perspective

Journaling is one of the best tools for personal transformation. Let us take a look at how to do journaling for personal growth and transformation purposes. Primarily it can be divided into three categories, viz.

• Tool for self-reflection
• Tool for release of anger
• Journaling as a filter

Tool for self-reflection

Journaling is primarily a tool for self-reflection. Have you ever reflected upon what are your three core values? Once we decide our three core values, we can do a self-reflection every week, “Am I living according to my values? What are the areas I need to improve? What mistakes did I make in these areas?” as part of the journaling process. You can monitor your own growth by reading what you wrote three months back or a year back and compare your current state.

Tool for release of anger

When you are feeling very angry-you have two options, viz.

• Write it out and then tear the pages
• Write it and keep it to monitor your own progress.

What is written in extreme anger should be destroyed as it can be dangerous if it reaches the wrong person by mistake.

Journaling as a filter

Creative people often have phases of creativity blasts and phases of dryness (of ideas). When you are inspired and are flooded with ideas, the journal becomes your filter too. Write everything in the journal before posting on social media. Double check whether it is worth posting and aligned with your three core values (from focus/personal branding perspective). Double check the errors, if you are developing yourself as a professional author or blogger.

Sometimes when you read your own stuff after six months or a year, you feel like laughing at your stupidities or your raw language at that point of time. So journaling can be a source of entertainment too at times.

The trouble of today is the joke of tomorrow.

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Dr Amit Nagpal is a Personal Branding Consultant & Deepest Passion Coach. He is based in New Delhi, India and specializes in personal branding with a holistic touch. His philosophy is, “Enlarge as a Human Being, Excel as a Social Media Being and Evolve as a Personal Brand”

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Dr. Janet Smith Warfield’s Perspective

For the YouTube video, please click here:    Journaling

If you prefer a quick read, please continue below.

Benefits:

• Clarity
• Understanding
• Inner Peace
• Healing
• Increased Self-Esteem
• Joy
• Freedom
  

What You Need:

• Pen or pencil
• Journal or pad of paper
• One hour of uninterrupted time
• Quiet surroundings
• An open mind

Guidelines:

• Don’t censor your thoughts! (I can’t stress this enough.)
• Notice your thoughts.
• Allow your thoughts to flow wherever they want to go.
• Write everything down on your paper
• Just watch what comes through.

Personal Safety:

• What you write is for your eyes alone.
• Feel free to shred what you’ve written at any time.

Don’t be Surprised if:

• You don’t know what to write about. (Just sit in your “not knowing” until thoughts show up.)
• Unexpected emotions suddenly surface. (If these appear, just notice them, and when you are ready, return to your journaling. You may want to use them as a starting point for a new thread of writing.)

Allow Yourself to:

• Misspell words
• Use the wrong word
• Use wrong grammar
• Be judgmental
• Pour out your rage
• Look at your fear
• Grieve

My personal experience with journaling is that I start out struggling with a problem, meander along twisting, winding paths, jump to a seemingly unrelated train of thought that just won’t leave me alone, and end up with new insights and new ideas for moving forward.

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Dr. Janet Smith Warfield serves wisdom-seekers who want understanding and clarity so they can live peaceful, powerful, prosperous lives. Through her unique combination of holistic, creative, right-brain transformational experiences and 22 years of rigorous, left-brain law practice, she has learned how to sculpt words in atypical ways to shift her listeners into experiences beyond words, transforming turmoil into inner peace. For more information, see wordsculptures.com, janetsmithwarfield.com, and wordsculpturespublishing.com.

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Two Perspectives on The Subconscious – Tapping Its Enormous Power

Dr. Amit Nagpal, New Delhi, India, and

Dr. Janet Smith Warfield, Florida, USA

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Dr. Amit Nagpal’s Perspective

Before we learn to tap the enormous power of the sub-conscious, we need to first understand what is the difference between conscious and sub-conscious mind.

Conscious Mind

Many of us wonder if everyone is appreciative of the sub-conscious mind and critical of conscious mind, why did God create the conscious mind in the first place. Is the conscious mind obsolete?

