This is continued from Make Optimism Your Way of Life (Part-1)
3. Have Unshakable Faith In Yourself
Say you feel like experimenting with cooking one fine day. You do all the right things – carefully add the right spices, follow all the little guidelines in that recipe book, let it simmer for exactly the time prescribed, and so on.
However, the dish doesn’t turn out to be the masterpiece you expected. What happens? You start doubting yourself. Instead, say to yourself, "Today I discovered a new way of not cooking this dish".
It is when everything goes kaput that you need to be positive. It is then that you need to have unshakable faith in yourself. This will happen only when you are rested and are not feverish about achieving your goals. Meditation gives you the much-needed rest to start afresh. Meditation relieves you of the fatigue that takes over when you feel low and burdened with failures. It is a good way of recharging yourself every day. In fact, twenty minutes of meditation is as good as 8 hours of deep sleep.
The next time you make that dish, there's a good chance it will live up to your standards. And if it still doesn’t, tell yourself, "all of the greatest scientists of the world faced failure at first. I am a scientist working on this dish! So what if it didn’t work out; I will give it another try tomorrow". And laugh off your frowns and worries.
Tip For You
The next time you are anxious about something that may happen, or if something did not turn out the way you wanted it to, simply remind yourself of some such difficult times in the past, when things were bad or tough. Become aware of the fact that you were still able to pass through those times. This will help you develop more faith in yourself and think positive.
A Story That Will Inspire You
The stage was set and a troupe of 5,000 dancers ready for the ultimate day. Each dancer was a meditator. The city of Berlin was set to invite 50,000 spectators from 151 countries. But then something that no one would have expected happened.
Rain and cold in the month of July – quite unlikely for Berlin and quite unfortunate for the performers at the open-air Berlin Olympic Stadium. All other events at the stadium during that time got cancelled; the only exception was the World Cultural Festival, marking the 30th Anniversary of The Art of Living foundation.
Nothing could dampen the spirits of the performers who came from different reaches of the world. Everybody danced in the rain and the cold, and it was spectacular. The salsa dancers knocked off their shoes to dance. The color that flowed from a Bharatnatyam dance performer’s feet to her fellow dancers only enhanced the beauty of the performance.
This clearly goes to show how a problem can be turned into a challenge and then into a celebration—something meditation alone can do.
Written by Ravisha kathuria
Based on inputs from Bharathy harish, Sahaj Samadhi Meditation teacher
