Author: coachrb

Living in the moment has been the theme of my life for quite some time now. And the last week was no different than that. If I say, this is what primarily drove my last seven days, I think I would be giving the best description of how I have lived my life in this week gone by.

I am traveling and I am far-far away from home. And then there are many things happening which are either the first times with no past reference, or only the future will tell what unfolds. So, if living in the moment was not a practice that I would have been mindful of, I am sure the thoughts about the past and future would have had an adverse impact on me.

Anyways, that was not meant to be. And all that I have done is to live each moment to its fullest and embrace all that it brought for me. Everyday has been a new learning and getting to see something new. Not that everything comes as a pleasant surprise, at times one needs to maneuver through the challenges presented by the unknown and the unfamiliar. But the key is to not get baffled by it and let the phase pass by. This awareness that it all is momentary helps to live it well while acknowledging it fully, yet not immersing oneself into it beyond what is required.

My intention behind sharing it with you today is to highlight that this practice of living in the moment may not come very naturally to many of you. And that is when you precisely need to not rush for it. Just being mindful of it, will eventually make it happen for you, as the benefits it carries, are huge enough to pull anyone to start getting friendly with it.

Our past, as well as our future, are both very important parts of our lives, and at no moment which is considered as present, we can deny the importance of the time gone by or the times coming ahead. What we do is to not allow any of these to overshadow, what we have in our hands currently. And this honoring of the now, is what is called living in the moment.

This practice has helped me to allow my past to stay where it belongs, and let my future show up to me when it is its time. And what has happened as a result is that both my past as well as my future, get their deserved space in my life.

Peace and calmness are two of the blessings which show up on themselves as soon as we start to practice living in the moment. And it is these two, that finally lead to joy showing up on itself, making what you are living currently as your happy times.

What a simple recipe to having happiness in your life in the present, no matter whatever you have seen in the past, or whatever you anticipate that the future will be for you. And the belief in its strength will increase on its own when you first practice it consciously and see what it brings up before it becomes a part of your nature and happens subconsciously for you.

Life will keep on throwing its challenges and some may even lead to us not being able to live it this way. What we must ensure in such times is to tell ourselves that some small setbacks, do not make us a total failure. And whatever it takes to live a life that is fulfilled, and contented in its present moment, is a gift we all were born with. All that we need to do is to find that support system, which helps us to get up and get back, no matter how many times we fail in our endeavor of living in the moment.

I wish and hope, that this read will activate some thoughts for you, and it will work in its best possible manner and the most appropriate way as it is meant for you to be.

Stay Safe!

Love, RB.

It is about five days back that I saw a movie while traveling which reinforced my belief of being answerable to one’s calling as our biggest obligation towards this life that we have got. Quite a refreshing movie wherein I could connect to the thought process of the actor instantly.

Anyways the brunch today is not about the movie, and what I wanted to share today was my thoughts about becoming aware of what our true calling is and ensuring that we align our thoughts as well as our actions to it, in order to bring harmony to ourselves, as well as others around us.

In my life till now, I have seen many successful yet unhappy, as well as very happy but not so successful people. By success, I mean simple material success, which is measured in the form of our tangible achievements. With most of such cases, what I have also seen with maybe an exception of only a few is, for them to question their state of being. And this state of being is being questioned, because of its visible non-alignment with the state of doing of these individuals.

How can one be happy, if they have not created enough material success? And what makes someone who has created so much material success, not be so happy in life still? From where I see, these are less of questions, and more of mindset statements that are expressed in the form of questions. And it is this mindset that we need to safeguard ourselves from and make sure that we do not disconnect with our truest self, which is often reflected in how we genuinely feel, irrespective of what stage of material success we find ourselves in.

It is important to keep asking ourselves questions, answers to which, reveal a lot about what our core is carrying at any point in time. I myself use these questions often, both to help my clients understand their state of being, and thus find peace amongst the various outside voices, which become noise at times. And to keep me connected to my own self, and thus be aware of why I feel, how I feel in a certain situation.

There are many questions that enable us to go deep within and access our innermost. But what I have decided today is to share with you three such questions, which you can ask yourself, and answers to which may reveal that which helps you to stay self-aware, and at peace with yourself.

