The Difference between Mind-Led Goals and a Surrendered Vision

Mind-led goals are direct. You know exactly what opportunity you're going for. It can easily be defined. Many people have completed the same task you decided to pursue. There are plenty of resources that can help you get there.

You curate a routine based on what works best for you and overall commit to achieving this. It is a form of tunnel vision mindset. It requires laser-sharp focus. It requires you to control certain aspects of your life. You get exactly what you asked for. 

Surrendered visions aren't as direct. They are more like a leap of faith. You feel its truth in your bones. You lead through intuition. When you're aligned, you receive insights. These insights are wisdom from your source. Its impacts are unique to you. It can be in the form of a shattered illusion, or a realization. These insights are revealed as sensations. These sensations are then converted into thoughts.

These insights further nudge us and require us to leave behind the beliefs we have harboured for long. Those that no longer serve us. It can be sudden shifts in your day-to-day activities or changes in preferences or beliefs.

A tangible shift is possible through embodiment. It requires aligned action, and progressive steps - a day-to-day commitment from your end. This experience requires us to surrender to such an extent that we learn to leave behind everything familiar to us. These experiences have taught me that there's so much that I don't know of. These reveal to me when I open up to these possibilities. 

Life requires us to switch between both kinds of purpose. Sometimes we keep direct tangible goals, and for others, we keep a surrendered vision - showing up for it every day. We'll always know the aspect of our life which requires us to pursue either goal.

When we reflect on our day-to-day experiences and our purpose, we get to know our needs. This aligns us with the process and the course of action. 

The Mind and Its (Limited) Associations

The essence of our mind is created through the associations and meanings we provide to our life's circumstances. When we are younger, our minds tend to think finalities.

With experience, we realize the impermanence of it all. Of thoughts, beliefs, perceptions, and our general outlook. Our circumstances don't phase us as much because we have been here before, and seen this before. Even when something is new for us, we may have been exposed to something similar through others' stories.

However, it is difficult when our circumstances are some of the limited few in the spectrum of what's been known before.

When our mind's thought process has reached its edge, its capacity to associate fades, and it can no longer predict. It's now entered the range of the unknown. When our mind reaches this stage, it envisions dystopian scenarios.

Our life functions based on how our mind and our nervous systems function. No matter how wide your thinking reaches, it's still gonna be a limited range. As humans, our minds can only comprehend so much. Despite all of this, there's so much mankind has achieved. And it dazzles me the extent to which mankind has progressed.

Any shifts in your life will require you to reflect on your mindset. It all starts with you. 

Discerning Our Energy from Others

As humans, we are an interdependent species. We progress as a collective in collaboration with each other. We built to connect with each other. We can never be fully devoid of others' perceptions or their beliefs. For, these qualities can many times also encourage us to improve our sense of being.

Others' perceptions can prove harmful to us when we use these standards to belittle or doubt ourselves. It is also harmful when we compare our chapter 10 to someone else's 40th. All of us exist in intricately distinct contexts. All of us have our headstarts in different aspects. Similarly, we all have our setbacks in other aspects. It is unfair to compare others' lives with ours as there are infinite factors that make them uniquely theirs, and others that make our lives uniquely our own.

We can only refer to our progress with the person we were yesterday. We progress when we embody the aspects that inspire us, and those we admire in others.

As we evolve through life, we can sometimes be held back by our beliefs. These beliefs are not necessarily our own. These qualities have been unconsciously embodied through the years. Factors such as primary conditioning, cultural and collective beliefs, and the safety of our nervous systems play a part in forming these behaviours as habitual.

Despite the external talks, some aspects can be deemed true for us, more than others. The idea of creating this life feels exciting and brings us alive. We understand the efforts required for it, but there's no two way about it. We need to stand our ground to follow these visions, for it is our creative purpose.

Despite not being completely devoid of others' influence in our lives, we can choose how we relate to these influences.

The Thing About Thoughts

Our thoughts are a by-product of our nervous system conditioning through life experiences. These simply articulate our limited world and what is known to us. When we consciously create nervous system safety in our bodies, the quality of our thoughts becomes refined.

Our thoughts are then, no longer bound by cultural conditioning. Instead, they are now fleeting. We choose the thoughts that we'd like to engage with. In fact, as the quality of our thoughts improves, our intuition strengthens.

Thoughts can allow us to connect with ourselves or create disconnection within ourselves. The quality of our thoughts depends on the state of our nervous system.

