QnA Parenting: T2 article Dated 22nd July, 2018

Q. My 10-year-old cannot go to sleep unless he is in physical contact with someone. Even if it’s for just 10 minutes before sleeping. How do I change this? He will be going to boarding school next year and I need to get him out of this habit.

A: The best way to deal with it is to have a talk with him; explain the situation and tell him why you need to help him get over this habit. 

There are a few things you should be aware of. Has he always been this way, or is it a recent habit? If it has always been like this, then probably you or one of the family members has created this habit. In that case, you need to talk to him first and deal with the situation based on his reaction. You may need to gradually wean him off this habit. Offer to sit in the room initially as he tries to sleep. After a few days, let him try and sleep alone. 

If this is a recent development, you need to determine its cause. Many times, a child may be fearful of something or they may feel they are not getting the attention they need. Chat with them without criticising them and then act accordingly. Children at age 10 are capable of sleeping alone, so knowing the root of the problem will help you solve it easily. Ensure that the solution is something that he is comfortable with. 

Q. Is fidgeting a psychological disorder? Do I need to be worried if my child is constantly fidgeting?

A: Fidgeting by itself is not a psychological disorder. It can be a symptom of behavioural issues, depending on the age of the child, the frequency and duration of fidgeting and whether it is disrupting normal activities and studies. 

Children under five years are generally fidgety and curious about their environment. They are restless and want to move about. This pattern decreases as they grow older. Try to engage your child in physical activity and encourage them to play games which require focus and concentration. If the fidgeting is affecting their studies or activities, consult a child counsellor. 

Q. My 18-year-old son has made friends with a gang of boys who are into doping. How do I keep a check on him without antagonising him?

A: This depends on your dynamics with your son. If you have a friendly relationship and he trusts you, then having a few heart-to-heart conversations and explaining your reservations should be enough. Make sure that you have authentic information before you have these conversations. Do not discard the importance of his friendship; rather talk about what your concerns are. 

If he has been staying away from doping despite his friends being into it, please make sure to compliment him. And let him know that you trust him. If you are open and can be non-judgemental, children are quite eager to share their stories; for that, though, you have to first gain their trust. If you already have a difficult relationship, then take the help of a professional counsellor to improve your relationship. 

Q. My 10-year-old daughter is quite sharp, but her attention span is very poor. She is hyperactive too. How do I help her?

A: Kids are more active than adults and often appear to be hyperactive. They also have shorter attention spans. At 10 years, they cannot sit for long periods to study. 

There are different styles of studying. Some kids, especially those with ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), study better while moving around, others memorise better if they hear things and while some others are visual learners. Support your daughter by allowing her to learn in the style that suits her best. Try and make studies interesting for her. The sharper your child is, the more curious she will be and is more likely than others to be bored of things.

When studying, it is all right to give her a break after 30-40 minutes and resume. Encourage daily outdoor activities as children generally have lots of energy which needs to be spent. 

Various research shows that cutting out artificial sugars from a child’s diet helps those who are hyperactive. 

Reduce the time a child spends in front of the screen to a minimum, ideally not more than half an hour a day. If she still finds it difficult to concentrate, you can seek professional help. 

Q. How do I teach my nine-year-old son to handle rejection? From not being selected for the school football team to losing in a cricket tournament… of course, there are small rejections at every step.

A: There is no particular way to teach a child how to handle rejection. Children learn from their parents’ actions and responses — how you react to situations and respond to them. It is normal for your child to feel disheartened, let down, rejected when things don’t go their way. When you talk to your child, do not ignore these feelings. If they are very sad, tell them: “I know you are feeling sad, and it is okay. You can try next time.” 

Avoid trying to bribe your child with gifts or food to compensate for the rejection. Spend time with them, have a fun chat and play games when they feel disappointed and low. You can also assess your parenting strategies. Do you always say yes to your child or give in to their demands at some point? Then you need to start saying a firm no to their unreasonable demands. The skill to deal with rejection also comes from the ability to accept a no. 

Q. Bullying and physical violence is a major problem in boys’ schools. How do we advise our children to tackle that? Advising them to hit back always means encouraging them to be violent, while suffering quietly is seen as a mark of weakness.

A: Teaching your child about how to handle a bully is important irrespective of their gender. If there is physical violence involved where your son can be harmed, encourage him to report to an authority person immediately after the incident. Urge him to take precautions by making friends and staying with his group of friends. Teach him to shout out for help if he is alone and being harassed. Encourage your son when he helps his friends out in similar situations. Tell him: “Harassing someone is not acceptable behaviour, but that doesn’t mean that we retaliate by being the same way or taking law in our hands.”

