AttrAct 7: A trip inside our minds

Our mind is miraculous and the #beliefs stocked up in our #minds are shaping our lives. But the most miraculous powers of our minds can be witnessed by us only when we understand how to use that power.
The video takes us to a trip inside the mind and explains the distinctive functions of our #ConsciousMind and #SubconsciousMind.

To know more about the blogger Niharika Chaturvedi, visit www.niharikachaturvedi.com.

Choosing negative over positive…are we?

Do we tend to click on the negative links over positive? Have we been trained and have trained our minds to focus on negativity instead of positivity? Do we have a habit of expecting something bad would happen instead of something good? There might be several related questions but the answer to all those questions, remains the same.

Yes, we have tendency to choose negative over positive.

According to a recent article I read, I found something that I knew about myself and yet was surprising for me. Roy Baumeister, a social psychologist, found in his extensive research that we remember bad things more often than good things in our lives. We store the bad memories more easily, and we recall them more frequently. It seems we have trained our minds and made it addicted to choosing negative thoughts, memories and expectations.

Sounds about right? Isn’t it? Think about it.

Our negative thoughts enter our minds effortlessly, while it takes extra efforts from our end to change it to positive. It is because our brains have been so meticulously wired to think negative that it takes us conscious efforts to unwire and rewire it so it could focus on positive.

You want examples? Think about it more.

Don’t we tend to open mails that have negative subjects? Don’t we stay on the channel and watch news which have negative headlines? Headlines like “shocking incident”, “scathing attack”, and “traumatic news” give us the nudge to watch or read those. Do you ever care to watch something with the headline “peaceful” or “hopeful”? May be you do. But not as much as you want to stick on to the negative. The media sells us negativity and we buy it and unknowingly paying a huge price for that. The price is our peace of mind. They raise their TRPs through such headlines as they know us, as human, would rather buy “shocking” than anything else positive. We would rather watch the news update on a nuclear war than a peace rally.

Still don’t believe me? Think some more.

Think of the times you are about to start something afresh, a new relationship or a new job. How many times do you expect everything will go wrong and ruin it for you instead of expecting everything will go right and fall in the exact place you want it to fall? How many times at night when your brain is in an overthinking mode, you only think of all things that have gone wrong for you or all the things that might go wrong instead of all the right ones? How many times when you ponder over your past, you choose to think about all the people who wronged you than the ones who stood beside you? Even if you had an above awesome day, one negative incident distracts your thought from everything good to that one bad incident. One hell of a good person, does one bad thing, and all of us focus on his one flaw than all his goodness combined.

I can keep giving you examples, but I guess you got my point. We have been scattering negativity all over and around us through our habit of focusing on negative. We prefer negativity over positivity.

Now that I have pointed this out to you, how are you going to break this habit? Since it is both our mind and us, which have become habituated of the negative. Our mind has been wired to take up and focus on negative and not positive. And to be blunt to all of us, it has been wired by us. We have been training our mind to think, focus and live negative. So it is our responsibility to break this pattern, unfortunately, without any external help.

Our mind is lazy. If we consistently and repeatedly do one thing, it makes it a habit, without our approval. So, if we have tendency to be anxious and be negative in critical situations, our mind will keep on getting anxious and feeling negative in every situation which it thinks is critical. Therefore, to change the way, we want to react in critical situations, we must change the way WE react to the situation. We must change our anxious negative thoughts to hopeful positive thoughts. We should change it deliberately, every single time. Once we start changing our thoughts deliberately, we will find our mind calming down in critical situations and gradually making it a habit of staying calm and positive in every critical situation. For us, it will be like rewiring our brains, or re-training ourselves to shift focus from negativity to positivity.

How will you change it for every other negative foci in life? By deliberate attempts of making it a habit to choose positive over negative, by switching off the negative news channel, by choosing not to read the negative news that does not affect you, by refusing to be a part of negative conversations or arguments, by replacing negative words by positive, by expecting good over bad, and by shifting the frequency of a negative thought to positive thought, midway. Focusing on negative is our habit, and habits are broken only by deliberate attempts by us.

With time and practice, when we keep shutting down and subduing negativity and replacing it with positivity, it will gradually lose its power over us and will gradually vanish with time. And we will start choosing positive thoughts and words, expecting positive results, storing positive memories and speaking positive words, effortlessly.

Here is to choosing and accepting positive over negative, always and forever!!!

