Two Perspectives

Two Perspectives on Forgiveness 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

Forgiveness gives peace and unburdens the heart and soul.

No, it’s not easy to forgive at times, nor will forgiving always help. It may be easy to forgive our juniors but it may be difficult to forgive parents, teachers, doctors, superiors because we expect them to be more mature. We expect some people and professions to be perfect, but no one is perfect. Grudges which result from lack of forgiveness can be slow poison.

Why and when should we forgive?

Forgive in your own interest

We should forgive simply because we and the wrongdoer both deserve to be forgiven. When we forgive, we lessen the burden on ourselves. If we don’t forgive ourselves for our past mistakes, we’ll carry guilt throughout our lives.

Once a lady who was having severe knee pain went to a sage and complained about her sister and how she had been seriously harmed because of her. The sage asked her to forgive and remove the grudges from her mind. She told the sage that if the sage were in her position, he, too, would not have been able to forgive her, so serious was the harm and hurt caused. The sage had to make lot of effort to convince her that by keeping grudges and not forgiving her sister she was harming herself. Finally, she was able to forgive her sister and as soon as she forgave, her knee pain started disappearing.

Forgive because we are human

Human beings will always make mistakes and sometimes lose control over themselves. Understanding this human vulnerability helps us forgive. When we set an example of being forgiving, we, too, are forgiven for our mistakes.

While reading Lord Buddha’s story, it was interesting to note that his cousin was jealous of Buddha’s enlightenment. He even made an attempt to kill the Buddha, but Lord Buddha continued to be compassionate towards the cousin. Remember, people are not really jealous of your success; they are rather frustrated with their own failures.

Take your time in forgiving. If we keep forgiving easily, people may continue repeating the mistake. Sometimes it’s good to take time in forgiving, so the person can realize the mistake and render an apology.

When not to forgive?

Though in personal life, it is better to forgive at some point of time, it is a different game at the workplace.

Forgiveness at the workplace

My ex-boss Brigadier C. Mukesh (retired from Indian Army) once told me, “If I have 5,000 people in my team and I forgive 5,000 mistakes (one each), it may cause drastic damage.” Easy forgiveness at the workplace can make people less alert (and professional) and team members may start taking their jobs lightly.

Conclusion

In case of small matters and mistakes, forgive and move on. Sometimes I say it with humour, “Forgive, for your own sake.” In case of complex matters, listen to your inner voice and decide.

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 Dr Amit Nagpal is Chief Inspirational Storyteller and Mega Success 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.” To learn more about Dr Nagpal, visit www.dramitnagpal.com. Contact for personal branding/social media speaking/training/coaching. If you have doubts about the power of storytelling on social media, connect with Dr Nagpal, on Linkedin or Twitter and see for yourself.

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Dr. Janet Smith Warfield’s Perspective

Why Forgive?

Certainly not because somebody tells you to. That’s the worst possible reason. You won’t mean it and you won’t follow through.

You forgive because it benefits you. It gives you permission to move on with your life and stop giving free rent in your head to people who have hurt you. Why would you want to reward and empower those people by allowing their hurtful conduct to keep repeating itself in your mind? Take your power back by focusing on what you want to do with your life.

Who to Forgive?

Forgive yourself. You did the best you could with the resources you had.

Forgive those who have hurt you so you can take your power back and move on with your own life. To forgive does not mean to forget. If you forget, you haven’t learned the lessons you were intended to learn. If you forget, you won’t change your own conduct – the conduct which contributed to the hurt you experienced.

It is not your job to forcefully change other people’s hurtful conduct or pressure them to beg for your forgiveness. That puts you into self-righteousness. They need to forgive for themselves, if and when they are ready and able. It is your job to protect yourself from their hurtful conduct by telling them how you feel, asking them to stop, and asking them to start doing things differently. If they can’t or won’t, you may have to remove yourself from the relationship or ask them to remove themselves from your presence. In the process, you empower both yourself and them.

A Powerful Video on Forgiveness

This video says it all. Have a box of tissues ready.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iv50xrsFNdU

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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, go to www.wordsculptures.com,  www.janetsmithwarfield.com, and www.wordsculpturespublishing.com.

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Two Perspectives on Labyrinth Walks 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

The labyrinth reminds me of the character ‘Abhimanyu’ and the song, “Abhimanyu, chakravyuh mein phas gaya hai tu.” (Abhimanyu, you are caught in the labyrinth.) In the battle of Mahabharata in India, the son of the great warrior Arjuna, Abhimanyu was caught in a labyrinth and died since he did not know how to come out. I wonder if the entire humanity is caught in the labyrinth of the rat race.

