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The Magic of a Pause

written by Parita 1 Comment

Happy Wednesday, y’all! I hope you’re having a good week so far. My week has been pretty standard. Work is fairly busy and home life is well…fun and chaotic as ever! Never a boring day with a toddler around!

I wanted to share a lesson I relearned again this week. After sharing on IG via a story, I thought it was too important not to share here.

You’ve heard me share (and likely have seen elsewhere) that…

Event + Reaction = Outcome

I want to revise this and add a few elements…

Event + Pause + Reaction + Pause + Action = Outcome

First of all, the pause is so critical. This may likely be a three second pause, but nonetheless it’s key to evaluating how you want to act and how you want to take action. Without a pause, you may have a knee jerk reaction which may lead to an action that harms more than it helps.

The pause is starting to come more naturally to me because I talked to my peer coach about this for 12 weeks. We discussed different situations and strategies that I then tried out on a weekly basis. This has been a gamechanger for me because now I can actually separate myself from the event and really think through my reaction and action.

Next, I added action to this equation. While your reaction may as well be your action, I see them as two separate things. For me, my reaction is my emotional response. My action is what I do given the event + my reaction. Thinking of it this way shows me how much power lies in my reaction (my thoughts, beliefs, and feelings).

The less I learned this week had to do with an email I was expecting. I hadn’t heard back from someone after sending two emails, and my mind went to the worst case scenario.

My initial thought was to send a 3rd stern email, but instead of doing that, I thought about what else I could do. That pause gave me the idea to call a good friend who I could talk this out with. After that conversation, I decided to wait until Friday to respond. Lo and behold, I got an email back less than 30 minutes later. The Universe was watching me!

Had I not taken that pause before acting, I would’ve likely pissed someone off and/or lost an important opportunity.

Now if only we could rewind and add a few pauses around past events! You live and you learn though, right?!

Written on February 10, 2021 Related:Self

Having an opinion is important, but knowing if/when to share it is more important.

Pause Before Sharing Your Opinion

written by Parita 15 Comments

I think we can all agree that having an opinion is a good thing.  After all, opinions form the basis of almost every conversation, they showcase a point of view, etc.  I mean, one could argue that MIS (and other blogs) is one big blob of an opinion.

However, I think we can all agree that it’s also important to know when to share your opinion and when to keep your mouth shut.  Just because you have a particular stance on something doesn’t mean it’s always appropriate to express it.

Having an opinion is important, but knowing if/when to share it is more important.

And this is exactly what I’m working on as part of my year of the pause.

I’m not exactly known for being a quiet person.  If I have something to say, I’ll usually find a way to say it.  And to be honest, I kind of like that about myself.

But as with everything in life, there’s are potential downfalls to being less selective when sharing your opinion.  For example, the other person may not want to hear what you think at that time, and it may frustrate him/her that you’re interjecting with your own thoughts before they’ve had the opportunity to fully think about/state/feel whatever they’re going through.  You can also come across as a know-it-all when sharing your opinion trumps hearing the other person out.  And sometimes we really need to keep our thoughts to ourselves, even when we think them with the best intentions – this one is VERY IMPORTANT.  For instance, if a friend of mine is venting to me about someone/something, it’s so easy to share the same opinion and perpetuate the thinking.  But we all know this isn’t healthy – for our friend or us.  Negativity only breeds negativity.

I only realized this was an issue for me when I asked my mom and Vishnu (separately) if they think I overshare my opinion at times and whether they find that helpful or not.  Well, guess what…their answers were a gentle yes and no.  They both said that sometimes they just want to vent to/talk through something with someone who won’t judge them.  I’m that person for both of them, but I wasn’t allowing them to do so because my own thoughts would always surface to the top of the conversation.  Lesson learned!

Now when I feel the urge to share my opinion, I quickly run through a series of questions in my head.  Is sharing my opinion what’s best for the other person?  Is the other person even looking for me to share my thoughts?  Would it be better to share my opinion at a different time?  By not sharing my opinion, am I be doing myself a disservice? 

Based on the answers to these questions, I decide to move forward or keep quiet.  And don’t get me wrong, this is absolutely a journey.  It’s taken a lot of work (and will continue to take a lot of work) to get to this point.  But by pausing and checking in to see what the right thing to say/not say is, I find that I’m slowly becoming a better listener (not my strongest attribute).  I’m also able to separate myself from the other person’s issues, whereas before, I was unable to do so.  Their problem became my problem.  Not so much anymore.