Conscious mind is needed by human beings but it should be treated like a servant. Since most of the population does not know how to activate and utilize the enormous power of sub-conscious, the conscious mind runs the show. No wonder Albert Einstein said, “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.”

Sri Aurobindo, the Indian sage, said that just as the monkey’s tail disappeared during the evolution of the human being because it was no longer required, similarly the conscious mind will disappear as human beings evolve.

Sub-conscious Mind

Subconscious mind gives us wisdom and intuition and is activated mainly by three activities viz. deep relaxation, meditation and mental imagery/visualization. It also tends to get active during deep sleep (no wonder many people say sleep over your problem and you will wake up with the answer) but deep sleep is out of our control (we often forget the dreams) and whether we will have sound/deep sleep or not is often beyond the control of an average person.

Unconscious Mind

There is a difference of opinion between scientists here. Some believe mind only has two parts conscious and unconscious (call it sub-conscious if you wish) while others believe that mind has three parts viz. conscious, sub-conscious and unconscious. I believe in the latter school of thought and I believe conscious is often negative, sub-conscious is generally wise/positive and unconscious has all the repressed memories (both positive and negative). So what comes out during past regression therapy and hypnotherapy are the memories stored in the unconscious mind.

A Final Word

Silence the conscious mind and the sub-conscious will get activated. The conscious can be silenced through Sufi dances, meditation and whole lot of concentration exercises and contemplative practices.

Sub-conscious makes us wise, intuitive and highly creative. But to tap its enormous power requires enormous hard work. We tend to be so busy in our mechanical-routine lives, we hardly have time even to think on these lines. And we keep postponing whatever can be postponed until we reach a crisis.

Abba Eban said, “History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives.” Will we start tapping our sub-conscious only when we have exhausted all other alternatives and made a complete fool of ourselves?

The choice is ours.

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Dr. Amit Nagpal is a Personal Branding Consultant, passionate Blogger, and Motivational Speaker based in New Delhi, India. He specializes in personal branding with a holistic touch. His philosophy is “Take Charge of your Life and your Brand” He writes a Blog, “The Joys of Teaching”

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Dr. Janet Smith Warfield’s Perspective

What do we mean when we talk about the subconscious? How can we tap into its power to enhance our effectiveness?

Our subconscious and conscious minds are like an iceberg. The conscious mind is the tip we can see. It is that small part of awareness that is above the surface, the part on which we are currently focused, the part that is obvious, right here, right now, to our five senses. The subconscious mind lies below the surface. It is an enormous source of untapped resources we don’t normally see. What we don’t see, we can’t use to support our lives, our communities, and our world. When we tap into our subconscious and bring its energetic power to the surface, we mine its abundance and use its resources to enhance both our own lives and the lives of all around us. We tap into the depths to experience the light.

There are parts of our subconscious we don’t want to see because they hurt too much or are too frightening. We don’t want to look at our fear until we develop phobias. We don’t want to look at our pain and rage until we’ve experienced deep betrayal and loss. We don’t want to look at our guilt until we’re ready to say, “I’m sorry” and change our conduct. We don’t want to look at our self-righteousness until we are willing and able to walk in another’s shoes.

I’d like to invite you to a mutual mind-mapping game with the intention of engaging both you and me in tapping into the power of our individual subconscious minds. Then we can shape the energy we discover and transform it into powerful tools for transforming our lives.

I’m going to put my thoughts “out there”. As you read my thoughts, just notice your own thoughts and emotions. Your mind may be saying, “Oh, that’s neat. I hadn’t thought of that before.” Or your mind may be saying, “Is she nuts? That doesn’t make sense at all.”  What your mind says doesn’t matter. Just notice where your mind and emotions are taking you when you read my words. Notice whether you are feeling an attraction, a resistance, or no emotional charge at all.

What you feel doesn’t matter. Just notice the energy of that feeling. You are observing your subconscious by using Witness mode – the detached portion of yourself looking at the mentally and emotionally involved part of yourself. Then begin your own mind mapping process, starting with what you notice about your own thoughts and emotions. Are you focused on the meanings of my words? Are you feeling attraction? Curiosity? Resistance? Play? Fear? Write down whatever flows through your mind – without censorship.