Our thoughts follow sequentially after a perception is created in our minds. Our thoughts reveal what we feel about a certain topic. Can we just observe it instead of being consumed by it? Explore these relations. Notice what stories your thoughts are narrating.

Our thoughts are constantly reflecting the world through our subjective experience. It can feel real. But we can intentionally change our thoughts and experiences, with conscious decisions.

When a circumstance arises, and we feel triggered, our body braces and experiences a threat to our well-being. This creates a sense of hostility within the nervous system, and we might respond defensively.

Whereas, when such a circumstance arises and we choose to embody a sense of calm, our nervous system experiences a sense of trust. We can then respond to the circumstances. This practice teaches us nervous system safety while we disrupt past patterns.

However, given the above circumstances, we need to trust our primal responses in the face of genuine external threats. It can help save lives.

Creating a life of our preference requires us to intervene through the rigid train of thought. It requires us to move beyond our habituation. Beyond everything, it asks us to trust our individual journeys, even if it doesn't look like those of others'. 

Creation Lie in the Depths, in the Unseen

Our internal world is responsible for our experiences in the world. Our internal energy is an unimaginable, astronomical space where the experiences of our lives are revealed to exist. We follow our intuition when we consciously follow the guidance provided to us by this energy. This energy is accessible to us at any point in time. This is the source of creation - our innovative, and creative endeavours.

The massiveness of our internal energy is unfathomable. When in doubt, we can tap into it. This energy is the source of our true nature, inspiration and insights.

Living in a material world can make us imperceptive to this source of infinite, creative energy. However, as we move through life, our likes, preferences, and other aspects that feel alive in our bodies - can guide us towards our purpose - of how we can be of service to the world.

Once we get comfortable with it, swimming in our depths can feel exciting and thrilling. There are many ways to access this source of quietude, stillness, and of unending energy. I reach out to this energy by practising yoga and meditation.

Anytime I feel overwhelmed, I close my eyes and take a step back from the mental imagery of my circumstances. This allows me to tap into this energy as well.

These practices have taught me that there is a well of nothingness beyond everything that exists.  A void. This energy brims with emptiness such that anything can be created from this.

Initially, I would be afraid of this void. This energy felt like a sense of finality. Like a dead end. I would get anxious when confronted with this reality. As if everything that mattered to me, ceased to do so. The veil of my so-called virtuous beliefs and values came off. I had nothing to hide anymore.

Eventually, I got curious about this and experienced the void for myself. While it felt like I wanted to run away from it, confronting it took some courage and will to face it. It also took less time to get comfortable with.

You see when all of your truths have crumbled down in the past months, another shattered illusion was the least of my concerns. In a way, I am glad that I am no longer a believer of the illusions, but rather a confronter of the truth.

Being human, these practices will make you break your heart on purpose. The truths revealed to you will make you question everything that you have believed and everything you thought you were, in all these years of your existence. But, it will free you from the confines. It will teach you to stand out from the crowd, and not be afraid of it.

Your truth - the shadows, the light, the greys and all of the nuances will be welcome -no matter the shades, textures and tones - and you will still be acceptable to yourself.

I realized that I had reached a new level of freedom when I could admit things to myself. I didn't have to lie to myself anymore. I knew when I was being true to myself, and other times when I would pretend for the sake of others.

This raw freedom taught me to be comfortable in myself, to stand tall and proud. No matter what others' opinions are on it. Nothing is real. Everything is an illusioned truth, not real. What else is there to be afraid of?

Of course, there are times when you feel human, and just go with what is asked of you, and you might feel helpless. But, self-awareness can teach you to be an observer of your life.

My biggest lesson recently was that there are layers to everything. Even to the circumstances that I harshly criticize. Despite this realization, each context differs. The lesson does not pertain to all circumstances. 

Shifting Perceptions to Shift Your Life

Our emotions are our life guides. All of us are imbued with truths that are unique to us. We live in a world where we interact with so many others; those who represent and stand for their unique truths. These interactions can bring forth many emotions, including those we are unaware of. We navigate our external world by attuning to our internal world, accepting our truth, and expressing them.

All our emotions are experienced through sensations - each sensation represents a story. It's easy to understand those emotions that we are used to. However, as human beings, most of our emotions are abstract. It's difficult to make sense of these. They come forth through different neural connections that might not carry any meaning. However, these emotions can still impact us.

