Think Simple Now

7 Keys to Reading Faster

Scott Young — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 22:08:10 +0000

Photo by Nathiya Prathnadi (see her camera tote and simple jewelry)

Want to read faster?

In this article, I’m going to share the lessons I learned that doubled my reading rate, allowed me to consume over 70 books in a year and made me a smarter reader. I’m also going to destroy some speed-reading myths, to show you it isn’t magic but a skill anyone can learn.

How I Started Speed Reading

My first introduction to the concept of speed reading was from a book, Breakthrough Rapid Reading. I’ve since moved away from a few of the concepts taught in the book, but the core ideas were transformative. In only a few weeks, my average reading speed went from roughly 450 words per minute, to over 900.

More than just words per minute, speed reading helped instill a new passion for reading. Because I gained more control over my reading abilities, my desire to read went up. That new motivation made me a voracious reader, in one two year period, I had read over 150 books.

Here are a few of the lessons I’ve learned from several years of speed reading:

1. Use a Pointer

Your eyes don’t actually stay fixed in one spot. They are frequently making brief twitches away from your center of focus to gather more information. These movements are called saccades and they represent the first tool novice readers can use to read faster.

Normally, when your eye twitches away, it must relocate in its previous position. Unfortunately, when you read, this position is constantly moving. Saccades (and just general distractions) cause you to slow down as you must search for your current reading position. The solution is to use a pointer.

The easiest pointer is just the tip of your finger. Simply place your index finger below a line of text and move it as you read. Initially, using a pointer will be slower than regular reading. But after you’re used to the motion, you can read more effectively.

Note for Advanced Speed-Readers: You can further increase your speed-reading rates by keeping your pointer 1-2cm away from the margins of the text. Your eye can catch the words in about a 1″ radius, so this can shave off a bit of reading time.

2. Speed Reading Is About Control, Not Speed

I dislike the way speed reading is often presented because it makes the skill seem to be only about increasing your top speed. As a result, many people are quick to judge that people can’t physically process more information or point out that comprehension goes down while speed reading.

To me, these arguments miss the point. Speed reading is about controlling your reading rate, not just going faster. If you’re in a racecar, top speed is important, but even more important is the driver’s skill at adjusting speeds to make careful turns. The ability to control your speed will make you a much more efficient reader than just blazing through text.

A pointer helps with control because instead of just using your eyes, you can physically move your hand to adjust your reading speed. If you move your hand faster, you will be forced to read faster. Also, if you slow your pointer down, your reading will slow. This kind of control allows you to carefully read confusing or important sections of text and go faster through obvious text or pieces of fluff.

For example, in a book I’m reading right now, the author frequently resorts to the same 3-4 paragraphs of description to explain a recurring idea. The paragraphs aren’t identical, but similar enough that I can use my pointer to skim through the content and still get the message.

3. Read Without Subvocalizing

When most people first learned to read, they spoke the words aloud. “Jill goes up the hill,” each word being pronounced earnestly by the young student. Eventually, you graduate from speaking aloud because it slows your reading speed. However, most people still vocalize the words inside their head, “Jill goes up the hill,” silently repeated in our minds.

Subvocalization isn’t always a bad thing. It helps us understand and follow a narrative. Just realize it isn’t strictly necessary for comprehension. Jsut as msot poelpe cna urndesnatd tihs secntene, most people don’t need to grasp every single word to get the meaning of a sentence.

Being able to read without subvocalizing is like adding an extra gear to your engine. It can open up the top speed of your reading rate, which is particularly useful for easy to understand or text with a lot of fluff. It isn’t the same as skimming, you’re still moving your pointer across every word. It’s a method speed readers can use that most normal readers don’t.

Practice moving your pointer faster than you can read words inside your head. This will break you of the habit of automatically subvocalizing.

4. Active Reading

Most people read passively, that is, reading a book hoping the information will strike them across the forehead and declare, “Learn Me!” This is a fine practice when you’re just reading for sheer entertainment, but what if your reading serves a specific purpose?

Speed reading requires active reading. That means, instead of just assuming the information will jump out at you, you become an inquisitive, seeking animal. Before you start reading, prime your mind by asking what you’re hoping to get out of your reading session. Even if you aren’t 100% sure of what you’ll learn, this priming exercise allows your brain to notice relevant details more quickly.

Active reading also means stopping to think about what your reading, as you read it. Stopping to think may not sound like much of a speed reading tactic. It’s not, but it is a smart-reading tactic that everyone should employ. If you find something interesting, pause either to reflect or even note the information in your book.

Would you rather read something today and forget it tomorrow, or read it deeply and make it a part of you?

5. Know When to Slow Down

As I mentioned in key #2, speed reading is about control, not just speed. Many people I’ve talked to after introducing them to speed reading brag about how quickly they dashed through a book. But, these same people later confess that they remember little about what they read.

Just as it is sometimes useful to speed up to move quickly through writing with a low information density, you often need to slow down to catch the important or confusing bits. Let’s view reading as if you are driving a car: If you’re on a straight, well-maintained divided highway, feel free to speed up. But if you’re doing hairpin turns on a dirt road in the mountains, slow down.

More than anything else, speed reading should give you an awareness of your speed. Most people read information with only 2 speeds: skimming and reading. Speed reading is about opening up all the intermediate layers. Now you should be able to skim, read without subvocalizing, read rapidly, read, read slowly and even crawl when faced with confusing or difficult ideas.

6. Make the Material More Interesting

I know, it sounds impossible. How can you possibly make statistics/accounting/Jane Eyre interesting?

But you can make material more interesting if you put some effort in before you pick up the book. No, you can’t make boring topics come alive as if they were the latest thriller fiction. But you can make them interesting enough that you can stay focused while reading.

I know it sounds like something out of a Tony Robbins‘ seminar, but attitude matters. When you’re approaching a book, imagine if you changed your perspective from, “Oh no, here’s some junk I have to read,” to “What could I gain from reading this, if I was really creative about it.” It’s not about confessing a secret love of accounting, it’s about keeping an open mind as to what accounting could teach you.

If you find the material more interesting, you’ll be able to read with complete focus. Complete focus can cut the amount of reading time in a third, without any loss in comprehension. That should be incentive enough to tweak your attitude.

7. Reading Rate Comes With Practice

Although less glamorous than subvocalization or pointer-enabled reading techniques, the best speed reading technique is this: read more to read faster. When you regularly read a book per week, your reading rate will improve.

First, if you aren’t reading in your first language, language proficiency will be your biggest obstacle to high reading rates. I’m an intermediate with French, and my French reading is a crawl compared to my English reading. That’s because every paragraph contains a new word or unfamiliar grammatical construction.

Once again, the way to overcome low proficiency is through practice. Even if you are reading in your first language, some authors will throw big words down you may not understand. My suggestion is that if you encounter such words frequently, look them up. I used Google’s define feature (example, “define simple“) religiously when reading through all of David Foster Wallace’s verbose tome, Infinite Jest.

Second, if you read more frequently, you get a better sense of what speed to go for the type of content and your purposes. NASCAR racers weren’t made that way. They became great at adjusting speeds through practice. Similarly, if you aren’t sure how fast to read a textbook or a novel, those intuitions can be strengthened with practice.

I also suggest for new speed readers to practice reading rather than just read. Practice reading involves taking a fresh book and using the techniques of a pointer and eliminating subvocalization to scroll faster than you can comprehend. This can help train your upper speed-limit reading speeds.

Try It Out!

Want to know your current reading speed? Pick up any book and do the following:

Setup a timer for one minute
Mark the line you started reading
Start reading and stop when the minute is up
Mark the line where you stopped
Number of lines - Count the number of lines you’ve read
Number of words per line - Take the second line and count the number of words in this line (including short words like I, and, etc)
Number of lines X Number of words per line = WPM, your words per minute reading speed.

Try the above steps with your regular reading pace, and after practicing several tips from above, try the measuring steps again to see how much you’ve improved. Let us know how you did!

* Got speed reading tips of your own? How did you do after trying some of these tips? Share your thoughts with us in the comment section. See you there!

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Other Articles You May Enjoy:

External Resources:

Book: Breakthrough Rapid Reading
Video: Memory (Swamiji’s Discourse)
Book: Your Memory : How It Works and How to Improve It

The Ups and Downs of Life + Personal News

Tina Su — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 21:19:42 +0000

Photo by Vadim Pacev

By Tina Su

Coming back from India, I was floating on a cloud of utter joy, blissfully unaware of the personal challenges and surprises that were about to hit me in the coming month.

While I had fantasized over the telling of what has happened over the past month, it quickly became obvious that the toughest part of my job is the potential of disclosing too much about my personal life, thus invading the privacy of those closes to me. Despite the juiciness of the story, I’ve decided to leave most of the details private.

I contemplated on why I wanted to write about it, and it became clear to me that the essence of the story is that we are forever riding the ups and downs of life, and that sometimes when the downs get really down, we lose touch with reality. In those moments, all we need is hope and a gentle nudge to remind us that it is only temporary, and that the highs are not far away.

My Personal Low

For the first few weeks after coming home from India, Jeremy and I were having some relationship problems caused by miscommunication and misunderstanding, amplified by the length of time that I was away.

Suddenly, my future became uncertain, and everything I had conjured up in my head of rainbows and sunshine had come crashing down. I felt like I was falling into a hole of darkness that I couldn’t crawl out of. I was confronted with loneliness, resentment and my own victim identity. It was a painful period for both of us.

We separated for two weeks and the uncertainty was killing me. I was bouncing up and down emotionally between feeling unconditional love, and seeing the dangerous shadows of depression peeking out from around the corner.

During this time, I observed as my mind wandered: images of self-pity, focusing on past negative events, clinging on to fantasies of an unhappy future, and seeking out more pain. It was cycle of self-destruction, unless I consciously intercepted it with the light of awareness. It was both disturbing and fascinating to witness.

Bringing In the Light

“…With forgiveness, your victim identity dissolves,
and your true power emerges - the power of presence.
Instead of blaming the darkness you bring in the light.“
~ Ekhart Tolle, from A New Earth

In guiding me with a torch of bright shining light, my parents spent hours on the phone with me. One thing that made a lasting impression on me was what my dad kept repeating, “Ta-tha-ta” - something Buddha used to say, meaning “It is what it is.”, “If it isn’t this, it’ll be something else.”

He was right. I was reminded of the drama I went through a year ago, and it was clear that if not this problem, then there would have been some other problem in its place.

That’s what part of living is about - we are forever and consistently being presented with situations that challenge us, make us grow, teach us divine lessons about life, and make us into more conscious beings. Without challenges, life would be pretty dull, and we would never grow to become better people.

I was also reminded that there isn’t a challenge that we cannot surmount; otherwise it would not have presented itself to us. Even though challenges may appear impossible to conquer at times, trust that it is possible and that it wouldn’t be called a challenge if wasn’t challenging to us.

My friend Elizabeth Carman reminded me in an email that “everything is auspicious”, and indeed, it’s hard to realize this when we are going through the ups and downs, but after some time, in retrospect, “we can see how even the downs were times of positivity and spiritual transformation.”

And so, everyday, whenever I found my mind wondering, I would remind myself of two phrases, “Ta-tha-ta, it is what it is.”, and “Everything is auspicious. This too is auspicious, because it happened.”

Everyday, I focused on the good, I wrote in my journal often of what I learned, I focused on the blessings, I focused on the heart space of unconditional love, I focused on the now instead of an unknown future or past memories that no longer exist. I focused on forgiveness, understanding and healing. Eventually, I surrendered to that which I cannot control.

Here’s a blurb from my journal:

“… As for the future, I surrender to the higher intelligence of Life and trust with absolute clarity that only the best things are provided for me, that I am always cared for regardless of how things may appear now. I accept the now, by accepting the outer world for what it is, and taking responsibilities of my inner world.” (September 12, 2009)

When I finally surrendered, I stopped torturing myself.

A few days later, we peacefully got back together, and focused on nurturing the love and connection we had. It was beautiful.

My Personal High

As if reconnecting with the mate-to-my-soul wasn’t auspicious enough, shortly after we got back together as a closer union, we got the news that I was pregnant, very pregnant, specifically 5 months pregnant with a baby boy!

Within a span of 12 hours, we went from a space void of any thoughts of babies, to finding out that I was 5 months pregnant, to hearing his little heart beat in the morning, to seeing his heart beating in the afternoon at the ultrasound.

At the ultrasound, we witnessed with great amazement the miracle of another life blissfully resting inside me, quietly reminding us that life is beautiful, and while the down times may be inevitable, the ups are just around the corner.

