Understanding Human Psychology

  Losing a beloved aunt is like losing a piece of one's own heart. The memories shared, the laughter exchanged, and the wisdom imparted create a bond that transcends time and space. As I reflect on her life and the impact she had on me, I am reminded of the promise I made—to honor her memory through my academic achievement. My aunt was more than just a family member; she was a mentor, a confidante, and a source of endless inspiration. Her passion for learning and her unwavering support fueled my own academic aspirations, instilling in me a love for knowledge and a desire to excel. When she left this world, she took a piece of my heart with her, leaving behind an emptiness that seemed impossible to fill. In the midst of my grief, I made a solemn vow—to pursue my doctorate and to carry on her legacy as the second doctor in our family, herself being the first. It was a promise born out of love, a testament to the profound impact she had on my life. Studying for a doctorate is a challe

  So let's look at something very interesting today. Being a coach and trainer, I've been frequently meeting people on their personal and professional development concerns. A very prominent facet which comes out in most of the discussions is life feels like it is stuck, I'm not moving any further professionally. Hence personal life is also feeling low and dull. In an interview of Richard Bandler, I heard him say, "You can get intelligent day by day or dumber day by day. But you can't remain the same.' Now, what does this mean? And how is is related here? It means that as time passes you either use your life experiences and the learnings to improve their ways of work or they live mindless by doing dumber stuff.  So coming back to the challenge that most individuals face now-a-days. Most people who I speak to for coaching know they deserve better at work, better positions, better salary, challenging job profiles, recognition and fame in society. But how do they g

  There are different therapies available for various issues in today's times. For example, there are many alternative methods of curing various issues like EFT, NLP, law of attraction and many others that work on the subconscious mind. Alternative therapies have become even more popular than regular medical aid. Famous comedian, actor and foodie, Kunal Vijaykar lost 20 kgs through an alternative method of enhancing his subconscious mind. (https://m.timesofindia.com/life-style/health-fitness/weight-loss/indias-biggest-foodie-kunal-vijayakar-loses-20-kgs-by-enhancing-his-subconscious-brain-read-more/amp_articleshow/90595878.cms) Another video that caught my attention is how thousands of people are using hypnosis as a medium to lose massive amount of weight. This woman in the video just talks to the audiance in a closed hall for hours. After attending her program they start losing weight. Sharing the link here for viewing (https://youtu.be/Bftxx-WXSgA) Similarly, most diseases doc

  I've been observing how pandemic has impacted children since a while now. When pandemic hit first, children were at a greater loss than adults. Adults were already living much of their work lives online, a long while ago prior to pandemic. But school and college children had not seen online lessons. The concept of online learning existed for working professionals and the pandemic enhanced it in full swing. Learning apps got a boost for schools and skill upgradation. What happened emotionally and psychologically with children is a lack of social space to interact and express themselves. We are social by nature and want to live in herd. It is our natural response to stick to our tribe to get the feeling of love, safety, security, belonging, recognition. I saw the same stress and fear, many kind of question marks on my daughter's face too, when I would take her to meet people or our for a walk. But another observation which I have made children who are in their teens are grea

  Buddha said when the student is ready the teacher appears. This simplified, means that when the student wants to learn, the teacher must be able to transfer his knowledge. As a part of growth and personal development, I attend various events, programs and sessions related to my field. At times I have noticed that the students genuinely want to learn and are motivated to ask questions on the topic, but the speakers have an agenda which they want to follow and not deviate. So when posed with questions many speakers put the question in the parking lot or ignore it altogether, instead of answering it. It could be that it is a challenging question for the speaker to respond to. But still it is his duty to satisfy the curiosity of the audience by answering it. As a trainer myself, I relate to it that is a classroom if we go with an assumption that no person in the audience is smart and they are here to just listen and agree to the trainer, then please that thought is absolutely supposed

  We all have our own beliefs which guide in many aspects of life to take a certain course. Our beliefs also influence our thoughts and feelings towards others, be it family, friends or work colleagues. Whether what we believe is a fact is another debatable topic. But because we have beliefs, we choose certain behaviours and respond in peculiar ways. How are these beliefs formed and why do we live with them or rather do they stay with us throughout life? Can we change these beliefs? Should we? The answer to belief formation isn't simple. It is a process which is a part of personality development. It is formed as a part of experience as we interact with others. But beliefs make us categorise people as good or bad; once we feel that a person is good or bad, we take a firm stand in our minds and it tends to reduce our flexibility towards life. Let me get more specific here. Every behaviour elicits a reaction and that reaction usually is a definate or confirmed response which we giv

