I , Me. My

 

It is Monsoon season. In Ahmadabad it has become hot and sultry. Some days it rains and some days it is humid and hot. One day early morning I was walking along the road. Early morning there have been good showers so the road was wet and there were poodles of water at many places. I was walking near a poodle and  saw a car moving forward which would have splashed water on me while passing through the poodle. Immediately I tried to distance myself away from the poodle as far as possible, but to no avail as the speeding car splashed some water on me.  To move away from the poodle was an instant reaction.   We are conditioned to see , how the events happening around us impact us. This is a trait needed for survival when humans were still a part of the jungle. Now in the civilized society that we live , still we continue to behave in the same way. Evaluating events as how they impact us. Is it not?  Have you ever thought of this?

Let us say your spouse gets big promotion. What is your instant reaction? How this is going to affect me? Will she be required to travel more or locate to a new place? How I will manage family in her absence? What should I do to achieve more success in my own career? And so on and so forth.

Your son, who is excellent academically in school decides to pursue an off-beat career say Bharat Natyam Dance. ( a form of ancient Indian Dance) What reactions you feel? How this will be seen by society? What will people say and how can I answer them?  How he will be able to earn money? Do I need to support him even in my old age?  And so on…

You are at checkout in the supermarket. An old woman is ahead you who is checking out. She fumbles while keeping the things on the desk of clerk and also fumbles when taking out money and making payment? Her slow movements bother you. Is it not? What you think? Oh again it is going to be delayed. You feel restless and would like that the woman should move fast so that you can also check out fast.

There are innumerable things/ events happening in your daily life which you evaluate as how they impact you.  You behave and expect others to behave as if the world is revolving around you. You think you should be given importance. It is always me and mine. Is it not?

 Prof. Srikumar Rao says “ Even your altruistic intentions are frequently tainted. You want to do “good in the world” and to “give back” but it is important to you that you also be recognized for your actions. You want your jokes to be laughed at, your contributions to be acknowledged, and your advice to be solicited and acted upon.”

 This is what Prof. Srikumar Rao says living in a me centered universe. To know how much you are me centered Prof. Rao suggests an exercise. You are calling a colleague/ customer/ partner to explain something or talk some important matter. When you set up a call, record the conversation. After the conversation is over, count how many times you have used, I, me and my. This will give you an idea what we are discussing.

 You may say nothing wrong in that. Yes. But once you  expect that world should behave the way you want, you set up yourself for stress, frustration and anger. We all know that results of the action we perform are not in our hands. You do something and expect A to happen but many a times B, C ,D E ,F happens. Yes there are certain times when A happens. And then you feel good but this lasts for miniscule time and you are again back on your tread mill.

Prof. Rao indicates “ All of the stress in your life results directly from your fixed notions of how the Universe should behave and from your inability to accept the merry diversions that the universe takes from your agenda….All of us want the people in our lives -spouses, ,children, siblings, relatives, friends, neighbors, bosses and co-workers- to behave in particular ways that we determine. We have specific- though often hidden -expectations for them all. We even want our pets to behave in expected ways. But they don’t conform to what we want.”

So what should you do? Drop all expectations about the out come of your actions. Is it possible to drop the expectations? Oh! This will rob you of motivation to live. What can you do? If you see carefully, the stress, the frustration, the anger is caused due to attachment with the desired out come. We should drop the attachment to the outcome. We should try our level best and see what happens. If out come is as we desired, we can celebrate and if not, we can learn from the experience and move ahead.

How do you do that? Assume that the pandemic has made you jobless. You are now actively searching for the job. You have prepared your CV and shared it with job hunters. You get a call for an interview. You think the job is a good fit for you. You search the information about the company on net, get your self as much information as possible and prepare for the interview. You appear for the interview in hope to land the job. But somehow you don’t get the job. What you do? You may feel bad for sometime but you forget that and start your search again. Is it not? What did you do here? You were perfectly aware that the outcome is not in your hands and you do not ruminate on the result but learn from it and move on. Can we do this in all our activities. Is it possible to maintain this attitude of dispassion about the result? In Gita Krishna has exhorted that a man does not have the right to fruits of his action. He has right only for his action. Which means actions are within the control of man but not the results. If we can follow this in our life we can work without stress, a joyful life. Are there any hacks for this? Let me know what you think, how can we practice this?