The ultrasound technician patiently explained each body part to us as she gently maneuvered down the baby’s tiny body. I watched the monitor with mouth open, and eyes sparkling at the sight of any movement. Like seeing his complete set of fingers and toes, or seeing the little oval space that is his stomach. Jeremy held my left hand tightly and couldn’t stop shaking, I looked over at him, and his face was covered in tears.

How in the world did we not know for so long is still the subject of jokes to close friends. Turns out, I was pregnant prior to India, and there was a baby growing in me through out my 3-months of spiritual transformation at the ashram. I did not have any pregnancy sickness, and even had what I thought was a menstrual period while in India (I later learned that this happens to 22% of pregnant women - called spotting).

September 23, 2009 - Week 20 ultrasound

I thought I had put on a little weight because the food at the ashram was so good. While everyone else lost weight, I had gained a few pounds… ah! It all makes sense now! It wasn’t until after I’ve returned to my pre-India diet for a few weeks, that we noticed that only my stomach and boobs had gotten larger while the rest of me remained the same size. That was when we started suspecting.

On the bright side of things, at least we bypassed 5 months of pregnancy-related stress, and only have 4 months to go. We’re so under prepared that we don’t have time to stress, it’s just excitement and doing the necessary to best prepare. We’ve gotten over the initial shock of it all, Jeremy is no longer adamant about getting a large SUV to keep us safe, and after two weeks of reckless house shopping we decided to put house buying on hold until after the baby is born.

Ryan Ananda Sawatzky is expected to be born Feb 12, 2010; exactly one year to the date of our wedding in Kauai. Ananda means blissful in Sanskrit, and that describes him perfectly - a blissful baby.

(Side note: If you have any baby stuff that your child has outgrown, we’d love it if you would send it our way. Any used baby clothing, equipment or other necessities will be much appreciated by Ryan, Jeremy and I.)

What Did I Learn?

Photo by Edwin Stemp

An article isn’t complete without the lessons learned. The following is a selected set of lessons I’ve learned through my experience in the past six weeks:

Fluidity of Life - Life is always fluid. The unexpected and even unimaginable can and does happen at anytime. And all things, scenarios, events can shift their course at any time: from bad to good, from good to bad. There is no good or bad, there just is. Surrendering to whatever that happens, without placing unnecessary importance or investing excessive emotions holds the key to lasting happiness. At any moment, we have the choice to choose bliss, to see the light. Surrender to rigid thinking and choose to live a conflict free life.
Our Need to Blame - Blaming leads to nowhere, except temporary fulfillment for the ego. Yet, the ego does not stay fulfilled and will seek out more and more pain. Any kind of blaming thoughts, words, or accusations are ego-filling, unproductive and lead to our own suffering, even if they are “reasonably” justified.
Unconscious Actions - When we are in an unconscious state of mind (high TPS - thoughts per second), the survival instinct in our brain tells us to take unconscious actions with great urgency and conviction. These actions when taken, always lead to more unconsciousness and are rarely helpful.
The Mind’s Reality - Our mind always makes unknown situations worse than they actually are. Its goal is to dwell on pain and problems. Often when we find out the truth, we feel instantly relieved that the “reality” of events wasn’t as bad as what we had imagined.
Building Intensity - All my frustration and inner suffering really has a purpose and benefit: they build the intensity in me that further encourages me to break free from the inner conflicts, and to rise out a more conscious being established in Joy.
The Pain Body - When a person is established and reacts out of their pain body, they are no longer themselves, and we should not measure or judge their character based on when they are in this state. Recognize when they are in their pain body and detach from any painful feelings it may trigger in you. The pain body feeds on pain - its own pain and on other people’s pain. Whenever hurtful words are uttered and actions are taken, identify where they are coming from; likely, they will be coming from the pain body.
Seek to Understand, Drop Self Pity - When others behave in ways that you are not happy with, drop the self-pity story, bring in compassion, and try to understand why they are behaving in certain ways toward you. There is always a reason. Often times, we’re so wrapped up in defending ourselves and making our own side be understood that we fail to truly see things from other people’s perspective, and we miss the chance to heal others and ourselves.
Everything is Auspicious - No matter how bad things seem there is always a reason that contributes positively towards us. There always exists an incredible gift in any “bad” situation, trust that you are always being taken care of by the protective arms of Existence.

Parting Words

When things get low, do all that you can to come back to your center, and remember that you are a luminous and empowered being. You have the power and choice to bring the light into any situation that may appear dark.

No matter how unfair a situation may present itself, remaining in self-pity, blame and resentment will only hurt ourselves, and draws us deeper into that darkness. In fact, we only have two choices - to remain in darkness or to bring in the light. You have the choice to prolong the suffering, or to end it and move on.

Regardless of what is happening, the ups and downs of life will continue to prevail. And resisting to the down times will only delay the coming of the up times. Next time you hit a down time, remember that it is only temporary, focus on what can be learned, trust that it is the best thing that could happen to you right now, and know with certainty that the up time is just around the corner.

* Share your thoughts with us in the comment section below. See you there!

Editor’s Note: For those curious, the following is what I look like now (Jeremy’s been diligently documenting my weekly progress every sunday). Future progress photos will likely be posted on Simply Tina - Subscribe here for updates. Again, if you have any used baby things you no longer need, it’ll help us if you can donate, sell or lend to us. Mailing address is: Attn: Sawatzky, 2646 Rainier Ave. South, Seattle, WA 98144.

Photo by Jeremy Sawatzky

Other Articles You May Like:

External Resources:

Video: What I watch when I am down
Book: Living Enlightenment (Condensed version here)
Book: The Power of Now

How to Learn Without Memorizing

Scott Young — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 01:29:11 +0000

Photo by Edwin Stemp

By Scott Young

Rote memorization is an inefficient way to learn. Just retaining a single formula can mean pounding the same information into your skull dozens of times. If your computer hard drive had this accuracy, you’d probably throw it out.

Unfortunately, you’re stuck with your brain. The good news is that you don’t need to learn by memorization. The vast majority of information is better stored in your head using a completely different system - learning through connecting ideas together.

A few years ago, I noticed that smart people seemed to learn differently than most other people. While most people would review the same information dozens of times, smart people only needed to review once or twice. While most people would apply ideas to problems in the ways that they had been taught, smart people used the ideas in many different contexts.

While there are undoubtedly some genetic advantages that allow some people to learn effortlessly, I think part of this difference in success comes down to strategy. While most people were trying to memorize, smart people were coming up with creative connections between ideas. These connections made the ideas easier to remember, so less memorizing was required. Additionally, the new connections made the ideas easier to understand, so learning itself was faster.

Is Your Brain a File Drawer or a Web of Ideas?

A computer stores information as thousands of electrical 1s and 0s in a linear fashion. Your brain doesn’t. Your brain is made up of billions of neurons connected together. Many people try to learn as if there brain were a computer: by memorizing the information in a sequence.

However, your brain isn’t a sequence of bits and bytes, so this approach doesn’t make sense. It makes more sense to learn the same way your brain is designed, by connecting ideas together into a web, rather than trying to store them with rote memorization.

Creative Learning

What I’d like to advocate in this article is a more creative, spontaneous form of learning than the style you were probably coached for in school. Instead of repeatedly scanning the same information for minimal benefit, invest your time learning in creating connections with the information you are learning. Not only is it a more natural way to learn, it isn’t painfully boring like most memorization tasks are.

There are lots of ways you can learn creatively:

1. Through Metaphor

Connect ideas together by relating them to something you already understand. Relate complex physical equations to their real life counterparts. Imagine a derivative as the speedometer on a car. See a binomial equation as a game of Plink-O.

You can do the same thing with less technical subjects. When I read the book The Prince, I related Niccolo Machiavelli’s thoughts on politics to my own social life. If you relate an abstract example to something more commonplace it is easier to understand. You are effectively creating a bridge between what you understand intuitively and the things you struggle with.

2. Through Diagram

Create diagrams showing the relationships between ideas. This is a manual way you can create connections. The importance is that you explore as many different ways to connect ideas as possible, not just repeating the same diagrams. If you have varied connections, then if you happen to forget one, you’ll remember the ideas through another.

Diagram ideas based on time and place, author or other similarities they have. If you’re learning a comprehensive subject, like chemistry or physics, why not diagram out how all the ideas relate. Many equations are counterparts or derivations of each other, so you can learn complicated formulas more easily by connecting them to simpler forms.

3. Through “Like, But…”

Another way to link ideas is to relate one piece of information to another, noting their difference. “It’s like this, but it has that instead.” Using this method of understanding can link ideas together, even if you don’t have a perfect metaphor or relationship to diagram.

Examples:

Confucius was born around the same time as Socrates, but lived in ancient China.
Amortization is like an asset version of a loan payment, except there’s no interest.
Acceleration is like gravity, but in any direction.

The relationships don’t need to be perfect. You aren’t trying to build a perfectly accurate map of the surrounding, just a sketch. Creative connections, even if they are only 80-90% accurate are more memorable than dry connections that have 100% accuracy. If you understood the subject when you were learning it, then the specific accuracy of a metaphor won’t be as important as the connection itself.

4. Through Visualization

Another way to make ideas more concrete is simply to imagine them in a visual format. When I was learning computer programming, I often tried to connect the abstract concepts of variables, functions or polymorphism into more vivid, visual descriptions. If a variable becomes a jar or a function becomes a crazy pencil sharpener, you’re more likely to remember the relationship later.

If you are a non-visual learner, you can apply the same strategy to your other senses. It may be more meaningful for you if you mentally attach sounds or sensations to the ideas you’re trying to store.

5. Can You Explain it To a Five-Year Old?

Another trick to connect ideas together is to connect a very difficult idea, to something you understand easily. If you had to teach whatever subject you’re learning right now to a five-year old, what would you do?

This exercise forces you to simplify. Instead of dealing in abstracts you now have to deal in concretes. I’m not suggesting you can teach senior level chemistry courses to a first-grader. However, if you get in the habit of simplifying things for yourself, it will be easier for you to understand it yourself. Teaching something is often the best way to learn it.

I once heard a story about a prominent university professor who was writing a paper in his field. Instead of using the normal academic speak, he decided to simplify the findings and terms of the article as much as possible. His goal was that, by doing this, the article might be accessible to journalists who don’t have academic training.

To his surprise, however, his article became one of the most cited works within his field, from other academics. It appears that the extra simplification of concepts was helpful not only to journalists, but other researchers with doctorates in his field. The lesson: we often underestimate the simplification required.

When you juggle ideas only at an abstract level, you make fewer connections. It’s like trying to weave a basket using two ten-foot pole rods, while the basket is suspended off your roof. Make connections and bring the basket down to earth so you can grab it with your hands and make more tangible connections.

6. Childhood Creativity Meets University Courses

I’m suggesting you bring back the same crayon-box imagination you had when you were five. Back then, nobody told you it was incorrect to link weird and bizarre combinations of ideas together, you did in naturally. However, at some point the system encouraged you to conform, so you started asking what the correct answer was, rather than the most interesting answer.

Don’t give up your critical thinking, just enhance it by allowing yourself to explore ideas more thoroughly before you decide what they look like. What would happen if you inserted a minus sign in the middle of your physics equation? If you had to explain the formula in terms of real world objects, how would you do it?

These aren’t time-wasting exercises, they are keys to better understanding. The smartest people I’ve encountered are often the people with the easiest time generating creative descriptions of whatever they need to learn. If you didn’t have to review every idea 5-10 times before learning it, then a creative approach would probably save you time, rather than waste it.

7. With a Group

Most memorization is a solo pursuit. But connecting ideas doesn’t have to be. If you get several people together and work to try to explain a subject to each other, you get the benefit of several brains forming connections to the same topic. This is applying the wisdom of brainstorming to help you learn faster.

As with brainstorming, accuracy isn’t as important as volume. You aren’t trying to remember every specific connection you make, so it doesn’t matter if they aren’t perfect. You are, however, trying to better understand and remember the subject itself, so group exercises where you share ideas are great for this purpose.

The 70% Rule for Self-Education

Whenever I try to learn anything on my own, I strive to maintain a 70% rule. This means I try to achieve 70% understanding and memory of a set of ideas before moving forward. Even though I’m missing 30% of the information, I can cover ground more quickly. Besides, I can always come back to reacquaint myself with something that was missed in the first pass.

The reason this approach works is that it takes as much effort to learn the last 20% of information as it does to learn the first 80%. By moving forward, you can ensure you’re focusing your learning efforts on what really matters, and not the minute details of a subject.

