Do you love being a control freak?

(Image courtesy: Google)

Most of us love being control freaks. Yes, me included!. I have been there done that all my life in my relationships, with my business, body, money, career etc. and continue doing it even now (maybe less often as I step into more and more awareness). Whether it works or not and creates what I desire is a different question, I still do it!

In the last few months I have been looking at creating a life and future that I truly desire and also specifically creating and actualizing something in particular. And the more I have tried controlling it, the more frustrating and difficult it has become. And this made me look deeper into what  goes on when you are trying to control.

First of all, what is control? Anywhere you are trying to get a specific outcome based on what you have concluded is right or wrong, good or bad, you have decided how it has to show up, when it has to show up and you have projections, expectations and judgements associated with it, you are being a control freak!

I was wondering what is the value of wanting to control? What do we all love about being control freaks? The answers maybe different for each one of you. For me, it was about ..

• cutting off my awareness of the present and future, so that I could be stuck with the conclusions and limitations that I have built up around the situation
• not wanting to let go and trust that the universe has my back
• Focus on what is going wrong so that when the outcome is not as per what I desire I can judge the hell out of myself, feel bad, feel pathetic and do all the trauma and drama (We all love judging ourselves, don’t we? The one person you judge the most is YOU!)
• Mimicking somebody else so that I can create the same result as what they created, giving up ME and my essence in the process (Not a smart choice, I know! But most of our choices are insane, yet we keep choosing it)
• Wanting to be perfect in what is created. Well, perfectionism is a huge lie that we buy into as real and true. It comes with a lot of judgements too.

So after coming up with the above list, I diligently worked towards destroying and un-creating each of it and letting go until there was no charge on it. Slowly I became aware that when we get into controlling a situation, we are actually stopping the process of true creation. It is actually like living in a conflictual universe where you desire to create something and you are trying to control it which eventually stops the creation process. That's why I call it an insane choice, because it doesn't make any sense why we choose it!


Another huge realization is that when you are being a control freak, you have eliminated all of the choices and created a choice-less universe for yourself and everyone involved. You cannot see any other choice other than what you have decided the outcome should be. Would you have a fixed menu with one choice or a buffet of multiple choices to play with? I definitely prefer the latter!

Now I am more willing to be aware of things, in the present and future, rather than be in control. Awareness always opens up more choices and more possibilities!

Just like in the picture on the top, you know the balloon can fly high, but you are holding onto the rope so tightly and then wondering why it is not flying, maybe there is something wrong with the balloon, it is faulty etc.  But forgetting that you are the one controlling it. Letting it go is what is required, for it to work. If only you are willing to be aware, you can clearly see the rope and what you are doing with it :) That's exactly what I am trying to say...

So think of a situation in your life currently, where you feel stuck or you wish you had more choice. What has being in control of it created for you? Would you like to let it go today and choose a different possibility? Would that create something far greater for you than you have imagined?!

If you are reading this, I would love to hear if you have anything to share regarding this, in the comments section.

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To know more about me and what I do, my sessions and workshops, visit
www.reviveholistic.com

www.pratimanagaraj.accessconsciousness.com

Connect with me
Facebook - www.facebook.com/pratima.nagaraj
Twitter - www.twitter.com/pratima_nagaraj

What if writing is nurturing YOU?

There was a phase in my life where I used to write a lot and I used to love it 'coz it gave me the space to express myself. But gradually with other things taking priority like business, home, relationships, travel etc. writing took a backseat completely. And after a while when I wanted to start over again, the words would just not flow and as most of us do, I concluded it as having the "writer's block". It's funny that I didn't even ask a question at that point which would have given me the awareness of what was going on underneath. Questions open up possibilities and we tend to avoid that the most 'coz it is so easy to go into conclusions, as an automatic response system. So I used the excuse of writer's block and stopped doing what I loved and what truly gave me joy. And slowly that turned into a resistance towards writing. Anytime I opened my blog I would sense huge barriers and resistance coming up instantaneously and I would not even venture into typing a single word. And this continued off and on for the last few years until recently when I started asking some questions around this (which means, finally I was willing to look under the carpet!).

Some of the questions I asked were…

What does writing mean to me?

What contribution is writing to my life?

What is the value of avoiding writing which I truly enjoy?

What do I love about resisting something that expands my life?