The most optimal condition in which to ask these questions to yourself is to be in a zone of ‘NO CONDITIONS APPLY’. By that I mean, keep yourself into a complete and honest SELF-ZONE, and do not accept any answer which has anything except only and only your own self, as the basis of it.

You might be playing the role of a mother, father, daughter, son, husband, wife, friend, colleague, and many more like that. But while you ask these questions to yourself, make sure that none of these roles that you play a role in either asking the question itself or answering the question that is asked. Though this is the only prerequisite before you get into presenting yourself these questions, achieving this state of being does not come easy to most.

My, advice… Do not rush into finding out the answers. Instead, start the process of practicing giving yourself that chance of experiencing yourself as what you are. It may take a few days, or even a few weeks for some, but once it seems easier to practice, these questions will work wonders for you.

And because I do not want even me as an author to have an impact on you, after having presented you with the questions, I leave you with these three questions, without saying anything after them.

Stay Safe and take care!

The Three-Self-Accessment Questions?

• When do I feel happy?

               * It is different from, what makes me happy?

• What do I seek in life?

             * Do not think of it like, what do I want in life?

• What do I feel grateful for?

           *  It is not the same as, what I feel happy to have?

And here it is! The last offering from me as far as the gift of slowing down as a practice is concerned. I continue to emphasize this because of the impact that I experienced it can have. I also wanted to keep at it for a prolonged period, because of my awareness about the difficulties attached to adopting slowing down in our lives.

And now with today’s brunch, I have decided to let it all spread in the universe and allow it to be received by whoever it is meant for. I as a Coach will always be available to partner with anyone who is interested in practicing slowing down and experiencing its advantages in abundance. Just that the time for it coming free, gets over with this blog. 🙂 

Anyways, when I decided to make this the last one, I also took a decision to share a couple of practices, where slowing down can be experienced by anyone who is interested. These practices will surely not come easy, but no matter how many times one fails with it, even the mere trying of it will show how magnificent it would be if adapted to.

Before I get into sharing the two practices, I would like to mention the potential barriers to slowing down. I am mentioning them first, because they will show themselves first, much before when you take your first step towards slowing down in your life. These barriers majorly come in the form of apprehensions and doubts. Apprehensions are not only about one’s ability to be able to slow down, but also being doubtful about losing on things that are perceived as important to hold on to or achieve.

Well, I call these thoughts apprehensions, as I have experienced them myself, and have also seen how invalid they are. I have myself gone through thinking about how I will be able to manage all my daily tasks and commitments if I slow down in life. What all will I have to let go of, once I adopt slowing down as a practice in my life? And then the final supreme question, when things are supposed to be achieved by doing, and not, not doing, how am I supposed to benefit by embracing slowing down?

I have shared some examples of the kind of questions that may arise. But there can be many more different and seemingly bigger ones, that may come up for you. My suggestion! LET THEM COME AND GO!

And once you have been through a phase of QnA, the time is then to start practicing slowing down in the areas of your life, which you feel you can allow easily too. I am now going to share the two areas in which I did that, but they are just for reference, and I would say, you must think through and decide what works best for you.

The first practice where I adopted slowing down in my life, is in the speed at which I speak. I realized that this was one thing connected to me, where not only me but a rush has been experienced by many who know me. So instead of choosing anything which may be easier, I decided to slow down my pace of speaking. And yes, I keep failing in it almost every day still, but I know what difference I find in my thoughts and my heartbeats, whenever I can consciously slow down my speed of speech. It has made my conversations much more soothing, a lot more sensitive, and has made them more meaningful too. This practice of slowing down my pace of speech has made me be much happier with what I speak now because it’s both me and the ones who are listening, who seem to better connect with the conversation that is taking place.

The second practice is that of slowing down my speed of replying to text messages or emails that I get. Though I did not anticipate any big changes to happen, I adopted this as a part of the bigger package of slowing down in most areas of my life. But the effects that I have experienced surprised me too. I have seen a difference in the kind of responses I am sending now. Not only the message is exactly as I wanted it to be, so no second thoughts later, I see my responses as much more affectionate and empathetic. What a beautiful thing to have in life, if what one speaks can be both affirmative as well as affectionate.