This philosophy has also important underpinning of present moment awareness. We can do what we can in the present and forget about the future. If we focus on the process/ activity with all our might, chances are we may achieve what we want to achieve.

“ At some point you just have to let go of what you thought should happen and live in what is happening.” Anonymous.

Gratitude

 

It was a cloudy morning in Ahmadabad. I woke up and decided to go for my morning walk. The sky was overcast with Monsoon clouds. Atmosphere was hot and sultry. It could have rained at any point of time. I walked out of my society campus on the road laden with trees on both sides. At the corner a milk parlour was doing brisk business. I walked on. Suddenly I remembered an exercise from the book E Squared by Pam Grout- The Volkswagen Jetta principle. The exercise tells that if you start looking for a thing you will see it. Pretty obvious . Is it not? I decided to look for a car “ Nexon” on the road and count how many of these cars I can see during my morning walk. “ Nexon” is a compact car made by “TATA” which has got the highest safety rating in the crash test. Because of its safety features the car has got my attention and sometimes I dream of driving a “ Nexon”. But this fondness drove me to look out for Nexon. The moment this thought came to my mind and at that instant an olive green Nexon drove past me. What a coincidence? I started counting the cars on the road. Being a morning hour the traffic was meagre and very few cars were on the road. During my walk of nearly an hour I could spot 8 Nexons on the road. How wonderful? Was it pure coincidence or something else I don’t know but I proved to myself, that whatever you start focusing attention on, starts to increase. How wonderful it would be if we start focussing on the good in people, in the happenings around us.

I remembered the Law of Increase from Prof. Srikumar Rao’s book. Law of increase states that” whatever you are truly grateful for and appreciate will increase in your life”. Many people tell you to be grateful. There are lot of apps, journals available in the market so that you can record things you are grateful for. I also had downloaded an app for noting down the things I am grateful for. But the initial euphoria faded away within few days. The process started becoming mechanical. There was no emotion of gratefulness while noting down the things. Have you ever experienced this? How can we bring that emotion, that feeling of gratefulness in our lives?

On one morning I was listening to rag Brindavani Sarang sung by Pt. Bhimsen Joshi. (Can be heard here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrJHLHNvbN8) The song is prayer for the supreme lord. Panditji’s divine, full male voice and the raga created an ethereal effect on me. I was transported to a realm where it was all blissful. The experience lasted for nearly an hour. I was full of serenity, calmness and joy created by the music. At that point I became grateful. Grateful to the universe for it has   given me this wonderful body, these ears through which I can listen to such a divine music. Here the emotion of gratefulness was so full to the brim that it made my eyes moist. Then I started recollecting things that I am grateful for. The list started really increasing and with it my feeling of gratefulness also. I found a trick for being grateful.

 My suggestion will be if you want yourself to be in that grateful emotion- Listen to your favorite music, eat a dish which you like when you are hungry, see that mesmerizing sunset or listen to the waves of sea.  And feel those beautiful emotions. And in that start feeling grateful for your life and little things that make you happy. This will make your practice alive and free of mechanical boredom which sets in if you try to push yourself to feel grateful for things in life. The feeling of gratefulness should emerge from bottom of your heart and should envelop you completely. When you start feeling in such way you will find that the day and life is really wonderful.

How can you become more grateful? How can you smoothen out your daily interactions? When you are having a casual conversation with someone, are you there fully?  Or is it that your mind is occupied with certain other things to do or are you in rush? How can you make such interactions filled with happiness? Prof. Rao suggests a way out. He suggests that the next time you are interacting with anybody wish that person good silently. When you are in the hallway for a washroom break in your office, someone greets you. Look into his eyes and genuinely return back the greeting. Wish him good silently. You are purchasing a newspaper from a vendor wish him good silently while paying him his money. This is the extension of gratitude practice. If you do this deliberately throughout the day you will find that your emotional tenor has improved and you start feeling good about yourself.