When we learn to witness our emotions for what they are, we create space to expand our consciousness. The more we can practice this, we realize that everything is temporary, and not as massive as our minds make our circumstances to be.

This means that our beliefs, values, thoughts, priorities, and aspirations can shift at any moment. We hold onto these qualities because they provide us with an identity. It lets us believe that we make sense.

These shifts can happen not just through external circumstances. But also through intentional decisions - deciding that you can no longer hold on to quality, for it no longer serves you.

Our emotions emerge from our subconscious and express vital information. We can describe what a certain unfamiliar emotion feels like. In some of my previous articles, I have written about attributing colours, textures, and shades to describe unfamiliar emotions. Similarly, when we describe an unfamiliar emotion, we characterize it. It becomes tangible as we have the vocabulary to communicate our abstract feelings.

The more we embrace our emotions and our truths, we learn to accept our ways of being. We learn to no longer contain our perceptions (of ourselves and others), to what we have known so far. We learn to intentionally expand the capacities of our worldviews. We also learn to expand the capacity to freely experience ourselves.

When we learn this, it gets easier to navigate the unknowns. In my experience, I learned that I can deliberately shift my perspectives at any time. It is now easier to graciously leave behind a thought, belief or value if it no longer serves my journey.

As humans, we try to be virtuous, holding on to values so tight, so we can make sense of ourselves in this wide world. However, a changing world requires us to leave behind all that we consider true for ourselves. It requires us to pick up traits to help us move forward in our life's journey and to navigate a changing world.

A necessary practice. 

On Life Experiences and Humility

My life experiences have truly humbled me. They have made me realize that all of us live such distinct and unique lives, combined with all of the experiences that have shaped us.

Somewhere along the way, I also realized that all our life lessons also differ from one another. In a way, our experiences impact us in different ways, even if it is the same circumstance or the same lesson. We imbue each experience in ways that make sense to us or support us. It all depends on our values, our experiences, and the qualities we inspire and prioritize.

We can't be bound by the values, opinions and experiences of those around us. For they can only connect with just that which is innately true for them. Likewise for us. However, we can listen to all that's presented in front of us, and choose all that which inspires us to grow beyond our capacities.

Eventually, it all comes down to that innate knowing within. The truth that resonates with our being. Working with our past stories, allows us to liberate our thought patterns, and meet the present with a curious mindset.

We can only comprehend others' experiences through our lens. Unfortunately, their experiences cannot be confined to our perception. There's more to their experiences than what our mind manufactures them to be. And this is a ticket to not presume others' narratives. For, we can possibly never understand the struggles that lie beneath them. 

Creating New Systems to Create a New Life

To create an everlasting change in your life, create a daily system. Our bodies rely on routine. Creating specific changes in your life will require you to make consequent changes in your day-to-day routine.

Our bodies trust familiarity. Once a habit is set into your routine, it's easy for your body to navigate it. Eventually, it becomes who you are.

When we inculcate new activities into our day-to-day lives, other aspects add to it. For instance, when you start waking up earlier for a workout, you get to experience the tender slowness of early mornings - the cool, crisp breeze, and the sweet melody of birdsong. You'll also see that just like you, others woke up early. You're not alone in this transition. They might have had difficulty getting accustomed to this change too. Yet, here they are with you - for a morning leisurely stroll, or a quick run.

All it takes is a decision to include a new habit in your daily life. This practice snowballs your life experiences in immeasurable ways. You'll never know which experience can inspire your next move.

From my experience, I have learned to take one habit or activity at a time. Change itself presents as a threat to our auto-pilot functioning system. It's like resistance training. It's important to give our bodies and our minds space to accommodate this transition.

Practice as much as you can. Especially during the times you don't feel like, it and the times where you feel you're doing it all wrong. Keep going despite these setbacks.

Repetition reinforces habits. Habits rewire your subconscious system. 

The Components of A Creative Mind

Our creative minds are progressive in nature. Just like how humans and plants require nourishment to grow, our minds require daily practice that encourages them to move beyond the confined thought processes.

Our creative minds are curious and willing to explore beyond the known. This willingness allows the creative mind to tread through resistance. In the process, resistance is an expected, inevitable element. Resistance is usually a psychological block, that can prevent us from moving through the process.

Or maybe in the process, we learn that there's nothing wrong with being wrong :)

A creative mind seeks to break through the existing structures. It understands the value of subjectivity in an objective world. It tries to make sense of the world through different mediums and does not hesitate to listen to opposing views.

