Kenrick Vaz

Gratitude

Are you a glass half-empty or half-full sort of person? Your attitude has an impact on your mental as well as physical health. Some of the proven benefits of thinking positively include:

better quality of life
higher energy levels
better psychological and physical health
faster recovery from injury or illness
fewer colds
lower rates of depression
better stress management and coping skills
longer life span

Being positive won’t magically make your problems disappear. It will help make them manageable and help you approach hardships with a better frame of mind.

Positive thinking requires effort and there are many ways to train your brain to think positively. A few techniques like positive self-talk and putting a positive interpretation definitely help. Here is another important aspect that comes to mind today which help me

Gratitude

Being grateful and thankful has tremendous benefits on our life quality, not only to others but also ourselves, the circumstances we are placed in and our experiences (better and worse).

An attitude of gratitude is the best beatitude

I use the five finger prayer method as a nice way to remember all I need to be grateful fo. Below is a nice illustration of this method

And here is one of my favourite hymns – Thank you Lord by Don Moen

Mistakes do not define you, they refine you

Mistakes do not define you, they refine you. It’s easy to lose focus on the big picture, on your future when your day to day life consumes all your time and energy. There is no doubt that living in the present is important. However we tend to look at the past and dwell on either our mistakes or our achievements.

Let your past be stepping stones to your next success – not an anchor in which you think you have to stay

Learn from the past, analyse it, study it all you will so you can learn more about yourself, others, your work. However when it comes to the future, one of the key lessons I have learned is to trust yourself.

Steve Jobs, who needs no introduction, shared the following in 2005 at Stanford

You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.
Steve Jobs

Here is a link to the transcript of the speech

Mistakes do not define you, they refine you. At least this is what God does with our mistakes, messes, and mishaps. If we allow him to clean up the mess, he will use every bit of it for our good. If we let Him, God will use the results of our mistakes as the foundation upon which He can build a new life.

How does God use our mistakes?

To correct us
Proverbs 20:30 ~ “Sometimes it takes a painful experience to make us change our ways”
To refine us
1 Peter 1:6-7 ~ “In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith — more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire — may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ”
To protect us
Genesis 50:20 ~ “You planned evil against me, but God used those same plans for my good…”

On our darkest of days, God whispers to us “I take this mess and use it for your good. Come to me. Turn to me. Trust in me.”

Life is like a camera…

The analogy of the camera to life is so apt. There are different variations of this anonymous quote. The four points that I’ve come across are as follows:

Focus on what’s important
Capture the good times
Develop from the negatives
If things don’t work out, take another shot

All photographers can attest, it takes a lot of patience, a lot of focus, several shots to get the “perfect” picture. It’s so easy to get distracted with trivial matters everyday. It’s important we learn to focus on what’s important and block out the rest.

What helps me is to visualise at the start of the day all the important stuff I’d like to focus on, the things that matter and the things that I can control.

And then more importantly at the end of the day, look back and see what went well and what didn’t go as planned. Only if we do this will we be able to capture the good times and develop from the negatives. And only after this does it make sense to take another shot!

In his Spiritual Exercises, St. Ignatius presents the Daily Examen, a technique of prayerful reflection on the events of the day in order to detect God’s presence and discern his direction for us. The Examen is an ancient practice in the Church that can help us see God’s hand at work in our whole experience.”

This is a version of the five-step Daily Examen that St. Ignatius practiced.

1. Become aware of God’s presence.
2. Review the day with gratitude.
3. Pay attention to your emotions.
4. Choose one feature of the day and pray from it.
5. Look toward tomorrow.

For details on each step of the Examen, read How can I Pray?

One Thing I Know….

As we’re struggling with the second wave of Covid-19, our west coast has been hit with a cyclone. I’ve asked myself again, where is God through this all? Last week I had written on how worrying is assuming that God doesn’t know what He is doing

A few years ago, I heard this hymn by Selah and with all that’s going on in our lives today I was drawn to recording it in March. Listen to the one thing I know…

Heart

Apart from being an important organ in the body, the heart is also the essence of our spiritual and emotional being. We feel our heart flutter when in love and heartbroken when rejected or hurt by the ones we love. We “take things to heart”, “talk heart-to-heart” about deeply personal issues. We can love from the “bottom of our heart” and also “be half-hearted” about things that don’t interest us.