Do you have a toxic boss in your life who pushes your buttons all the time? Or anybody else in your life who makes you feel bad, every time you meet, so much so, that you start dreading, meeting with this person.   Our instinctive reaction is to avoid as far as possible such persons. Of course if he is your boss, then you can’t avoid him but you see that the interactions are business like and are at minimal. Every time you have a meeting with such person you feel drained, frustrated or angry.

 Follow here the strategy given above. Wish that person good silently and sincerely. I understand it is very difficult to wish good to a person who is making you feel bad.

Why should we do such practice?  Every time we are the ones who are feeling bad after the meeting and not the other person. This exercise is for us to feel better. If we try this thought experiment before meeting the person, we will feel different. Try it out and see for yourself what happens.  

Some time back my colleague from the office where I worked met me. While chatting casually he mentioned about a forthcoming meeting where he was supposed to meet another officer from a different department with whom he felt he was not comfortable. He felt that the other person is judging him unnecessarily and harshly and this impression he used to carry in the interactions with him. I suggested the above exercise to him and asked him to try this sincerely. He did follow the advice and to his astonishment he found that the interaction that followed was very good and he did not feel anything which he used to feel early. After some time, both of them became good professional colleagues.

The only requirement is that this exercise of wishing the person good should be done silently and with a sincere heart.

“Wear gratitude like a cloak and it will feed every corner of your life” Rumi.

Mental Chatter - Awareness

 Father Anthony De Mello in his book “Awareness” tells a story.

“ Last year on Spanish television I heard a story about this gentleman who knocks on his son’s door. “Jaime,” he says, “wake up!” Jaime answers, “I don’t want to get up, Papa.” The father shouts, “Get up, you have to go to school.” Jaime says, “I don’t want to go to school.” “Why not?” asks the father. “Three reasons,” says Jaime. “First, because it’s so dull; second, the kids tease me; and third, I hate school.” And the father says, “Well, I am going to give you three reasons why you must go to school. First, because it is your duty; second, because you are forty-five years old, and third, because you are the headmaster.”

When you don’t wake up (become aware) and understand your mental models probably we reason like Jamie in the story about events/ happenings around us. I understand the example above is an extreme case.  Yes, we are not Jamie but we are similar to Jamie.    Hence becoming aware of mental models is most important step to live a conscious life. Journaling as mentioned earlier was the first step to become aware.  

As we have seen in the last post, mental chatter that we have, is the foundation of most of our mental models. This chatter cannot be stopped, cannot be killed, cannot be side-lined. Only way is to become aware of the chatter. Again, journaling as suggested earlier comes to our help for noting down the mental chatter.   

 You can deepen your awareness by many practices. The simple practice, which I follow is to meditate. Sit straight but comfortably. Close your eyes and bring your attention gently to your breath.  Watch, how your breathe goes in and out. You can use a soothing mediation music in low volume to aid this. Only condition that is to be kept in mind, is your breathing should not be altered, it should be easy and natural and if your attention gets distracted, which will happen many times gently bring back the same, to your breathe. (The most simple but profound guide to meditation can be found in Andy Puddicombe’s book- The headspace guide to mindfulness and meditation- This explains the step-by-step process of meditation) Will you get results if you do this? See we are programmed so, to get a result for anything we do, that this expectation itself hampers the process. My sincere advice will be, to meditate, don’t expect. You will see for yourself the change in you.

What is   self -awareness? It is noticing everything happening in you and around you without judging. Notice what is the ambience around you, how do you feel, how your clothes fit on you, what thoughts are roaming in your head, what emotions are you feeling. What sensations are there in body, what are you perceiving through your senses.

Mindfulness is a practice that also can help a person deepen his self-awareness. I can suggest few practices, which if done diligently will help a person to become more aware.

We use mobile phone extensively. Rather it has become an extension of our body. Next time when you get a call, before you answer the call, take 3 deep breathes and then answer the call. You will see qualitative difference in the response. Or you are on Whatsapp and forwarding a message or commenting something. Before you actually hit the send button, take few deep breathes and see the action you are about to take. You will find that you will respond rather than react and will reduce unnecessary forwards giving you a calm space of mind.

How do you drink water? Have you tasted the coolness, the feel of it when it enters your mouth? What it feels like, when the edge of the glass touches your lips while drinking water. So, try to feel all this when you drink water. This mindfulness exercise can be extended while eating food also. Eat your food slowly, take small bites, feel the taste in your mouth, savor the flavor of food and if possible, do all this silently.