Bullying is not just physical, there is verbal bullying, emotional bullying and cyber bullying. The key to tackling bullying is to have good communication with your child so that they can tell you without worrying about what is happening to them. The idea is to teach them to stand up for themselves, help them retain their self-esteem without encouraging to be violent or aggressive.

Q. To what extent do I allow my 10-year-old daughter to be on social media? Giving free access is proving to be addictive, while barring it is keeping her out of the loop while her peers are indulging in it. 

A: This is a very difficult and highly debated topic and it’s hardly possible to give a one-fits-all solution. The problem is not the fact that there is social media, it is how one uses it and for what one uses it. However, peer pressure should not be one of the reasons why you allow your child to use social media. Applications of social media is vast today; it includes various apps such as Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, Snapchat, Instagram and Tinder.

Homework assignment via WhatsApp is not harmful, but sharing private pictures or whereabouts to strangers on Facebook or Snapchat can be. 

Study and project material can be found online, so a blanket ban on social media is not a solution for the children of this generation. But as access to electronics increases, the electronic addiction also increases. You as parents have to be informed and discern which is the app that you will allow access to and which you won’t. Then fix a duration for which the child is allowed access to social media. Limit the duration of the overall screen usage as well. Do not allow online gaming every day. 

We believe, and these rules are arbitrary, that in the current Indian context, children should not have personal accounts on any social media before they are 15. For a 10-year-old, it is advisable to have limited and supervised access to an online medium.

Dr Sangbarta Chattopadhyay and Dr Namita Bhuta are medical practitioners and practising psychotherapists. They conduct individual and group therapy sessions in Kolkata.

https://epaper.telegraphindia.com

Work Stress/ "Load Shedding" : T2 article dated 8th July 2018

In a recent study of the American workforce, 77 per cent of the working individuals surveyed reported being unhappy because of work-related stress. Many of us could say the same about ourselves — the enormous stress that we feel because of our jobs. When we get stressed at work, it spills on to other aspects of our lives. Understanding how we behave, perform, respond and cope in our workplace is the key to dealing with stress in the long run. 

What is stress?

Stress is our physiological and psychological preparation for a real or presumed challenging situation. 

When we sense there’s a crisis coming up, we mentally switch to a crisis management state, we become alert, our blood pressure rises, the heart pounds, breathing becomes heavy, muscle tightens. Our body gets ready to fight or take flight. This priming response, which we recognise as the stress response of our body, is very important for our survival. When the crisis is over, our body is geared to go back to its normal state.

These physiological changes are not harmful to the body as long as the body returns to it’s resting or baseline equilibrium reasonably quickly, and what is causing the stress is there only for a limited time period. 

We also experience these biological changes when we get excited, say, when watching the World Cup match between Argentina and France, or doing physical training, or even when we have a fanboy/fangirl moment with a celebrity. Many might actually enjoy the adrenaline rush and crave it, as it lets us experience a sense of excitement, thrill and aliveness. It is only when our body’s functions do not return to their baseline — either due to long-standing exposure to the stressor, or because we don’t know how to disengage from the crisis situation and give ourselves a break — that stress actually gets to us and becomes harmful. 

Stress at the workplace

We may not realise it, but an insecure work environment, even when it works in our favour, actually can build up constant anticipatory stress and hurt our productivity. A workplace that is friendly and cooperative will naturally make one secure, relaxed and at ease. So nurturing a supportive work environment goes a long way toward reducing stress. Here are a few things we can do reduce work stress for ourselves and for our colleagues. 

Support your team

Listen to everyone in your team and respect them for their uniqueness. Avoid being a bully; instead, be there for the other person. Motivate, mentor and groom your juniors and help out your colleagues. They are likely to help you when you need their support! Avoid powerplay and favouritism. Sometimes in the guise of being playful or pulling someone’s leg for fun, we end up ridiculing, isolating, hurting or breaking our co-worker’s morale. Watch out against that. 

Avoid setting unrealistic targets and deadlines

Perhaps nothing stresses us out more than a feeling of helplessness when we deal with a situation that’s beyond our capacity. There is rarely anything more uncomfortable than the constant reminder of our inability to do something which can alter the outcome. What can one do in such a situation? 

1) Do not overcommit:

 If you are in a position to make decisions, try not to commit more than you can realistically deliver. Have a discussion with other team members to estimate the time needed to finish the work. Many a time, in our zeal, to push ourselves or please others or because of our inability to say ‘no’, we bite off more than we can chew. It may sound dynamic, but in the long run, it only takes away from the productivity of the team.

2) Communicate:

 If you don’t have a say in setting the deadline and it is imposed on you, try and communicate your concern and reservation to the team leader and the members objectively and gently. Make sure that you put your best foot forward but also prepare yourself that you may not have any control over the outcome. Support other team members and work towards the goal, keeping in mind that your estimation might be wrong and you may actually be able to meet the deadline. 

