The Art of Loving and the Wisdom of Detachment
What is detachment? Why is it important? You need power to remain free from the influence of others. Detachment is this power. If you can’t stay detached from influences you will not be able to keep your thoughts under control. From there it will be downward spiral until all trace of inner well-being is lost.The first step is to understand who you are as a spiritual being/entity. This allows you to “detach” yourself from your physical identity, and its world of limited thoughts and feelings, and “attach” instead to your spiritual personality, the being of inner peace and power. A normal day will be filled with challenges to this detachment. On the one side will be your spiritual awareness, but on the other side will be the attraction towards human beings and the material world. Detachment is not a question of becoming separate from the latter, but of simply remaining conscious of yourself as a spiritual being whilst being in the world and playing your part. Detachment simply means to keep yourself centred in your spirituality. Can detachment and love go together? Definitely! It's when love begins to surface when one is unattached. Detachment is the art of loving. I have to learn this art. Detachment is a talent as well as an art. It is developed through soul consciousness which, together with a deep relationship with the Higher Consciousness, God ... whatever name you give to the Supreme Source of Energy, will keep me from being deceived by the attraction of limited love. It means to be so centred in the consciousness of my true spiritual nature that there is a natural, automatic rejection of adverse personality traits within me and illusionary attractions around me. Detachment allows me to be unaffected by these and so able to continue cultivating the values, qualities and virtues of my spiritual personality. Detachment from even my ideas lets me feel more loving. What do I want my opinions, ideas, etc. for? Do they lead me to more peaceful, pleasant, loving relationships? Why do I need to be right, even if I am when having an argument with someone else? When I am in such a situation, what I usually do when the person needs and wants to be right is ask them: "Do you want to be right?" and say, "Here is mine, take it! I'd rather be loving than right!" (even if I am). What do I want to be right for?
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More on this subject of ATTACHMENT/DETACHMENT in the next entries
Entry Ross @ 5:31
Ethics in Life
Ethics means following a code of conduct based on a system, which, if applied accurately, promotes development of values, virtues and character. Ethics applies to personal life, in interaction with others and professionally. Ethics means to have a policy for the self. Discipline makes everything accurate, beautiful, spiritual and simple. A code of conduct can be maintained when the intellect is not easily pulled or shaken by small matters. It is easy to relate with someone who has good discipline. Our first ethic and code of conduct is to have an open heart. This requires bravery. Positive thought, the root of virtue, keeps the atmosphere clean and clear. Without an open heart, there is distress. You can neither do what you want, nor communicate clearly, you cannot even co-operate. You feel you will run out, so you do not give too much. A generous heart is not a question of money, but a state of being equal with everyone.At the workplace, one would do well to be honest and mindful of ethical principles before speaking. The conscience indicates whether actions are right or wrong. Acting with wisdom and understanding beforehand never brings regret afterwards. A good code of conduct implies respect, noticing specialities without jealousy, and being loving. There is the feeling of belonging. When working for an unethical company, do not be influenced by unethical activities, or let go of ethics or the code of conduct. Be very cautious and careful not to get influenced. Do not be so innocent that they use you. You need wisdom and cleverness. When there is caution, you have hunches. Even if the company you are working with/for is notorious for lack of integrity, one who works with a great deal of integrity will enable that company to gain respect. People do have high morals but the atmosphere of the world undermines them. You need such power of spirituality that a person cannot pressurise you. If there is no spiritual power, there is no access to values and virtues. Many people get confused and frightened by the defect of others. Understand people’s capabilities and limitations, otherwise, you are not helping them and they lose hope. Do not encourage jealousy. Zeal and enthusiasm should also be filled with such power. A pure positive attitude is honourable, brings internal power, and elevates character. Someone who wants to be an instrument to serve the world knows how to work with integrity. Those who are an example and inspiration to the world become highly respected, possibly even very high ranking, but they also have great humility. They do not alter their character or virtues according to who they are with. They have true pride in themselves. Integrity over a long period of time makes one (the soul) powerful. Some speak the truth harshly, and hurt people. Some tell ‘beautiful’ lies. You need caution. Truth doesn’t need to be proved, it is revealed automatically when