All this will help you to become aware of yourself. And this awareness will help you lead to path of conscious living.

“Until you make the unconscious, conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” Carl Jung 

Mental Chatter

 

I got up late again. Now I have to rush through my shower and breakfast. I am finishing my breakfast really quick. Why can’t I get up when the alarm goes off. Just five minutes makes it half an hour or more. I must be more disciplined…

Oh! the traffic seems to be moving at a slow pace today. How will I reach office in time? The car ahead is moving at a snail’s pace. What has happened? Can’t he understand this is rush hour and drive fast?...

At last reached office though fifteen minutes late. The boss will get a chance to taunt me on my late coming. How mean?...

Sir, Boss has called you. My assistant tells me. Is it because I am late? Or whether he wants the revenue data. I already have provided this to him. He has the habit of forgetting conveniently data given to him. Is it regarding debtor management? Or is it that he wishes to talk to one of our bigger customers for his outstanding dues? ….

The lunch packed by wife is really tasty. I must tell her that. But it is not so always. Why can’t she make it like today, every day?...

At home: Son tells me that his teacher has called both of us to meet her in the classroom. Oh! What has he done now? He is good kid but sometimes goes crazy. I think these are his child hood pranks. He doesn’t want to hurt anybody. Or whether he is not progressing in his studies. What could be the reason the teacher has called both of us…

Are you familiar with this? A mental chatter that continues in your head nonstop. From you are up in the morning till you go to sleep, this companion is with you. This chatter is sometimes loud, sometimes whispering in your ear. But all the while it stays with you in all your waking life. This voice unfavourably compares you with your smart colleague, comments on your physical appearance, feels jealous for someone in your network, constantly nags you.

Have you noticed; you have constant thoughts popping in your head throughout your waking day? These thoughts come from your conditioning, from your interaction with people around you, from the advertising you see on various platforms. Sometimes you worry about a thing or an event that is going to take place, sometimes you feel elated about an upcoming vacation, sometimes you feel angry, frustrated, many a times you worry about what will happen if you lose your job, your spouse, your home. If you notice this carefully there is a pattern to your thoughts.  Most of the thoughts are of the nature where either you judge yourself, or judge people around you because of their appearance or behaviour, or judge events happening around you as to how these events affect you. Of course, there are some neutral thoughts like when you note the activities to be done in a day.

This chatter mostly consists of voice of judgment (VOJ as defined by Prof. Michael Ray of Stanford university, also known as the Judge a major saboteur as defined by Shirzad Chamine  in his book Positive intelligence) This voice judges you, pulls you down in so many ways. Sometimes it acts like a sledgehammer other it time behaves like jewellers’ mallet. This constant stream of thoughts/judgments give rise to your mental models.

 When you take individual thoughts arising in your mind, they are insignificant and evanescent but taken together they form a reality. Prof. Rao in his book “Are you Ready Succeed? Unconventional strategies for Achieving personal mastery in business and life” gives a beautiful example for this. A tiny polyp when dies leaves its skeleton in the sea. When millions of such polyps die together, they form a coral reef which becomes so strong as to rip the bottom of a strong ship. Our thoughts are like that. These small tiny thoughts taken together from a wall in your mind or form a mental model through which you see the world.

 We have unconsciously created our mental models through our chatter. It can also be seen that this chatter try we may, very hard, does not go away. We cannot kill it. What we can do, is we can observe it.

For this Prof. Rao suggests an exercise. In this exercise he tells us that one should keep a journal/notebook and note down the mental chatter happening. One can set a reminder every two hours or so to check up what is the mental chatter at that time and write it down in the journal. While doing this one must observe the emotional undertone accompanying the chatter. Also note if there are any patterns to this chatter. Whether in the morning thoughts which come are repetitive or one of a kind. What thoughts are triggered at what time. Is one going into escapist dreams or mulling over past events? Is one worrying about some events that are yet to take place, is there low level of anxiety at the back of mind? Is one feeling tired/exhausted? Is one feeling joyous or happy for no apparent reason? Are there any events that trigger certain thoughts or emotions?

