Being Mindful Will Certainly Make You More Charismatic

 

Practice Mindfulness in the Age of Mindboggling Complexities

Mindfulness is the quality of being conscious or aware of something. It can be defined as a mental state that is achieved by focusing one’s awareness on the present moment while calmly acknowledging and accepting one’s feelings and thoughts. It’s a basic human quality to be fully present and cautious of what’s happening around and how to respond to it.

Once a blind, old man was walking on a road. He had a lantern in one hand and holding a clay pot in another. One passerby stopped him and asked, “You are blind, day and night are same for you then why you need this lantern?” The old man replied, “The lantern is for you dear young man! So that you don’t hit me in dark and cause damage to my clay pot.”

To explain the importance of mindfulness I would like to quote the words of Viktor Frank1, “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

Mindfulness is an innate quality that every human being possesses, we need not acquire or conjure it up; we just need to learn how to access it. It guides us not to overreact or being unnecessarily overwhelmed by what’s going on around us. When your jobs become Anxiety-provoking and the day-to-day happenings put a significant stress on you, mindfulness can help. Being mindful will certainly make you more charismatic; let’s learn how to practice it:

 

Mindfulness Means Making the Most of Your Abilities

Be mindful to what you can do and how to prove it, whenever given an important responsibility, always take care of making the maximum use of your abilities and let never others overpower your skills and strategies for the task. When Lord Krishna lifted the Govardhan Parvat, many people in Gokul came rushing in and supported it with their sticks. They had a misunderstanding that it’s their power that had lifted the mountain; Lord Krishna had only one tiny finger to support it. So be rational in utilizing your strengths and keep a check if people try to misuse it. Mindfulness allows us to improve our focus, it brings us back to the present moment over and over again, thus reducing the strain on our brain.

Being Mindful is Being Purposeful

During the pandemic we all have developed an ability to reflect and understand that every moment of life is precious and having a purposeful life turns these moments into immeasurable happy memories. A mindful living can win over instant gratification and drives you to gain self-knowledge. It helps you differentiate between the futile, superficial goals and your realistic goals which further propel you to go beyond your boundaries and rediscover your SELF. Being mindful enables you differentiate between your act due to anger and the one done with patience. 

Mindfulness Helps You Forget the Past

People waste a lot of time and energy feeling guilty or regretful about their past, they keep judging how good, bad, successful or failure they were at certain points in life. This hankering after past makes our life miserable and we find ourselves in a quandary. Mindfulness doesn’t mean stop thinking or reflecting, it means to pay a close and sincere attention on your sensations and EMOTIONS so that you can observe and analyze them and grab the solutions quickly and efficiently. Mindfulness makes you kinder to yourself and more caring to your well being.

Spare Your Mornings to Cultivate Mindfulness

We all know that practicing a diligent approach to mindfulness can do magic as it helps you create a short mental space between an event and your stimulus to respond to it. Morning hours are the best to work on it; because the mind is very focused, creative and expansive during that hour of the day. A 10-minute meditation can be of great help to channelize your infinite energy. Take a breath, feel your own breathing and be in the present moment before you proceed for your day’s activities. Stop multitasking as it is a pernicious myth which prevents us from attaining contentment and peace of mind. Never check mails in the morning neither pay attention to the pop up notifications as such practices keep your mind occupy all the time and reduces your productivity. Spend your mornings with you because none can be a better companion to you than yourself.

Mindfulness transforms us and teaches how we should relate to the events and experiences in our life. It changes our way of reacting on trivial issues and trains our mind how the important ones can be taken into considerations wisely and with a problem solving attitude. Problems and frustrations keep mounting when we don’t deal with them properly. Our habit of making judgments on every day to day’s problem drags us into the pit of sorrow and regret. This habit restricts our creative thought process and skillful responses. Cultivating mindfulness helps us pause and ponder over a situation, get a clearer picture of the situation, find the options to resolve the issue and respond with a poised demeanor.

Being mindful is staying strong and motivated in all situations; awards or appreciation- neither to boast about if received nor to sulk if not. It encourages you to select your responses wisely and make calculated choices instead of ending up to irrational and impulsive acts and decisions. Let’s learn to be less reactive and more in tune with the present.

