The Four Aims of Life

On Saturday Bob and I ran one of our Clear Mind, Clear Body sessions in Sandhurst, Berkshire on 'Letting Go.' Here are some ideas we offered on the yoga mat and the blank writing page from the teachings of the ancient Purusharthas which provide guidance on the four aims of life – dharma, kama, artha and moksha. Mail me if you're interested in hearing about our next events.

If things seem out of kilter, you may like to explore which of these four is extending a stronger or lesser influence on your life right now. Do you need a bit more kama right now if you’ve overdosed on dharma? Or less kama to increase the artha? Just play with them.

Dharma is about duty and ethics, having the strength to get up each day and do what needs to be done. It relates to responsibility to serve yourself and society. Some questions to ask yourself include:

What is my role in the world?
What are my obligations?
Which ones feel right?
When I am serving the highest good, what am I doing?
Am I on a path for good?
How can I best serve the world around me?
What would Martin Luther King or Mother Teresa do?

Kama is about pleasure taking in all the senses.
The desire for pleasure drives all human behaviour. To practice kama yogically means to practice being fully present with whatever you're experiencing. Some questions to ask yourself include:
What am I passionate about?
What gives me pleasure?
Am I enjoying my life? What do I care about?
What do I most desire?
Am I hooked on anything?
Are my pleasures leading me toward or away from my life's purpose?


Artha is about enjoying prosperity and wealth (without greed). This is the material comfort you need to live in the world with ease; that which supports your life's mission. Some questions to ask yourself include:

What do I see as truly valuable?
Knowing my dharma, what do I need to play my role in the world?
Where do I place value?
Do I have enough?
Are my things making me happy, or are they stealing my joy?
Am I afraid of having more?
Am I afraid of not having more? What does wealth mean to me besides money?

Moksha is about freedom and liberation, enjoying freedom from suffering and the freedom to express your own creativity. You are as free as you experience yourself to be. Some questions to ask yourself include:

What am I doing to free myself from activities and perceptions that make me unhappy?
How can I not get caught in my emotions?
What do I choose to bind myself to?
Do I feel trapped?
Can I be free from blaming myself and others?
How can I make my mind free?

Where’s the adventure?

To live life to its full involves bringing a sense of adventure into the everyday; of taking ourselves to the edge of our self-confidence. It’s the place that Joseph Campbell calls “Crossing the Threshold” on the Hero’s Journey (see chapter 3 of my book Building Self-Confidence for Dummies). From this point we can choose to move forward into the unknown or sit around allowing life to happen to us.

But you don’t need to climb thousands of feet in the Himalayas or sky-dive to have an adventure. Adventure simply takes focus and determination, qualities that we can bring to everyday projects and relationships. It begins with that simple intention to step over the invisible threshold and engage with what’s there with a sense of curiosity, letting go of our self-consciousness on the way.

Last month I ran a weekend workshop with my husband, Bob (pictured here with a couple of dophin friends!) Called ‘Clear Mind. Clear Body,’ we created a space for self-exploration that combined our respective interests in yoga and writing. We booked the date, hired a venue, sent out invitations, planned a series of activities to stretch mind and body, cooked up healthy food and loaded the car with yoga mats and writing pads. A small expedition in deepest Berkshire here in the UK.

(The next one is on 8th May, contact me if you're interested.)

As in the classic Kevin Costner film ‘Field of Dreams’ when you create the space, people come. On the way to the workshop I felt the butterflies dancing in my stomach saying: ‘Why am I doing this?’ On the way home, with a deep sense of contentment, I remembered why. Our guests had fun and left with a renewed sense of calm and focus in their busy lives. The event centred, not on our fears, but on our confidence that we could contribute something that others found valuable.

Our small Berkshire adventure into the unknown became an adventure for others to discover what they’d like their lives to be like this year. Such is the ripple effect.

At its heart, confidence is an adventurous act, a willingness to commit to an uncertain outcome with an open heart and open mind. In this sense opportunities to be adventurous present themselves to us every day. Walking a new route to the shops, trying a new food for lunch, signing up for a class you’ve never taken before, volunteering your time for a charity, introducing yourself to someone new at work or talking to a stranger in a café. One small adventure builds on the next; this is how confidence grows.

Life is uncertain, accepting it and seeing this inbuilt uncertainty as the doorway to new possibilities lies at the heart of the adventure. So often, we are the barrier that gets in our own way. I invite you to look for new small adventures in the everyday of your life. Keep a diary for a month of the small things you’ve done that take you over that threshold. Have fun and let me know how you get on.

Ten top tips to close down creativity

Many of the people I work with in organisations are under immense pressure to perform miracles. Too much to be done in the allocated time. Unrealistic understanding of the real work and time involved. Expectations that they should be innovative, inspirational, creative, confident and competent - all of the time.

With the pressure so creativity declines. That's why the Saturday afternoon workshops; Clear Mind. Clear Body as well as the writers' events are so popular.

Stop for a moment to consider how your creativity suffers. Here are some of the ways I get in my own way.