3) Plan and strategise:

 Break up your larger goal into bite-sized goals and spread them over a week, so that you have smaller daily targets. Prioritise the bigger picture, which is important, and focus and work towards it. A planned approach will put you at ease; it is the direct antidote to fight feelings of helplessness.

Fear of underperforming

It is important for us to be noticed, acknowledged and appreciated for our contribution. It is important for us to do well and live up to our own expectations. And in a situation where we are lagging behind, we may find ourselves unhappy and stressed. To deal with it, the following steps can be helpful.

1) Avoid comparisons with colleagues: 

Comparisons polarise us. Either we feel flawless and hence superior, or we feel deeply inadequate and hence inferior. Disengage when your colleagues play one-upmanship driven by their insecurities. To be on top of your game, you need to choose your battles carefully. 

2) Set goals for self-improvement and learning:

 Rather than trying to be better than your colleagues, try bettering your performance! Assess your skillset and aim at improving it. A self-focused growth plan can greatly help in reducing the fear of underperforming. 

3) Take unfair appraisal in your stride: 

Don’t be too harsh on yourself or hold onto grudges when you are given a poor appraisal. Sometimes you may not be given a justified appraisal even with your genuine effort and contributions, at other times, office politics or unconscious biases may affect you negatively. Try to not be bogged down and focus on what you can change. Communicate with your HR or manager. Discuss calmly why you have been scored so and what you can do to improve your performance. 

Burnout

Work can be hectic and because we spend more time at work (including travel time) than ever before, it is vital that we are in fine form, physically and mentally. These small steps go a long way in preventing burnout.

1) Devise a switch-off switch-on office ritual: 

Try to switch off from work worries when you step out of the office. You can create a visual ritual to remind you of this. Imagine putting all the worries and issues in a backpack, zipping it and placing it under your office desk before leaving work. 

2) Participate in activities: 

Spend time outside your work; pursue a hobby or some extra-curricular activity. This will help to disengage from the stress and allow your mind to unwind. You can use meditation apps daily or try some residential meditational courses once in a while. Prioritise family and social connection time when you are out of your office. 

3) Get enough sleep: 

Having a good sleep cycle is important to rejuvenate your body and mind. To have sound sleep, avoid caffeine, watching television and using social media before going to bed.

4) Eat right: 

Are you going hungry for long hours and then end up binge eating? Eating right is not just about what you eat and how much you eat. It also matters when you eat. Eat at regular intervals and keep healthy snacks or fruits handy. 

5) Exercise: 

If you can’t manage 30 minutes of exercise during the day, break it down into 10-minute chunks thrice a day. At work, take regular breaks to stretch, especially if you have to sit for long hours.

6) Vacationing: 

It is needless to highlight the importance of a little time off once in a while. Plan and prioritise your vacations carefully. The idea is to give your body and mind an opportunity to recuperate and rest from the perceived crisis. 

https://epaper.telegraphindia.com

Parental Guidance : T2 article published on 24th June 2018

Most parents will agree that their parenting goals are largely to ensure that their children know how to navigate through life -- how to be happy in whatever they do, and how to deal with the ups and downs of life. Yet, as parents, we often get short-sighted by our own insecurities and fears. We get enchanted and distracted by our child's small achievements -- which we think are the indicators of their future success -- and tend to forget the actual goals of parenting.

Here's a list of parenting paradoxes that we often fall victim to...

-We want our children to have strong self-esteem, yet we get frustrated by the most trivial setback they may have had, like coming last in the swimming competition. We judge them and scold them when they achieve less than what we had expected of them, which makes sure their self-worth takes a beating and they always associate self-worth with an external proof of success. We then get shocked when they break down at the smallest sign of failure or when they are unable to take a `no', either from us or others or life itself. When they show no skill to deal with any adverse situation that life throws at them, we fail to recognise and acknowledge our own contribution in what they have become.

-We want to make them strong, resilient and self-sufficient, but in reality, we try to fight our children's battles for them so that they can live life without struggle or pain. We fight with their school teachers for the extra half a mark and highlight to them how that half mark is a matter of life and death, yet we are shocked when a student takes their life because they got a few marks less than expected. 

-We want our kid to be smart, creative and problem solvers, but we force them to follow convention and discourage any out-of-the-box thinking. We try to control our children, put them in safety boxes and then wonder why they are not learning any interpersonal skills, or why they are alone, disconnected, lonely and depressed. 

If you've ticked right for one or more of the above boxes, you may want to broaden your understanding of what is happening here and how you may impart the values that will stand your children in good stead. These seven steps will go a long way in helping your children build joyful, meaningful lives. And because parents are the living role models for their children, it all starts with you.