To know more about the blogger Niharika Chaturvedi, visit www.niharikachaturvedi.com.

AttrAct 6: This will remind you of your superpower!!!

The video is the first of the second series of AttrAct. The video unleashes the extraordinary fact of us all being powerful creators capable of creating our lives through our deep rooted beliefs stored subconscious mind.
Click to watch!!!

To know more about the blogger Niharika Chaturvedi, visit www.niharikachaturvedi.com.

Is your aura photogenic?

On the #WorldPhotographyDay, let me ask you a question. Did you know that your aura can be photographed? I know it sounds mystical but they say your aura can be photographed by Kirlian photography. The picture taken depicts your physical and emotional state and your energy.

 Although there are lots of controversies related to Kirlian photography and is still being studied, I will not go into its details. But I find it really intriguing. Wouldn’t it be really awesome to know how our aura looks?

Will it be a confusing mixture of all dark ones or a beautiful blend of all our favorite colors?

Will it be different shades of grey or a pure, pretty pink?

Will it be more of dark black or a peaceful white?

 Whatever it is, I want to click my aura's photograph myself, or may be take an aura selfie. ☺️

But before that I obviously would want to make it more appealing or photogenic, beautiful to be photographed. I definitely don’t want to get my aura photographed when I am feeling low or not close enough to my inner self or having consistent negative thoughts.

Our aura depicts our emotional, mental and physical state so is affected by our thoughts, our vibrations, our beliefs and our energy. If you have beautiful beliefs about yourself and the world, your aura would be beautiful with all the most beautiful colours, if you are a state of survival, always surrounded by negative thoughts, your aura is affected. Your aura is also affected by the aura of other people, environment, places etc., unless your aura itself has become strong enough to remain unaffected by other external auras. You must have seen learned people who have made their aura so strong and beautiful, it remains unaffected by anything. In fact, it is their aura and its power that spreads across and raises vibrations of others as they come close to people. It is because they have strengthened their aura through deep and profound soul search. 

We can strengthen our auras by shifting our thoughts from negative to positive, raising our frequency, feeling high and reaching out to our inner self. We can strengthen our aura by becoming the best version of ourselves and aligning ourselves with our purpose. We can strengthen our aura by following our bliss and pursuing what we love to do. Inner peace, being closer to nature and being able to control our emotions and thoughts, will strengthen our aura. And all this can be achieved by starting with nothing else but meditation.

I can’t stress enough here that if your aura is beautiful and powerful it not only remains unaffected by negative aura surrounding us, it also creates a huge circumference of positivity around itself and affects people in the best way possible. Beautiful aura reflects beauty outside.

But unless we make it beautiful, there is no point getting our aura photographed. Isn’t it?

To know more about the blogger Niharika Chaturvedi, visit www.niharikachaturvedi.com.

Trying a concise tribute to Jane Austen, her work and adaptations (if that’s even possible)

 

When you think about all the love gestures, poured as words, in every romantic novel ever written, there is everything else and then there is this letter written by Captain Frederick Wentworth to Anne Elliot. The letter from Jane Austen’s book Persuasion, that, when I first time read, did unspeakable things to my gut till my soul. I could actually and deeply feel the beautiful words as I could feel rain. I knew in that moment that it will be Jane Austen’s contribution to English literature that will be my example for “par excellence”.

Speaking of the times in the 18th century, when female writers were not allowed to publish books in their own names, I felt Jane Austen wrote about female characters who were ahead of their times. Just thinking about it makes my gut churn out of annoyance, but it is a fact that during the century, female writers had to have a male representative for publishing their books, hence all her books published while she was alive, were anonymous. And yet, Jane’s female protagonists were courageous to speak their minds and stand for themselves. Remember when Elizabeth Bennett fearlessly refused the ridiculous marriage proposal she was offered in Pride and Prejudice. And conversation between Anne and a male friend (in Persuasion). As he tells her that how all books, songs and proverbs talk on woman’s fickleness and inconstancy, to which she very calmly replies “weren’t these all written by men”. Her exact words being “Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story. Education has been theirs in so much higher a degree; the pen has been in their hands. I will not allow books to prove anything.” She ends the conversation saying, “all the privilege I claim for my own sex, is that of loving longest, when existence or when hope is gone!” Just wow!!!!