 

These questions started clearings the heaviness and crap that I had created, shifting the energy around it which is when opportunities, workshops and people showed up in my life who matched the energy of what I wanted to create. With the tools that I have been using, I have slowly begun to realize that writing to me is extremely nurturing. It is what gives me the space to be ME, who I truly am, without any pretence or image. So by telling myself the lie that I have resistance to writing, I had actually been resisting being ME. My demand for me in life has been to step into my true power and potency, be willing to be seen and heard and to really know what Being ME feels like and here I was avoiding something that actually contributed to being ME!! It is insane how we create conflictual paradigms in our lives where we resist something that we love the most and what gives us pleasure and happiness and then keep asking for that pleasure and happiness and wonder why we are not finding it! If you are reading this, am sure you can relate to it too. We have all been there and done that :)

 

 

The other aspect that came out loud and clear to me is the judgements that we buy into from others about our writing, as to how the words were not perfect or it was not structured well, presented properly, grammatically incorrect and blah blah. So most of the judgements I had was not even mine. They were what I bought into from others as real and true and allowed it to run my life. That's another way you give up being YOU! I realized it was not working for me anymore, so just made a choice to let that go and choose something different, which is the willingness to not be perfect in what I write :)

 

 

When I let go of these limitations and fixed points of views I had created, I now see 'writing' in a totally different way. It feels different too. It feels like meditation and an expansion of consciousness. There is so much space, peace, calmness and joy that I experience and gratitude for every word that flows. The more I write these days I can see more of me blossoming out. How does it truly get better than this?!

 

So what if writing is not about being perfect and grammatically correct but about getting your voice out into the world? What if you could write just for the joy of it and to express the energy that you are sensing? What if what you write could be a huge contribution to at least one person who reads it and changes that person's life? Last but not the least, what if you could write just for YOU, just for FUN and just because it nurtures YOU and your body?!

 

The more you nurture yourself, the more joy you create in your life!

Are you willing to take time off and invest in YOU today?

 

 

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To know more about me and what I do, my sessions and workshops, visit
www.reviveholistic.com

www.pratimanagaraj.accessconsciousness.com

Connect with me
Facebook - www.facebook.com/pratima.nagaraj
Twitter - www.twitter.com/pratima_nagaraj

* Some of the tools and questions mentioned in this post are from Access Consciousness

What's your story?

Stories. We all create them. Myriads of opinions, thoughts, beliefs about us, everyone and everything else. And they are intricately woven such that we can never get to the real issue. We are smart, aren't we?! To me, stories are nothing but layers and layers of crap that we create in order to not get to the heart of the problem or to acknowledge what we are aware of. Stories are also reasons that we use to justify the choices we made in the past or making currently. It is simply a way of distracting ourselves from what is real and true....As long as you are with that distraction it's like a dog chasing it's own tail. You will be stuck in a loop forever until you choose to get out of that story....

 

A couple of days back someone pinged me asking for guidance. He spent 15 mins giving me the entire details of the situation and how he was wronged, how he felt awful, used and disappointed etc. At the end of the conversation what I realized was that the entire thing was a nicely crafted story and the heart of the matter was just that he didn't trust himself and didn't want to acknowledge his strength and capacities. Instead he was trying to prove the rightness of his point of view and entire focus was on how someone else betrayed him, didn't stand up to his expectations et.al. He enjoyed being in the victim space. The moment I brought this to his awareness and we destroyed and un-created the entire story, he immediately felt light and joyful and his entire energy shifted. All this in a matter of 20-25mins! How does it get better than this?! It is all about accessing the power within you and acknowledging how valuable you are.

 

How many of us actually spend days, weeks, months and years telling the same story to others or to our own selves ....so much so that it starts feeling real and true? The more you tell stories, the more you buy into it and start abusing yourself by going into the victim space which makes you feel like you have no other choice. So how do you know when you are getting into a story? Usually whenever you use the words "because..." or "but..." what follows after that is a story/reason/justification. Example.. I can't do this because.... , or I would love to do this but..... etc. So it just takes a certain amount of awareness and being present to notice when you do this. The moment you become aware, you just destroy all those stories and make a different choice which will open up infinite possibilities!

 

Another question that might pop up in your universe is...how do I know when I am telling a story and when I am just using it as an example to explain something to someone? Well, in my point of view, when you are in a story, there is a "charge" associated with it and when you are giving an example, it is just an interesting point of view with no 'charge'. What do I mean by charge? Anything that makes you feel emotional/ heavy/ uncomfortable/contracted etc. So all you need to do is be aware of where the charge is...and destroy and un-create it and let it go as it comes up. Is it as simple as that? Yes! We love to make things complicated and hence assume that what is simple doesn't work. Welcome to a different possibility! You are the creator of your life and you have the power to change anything and everything! What would it take for you to acknowledge that right NOW? :)

 

We may also assume that stories are usually negative reasons/justifications/beliefs. We can create stories that are positive too...like having Utopian ideals. It's like living in 2 ends of a battery. Positive or negative, both are polarities. So stories that appear 'positive' can also create a limitation. For example, I had a story where I had done certain things in my business that created a good result once upon a time and I had assumed that was the right process to follow to succeed each time. With this story, I eliminated all other infinite possibilities of creating my business in a totally different way. The moment I gave up that story, my business started growing in a way that was beyond what I had imagined!