The “without censorship” is vital. That is how you bypass the conditioned thinking of the conscious mind – the mind you’ve been taught is all that is; the mind you’ve been taught is right, the mind that wears dark glasses so it doesn’t have to look at things it doesn’t want to see below the tip of the iceberg, beneath the surface of consciousness.

If and when you and I become willing to explore the unending depths of our own subconscious, we discover a never-ending, fertile, playground for exploration, discovery, creativity, and self-empowerment. Sometimes our subconscious takes us on joyous rides of ecstasy. Other times it takes us into deep, dark caverns of terror, rage, and guilt. Like St. John of the Cross, our subconscious offers us spiritual opportunities to come face to face with our own dark night of the soul, master our emotions, integrate our spiritual gifts of deepening understanding and clarity, and shift into fuller awareness, consciousness, power, and peace. The change in our own energy is the enormous power that indirectly changes the lives of those around us. This is the space where synchronicities abound and miracles happen.

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Dr. Janet Smith Warfield serves wisdom-seekers who want understanding and clarity so they can live peaceful, powerful, prosperous lives. Through her unique combination of holistic, creative, right-brain transformational experiences and 22 years of rigorous, left-brain law practice, she has learned how to sculpt words in atypical ways to shift her listeners into experiences beyond words, transforming turmoil into inner peace. To learn more, see www.wordsculptures.com, www.wordsculpturespublishing.com, www.janetsmithwarfield.com

Two Perspectives on Moving from Fear to Compassion

Dr. Amit Nagpal, New Delhi, India, and

Janet Smith Warfield, J.D., Florida, USA

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Dr. Amit Nagpal’s Perspective

We stay in a state of fear most of the time – the fear of hurting our body, the fear of getting hurt in love, the fear of failure, the fear of not meeting goals at work, the fear of losing our job and so on. Most of the time our fears are expressions of emotional baggage because we expect the past experience to repeat itself. ‘Once bitten, twice shy’ has a very interesting equivalent in Hindi which means the one who got burnt by hot milk drinks even cold buttermilk with caution.

Someone has rightly said, Fear or F.E.A.R. stands for False Evidence Appearing Real. Most of the time our fears are imaginary. Sometimes we may have deep rooted fears also, which we try to overcome very hard but fail again and again. Let’s say every time a blind person tries to walk on his own, he gets hurt. He has a very justified reason for fear. But still if one persists, tries to learn from the experience and acts with determination, fear can be overcome most of the time.

The well known book by Dale Carnegie, “How to Stop Worrying and Start Living” forces us to reflect. Firstly worry arises from fear and when you live with fear, you are not living fully. Secondly when you release the fear (after becoming aware of your fears), then only you can start living a truly joyful life.

How do we release fears and move from fear to compassion. We need to replace each thought of fear with compassion. Let us take few examples. Supposing you have a fear of dogs. Just remember that positive vibrations tend to invite positive vibrations in return. Look at the dogs with compassion. As you replace your fearful thoughts with compassionate thoughts, you will notice that the dogs will stop barking at you or become less aggressive.

Let us take another example. Many people have a fear of crime in developing countries. Have you ever realized that when you send vibrations of fear, you may attract more crime or thieves? After all the fear will be often visible in your face/body language and will give hints to the wrong people that you are feeling scared. Once a client asked me, “If I become a good human being, aren’t people more likely to misuse me?” I replied, “First become a smart human being and then become a good human being.”

Moving to compassion does not mean becoming compassionate to criminals and thieves. (In fact that is also possible but at a very advanced stage.) But an average person needs to become smart enough so that the tendency of fear of being cheated or fooled comes down. As a result it becomes easier for us to be compassionate and even develop a strong sense of intuition and recognizing the negative vibes in people.