Resilience 

Resilience, or the ability to bounce back after setbacks, is a vital skill. As Martin Luther King Jr. said, "We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope".If you've ticked right for one or more of the above boxes, you may want to broaden your understanding of what is happening here and how you may impart the values that will stand your children in good stead. These seven steps will go a long way in helping your children build joyful, meaningful lives. And because parents are the living role models for their children, it all starts with you.

In life, sometimes one has to forgive and forget. Brooding over what happened in the past or about things which we have no control over is mostly counterproductive. We need to teach our children this by being an example.When children fail, as it is inevitable sometimes, teach them to take failure in their stride and let them know that their effort and sincerity matters a lot more than the result, in the long run.

Kindness 

A kind heart is usually a happy heart. Encourage kindness not just for people but for all living beings. When your children bring home a sick puppy home, don't shout at them. Instead, help them to nurse it or find an appropriate shelter. Don't discourage their tender hearts or ridicule and trivialise their emotions. Avoid saying no just because it causes inconvenience to you. Learning to give without gaining anything (tangible) goes a long way in boosting a child's emotional well-being. Add little acts of compassion in your daily life as well because children learn by example and our actions speak louder than words.

Nurturing connections 

When children make friends, encourage them to invest in and care for these relationships. Let them meet their friends under your supervision if need be, but don't turn them down. The ability to make new friends is a great skill to have. Teach them to connect to people from different backgrounds, regardless of caste, creed or social status. If you have a concern about a particular friend or group of friends, talk to your child, explain your concerns and point out which actions of their friends you disapprove of, rather than mocking or judging their friend. Help your children to learn from the best qualities of their friends and overlook and filter out the negative ones. When your child has a non-serious fight with their friend, motivate them to resolve it themselves rather than you intervening and calling the parent of the other child. This will build their communication and conflict resolution skills. In today's globalised world, one needs to be open, flexible and inclusive to be successful.

Sincerity, discipline and diligence 

Instead of focusing on their intelligence or talent, pay attention to the role of sincerity, discipline and diligence in their lives. These values are the cornerstones of being successful in all aspects of life. So when your kid is struggling with a math problem and sincerely trying to solve it for hours, encourage and reward them for their effort instead of lecturing on wasting time over one sum. When we focus only on a specific or perfect outcome for every act, we prime our children to be anxious and stressful later in life. Appreciate the effort even if it hasn't yielded a tangible result.

Creativity

Encourage and support your child to have a hobby and help them explore and express their creativity. Having a hobby is not to make them the next famous artist or musician; it's meant to let them ideate and imagine and remain engaged in a creative process and have fun. Urge them to focus on enjoying the process.

Acceptance 

Acceptance is an important value. Whether it is about accepting oneself, others or situations in life, as role models for our children it is important to impart this value. Are you critical of your child's physical appearance? Are you quick to pass judgement on others? When faced with challenges, do you react by getting hyper, stressed, or making a scene? Do you respond in a temperamental way each time your child does something undesirable? How you behave with your children as well as others can influence how your child behaves. You build your child's selfesteem when you encourage them to accept themselves. Accepting other people as they are, along with their shortcomings, helps to make your child build healthier relationships. And how they deal with challenges will determine how they cope with stress. 

Gratefulness 

A sense of entitlement can creep in our children when we are trying to do our best for them. Discourage this firmly but calmly. Teach them to remain grateful for all that they have. Teach them by walking the talk yourself. Show that you focus more on what you have rather than what you don't have. If they can start being thankful for everything they have, it will help them have a healthy mind and happy life.

Dr Sangbarta Chattopadhyay and Dr Namita Bhuta

Medical practitioner,  Psychotherapist, Trained Family and Structural Constellation leader

Seize the Day!!!: T2 Article dated 18th March, 2018

It is quite usual for a therapist to come across clients who keep rewinding to their past in their head, which means they are often not able to be fully functional or productive.
There are two ways in which we can be trapped in the past. First is when we are so enamoured of our past achievements or so traumatised by our tragedies that we stay frozen in that time, rather than attending to the present.

The other is when we start living in a fantasy world created by us. This world is all about what could have been if things had happened differently. Like how easy life would have been if we had the perfect job, or how nice things might have been if we had approached the girl/ guy we fancied back in college. This kind of living ' in the past ' also robs us of our skills, mental availability, efficiency and peace of mind in the present.

Then there are others among us whose minds can be constantly flitting from the present to the future. We think faraway, have grand goals and get so absorbed in visualising the outcome of our choice that we don ' t even stop to think what the road to that goal might look like! That in order to achieve our target, there are smaller steps to be taken in the here and now. If we are too focused on something that might happen in the future, we miss all the opportunities that are there in the present moment.