I have shared these two steps because these are actions, which each one of us is engaged in almost on daily basis in our lives. And thus, it would be easier to use this as references, to chose whichever area you feel that you would want to start practicing slowing down with.

I hope that you get to experience this blessing too if you decide to not leave this brunch as simply a read and use it to propel you into action too. As you allow yourself this gift of slowing down, I wish you to stay safe and stay happy.

Love, RB.

Last week has all been a week of almost nil activity. One is health that did not permit me to move around, and the second was my encounter with the process of nothingness. As a part of my latest learnings, I came across a practice called SLOWING DOWN. As the name says, it is about the pace of things in life.

How simple the word sounds, right? Slowing down! There is nothing that is demanded to be done, in fact, all that it speaks about is doing less or doing slow. Right? WRONG!

Even I had the same thoughts when I first heard about this. I thought it takes no such effort to practice this thing called slowing down, and all that I will have to do is pick up some less number of tasks in my routine. At max what I may have to do is to be mindful of not rushing into things. Simple it sounded. Simple is what I thought of it to be.

And then the last one week has been a real roller-coaster ride. A moment of success and then hours and hours of not being able to practice the slowing down has made me understand what it really is. It made me understand what I have created out of this beautiful life that I have got. It made me realize that regardless of whatever blessing I think of my life to be, there is yet so much that I have eluded myself of till now. And it is all this that makes me promise myself that I will continue this journey of slowing down until I am able to gift myself this art and habit of being in the zone of nothingness whenever I want to.

Anyways my journey will continue, and I will surely share with you as and when something new is experienced by me. What I wanted to share with you today was, to offer you a chance of reflecting on the pace at which you are living your life. Irrespective of you are happy about it or not, see if you actually can slow down? Are you able to reduce the pace at which you are live your life?

Just a word of caution, do not mistake slowing down with not doing your office work and sitting down to watch a movie. Or not going out with friends, and instead of spending your time at home with your family. Slowing down is not about coming out of your regular chores in the kitchen and reading a book instead. Do not see gardening, as a slowing down process, instead of being on your treadmill and burning some calories.

Now that I have told you what all slowing down is not, what I have decided to not tell is what actually slowing down means. And I have a purpose behind that! I want you to experience and try and practice this slowing down in your own unique way, and then share with me how is it that you practiced slowing down.

As I leave you with this practice, I also put here an offer of a Pro-bono 15 minutes coaching call, for anyone who wishes to share their experience and then understand what SLOWING DOWN actually is. And how this practice has the potential to be the biggest gift you would have given yourself ever.

I can be reached at +91 74119 78119. A WhatsApp message to schedule the call, once you have tried it all for almost a week, would be preferred.

Stay Safe!

Love, RB

In this brunch, I wanted to share something which I came across yesterday while watching a television show. There was this actor who was interviewed about his life while he was in jail, and something that he said which I could not relate to readily, made me reflect further on it.

Amongst many other questions, he was also asked about what kept him going while he was serving his sentence? What helped him to live through those tough times, and keep himself motivated?

In his response, he said that someone once told him to not hope for anything, and it is this letting go of the hope of getting released that made him sail through those tough times. There was loud applause for him, and even I acknowledge the strength that is needed to come out of something like that and start again without being shattered.

But somehow, I could not still accept that letting go of hope, can be a solution to anything in life. How can one not be optimistic, in order to avoid being pessimistic? Something was missing there in what he said, and that got me to reflect deeper into it.

And what came out was a clear understanding that it is not hope that needs to be let go of. Yes, if there is anything that we can do without in such a scenario, it can be called ‘expectation’. It is these expectations of something in the future, that make us see more of what is not in present. This can have the potential of making the present look lesser, bleak, or not desired.

One thing that I could relate to, to simplify my understanding of it, is the difference between ‘Hope’ and ’Expectation’, which can be the same as the difference between ‘ Gratitude’ and ‘Thankfulness’.