  In a training session, I recently learnt about an inspiring story of a 13 year old Chennai based girl, M Nethra. The real life hero and inspiration did not know what her good deal would give her in return until it really did. The story goes, that when the first lockdown struck there were many people who were left stranded on the road, without food, without adequate supply of ration, and money to meet the daily expenses. These people, mostly the daily wage earners, at that point of time, thought that they should leave for their villages to survive or else they would have to perish in poverty. Due to the sudden announcement of lockdown and closure of state transport systems, they had only one choice, that is walk many many miles to reach their destination. They had extremely a little money to survive and they thought the best way to survive for long term is to go to their hometowns as there was no mode of earning left in the city. Their plight was all in the news and was known to the

In over a decade of corporate experience and few years spent in educational sector, I have come across all kinds of personalities in the senior management cadre. By this I mean, I've seen those who truly believe their power is their Designation, their Chair and their Title (the way they are addressed- sir, mam). And I've seen those who recognise and follow the fact that a leader is what he is because of his followers. Respect is earned and commanded and cannot be demanded. I've seen those earlier lot of people which I mentioned here, are highly driven by cabin culture. The size of the cabin and the table they have is their reason to boast. Sadly, within themselves they attach their self worth to it, and in one way they are slaves to their Chair. I say this because they attach their purpose, respect, ego and life to it.  Then there is a category 3 which I call the 'confused minds'. They are the ones who yearn for a large space and want their names to be addressed wit

  Recently I was attending a session on counseling where we were discussing energy exchange between the counsellor and counseled. We also spoke about how a counselor must be able to empower the client by maintaining the same energy within. By energy here I do not mean the obvious physical display of energy or physical strength. Energy here means the energy our aura reflects, the energy charge which every atom in this universe has.    Coming back to the session, I heard a question pop up to our speaker, 'Sir, many-a-times I have heard that we must stay away from negative people, negative energy. That drains out our own energy drastically. Sir, but you asked us to empower everyone. What do you suggest in case of negative people who drain our energy?' There was a pause and gripping silence in the group. I felt like many resonated with this question.    I too got answers, in form of different thoughts, which I was not sure of whether right or wrong. But yes what I felt were my

Creative Problem Solving When the ball pen did not work in space, as ink did not flow in absence of gravity, millions were spent to develop a pen which would work. Then came a very simple suggestion, simply use a pencil! Although many of us have heard of this story which describes how simple solutions can be arrived at, when seemingly complex problems are thought through with a calm mind. This story is purely fictional and just to explain the concept of valuing simplicity over complexity. The solution may be right in front of us most of the times.  A video on a channel shows a young woman was given a math problem to solve, which she, after few minutes, gave up. When a child sitting beside her solved it in one go. This was the problem and the solution. Problem : 5 + 5 + 5 = 550 (add one straight line to make both sides equal) Solution : 5 4 5 + 5 = 550 A website, whatwedoallday, trigged my thoughts further towards the simplicity in which seemingly complex problems can be managed and

 Have you ever felt a deep sense of emotional connect when someone is narrating a situation? Did you ever relate a personal story to an issue your friend,teacher, parent or trainer is narrating? I'm sure we face such feelings multiple times in our daily life. Learning occurs when we listen to life experiences of others. Listening is a powerful mind tool. Research suggests that we remember around 25 to 50 percent of what we have heard.  A great deal of material is available on storytelling and learning how to do it better, in today's times. Adults learn from each other everyday through stories. So we are actually storytelling in our everyday lives, always. We have stories at workplace, in webinars, in classrooms, in training rooms, even the media, always, tells us a story. By story I do not mean pure fiction. Stories mean incidents which are either real or fictional, but they leave us with lessons to learn from. If you want to enhance your learning, then listen to other's s

  What is common sense for today's generation is innovation and science for the previous one. My husband said this to me. And that made me ponder on. Our lockdown life, due to covid, has prompted the government to apply strict rules. One of that includes 'only essential services will work from office'. Since I work in one of those sectors, it was my usual day to work. On my way back, I booked a cab service through an app; just a regular affair for me. The driver called and asked me where I was, I told him to follow the map, but he failed to understand and asked me for directions. While he arrived, I was on the phone, so I gave the OTP of the ride to the driver. Engrossed in my convesation, waiting for the ride to begin, I started to get impatient. I asked the driver what the matter was. Then I saw him struggle with the app to put the OTP and get the directions. Losing my temper I asked him to make it quick and finally gave him inputs to get going. Soon after, the driver sta

 Have u ever felt a feeling of remembering a past instance in an extremely distinct manner? Such that you can feel, smell, taste exactly what u did at that time in the past. Books are a source of knowledge for us, however, that is reinforced and imprinted in our minds through experience.   We all learn through experience. It is more so to do with how common things around us have left an impression on our minds. For example, in school, our science lab was a fascinating world for us. It taught us how common things like heat, electricity, pressure, gravity, etc. worked, and this left some lifetime learnings. Most of the early life experiences are either at home or at school. Parents and teachers play an almost irreversable role in the child's life. Certain incidents either positve or harrowing, make such a distinct memory, that even after years, the feeling which it gave at that time when the incident happened can arrive.   According to research by the APA , p eople who have fond mem