This approach isn’t practiced in school because, for most purposes 70% is a C+ or a B. In some programs, 70% memory could qualify as an F. So following this rule to the letter probably wouldn’t result in an exceptional GPA.

However, you can modify this rule when creating connections between ideas. Understand something to 70% proficiency, then dive deeper and understand the ideas around it. Here are some examples:

Understand a formula 70%, and then dive into its proof.
Learn a philosophical argument to 70%, and then examine the counterarguments.
Read to understand a management theory 70%, then view it’s applications.
Remember 70% of the words of a new language, then practice using them in dialog.

If you use this approach to study, you can start building those connections earlier. Instead of waiting until you have something memorized before you start connecting ideas, you start exploring immediately. This reduces the burden of memorization and helps you learn faster.

When is Memorization Necessary?

Like all rules, the practice of connecting ideas has places where it doesn’t work terribly well in. When you need to remember bulk information, with no particular meaning, sometimes rote memorization is the best way to go. Human brains are meaning-makers, and learning through connections is an approach built off that function. So when you have to understand copious amounts of information that have no logical relationship, you may struggle to form connections.

I hesitate to say this, however, because 95% of information isn’t meaningless, otherwise you wouldn’t bother learning it. There is a pattern, and if you invest some time in finding it, you greatly increase the chances it will stick to the inside of your skull.

* Got any tips for retaining information that’s worked well for you? Share your thoughts and ideas in the comment section below. See you there!

Editor’s Note: Speaking of slipping the rules, while Jeremy was editing this article, he stopped at one point, to colorfully curse out the upstairs neighbor for making loud bizarre noises. Then we both looked at each other and laughed at the irony. Another lesson learned.

Other Articles You May Like:

External Resources:

Video: Memory
Video: Memory - Part 2

Living Enlightenment – A Personal Report

Tina Su — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 19:25:35 +0000

Photo by Vanessa Paxton

By: Tina Su

After 76 days of living in an ashram in a tiny village town East of Bangalore in India, I am home at last.

I still have not found a proper one-liner that concisely answers the common question, “How was it?” A cliché “Good!” seemed appropriate to satisfy the questioner, but it is not the right answer. I’ve tried several answers and nothing seems to accurately conjure what I experienced. “I’ll write about it soon” quickly became my reply… and soon, I started to avoid people all together.

In this article - which is a personal update for those interested - I will attempt to share some slices of experience from my spiritual journey for the past 3 months.

There is so much I want to say, yet there is nothing I feel like saying. I wish to convey my feelings without words, but that isn’t possible over the Internet, so I will do my best with words.

Whenever reminded of my experience, my first instinctual response is to feel an utter space of peace, and sometimes, I feel like crying, tears of Joy and pain which I experienced and overcome, tears of gratitude … grateful for my transformation, grateful for the space of unattached clarity and undisturbed bliss. During this time, I had witnessed many miracles, which are truly beyond words and logic.

Inner Awakening

Roughly 3 months ago today, I left for a 21-day spiritual retreat program called Inner Awakening. The program can be more accurately described as an intense process of inner journey for self-discovery and lasting inner transformation under the guidance of a living enlightened guru.

The program attracted seekers from around the world, from countries like Brazil, France, Italy, Germany, Holland, China, Korea, Mexico, New Zealand, UK, Singapore, Malaysia, USA, Canada and (of course) India. One guy came from a small African country, he didn’t speak a word of English, but always wore a big smile.

A total of 300 people attended, with the youngest being 9 years old, and oldest participant being 71. People came from all walks of life, of various religious and social backgrounds. All sessions were conducted in English, with translations available in French and several Indian dialects.

The 21 days were tightly packed with 6 back-to-back meditation programs that explore various dimensions of truth, and gives us practical life solutions to transform specific areas of our life. Each program was designed to logically build on the foundation of the previous program and contributes towards the following program, leading towards the goal of the 21-day retreat: to quiet the inner chatter in our minds by over 50%, permanently.

Here’s one video clip on “Fulfillment” from day 2. Here’s is a list of clips from the entire 21-day program (I also recommend the video on “Memory“).

For those curious, the 6 back-to-back programs are described below according to my own interpretation:

ASP (2 days) - Understanding and overcoming emotions that lead to some form of suffering: fear, worry, jealousy, discontentment, depression, greed.
NSP (4 days) - In depth focus on the topic of fear and the subject of death. Because all fears are rooted in our fear of death, if we can face our own death consciously, and understand its various components, then fear of it naturally goes away, and thus disolves the fear of everything else. This program clears pain, guilt, and all forms of fear which we experience. This program was one of the most profound and liberating things I’ve ever done.
ATSP (2 days) - I don’t remember the details of these 2 days, but I remember being lost in joy and silence.
BSP (3 days) - Awakens the divine qualities of love, surrender to Existence, compassion and devotion. A beautiful flowering of the self happened during this program.
Healer’s Initiation (2 days) - meditation to heal the mind and body of physical illnesses.
Nithyanandam (4-5 days) - An intensive and blissful multi-days process focused on overcoming the noise created by our mind. This program was challenging at first, but soon became my favorite program and I longed for more days.

My Inner Awakening Experience

I felt as though I was transported to another space and time, lost in a sea of utter happiness and seeing the world with such intense and undisturbed clarity. Never in my life, through all the different personal and spiritual growth programs I have participated in, have I witnessed and remained in such a space of mental silence and bliss.

On most days, the feelings were so expansive and profound that I felt as if I had just won the lottery, again and again and again. Imagine winning the 10 million dollar lottery everyday, consecutively for 21 days. Imagine the sheer excitement and surprise you will feel. That’s the best way I could convey what I’ve experienced during Inner Awakening.

The experiences were so profound in its truthful origin that I wanted to stay beyond the 21-day program. Seriously, if you just won the lottery for 21 days straight, wouldn’t you want to stay a little bit longer?

Simultaneously, the ashram was hosting a 3 months program called Life Bliss Engineering (LBE), which takes the essence from Inner Awakening teachings to another level. Knowing the growth speed of the number of participants in these programs, and seeing this as a rare opportunity, I wanted to stay… I didn’t want to wait.

After talking it over with my husband Jeremy and getting his hesitant blessings, we extended my trip, paid the tuition, and booked a new flight home for September. Thus starting my journey and the many inner struggles of in-depth transformation that happened in the following two months.

Life Bliss Engineering

Thirty four other people like myself stayed for the remaining of the 90-day LBE program after attending Inner Awakening. There were roughly 160 participants in the LBE program.

Many people had stories of personal sacrifice in order to attend the program: some had left their jobs, some had no homes to return to, some had relationship jeopardizes, and many had to put their family life on hold to be there.

Each time I was reminded of what some participants had to put everything on the line to be here, I would whisper a prayer of gratitude for the warm support and freedom I was fortunate to have.

The 90-day program took us deeper into the practical understandings of the original lineage of Yoga from Patanjali - the father of Yoga. To integrate what we learned in Inner Awakening into our being through many, many opportunities of personal and emotional challenges. The purpose of this 90-day process is to develop a yogic body and a strong Vedic mind - a mind free of conflicts and inner chatter. To top it off, we also did several travel study programs to important spiritual sites within South India.

The Remaining 2 Months - My LBE Experience

Photo by Katsuaki Shoda

I would love to say that LBE was fantastic… and it was. But it wasn’t what people expected. The obvious experience people expect is bliss, like you are floating in bliss for 90 days and then you leave. This was not actually the case.

In reality, it was a serious, intense and extremely challenging period in my life. In addition to learning many new intellectual knowledge about spirituality, my emotional and mental limits were tested, stretched and I got to practice many of the techniques I learned in Inner Awakening.

I have never experienced so many conflicts in such a short period of time. The 2.5 months felt as if I had live 3-5 years in the outside world. Miraculously, everyday, I would be faced with several new or reoccurring conflicts. The reoccurring conflict only subsides, once I am able to handle it with peace and ease.

On many mornings, I would want to leave, the pain I was working on seemed unbearable, but typically by the afternoon, I would sit under the 600-year old Banyon tree (which is the size of a city block) and wished that I could stay there holding it forever. The ups and downs I experienced were a typical story with every participant, and despite the painful moments of us facing our own issues, we would all agree that it was worth it in the end.

Sometimes, I would get so frustrated with myself that I would cry, but always, I could feel that there is a compassionate energy within the core of my soul that provided me with the cushion of safety, hope, inspiration and encouragement to keep trying. And one by one, challenge after challenge, I would cross it, and a space of silence, of possibilities, of life would gradually replace these various experiences of pain.

During this time, I witnessed many miracles, “unusual” things, most of which are too personal or mystical to share publicly. For one, why there isn’t a single drop of bird or animal poop under or on the Banyon tree, despite many birds and animals (like that family of monkeys) living on the tree.

Other Highlights

With the quieting of my mind, the first noticeable change was my sleep naturally and gradually reducing to a quick 4 hours a night. I wake up feeling more refreshed than ever, ready for our 2 hours of daily morning yoga, before a ridiculously delicious breakfast with an unfathomable selection of food choices.

Speaking of food, the ashram and its working volunteers really went out of their ways to accommodate for our “Western” needs. They actually hired a chief from a 5-star hotel, and in addition to the vast array of Indian foods, we were provided with continental options like salads, pastas and plenty of tropical fruits.

At one point they even brought in an authentic Italian cappuccino machine for us. Here we were - in the middle of nowhere - surrounded by farms and tiny traditional villages, hours away from anything modern or noisy, and we had our choices of cappuccino, latte or mocha. It was a weird sight and overtly exciting at the same time. It’s too bad the life of this poor little machine didn’t last very long, after overworking continuously for the 150 coffee craving westerners who came back for seconds and thirds.

In other notes, I was informed on the last day that I am now a certified Nithya Yoga teacher, so that’s new. I’m not sure what I will do with it yet, but should I decide to teach, I will be giving intro Nithya Yoga classes in the Seattle area, drop me an email (classes@thinksimplenow.com with subject yoga) to be notified of such events when they happen.

“What Did I learn?”

I’ve learned many life lessons and truths through personal experience during this time, here are a few of the ones on the tip of my tongue in this moment. Though many of the lessons below are seemingly obvious and are ones we may already know, they remain the kinds of things to be truly learned, and integrated into daily practice only through experience.

Attracting Miracles - Gifts are constantly showered upon us, everyday, but we choose not to see them. All we have to do is walk outside, and we will find someone less fortunate than us. Everything that happened to us on our path to this moment was a blessing, truly. Count those blessings, everyday, be grateful for all that we have… from the sunlight, to our food, for our shelter, to our relationships, to our body. As we do so, we will witness more gifts and miracles occurring in our life, moment to moment, every moment.
Overcoming Suffering - Suffering is a choice, even though during moments of intense suffering and emotional pain, the suffering seems unavoidable and that we are choice-less and hopeless. During moments of suffering, bring intense awareness into it, and tell it, repeatedly, “I will not mother these thoughts anymore! I will not create unnecessary suffering on myself! I will overcome this.”
“The Running Mind” - On any given day, there is always something that presents itself as a problem that will bother us. When thinking about it, it seems like the most urgent and important thing, and indeed, it boggles our mind throughout the day. But the moment we replace that thought with another, the problem no longer seems so real. And when you overcome it, or stop seeing it as a problem, another problem will sure surface. That is the workings of our mind. It’s not real. Be aware of it.
“It’s Okay to be Flawed” - It’s easy to judge people and point out their flaws. But when we judge, that quality which we are judging is a reflection of a flaw within ourselves. Truth is, we are all flawed, and pointing them out is the easy way out. Find the compassion and understanding to accept other people for who they are, allow them to be, for you too are flawed and surely, you would like others to allow you to be as you are. Overflow love towards that person, and see how you can shift your state of mind about that person. Look for the good.
Bad Days - No matter how bad a day can get, it has the potential to instantly change and turn around to be a breath-taking phenomenal day. It’s happened before, so why not now? Never view a “bad” mood as a permanent thing, it is what you’re feeling now, who knows what will happen in the next 5 minutes, or one hour. Accepting the present for what it is, and welcoming the next moment with freshness can only bring wonder and joy to you.
Choosing a Response - When another person is giving us attitude or saying things we don’t like, with awareness, we can choose our responses, including silence. Other people’s reaction to things has to do with them, and their state of mind. What others think, feel and chooses to respond is beyond our control. So surrender. It’s not worth spending energy on it. Let it go! It’s not about who is being the “bigger person”, it’s about recognizing an action that is fruitless and saving the energy to do something else conducive to your wellbeing.
Blessings from a Rude Encounter - When another person is rude to us, perhaps the best lesson we can learn is how it feels on the receiving end when we are rude to others in moments of unconscious behavior. It’s a blessing. Secretly thank that person and whisper a silent prayer for them. It’s not worth getting all worked up and defensive. Find the lesson and move on.
Nature of Discontentment and Complaints - The moment we complain, we are taking this moment for granted and we are missing out on life. When we complain, we are not appreciating or trusting the wisdom of cosmic intelligence, we become disconnected with the whole, with source, with our inner selves, with nature, with bliss. And we suffer.
Expectations in Life - Expectations of exactly how things should be, how things should play out only leads to inner conflict and resulting emotional suffering. I keep re-learning this lesson, even till today. Because we cannot predict the future, and things never go as we expect in its entirety. Once we have our hearts and heads locked on a definite course of events, even a slight shift in change can shatter our hopes. Even the most secure relationships can have its unexpected turbulences. Even the most trusted friendships can take its turns from the promised future. Let whatever happens happen. Trust with great conviction that, “Whatever happens is the best thing happening to me. So let it be.”