While hope is as future-oriented as expectation, it is also accompanied by a sense of being at peace with what we currently have. Hope looks at the future with a sense of faith that whatever is in present is the best place for that future to get created in time to come. The expectation on the other hand looks at the future to fulfill something which we feel we are deprived of in present. Expectation makes the present look insufficient and inappropriate, whereas hope makes one feel at home with is there while being optimistic about the future.

The same is the difference between gratitude and thankfulness, as gratitude is about being contended in whatever is there for us and being grateful in anticipation, whereas being thankful is based on being pleased only upon receiving something desirable. Gratitude resides in no void, whereas thankfulness looks for accomplishment as the basis of acknowledgment.

To me, it made sense and helped me keep grounded yet again. I hope you pick whatever is meant for you, from this read and make the best possible use of this, in whatever best way possible for you.

Read again what I wrote above. I said, ’I hope’, not ‘I expect’, and that is what makes it a happy brunch for me.

Take care! Stay Safe!

Love, RB.

This brunch comes from me, that is feeling overwhelmed with a sense of gratitude and blissfulness. And all that comes from the time I spent with my Life-Coach yesterday evening. An hour of pure bliss, and unfiltered presence. His very presence and graceful attention can make one feel worthy enough.

But what happened in the session, has prompted me to share my thoughts with you, as I am very sure that in some way or the other, this blessing will pass on to whoever reads this. I am not going to discuss what all was shared between him and me in the session, but something very huge revealed itself for me, which I feel is important for me to share with my world, and hence this blog today.

I want anyone who reads this today, to spend some time in the day today or at least the week ahead, to introspect and think about the self-view. And before this word is misunderstood, I must say that by self-view I mean the unfiltered, unaffected, unadulterated view about the self that we have deep within.

I am saying deep within because all our perceptions about ourselves are protected or covered in the layers of opinions that the world has created and expressed to us about ourselves. Having heard so many views, and coupled that with our own judgments about us, the immediately visible self-view can be very different from what we believe ourselves to be. And that is why a pause, and a little time of introspection.

Remove yourself from the names of all the relations that you live or have ever lived. Detach yourself from your own expectations about yourself, which would have had an impact on how you perceive yourself at this moment. Distance yourself any judgments or opinions that you may have heard about yourself, and thus created notions about your self-concept. Forget about all that you have achieved in your life and even that which you have failed in.

Having shed all these layers, which initially will be difficult, think of what all forms the protective layer, or now I must call it an obstructive layer between you and your actual self. And then slowly, and gently, tear that off from yourself too.

And now that you have opened your most tender and original self to this vulnerability, see what is it that you see in yourself. Who is that person, who has revealed itself for you? The very first look of it can be very pleasing, or very scary, but stick to it. Stick to it, because this is your true self at this very point in time and space. And it is this true self of yours’ which will become the foundation of whatever your life creates from hereon.

Being aware and in total acceptance of the present, current moment truth is what will allow you to embrace fully the path that you should be taking to reach whatever you aspire for. What you are, or what you are not today, is very important to be known, for you to be mindful of what all you need to be where you desire to be.

What I learned yesterday, is what I am going to practice right to the T. And I know that this is what is going to be my guiding torch, to the flame that I want to burn to spread light to this world. It shall remain a continuous endeavor for me from hereon, and though it might be a little difficult, because of the various distractions and inhibitions, I am sure adopting this habit is going to benefit anyone who embraces this with complete sincerity.

Stay safe!

Love, RB!  

The last few days have been full of reflections and thoughts and projections, in all almost every conversation I have had. Part of it is because of who I am, and a huge reason also has been the kind of work I have chosen to contribute with. Though a lot has been discussed about the past and the future, one common thing that I found in almost every conversation was that the present is being lost somewhere in all that.

And that is what made me ground myself and decide to get into a zone of nothingness for may be a day or two. As I look at life, there is nothing more which I can live, other than the present time I am breathing in. And it is this present of mind that eventually will become my past to reflect upon, and it is this present only which was earlier the future that I had planned for. Nothing in this world can make me believe that present can be compromised with even if it creates the best chances of a glorious future. 