 This exercise looks simple, but a difficult one to follow. Many a times, you will feel that you have been lost in the mental chatter and forgot to note down it. One thing to remember here is the noting should be non -judgmental. Just record what is coming to mind. Prof. Rao tells us that this exercise should be done at least for fifteen days continuously. It will reveal to us what beliefs, values we hold and how we look at the world.

“Most people don’t realize that the mind constantly chatters. And yet, that chatter winds up being the force that drives us much of the day in terms of what we react to, and how we feel.” Jon Kabat-Zinn

Mental Models- Alternate Reality

 

See the excerpt below from a journal of a young Indian man

Family: My father was an upright Govt officer- a low level bureaucrat. He used to work diligently in the office and used to resent people who eschew work under one pretext or other. He was well read and well-informed person. But he never appreciated me. He always used to criticize me. Whatever may be my achievement I used to get a feeling that he was not satisfied. If I got A in a subject, he will ask why not A+. He always used to say “Not failure but low aim is crime”. There was no encouragement and appreciation from him. My mother was a working woman. She was very disciplined, organized and a courageous lady. She inculcated a habit of organization and discipline in me. Probably because of work and home responsibilities she became slightly harsh and strict. Many a times I craved for that motherly warmth. …

Work: I passed Engineering degree from a decent school with flying colors. I was lucky to get placement in a prestigious company. My present boss interviewed me then and selected me. I was elated to join the organization. But after couple of years in the place I realized that this is a very competitive place. Many of my colleagues, superiors are from prestigious engineering schools such as IIT. My boss also passed out from one of the IITs. Whenever I present some new ideas, I find they are not much discussed. I also realized that couple of my ideas were sold to upper management by my boss as his. He is with all his blue-eyed boys from IITs. He takes interest in the projects given to them, discusses those projects and guides them. He helps them. I know I am technically a sound person, I can work independently, as well as in a team. But then I don’t get the recognition I deserve. Is it because I am from a vernacular background school? Is it because my English is not as polished as those boys, or am I poor in presentations? I don’t know. I wonder how come my boss selected me in the campus interview. What did he see in me?  …

Love: I was in an engineering school and a branch of engineering where there was no interaction with students of fair gender. I was lucky enough that I got married. It was an arranged marriage. My wife is also an engineer four years junior to me. She is slim and tall with an oval face and wheatish complexion. The spectacles on her face make her look pretty and intelligent. She studied in an English medium school. She is competent and technically sound. She is a lecturer in an Engineering school. She has finished her masters and would like to complete Doctorate. She would like to become a professor and would like to do research. She is intelligent that I can discuss lot of things with her. I am lucky that I don’t get bored in her company. She speaks fluent English and way better than me in presentations and putting forth her view point. She would like to have a stint in US University. Sometimes secretly I feel she is far better than me. What she has seen in me. If she completes her Ph.D. and goes to America what will happen to me? I secretly feel she should remain here and take care of my family but I do not have courage to say this openly. How this is going to unfold? …

Self: I am sincere, intelligent hard-working person. I would like to deal fairly with people and I expect people should also deal fairly with me. I am punctual, disciplined and organised. I am somewhat reserved and prefer company of books to that of people. Occasionally I would like to enjoy a drink with my close friends. I feel unhappy about the injustice happening around. But I do not have time (or shall I say courage) to fight it out. I prefer conciliation than confrontation. I am aware that to progress in a corporate setup I would have to polish my language and presentation skills. I will have to become more people oriented. I hate hypocrites. ……

Money: You can earn money if you ‘work’ diligently and smartly. I am reading books on stock market investment and I am sure I can use that knowledge to increase my wealth. I am a frugal person and lucky that my wife shares some of my interests here, though she is not frugal. I believe in long term planning for money. Postponing gratification for better future is my motto……

God: I don’t know whether I believe in God. I know there is some power, energy which runs this universe. But I feel that power is indifferent to me. I am brought up in a religious household but curiously nobody has forced those ideas on me. I have been given freedom to follow my way. I read a lot about spirituality, meditation but yet to come to a firm conclusion. Most of the times these ideas are shadowed by the day-to-day struggles and challenges of living……

What we can see from above, is that a person uses many models while dealing with various facets of life. In the words of Prof. Srikumar Rao “Your life is jumble of mental models. You use them for EVERYTHING.