There is something about life which is difficult for an average mind to understand. Call it the good karma vs bad karma, call it positive energy vs negative energy or call it the cycle of Satyuga vs Kaliyuga, whatever makes sense to you.

The terms which I use to define life are virtuous cycle vs vicious cycle. Though the term cycle is used, they are more like positive and negative spirals. Once you get into a negative spiral (or vicious cycle), you become more and more cynical and one day you have no option left but to seek positivity. As they say, it is darkest before the dawn. The positive spiral or virtuous cycle is similar to the law of attraction. You become more and more positive and over a period of time, more and more successful also. Since they are not simple cycles but rather spirals, it is difficult for cluttered minds to understand these concepts.

I once wrote, “The mind puts us into vicious cycle. The soul puts us in virtuous cycle” The soul can also be called deeper self in simple words. The solutions to the problems of humanity, will come from this deeper self. As Daniel H. Pink, rightly points out in his book, “A whole new mind”

“The future belongs to a different kind of a person with a different kind of a mind: artists, inventors, storytellers- creative and holistic ‘right brain’ thinkers.”

Is there a difference between maze and labyrinth? Wikipedia points out, “In colloquial English, labyrinth is generally synonymous with maze, but many contemporary scholars observe a distinction between the two: maze refers to a complex branching (multicursal) puzzle with choices of path and direction; while a single-path (unicursal) labyrinth has only a single, non-branching path, which leads to the center. A labyrinth in this sense has an unambiguous route to the center and back and is not designed to be difficult to navigate.”

If you are caught in a labyrinth and want to come out, I have one quote for you to ponder over, “When we speak, God listens. When we become silent, God speaks.” Simple, the answers can only come in silence. Your labyrinth is unique and the inner voice can answer best how to navigate it.

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Dr. Janet Smith Warfield’s Perspective

Labyrinths appear throughout history, beginning as early as 2500 B.C. in Goa, India. Later, they emerged in Greece, Egypt, Italy, France, and Native American cultures. The word labyrinth is derived from the Lydian word labrys, meaning double-edged axe.

The significance of labyrinths differs from culture to culture. Grecian labyrinths were believed to house the minotaur, a mythical creature that was half man and half bull. Other cultures associated the labyrinth with death and a triumphant return. Today, labyrinths serve as a form of modern pilgrimage for those with no ability to travel to distant lands. They are walking meditations, allowing each of us to sort out the chaos of modern life and find the spark of divinity that lies within.

The walk into the center of the labyrinth provides a wonderful opportunity to meditate on our life purpose. Who are we? Why are we here? What are our unique gifts and talents?

Once we reach the center of the labyrinth and the core of our being, we know who we are, what we’re here to do, and what our unique gifts and talents are.

As we walk out of the labyrinth, the questions change. How can we serve? How can we give back to the world what has been so freely given to us? How can we allow the gift we have been given to flow through us and back out into the world?

Both the path in and the path out twist and turn. We think we are reaching the center of the labyrinth and the core of our being, when suddenly, we find ourselves on the outer edge of the circle, far from where we expected to be. We walk next to another spiritual seeker, then suddenly, our paths turn in opposite directions and we separate. As we follow our own path, we pass the same people over and over again and see the same archetypal patterns from new perspectives.

If you’ve never walked a labyrinth, try it. I think you’ll find it offers new insights into who you are and what your purpose is on this planet.

For more information about labyrinths, see www.labyrinthsociety.org/. To find a labyrinth near you, see www.labyrinthlocator.com/.

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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, go to www.wordsculptures.com,  www.janetsmithwarfield.com, and www.wordsculpturespublishing.com.

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Two Perspectives on Ropes Courses 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

If life itself is a rope walk, then what can be better to learn living than climbing ropes? Don’t we need the same gentle balancing act, the same courage, the same attitude to emerge as a winner in life, which we need for ropes courses?

Since my zodiac sign is Libra, balance has been a gift of the Universe. Since childhood, I had a natural flair for balance-balance in relationships, balance between work and (personal) life and so on. Balancing is an act which continues throughout the life or should I say balancing is something we do every moment.

A crucial skill for successful ropewalking is a sense of focus and an independent judgment. After all they say, obstacle is something you see when you take your eyes off your goals. Ropewalk has a goal but life needs a purpose and the purpose driven (or passion driven) will reach the goal sooner or later, and enjoy the journey for sure. So many times people will give you advice, which is coloured, either by their fear or their personal interest. But a successful ropewalker or lifewalker continues in a state of equanimity with his/her independent sense of judgment, neither overwhelmed by the cheer nor the fear (fears of others).