“Can You Float On a Cloud?”

Photo by Lauren

When Jeremy returned to work the next day after I arrived home, his co-workers asked with a mysterious curiosity, “So, what was she like?”

His reply was, “Well, there was this cloud, and she was floating on it.” And for a few seconds, they believed him with wide-eyes before he burst into laughter.

No, I can’t levitate yet, nor do I intend on seeking such things. However, additionally to the countless life lessons I received, the priceless experiences, the significantly reduced mental chatter, and an in-depth practical knowledge of yoga, I noticed some of the following:

Reduced sleep. No more than 5 hours a night is needed (usually between 4-5 hours will suffice). I wake up naturally at around 5am everyday without an alarm clock.
Understanding what someone needs before they speak to ask for it, even in a different language.
Fast, solid and clear decision making with no regrets.
Sharp focus on whatever I am doing. As a result, things get done very quickly.
Ability to shift my emotional state into a relaxed one almost instantly (within a few seconds).
Heightened awareness of myself, and my inner state. I could feel the birth of a new thought being formed (before it becomes a thought) and clearly seeing it rising out of me.
Lack of fear, worry or stress. I am pretty much relaxed most of the time, and when I am not for a brief moment, I could shift out of it almost instantly.
Increase in memory. I remember and recall things without my explicitly trying to memorize them.

Parting Words

Being in this spiritual incubator for nearly 3 months was the most exhilarating, profound, insightful, yet challenging (and at times uncomfortable) situation I’ve ever experienced.

I had come to the program with a deep desire to raise my own level of consciousness, to experience living enlightenment first hand, to transform myself such that I could integrate it into my life and to radiate it through my actions. With that as the measuring scale, the program was a success for me, and I am happy.

But sometimes, doing the right thing for ourselves come with sacrifices, even if we do not realize them at the time. In this case, the toughest bag was shouldered by Jeremy - who became my husband only 4 months prior to India. It was an unexpected, and unfair trade for him. For that, “I am grateful for you for putting my happiness above yours and hope that you could forgive me for being gone for so long.”

The challenges doesn’t end with the conclusion of the program, but merely just began as I stepped into the outside world. As I continue to work on myself, new and unexpected challenges are already being formed in front of me, once again my mental and emotional limits are being tested by the turbulence of life. But this time, I am no longer afraid. I surrender to life with open arms and an open heart.

For all the readers out there who have been waiting for articles in the last few weeks, I thank you for your understanding in my sporadic disappearance, and for continuously supporting me with your encouragement and readership.

If you enjoyed the article, please join TSN on facebook (add Tina here) or follow us on Twitter. And we’d love it if you can share this article on twitter, thumb it on StumbleUpon or bookmark it on del.icio.us. Thank you for your support. :)

* Share your thoughts and story with us in the comment section.
See you there!

Further Note:

For those curious to learn more about the living enlightened guru we affectionately call “Swamiji”, find out more on the foundation’s main website here. Or watch clips from his live talks on YouTube here (the playlists are very good).

Swamiji rarely comes to North America and will be in selected Canadian and US cities offering meditation intensives and free talks, between September 18 - November 8, 2009. I highly recommend them if you can make it. The schedule can be found here. Programs in India and Singapore can be found here.

I will be at the events in Toronto, Canada (09/20), Seattle (11/03 new date) and New York Area (10/30-11/01) and tentatively LA (11/07-11/08) for the NSP program I described above (Under “Inner Awakening”). If you do make it to any of the above, look for me and be sure to say hello; I’ll be likely be decked out in a sari, which when worn by a Chinese woman is a hard sight to miss, so you should find me easily.

Other Articles You May Enjoy:

External Resources:

Book: Living Enlightenment (Condensed version here)
Videos: Swamiji on YouTube

Time for a Retreat – Personal Update

Tina Su — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 15:05:57 +0000

By: Tina Su

(Update 07/08/2009: I’ve decided to extend my stay for two more months, and will be in India until September.)

For the next four weeks, I will be living in an ashram near Bangalore India. I will be attending a meditation and spiritual retreat called Inner Awakening that I have been anticipating for many months now.

It’s an opportunity to learn directly from an enlightened guru in a serene environment, along with several hundred other spiritual seekers from around the world.

I’ve decided not to bring my laptop or cell phone, and to fully emerse myself in the experience. Besides, a month without technology sounds like a really nice cleanse of its own.

During this time, no new articles will be published. However, there are a ton of articles published in the past that you may like, so check them out. I’ve also listed out my favorite articles at the end of this post.

Other TSN News

Think Simple Now articles are now available to be subscribed to on the Kindle for $0.99 a month. Support us and subscribe here (free 14 day trial)
I was mentioned in last month’s issue of Glamour magazine, US edition.
We were also mentioned as a case study for the book “Tell Me About Yourself“
Welcome Lisa, Scott and Ralph onto the TSN team.

For Your Curiosity

I get asked some common questions. And to satisfy some of your curiosity, here are some insights into my life.

Q: What is your religion? Are you Buddhist or something?

I do not belong to an organized religion. I am not a Buddhist or a Christian. However, I am also not an Atheist or an Agnostic.

My mother is a baptized Christian who connects with Buddhist teachings and my dad is a trans-denominational Catholic. Such was the environment during my formative years.

As a teenager, I was taught to experience the divine instead of trying to name it. I was taught to follow my heart. I was taught to live consciously and to always speak truthfully.

I am spiritual and am a seeker of Truth. I do not trust based on what I hear, or align to specific rules. My views are purely based on the experiences I’ve encountered and witnessed with my conscious awareness.

My view on the topic of religion is that there are many paths that lead to the same place. You may disagree, and that’s okay. Different teachings speak to different souls. Follow your heart.

Q: Tell me something about this retreat

The ashram is located by a small town called Bidadi, near Bangalore. We were recommended to bring seven changes of white colored, loose fitting, modest clothes. Realizing at the last minute that I did not have seven such garments, I rushed out this week and collected them (hard to find, by the way, in North America).

Each day starts at 6am and ends at 11:30pm. The morning starts with group yoga and meditation until 8am, followed with a concoction of meals, lessons, breaks, and various meditations.

The retreat I enrolled in is called Inner Awakening, and it lasts for 21 days. There is another program happening simultaneously at the ashram that lasts for 90 days, and I’m kicking myself a little for not having the foresight to plan for the latter instead. Oh well, perhaps next year. [update: after arriving, I’ve decided to enroll in the 90 day program]

Q: Why do you want to attend such a retreat?

There are many reasons, but the more direct answer is: It felt like the right thing to do. I also strongly feel that the retreat will teach me things, and give me the clarity and insight that will help me better serve this site, and future projects related to my personal purpose.

Q: Are you going with a friend or with your husband?

I will be going on my own. Jeremy will making sure TSN is up and running, and in charge of site administration while I’m gone.

Create Your Own Personal Retreat

While I am away, I want to make sure that you guys are taking care of yourselves, by creating time out of your week (or day) to connect with yourself, to love yourself, and to give thanks for the things you are grateful for.

If you want to experience a piece of what I am doing, consider doing one or more of the following ideas:

Cleansing Day - Take one day (a month or a week) off to spend with yourself. Spend the day on your own without the computer, phone, music players and tv (shut everything off). Spend the day communing with nature, going for walks, contemplating in your journal, and maybe reading inspirational things. Optionally, consider spending the day without speaking, unless you are addressed by another person.
Take a Meditation or Yoga Class - at the local gym or meet up. Many temples of various religions offer meditation classes for free. It doesn’t hurt to be open to it and experiment with them. When I first moved to Seattle, I would go to a local Tibetan Buddhist temple for this.
Moments of Stillness, Everyday - spend 10 minutes everyday with your eyes closed in silence. Start with some deep breaths and focus on your breath. Whenever thoughts come, just bring your focus back on your breathing. Extend it to longer than 10 minutes if you can. 21 minutes or more gives best results.
Write a Love Letter - to yourself, to another person, or to the Universe. The point of this, is practicing of gratitude, and realizing the abundance of goodness you have in your life.
Selfless Service - Do something for someone, or for some group of people without expecting anything in return, and don’t tell people that you did it (bragging that you did something counts as expecting something, and it no longer becomes selfless service).

Inspirational Reading - Read something that inspires you, and gives your inner space a sense of peaceful clarity. I highly recommend “The Power of Now” and “Living Enlightenment” (Here’s the shortened version of the book). I also really liked “The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari“. I have not read the following yet, but they are on my reading list for similar purposes:

My Favorite Articles

Okay, so selecting favorite articles for me, is like choosing a favorite child. Since I couldn’t pick just one, or even ten, I’ve just gone through the archives and selected ones that pulled at my heartstrings.

I’ve broken them up into categories best fitted for each article:

Motivation

Happiness - Part 1

Clarity

Happiness - Part 2

Productivity & Creativity

Relationships

Health

Eating Our Way to Death, Literally

By the time this post is published, I will be on my glorious 20-hour flight. I will not have Internet access until I return home in mid July. If you have questions or comments, I would appreciate it if you could leave them in the comment section of this post instead of emailing me. I will respond when I am back, in the meanwhile, others may comment on it as well.

Happy reading. Make sure to soak up the summer sun.
See you in four weeks!

How to Quiet Your Mind

Tina Su — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 19:22:22 +0000

Photo by Andrea D’Aquino (Germany)

By: Tina Su

Do you regularly feel at ease and at peace? Are you continuously overflowing with Joy and Bliss on a daily basis, such that you seem free of problems and emotional pain? If so, go directly to the comment section and share with us your secrets.

If you’re still reading, you are amongst the vast majority of us striving for a better life, yearning for a more peaceful and joyful existence. Yet, it seems like an impossible challenge, where we end up mentally punishing ourselves for failing, concluding that “I’m just not made to live in peace.”

You see, it’s not us, it’s just that we’ve become so easily distracted by the hurrying demands of modern life, that we’ve temporarily lost touch with our natural state of being. But there is a way, if we seek it.

The purpose of this article is to share a simple technique to bring more peace, joy and clarity into your life. Would you like that?

Why It’s Hard to Find Peace and Joy?

If you observe our problems, you will notice that most problems are rooted in the mind. The basic premise is the same: some external event happens, we choose to see only one side of the story, and then interpret the situation such that it causes some form of mental conflict, resulting in some form of emotional suffering.

While it is easy to simply say, “drop your problems”, you and I both know that it is not that simple. We all have had years and years of conditioning in attracting problems and conflicts. So much so, that the simple concept of ’stop thinking about problems’ will not be so effective on us. We need tools that strike at the problem’s root.

Let’s now try something. Close your eyes for about a minute (or 5 minutes), and during this minute, send out the intention that you want silence and stillness, and you do not want to be pulled away from this silence by thoughts. (Pause your reading and go do this.)

Okay, so what happened? You probably noticed that the moment you become silent, thoughts started popping up - random and unrelated thoughts. These thoughts become a form of distraction, pulling us away from our inner silence.

This was only an experiment where we consciously observed our mind and tried to become still, but could not. Imagine the state of our inner space, while we are going about our day, unaware of the polluting in-coming thoughts.

As a result, our inner space becomes cluttered with useless information, with thoughts that are not conducive to our wellbeing, with garbage. Because our inner space is cluttered, our inner clarity and in-born wisdom becomes distant and foggy. And essentially, we loose touch with that part of our inner selves that is sacred, and wise, and peaceful, and eternal.

