Push the "RESET" button already

I have often been tested in ways I cannot imagine. Each experience has been mind bending and almost paralyzes me to a point where I cannot think for a little bit. And then through some magical way, something works out and life moves on. That's the way life works. Easy come, Easy go...sometimes high, sometimes low..

An immigrant's life in this country is hard. If you are not overwhelmed by the excess of legal papers, you are likely to be challenged by the endless deluge of Visa constraints, the important dates like your extension for the work visa, your Green Card application dates, papers and the list goes on and on. Sometimes I feel so drained by the excess stress imposed by the uncertainty of things that I just can't think straight.

That's when I really need to sit back and regroup and re-game. I need to push the RESET button already.

Life doesn't have to be hard. It's your perspective that makes it hard. To change your life, you have to change your perspective.

A great friend of mine once taught me a great technique. It's called the Golden Bubble Technique. Every time you are going to act on while in a helpless situation, or if you don't know what your next step should be, just use the Golden Bubble Technique.

GOLDEN BUBBLE TECHNIQUE

Visualize yourself in 3rd person and step outside from your body and look at yourself and the current situation inside a Golden Bubble. What do you see? Disconnect your emotions and just focus on what seems to be the most plausible action. See yourself in ways you have never seen yourself before. Analyze from the outside. It's a tremendous experience. The golden bubble will disconnect your thoughts from all the negativity and reinforce some light and positive attitude. Very important. Many a times the Golden bubble will spit out the answer so fast, that you almost think you're stupid for not knowing it.

It's called selective disassociation.

Pushing the RESET button implies a lot of things. Here are some that are very important:

1. Slow Down
I cannot begin to tell you how important slowing down is. I was so stressed by a particular situation today, it almost made me cry. Made me feel I cannot control things around me. But i soon realized, what's not in my hands cannot be controlled by me. If fate has something ugly in store for me, I am ready to take it on...head on.
I just slowed down. I sat down on my couch, set back the recliner and just chilled out. Listened to really slow music... "Amos Lee - Arms of a woman", and just closed my eyes for a moment. Slooooooow Downnnnnn.... breathe in slowly, breathe out, and as you breathe out, just get rid of all that instability your devious mind causes.....

2. Write Down your Feelings
Many times you will feel helpless. Keeping emotions in your head does not help. What helps is verbalizing using the right phrases and words your exact feelings. Doing so does the following: it frees up all the junk you kept re-iterating in your mind. It gives you a more rational way of associating your emotions. People usually don't have many adjectives to describe their emotions. Most of them describe their emotions using: Unhappy, Tired, Frustrated.

They say the more you can enunciate your feelings, the better person you become. So if you are exhausted, say you are exhausted. And so for unhappy, helpless, challenged, insecure, jealous etc.

3. Know that you're not the only one
Not only that.... you probably have it better than most others. I was once not happy with the way things were going on in my life. I had a week of arguments with my girlfriend over things that really don't matter at all, but we fought and fought. And then one day, while she was gone, I watched the movie, "City of God." Within 20mins of the movie, I just realized how fortunate I am. You see those little trigger happy kids, shooting and being shot and you realize how lucky you are.

My mind raced back to those days in Bombay where I would stand on one foot in a jam packed train compartment, praying to God that I don't lose my bag which was somewhere around my arm, just because it contained one of my most precious things, a photograph of me and my crush at that time :)

If I pulled off that, I can pull off anything. People who have lived in 3rd world countries know what real pain is. Real pain is not having clean water to drink, or water to bathe on days, or continuous electricity, or luxurious cars, or free roads and a peaceful drive on the streets. Real pain is when you get old before you are old.

If you think you've had it with things, just flip your channel to CNN and see how many global crisis' are going on right now. Do you really think you've had it that bad?

Well, we'll continue more when I write again. Life is too fast, unless we devise ways to slow it down and make it worthwhile to stay.

Until then.

Love,
Anup