spoken with wisdom. Integrity means honesty and no selfishness, thinking of the benefit of others. The intellect is clear, not mixing truth and falsehood. Knowing a clear conscience to be the reward of honesty, a person of integrity is unshakeable, never drawn into anything, and considers the consequences of action. If you are not wise and accurate, then you are deceiving people.Applying ethics accurately over a long period without being influenced by others develops the power of discrimination and reveals the level of others’ ethics. You can catch their vibrations through words and actions. If someone is absolutely truthful, no one can cheat them. If you have the slightest bit of falsehood, it is likely to be deceived. You have to be on guard with self-respect, be aware and observe. Otherwise, unsuspectingly, you will come under an influence.Trust is gained with open, clear communication and unselfish motives. Susceptibility to greed allows one to be trapped. Trust is earned after there has been proof of success. A trustee is honest, with integrity not with the wealthy. A wealthy person will not be made a trustee for another wealthy person, due to the possibility of deception or cheating. If you do a great deal of work, but lack integrity, people’s trust is over. Tasks accomplished with faith win the trust of others because they are evaluating the degree of honesty and faith. A trustee has to bear in mind that donations should not be misused. Steady determination and activity promotes faith. Cultivate a far-reaching intellect that is subtle and broad, not impulsive. Perform beautiful actions so they influence your mind. The mind, words and actions are deeply interconnected. Your actions should be a light showing the path to others. If your actions are right, their impact can never be forgotten.
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Value Education: Ethical Dilemas
Values influence our reasoning and clarify our choices. In order to make good moral choices, we must rely on our moral conscience. Wrong doing occurs when the moral conscience has become dysfunctional and our inner moral indicator is missing or damaged. Wrong actions also occur when an individual’s values are not clearly established. Education in universal , human and moral values helps an individual to define and inculcate their natural sense of justice and honesty, to clarify their ethical choices and to understand the governing principles that rule their lives. Through such education they become aware of the consequences of their actions, although moral choices are not always simply “right versus wrong”. What is right and what is wrong? Is right, right and wrong, wrong? "Right is right and wrong is also right." says Brij Mohan, Editor of "Purity", a publication reaching around3 countries worldwide. "Wrong is right in its own right, but becomes wrong when it gets into you.", Brij Mohan goes on. The really tough choices are those that pit one positive value against another. For example:It is right to allow our children to remain in school in order to receive a full education. It is also right to allow our children to learn a trade at an early age so they can contribute to the family earnings.It is right to spend all our savings on our daughter’s/son’s marriage. It is also right to spend all our savings on our children’s education. There is only one enough for one, and dividing the resources in half is sufficient for neither. “Right vs Right” decisions are ethical dilemmas. Ethics are defined as “obedience to the unenforceable”. In contrast, law is defined as “obedience to the enforceable”. Laws usually increase in proportion to the decline of ethics.Ethical means conforming to accepted principles of right and wrong, although these tend to change over time. In North America, when it was still right to own slaves, it was already wrong to commit adultery. When it had become wrong to own slaves, it was still right to possess women as property. The meaning of ethics can thus be expanded to mean: conforming to principles of right and wrong that are based on core values because these are universally accepted. A challenge we still face is the discrepancy between laws based on human rights and social attitudes based on long-standing social traditions. The Four Categories Most Ethical Dilemmas fall into one of the following four categories:*1.- Truth versus loyalty; ** 2.- Justice versus mercy;
***3.- Individual versus community; ****4.- Short-term versus long-term.
Example of these are:
*1.- In life and death situation, is it right to lie to protect your friend or ally?
**2.- When someone undergoing a personal crisis commits a criminal act, shouldthey be punished to “the full extent of the law” or be given counselling and leniency?
***3.- As a woman, does she continue in a marriage that is abusive or does she stay in it to satisfy the expectations of the extended family?
****4.- When making a career choice, is it better to earn a good income with a new technology company or follow the steps of my father in the familybusiness?
When we analyse our real life dilemmas in terms of these four categories, the core values and the tension between them become readily apparent. As this tension begins to fit recognisable patterns, we are troubled less, can resolve more readily and with more maturity.
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Worry and Happiness:Don’t Worry, Be Happy!
