5 Steps to mental Well Being

A simple programme to promote mental wellbeing has been compiled by a team of more than 400 scientists. Here’s what they think… Get connected Relationships with family, friends, colleagues and neighbours will enrich your life and bring you support. Human interaction is vital to our happiness and sense of belonging. Studies show that one of the most significant factors in poor mental health is isolation. Good friends will help you get through the bad times.

BE ACTIVE

Sports, hobbies such as gardening or dancing, or just a daily stroll will make you feel good. That’s because exercise stimulates feel-good chemicals called endorphins, which can give you an eight-hour high. Regular physical activity has been clinically proven to alleviate depression and anxiety and may even prevent problems in the first place.

PAY ATTENTION

Noting the beauty of everyday moments and reflecting on them helps you to appreciate what matters to you. Making an effort to stand still and take notice can help us savour moments we might miss. It encourages us to live in the present instead of dwelling on past events we can’t change, or future ones which may not even happen.

BRUSH UP YOUR SKILLS

Fixing a bike, cooking, learning to play an instrument — the challenge and satisfaction brings fun and confidence. Keeping your mind occupied with a constructive task is an excellent way to be happy. When you are absorbed in a rewarding activity, it focuses your mind away from negative thoughts and gives you a real sense of purpose and achievement.

BE GENEROUS

Helping friends and strangers links your happiness to a wider community and is very rewarding. It’s true that giving is as good as receiving. A study scanning people who donated to a favourite charity found that giving stimulates the brain's reward system just like receiving does.

Take your time...

An Article published on Times of India

After a breakup, you can’t keep moping and have to move on. But take care and don’t hastily enter another relationship
You are fresh out of a bad relationship. You’ve been tied down so far. Right now, the world is open to you. You are independent and hopeful of finding true love maybe this time. BT tells you to take a chill pill, relax and enjoy your newfound freedom and wait for the right person to stop by. A breakup, including a divorce, certainly means a lot of pain and heartache. There’s a feeling of failure. Even if the separation was your initiative, the process is painful. This is often coupled with loneliness and a fear of rejection and ridicule from the society. Although many of us might put up a brave front, quite a few are still susceptible to giving in to social qualms. At this point of time, it is advisable to realise that the very fact of ‘accepting’ that you were in a bad relationship was a brave deed and you have consciously decided to walk out because everyone has a right to be happy and comfortable in life. After the initial turmoil comes the rest period of ‘notbeing-in-a-relationship’ and ‘happy-being on your own’ and thereafter comes a point when you feel that it is time to move on and maybe get lucky in love again! When dating the first time after a breakup, it’s often easy to get swayed and automatically see this relationship as godsend. Especially with all the hurt and pain within you, you find comfort with this new person. You could feel a new zest towards life and a rejuvenated joy of feeling needed. You believe that everyone’s not the same and the mystery of discovering more about this new unknown person can be quite thrilling as well as taking your mind off the bad patch gone by. This is understandable and normal. The first new relationship after all those painful feelings does feel like a gift from heaven, salvation from rejection, loneliness and failure. And it may be one or all of these things. “But there are all the chances that it’s nothing but a relationship on the rebound,” says relationship counsellor Maneka Sahi. “You might ignore or dismiss obvious areas of incompatibility. Worse yet, you might gloss over potentially dangerous issues like abusive or controlling behaviours, substance abuse or other risktaking behaviours. For all you know, it can lead you to a total new arena of discomfort and could result in yet another bad relationship!” Sharmilee P (name changed), a 28-year-old executive agrees. She tells us her story: “After a bad marriage and a divorce, the first man I got attracted to became my life in no time. I guess I was craving for attention and emotional security. But, getting into something so quickly was the biggest mistake I made. I was totally blinded and chose to overlook obvious signs of incompatibility. Honestly this relationship was worse than my marriage. It went on for two years and ended on an ugly note.” The key here is to tread carefully. After a breakup it’s time to move on, yes, but with care. Dating is good and healthy, say counsellors, but if it’s heading towards a relationship then one must take a little time before getting into it. Do not ignore even the smallest sign. Of course that doesn’t mean you end up being paranoid and uptight! You just have to be a little cautious. You surely don’t want to be hurt the second time around. Remember the first relationship ended because it ceased to give you your much needed personal happiness and comfort and there’s no reason why you should compromise with it this time.