I will fall short of words if I start describing the astounding male characters of Jane’s books. I have read, re-read her books, watched and re-watched her movie adaptations and I fall for them, their words, their actions, every single time. Be it Fitzwilliam Darcy (Mr. Darcy) from Pride and Prejudice, Frederick Wentworth from Persuasion or George Knightley in Emma, Jane Austen’s words had given the characters such romantic contours and sparkling charms that I cannot help but fall for these characters who are fictional. Jane’s precise timing of the principal (male) characters’ specific words, gestures and actions makes me wonder “can he be any better”. Romance, so beautifully crafted, it gives me goosebumps and butterflies in stomach. The passion between the protagonists, the tension, the confusions, the hidden and unacknowledged romantic connections and the strong yet uncertain emotions, all these overwhelm me. The curves of “will they end up together” or “won’t they end up together” inching towards the climax, feels like an exciting, emotional roller coaster ride to me. And she captures the helplessness of someone fallen in love, so beautifully, you simply fall for the characters.

Jane Austen also has one most sought out endings, common in most of her books, “happy endings”. She proves that a book to be called as classic, doesn’t necessarily means should have a tragic end.

Jane Austen is one of my reasons I prefer female writers (English) over males. Sadly, she died at a very young age of 41. Most of her work was acclaimed after her transition. Two of her books were published posthumously. Some of her books still remain unfinished. Unfortunately, most of her fame came after her. Today, we have numerous adaptations (movies, plays, books) on Jane Austen’s work and I sincerely follow all of those. But somehow I feel that just 6 novels from her were just not enough for us.

Ending on one of the most loved love confessions of all times. Because if you mention Jane Austen, you have to acknowledge Pride and Prejudice. These words soaked in love, from Mr. Darcy to Lizzie, are my all-time favorite. “My affections and wishes have not changed, but one word from you will silence me forever. If, however, your feelings have changed, I will have to tell you, you have bewitched me, body and soul and I love...I love... I love you. I never wish to be parted from you from this day on”.

See, how can you not fall for a character who says these words and the author who wrote these characters J

Forever,

A Jane Austen Admirer

To know more about the blogger Niharika Chaturvedi, visit www.niharikachaturvedi.com.

Souls are eternal

I have reached to that age and stage in life where I have realized that everything in life comes down to one universal hard fact “any moment of life can be our last”.

We know the fact yet live in denial for years. We know that we are not our bodies. We are souls, we have bodies. We feel more attached to our bodies as we have never experienced our souls. Accepting the fact that our bodies might not be with us forever becomes hard as we have never seen our souls. We doubt its existence. Therefore, every time someone we love goes through a soul transition it shakes us up to the utmost core. Every time we lose someone close, it breaks us from inside.

I know the hardest thing in life is to cope with the sorrow of losing someone but I also have learnt that there is only one way of saving ourselves from the extreme grief, is by experiencing our divine soul and theirs too. All our souls are so godly, it will take all our efforts, every moment of persistence and everything we have, to connect with our souls and be able to accept all of us, as souls and not as bodies. I have learnt that the moment we realize our existence as souls, will change us forever, even after we lose our existence as bodies. It will change us in ways, which will be beyond our imagination. It will make us realize that our souls are and will be forever. But all we have to do is keep trying to get through the process of realization till acceptance.

And meanwhile, in the process of finding our souls and accepting, we should embrace every moment and every breath as a souvenir from life, reminding ourselves to feel alive than to just stay alive.

This note is to remind us all to be living every moment we have been gifted with, confess love to people you love, call them when they are expecting it, send them messages that touch them, make them laugh, give time to people who need you, let go of grudges and forgive, love people and not materials, become someone's strength in crisis, care a bit more and be kinder to every soul.

This note is to remind us all to love, live and laugh a little more than usual.

This note is to remind us all that all our souls are eternal and will always be.

To know more about the blogger Niharika Chaturvedi, visit www.niharikachaturvedi.com.

Me vs. The Day that was

I penned down my thoughts on the rough day that was...

"Yes, the Universe today was itchy and not ticklish as other days;

Things fell, but not in place;

I might have pained in many ways.
And I searched (even on Google) but didn't find any of hope rays.

"Helpless" was the word that kept bouncing in my mind...
And my feelings and this word were totally aligned

But then there was this voice from the invisible
It was almost inaudible, totally negligible..

It might have been the Universe itself or my inner being
It whispered slowly, leaning in... 

"Would you rather succumb to the day or survive? 

It's almost up to You to decide.

Cos it's just a day, not your whole life."

To know more about the blogger Niharika Chaturvedi, visit www.niharikachaturvedi.com.