Stop Hoping - Trust & Wonder

Ever since a child most of us have been taught to have hope. Hope for a better day. Hope for a better life. Hope to have a loving spouse and kids. Hope to be wealthy. Hope to have great health. There are so many other hopes you can think of.

Well, hope is great to have but there is one major flaw with this. Without us knowing we start getting attached to these hopes thus sabotaging our own growth. You know that your attachments become your greatest fear.

The person who brought this to my realisation was Dr.Susan Jeffers. When I read this for the first time I was in disbelief. My reaction was simply that what was being said was absolutely absurd. That was in 2012 and since then I have abandoned that word. When delivering a number of my workshops I bring this up and to begin with most people resist this notion.

As I go through an exercise designed by Dr.Susan Jeffers called "From Hope to Wonder" a shift starts to happen with most of the people undergoing this simple yet effective exercise.In fact another way to look at this is to go "From Hope to Trust".  A few actually resist it more as they are strongly stuck in the belief of hope. I simply let them be as that is their perception. 

Now, here is an easy way to look at "From Hope to Wonder" and "From Hope to Trust" 

• Hope is equivalent of wishing, wanting, desiring or expectation
• This thinking in terms of of hope could easily lead to a state of unhappiness
• Furthermore, hope has the ability to create a fear of uncertainty
• Hope certainly is far better than pessimism
• Magic of wonder takes the fear of uncertainty to be replaced by curiosity
• Magic of trust gives you the inner confidence and knowing all is well, you can handle it
• When thinking in terms of wonder and trust it removes the sentiment of wishing, wanting, desiring and expectation
• Trust and wonder neutralises both hoping and pessimism

All I can ask you is do your best at changing your state from hope to wonder, from hope to trust. In fact, you would start attaining the state of inner peace once you start this simple powerful journey.

Trust you will have a great journey with wonder, have a leap of faith.

Powerful Words: Use with Caution

We are always communicating. Even, our act of silence is a form of communicating.

Verbal, non-verbal, vocal or written for all of this we use words. Words are extremely powerful which can lead to creating, developing and growing a relationship. On the other hand words can be destructive and can easily sabotage and kill a relationship. 

This relationship could be with your sister, brother, mother, father, friends, work people or your lover. The most important of all the relationship is the relationship with yourself. 

So, even in our silence we have our inner voices that talk to us and say things to us. These inner voices use words with us to communicate with us, these are our inner thoughts.

We should be more aware of what we say to others and to ourselves with these words. Some words are extremely powerful and should be used cautiously. These common words we use day to day without realising they cause more damage than helping us and others. 

These words being:

• But – "You look beautiful but....". Notice how the "but" immediately deletes what was said before it. "But" is the sledgehammer to anything you say. It has the ability to diminish or negate the phrase that precedes it. Note "however" is soft way to say but, so should be avoided as well. Instead replace the "but" with an “and”. 

• Should – "You should have...." . Amazing how "should" arouses a sense of feeling guilty. It's one of the worst words to use in scenarios where the solution applied has not worked. Then someone says "we should" or even worse "you should". 

• Don't –  "Don't think of a pink elephant". I am sure you thought of an elephant or pink colour or thought how will a pink elephant look like. The brain finds it difficult to process something said in the negative. It has to do that act to comprehend what "don't" meant. So, if you end your email saying "do not hesitate to contact me" then you are really telling the person not to contact them. Maybe you could replace this with "feel free to contact me"

• Try – is consider a disguised word for failing. "Try" is seeking or giving the permission to fail. Remember Nike slogan “just do it”.  You replace the "try" with "do your best" or "I will do my best".

• Why – this word easily makes a person feel defensive and find justifications for his/her actions. Instead use the word “how” or “and”.

Words can make you move backwards or forwards. Be selective in the words you use with others and especially the words you use with yourself.