Worrying has become second to humans today. Whenever things do not go the way we want or expect, we start worrying about the consequences.Worry is preceded by the fear of untoward happenings. Take a simple case: Suppose one has to go to another town by train or plane on important work. While on the way to the railway station/airport, the taxi gets stuck in a traffic jam. As the clock ticks away, one starts fearing if one will miss the train/plane. Then one starts worrying about the financial loss and problems that will result if one misses the train/plane and that important work is not done. One may even get irritated, angry or frustrated, and start cursing the taxi driver for getting one into the jam or the traffic police for not clearing it up. All this while, one’s heart beats faster and one starts sweating in anxiety. But what all this achieve? Does worrying get us any faster out of a traffic jam, or help us catch a train/plane? If one is in difficult situation and one can do something about it, it is better to act than worry. But there are situations in life where one cannot do anything. If one learns to calmly accept such situations one would be saved a lot of mental agony and waste of time and energy. Accepting the situations in life calmly is not resignation. It requires knowledge of the real nature of this world and all that is happening in it. This world is like a vast stage upon which all of us are actors playing our various parts. Each actor has a distinct role, which is fixed. If we learn to look at this world and our actions and others’ as a spectator watches a drama, we would not be affected so much by the events in the world and in our lives.Being detached helps us enjoy all that is happening around us without getting involved emotionally. It also saves us from fear, worry and sorrow if we keep in mind the Law of Karma. All that is happening with every soul/person in this world is the result of its/their past actions, whether of this birth or previous births.The Law of Karma is accurate and inviolable. If we remember this, we will be spared from brooding over or getting agitated about what we consider misfortune or injustice – both of which, we will realise are the results of our own actions.The biggest cause of worry is the fear of untimely death. We are afraid to die and fear for the consequences of our death on our near and dear ones.The fear of death is the product of our IGNORANCE about our true self. We are all souls who are playing our part in the drama of this world in our present body. The body is like a costume that the soul discards upon death to don a new costume, i.e. take birth in a new body. It is the soul that brings life into a body and takes it away upon death. The soul NEVER dies, it only plays different roles in different costumes, or bodies, in this world.As for worrying about what will happen to one’s spouse or children in the event of one’s death, one again need only REMEMBER the Law of Karma. We are deluding ourselves if we think that we are doing something for others or that others cannot do without us. Every soul brings with it its own fortune based on the actions it has performed in its previous births. Whether we live or die is not going to make any difference to the fortune of any other soul because fortune is the product of each soul’s past actions, and it cannot be made or unmade by others.Keeping this knowledge in mind, when we come into relationship with other people, we remain free of any attachment to them, and the relationship does not create an emotional burden or worry for us. But to be detached and loving we have to remain CONSTANTLY aware of our spiritual identity – that I am a soul (energy, conscience, life giving breath or give it a name that suits you best) – and develop a deep love for our spiritual Father/Mother, God, the Source of Supreme Energy (call it the name you want to). For only His/Her unselfish and CONSTANT love can save us from the attractions of the LIMITED love of humans.
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Guidelines for Best Practice: 22 Guidelines for Best Practice in the Area of Training and Developing Social and Emotional Competencies at Work
These guidelines are based on an exhaustive review of the research literature in training and development, counseling and psychotherapy, and behavior change. The guidelines are additive and synergistic; to be effective, social and emotional learning experiences need not adhere to all of these guidelines, but the chances for success increase with each one that is followed.The guidelines are divided into four phases that correspond to the four phases of the development process: preparation, training, transfer and maintenance, and evaluation. Each phase is important.These guidelines were developed for the Consortium by Daniel Goleman and Cary Cherniss, with the assistance of Kim Cowan, Rob Emmerling, and Mitchel Adler. If you are interested in the full technical report that includes all the supporting research for each guideline, you can view the full technical report online or download the full technical report from this site.
Paving the Way.
1. Assess the organization’s needs: Determine the competencies that are most critical for effective job performance in a particular type of job. In doing so, use a valid method, such as comparison of the behavioral events interviews of superior performers and average performers. Also make sure the competencies to be developed are congruent with the organization’s culture and overall strategy.
2. Assess the individual: This assessment should be based on the key competencies needed for a particular job, and the data should come from multiple sources using multiple methods to maximize credibility and validity.
3. Deliver assessments with care: Give the individual information on their strengths and weaknesses. In doing so, try to be accurate and clear. Also, allow plenty of time for the person to digest and integrate the information. Provide the feedback in a safe and supportive environment in order to minimize resistance and defensiveness. But also avoid making excuses or downplaying the seriousness of deficiencies.