I have fallen off balance from the rope of life at times, but with a firm conviction that I gave my best and the belief that I strived for a balance even under that extreme condition or provocation. If I have come out of an experience with baggage, I have learned to observe myself and work sincerely to shed it. Even when my body refused to grow tall on its own, I have hung myself for hours on an iron rope, which I got hung on the ceiling.Life may be a rope, but I see hope. This is my mantra for happiness-give your best, leave the rest…to the Universe (OMG, this requires a balance of action and trust too).

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Dr. Janet Smith Warfield’s Perspective

As I pulled myself up the 20-foot-high pole, one metal support after another, a part of me was thinking, “Janet, You’ve got to be crazy! What do you think you are doing, jeopardizing your life climbing this pole and placing your trust in those people down below you don’t even know!”

Then, I remembered. My intention was to release my anger toward the father of my children who had abandoned both me and our children to spend his life with a woman I once thought was my best friend.

My helmet and harness were securely in place. My belay team were holding firmly to the ropes that would gently guide me back to earth if I lost my balance and fell. I was determined to do this.

Climbing the pole was easy until my hand reached the last metal support near the top of the pole. Then I had to, some how, some way, get my feet up on top of the pole and stand up – without anything to support me.

As I struggled to pull myself upright, I swung sideways off the pole. The ropes, held by my belay team and attached to my harness, stopped what would otherwise have been a disastrous fall. I could trust. Gently, my belay team lowered me down. Now I was more determined than ever to climb to the top.

Metal support after metal support, I climbed back up to the place where the supports ended. Somehow, I managed to get one foot up on top of the pole, then the other. Slowly, acutely aware of my balance, I stood upright. My belay team cheered loudly. Now I knew I could do it.

For a moment, I stood tall, focusing with laser-like intention on what I had come to do: forgive the father of my children for deserting us. Then, I leaped into space, struck the celebration bell with my hand, and, with the support of my belay team, glided swiftly back to the ground.

I’d done it! Not only had I jumped from the top of a twenty-foot high pole. I had also let go of my judgment and blame. The transformation was huge and immediate. In the instant when I jumped, I became free to move on with the rest of my life.

Two Perspectives on Vision Boards 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

My philosophy “Enlarge, Excel and Evolve” sums up my vision and hence represents my vision board too. In the narrow sense, the philosophy is “Enlarge as a human being, Excel as a social media being and Evolve as a personal brand” but in the broad sense of the phrase, “Enlarge, Excel and Evolve” signifies enlarging (continuous personal growth), excelling at whatever you do and evolving as a human being all the time.

Our vision should not be restricted to just ambitions & family but it should represent our desire to give back to society and to embrace the Universe with gratitude. For the same reason, in the image the man is standing with open arms to embrace the Universe with faith and open mindedness. The colour scheme of the picture also portrays the beauty of life while the yellow and the brightness highlight optimism towards life.

I have been a seeker of personal growth since childhood and I believe that we have so much to work upon in our own personalities, that we hardly have a right to blame others and find fault. The only exception is professional situations where it is our duty to audit and monitor others. I remember in my last job, when the audit team used to come to my department, I used to address them as a team on “Fault Finding Mission” (of course at their back in this case).

I like to do frontbiting in general (and I sure have a reputation for that), but backbiting is the only option sometimes. If you can find some imperfection in my vision board, I shall be glad. I do not strive for perfection, I strive for excellence. I do not try to be divine; I just try to be better and better human being.

If you have a vision for your life, you need a vision board. But if you are not sure, where you want to go, any road will take you there.

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Dr. Janet Smith Warfield’s Perspective

Why do you need a vision board?

To refocus your attention and intention on all the good things you want to bring into your life. Your right attention and “right intention,” as the Buddhists say, helps manifest these good things in your life.

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How do you use a vision board?

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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 wordsculptures.com, janetsmithwarfield.com, and wordsculpturespublishing.com.

Two Perspectives on Meditation 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

For introverts and silence lovers, meditation is probably the most powerful personal transformation tool. While chanting and Vipassana may be good examples of formal meditation techniques, living in the moment, silence and simply observing your breath may be good examples of informal meditation techniques.

Here are some of the major benefits of meditative/contemplative practices:

Finding Joy and Peace

The conscious mind is the source of stress and limiting beliefs. Silencing the conscious mind helps us not just relieve stress but rather find peace and joy. I personally believe, “Meditation should not be used as a reactive tool for handling stress but rather used as a proactive tool for creating joy.” In fact my collaborative book (with 19 thought leaders from 6 countries) highlights that money is not the only source of joy but connecting with self, discovering our deep passion and so on are sources of joy which the society is yet to fully tap.