Your Success is a Sum of Many Known and Unknown Contributions

Be Thankful to Those Who Contribute to Your Success

In the final battle of Mahabharat, when Arjuna and Karna were opposite to each other, displaying their skills of archery, each of them was sure of his win as they were incredible and invincible warriors. As Arjuna would shoot an arrow, it hit Karna’s chariot with a fierce speed and the chariot was pushed 25-30 feet back. Not just the people around, even the Gods from heaven were amazed to witness ARJUNA’s skills and his extraordinary powers.

Karna was no less than his formidable opponent, when he shot to retaliate, Arjuna’s chariot would shake and go back 3-4 feet. Krishna was so mesmerized with Karna’s archery skills that every time when he hit Arjuna, Krishna applauded him wholeheartedly but he never admired Arjuna, not even a single time.

At the end of the day, Arjuna was angry and felt agitated over Krishna’s partial behaviour and couldn’t hold himself for longer to ask, “O Lord, my arrows shook Karna’s chariot and displaced that more than 30 feet every time and he couldn’t move me significantly, yet you praised him a lot and not appreciated me even once." Krishna smiled and replied, “Hey Parth! How can you forget that your chariot is protected by the Mighty Hanuman, you have me as your charioteer to guard you against any attack and Sheshnaag at its wheels to strengthen it, yet the whole chariot would shake and displaced at every shot of the valiant Karna so why shouldn’t I appreciate his valour and skills?”

It is said that when the battle got over, Krishna refused to get off the chariot and he forced Arjuna to leave it first. As soon as Krishna left the chariot it caught fire and charred to ashes. Krishna concluded this as: "O Arjuna!, you don’t know, your chariot was destroyed by the arrows of Karna, a long time ago but I kept it intact so that you can continue the battle. But never forget that you alone could never win this battle, you must never have the arrogance to boast about your bravery and skills, never think that you have achieved great heights; if you have really achieved something it’s all because of the divine contribution and the contributions of your well wishers that always guarded you, cleared your path and provided you with the right opportunities at the right time”

This story and conversation of Krishna and Arjuna are still relevant in our day to day life and associated with every small or big story of success. But, ironically the moment we take a step higher, we forget the previous step taken, we forget that there were many behind us who pushed and supported us with a little extra force so that we don’t stumble while taking a leap higher. We ignore the importance who knowingly or unknowingly,  intentionally or unintentionally, took pains to make us happy and to clear our roadblocks.

Gratitude is the most powerful universal phenomenon that can brim you with joy and abundance yet, most often overlooked. We forget that when we were struggling hard to achieve our goals, someone had offered his/her shoulder to let our head rest on, someone was there to say, 'Don't worry, every thing will be fine', there were many who clapped for our efforts and there were smiles in galore to celebrate our victory.

Never Forget the Good Deeds

It’s important to remember and revere whatever good done to us by others, whether a small or a big one, our people contributions holds a great significance in our life and what we can do in return is just a moment to acknowledge and appreciate their support and concern during the period when we were grappling with the hardships in our life. People often forget the good deeds done to them and take pride in their own self without being grateful to those who contribute to their success. And this self pride eventually throw  you into oblivion of all those known and unknown contributions to your life. Make introspection a daily habit and enjoy the world of goodness around you. When you look within, you find that your success is a sum of many known and unknown contributions of the people around and they leave no stone unturned to make your life worth living. 

Interesting Read: Life of Maharana Pratap

Thanks Giving is the Best Virtue

If we acknowledge and express our gratitude to every minuscule contribution made by others to support our journey of excellence, it fortifies our potential and powers to achieve the unsurmountable. The practice of thanksgiving has tremendous benefits on your intellect the quality of LIFE. No pleasure can soothe you if you are clouded by conceit and angst, no victory can glorify your courage if you don’t accredit it to the sacrifices made by many. The pursuit of excellence and happiness is the sole aim of each human life and we often tend to forget spare a minute and say thank you to those who contribute to our success. Thanksgiving always help us to connect to our larger and stronger self. It makes every day of your life like a festival that you celebrate with fervor and zeal.  

In the words of Khalil Gibran, "Life without love is like a tree without blossoms or fruits." And to experience this love let's cultivate the virtue of thanksgiving. Let's spare a little time to appreciate the efforts of others that made our life fulfilled. Let's never forget that our success is a sum of many known and unknown contributions.