Our heart is so much more than the wide range of feelings and emotions. Ed and Deb Shapiro describe the heart as the king, with the mind as the king’s adviser. When faced with a decision, the king may ask his advisers for advice, may even send him out into the world to gather information, but ultimately it is the king that makes the final decision. Even though the advisers do not always agree with the king’s decision, the king is invariably right, because the king’s view not only sees the bigger picture but is also aware of the needs of others.

In the same way, when faced with a decision or conflict, your mind may come up with numerous, different and quite logical reasons why you should act as it advises, but if you listen to and trust your heart—however illogical or irrational it may seem—it is usually right and you are happier as a result.

Being in tune with your heart, your inner voice, is not always easy. With constant noise, controversy and chaos all around us, some struggle more than others to listen to our heart. Listen and Silent have the same letters! We need to be silent to hear that quiet inner voice that whispers what your heart desires.

A good heart is better than all the heads in the world
Robert Bulwer-Lytton

We can’t always choose the music life plays for us but…

We don’t always have control over what happens but we do have control over our thoughts, reactions and emotions. Most of the time our emotions and reactions take us by surprise. Often they are confusing and make us react in ways that we don’t like. They pass away quickly or sometimes stay for a long time, thus leaving us in a bad mood.

The key question we can ask ourselves is am I managing my emotions? Or are my emotions managing me?

Sometime back I had read a very good article with 7 Strategies Emotionally Intelligent People Use to Keep Their Feelings Under Control

The strategies above definitely help, however the one thing that helps me is what St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, mentions in the Spiritual Exercises

It should be presupposed that every good Christian ought to be more eager to put a good interpretation on a neighbor’s statement than to condemn it. Further, if he cannot interpret it favorably, one should ask how the other means it. If that meaning is wrong, one should correct the person with love; and if this is not enough, one should search out every appropriate means through which, by understanding the statement in a good way, it may be saved (SE 22).
St. Ignatius of Loyola

Putting a positive interpretation to a statement or situation will help you react to it in a better way. For example, if you had to meet a friend at a given time and your friend is late, if you start saying “He/She is always late…never on time”, you automatically start feeling negative and get more agitated and irritable. However if you start saying things like “maybe something important cropped up” or “he/she may be finding it hard to get an Uber”, then you will be less angry and more sympathetic when your friend does reach.

Each of us our fighting our own battles and we may not understand why a person is behaving in a particular way. Putting a positive interpretation to their actions and words will definitely help you react to situations in a better way and will also help the other person in many ways.

Here’s to you choosing to dance to the music life plays for you today! :)

Keep It Simple, Silly (KISS)

There are many occasions when things don’t go as we expect. We keep asking “Why” – “Why me?”, “Why did I not get that?”, “Why did I lose my job?” or “Why am I not losing weight?”. As we wallow in our misery, we think “something is missing”. We think we can make things better by doing something new, trying something different – “only if I had something more”. We take on more work, more possessions, more friends, more responsibilities, more hobbies — more, more and more!

More often than not, we don’t realise that we are in this situation because of a decision we made or because of a series of choices we’ve made. When we look back and reflect on our journey, we may see what has brought about to where we are right now and subsequently we come to the realisation that instead of adding something, subtracting something instead will bring about the change we desire. Instead of overthinking and making things complex, the KISS principle stresses on Keeping It Simple!

Here are three simple ways we can start to KISS!

Subtract negative talk
- “If you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all.”
Subtract an unproductive habit
- Add more time to your day by reducing screen time
- Add more years to your life by cutting junk food, addictions
Subtract a draining obligation (work, relationships…)
- Increase happiness by distancing yourself from toxic people

To attain knowledge, add things every day. To attain wisdom, subtract every day
Lao Tzu

Start small, start simple…look within, subtract the superfluous and make room for yourself to grow into the best version of yourself!

Don’t Worry, Be Happy

Most of us, at some point in our life, have sung this song “Don’t worry, be happy”. However with all all that is happening around us today, it is indeed difficult to not worry! We are worried about when this pandemic will end, we are worried about our jobs, we are worried about our families. We read about our grim situation on the news, on social media. Amidst the sea of negativity, how are we expected to not worry?