Understanding our Passion and Purpose

Self-reflection with the help of meditation is the best way to discover our true and deepest passion. We can use many spiritual and non-spiritual tools to discover our passions but using meditation can make the process of discovery much faster. If you feel more comfortable with self reflection or plain contemplation or sitting silently surrounded by nature rather than meditation, it is very much fine. The sub-conscious provides us the wisdom, intuition and clarity of thinking to find out what we truly want. We have many passions in life or many hobbies we feel passionate about, but it takes time to discover our deep passion. Here is a post I wrote, “Discover Your Deepest Passion.”

Boosting Our Creativity

Meditation releases Theta waves which boost our creativity and provide us inspiration. My advice to creative professionals is to practice meditation to see exponential growth in their creativity. Meditation boosts our creativity through reflection, though practice and repetition play a critical role in honing creative skills. A desire to boost creativity through meditation can create stress and expectation, which may backfire. So just meditate to relax and improved creativity will be a side benefit. Here is an interesting post, “How I Regained my Lost Creativity.”

Beauty and Charisma

When one has peace within, the face being the index of the mind reflects that as peace written all over you which makes you look beautiful and attractive. Inner beauty comes from a stress-free mind and a confident, giving personality. Someone has rightly said, worry is like a rocking chair; it gives you something to do, but it doesn’t get you anywhere. Here is a detailed post on “Beauty and Charisma through Meditation.”

Tapping the Sub-Conscious

Prayer and meditation also increase levels of dopamine, often referred to as the brain’s pleasure hormone. During meditation the conscious mind gets silent. As a result, we are able to hear the sub-conscious mind or we can say that the sub-conscious gets activated. Then begins the sweet journey of creativity, joy, wisdom, intuition, awareness and in fact, a point of ecstasy and oneness, where none of these matter.

(If you fail at meditation or have failed in the past, then you must read this post.)

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Dr Amit Nagpal is a Personal Branding Consultant and 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

Background:

Meditation is a mind-body-spirit practice originating in ancient Eastern spiritual traditions and used throughout the world for thousands of years. It calms the conditioned mind, relaxes the body, and allows the practitioner to connect to a much larger, more encompassing energy, variously labeled “God”, “The Tao”, “Higher Power”, “Allah”, “Jehovah”, “Universal Consciousness”, “YHWH”, “intuition”, “creativity”, Cosmic Energy. The practitioner learns to trust this power because of the amazing growth, freedom, and spiritual strength it provides.

Benefits of Meditation:

1. Relaxed awareness
2. Stress release
3. Letting go of fear
4. Channeling rage into constructive action
5. Mental self-regulation
6. Improved focus
7. New ways of thinking
8. Single pointed concentration
9. Correct understanding
10. Humility
11. Effortless speech
12. Effortless action
13. Building internal energy
14. Developing compassion, love, patience, forgiveness
15. Openness to synchronicities that effortlessly resolve challenges
16. Indestructible sense of well-being
17. Bliss
18. Transformation

Enhance Your Experience with:

1. A quiet location
2. A comfortable position
3. An open attitude
4. Mental focus

Some Forms of Meditation:

1. Mindfulness meditation
2. Transcendental meditation
3. Mantra meditation
4. Zen Buddhist meditation
5. Breath meditation
6. Relaxation response
7. Action meditation
8. Sound meditation
9. Reiki meditation
10. Guided meditation
11. HeartMath meditation
12. Walking meditation
13. Crystal bowl meditation
14. Chanting
15. Rituals
16. Jungian meditation

Areas in Which Scientific Research is Being Done:

1. Relief of chronic back pain
2. Minimizing hot flashes in menopausal women
3. Relieving asthma
4. Improving the ability to focus and prioritize
5. Releasing stress in caregivers of elderly patients with dementia
6. Fibromyalgia
7. Cancer
8. Hypertension
9. Psoriasis
10. Changing brain and immune functions in positive ways
11. Anxiety disorders
12. Women’s health

Here is one example of a guided meditation:

Here are some other resources:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfFJ6BI1l_E

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mx-cJrVUBPE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wbC2n-9FKI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWttCv0p6WQ

Enjoy!

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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 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 Tools for Transformation

Dr. Amit Nagpal, New Delhi, India, and

Dr. Janet Smith Warfield, Florida, USA

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Dr. Amit Nagpal’s Perspective

Transformation – Why, When and How

Transform simply means we cross and move beyond our current form.