 

Stories are like carrying heavy baggages everywhere you go.... Imagine when you go on a nice walk in nature, you have to drag around huge and heavy bags with you (this could be anxieties, fears, worries, old wounds, losses, regrets etc). How much freedom would that give you to enjoy the scenery around and have fun?! Get the point? :)

 

If you are still wondering how to work around with this, here are 4 golden questions from Byron Katie's "The Work" which really helps you break out of a story. It has helped thousands of people around the world and it is AWESOME!

 

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1. Is it true?
2. Can you absolutely know that it's true?
3. How do you react, what happens, when you believe that thought?
4. Who would you be without the thought?

After answering the four questions, you go back through each one again and experiment with turnarounds: (1) State the opposite of your thought; (2) State the thought as if the positions between you and your problem person were reversed; (3) State the thought toward yourself, as if it is you that you are having the problem with. Turnarounds help you consider alternative perspectives to consider whether they reveal a truth you've been missing.
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So what would your life be like if you gave up ALL your stories/reasons/justifications today?!
Who would you be without your story?

 

Lots of love, ease and joy!
Pratima

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To know more about me and what I do, my sessions and workshops, visit
www.reviveholistic.com

www.pratimanagaraj.accessconsciousness.com

Connect with me
Facebook - www.facebook.com/pratima.nagaraj
Twitter - www.twitter.com/pratima_nagaraj
 

 

Living by BEING...

While I talk about the paradoxical state of BEING vs DOING, I am reminded of this 47th verse of TAO and I absolutely love the way Lao Tzu has explained what it is like to just BE. Tao means 'The Path' or The way of life. Not religious, no dogma attached, no rituals...just connects you to the infinite being that you are.

 

Without getting out the door,
know the world.
Without looking out the window,
you may see the ways of heaven.

The farther one goes.
The less one knows.

Therefore the sage does not venture forth
and yet knows,
does not look
and yet names,
does not strive
and yet attains completion.

 

In this reality, we are all focussed mostly on 'Doing' rather than 'Being'. Heck, we are even called Human 'Beings' and not Human Doings and yet it is all about effort, striving, hard work, fixing things et al. It took me a while to actually get that BEING is just a space, a vibration, a frequency that you embody. It is what comes to you naturally. As an infinite being, we all are unique; there is no one else in this universe who is exactly like you. You have your own set of capacities, talents, abilities and potency. But in this reality people are busy trying to out create others, compete, mimic other people's thoughts, feelings and emotions rather than just be who they are. Mimicry is a huge thing. When I started asking the question - 'Whose reality am I living?" and "If I were to live my life the way I desire, and not based on other people's points of views, how would it be?" , I realized how much, unconsciously, I was mimicking other people, which includes my parents, friends, teachers, culture, society, religion etc etc. Once you acknowledge this and stop buying into other people's fixed points of views, you start to show up as more of YOU, who you truly be.

When you do things because you think it is right based on what society or family has told you, you are shifting your life into 'Doing' rather than 'Being', because you are not tapping into your own awareness or knowingness and instead getting into a path which is not natural to you. BEINGness is not a force. It comes to you effortlessly. If you feel as if your life is like an uphill climb, then it is time for you to shift from DOING into BEING. Keep choosing what makes you feel lighter, joyful & happy and expansive and you will tend to show up as more of who you truly are.

This one powerful tool of Access Consciousness, founded by Gary Douglas has helped me tremendously to let go of the crap that I had bought into from everyone and everything else around me so that I could figure out what Being me actually feels like. It is this simple question -
"WHO DOES IT BELONG TO?"
Every belief, point of view, thought, feeling, emotion that you have , just ask who does it really belong to? Is it yours or are you just being aware of what is going on with someone else? If it is not yours, just return to sender, whoever it is, doesn't matter! The more you return, the more you step into being YOU. You may dismiss it thinking it is way too simple so it won't work. I had thought so too because we love things to be complicated. You only know if it works when you use it :)

 

Very often I get asked, what is it that I actually do to have a successful business and live a fun filled life, as if my life is a long vacation. My response is always the same. It is not what I do but who I BE that actually creates a life that I desire. We are so used to logic and analysis that the mind always looks for a step by step process or a formula to create everything. But BEINGness does not have logic or a "how to". It is just a vibrational frequency that you operate in. Hence even my effort to define it here is futile! So just keep following your awareness/intuition/knowingness which usually comes like a feather touch and stop mimicking this reality, to get started :)

This doesn't mean you don't take action, but you never give up on your internal knowing. Awareness is always there, even when your eyes are closed and you are sitting still....