You have one model that tells you who to fall in love with, another that evaluates how you are doing in your job, a third that lets you know if your child is growing well, a fourth that spurs you into getting a divorce, a fifth that picks your friends and so on and so forth. You have constructed dozens of these structures over the years and collectively they rule your life. “ 

How true! Just pause and think over this. These models collectively construct your reality. And you name it as” your reality”. The exercise mentioned in the previous post of journaling helps you to understand your dominant mental models. In the excerpt given above, you feel a common thread running in the young mans’ narration. And it is that, he is always comparing himself, with others and seeking some external validation for himself. But that may not be obvious to him when he is living his life. So, what is the way out? Can a person change his mental models for the better?

Prof. Srikumar Rao here introduces a revolutionary idea. He says “The idea that can cause turmoil is the seemingly innocuous one that all persons perceive the world differently…..In the overwhelming majority of cases where we actively use the idea that persons have different perceptions , we are looking outward. We are examining somebody else.”

Yes, we are aware of this that persons have different perceptions. We try to understand the other party in negotiations, while dealing with our significant other, while dealing with friends, while dealing with class teacher of our child and so on. But it never occurs to us that if other persons can have different perceptions (mental models), can we adopt different mental models than we presently hold.

Again in the words of Prof. Srikumar Rao: “ It is when that we look inside that we place the detonator in the plastique. We start to see that if others can have different world views, then we ourselves, can change ours. …It tells that “ the world we live in is the one we constructed it out of bits and pieces. We made it out of our mental models and then lived by their dictates. And having done all this, we proceeded to carry on living with our lives without ever realizing that our mental models were made up merely of perceptions and not facts.”

Further Prof Rao goes on to suggest to perform a thought experiment called Alternate reality. What he advises is go back to mental model exercise and pick any one situation that is troubling you right now. Pick up that situation and the reality you feel you are facing. Examine that through many dimensions and create an alternate reality for the situation. “ It is important that You , personally be able to accept the alternate reality as you devise.”

For example, in the excerpt above, the young man can take alternate reality for his father’s behavior. His father was not praising him so that he becomes tough and can face the external world in an effective way. It was his way of showing affection to him. If the young man accepts this alternate reality and start thinking about the events, he may find solace, may feel grateful towards his father.

Or take another situation at work. He may be really good in his work that his boss never calls him for giving directions which he is doing for his other colleagues. The young man may accept this alternate reality and start acting accordingly which will help him to boost his confidence and self-esteem.

Or take another situation. You along with your family have shifted to a new apartment complex. There are two neighbors on your floor. One neighbor is a gentle lady who is open and willing to help you in the new place. She talks to you and your family members and genuinely connects with you. You have another neighbor who you find distant. The neighbor only smiles, does not respond to your hellos, or your overtures to connect with him. His wife also seems to be distant and reserved. With this you feel, that second neighbor to be reserved and may be cold or snobbish. You have made this impression, with whatever interaction you had with this neighbor. In the alternate reality exercise – you can think that this neighbor is also good, he would like to connect with you and your family but something is holding him back. He may be facing some other important challenge, that he is not able to connect with you, the way you want. Create this impression in mind and remain with it and see what happens.

 The rules here in this exercise are, create an alternate reality for the situation which seems plausible and you can accept that. Once you create that reality, try to find out evidence and write it down in journal that this alternate reality is working. Don’t pick most horrendous thing that is bothering you now. It is similar to jogging or weight lifting. You don’t start jogging 20 km on first day or lift a weight of 100kg on first day. You gradually increase the distance while jogging and same with weight. Here in this thought experiment also pick up a situation which is not that complex and try this exercise and see what happens.

“ I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become” Carl Jung.

How to be aware of Mental Models?

 

Recently I received a WhatsApp forward. It was about Coffee bin jar, in a perfume shop. It was like this.

Unlearning is important.

Jar of coffee bean in the perfume store. Why is it used? Is there something we can learn? A handful of coffee bean is so important to sell an expensive bottle of perfume.

How?