Love is .................... Quotes

"Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing." - Goethe
"To be in love is merely to be in a state of perceptual anesthesia." - H.L. Mencken
"Love is everything it's cracked up to be. That's why people are so cynical about it...It really is worth fighting for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don't risk everything, you risk even more." - Erica Jong
"Sometimes love is stronger than a man's convictions." - Isaac Bashevis Singer
"Love is the master key that opens the gates of happiness." - Oliver Wendell Holmes
"Maybe love is like luck. You have to go all the way to find it." - Robert Mitchum
"Love stretches your heart and makes you big inside." - Margaret Walker
"Love has no awareness of merit or demerit; it has no scale... Love loves; this is its nature." - Howard Thurman
"Love is like war: Easy to begin but hard to end." - Anonymous
"Where love is, no room is too small." - Talmud
"Love is the irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired." - Mark Twain
"Love is more than three words mumbled before bedtime. Love is sustained by action, a pattern of devotion in the things we do for each other every day." - Nicholas Sparks
"To love is to receive a glimpse of heaven." - Karen Sunde
"A love song is just a caress set to music." - Sigmund Romberg
"Love is an act of endless forgiveness, a tender look which becomes a habit." - Peter Ustinov "Love is like a violin. The music may stop now and then, but the strings remain forever." - unknown
"Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence."
- Erich Fromm
"In the final analysis, love is the only reflection of man's worth." - Bill Wundram, Iowa Quad Cities Times
"Love doesn't make the world go round, love is what makes the ride worthwhile."
- Elizabeth Browning
"To love is to suffer. To avoid suffering one must not love. But then one suffers from not loving. Therefore to love is to suffer, not to love is to suffer. To suffer is to suffer. To be happy is to love. To be happy then is to suffer. But suffering makes one unhappy. Therefore, to be unhappy one must love, or love to suffer, or suffer from too much happiness. I hope you're getting this down." - Woody Allen

Who is God ?

What fills the entire universe (the ultimate of human understanding) and beyond?

The entire universe is only filled with matter and energy. The energy that pervades the entire universe is the God.
If a person doesn’t realize this, he is blind. Because the possession of this knowledge is the vision.
Once four blind men (human beings) tried to feel an elephant (God).
The one who felt the leg told that it was like a pillar.
The one who felt the ears told that it was skinny and flexible.
The one who felt the abdomen told that it was like a wall.
The one who felt the tail told that it was like a stick.

Because of their blindness (lack of knowledge), they were not able to feel the whole elephant (God). But everyone’s feeling was true, though were only a part of the entire knowledge.
Similarly, human beings all feel the same God in different forms. Shiva, Vishnu, Jesus, Allah are all the different parts of the same God. Just like you cannot compare different parts of the elephant, you cannot compare those manifestations. Legs cannot be compared with the ears or the eyes or the abdomen. They serve different purposes. When you feel the legs after you have felt the ears, the feeling of ears should not be forgotten.


It is the same energy that is present in all people also. So, human beings are also only a manifestation of God. Not just human beings, everything(living and non-living) has God. Only people don’t realize this.
Just like a stone laying on ground has less energy than the one falling from the sky, people have lesser energy, while Shiva, Jesus, Allah have more of the energy.

God never hurts anyone. Only people think they are hurt. There is absolutely nothing to regret. Though energy has control over matter, it is not bound to it. The body which you hold is not permanent. Live like you may die anytime. Never bind yourself to anything. Let the things that happen, happen freely. Do only things that keep you happy. Death is not a thing to feel bad about. Its after all a way to free your soul from this body. Your soul has always greater knowledge than when it is born in your body. In Mahabharata, did Krishna not know to save all his men? He let them die only because he knew that it was their best destiny.

Once God sent His slave to take the life of a poor and sick woman, who had a child with one arm disabled. The slave who was sent, because of his human thoughts, took pity of the child and leaves the woman. But God knows what happens, and gets the job done through His other slaves. He asks the first slave to go and live in earth, and live there till he learns the truth behind God’s action. The slave comes to earth and lives as assistant to a tailor. He never spoke a word. Few years later, one day a lady came with a baby with one arm disabled. The lady gave rich cloth and told that she wanted it to be stitched for the baby with one hand loose for the baby. Later another day, a rich man comes and wants a coat to be stitched for him. But the God’s slave smiles and stitches a blanket using the cloth. Seeing that the tailor yells at him. But quite in sometime, a man comes and tells that the rich man who came passed away, and wanted a blanket for him. Again in a few days, the wife of the tailor, chases him away for some reason, and refuses to give him any food. But the slave turns to leave without saying a word. Then the tailor’s wife feels sorry and calls him back. The slave again smiles. The tailor out of curiosity asks, why he never spoke a word and who he is. The God’s slave then explains the whole thing. He tells that he learnt three things during the time he stayed with the tailor. God, though took the life of the mother of that disabled child, had made arrangements for the child to have a rich and caring mother. The ways of God may be unorthodox, but they work better than human ways. Next thing, is that human beings never think that they can be dead anytime. The rich man who asked for the clothes was dead very soon. When they realize that they can die anytime, they will not want worldly pleasures, because they will not be their possessions after they die. At last, he tells that he saw devil in the wife of the tailor’s wife when she chased him away and quite soon saw God in her when she offered him food. Good and bad (God and devil) are not separate entities. They are only present in you. Only your mind determines who is present in you. So, never expect God to be come with a body. God is free of everything and so doesn’t possess any body. He comes only in the form of human beings. He will come in the body of people around you, maybe your parents, friends or people totally unrelated to you. When you believe God is present in the stone in a temple, why don’t you believe that he can come in the living body of the human beings? The slave then reached God again.