The other flip side of this is that we keep obsessively worrying about the future. So many of us use up so much of our time and energy imagining the worst possible things that could happen to us or our loved ones. Not only that, we put in a lot of effort inventing ways to avoid or solve those situations too.

The result? We are least productive in taking action in the present situation.

MAXING THE MOMENT 

Can ' carpe diem ' — or the idea ' seize the day ' — be a remedy for our troubles? That seems to be the philosophy that popular culture is obsessed with of late, and the self- help industry is making the most of it too, but let 's try and understand what it means.

The Oxford English Dictionaries describes carpe diem as "to urge someone to make the most of the present time and give little thought to the future". The popular Latin aphorism is also often equated with the arguably misinterpreted and debatable Charvaka couplet in Sanskrit: " Enjoy every moment of life as long as you live. Even if you need to borrow money, always ensure that you are well- fed. " But " just enjoying the moment " while ignoring everything else and " being present in the moment " are two very different things.

Conceptually and in practice, they are diametrically opposite.

The modern- day idea of carpe diem is a stance where we are constantly looking for pleasure; we want excitement and ecstasy all the time. When we try hard to make every single moment pleasurable, it disconnects us from the totality of that moment. So we tend to pick the ' truths ' that are comfortable for us and ignore those that are not. Which actually amounts to turning a blind eye to reality.

The Roman poet Horace first used the phrase ' carpe diem ' to urge people to take action in the present moment in order to build a better future.

Even Charvaka, for whatever little could be retrieved and decoded, taught people to take action based on objectivity, rather than lofty metaphysical ideas about afterlife and karma.

In their teachings, both advocated an action- oriented, awareness- based living, so that one could be more available in the moment.

IN THE NOW 

Then, what is living in the moment? Well, it is an approach of inclusion, where you take in both the good and the bad — whatever it is that the moment offers. In the real sense, living in the moment is an invitation to be completely aware, awake, and available in the current moment.

When we are present, we are aware of our surroundings, the people around us, and we are aware of ourselves. We are also aware of the situation we are in and what we are feeling at that moment — pleasant, unpleasant or nothing in particular. We try to remain as non- judgemental as possible and assess all of it with a sense of calm.

Here, we look at everything with a certain degree of objectivity. We look at ourselves and others as a whole, and take a measure of our limitations as well as our potential, objectively. We try to see our weaknesses and vulnerabilities, with kindness, and work on them without being self- critical or ashamed.

Such a perspective also lets us look at our strengths and use them appropriately, without feeling proud or arrogant. We also remain connected to others and ourselves. This stance needs us to be acutely mindful of ' what is ' and it helps us to face life situations even if they are uncomfortable. So, we make rational decisions, instead of rushing into something, swept by a tide of emotions. And we can look at the present moment as part of a continuum, not as an isolated dot in time. Here, we are centred and collected in the present, while remaining connected to our past and aware of the possibilities that lie in the future.

It allows us to learn from our past mistakes and experiences, and assimilate the learnings in the present. So we can prepare to put our best foot forward.

Dr Sangbarta Chattopadhyay and Dr Namita Bhuta 

are medical practitioners and practising psychotherapists. They are trained Family and Structural Constellation leaders

https://epaper.telegraphindia.com/paper

Acceptance: Fact of Life :T2 Article dated 10th Dec'2017

There are three musts that hold us back: 

I must do well. 

You must treat me well. 

And the world must be easy 

— American psychologist Albert Ellis

What we do not realise is that often what's coming in the way of our happiness is our list of 'musts'. How do we overcome these? 

One of the ways is by being mindful of our own 'musts'. 

This can be done by- 

• Observing our emotions, such as "I am irritated at myself for not being happy as I must always be happy". 
• Being aware of the talk that goes on in our head, like " I must be perfect at all times "...
• Watching our reactions to situations, such as " If things don ' t go the way I want them to, I feel pissed off". As we become conscious of these, we also need to develop flexibility, kindness and acceptance towards ourselves and others.

WHAT IS ACCEPTANCE? 

Acceptance can mean different things, depending on the context.

Psychologically speaking, one can say it's the ability to experience or acknowledge life as it is. Being in denial of certain facts of reality or running away from a particular situation is the opposite of acceptance.

To be mentally healthy and functional, one needs to practise some degree of acceptance. Studies on acceptance at the workplace by Prof Frank Bond and his colleagues at the University of London have shown that individuals with higher acceptance levels have better mental agility, better mental health and better job performance.

WHAT ARE WE ' ACCEPTING' ACTUALLY? 

