Holistic Bonfire

Suruchi Saini, MA, LPC, CCTP, TMHP, CYT

Articles

By

Remembering Prof. R.P. Chaddah

Prof ChaddahRemembering professor R.P. Chaddah who was my dear uncle. To the world, he was a wonderful soul; a great educator and a thoughtful poet. To me, my father’s best friend; a parental figure in whom consciously and unconsciously I found the glimpse of my father. Today on his 75th birthday, out of the collection of his published poems, Mrs. Manju Chaddah and I present “Parenting” to you with great honor and love.

~ Parenting ~

An enigma to snoopy children
parents of all hues will always remain.
In their lives of togetherness
we meet them a bit too late.
When they don’t have the necessary boldness
to yield up their innermost secret.

 

Only by implication they tell us
what they presume we should know.
To hide their failing-shortcomings
and to further fool us by design
they create their private mythology.
Our original censors they are
rewriting their past history
sometimes died in the wool fiction.

By

~ Liberation Again ~

Suruchi Saini, MA, LPC, NCC, CCTPThe morning calmness stills me

The life begins again,

A new beginning, a new thought

Feel like a new person again,

Someone stands up for a cause

A new leader is born again,

Someone apologizes genuinely

Love is retained again,

Someone forgives someone

Freedom of human spirit returns again,

Someone comes back to a dear one

A relationship is restored again,

A child is born somewhere

A mother is born, again,

Have achieved the status of an adult

I am a child’s spirit again,

When someone reconnects with nature

It takes my breath away again,

One more time I feel the bliss

Sun, Air, Water, Earth, and Fire are beautiful again,

It’s a new day

And it’s full of life again.

By

Interpersonal Skills with Mindfulness

Suruchi Saini, MA, LPC, NCC, CCTP

Interpersonal skills (IS) is an art form where you learn how to get along with others whether you are at work, school, home, or with friends. Some people can naturally get along with others and the rest can learn with some support and practice. It is important to be aware of yourself and your surroundings to be able to use your IS appropriately.

That’s where Mindfulness comes in handy! Let’s take a quick look at few benefits of IS.

Benefits of Interpersonal Skills (IS)

The benefits of Interpersonal Skills (IS) will make you do the following:

  • Feel comfortable to express your feelings, beliefs, and principles.
  • Present yourself verbally, mentally, and physically.
  • More open to give and receive compliments
  • Have better boundaries, especially the ability to say, “No” when needed
  • Easily resolve problems and have better ability to work with the consequences.
  • Respect yourself more. People around you take notice and will likely do the same.
  • Less fearful of making friends, meeting acquaintances, networking, facing interviews and above all seeking help when needed.
  • Improve relationships and provide the much needed support in  your personal as well as your professional lives.

Regular Practice of IS with Mindfulness

With Mindfulness, you’ll be able to recognize your feelings and of others especially in an unhealthy environment. Mindful IS helps you to be a good listener. I believe  that most of the people just want to be heard. If you genuinely listen to them, you will win them for good!

When you use IS mindfully, you have more chances to respond than to react, to stay in control and not get too stressed. You’ll be aware of your strengths and weaknesses which can support you to stay open- minded to learn and share at the same time. Mindfulness helps you to be assertive and teachers you when to appropriately use silence.

In other words, when we regularly practice Interpersonal Skills with Mindfulness, it doesn’t remain limited to “being a skill”; it becomes a habit which eventually becomes a way of life and second nature.

Start working on it and Re-discover yourself!

Want to brainstorm ideas or have questions? Contact me!

 

By

Exploring Holistic Living

Women's group on June 10 2015

On June 10, 2015, an event was hosted by Bijay Minhas, LCSW where I had an opportunity to meet a group of wonderful women who in spite of their busy schedules as partners; mothers; colleagues; boss; caretaker; friend, got together in Morris Plains, NJ. Together we explored, learned, and shared how and what we can do to rise higher to take care of ourselves first and to help our near and dear ones. The group was very enthusiastic and very interested in “Holistic Living”. I admire them for who they are!!!

We discussed the three states of human mind Tamas (dark, ignorant), Rajas (active, pleasure seeking), Sattva (most powerful, peaceful), and how having knowledge about them can reduce daily psychological, family, and social stresses.

Benefits of meditation

We discussed how meditation can help almost everyone to have more clarity about our thoughts and actions and its effect on ourselves and others around us; to control our mind; to discipline ourselves; to know ourselves; to identify our real priorities; to make realistic goals and take appropriate steps to achieve them, while remaining unattached to them so that we don’t lose our real identity.

Yes goals are important but when we are not at peace from within; we tend to lose our spiritual selves in them or get too attached to them, we feel internal turbulence which eventually starts showing up in all our actions and relationships. In that state of mind, if we happen to succeed in achieving our goals somehow, we may feel pleasure for short term but happiness will continue to elude us.

We also discussed how transitions and traumas make us vulnerable. When we are mindful of our thoughts and actions, and are constantly working on them during daily meditations and self-reflections, we take steps to make it easy to get through them. However when we are on the autopilot or take mindless actions, we become part of the damage-brigade.

Meditation leads to mental and emotional cleansing; recharges our batteries; makes us more patient; helps us find peace and happiness within ourselves which means mental, emotional, spiritual, and social freedom. Above all, meditation helps us to be more accepting; less expecting; more forgiving, and be less judgmental of ourselves and others around us.

Individual and collective evolution will happen any ways. When we are mindful, the process is empowering but when we are mindless, the process becomes exhausting. The choice is ours.

By

Neuroscience and You

IMG_20150118_161127-3

What is Neuroscience?

At one of my speaking event recently, a young woman asked, what exactly is Neuroscience? I am sure many people may have this question. While reading an article I came across a video which briefly explains that – Neuroscience is the study of Brain and Central Nervous System. “All the nerves in Spinal cord go out towards body to bring back information from where we collect data and then use it as per the need. This information then goes into the Limbic system which is the emotional and intuitive part of your brain. Depending on the intensity of the emotions, it gets distributed into the various parts of the brain” Dr. Tara Swart.

All of us can apply Neuroscience in our daily lives to make further progress whether you are a professional; student or a homemaker.

Mind controls the body

Yes we have learned a lot from Psychology about power of our mind and behavior. Now Neuroscience has been giving us step by step proof that mind does control the body and Behavior. The traditional practices like Yoga and Mindfulness have always believed that.

If you are already on the path to success, Neuroscience can surely accelerate learning and reduce the time and effort to reach your goals. Think.

How to increase the brain power

Most of the people get anxious whenever there is a change of any kind. However that very change is one of the key ingredients to develop the new neural pathways in our brain. These neural pathways help us to retain our neuroplasticity, the ability of our brain to change itself!

By now I am sure you have a lot of knowledge and you are using it to for good results but are you not curious what else you can learn. Try. If you learn something absolutely new, with your efforts you can increase your brain power, and of course you can later boast about it if you like!!

For more information listen to this podcast by Dr Tara Swat