Who Manages Our Life?

By vs sekar (CFI Certified Executive Coach)

Is This Not Us?

“What is bothering you?” I asked my Coachee in a recent Coaching session as I could see him seemingly agitated.?

He narrated the incident that happened the previous day when his boss bellowed at him for no fault of his, leading to him having a disturbed, sleepless, and restless night.?

On challenging him to reflect more, he appreciated that “we all get disturbed not by the event but by the ‘view’ we take against that event” – but he could still not digest the disturbance in his mind caused by the harsh words spoken by his boss in that particular moment.?

I could empathize with his? deep hurt. “Even assuming the failure happened by my fault, how can my boss use such insulting and rude words to me?” – my Coachee continued, evidently still carrying the commotion in his mind.?

The Real Culprit

This took me to a quick flash-back of another conversation I had about 2 decades ago with a learned SwamyJi when he came to address a group of managers in an annual conference.?

He spoke about how our positive thoughts, beliefs, and mindset shape our emotional strength, which in turn helps us come up with ruminated responses rather than reckless reactions. He further emphasized how our beliefs and expectations are extremely influenced by our own experiences, prejudices, and worldviews.?

There was huge applause for his talk, and later we got into a conversation extended on the same topic over the dinner table.?

“How can you expect us not to get disturbed, SwamyJi, in our mind especially when someone talks to us in a way that clashes with our values and intensely impacts our self-respect ? Will this not be distressing, jarring, irritating, and hurtful?” I asked him.?

We all expected a very profound answer from him. Instead, he countered with a clarificatory question “So, you get disturbed because someone is unable to control his anger and is using abusive and harsh words, right?” I agreed.?

He continued with another question “Is it possible for you to do a 10-minute meditation?” I told him, immediately, yes! He followed, “But with a simple condition: you must do 10-minute meditation and during those 10 minutes, you may think of anything in the universe excepting a dancing monkey! Can you do that?” We all paused for a minute and then responded, “How is it possible? The moment we close our eyes for meditation we sure that a dancing monkey will come jumping in our inner eyes!”?

“So, you agree that it is very difficult to control your mind?”?

“Yes, Yes, very difficult!”?

Then with twinkling eyes he continued “Then how can you expect that ‘someone’ who is disturbing you, to control his own mind, which is neither in your control, nor in his own control?” We all had hearty laugh at the dinner table and concluded that topic then, understanding what he wanted to coach us.

The Torch

I shared this conversation with my Coachee, and we continued talking about how we perceive the external events that cause our disturbances, but in reality, it is better to note that those events are out of our control and work on what we can control - which the way we choose to view and respond to them internally.?

As my Coachee was keen on getting more insights, I shared two more anecdotes – heard, read, picked up somewhere and well registered in my mind:?

Let me take a pause and keep this article shorter for an easy read! The anecdotes are on the way and I will shar them in the next article.?

However, I am curious and would like to ask you-

I am sure by now you have checked if dancing monkey appears or not. Hence, how do you control your monkey? What’s your tool for the same? Do share your thoughts in the comments.?