Why transform

Life is a journey and each birth is a step towards the final goal – enlightenment (or something similar). The soul learns its lessons through experiences, mistakes and conscious efforts to grow.

Experiences and mistakes may teach us and transform us for the better but we can learn faster (and with lesser mistakes and pain) by taking conscious efforts for our transformation. Transformation implies inner transformation, which impacts our external behavior though.

When to Transform

Only one thing is constant in this world and that is change. Transformation also becomes necessary to adapt to the external changes (adaptability) but it tends to be reactive. We can rather go for proactive change.

How to Transform

Here is a sequence of steps which can be undertaken for self-transformation:-

1. Make a list of your areas of improvement (weaknesses or strengths to be further improved)
2. Prioritize
3. Set goals
4. Take action
5. Monitor progress
6. Take corrective action, if required (or revise goals)

A famous saying goes;

“No matter how good intentions we may have, the world looks only at our presentations.

No matter how good presentations we may have, God looks at only our intentions.”

To fit into the world (by the way, you need to decide how much you want to fit), we need to package ourselves and manage our image/impression. But to find peace or to connect with higher consciousness/power, we must work on improving our intentions, making them more and more pure. Gratitude and positive interpretation of events helps us in purifying our intent.

I once posted on Facebook,

“When you become a little more mindful,
You become a little more soulful.
When you become a little more soulful,
You become a little more mindful.

Little by little, the journey must go on.”

It will very often happen that when you will take two steps forward, life will push you one step backward. Fine, keep trying; just keep rising every time you fail.

There will be times, you will be too depressed. It is believed that every human being seriously contemplates suicide at least once in life; we all go through trying times. You will feel that life has over-punished you for a small crime and sometimes in spite of the best of efforts, things will not work out.

Just remember, so what if life slapped you hard. Get up and carry on, because 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

What is personal transformation¹, and why would we want to experience it?

Personal transformation is like looking at an optical illusion. The lines, shapes, and colors on the paper don’t change. What changes is how our minds shape what is on the paper, the words we use to describe what we see, how we feel about what we see, and the actions we take as a result.

The real world is the same way. Nothing out there changes.² What changes is the way our minds shape what is out there. Personal transformation is suddenly seeing the world through new eyes.

Do we want to see a man’s face or do we want to see the word “Liar?” Which makes us feel better? Which makes our relationships work more smoothly?

When personal transformation happens, we are suddenly free. We realize we can choose in each and every moment the perspectives, words, and actions that bring us the greatest peace and happiness.

If we desire to experience personal transformation, how do we bring it into our lives? With the optical illusion, we can’t force ourselves to see the word “Liar” if we only see a man’s face. We can’t force ourselves to see a man’s face if we only see the word “Liar.”

Likewise, we can’t force ourselves to experience personal transformation. We can only commit to using tools and practices which support shifts in perception through sudden moments of clarity. We pick a tool from the cornucopia of possibilities, try it out, and observe how it works. If we don’t like one tool, we try another until we find one we like.

Experiencing personal transformation in the real world is much more challenging than seeing the different perspectives of an optical illusion. In the real world, the perspectives we cling to are usually charged with emotion such as guilt, fear, rage, despair, or pride. If we are suffering from the shock of a spouse’s betrayal, how can we transform betrayal into trust? If we are suffering from the death of a child, how can we transform grief into life purpose and meaning?

Personal transformation in the real world is also challenging because we cling to conditioned beliefs we’ve been taught as children. Usually, we’re not even aware that our beliefs are conditioned. They may have been such wonderful guidelines that we honor them as Truth. The fact is that wonderful guidelines are never Truth. They are only tools that work in many situations for particular purposes.

Here are some time-tested tools and practices to help us go deep within, shift perspectives and see through new eyes:

1. Journaling
2. Meditation
3. Vision boards
4. Ropes courses
5. Labyrinths
6. Forgiveness
7. Gratitude
8. Mantras
9. Drumming
10. Toning
11. Crystal bowls
12. Focusing on the breath, e.g., soham breathing
13. Heart resonance
14. Yoga
15. Martial arts

The list keeps growing as our awareness and creativity expand and we shift into greater and greater abundance.

Amit and I will be exploring each tool and practice in depth in subsequent blogs.

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 1. Personal Transformation is only one aspect of transformation. Other aspects are marital transformation, family transformation, community transformation, world transformation, and more.

2. Since I am writing with the intention of clarifying personal transformation, I am stating that nothing out there changes. If I were writing with the intention of clarifying intention, I would be stating that what is out there does change depending on the intentions we set.

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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 www.wordsculptures.com, www.wordsculpturespublishing.com, and www.janetsmithwarfield.com.