As Toby says, worrying is assuming God doesn’t know what He is doing. And we will only assume this is if we don’t trust God. There is an intimate link between knowing, loving and trusting God. The more time I spend getting to know Him intimately, the more I fall in love with Him. And the more I fall in love with Him, the more I trust him. My time with Him changes from asking to thanking, from requests to just feeling blessed. I trust that He will work wonders no matter what comes my way. He knows what is best for me.

I don’t know what the future holds, but I do know who holds my future.
Lee Strobel

Here’s Bobby McFerrin singing “Don’t Worry, Be Happy”

Everyone’s Losing Something ~ Odette Katrak

Everyone’s losing something
What did you lose today?
Our routines have all gone haywire
Taking our comforts away.

Did you lose the privilege of a driver
Whom the lockdown forced to stay home?
Or were forced to cook your own dinner
Pushing you out of your comfort zone?

Are you sad that you lost a holiday
That you had booked so much in advance?
Caught with the seeming unfairness
Of this unfortunate circumstance.

Or did you lose a golden opportunity
To have the biggest wedding you’d planned?
But just ended up with a small one
No big crowds, and no live band.

Everyone’s losing something
A privilege, an opportunity, a chance,
But lucky are they who lose just these
Minor hiccups to otherwise smooth plans.

There’s the unlucky one who lost a job
And another who lost his mind,
The stress of this pandemic scenario
Has turned out to be brutally unkind.

Someone lost more than a privilege
A brother-in-law, an uncle, a friend,
It’s going downhill far too quickly
Can’t wait for this nightmare to end.

So if you missed your maid this morning
Or your favourite TV soap,
Remember the little girl missing a dad
But just doesn’t know how to cope.

Extra chores may push you to exhaustion
Or just make you miss that beauty sleep,
Think of the man who lost his wife
But his baby gives him no time to weep.

Each one is going through this nightmare
In varying degrees of dread,
For some it’s a minor adjustment
For others, a permanent void instead.

Everyone’s losing something or someone
Many are finding it difficult to cope,
But whatever you lose as you travel on
Make sure to never lose hope.

There’s light at the end of the tunnel
A definite rainbow after the storm,
Your losses will strengthen your inner core
And you’ll learn to cope as you move on.

Remember if you just lost a privilege
Someone else lost a very dear friend,
So ignore that insignificant inconvenience
Think of what really matters in the end.

There are people dying all around us
No beds, just gasping for breath,
Our convenience doesn’t matter as much
As collective onus to prevent each death.

Everyone’s losing something or someone
Let’s remember we’re all part of a whole,
One person’s action can hasten the spread
Let’s choose right and hang on to hope.

Everyone’s losing something or someone
We’ve all got to play our part,
And hang on to hope as we journey on
Bruised, broken but never losing ❤️💜❤️

Self Care

We live in a society that often celebrates the idea of pushing through and “soldiering on” whatever the situation may be. While pushing ourselves can be good for us, it’s important to be aware of our personal limitations.

Too often, we spend more energy than what we take in. Now this energy I refer to is both physical and emotional energy. In simple mathematics, if we spend more than we take in, there is bound to be problems down the line.

At times, we are aware that we don’t have enough reserves to pull through the day. Our mindset usually is “let me get through the day and then deal with this..”. This goes on day after day till at one point we realise that our glass is empty!

Burnout doesn’t happen overnight. It’s a series of small events that snowball into a crisis.

It’s a paradox that I took some time to understand and accept. The busier you are, the more me time you need for yourself. With a packed schedule you may say that you do not have time for yourself. But at the same time it’s important that you make time for yourself.

Self care is the conscious effort of making time for activities you find beneficial towards filling your cup. Caring for your mind and body doesn’t have to be time consuming. While eating and drinking well, getting enough sleep, living a healthy active lifestyle are some ways we can care for our body, we should not forget relaxation, mindfulness, social connections, hobbies needed for the mind.

If you keep putting others first, you’ll soon find that you have nothing to give them. Looking after yourself is the best gift you can give others. Fill your cup daily so that you have enough to offer your loved ones and friends!