We experience life in two ways. One is our external experience — of life situations and events that include our interactions with people, our health and our work. These are things that we can only partially control or sometimes have no control over at all.

And then there is the internal experience — our reactions and responses to these events and situations, and the emotions we feel as a result. These are the things that we can change or control.

Many of us tend to think that acceptance means we have to accept the external experience only and can overlook our internal experience. Well, the internal experience, in fact, is more important in the long run and also easier to regulate.

In life, some things just happen out of the blue. You're waiting at the signal and a car rams into your car from behind. While you can do little about the fact that it has happened, brooding over it might be counterproductive. You ' re not able to undo the damage done to your car, but by accepting it you can at least reduce your own suffering and may be calm enough to take necessary action, like lodging a police complaint and claiming insurance.

Then there are life situations that are difficult to come to terms with easily or quickly, like failing an important exam, losing a job, or a loved one passing away. It is important to identify and acknowledge our feelings and accept them the way they are. We can allow ourselves to feel the loss, and mourn or grieve it. If we are sad, angry or hurt, we can learn to acknowledge and accept these feelings too. It is absolutely all right to feel hurt, angry or sad in such contexts. And being okay with our own emotions sometimes helps us to be at peace quickly. 

This kind of acceptance means that neither are we justifying and brooding over our feelings, nor are we judging, rejecting or suppressing them.

WHAT ACCEPTANCE IS NOT 

Many tend to confuse psychological acceptance as giving up, or not being proactive, or as if it ' s the end of life. That is not what acceptance is.

Let ' s say, you have shared something in confidence with a friend and they have gone ahead and disclosed it to others. Then it is possible that you may feel angry, hurt, betrayed or let down.

Acceptance, in this case, would mean first accepting your own emotions and that it is okay to feel this way.

Next would be to accept the flaw in your friend — that contrary to your expectation, he/ she is not a person who can keep a secret. First, acceptance can help you reconcile with the situation and second, it can help you take a proactive stand of either communicating calmly to your friend about how you felt, or making sure that you do not share your secrets with this friend in the future.

ACCEPT, IN ORDER TO CHANGE 

Accepting one's life as it is is an important first step to actually changing the things you want to change. If a student wants to score 95 percent in the board exams, the first thing she has to do is identify her skill set and accept her shortcomings. If she ' s someone who can ' t sit down to study for more than 30 minutes at a stretch, she needs to acknowledge that drawback and make a plan factoring in this aspect.

Maybe she can take a short break every half an hour, with a reminder to herself that she needs to get back to study after that. And once she is able to do that, she can also try some concentration exercises to train her mind to sit in one place and focus on what she ' s studying for a longer period.

One of the most important things to factor in when setting a goal is knowing one's skill set — the strengths as well as the weaknesses and accepting them as parts of you.

THE WAY TO BE MORE ACCEPTING 

Acceptance of things needs us to be more mindful, which in turn can help us be more focused and goal- oriented.

Acceptance- based treatments have shown to help people with chronic pain, anxiety, inability to quit smoking, high- stress jobs and burnout. This may be due to the fact that as we become more accepting, we might not feel the need to avoid situations that cause us distress; we become open to seeking out new opportunities. This may lead to fewer negative thoughts and higher productivity.

For example, X may not apply for a new job because he's scared of being rejected.But Y, because he ' s okay being rejected and can take it in his stride, might apply for the job and land it too! 

Again, a businessman who's suffered a financial loss might feel very disheartened and dejected initially. But if he cannot accept this situation and his emotions at some point, he might end up feeling like a victim and lose out on other opportunities to turn his business around.

People often fear that by accepting, one is compromising. That is not true. However, at times, we tend to use acceptance to disguise our laziness, fears or our desire to not do a particular thing.

Sometimes our mind feigns acceptance and makes us remain averse to a situation. That is passivity, rather than acceptance.

That is why we need to be honest with ourselves about our true emotions; we need to be aware and mindful of what we are feeling.

When one is more accepting, it ' s possible that our priorities and drives change. Things that didn't matter may become important, while those that meant a lot may not seem so anymore. When this happens, our ' musts ' don ' t hold us back anymore and we are free.

Dr Sangbarta Chattopadhyay and Dr Namita Bhuta 

Medical practitioners and practising psychotherapists.

They are trained Family and Structural Constellation leaders 

https://epaper.telegraphindia.com

Happiness Part 2: Happiness in larger scheme: T2 (Telegraph India) article dated 12 Nov' 2017

Clap along if you feel like a room without a roof
Clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth
Clap along if you know what happiness is to you
Clap along if you feel like that's what you wanna do...

Pharrell Williams has got it spot on in those four lines of his Happy song. We are genuinely happy when we know what we want to do, when we find our place in the greater picture and feel like a room without a roof. So how do we get there and what are the detours that we usually take? 