 

 

Happy BEING!

 

 

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To know more about me and what I do, my sessions and workshops, visit
www.pratimanagaraj.accessconsciousness.com
www.reviveholistic.com

Connect with me
Facebook - www.facebook.com/pratima.nagaraj
Twitter - www.twitter.com/pratima_nagaraj
 

 

 

Being the Gift that You are

 

 

Just a couple of days back I did an interesting exercise, where I picked about 25+ people who know me pretty well - among friends, clients, acquaintances and asked them some of these questions about me.

 

What am I an invitation for you? What is it about me that invited you to choosing my classes/sessions?

What about me do you enjoy and like the most?

What is it that is unique and different about me that you connected with?

What space and energy did I create that allowed you to shift and change and choose a different possibility for you?

 

I had no expectation of what should come out of this and I was literally bowled over by the comments/feedback that I received! Sometimes we just assume that who we be, what we do and what we contribute to people around is a very common trait and everyone else probably functions the same way, so we take ourselves and our talents/abilities/gifts for granted and never acknowledge that we are unique, definitely different and what a gift we are being to everyone around us.

 

Interestingly all 25+ people I asked these questions to, had 2 things in common to say - (i) that they don't feel judged when they are with me, which gives them the space to be who they are without judging themselves and (ii) that I embrace a very feminine nurturing energy in my classes & sessions which is assertive but not aggressive and this is what created the space for them to choose greater possibilities and change. Wow! and some more wow! In these 30+ years of my life I had *never* acknowledged that this part of me was actually a gift and an invitation for people to choose change! I am so darn grateful for this!!!!

 

Doing this exercise changed a lot of things for me and shifted perspectives drastically. First of all I realized I am the one who least acknowledged my talents/capacities/unique gift that I have and be. Secondly, I learnt how to actually receive these flooding acknowledgements from people and their gratitude towards me, without getting overwhelmed. Thirdly, now that it has come to my cognitive awareness and I have fully acknowledge this, I am now being more of this and including this energy more in the invitation I am creating for people through my sessions, classes or just by BEING :-) Completely shifted my space and gratitude overflowing in my universe even at this moment. How did I get so freakin' lucky to be surrounded by such wonderful people?!

 

 

So how many of you truly acknowledge the contribution and gift that you be to the people around you, to this world, this planet?

 

What if what you be and what comes to you naturally and effortlessly is actually a unique talent/capacity/ability that you have that creates an invitation for others to change and choose something greater for themselves? Are you willing to acknowledge that TODAY?

Are you willing to be unique and different, even if that means to be seen as a weirdo?

 

What would it take for you to try this exercise and see what shows up and how it rocks your world? I am keen to hear what shifted for you. You can leave comments below if you choose to :)

 

 

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To know more about me and what I do, my sessions and workshops, visit
www.pratimanagaraj.accessconsciousness.com
www.reviveholistic.com

 

 

Journey to Awareness: #3

When something doesn't exist when you stop thinking about it then it is not real. It's just a mere projection of the mind. How many such projections, expectations and inventions do we create every moment in life that keeps us trapped in future or past and never allow us to be present fully for this moment?! What if you chose your life every moment? If it doesn't work then choose something different...because there is no right or a wrong choice....it is just a choice!

So For today would you be willing to let go and destroy all the projections, expectations and inventions you have about what/how your life, relationships, job, business, body, finances etc should or shouldn't be like and allow it to show up as something far greater than you could imagine?

 

I wonder if this would change something for you!

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To know more about me and what I do, my sessions and workshops, visit
www.pratimanagaraj.accessconsciousness.com
www.reviveholistic.com

Journey to Awareness: #2

What if you could create a new beginning for all your relationships without having to destroy or get rid of…with out having to punish…without having to be punished?
Would you be willing to ask for more? More of you. More for You.

If you were to stop cutting off your awareness, your capacities, your caring, your kindness, how different would that be for you and all those around you?
Imagine what it would be like to never deny you or your knowing again?





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To know more about me and what I do, visit
www.pratimanagaraj.accessconsciousness.com
www.reviveholistic.com

Journey To Awareness: #1

How many of us are truly willing to be responsible for our lives? The extent to which you deny your creatorship in creating your world, to that extent you actually rob yourself of the power to create your life the way you desire.

It simply ...means, no matter what shows up in your life, you no longer come from a place of being a victim...no blame, no complaining, no justifications. Rather you take responsibility and ask 'What points of views did I have that created this situation' and 'What can I be or do differently now to change this'?

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To know more about me and what I do, visit
www.reviveholistic.com
www.pratimanagaraj.accessconsciousness.com