Simple Pleasures of Life    As a child, I loved to play with balloons, the attractive colours, the fact that it could rise in the air and float for a while before falling down, the shapes and sizes it would be available in and the ones which were blown on parties and weddings, all, so fascinated me. I felt elated playing with one. Owning a balloon to yourself at a party was pride and happiness for a child, in our times.     As I grew up and got swankier games to play with, I had forgotten the humble balloon and what it could teach a child, and how it can keep a child entertained for a good deal of time, until a few weeks ago when I saw the happiness on my child’s face when she got a balloon to play with. After a hard day’s work, I retired to take a walk in my society, as a woman passed by with a bunch of balloons, each tied to a stick, and each had some grains of fine sand put inside before being blown up. That caused a light rattling sound when the balloon was shaken. The woman came t

Formal Education Have you ever been asked, "So you have completed your education?" I am sure most of us have faced this question. It is not surprising for society to think that education has an end and so does gaining knowledge and learning new skills. Well, the intent of asking such a question would be probably just to understand if formal classroom education/degrees have been acquired for the said field of interest and career. But the truth is, it is not unusual to think that these two words 'education' and 'knowledge' are synonyms. The question raised on completion of education also indicates to the other person that ‘I am sure you have gained all the relevant knowledge in the field of career and you are all set to face the real-life situations at workplace.’ As per Oxford dictionary, ‘education' is defined as 'a process of teaching, training and learning, especially in schools, colleges or universities, to improve knowledge and develop skills.

  Colours influence mood I have heard about how colours influence our mood, our feelings and emotions. For that matter even donning different colours make us feel either happy, dull, confident and so on... But lately, I have been reading about how colours can influence learning. Being in the training field has intrigued my interest in this topic. Out of all the information we take in or comprehend, most of it is in form of visual material or visual cues. So the same goes for learning too. Research states that 65% of humans are visual learners . (According to the Social Science Research Network.) While learning, whatever information our brain is absorbing, is mostly through the sense of sight. With the percentage of visual leaners being pretty large, we can definitely study more about how to enhance learning using this modality. Everything which comes in the vision of the learner, at the time of learning, for him, that is his visual learning material. In this article, I shall sp

We are a 'Blank Sheet' You are having a white sheet..a full scape blank with which you can do many things. You may choose to draw an apple, an earthen pot or a classic scenery with mountains, a river and a house, which every kid learns to draw at school. But what if you are given a pre-existing figure or drawing on the sheet, and asked to improvise it. Or if you are given an idea of what is required and you are asked to draw accordingly? Then, in that case, your mind will work within those constraints.  Life also unfolds similarly. As children, we have a white sheet in front of us, a full scape blank sheet. We are free and wild. We love to explore, by nature we are curious. A kid will run after the cockroach, the mother will shout and scream, that is when the kid will learn that behaviour too and react probably the same way the next time he sees a cockroach. As we grow up many such constraints are laid upon us by our family and society. Now that white sheet has been filled gr

Lockdown Lifted Since the lockdown is lifted by the Government and normalcy has been resumed, many have taken the period of lockdown like a by-gone. It's like become a thing of the past and they want to forget the few months when they were confined and regain their freedom entirely. It's not actually wrong to feel that way. We all want to refrain from getting into a lockdown situation again and also want to forget the ill effects of the pandemic on all the aspects of our lives. That includes family life, social life, economic downturn, psychological trauma which we faced. Yes, we want to forget all of it. Which is fine. New Normal However, we are not realising the fact that the virus still exists in and around in the society. There are so many asymptomatic carriers who unknowingly are mixing up with other healthy individuals who have not yet come in contact with the virus. Somewhere what happened due to the lockdown is, we got scared and worried about our lives and the live

Step back and look inward for confidence Recent events of celebrity suicides, teens taking extreme steps in a bet or truth and dare game, and people playing blue whale to take stupid dare and stunts which risks their lives. These have forced my mind to raise the question, How precious is life for us? Here, the question is not of the life of others. That is far. But it is the question of our own life. The fetus spends nine months in the mother's womb, to fight all odds and have a life in this world. Every mother takes extreme pain to give birth, with the hope of having a healthy child. It takes years of love, nurturing, caring, learning, time, energy, responsibility and most of all patience to bring up a child. It is a mammoth task to develop a value system, get education, employment, settle in life, fulfil your duties and above all realise your dreams. And after going through the walloping and enormous series of developments and changes, we take life so lightly. Statistics sho