We try many different ways to ensure our place in the larger scheme of things. For example, when we chase money, often we are not chasing money per se. If we look closely, we may find that in the garb of chasing money, we are chasing our idea of happiness because somewhere we have decided, quite arbitrarily, that money would give us something more than comfort and luxury (which money anyway provides). It could be power, social status, recognition or fame that we feel money can get us and make us happy.

Why do we want power or social status? The answer we may get within us could be, because we need adulation, validation and respect. What will that give us? Well, perhaps, people will listen to us, see us, value us, and as a result, we will feel connected, we will feel we belong. So though we may start chasing money strategically to feel validated, deeper inside it is actually the need to connect, to belong, to find our place that drives us. And we are usually unaware of these unconscious motives.

GOING OUT, HOMING IN

Freud and other later psychoanalysts have talked about the two contradictory drives that humans have in them ---- one is Eros, the life force which makes us go out there and connect with others; the other is the ‘death drive’, the desire to withdraw and be isolated. It is now widely accepted that the isolation part helps us as much as the connecting part. 

The key to happiness lies in striking a balance between these two seemingly opposite forces: reaching out to others and then coming back to our own self. This balance can be achieved by practising centredness. How? To start with, when we engage with the world, we need to let go of our hidden agenda to establish our value by dominance, control, or being proud. We need to go out there as a self-assured person; we don’t depend on others to make us happy. And when we withdraw within, we need to drop our judgements -- neither should we judge ourselves through other people's eyes, nor should we judge others by our standards and understanding of a context. When we are focused within, it’s important that we don’t become so self-absorbed that we forget about others. We need to assume a balanced stance where we are not dependent on others to define us and our happiness and yet we feel a sense of belonging and feel happy. 

POSITIVITY IS IN THE ATTITUDE

The self-help industry today is big on the ‘think positive’ mantra, which is most often interpreted as getting whatever one wishes for. ‘You think positive and it will happen.’ Well, it doesn’t always happen that way. And the very demand that ‘things should go the way I want them' is actually the cause of much of our unhappiness and worry.  

Sometimes things are going to happen that will not be in our control. The positivity is in how we approach the situation. It’s when we ask ourselves, ‘how can I make the best out of this situation?’ 'What else does this situation or experience mean to me?', 'What do I learn here, and can I develop any strength from it?', 'What are the opportunities it presents?' When we take the lows in our stride and do not discard the experiences, that is when we are being positive. 

It is important to accept that not everything is in our control and life pans out the way it does. We often tend to think that being a realist or seeing the whole picture means being negative. Well, the fact that one can see the negative in any situation means that one has the ability to recognise, anticipate, discern and analyse and may be, even take action to avoid such a situation! It is a laudable quality to have. Otherwise, if we cocoon ourselves in our comfort zone and completely shut ourselves to anything that is a little difficult, we will forever stay in our illusional bubble without picking up any life skills.

LONGTERM HAPPINESS SHORT TERM DISCONTENTMENT

The discontent that we feel can give us much scope for growth. Realising that something is not working for us, we find ways to get around it. Not being in a great state can, also, at times be very creative. Some of the most brilliant art, music and literature have been produced when people were not in a happy frame of mind. Even when a situation is not according to our liking, there is still peace in it. We can do something about it without being hyper or desperate about it. We need to be aligned to the idea that something may not work out the way we wanted it to despite our best efforts.

It may sound counter-intuitive at first but we don’t always have to be all right to be happy. The cyclical ups and downs are part of life. There will always be things that we will like and things we will not like, and therefore there will always be things that will make us happy and things that will make us unhappy, for the moment.

The idea is to look at things wholesomely, being grateful for what we have and rise above what we don't, to learn from negatives and to gather strength and be resilient. It’s about cultivating the subtle ‘enoughness’ within, irrespective of the situation, yet being ready for the next moment wholeheartedly to test our skills and put our best foot forward without being complacent. 

It’s again about a fine balance between staying fully engaged with the process itself and not getting too obsessed with the outcome. It is like being in the ‘flow’ with life itself. And for that very reason, we may need to stop chasing happiness like a distant mirage, and instead engage with life, playfully. It might also be necessary to drop our ideas of how it ‘should be', how things ‘must be’ and we may also have to stop trying to manipulate life and instead look at it friendlily.

Happiness is an experience of being engaged and yet being at peace in the situation we are in. If you are there already, clap along!

 Dr Sangbarta Chattopadhyay and Dr Namita Bhuta 

are medical practitioners and practising psychotherapists.

They are trained Family and Structural Constellation Facilitators.

https://epaper.telegraphindia.com/paper

Happiness Part 1: What Happiness Is: Are you happy? T2 (Telegraph India) article dated 3rd September 2017

ARE YOU HAPPY?