Filling ourselves with positive emotions of gratitude for the universe is very helpful in moving from fear to compassion. I once posted on Facebook, “The universe wants its abundance to flow freely. We only, block it with negative thoughts, lack of faith and often due to lack of gratitude. If we are not grateful to universe for what we have already received, what is the guarantee that we will be grateful, if we get more?”

Our attitude towards problems and challenges is critical to let the fear go. We need to understand that ups and downs are part of life and life cannot be a straight line. As the joke goes, “The only time ECG graph is a straight line is when you are dead.”

Here is a nice video on fear and worry from Robin Sharma, the well known leadership guru and motivational speaker.

How to Defeat Worry

So stop acting with fear and start acting with compassion.

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Dr. Amit Nagpal is a Personal Branding Consultant, passionate Blogger, and Motivational Speaker based in New Delhi, India. He specializes in personal branding with a holistic touch. His philosophy is “Take Charge of your Life and your Brand” He writes a Blog, “The Joys of Teaching”

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Janet Smith Warfield’s Perspective

As I walked into the personal growth workshop, the facilitators asked me what I hoped to gain from the weekend. I knew that answer. I desperately wanted to release my fear.

I was afraid of what other people might think, what other people might do, conflict, losing relationships, being different, making a fool of myself. I had been betrayed many times. I was afraid to trust. Most of all, I was afraid of my fear.

As the workshop began, the facilitators asked us to make four commitments: don’t chew gum, don’t interrupt, be on time, and do whatever we were told.

I had no problem with the first three requests. I never chewed gum, I didn’t often speak in front of strangers, and being punctual mattered.

However, I had a problem with the last request—doing whatever we were told. History had taught me that humans had ordered other humans to rape, pillage, steal, and kill.

I was conflicted. I didn’t want to agree. On the other hand, I wanted to learn how to release my fear, and I was afraid of being different and losing the workshop I had paid to attend. Reluctantly, I said yes.

My decision nagged me all week as I waited for the second workshop to begin. I knew the facilitators would demand the same four commitments. Was I going to cave in again and agree? I decided I was not. I was terrified.

Sleepless night after sleepless night, I tossed and turned. What would the facilitators say? How would the other participants act? How should I prepare? My what-ifs continued to torment me.

Fortunately, I had had several years in NarAnon, a support group for families and friends of addicts. NarAnon had taught me I couldn’t fix anyone else. I could only fix myself. NarAnon taught that I needed the help of a Power greater than myself. It suggested “Let go and let God.”

I didn’t much like that word “God.” It always made me think of an old man with a long white beard, sitting on a thundercloud with a lightening bolt in his hand, waiting to strike me dead if I didn’t do some unclear thing he wanted me to do. I had always considered myself an intellectual agnostic.

I did like the words “Power greater than myself” better than the word “God.” However, I had to deal with my terror somehow, I couldn’t do it by myself, and I didn’t have time to engage in the niceties of semantics.

Tears streaming down my face, I threw myself to my knees on the living room floor and pleaded, “God help me!”

Suddenly, a magnificent calm flooded my body. Together, I knew we could handle it.

The second workshop began. Again, the facilitators asked us to make the four commitments. I refused to agree to do whatever I was told.

The room turned surly. The facilitators said the workshop could not continue until every one agreed. Ultimately, they walked out, leaving me alone with a furious group of participants.

Bill had taken time off from work to attend the workshop. Jane was paying for a babysitter so that she could attend. Raymond slammed his fist on the table. Mary screamed in my face. John called me an uncooperative bitch. I felt nothing but compassion and love.

The facilitators returned and asked me to leave the workshop. It no longer mattered. I had received exactly what I came to get—release of my fear.

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Janet Smith Warfield serves wisdom-seekers who want understanding and clarity so they can live peaceful, powerful, prosperous lives. Through her unique combination of holistic, creative, right-brain transformational experiences and 22 years of rigorous, left-brain law practice, she has learned how to sculpt words in atypical ways to shift her listeners into experiences beyond words, transforming turmoil into inner peace. For more information, see www.janetsmithwarfield.com; www.wordsculpturespublishing.com; and www.wordsculptures.com.