The distractions that we’ve declared as urgent and important, such as watching TV, updating our facebook and myspace and twitter pages, checking email, gossiping on the phone, loading mp3s on our music players, etc. all pull at us. They all pull at our attention, distracting us away from the things that are truly important to us - things that will bring lasting happiness and fulfillment to our lives and the lives of others we have yet to come to know.

Whether we recognize it or not, the information that we expose ourselves to, fills our inner space on some level, and affects our emotions and desires.

And if we are not careful, we can easily rush through life, while spending our precious time on this planet focused on that which does not matter - and then wonder where did my life go? Why do I feel unsettled and easily irritated? Why do I feel unfulfilled and incomplete? And then we die wondering.

If you are here, breathing and reading this right now, then you have been blessed with this day, to wake up! Wake up and take control of your destiny, starting with what you focus on and allow into your life (regardless of your age).

Simple Guide to a Deep Inner Cleanse

One way to clean out the clutter in our inner space is by guarding the garden of our mind. Being conscious of what we allow inside, starting with our own words, thoughts and attention.

We may not be aware of this, but we spend so much energy on gossiping, bad mouthing other people, judging other people, finding faults in others, and consumed in negative thoughts like jealousy, guilt or fear, and making excuses to cover up how we actually feel. I know all this sounds really bad and exaggerated when it’s all laid out like this. But if we truly observe ourselves, our thoughts and our words, we will notice that at some point of everyday, however subtly or unconsciously, we are doing several of these things.

I’m not pointing fingers, I can only speak from my own experience and confirm that this is true. Sometimes, the “violation” is subtle, like passing a negative judgment on a waiter at a restaurant, or becoming frustrated with a telephone customer service rep and wanting to call him a bad name, or making a little lie of an excuse instead of saying no.

It’s not that by having these thoughts or saying these words we become bad people. It’s just that these things become useless junk that clutters our inner space and does not contribute to our inner wellbeing.

Photo by Carlos Yepez (see him on flickr).

I had learned the following simple but incredibly effective technique from Swami Nithya Bhaktananda, spiritual counselor and direct disciple of Paramahamsa Nithyananda (Swamiji).

Follow these four rules to inner cleanse:

Say what you mean. Mean what you say.
Don’t say to anyone unless you can say to everyone.
Don’t say inside, what you cannot say outside.
Don’t say unless it is true, useful or kind.

I will expand on each rule in detail. If you want, you can print a wallet size of the 4 rules here: PDF | Word Doc

1. Say what you mean. Mean what you say.

Part A: Say what you mean.

Have you found yourself making up excuses to avoid fully dealing with a potentially uncomfortable situation?

For example, your friend asks you to some social event. You don’t really want to go, but make up an excuse that “I can’t make it” or “I’m busy“, probably so you can quietly avoid something or someone or some activity.

Another example, someone asks you for a favor that you do not wish to comply to, but you feel guilty for rejecting him, so you either avoid that person (ie. Ignoring emails or phone calls), or create an excuse that isn’t really true (ie. I am out of town.)

It is not that you cannot do something, as your excuse suggests. The truth is that you have chosen not to do something, but the act of creating an excuse or avoiding it initiates a stir in your inner space, and it takes energy to maintain. Instead of stillness and peace, you are now holding onto and thinking about this little lingering “lie”.

When you are about to say anything, make a conscious decision to say the absolute truth, or what you actually mean. The absolute truth doesn’t have to be harsh or hurtful, you can do so compassionately and authentically, but firmly. When you own what you say, no one can reject it, even if they don’t like what they hear; because you are telling the truth and you mean it.

Part B: Mean what you say.

Sometimes we say things in passing out of obligation or habit that we don’t mean or intend on following through with. For example, we say, “I love you” to our parents or significant other when we hang up the phone, not because we mean it, but out of habit. The words comes so automatically now, that they start to lose their true meaning.

In another example, we will say, “I’ll call you soon“, “let’s chat soon“, or “I’ll call you tomorrow“. Or we offer to help, as parting words to a friend, and don’t intend on keeping that statement, but say it because it was easy and made the other person feel good.

We may think that these casual comments are harmless, but we know deep down that they are not true. They become little lies that we internalize, and over time they will develop into a guilty conscience that distracts you away from this moment.

Make a conscious commitment to yourself to mean everything that you say, and not to make empty promises that you cannot, will not, do not intend to fulfill.

2. Don’t say to anyone unless you can say to everyone.

Whether we admit to this or not, most of us love some form of gossiping (myself included). We are also quick to notice fault in others, and then talk about them with our trusted allies. Or we find out about someone’s misfortune and immediately we want to tell somebody.

I’m sure you can interject and include many examples from your life. But for sake of conversation, one example is: Jenny, at work, had an emotional fit and yelled at a co-worker today, and when we got home, we immediately told our spouse about the drama.

Another example, Pat was fired from his job, once we heard about it, we called or text-messaged our best friend Jane to tell her about it, or even exchange jokes about Pat, because we don’t like him.

In both examples, we cannot repeat the same things to everyone, especially Jenny or Pat. And if we really observed our inner space during and after we said these things, we wouldn’t feel very good in our stomach.

When we consciously observe such a conversation, we learn that we have accomplished nothing that feeds our soul. All we did was spread drama and created negative energy and inner conflict that polluted our inner space.

Make a commitment to yourself, that you will not say something to one person, unless you can announce it to the world, to everybody. Make a commitment to stop the spreading of drama and bad energy.

3. Don’t say inside, what you cannot say outside.

Most of us are extremely critical of ourselves. Because we would never tell the world what we say to ourselves, in the privacy of our mind, we believe that we are the only ones affected by negative self-talk, low self-esteem, and anxiety.

When something doesn’t go perfectly, we are first to blame ourselves, criticizing what we did wrong, what we didn’t do perfect enough, what we missed.

We all have inner chattering, but problems arise when we start to believe in our inner chattering, such that false beliefs about ourselves are formed. These false beliefs become detrimental to our spirits and future wellbeing, unless we do something to unlearn these beliefs.

Next time, you hear the voice in your head say “I’m stupid” or “I’m not good enough” or “I am a failure” or other related self-defeating thoughts, recognize that it is not you. You could verbally say, “That’s not me! That’s not true!” and even declare the following to this thought,

“From today forward, I choose to let you go, for you are no longer serving me. I am exposing you, for you are not real! From today onward, I am free from you.“

The basic premise of the third rule to inner cleanse is that, whatever thought you are not able to say out aloud to people (anyone), don’t even bother entertaining inside your head. Keep your inner space clean.

4. Don’t say unless it is true, useful or kind.

Some people have so much inner chatter that it spills out of them in the form of useless speech.

Observe the people who talk on buses, or love to chitchat at work by the water fountain. If you observe and count the number of things they say that are actually useful or truly interesting, it would be a low number.

Not only is this distracting for those around this person, it takes an enormous amount of energy for this person to keep talking. Recall the last time you talked for a long time about something random, and how drained you felt afterwards. Plus, the more useless things we say, the more useless things we feed back into our head.

If you feel that I’ve described you, don’t feel discouraged. I’ve been there too, and can contest that it is possible to quiet down.

Some people practice sabbatical days where they don’t speak at all, or read, or use the computer. And at the end of such a day, they feel a tremendous sense of peace, space and energy bubbling inside them.

Be conscious of what you say and only say it if any of the following is true:

Is what I’m saying …

True to me? An authentic statement from my heart?
Useful or helpful to someone or some situation?
Kind or compassionate? Such as a compliment, or an offer of help?

Parting Words

This post was born out of 4 simple sentences someone gave me a few months ago. After practicing it in my own life, I’ve come to the conclusion that if you give this simple 4-line guidance a try for 21 days, you will notice a beautiful inner transformation - from noise to stillness, from chaos to clarity.

It may seem difficult at first, but do it consistently and consciously for 3 days and it becomes much easier after that. Extend it to 7 days, and then to 21 days. Please do not kick yourself for slipping on the rules, it happens, let it go.

After some time, observe how your outer world changes, as your inner world is transformed. Please come back and share with us.

One more thing: Let your heart guide you. Trust it, and listen to it.

(Again, you can print a wallet size of the 4 rules here: PDF | Doc)

* Share your thoughts and story with us in the comment section.
See you there!

Other Articles You May Enjoy:

External Resources:

Book: Living Enlightenment (Condensed version)
Book: The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari
Book: The Power of Now

Overcoming a Rough Week

Ralph Jean-Paul — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 15:59:10 +0000

Photo by Carlos Yepez (flickr stream).

By Ralph Jean-Paul

We all have bad days, but have you ever had one of those weeks when it seems everything is going wrong?

Monday, your alarm didn’t ring and you were late for work. Tuesday, your car broke down. Wednesday you lost your credit card. Thursday was your annual review and your employer informed you that, due to the economy, the company is not issuing raises this year. By the time Friday arrives and you can see the light at the end of the tunnel, you get a ticket for speeding. How do we handle a series of setbacks and bad news?

I recently had one of those weeks where it seemed that anything that could go wrong - did go wrong. The natural reaction most people have when the walls begin crumbling is to crumble right along with them.

I have developed a habit of not letting outside circumstances consume me. I have learned in the past that the events in your life do not determine the course of your life. Rather, it is your reaction to those events that will determine the quality of your life, and your life direction. In other words, it’s not what happens to you, it’s how you react to what happens to you.

Most of us can experience certain negative events and dismiss them. But when negative events seem to happen simultaneously - as they often do - they feel suffocating and impossible to overcome. This is when thoughts of giving in to that feeling of helplessness seem to evade the mind.

With the state of the economy and many people losing their jobs and homes, many of us feel powerless. But the truth is that there are many things we can do to help us cope with, and even change a bad situation.

My Story: “Did I Break a Mirror?”

I rolled out of bed Monday morning expecting my first week back at work to be a continuation of my everyday life. I had enjoyed my vacation week, but now, it was back to work. I spent the vacation reconnecting with friends, relaxing, and celebrating my 30th Birthday. I was refreshed and ready for a productive and fulfilling week.

I had a feeling that my week was going to be challenging when I opened my email on Monday and read that one of my employees will be out for a week; meaning that time sensitive assignments would not be completed until she got back. Also, because technical issues prevented me from updating my blog, my web traffic took a nose dive. Things began to get worse from there.

At the monthly staff meeting, we were asked to be patient during our merger with another company. We were also told to be prepared for some changes. We knew that “be patient” meant they didn’t know what was going on, and “changes” meant people were going to lose their jobs.

On top of that, a potential business partner suddenly stopped returning my emails. More bad news followed. A good friend and one of the nicest people I know, was moving out of the country.

To add insult to injury, someone dented the passenger side door on my car, my Blackberry started malfunctioning, and NBC cancelled My Name is Earl. All of this happened in one week!

“Did I break a mirror or offend a leprechaun last week?”, I thought.

After a brief pity party, I came to my senses and decided not to let those events determine my quality of life. I developed a plan to bounce back and regain control over my life.

Why We Must Bounce Back

There’s power in the overcoming of obstacles. Knowing that you have the ability to recover and survive the trials and tribulations of life, is a redemptive feeling. We must realize that we do not have to be victims of things that are happening around us. We are more likely to take more risk and act with courage tomorrow, if we are able to conquer the conditions of today.

Letting our circumstances consume us can lead to a false view of our life experience. Some who are unable to recover from the trying times of their lives begin to develop negative beliefs. I’ve heard people say “God just has it in for me” or “I’m just unlucky“. This mindset renders us helpless and unable to act in a way that changes our circumstances.

Being unable to cope with life’s obstacles can also affect our health. Depression and alcoholism can many times be rooted in a person’s inability to deal with the outside world. Since the outside world seems to deal multiple crushing blows, one after another, they look for an escape or close themselves off from the outside world.

Our relationships suffer also if we are unable to bounce back. We tend to isolate ourselves from the people around us. Some people carry anger and resentment inside and it reflects in their everyday dealings with people. I’m sure you’ve run it to a person who seems to be mad at the world all of the time. For these reasons and many more, it is important that we begin to face and conquer life’s tough conditions.

Bouncing Back

1. Find your foundation

The life we live should stand on a solid foundation. The mistake that many people make is to value their life based upon their possessions or social status. You are more than what you own, you are more than your worldly titles. For some people, it is their spiritual faith, or creative passion, or a strong relationship with family and friends that serves as the foundation for their life.