When you try perfumes, after 4th or 5th, you are unable to distinguish between fragrance. Bring in the jar & you smell the coffee bean & you undergo a process of unlearning, due to its strong fragrance, your brain now only remembers coffee. You can now start testing perfumes again. All happens within in a minute.

What's the catch?

We have an amazing power to unlearn & move on to new things, we got it as a process of evolution, with time we have forgotten how to "let it go", this is called unlearning. Creativity & productivity gets enhanced when you learn to let things go.

 

For smelling different perfumes, we need a break of Coffee bin jar so that we can unlearn the earlier perfume smells. Unlearning is a conscious process. When we are interacting with the world, with our mental models, we actually need a “coffee bin Jar”, to unlearn these models so as to “smell new fragrances” the world is offering?  For this to happen we should be aware of our mental models. Otherwise, what we see and what is out there, is completely different and our responses go awry. I remember a story somewhere I read. A master is telling his students about importance of unlearning. He says, when looking at Full Moon, a lover sees the face of his beloved, while a hungry beggar sees a bread.

 

 I come from Lower middle-class background, so frugality with money was a virtue for us. All the things that are purchased should be used optimally. A toothpaste, we used to squeeze till its last drop. Now I am in a position that I should not be so frugal. I can afford to purchase toothpastes as and when required. But this frugality is so deep rooted that if the toothpaste is not used completely and thrown away, I feel hurt about it. Why I am feeling this hurt? This is the conditioning or the mental model which I am holding. I am not saying that you should waste resources, absolutely not. But this mental model is clearly giving me feeling of sadness, at least in respect of toothpaste. So I have to be aware and be conscious of the fact, that now, if I am not using the toothpaste, till its last drop , it is ok and should not feel bad about it.

In the last blog post I posted a picture at the end. What did you see?

 In “Seven habits of highly effective people” Steven Covey narrates the  following story.

 This picture was distributed to two groups of employees of a company separately. They were asked to see the picture and describe it to the other group without showing the picture given to them. One group saw a young girl in the picture and started describing her eyelid, her hat and her hair. The other group was aghast, as they saw an old woman with a big nose, scarf around her hair , who seems to be unhappy. This really led to strong disagreement between the two and no group was willing to accept the other groups’ description. What they saw, was the reality for them. But then the instructor explained them, that there are, both young girl and Old woman present in the picture. You have to look for it. Once you see clearly without clinging to your first impression of the picture you can see both. Just see the video below that will help you to see both young and old woman in the picture.

 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQCHWBKrkew)

 This is what happens with us. We interpret the happening, the world around us and take it as the reality. And we cling to that as our reality.  This distorts our perception and the responses, to the situation we are in.  If we are able to see things/ happening around us, as “they are” we will be able to respond appropriately, which may help us to live life spontaneously and joyfully rather than getting caught into spiral of incorrect responses, reactions and ensuing unhappiness. So unlearning is essential to see the happenings, the world around us as “it is”.

How can we do that? For that to happen we should become aware of the lens (“Mental model”) we are using. How can we be aware of the mental model?

Prof. Srikumar Rao in his book suggests a way. He advises reader to keep a journal with four columns

Family, Work, Love, Self

He says” Before you do this exercise, I urge you to think of yourself as a scientist. The laboratory and the object of study are both yourself. Do this practice as objectively as you can. “

He further advises that one should write continuously for 10 minutes what comes to mind for each of these columns. This writing should be such that nothing that comes to mind should be  edited or censored by the thinking mind. This process itself makes one aware of his dominant mental models.

Under family – “My father never praised me” comes to your mind first then you should continue writing along the line and see what comes out.

 I would like to add two more columns to this.

Money, God/ Universe/Supreme power

Write freely what comes to your mind under these also.

This is an exercise in self-aware ness. The writing and reflecting on the writing will let you understand mental models you are using. Once you are aware of the models that you use , you can modify , replace the models that are not working for you.

This journal along with a coaching conversation with a coach will make you understand yourself on a deeper level. Once you start the journey of understanding yourself, you can start on the journey of self-awareness and then ultimately start a journey of personal mastery.

“Awareness is all about restoring your freedom to choose what you want instead of what your past imposes on you.” Deepak Chopra

 

What are Mental Models?