In addition to (mentally) thinking through the questions I mentioned above, you can also get curious and actually ask the other person questions instead of sharing your opinion.  Personally, it really helps me when the person I’m talking to asks thought-provoking questions.  When that happens, I almost don’t mind when they share their opinion because it’s based on something a little more substantial.

Taking a pause before sharing my opinion has helped me help the people I care about.  I obviously don’t have it all figured out (who does, right?!), but what I do know is this – having an opinion is important, but knowing if/when to share it is more important!

Written on January 20, 2016 Related:Life, Self

5 ways to de-stress

5 Ways to De-Stress

written by Parita 12 Comments

Over the last seven weeks or so, I’ve started to change as a person.  How do I know this?  My husband has commented on my “transformation” several times.  He’s amazed by how the little things that used to make me upset or emotional don’t seem to affect me in the same ways.  And you know what…I feel it too!

What brought on this seemingly sudden shift?  To be completely honest, I was fed up with always being stressed about everything.  I hated how I felt after getting super pissed about something trivial.  It was starting to feel like my emotions controlled me, and I wanted to change that!  But the real turning point came when Vishnu pointed out that my average stress level was way too high, and that I needed to do something about it!

And so I did.

Before I share what’s worked for me in turns of de-stressing and bringing more Zen into my life, I have to say that this is one of those endeavors that requires hard work and focus.  And if you really want to change, you have to face the not so positive stuff head on.  You have to be honest with yourself about your thoughts and behaviors and how they are impacting you and those around you.  You have to acknowledge the not so great parts of yourself and commit to being different and actually work on it.

Also, by sharing my thoughts in this post, I am in no way saying that I never get stressed anymore.  Even when we commit to a different way of being, there will be good days and bad days.  And let’s face it – stress is part of being human.  My thoughts are more so around how to manage it in a productive and healthy way.

5 ways to de-stress

With all that being said, here are 5 tried and true ways to de-stress…

1. Don’t go at it alone.  When I committed to dealing with stress differently, I enlisted Vishnu’s help.  I picked him because he’s always honest with me, I trust him, and he’s my husband (duh!) and the person who has to deal with me day in and day out!

Over the past few weeks, he’s been able to give me real-time feedback on what he’s noticed and how it’s affected him (good and bad…but mostly good!).  This in turn motivates me to continue on.

2. Meditate for a few minutes every day.  I’ve talked about this on the blog before, but this is the first time I’ve actually stuck with a mini practice.  And the reason I’ve stuck with it is because it works!

I listen to BK Shivani’s guided meditations on YouTube (this morning mediation is my favorite) because they’re short (just being honest!) and really impactful.  When I sit down and meditate/focus first thing in the morning, I sense a difference in the way I view my day and the things happening around me.  I’m not as frazzled and all over the place.  It’s hard to explain, but all I can say is that it’s made a huge difference for me.

3. Listen to your self-talk very carefully.  Over the years, I’ve learned that when my self-talk turns negative, my stress goes up.  And inevitably it shows up in the way I behave/react which then starts a vicious cycle.

When negative self-talk has been a part of your life for a long time, it’s hard (near impossible) to stop cold turkey.  The key for me has been to nip it in the bud before it takes over and permeates every possible thought.  I know from experience that NOTHING good comes from putting yourself down, and that knowledge is enough to make me change the way I think. Now instead of being mean to myself, I try (still working on this) to take a different approach and talk to myself the way I would to my sister or a good friend.

Being kinder and more forgiving to myself has definitely helped keep the stress at bay.  Who knew!

4. Slow down! I am notorious for doing everything quickly.  And sometimes that’s ok because the situation warrants it, but most of the time, rushing does no good.  Personally, the faster I go the more mistakes I make and the more stress I cause.

My day to day responsibilities and work don’t require speed…quite the opposite in fact, so this has been a bit easier for me to do.  When I feel myself speeding up, I take a deep breath and slow my roll!

5. Pause.  Kind of in line with slowing down, when I feel the stress building up, I take a quick pause.  And when I pause, I breathe and ask myself, “What is the best thing you can do right now?”  The answer is never to stress out.  So I try not to!

Pausing has also helped to keep what’s important front and center.  Most of the things that stress me out will be erased from my memory in five years time (if not less), so why am I letting them consume me right now.

Like I said, you can’t stop stress from trying to creep into your life.  But you can find better ways of dealing with it, and that’s exactly what I’ve set out to do!  It’s not easy, but it’s 110% worth it.  Not only is my husband more appreciative but so is my skin (I’ll leave that for another blog post though!).

What’s one of your tried and true ways to de-stress?

Written on July 29, 2015 Related:Inspirational, Life, Self

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