4. Maximize learner choice: People are more motivated to change when they freely choose to do so. As much as possible, allow people to decide whether or not they will participate in the development process, and have them set the change goals themselves.
5. Encourage people to participate: People will be more likely to participate in development efforts if they perceive them to be worthwhile and effective. Organizational policies and procedures should encourage people to participate in development activity, and supervisors should provide encouragement and the necessary support. Motivation also will be enhanced if people trust the credibility of those who encourage them to undertake the training.
6. Link learning goals to personal values: People are most motivated to pursue change that fits with their values and hopes. If a change matters little to people, they won’t pursue it. Help people understand whether a given change fits with what matters most to them.
7. Adjust expectations: Build positive expectations by showing learners that social and emotional competence can be improved and that such improvement will lead to valued outcomes. Also, make sure that the learners have a realistic expectation of what the training process will involve.
8. Gauge readiness: Assess whether the individual is ready for training. If the person is not ready because of insufficient motivation or other reasons, make readiness the focus of intervention efforts.Doing the Work of Change.
9. Foster a positive relationship between the trainers and learners: Trainers who are warm, genuine, and empathic are best able to engage the learners in the change process. Select trainers who have these qualities, and make sure that they use them when working with the learners.
10. Make change self-directed: Learning is more effective when people direct their own learning program, tailoring it to their unique needs and circumstances. In addition to allowing people to set their own learning goals, let them continue to be in charge of their learning throughout the program, and tailor the training approach to the individual’s learning style.
11. Set clear goals: People need to be clear about what the competence is, how to acquire it, and how to show it on the job. Spell out the specific behaviors and skills that make up the target competence. Make sure that the goals are clear, specific, and optimally challenging.
12. Break goals into manageable steps: Change is more likely to occur if the change process is divided into manageable steps. Encourage both trainers and trainees to avoid being overly ambitious.
13. Provide opportunities to practice: Lasting change requires sustained practice on the job and elsewhere in life. An automatic habit is being unlearned and different responses are replacing it. Use naturally occurring opportunities for practice at work and in life. Encourage the trainees to try the new behaviors repeatedly and consistently over a period of months.
14. Give performance feedback: Ongoing feedback encourages people and directs change. Provide focused and sustained feedback as the learners practice new behaviors. Make sure that supervisors, peers, friends, family members – or some combination of these – give periodic feedback on progress.
15. Rely on experiential methods: Active, concrete, experiential methods tend to work best for learning social and emotional competencies. Development activities that engage all the senses and that are dramatic and powerful can be especially effective.
16. Build in support: Change is facilitated through ongoing support of others who are going through similar changes (such as a support group). Programs should encourage the formation of groups where people give each other support throughout the change effort. Coaches and mentors also can be valuable in helping support the desired change.
17. Use models: Use live or videotaped models that clearly show how the competency can be used in realistic situations. Encourage learners to study, analyze, and emulate the models.
18. Enhance insight: Self-awareness is the cornerstone of emotional and social competence. Help learners acquire greater understanding about how their thoughts, feelings, and behavior affect themselves and others.
19. Prevent relapse: Use relapse prevention, which helps people use lapses and mistakes as lessons to prepare themselves for further efforts.
20. Encourage use of skills on the job: Supervisors, peers, and subordinates should reinforce and reward learners for using their new skills on the job. Coaches and mentors also can serve this function. Also, provide prompts and cues, such as through periodic follow-ups. Change also is more likely to endure when high status persons, such as supervisors and upper-level management model it.
21. Develop an organizational culture that supports learning: Change will be more enduring if the organization’s culture andtone support the change and offer a safe atmosphere forexperimentation.Did It Work? Evaluating Change.
22. Evaluate: To see if the development effort has lasting effects, evaluate it. When possible, find unobtrusive measures of the competence or skill as shown on the job, before and after training and also at least two months later. One-year follow-ups also are highly desirable. In addition to charting progress on the acquisition of competencies, also assess the impact on important job-related outcomes, such as performance measures, and indicators of adjustment such as absenteeism, grievances, health status, etc.
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Ross Galán is a Coach on Life Coaching
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