All happiness you get from worldly things are only temporary. From the experiences of many great people, it is that happiness that you get from God that is the greatest. But that cannot be expressed in words, only felt. All the pleasures and relationships you find in this world are not permanent. That doesn’t mean you have to leave them very abruptly. When you start craving God, they will happen in a smooth manner.

What you do in this world is totally unrelated to God. There are three ways to attain God.
By doing your work, without expecting the gains. Once, a saint helped a scorpion to get out of water but it stung him and fell back into water. He again helped it get out of water, but it again stung him. As this was happening a passer-by asked him why he was doing it. He replied that it was his nature to help it, while it was the scorpions nature to sting him.
By knowing everything. You have to know what is good and bad. At last when you realize that everything is meaningless there will be nothing you will hold your interest in. That is the highest state you can ever reach.
By devotion. You keep praying God, and want Him to take you. Here it allows you to have interests in things.

Whatever way you follow, at last you will find that everything is meaningless. There is will be no discrimination. You will find that your individuality is lost and that everything is only God. You will hold no interest in anything. That is the highest state

Examine Yourself, Watch Yourself

One day all the employees reached the office and they saw a big advice on the door on which it was written:
“Yesterday the person who has been hindering your growth in this company passed away. We invite you to join the funeral in the room that has been prepared in the gym”.
In the beginning, they all got sad for the death of one of their colleagues, but after a while they started getting curious to know who was that man who hindered the growth of his colleagues and the company itself.
The excitement in the gym was such that security agents were ordered to control the crowd within the room.
The more people reached the coffin, the more the excitement heated up. Everyone thought: “Who is this guy who was hindering my progress? Well, at least he died!”.
One by one the thrilled employees got closer to the coffin, and when they looked inside it they suddenly became speechless. They stood nearby the coffin, shocked and in silence, as if someone had touched the deepest part of their soul.
There was a mirror inside the coffin: everyone who looked inside it could see himself.
There was also a sign next to the mirror that said:
“There is only one person who is capable to set limits to your growth: it is YOU.”
You are the only person who can revolutionize your life.
You are the only person who can influence your happiness, your realization and your success.
You are the only person who can help yourself.
Your life does not change when your boss changes, when your friends change, when your parents change, when your partner changes, when your company changes.
Your life changes when YOU change, when you go beyond your limiting beliefs, when you realize that you are the only one responsible for your life.
“The most important relationship you can have, is the one you have with yourself”


Examine yourself, watch yourself. Don’t be afraid of difficulties, impossibilities and losses: be a winner, build yourself and your reality.

Song of the Bird

A man found an eagle’s egg and put it in a nest of a barnyard hen. The eagle hatched with the brood of chicks and grew up with them.
All his life, the eagle did what the barnyard chicks did, thinking he was a barnyard chicken. He scratched the earth for worms and insects. He clucked and cackled. And he would thrash his wings and fly a few feet in the air.
Years passed and the eagle grew very old. One day he saw a magnificent bird above him in the cloudless sky. It glided in graceful majesty among powerful wind currents, with scarcely a beat of its strong golden wings.
The old eagle looked up in awe. “Who’s that?” he asked.
“That’s the eagle, the king of the birds,” said his neighbour. “He belongs to the sky. We belong to the earth — we’re chickens.” So the eagle lived and died a chicken, for that’s what he thought he was.

comfortable with me

When I’m comfortable with me, I’m comfortable with you.
I can’t expect you to give me peace and serenity — they come from within, and they are nurtured by spiritual growth. If I’m uncomfortable with myself, not at peace, the tension spills over into my relationship with you, and nothing seems quite right.
We are each responsible for our own serenity. It develops out of knowing who we are and what we need, accepting our flaws along with our potential for positive change, and believing in the force for ultimate good.
To be comfortable with ourselves requires that we face our inner tigers and stare them down. When we can enjoy our time alone without needing to escape into some form of distraction, we know serenity.
How comfortable I am when I’m with you depends on my level of self-esteem. When it’s high and healthy, I can relate to you without demanding consciously or unconsciously that you make up for what I lack. The serenity I crave results from my own commitment to recovery through spiritual growth.

Moral:The inner work I do today will help nurture my relationships.