    

      

It was a summer morning in Ahmadabad. I had started my morning walk. The atmosphere was pretty warm, even in the early hours of the morning. To avoid direct sun, I had a chosen a road, which is covered with trees and some tall buildings, so their shade makes my walk pleasant. Ahmadabad is peculiar, as far as stray dogs are concerned. I have stayed in many cities of India but the population of stray dogs, in Ahmadabad is very large, as compared to other cities. And the culture here, is of not harming the animals.  I see couple of  ladies feeding the dogs on the road in the morning. Ahmadabad Municipal Corporation does not cull the stray dogs but just sterilizes them. So, on every corner of road there are 3 -4 dogs. Some dogs have propensity, to climb on the hood of the car, parked on the side of the road. Though they are harm less, you have to be alert to their presence, to avoid any untoward incidence. I was walking on the road and on the footpath at some distance away, I saw a brown dog, a big one. I became alert and continued walking. When I reached near it, I felt suddenly relieved. It was not a dog but a trunk of a tree cut and kept on the footpath. That brown trunk, looked like dog to me from a distance. How your mind plays tricks on you! I was alert to stray dogs on the road, so I saw a dog in the tree trunk. I smiled at myself.

How many times, we see a dog, an elephant, a face, in the clouds above, though there is none. Are our senses, tricking us? Or, are our thoughts creating images? We are programmed, to look at the world around us in a certain fashion. This programming through which we see the world is known as our world view or our mental model.  

 

 Prof. Srikumar Rao in his book “ Are you ready to succeed: Unconventional strategies for achieving personal mastery in Business and life”  says- “A mental model is the notion, we have, about how the world works or how things are done or ought to be done.” It is an inner representation, through which we provide meanings, to the events happening in and around us. We use mental models, to explain ourselves why things happen, to console ourselves, to satisfy ourselves and to tell us, what we should do, in a particular situation. Through mental models, we evaluate events, happening to us and around us and try to find meaning, security, sustenance and happiness from the events.

 Most of the times, we are not aware, that we are using mental models. The classic case, is the example, I have given you above, about seeing a dog, in the trunk of the tree lying on the footpath.  These mental models, are formed because of the conditioning, we have gone through in life due to our family, our upbringing, education, society, culture, work place, our experiences, advertisements and so on.  It is not that, mental models per say, are good or bad. If we want to change ourselves for the better, be happy, perform at peak in our chosen profession, we should be able to understand, what models we are using and discard the ones, which are not supporting our growth.

Prof. Srikumar Rao says that - “The first block to personal mastery – and one of the biggest- is our unquestioned mental models. These are our fixed ideas of how the world works and how things should or shouldn’t be done. --- We have different models for different situations- for work, for love, for our families. We have dozens of them that we use and some of them may actually be in direct conflict with others and we may not even know it. In fact, much of the stress in our lives arises from this lack of awareness.”

Some of the mental models which we can see around (In India at least) are-  

For a young student   – If I study hard, get a good education, preferably from premier institute of India, then I will get good job and then I can be happy.

About work place- In my work place, the atmosphere is very competitive. Everybody wants, to win at any cost. People with connections and influence, get promoted faster, there is no place for merit.

 A common mental model about Govt.- All govt officers are corrupt. Govt institutions does not work.

On family - one should marry with in class, caste, religion, education/ social standing for finding happiness.

In family:  Duties of husband and wife are defined and are separated. (Though I know, this is changing, especially in Covid times). Children should study hard and become academically successful. Family traditions should be held high. Girls should go in particular professions. (Of late we are finding girls venturing into professions like drivers, pilots, defence service officers, which are traditionally seen, as professions suitable for Males only)

Money: Money is hard to come by. You should work hard to get money. Or I am indifferent to money. The lucky ones get money. Money attracts money.

 These are just a representative, of a whole lot of mental models, that are in operation. Sometimes, we are aware of the models, we are using, but most of the times, we are not aware. And our behaviour and interaction with the world is driven by these mental models.  Prof. Srikumar Rao says for achieving personal mastery, awareness of the models, we are using, is the most important thing.

 So, what you think? What are some of the dominant mental models you use for navigating this life? Do you think they are useful or obstructing your progress?

Pl see the picture below. What you see?

You can leave a comment.