Incidentally in one of my sessions a day before, the same kind of thoughts were brought on the table by one of my clients. Although she was not sure as to what is it which is making her feel lost and numb, she knew that something was not she would have liked it to be. This client of mine has always been a very insightful, and reflective person, and that is what makes her a darling of everyone around her too. We chatted for about an hour on Friday, and not once but at least at three occasions, I found her crying because she realized that something which has been her source of strength and gratefulness, has suddenly turned into a cause of pain to her.

Having dug deeper into herself, and by the way the same was being done by me for myself also simultaneously in the session, she discovered that both for herself as well as with others, she has allowed the present to not be lived, in the process of thinking about the past and the future. Though both of acknowledged the power of reflection and planning, we understood that the same power is what is being allowed to be destructive, because of not being managed properly.

I knew the strength of this lady, and it came as no surprise to me that as soon as realization presented itself to her, she spent no extra time in cribbing about it and crying over it, and straight away moved into the zone of finding solutions.

And what a simple solution she came out with. To have kept a forty-five of each day from hereon, for the process of reflection and planning, and ensure that there no further time spent allowing the present to not be fully lived. These forty-five minutes also were further divided into fifteen minutes of morning to go through plan for the day, thus being mindful of the present at hand, and a half an hour in the night before she goes to bed, which is further divided into fifteen minutes of reflection the day gone by, which is now the past, and spend the remaining fifteen minutes to plan for the next day, which is the future that is yet to come.

She called me yesterday and when I asked her the question ’How did it go?’, she corrected me on my question and after having changed it to, ‘How is it going?’, she replied ‘it is going WONDERFUL as always’.

Just as it happens almost always, each of my client’s discovery helps me live a better life too, and that is exactly happened with this one too. It was she who discovered it for herself, but what came out was equally needed for me too at this point in my life. 

If you feel that you have also been in this space in your life lately, may be today’s blog was meant for you, to help you make a minor adjustment and breathe in what is present now.

Take good care!

Love, RB.

It is one full week past into the new year, and I see much of the enthusiasm associated with the coming of 2022 now settling in. People are back to their routine tasks and life is back to being usual. Well, I have nothing against things running as they are, but this subsiding excitement increases the chances of us and our lives, remaining the same as they are today for the rest of the year ahead.

Reflection and planning must not be restricted to the few days that connect the two years together. The very reason that life goes on, it needs us to be mindful of it too without keeping it restricted to a ritual. 

What I have learnt through my own experiences and various trials, is to include this practice of reflection and planning into my life in a very mindful and thought about manner. So as to not over-do or do less of it, and thus keep the right balance of planning as well as execution.

The need for this thought through scheduling came from my exposure to many who I have seen fitting into the category of either over-thinkers and low-executors, or vice-versa.

The practice I follow is to dedicate enough time that is in proportion to frequency of reflecting and planning. The lesser the frequency, the more is the time that I dedicate to thinking about things.

My check points as far as this practice of pause and move is concerned are yearly, monthly, weekly and daily. The yearly practice takes me a total of seven dedicated days of reflection and planning. Every change of month takes my two dedicate days for this practice. While the weekly and daily piece of pause and move, is devoted two hours and 10 minutes respectively.

This mindfully created schedule works for me, because of my comfort with the process of mindfulness and awareness. However, the time used in this practice may vary from person to person, I highly recommend all those who want to be more confident about their own choices and be sure of what they set out to do, to include this habit of reflecting and planning, in their action-packed lives.

Many of clients who know me at a personal level too, have developed this skill of being mindful about what they have done, and what they aspire to do. And the one big difference I have seen in all of them is to be much more relaxed both while doing what they do, and in accepting the results that come from whatever they have done. It gives me great pleasure to see in them, acceptance and harmony for their own way of being.

I chose to speak about it today, because I realize that the roots of no major breakthroughs in the year ahead, lie in the letting go that happens during this time of the year, because of non-implementation of the various ambitious things that we had planned for ourselves when we started the year. It is important therefore to know that it is just 8 days that have passed in this year of our life, and we still have another 357 more days to go. 

And though we should be disappointed with what is already gone, we must do whatever it takes to ensure that we do our best, to make the best of what remains with us. And it is for this, that I wanted to share my own practice of reflection and execution with you today, to present you with a chance to keep going and make a change for yourself and to others around you.