Finding your foundation means rediscovering the things that are truly important to you; the things that make your life worth living. You may have a passion for music or art. Use your current hardship to rediscover what drives you. Use those expressions of yourself to remind you that life can be enjoyable.

2. The Ant Philosophy

In some of his speeches, author Jim Rohn often talks about the ant philosophy. Ants are remarkably persistent. If an ant is on its way somewhere, and you place your thumb in its path, the ant instinctively tries to find another way. The ant will try to go over, around, and sometimes through any obstacle. Giving up is never an option.

Have you ever seen an ant come across an obstacle, stop and quit as to say, “Why are things always getting in my way”? Instead, the ant believes that there is a way to continue on the path and it works until it finds it.

When things get tough in our lives, we have to adopt the ant philosophy. Instead of feeling sorry for ourselves, and letting the obstacle win, we must attempt to find another way to get on the right path. We must be persistent until we reach our destination.

3. Verbalize It

Humans were not designed to be isolated. We need each other in so many ways. One of the major mistakes that I made when everything seemed to be going wrong was I began to isolate myself and suppressed my problems. I thought that if I threw myself into my work, eventually I would feel better. That may help to improve some circumstances, but I still felt a bit weighed down by everything that has happening.

During the week, a friend called me and asked, “How’s everything?“

“Everything is stupid!” I responded, unable to fully articulate my frustration.

He laughed knowing that I had been having a tough week. After talking for a few minutes, I realized how good it felt to verbalize how frustrated I was with how my week was going. I’m not one to dump my problems on other people, but I learned that sometimes it is better to express it in words than hold on to it.

4. Wake Up Call

“Every adversity, every failure, every heartache
carries with it the seed on an equal or greater benefit“
~Napoleon Hill

Sometimes, it is the painful or frustrating circumstances that trigger us to learn and make positive changes in our lives. With one of my employees suddenly being out, I found major flaws in the way I managed my team. Even the way I distributed assignments left room for disastrous results in the event that one person was unable to work. During this week, I recognized and fixed several problems with my management system, which I would not have done otherwise.

During this week, I was reminded that that my day job may be in danger, this triggered me to review how I could recover from potential economic setbacks. It had been about 7 months since I reviewed my recovery plan. I realized that many things had changed with my monthly income and expenses, and it was time to revise the plan.

5. Dwell on the Good

For some strange reason, our minds tend to dwell on the negative things. That is one reason the news media usually broadcasts bad news; they know that negative happenings draw more ratings and attention.

Last year, at a gathering, I met two women who worked for the local news station as reporters. When we were being introduced, I confessed that I didn’t recognize them because I don’t watch the news. To my surprise, one of them responded, “Good, it’s all bad news“.

Even though it seemed as though my life was filled with the negative, there were many good things that happened. For example, I attended a banquet where I got to see some old friends who I miss. Also, someone gave me a certificate for a free massage at a local spa. But instead of being thankful for the good things, I made the mistake of choosing to see and dwelling on the bad.

We should take the time to be thankful and dwell on the good things that come into our lives, however small or intangible they may seem. I sat down and created a list of all the things I appreciated from the week, all the happenings that I enjoyed and all the non-tangible gifts I’d received. The list helped me put things in perspective. It also reminded me that the good times will return; in fact, they’re already here, if we choose to look for them.

Learn from the Seasons

Yes, the good times will return. Most failures and obstacles are temporary but feel as though they are going to last forever. We must be subscribers to the fact that, just like seasons, bad times come and go.

Good things will eventually happen again and good things may come from your bad experience, if you choose to see them. A possible benefit to your hardship may be the potential opportunity to help someone else through their trials. It is hard to see the possible good when you are in the thick of it, but all storms must come to an end.

Spring is often called the season of opportunity and it conveniently comes after winter which is known for being harsh and desolate. The tough times will pass and in their place will be growth, and potential for great things to happen.

So, how was your week?

* Tell us about what you’ve learned through your week? Share your thoughts and stories with us in the comment section. See you there.

If you enjoyed the article, please join Think Simple Now on facebook or follow us on Twitter. And we’d love it if you can share this article on twitter, thumb it on StumbleUpon or bookmark it on del.icio.us. Thank you for your support. :)

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Personal Change You Can Measure

Scott Young — Thu, 28 May 2009 16:37:51 +0000

By Scott Young

As we approach mid-year, are there any goals you had set at the start of this year that you want to make progress on? Here is a simple tool that can help you in becoming more productive and effective.

There is an old business adage, “what is measured, improves.” I believe that lesson applies, to not just your business, but also your life. If you measure something, you gain conscious awareness of it. If you gain conscious awareness, you increase your ability to control it.

Today is the third day of a week-long diet log I’m running. My diet log is simply recording everything that I eat for an entire week. Recently, I set a few fitness goals, and I wanted to ensure that my eating habits were matching my plan of action.

I measure more than just what I eat. I record personal expenses, how I use my time, what books I read and many other personal metrics. This may seem a tad obsessive, but I’ve found it greatly helps me in staying productive and reaching my goals. Besides, a little obsessiveness isn’t always a bad thing when it comes to reaching your personal targets.

Why Measure?

Reaching your goals is a delicate surgery. Now, would you like to do that surgery with a scalpel or a baseball bat? Measurement adds precision to your goal-setting efforts, and helps you see whether your efforts are on target.

The biggest reason to measure frequently is that people (which includes you and me) are self-delusional. The vast majority of car drivers believe their driving skills are above average. And if pressed in a survey, most people believe they are better looking than average. I’d also wager that, if you don’t measure, you probably underestimate how much you eat, what you spend money on and how much time you waste in a day.

These biases are unavoidable. The only cure is actually recording what you do to see if your mental picture measures up to reality. Personal metrics are an escape from the carnival house mirrors that twist and distort your life.

Another reason to measure is feedback. Feedback is incredibly important for growth. Some authors note that surgeons tend to improve more over the lifetime of their careers than do general practitioners. The reason is that surgeons have access to immediate feedback for every decision, which enhances their skill. Whereas, the general practitioners must wait weeks or months before receiving feedback on whether a diagnosis was correct.

By measuring, you gain access to more immediate feedback. Is your new diet working? You can find out whether you’re eating too many calories on a daily basis, rather than waiting a month or two to see if the pounds shed away. Is your new routine successful? A daily time log and productivity analysis can help you measure your output per hour of work.

Immediate feedback allows you to make quick corrections. I’m conducting a diet log so that I can see, with relative accuracy, whether my current eating habits are in line with my goals. Without doing a log, I can only guess and hope. That’s the difference between using a scalpel and a baseball bat to reach your goals.

Isn’t Measuring Time Consuming?

Instead of that question, I pose an alternative question: “Isn’t sloppily reaching your goals, time consuming?“

Still, I suspect many people are hesitant to jump into the deep end of personal metrics because it becomes one more thing they need to do each day. The good news, however, is that this really isn’t necessary. There are two ways you can add more regular measurement to your life without it becoming a distraction.

1. Habitual Measuring

The first way to make measurement painless is simply to create a habit. If you measure something frequently, you won’t even think about it. It will become a part of your routine. I recommend this approach when pursuing longer goals, where the measurement isn’t too intensive.

For example, I am currently in the habit of writing down all of my expenses. For the first few weeks, this required deliberate effort. However, after over a year, I barely think about the habit and it consumes only a few minutes each day.

For those few minutes, I get precise information about how much money I’m spending and where the money is going. This helps me be smart when using my money instead of simply being cheap. I can see where my largest controlled expenditures are, and see whether these match my goals. For about an hour over the span of one month, I greatly increase my success with my personal savings goals.

2. Burst Measuring

The other approach to personal metrics is to record detailed information for a few days or a week. The total time commitment is negligible, and it can give you a lot of information when you’re trying out a new plan.

My week-long diet log is an example of this. I’m recording everything I eat for one week. This is too much detail and sorting to carry on permanently, but it’s fine to run for just seven days.

I like to regularly record myself for various metrics: food, time consumed, productivity, etc. Each time I record, I learn valuable information that allows me to make corrections into the future.

Time-logging

One way to get started is to keep a record of when you start or stop any activity throughout the day. Optionally, to simplify things, you may only want to record the time from when you wake up until you finish your daily goals, completing your workday.

To do this, keep an index card and a pen with you at all times. Every time you switch tasks, even something like going onto the Internet during work or using the bathroom, make a quick note of it on your index card. Afterwards, you can enter the data into a spreadsheet and sort it into categories.

There are two interesting findings I see whenever I do a time log:

The number of interruptions
The amount of time spent on each activity

Interruptions

When I first started time logs several years ago, the first point that became obvious was the number of times I interrupt myself when working. A phone would ring, or I’d use the washroom. In some cases, the interruptions would be a few per hour.

I don’t need to explain to you the problem of frequent interruptions. Interruptions break your concentration, lengthening the amount of time you need to work. I love my work, but I don’t want to spend eight hours to accomplish a task that should only take three. Interruptions are a major cause of this.

But, unless you get some data regarding the amount of interruptions you face, it’s hopeless. Recording metrics can help you identify not only how much time is wasted from constant interruptions, but also what causes those interruptions. Knowledge gives you the power to fix those problems.

Time Allocation

Generally, if I do a time log, I will record the time spent on every activity of the day. This allows me to see where I actually spend my time. When I started doing this, I didn’t like what I saw.

I started to realize that the chunks of time I spent on mindless entertainment far outweighed the amount of time I spent on the things that matter most to me. I also realized that the things that added the most value to my wellbeing, didn’t really take that much time at all.

Time logging can be a reality check for many people because it forces you to acknowledge that you don’t spend your time in the way you’d like. But, with that awareness comes the power to experiment with new changes. With better knowledge of my time usages, I had more time for new activities like joining Toastmasters, learning to salsa and reading more books.

Diet-logging

Another personal metric to record is what you eat. This is a big source of self-delusion. Is that donut you ate a one-time treat, or actually a fairly regular habit? If you’re trying to gain muscle, are you eating enough clean calories and protein to reach that goal?

Even if you consider yourself in good shape and want a healthy lifestyle, diet logging is a good idea. It allows you to place a benchmark for your eating habits, to know whether or not you are living up to the standards you would like for yourself.

I don’t like to be too obsessive about what I eat. I want to eat tasty foods and not worry about number crunching every calorie or snack. I’m not suggesting you start to mash up and weigh everything before you consume it. Eating is not just about nutrition. It is also about enjoyment, socializing and experiences.

Recording what you eat doesn’t have to remove the gustatory pleasure you get from food. All it does is open up the option for you to improve the way you eat. If you have a fitness goal, this may be in changing what you eat to reach it. If you simply strive for healthy living, this will shine a light on your eating habits to see whether your menu is delicious and healthy, or simply fast junk.

Here are a few things you can do with the knowledge gained from recording a temporary diet log:

Reduce/increase calories. Do you need to eat 1800 calories a day to meet your health goal, then a diet log will quickly tell you whether you are going to reach it.
Change the types of food. See a lot of processed foods, fast food and junk food on your list? A diet log can expose your broader eating habits so you can make a shift.
Increase the variety of foods. Record for a week and see how frequently you eat the same meal. Life is meant to be an exploration so maybe you should broaden your menu?
Change the timing of when you eat. If you make a note of the time along with what you eat, you can see whether you are eating multiple small meals or one huge meal. Your blood sugar has a huge impact on your energy levels, so if you see large gaps or spikes of processed carbohydrates, that may help explain your fatigue levels in patches of the day.

Parting Words

Time, food and money are three ways you can become more conscious about your life, but there are many others. What you do depends on the goals you have and what you want to improve.

“What is measured, improves,” works in business because it focuses your attention on a key issue. When I measure statistics for my website or sales conversions, I’m gaining immediate feedback on all my improvement efforts.

Recording your personal metrics works the same way. By allowing unbiased, immediate feedback you can see any change of plan ripple into your measurements. If you’re going to spend hundreds of hours on a project or goal, why not spend a few minutes to see whether those hundreds of hours are being put to a good use?

** Which goals or areas in your life could benefit from being tracked on a regular bases? Any other productivity tips that help you stay on track? Share your thoughts and stories with us in the comment section. See you there!

Editor’s Comment: I (Tina) track many life goals using simple logs and free online tools. In one example, I wanted to develop a spiritual routine that included rising at 5am, meditation, reading, contemplation and yoga, so I keep a simple chart in a notebook, where I record my progress for each day. When I’ve completed each of the activities, I would check it off for the day. The chart/log/table allows me to quickly see an overview of my progress, where I am at, and each checkmark builds momentum that encourages me to keep going. Overtime, the activities becomes habits. I keep similar logs for managing our personal and professional spending (using mint.com and google docs), and various metrics for this site; Both, I create and review at the end of every month. It’s true what they say, “What gets measured, gets managed, and thus improved.”