The creative mind is intentional and deliberate in its creative endeavours. Once it starts spilling over the confines, it no longer seeks to defend its actions. Rather, it becomes accepting of the nuances.

Our creative mind leads to innovation. It teaches us to create new worlds with the resources at hand. It is a network of systems that ensures personal and collective evolution. It is an active process. It creates through surrender. It is process-driven, rather than outcome-driven.  

The Components of Our Critical Mind

Our critical mind is the voice that constantly scrutinizes our actions and behaviours. It's the internalized voice of the external world. These voices might seem harsh because their critiques in most cases, do not align with our true selves. These are the limited beliefs imposed on us.

Our critical minds have evolved through our childhood. The first and the core voice of our critical minds is the voice of our primary caregivers. In most cases, our parents. Growing up, we experience the world through our parents' lens. Our nervous systems get attuned to these worlds, rather than to our bodies.

As we get older and we begin to question these world views, in a way, we begin to seek our own. We see that we no longer fit in the world views created by them, and dare to venture new worlds. Treading our own paths is one of the most difficult journeys that we'll ever undertake in our lives. It requires us to unlearn all that does not meet our measures, and practice new ways of being that does.

Through our experiences, we learn the qualities deemed acceptable, and all that isn't. We mould ourselves to fit into places. This represses our true sense of self, and after a while, can suffocate our day-to-day experiences.

Unfortunately, we get so acquainted with this critical voice, that we begin to identify with it. Unless we are aware of our thought processes and are curious enough to unpack the narratives hidden beneath the layers of decades of conditioning, we are confined to the loop.

Just a few days back when I was in the middle of a thought process, I realized that I wasn't trusting my intuition. Instead, my mind gave me excuses for not trusting this thought. The thought inspired me, motivated me and encouraged me to work on my true self. I then questioned this resistance - Why shouldn't I trust a thought that felt good and kind to me?

Would you allow yourself to believe in your subjective experience? Just for a minute, do not impose this experience on what you should feel like.

The beginning of true freedom lies in accepting your circumstances just as they are and moving your way through them. 

Holding Yourself Through Your Experiences

When you look at it objectively, we are the only ones living our experiences. When triggered by an aspect of our life experiences, we are bound to feel alone. 

There is a part of you that is strong enough to hold you through your emotional pain, and your worst fears. It is expansive and has no end. This is the part of us that enables us to adapt to our changing selves and our experiences.

Whenever you are triggered or incapacitated, by fear or a catastrophizing thought, remind yourself that your primal (or childlike) mind has spiralled into anticipating an unknown (the future). Our mind can comprehend minimally. It cannot predict the unknown.

So, it is crucial to cultivate qualities that ground you while you navigate the unknowns. We have emerged from complex systems and live in fine distinction from each other.

Cultivating a part that holds you means cultivating qualities that enable you to meet your truth. It asks you to be fiercely compassionate with yourself. Practising this heightens our intuition.

I am not afraid of your pain. We'll face it together. Even if I don't understand it, I am here with you, as you experience your pain.

We have been disconnected from our individual truths because societal norms do not accommodate people who exist in ranges. There is a set of parameters that deems people acceptable- including the measures of success, goodness, and intelligence.

When we allow more of our nuanced selves to exist, we learn to accommodate others' nuance as well.

Sometimes when we are in pain, we wish someone to witness and experience this with us. That we aren't alone in this. When we learn to hold ourselves, it enables us to experience the dark depths, that might not be tolerable to others.

When we learn to become this space for us, we can make space for others too. 

Observing the Observer

When an interpretation is making its way through your mind, pause and ask yourself, where is this interpretation stemming from?

We are not our thoughts or our emotions. We are not names or identities. We are not the labels, or definitions of what has happened in our lives.

When we separate ourselves from the stability (or an anchored narrative) of what we've known to be true, we can see that we are the observer. Being in the observer's seat allows us to separate ourselves from our patterns.

Sometimes, our interpretations can stem from a belief passed down from a family, or something that our friends have convinced us to believe in. Other times, it can be something we read somewhere and decide that we want to believe in this.

Many times, it can be a past pattern being re-experienced. So we interpret the story from that knowledge.

When aware, the observer views the world intentionally. It allows the individual to pause before responding through past patterns. The observer can choose the perspective from which they want to view the circumstance. When a past pattern is ingrained into our ways of being, we keep living the same lives. As humans are wired to evolve, living the same days over and over can lead to burnout.