1. Get too tired. Know that feeling of working late when you should be relaxing and winding down?



2. Eat sugar. Drink caffeine. How did I get tempted by coffee and a biscuit instead of water and fruit?
   


3. Take on extra work. That little word 'no' went missing.
   


4. Spend time with energy vampires. Again, I could have said 'no' to that invitation that didn't appeal.



5. Beat myself up for what I haven't achieved. Why not see the successes?
   


6. Compare myself with others. When I know their world is so different to mine.
   


7. Worry. About stuff that won't matter later.
   


8. Forget to go out and play. How dull is that?
   


9. Feel there's no time, so don't get started. Even ten minutes is worth getting started for.
   


10. Cut out the clear thinking time. When I know how these moments of space are so important.

I also know how unblock my creativity by turning these situations on their heads. Here's how:

First - Write down how you get in the way of your creativity as I've just done here.

Second - Take each statement in turn, flip it upside down and find the opposite situation.

Third - Identify one thing to do differently.

As an example, my number one of 'Get too tired' flips to 'Get too much rest'. OK, that's unlikely to happen. Yet, one thing I can do differently is to take a lie in or afternoon nap when I feel the tiredness builds. It's really that simple. And it's amazing just how it can feel wonderfully indulgent resting up a bit and how much faster the creativity flows afterwards.

Finding the muse

Scribble ends and writing really begins when I get in touch with the core of who I am, and relate to the world in a clear, non-judgmental way. Then I find the 'muse', a relationship to explore. It can be an abstract concept like freedom, or specific, tangible objects like the white hollyhock flowers braving out the Autumn weather that I see today from my window.

Last night I listened to some words from the author of 'The Artist's Way' Julia Cameron. It reminded me that creativity is a spiritual pursuit. When we take time for our creative exploration, we get in touch with our 'spirit' and that powerful, broader connection that makes the world a joined up place of similar souls.

Yet how easy it is to feel guilty about taking the creative time out. Julia has three guiding principles, her core tools that permeate her works.
1. Morning pages - where you write three pages of 'stream of consciousness' writing each day. This is relatively easy to do.
2. The Artist's Date - where you take yourself off on a solo, fun date each week. Time with yourself to explore an art gallery, a creative shop to buy sticky gold stars, anything that calls to you. This is where guilt sets in. 'Should I do this?'
3. Walk - a daily walk in the park, garden, beach, nature.

To Julia's ideas I would add my own muses- the discipline of a regular yoga practice, facing the blank mat like the blank page and allowing the movement to come from within. Contact with damp soil in the garden energises me as does the dynamic of the game of tennis.

As you allow yourself creative disciplines, make them personal rituals, so you find your muse.

From the Cafe at the Water's Edge

Behind the lumps of jagged rocks, layers of turquoise and petrol blue sea ripple over the stones. Ahead, the low-lying mountains dip into the cool sea. Only with time to sit and stare, do I notice the crocodile shape of the landscape.

In such a place, I grow two hours older without question, simply content to absorb the warmth through every pore of my body. The flower be-decked terrace offers gentle shade. The photo reveals a limited shot. Being here in the moment, I appreciate the patient continuity of the sea in motion, framing the busyness of Greek cooks pitting olives and cherries, the blonde young mother exploring rock pools, hand in hand with her lithe, demanding young son.

An old man rides his motorcycle slowly past, his labrador is attached by rope lead and jogs ahead to ensure its morning exercise.

Hungry business, this, sitting and sipping coffee.

Honesty

Honesty (its Latin name is Lunaria) has self seeded right through the dustiest border in the garden, offering a generous flowery white skirt to the new red leaves of the Cotinus Coggyria, the smoke tree. Soon a dark blue clematis will join the party, weaving through the branches.

The honesty came out of nowhere. I didn't consciously plant the seeds.

Watching this 'stuff' happen in the flower beds is like reading Fiona Robyn's new novel 'The Blue Handbag' as it unfolds sentence by sentence. Her book gently records the life of its main character, Leonard, an unassuming gardener mourning the death of his wife Rose. It's a mystery story.

Honesty cannot help but come out bright and white, and I'm anticipating the slow dawning of truth that will appear on the page, as it always does in the end.

Legacy of books and compost

I adore the feel of rich compost in my hands and feet. Gardening in flip flops beckons as the spring warms up. Living here with light sandy soil means I’m constantly improving that quality and gathering every scrap of fruit and vegetable skins, dead flowers and leaves into buckets by the back door.

I also love books and magazines, reading as much as I can to improve the depth of my own writing. This week a friend recycled a feminist title from 1985 called ‘The Dance of Anger’ by Harriet Goldhor Lerner. The author invites us to examine family patterns of behaviour going back through the generations.

Looking at my own family and friendships, I’m connected to women who find a common language through their gardens, giving and gaining pleasure from this space. I’m also mindful how the women in my life have shaped my own beliefs and behaviours, and the values I am passing on to my own daughters as they fly the family home.

Although, Lerner’s book says it’s a woman’s guide, there’s plenty in her stories of value for the men in my life. In my corporate coaching, for example, I always hear the stories of a father’s words to his son played out in another way. The frustrations of a manager with his colleagues so often stem from the family relationships. Our behaviour has deep rooted experiences.

Like a fluent writer, an enthusiastic gardener creates a legacy for the future generation to build on. Today’s fuchsia rhododendron breaking into flower owes its space here in my garden to an adventurous plant hunter travelling in the 1800s.

Yesterday’s rain combined with this morning’s sun loosens the soil for me to grab the emerging bindweed before it strangles the spinach and rocket seedlings in the veg patch. Yesterday’s apple cores and red pepper seeds will provide the compost to nurture the next generation.