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How to End Suffering

Tina Su — Thu, 14 May 2009 16:49:24 +0000

By Tina Su

“While pain might be inevitable,
the suffering that comes from the pain is not.
Suffering is not a state of life, it is a state of mind.
Suffering is your response to an event.
Whether you suffer or not depends
entirely on your reaction to that situation.”
~ Paramahamsa Nithyananda (Swamiji)

Today, I will get (more) personal.

I’ve debated about whether or not to share this information in a post. It was a quiet battle between keeping my personal life somewhat private, and the intense desire to share the lessons from this important chapter of my life. In sharing, I’ve surrendered to my fear of being judged negatively by you - readers of Think Simple Now.

My husband Jeremy was married once before. During the early stages of our romantic courtship, he was simultaneously battling the lingering ends of an unsettling divorce (things got ugly and someday I hope to share the details of this tale with you - perhaps in a book). Suffice it to say, it felt like it was never going to end.

For about six months, my inner stillness was disturbed and stirred up by the negative feelings revolving around this event. My “pain body” came crawling out in full, front-and-center view, and stayed with me while causing unnecessary suffering.

Even when his divorce was finally over, I didn’t feel much better. The feelings of resentment and hate (however subtly in my subconscious) for his ex-wife remained for another three months after the fact - until two weeks ago to be exact.

This article isn’t about forgiveness or complaining about my own self-inflicted pains, but it is about personal freedom. The kind of freedom from the massive mountain of stories we’ve piled onto ourselves that result in suffering.

Are you experiencing anything that is causing you worry, heartache, resentment or stress? If so, continue to read and allow me to share the story of my new found freedom… and how I got there.

Personal Story

For the first six months, amongst the ecstasy of finding the mate to my soul, and the joy of deeply connecting with another human being, there was a part of me that felt a tremendous amount of pain.

As excited as we were for having found each other under extreme circumstances, the pending divorce hovered overhead, and a battle for money and properties continued without an apparent end in sight.

Part of me felt as if I was living under water - unable to breath - suffocating. An imaginary dark cloud hung over me, and it seemed to never leave. Even when I pretended that it didn’t exist, whenever I looked up, there it was, that dark piece of sky, high above my head.

Finally, six months later, the divorce was finalized, after Jeremy decidedly gave in, so as to quickly end the prolonged cycle of destruction and suffering.

Well, for me, the pain didn’t end there. From my perspective, here was a grown man who’d left an unfulfilling marriage, and lost nearly everything he had ever earned in his ten years as a working professional.

Here was a man who I loved and adored more than anything else. When I saw that he was being hurt, it hurt me too. The spirit of mother in me, of survival, wanted to protect and fight anyone threatening to hurt my family. I was like a walking cave-woman, minus the animal-skin skirt and wooden club.

To say that I was unwell and unbalanced is an understatement.

The Last Episode

Over the past few months, I have worked diligently at overcoming these negative emotions and associations. Through observing myself in dealing with the repercussions of this event, I have written about surrendering to pain, and ways to overcome resentment, and thought that I was over it…. until two weeks ago.

I have come to learn, that sometimes, change happen in stages. With each interval of self-initiated suffering, I’ve gained a new found understanding about myself, and am better able to get a grasp on my emotions.

Two weeks ago, being the appointed money manager for our household, I started mapping out our finances, and linking our individual accounts to financial planning software.

After several hours of generating reports, creating spreadsheets, consolidating accounts, and running numbers, I was exhausted and should have stopped working. But insisted on linking the last of Jeremy’s accounts. To my surprise, his employee stock portfolio had a balance of zero. After some clarification, I realized that he had lost the balance in the divorce settlement.

Suddenly, all those negative emotions I’d felt towards his ex came rushing back. I had allowed the cave-woman in me to take over once again, and I raged feverishly in madness - well, not literally, but emotionally and figuratively speaking.

I was upset! Justifications of why this was unfair appeared vividly in front of me. I allowed the stories of ‘reasoning’ and justifications to be repeated, and I ended up feeling worst. It was a negative downward cycle.

My months of practiced Zen-ness went flying out the window, and I had allowed my ego to over take over my bodily and emotional control. My stomach was tight, I felt unconsciously unaware, and I experienced a tremendous amount of pain. It was horrible.

Rising From the Last Episode

Photo: Simón Pais-Thomas

“The question is not how to change ugliness into beauty,
pain into pleasure, or misery into happiness.
The question is how to change the unconscious into conscious,
how to infuse awareness into ourselves and embrace reality as it is“
~ Paramahamsa Nithyananda (Swamiji)

Like standing in quick sand, I felt myself sinking down. I wanted to overcome this, but something was pulling me down in my inner battle with my ego. I wanted the pain to end, yet part of me silently enjoyed and nurtured the pain, and wanted it to prevail. In the most extreme of moments, I felt that I was on the edge of despair.

The pivotal point came when I realized that my own pain had started to disturb the peace and joy of those living around me. Jeremy in his own expression of courage, embraced me in the worst of my emotional states, sat me down, looked deeply into my eyes and said the following:

You are so powerful. You can use your persistence and strength to get yourself out of this state.
You’ve worked so hard to learn how to handle these situations, now is that critical time to apply what you’ve learned. Now is the opportunity to set yourself free.
There is nothing I can do now to change the past. It is what it is. Everything happens the way they happen, remember?
Babes, why are you creating this pain for yourself?

His words were like water for my thirsty soul, re-grounding me, re-entering me, reminding me to bring awareness into the situation, to take conscious control of my actions by observing my mind with detachment.

I knew he was right, but part of me wanted to say, “No thanks, you’re wrong.”

I felt an inner resistance in me, wanting to justify my unconscious actions and self-torture.

To answer his question, “Why are you creating this pain for yourself?”, I replied, “Because it feels good. It satisfies my ego’s need to attach itself to problems. But deep inside, it doesn’t feel very good. My stomach feels tight.”

Part of my mind was still latched onto the unfairness of money lost, and clung onto that story with a tight grip. And then, it happened, Jeremy said the last sentence that finally unleashed the chain I had created in my mind.

He said, “I would pay a million, a billion dollars to be with you. I think about you throughout the day, and can’t wait to get home, every day. I love our family. I love our life together. What we have here is priceless. Why aren’t we spending our precious time on being together and celebrating our love? Instead, we are digging up and reliving the past.”

These final words shattered the last of the stories conjured up in my mind. I saw, once again the reality of the situation, and it became clear that I was latched on to the past, a fictitious past beyond my control that was causing me varying levels of fruitless suffering.

So stupid, I felt. Yet, I had learned an important lesson about pain and suffering on my journey to inner enlightenment and personal growth. In the end, it wasn’t stupidity, you see… I was simply unconscious.

I spent the rest of the evening journaling, sorting out my thoughts, extracting what I had learned, viewing it from multiple perspectives and giving the story my full awareness. After a few hours of introspective contemplation, I had spread over the pages of my journal, a clear view of the situation for what it is. I can fully accept the past for what it is, and recognize the gem within it.

The evening ended with me being in a deep state of gratitude, for having experienced this these past months, and thankful for Jeremy’s ex-wife - among other things, for being the catalyst to help me learn important things about myself.

Specifically, I had thanked her for being my teacher in disguise, her presence challenged me and pushed my emotional boundaries to limits I hadn’t known before. I wish her joy, laughter and love.

My head is finally out of the water, and I can breathe again.

Another Way of Looking at Pain

“Whether physical or emotional,
Pain is always born from resistance to the present moment.
It hurts because you carry the memory of the past.”
~ Paramahamsa Nithyananda (Swamiji)

Socially, we’ve been conditioned to believe that emotional pain is bad, and that we should get rid of it at all cost. But what we often end up doing is suppressing it by pretending that it does not exist. We shuffle it under the bed, where others cannot see it, and go on pretending to the outside world that we have no pain.

My personal experience has been; that which we resist, persists. The more we suppress something, the more it will stick around, and affect our emotional wellbeing in the long run. Pretending that it does not exist does not make it go away, it just prolongs the pain for us.

Consider this: What if we treated pain as our friend, instead of our foe? What if we embraced pain, instead of continuously pushing it away? What if we viewed it as our teacher, instead of constantly avoiding it?

The biggest take away I learned is that pain can be a phenomenal teacher on our path to inner fulfillment. There is always something to be learned from every “painful” situation, always something to be discovered about ourselves. What if we just focused on the lessons, and simply move on, without wasting any energy on stabbing ourselves with suffering that solves nothing?

Another way to think about it, without extremely painful moments, we would never feel motivated to change, to better ourselves, to become the person we were destined to become, and to taste the nectar of life that is our birth right.

Think of all the major personal growth changes and shifts you’ve made in your life, were they not inspired by some painful episode that preceded it? Perhaps a painful breakup that taught you about self-love and strength, a rough period of financial instability that taught you about courage and the power of persistence, a period of painful depression that taught you about the miracles of love and possibility.

Pause for a moment, and answer these questions (on paper, please):

What painful episodes did you experience in your life that triggered profound personal change?
What did you learn or gain from this period that you are thankful for today?

Lessons Learned

Things I’ve learned (and re-learned) are:

Our thoughts create our reality. Our reality is conjured up by the stories we tell ourselves and others. What we think and talk about becomes our center of focus, and we miss seeing all the good things happening in our lives.
Constantly repeating the same thoughts causes us to believe in them, even if they were completely made up in our minds.
Suppressing the pain does not eliminate the pain.
Suffering is a choice, and happens when we cannot relinquish the past. The past is not real, it is only in the vivid imagination of our minds. Stop torturing youself, and surrender to the past. “It is what it is, and so be it.” Choose to liberate yourself, right now!
Pain can be a great teacher. Be thankful for it, and learn as much as you can.
Emotional pain is always the result of our attachment to our own perspectives. Our ego stubbornly sticks to one side of the story, and repeats this story in our head on a continuous loop - sooner or later, we start to believe it as reality. But it is not THE reality, it is just our reality, and one of many other possible “realities”. Have courage to view the other possible perspectives, and developing compassion for the other “sides” will help to bring peace and eliminate our own pain.
Ego loves pain and problems. It specifically looks for them when we are not conscious. Because those are the only things that can ensure its survival. Explode your ego, by shining the light of awareness on it. With awareness, we see that the story it has created is silly, unrealistic and unhelpful.
I had learned the influential power of the mind. When we drift away from conscious awareness, even for one day, how easy it was to be yanked away from the blissful and peaceful state we were in just a day prior. I must prioritize my day to do things that nurture my soul before anything else.
When I am feeling bad, my mind looks for more reasons to feel agitated, and I end up feeling worst.

Simple Solutions: What Can You Do?

Photo: Vadim Pacev

“If you become aware of something, you can get rid of it very easily.
If you are not aware of it, It remains with you.
The pain is a pain because it exists in your unconscious, not in your awareness.
Your fear of facing the pain allows it to exist and grow more and more.”
~ Paramahamsa Nithyananda (Swamiji)

I’m sure that the story I’ve described in this post is an uncommon one that you will (hopefully) not encounter. However, what was learned through this can also be applicable to other kinds of emotional pain that we all face in our daily existence.

Here, I will note a few pointers that you may find helpful for tackling your own brand of pain.

1. Awareness

This is the key to overcoming any kind of emotional pain. As the beautiful quote above summarized so eloquently, have the courage to face your pain and problems square in the face. Become the observer, watch how the pain manifests in your body, fully feel the feelings of its sensations, fully experience the pain.

When you finally surrender and allow the “pain” to flow through you, you will see that you are not harmed, but that a new space is created in you for healing and learning. When you fully experience it and accept it for what it is, it will no longer have power over you.

Imagine your inner space as a physical container, if you continue to resist the “pain”, it remains in your container and will even expand itself. It will come back to haunt you until you can fully accept it. Isn’t it true that the past keeps repeating itself, until we learn the lesson and move on?

When your container is filled up, there is no space for anything else to enter, including energy for healing, for change, for growth. When you face the pain, and fully accept it for what it is, the “pain” gets released from this container, and new space is created. By doing so, you also expand your capacity for love, personal growth and compassion.

From now on, whenever you find yourself feeling the pain sensation, stop what you’re doing, close your eyes and become the witness of the experience. Watch as you inner space transforms. Don’t let this moment pass, stop the suffering before it grows out of hand.