Have a happy day and a great week, month and year ahead.

Love, RB!

‘If you expect disappointment, you can never really be disappointed’, A very famous dialogue of a Hollywood movie series. I myself have herd this in many of the conversations, in the last few days. More of being mentioned jokingly, than in the more serious and meant terms.

But the very fact that I realize the impact such medium can have on our mindsets, makes me think about the relevance and rationality of this statement. Disappointment to me no matter how it comes, is not something which can be categorized as any close to life-affirming. And when I think even deeper into this statement, I realize that there are actually two aspects of it, that make me not find my synchronization with preparing oneself for disappointment.

The first one which goes in total alignment with how I live my life is, that in life we should only and only be expecting things and have thoughts which are life-affirming or life-contributing. It is all about our attitude towards life, that finally decides what kind of life we get to experience. And if our approach is that of being prepared for disappointments, then in the true way of looking at things, we start living the disappointment much before even something has not turned out to be right for us. What an irony it is, that just because we are not totally sure of the outcome, we keep our buffer system active to presume failure to come to us. A bigger irony is what if that failure never happens? What do we then gain, by allowing some negative energies to float around us, when all that we were destined to get was only and only positive. Think about it, and I am sure, you will only want to breathe the positive way from here on.

The second and a very huge reason that makes me not align with this dialogue is my belief that we attract what we prepare ourselves for. I have believed and have experienced almost everything in my life to happen in line with this principle. I am a huge believer of the universe aligning to best intentions and our most sincere and honest desires for our life. And because I have seen my life, and that of many others happening in complete alignment with this thought, it makes no sense to me to allow any thoughts of disappointments, least being prepared for disappointments. I find myself short of words, in explaining how strong I think about life to be lived only on optimism and positive manifestation.  

We are in the first week of a new year, and I am sure that whatever plans we all have made for ourselves, and what we visualize for ourselves in the year 2022, is all life-affirming and all positive. What I wish to say here is that this will only become the reason for the year ahead to be one of your better years of life. 

So yes, enjoy the movies for all the entertainment they provide, but be mindful of what you allow to impact your way of thinking, no matter if it was even spoken by your favorite Peter Parker(The Spider Man) or MJ(Meri Jaan)…oops I mean, MJ(Mary Jane).

Have a great and joyous first Sunday of 2022. Stay Safe and be loving.

Love. RB!

What a week it has been! If there is something which could justify the meaning of a roller-coaster ride, I would place the last seven days of my life, high up there. I lived some very happy moments and saw times which could not have been more challenging. Yet the way I presented myself to everything, was a reaffirmation of my belief that it is all in our mind.

I have seen equally challenging situations in my past also, but my reactions to them were not anywhere close to how I responded this time. Indeed, I feel thankful of the people I am blessed with, whose support and being there for me, made it all the easier for me. What I also realized was the way I have evolved to understand that life has its own way of putting us to test, and all that is required is for us to not take those tests. The results may or may not be exactly how we wish them to be, but a sense of satisfaction will always be there about how we handled ourselves through it all.

I have decided today, to take a break from the Sunday Brunch, and restart it on the first Sunday of the coming year 2022. But before I could wish you a lovely festive season ahead, I thought of sharing what I have in me about this immense power of our mind’s focus.

I hope and wish, that you experience all the happiness and joy in the next 75 days or so and have a great time with those who you cherish in your life. Having said that, because life will keep on happening, I just wanted to say that for whatever comes your way which might seem hard, just operate from a belief that you can survive it all. There is no situation that is strong enough which you cannot sail through. One must acknowledge the gravity of whatever comes our way, but it is a blessing to operate from a zone which tells you that there is life beyond this.

This one act of being optimistic about what all good is in store for you in future, can help you maneuver your way through whatever challenge may come up in present.

I am sure this will help us all, to step into the year which possibly will bring much more happiness, and better times to the world, and at the same time help us make the most of the festivities ahead in the next two months or so.

Have fun! And until we connect next through the Sunday brunch, Take Charge of your life and make it count.

Love RB!