When we shift our lens to view a circumstance as growth or something that inspires us, we are willing to view failures and losses as learning opportunities.

When in doubt, check-in. Ask yourself, "Who is viewing this experience? Who is interpreting this experience?"

Sometimes it can be the part of you looking at the circumstance through a past grief. Other times, it can be the part that's protecting you from failure, thereby holding you back. Sometimes, it's the part of you that will keep going, reorienting as needed.

It's just a matter of being curious and checking in with our experience. 

Exploring How the Shadow Self Shows Up

Lately, I seem curious to notice how my shadow self shows up. From what I understand, our shadows are the aspects such as certain qualities, feelings, emotions, desires, or wants that we deliberately suppress. We have been taught that expressing these characteristics somehow makes us undesirable, unfit, unworthy, or bad.

We are well-trained to hide these aspects of ourselves. We have learned to limit ourselves to the personas that we (and others, collectively) find desirable. That helps us fit neatly into the box. So much, that we fear these qualities showing up. And when it shows up, we act up or lash out at the other person.

Our shadow self usually shows up as a response to something. It triggers our internal self, causing us distress. The circumstance itself might not be threatening, but the sensation from the trigger can feel like something is amiss.

When we get curious about these triggers, our unconscious narratives are revealed to us. From here, we can decide how we would like to communicate about this with the other person. Whether it's about sharing the discomfort of the circumstance and creating a boundary for this. Or deciding a better way to respond the next time something like this happens. It all depends on the context.

Sometimes our shadows can also take the form of something that we have not yet accepted about ourselves or our circumstances. We are either dismissive of it or defensive of it. This is how we know our shadows are showing up. Our shadows are also revealed to us when we assume that certain circumstances are unfolding at the behest of us. 

Our shadows show up when the external world is at the root of our intentions. We are driven by external measures, pleasures or transactions, and we are willing to pursue this at the cost of us. Pursuing our whole selves teaches us to get curious and accommodate our whole selves, even the repressed parts. 

Our shadows are created when we only uphold the values that are deemed acceptable for society. It forces us to repress other parts of us. We can navigate our life's journey healthily, only when we are accepting of the different shades of our lights and shadows.

We are lovable in all our shades, ranges, and textures.

When something triggers us, we can get curious about it. Once we get to know the root of our distress, it gets easier to navigate and manage it, keeping a centred view of the circumstance.

When we view ourselves (and others) as humans existing in ranges - we learn compassion. We learn not to characterize (ourselves and) another under just one category. We learn there's an infinite spectrum through which we can know another, not just our view of them (or the circumstance).

Once we get comfortable getting to know the shades of our shadows, we get comfortable with being vulnerable. In fact, we learn to hold ourselves through it, and not hold anyone else accountable for this. We learn to depend on others because we learn to depend on ourselves.

No one exists in one light. We all can fall short of the righteous values we project onto others and ourselves. At some point, we can even contradict ourselves. Humility arises from knowing this. We can exist at different points in a spectrum. The goal is learning to accommodate these infinite versions, without being held back by our mind's interpretation of a single version. 

Experiencing A Self Beyond Confines

Today as I practised a yin yoga sequence, I experienced a sense of self, that lay beyond the labels. Lately, I have been practising slowing down. Slowing down beyond measure. Slowing down beyond what I have ever known before. This slowing down is an active choice. It is intentional and deliberate. Slowing down, I could see the parts of me that I was afraid of; those I had deliberately suppressed; those that were not easily welcome into this world. Yet, slowing down allowed me to see, experience them, know them and be known by them. And, this felt incredible!

This infinite self seemed to emerge from my intentional breathing, which embodied into me. This self protects me from my fears, by nudging me to move through them so they can be dissolved - requiring active participation from my side. It is an all-encompassing, loving and expansive energy. It encourages me to reach beyond my extents; because there are none. It is supportive and all-embracing. I realized that the more I slowed down during the difficult, incapacitated times, the more I could receive and open up to myself.

This experience has been humbling because it taught me that there's so much more than my mind can comprehend. There's so much beyond my habitual emotions and beliefs. There is so much more beyond my mistakes, controlling how I am perceived, my mind strategies, my shame and my guilt. Something that sometimes, I tend to hold on tight. Just so it can provide me a sense of virtue. 

I intend to connect to this energy often. And I look forward to what this journey can teach me.