One thing most people will agree on is that we all want to be happy. The problem is, we often don't know how to be happy or what makes us happy. What is happiness, after all? Sometimes, we are happy when we feel pleasure. Sometimes, a restless mind is happy when it experiences a certain feeling of 'rest', or peace, or solace. We also feel happy when we are grateful, or in awe of something, or simply humbled by an experience, or when we laugh over something, especially with friends and family. The emotions are so diverse that each one of us has our own definition of happiness. WHAT HAPPINESS IS NOT What is important to understand is that happiness does not mean never experiencing negative emotions — pain, sadness and even anger are also important feelings. When we suffer an irrevocable loss like the death of a loved one, being sad is natural. We all need to know what sadness is, but having that experience doesn't take away our ability to be happy, neither does it make us unhappy as a person. In fact, it is quite the opposite. In order to have sustainable happiness, we perhaps need space to engage with other kinds of emotions as well. June Gruber, a psychologist at Yale University, has shown in her research that having excessive positive emotions, or fervently seeking positive emotions all the time, or even expressing positive emotions in the wrong context is associated with being at risk for mania: a psychiatric disorder. And at University of California, Berkeley, psychologist Dacher Keltner has discovered that pride — one of our often sought- after positive emotions — is easily confused with being in an excessively happy state, which can actually make us unhappy in the long run. Pride can give us all the euphoric certainty that we perhaps long for in ourselves with a desired sense of confidence and well- being. Dacher has shown that when one has too much pride or is seeking pride too frequently, he or she is actually suffering socially, in the long run, creating a really unhappy state. Too much pride makes one come across as conceited or somehow inaccessible. HAPPINESS MYTHS We often think we can be happy... .. only when our needs and desires are met .. when we are satisfied every moment with how things are going .. when we feel pleasure all the time Well, we can't function that way. The constant euphoric state is not normal, neither is it normal to expect that things will or should always go as we want. These, ' only when', ' every moment', ' all the time' are not practical contexts for happiness. We need to look at happiness from a broader perspective and as a realistic, wholesome experience. THREE KINDS OF HAPPINESS According to positive psychology thinkers, we can divide happiness into three categories. First is the pursuit of pleasure, which is short- lived. It is what we get when we buy a new car or have a bar of chocolate. It's a hedonistic sense of quenching the desire. The problem is, often the same object which is made accessible loses its ability to give us the same pleasure time and again. Next is a more subtle form of happiness — the happiness of flow. Flow is when we are content and fully engaged in doing something, like when we are painting or dancing, when, perhaps, we even tend to lose track of time.  In the happiness of flow, contentment comes from being fully engaged in doing something, such as a Sufi dancer whirling in a trance. Here, one is not focused on the outcome, one is not trying to create a great piece of work; one is just enjoying the process, fully engaged. The happiness of flow is more sustainable and fulfilling than the happiness derived from the pursuit of pleasure. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi of Claremont Graduate University has extensively contributed to the understanding and use of this phenomenon of 'flow' in creating a more resilient state of happiness. According to him, we can train ourselves to experience flow often and, as a result, be happy. The third kind is the happiness of meaning. We experience this when we feel we have a meaningful life or a purpose in life. We all want to be a part of or be connected to something bigger than us; be relevant in the bigger scheme of life. We want to contribute to a larger cause. This is a way of affirming ' I am', beyond mortality. Doing something meaningful, according to our own ideas of ' meaning', can make us feel connected to society at large or humanity itself and create a sense of belonging. Being a parent, being a part of a community, attending Sunday meetings or group prayers, participating in festivals, supporting our favourite soccer club, joining a cause.... All these are perhaps ways of being a part of the collective. We also have a sense of touching something larger than life and hence connected to something bigger when we experience awe, for example, when we are awed by nature or see a great piece of art. We also feel this, humbling feeling, though more subtly but more intimately, while actively contributing and adding value to something beyond our own selves. This feeling is altruistic in nature and also humbling at the same time. This is the most fulfilling and long-lasting form of happiness. Loving-kindness meditation or 'act of kindness practice' has been clinically proven to be of help in cases like depression, bipolar, borderline personality disorder and anxiety — perhaps because these tools and practices help us nurture the feeling of meaningfulness by contributing to a larger identity. Ultimately, we are all trying to be at peace with ourselves, so that we can feel good. In a way, we all are seeking assurance that we matter in the larger scheme of things. Dr Sangbarta Chattopadhyay and Dr Namita Bhuta  are medical practitioners and practising psychotherapists. They are trained Family and Structural Constellation Facilitator https://epaper.telegraphindia.com/paperl