2. Journaling

Writing down your candid, honest thoughts can be deeply therapeutic, not just as a tool for healing, but a tool for discovering and understanding yourself.

When you are upset, start by writing anything that is in your mind, even if it doesn’t make sense. Get it out of your head! Write in detail what is upsetting you.

Once you get the negative thoughts out of your head, start asking yourself critical questions and answer them candidly (on paper, without editing). Here are some to get you started:

What is triggering this pain?
Why am I feeling this pain?
What do I gain by allowing myself to suffer? What does that get me? Why do I want that?
Is the person you blame physically and purposely causing me pain? Or have I created a story and put them in the blame seat?
Do I want this pain to continue? Yes? No? Why?
Why does part of me want this pain? What does it get me?
What am I missing out on by allowing this suffering to take place?
What will I gain if I am free from this suffering?
Why am I not accepting of it? What am I afraid of? What am I holding on to?
Am I focused on the past or present? If the past, what can I change about the past by allowing myself to be upset?
Who else are you hurting by allowing this pain to linger?

You can gain a lot of insight through this exercise. Start with these questions, and write freely, allow your inner wisdom and conscious awareness to guide you through the process to gain clarity.

3. Gather the Lessons

You’ve been given a great gift through the present challenge in your life. And what we once labeled as pain is actually a priceless experience to bring up some deeply buried issues within us. Now that it’s out in the open, we can deal with it and remove it completely.

In your journal, list out all the things that you’ve learned. What did you learn about yourself? What did you gain? How did it benefit you?

4. Gratitude

Gratitude almost sounds cliché and overused these days, but it still stands as a powerful and underestimated ancient tool for fulfillment. By focusing our attention on the countless things we could be grateful for but take for granted, it opens up our heart space and allows love to enter.

In your journal, after you’ve exhausted the questions above, list out things you are grateful for that you have in your life. Focus on what you have now. Also, be thankful for the lessons you’ve learned, and things you gained as a result of this experience.

Side note: I like to do this simple meditation (inspired from Sufism) before I sleep. As I lay in bed, I focus on every part of my body, lovingly thanking it for its hard work and what it provides for me. I start with my feet and move up to the details on my head. We tend to appreciate our body when parts of it stop working, why not start now to encourage it to function healthily? Anyways, I always end up falling into deep sleep, feeling content and fulfilled with having been blessed with so much. And I wake up feeling the same sense of calming presence. Try it for yourself, tonight.

5. Accept the Past

Our future is constructed with the fabric of our present. And if our present focus is constantly colored by memories of our past, our future will only become a repetition of our past.

If we truly want our future to be different and better than our past, we must consciously choose, right now, to change our relationship with our past, and to focus on the present and the good in our lives.

If you don’t want to experience any more pain as a result of an event, stop telling people about it, stop repeating it, stop spreading it. Deal with it consciously and move on.

Change your thoughts, change your language, change your patterns; they will change your future.

6. Write a Letter

If your present “pain” psychologically involves another person, I found it extremely helpful to write a letter addressed to that person. Your goal isn’t to send the letter, but speak as if you were speaking/writing to them, for the sake of healing yourself.

In the letter, be truthful but compassionate. You may consider including some of the following points in your letter:

Forgive them
Apologize
Share with them what you’ve learned
Wish them good things
Come clean with what things you have not said to them
Thank them
Date, time stamp and sign the letter with a kind ending remark

The process of creating this letter can be a glorious experience. Do it in your journal, it is for no one else to see.

Remember, not being able to forgive someone is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. This is for you. Take it seriously and do it authentically.

7. Be Gentle

On our path to personal growth and emotional mastery, we will experience moments of slipping back to our old ways of thinking and doing things. And the realization of this can be incredibly frustrating. I understand and empathize.

Please, please remember to be gentle on yourself when this happens. Congratulate yourself for having had the awareness and insight to recognize it, and that it is a sign that you are making forward progress.

Don’t put yourself down either, by saying things like “I’m a slow learner”. No, if that’s the case, we are all slow learners. Why are you putting us down too? I personally slip all the time, and have to forgive myself on almost a daily basis. It’s okay, it happens.

Parting Words

Before we part, I wanted to thank you for reading this far. For those of you inspired to make some changes, to liberate yourself from the suffering in your life, I applaud you for your courage, and I am excited for the amazing transformation you’re about to witness. Remember to be gentle with yourself.

* What did you learn? Share your thoughts and stories in the comment section. See you there!

Other Articles You May Enjoy:

External Resources:

Book: Living Enlightenment
Book: The Power of Now

The 4 Hour Workday

Scott Young — Wed, 06 May 2009 17:40:00 +0000

Photo: stock photo

By Scott Young

How to complete a full workday by noon? Sounds impossible, right? But on many days, by 12 o’clock, I have completed work that should normally take eight hours. And I don’t wake up at 4 a.m. to achieve this.

Actually, finishing everything by noon isn’t too difficult. If you add up all the time you spend procrastinating, distracted, or tired at work, it would probably make up half of your day. If you eliminated this wasted time, ending your day at noon wouldn’t be hard.

The problem, of course, is in the actual elimination of all that wasted time. A lot of productivity advice looks like simplistic dieting advice (”Eat less!”). Unfortunately cutting that wasted time is the tricky part. However, by making a few simple changes in your approach, you can make it far easier to cut the fat.

Don’t Pay Yourself by The Hour

If you view work as something that starts at 9 and ends at 5, you won’t be able to finish everything by noon. When you evaluate yourself for time spent working, rather than work completed, procrastination is often the result.

If you read the headline for this article and thought it was a scam, you probably suffer from this problem. Finishing by noon feels like cheating when you’re supposed to put in an eight hour workday. Unfortunately, it’s that attitude that causes you to procrastinate and stretch work out to keep you occupied until 5pm.

The solution is to stop paying yourself by the hour. Sure, you may continue to bill your clients by the hour. Or, your boss may continue to pay you a wage, and expect you to stay in the office until 5pm. But, that doesn’t mean you need to pay yourself that way. If you reward completion over input time, you will have a lean schedule.

In knowledge work, time input isn’t the point. As a writer, programmer or engineer, your value comes from your output. The end customer doesn’t care how many hours you spend behind your desk on Facebook or Twitter. Ultimately, your output will be what counts for your boss, clients or customers.

If You Work at Home, Never Work 9-5

If you are in a typical office environment (that rewards punctuality over performance), it will be harder to get your workday in before noon. Tim Ferriss - in his book, The 4-Hour Workweek - has some great suggestions for talking your boss into letting you work less, if you are more productive. If corporate policy chains you to your desk until late afternoon, I’d suggest you check out his book.

However, if you work at home, you have no excuse. Scheduling an eight-hour workday is wasting precious hours from your life. If you change how you evaluate your efforts, finishing eight hours of work in 3-4 hours is probable. You might even be able to increase your total output while reducing the amount you work.

Some people, however, don’t get it. I had a friend who owned an online business. He told me he had been working over ten hours each day on a new product. He said this without exaggeration, and I would say he honestly believed he was working at every possible moment.

However, even by judging his online activity, I knew something was wrong. He still had time to write long forum posts online and write lengthy emails. He made the mistake of judging his productivity by the amount of effort he was putting in, instead of results. Although it would have been less sympathetic, if he only worked five ultra-productive hours and rested for the rest of the day, he would have been more successful and less stressed.

How to Pay Yourself for Work Finished

I have a few productivity tricks I use to help remind myself of the “pay for completion” approach. The first I call Weekly/Daily Goals:

Weekly/Daily Goals

This is the core of my productivity system and it’s my key attack method to finish a full day’s work by noon. The idea is simple: at every point in the day, you keep two lists. The first list stores every task you need to complete that day. The second list stores every task you need to complete that week.

When you’ve finished all the tasks on your Daily Goals list, you’re done. If that happens at 11am, then congratulate yourself and go have a beer/coffee/tea/chai/nap. If that happens at 9pm, then put on another pot of coffee and keep working. Your day ends when your work ends.

This sounds obvious, but it is not how most people work. It is far more common to see someone finish at 11am, and then start working on another task. Or, after reaching 6 or 7pm in the evening, they give up and call it a day.

Instead of pay for completion, most people try to fit in eight hours. When they finish early, they add more. When they finish later than planned, they quit. Pay for completion is easy to preach, but pay for time wasted is more frequently practiced.

Keeping a list of daily goals puts only your work between you and relaxation, instead of some arbitrary amount of time for the day. Not a minimum amount of effort, just your most important tasks separate you and the finish line. This creates an incredible amount of motivation to cut distractions and keep the focus.

Why You Can’t Add More Work

If you finish early, the instinct will be to add more work. Unfortunately, you need to resist this urge strongly. The consequence of adding more work is that it defeats your system. The Weekly/Daily Goals system functions because you can’t add more work.

Imagine you are racing in a 400m race. If you pace yourself correctly, you should be completely exhausted by the end of the race. You will run as fast as you can within 400m.

Now imagine you were running a 400m race, but as you crossed the finish line, your coach yelled at you to run another 200m. If your coach did this frequently, you might start pacing your race to leave a bit of extra running energy for the end of your run, just in case you’re asked to run further.

The Weekly/Daily Goals system functions like the 400m race. If you keep adding on 200m whenever you finish quickly, you’re going to defeat the system. Instead of pacing your focus and energy to complete a particular set of tasks, you’re back to infinite to-do lists and ten-hour workdays.

Calibrating Your Weekly/Daily Goals

My productivity tripled when I started setting daily goals. But the disadvantage of this system is the irregularity. Some days will be light, because you accidentally under-scheduled. Other days will be incredibly hard, because you accidentally over-scheduled.

The solution to the irregularities isn’t to give up and go back to an unproductive pay-per-hour system. You simply need to calibrate yourself to the amount of work involved. As with anything else in life, you get better with practice and awareness.

Log Your Current Productivity

If you’re switching systems, the best way to calibrate is by keeping track of the amount of work you accomplish in a day. Quantify this into a metric you can easily use. As a writer, the best metric for me to use is the number of words I write per day, or the number of articles I finish.

Keep a daily log where you record the details of everything you’ve accomplished that day. At the end of the week, group up the different types of tasks and evaluate how much work was accomplished. This is your productivity baseline.

From there, you can set your daily goals to reflect this baseline. As a writer, I know I can typically write 3000-4000 words per day, or less if I combine this with non-writing work. By recording my current output levels, I can set my daily goals to match this amount. And I can make sure my daily goals list has at least 3000-4000 words of writing.

Why Bother Measuring?

If you know what your current productivity is in hard numbers it makes the switch to a new system more convincing. Without the hard numbers, you run the risk of feeling lazy when you finish early and take the afternoon off.

When I knew, from my old to-do lists, that I was accomplishing 2-3x more with this system than I had been previously, the choice to continue was obvious.

You can also use numbers like these to show to your boss. If I was an employer, I’d be happy if a worker could demonstrate, with numbers, how a new system had doubled their productivity, even if it meant they left the office early. And, even if you can’t convince your boss with the numbers, you can convince yourself.

Weekly Goals

The other element of my productivity system is keeping a list of weekly goals. The weekly goals list doesn’t need to remain as strict as the daily goals list. I find that the urge to procrastinate (and the motivation to work) stem mostly from the daily level, not the entire week.

The purpose of weekly goals is to ensure that everything you want to accomplish makes it to your daily goals lists. For years I’ve maintained a set of daily goals. It was only over a year ago that I decided to add a weekly goals list.

When you have just a daily goals list, some tasks are likely to be pushed off until tomorrow. That is, when you are planning your daily goals list, you may not include some tasks that you want to add into the next list. This form of meta-procrastination can be beat by having a separate list of to-do items for the entire week.

Finishing Your Entire Workday by Noon

Finishing everything by noon is just one benefit of using the Weekly/Daily Goals system. My goal isn’t to complete everything by noon. I use the system to get the maximum amount of work out of each day, so I can reach the goals I’ve set for my business. I love my work, so I use the Weekly/Daily Goals system to get more of it.

But I’ve also used the system to minimize the work I hate. If I’m doing work because I have to, not just because I want to, the Weekly/Daily Goals system works well. It allows me to finish work I would otherwise avoid or procrastinate indefinitely.

In some ways, the productivity difference is even more noticeable with work you dislike. If you enjoy work, it is easier to focus on it without distractions or procrastination. The power of the Weekly/Daily Goals system is that it forces you to get work done that you don’t want to do.

* What is your workday like? What can you do to make it more productive? Share your story and thoughts with us in the comment section. See you there!

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