Therapy now has become as necessary as breathing as the modern world is taken over more and more by loneliness behind the masks of active social media profiles. Life goes around in a circle just like fashion that is recycled, methods that societies build to manage the human mind and existence seem to be coming back in fashion. 

You must have seen and heard hundreds of speakers harping about the importance of habits. Well, starting from the caveman years nature itself had rituals and repetitions that forced us to follow healthy habits. But as we progress as a humanity we have forgotten the basics of following the cues from nature, mostly because our indulgence with nature has drastically diminished. Gardening is in greenhouses and window sills. 

Whatever the reason, it is time to acknowledge that we need to intervene as a society and as individuals to make ourselves feel more alive and really gain the ability back to experience life fully. One such ancient wisdom is called mindfulness.

While mindfulness can be experienced in many forms, what I introduce here is this ancient Indian Sand Art called Rangoli as a Therapy. 

Rangoli is a Distress Tolerance sensory activity. Mindful Sand Art meditation helps the clients feel happier and calmer. Putting them in a flow.Its Self soothing. A technique that can be used when they experience distress.

According to DBT , Dialectical Behaviour Therapy there are 6 core mindfulness skills to master.

• Observe 
• Describe
• Participate
• Non Judgemental stance
• One Mindfulness(Focus)
• Effectiveness

So, as part of Mindfulness with Rangoli we take the time to observe the flow of sand, feel the texture, describe the colors and the facts of what the clients notice and not how they feel. There are options of different kinds of Rangoli practices to choose from so that participation becomes easier. Given that Sand has its own mind anyway, learning to experience a non judgemental stance becomes easier. The need of the Mindful sand art is focus so as to make sure sand falls in the right manner. Lastly the Effectiveness factor can be easily incorporated as we can choose one form over another. If one form of rangoli is not being effective and makes you feel anxious, you can choose a different form of an easier version.

We will look into more on how we can design a self care mindfulness plan for yourself or your loved one in the next issue of the blog. Until then stay close to nature. Experience life fully.

This was last December when a team of 5 members from a Financial corporation decided to make the best decision of their whole year. That was to come together for a Modern Mindful Sand art session, to slow down and take a pause, allowing them to jump off the train of expectations from each other as colleagues to a place of non judging and non reaction. It was the hour with Mindful Sand Art experience.

Just like thousands of teams in the world right now, this team too has been working on a hybrid mode, coming together mainly to connect with each other in person only once a month. During the remaining 29 days of the month these teams had only been setting goals for the company, their next tasks to ensure the revenue of the company continues to grow so everyone can continue to have a job. With the world being so volatile right now, the constant fear of not knowing what supply chain interruptions in the world could interrupt their employment, everyone is on their edge. Leaving them reactionary in those daily stand up meetings. The domino effect of these insecure interactions between team members within an organization could be catastrophic for any organization.

One of the most effective vaccines to solve this problem of constant disbelief, anxiety and volatility is enabling your teams to feel safe. Last December in the beautiful setting of Hera hub a beautiful co working space, this is what we achieved. An hour of sanctity, clarity and mindfulness for the team members to engage in a very safe non perfectionistic activity. The Modern Mindful Sand Art! 

It was a joy to watch the participants transform from a stressed out mindset to an inflow easy mode. Since the sand strokes flowed with ease, there was a smile on each of them in the room. Suddenly there was a shift in their self awareness. While they felt threatened being surrounded by their peers on a day to day basis, here they felt less judged as they knew it was line sand and would be erased by the end of the hour.  These women gave their all at work. It was now their time to relax and just create with mild laughs and genuine compliments for each other.

The colors they chose for their art reflected their personality. This was almost a turning point in their perspective of themselves. As each of them was approaching the completion of the art, the satisfaction on their faces was noteworthy. The discussions that followed were going to be a new milestone in their intra team relationships. Each of them shared what they noticed about the other person and their art. Couple of  team members who would otherwise have avoided any interaction with each other had this beautiful art to talk about, before it was time to brush off their creation and learn the art of letting go! 

The skill of Letting go that this team learnt at their year end Mindful retreat, still keeps them going.

If you want to coach your team on learning the Art of letting go, connect with me.

We will have a discovery call with you on what the pulse of your team looks like. 

Then we come up with a personalized plan to organize a Mindful Sand art session in person or online. Teaching them the Art Of Letting GO. Letting Go of the most trouble, some conflict they have going on in their teams.

You are beautiful as you were born and unique and special as you are. I remember growing up I was a skinny girl with bones and no meat. Everywhere I went I was ridiculed and called all sorts of names that vaguely matched a stick figure. This got ingrained in me quite deep. Putting on weight was my sole goal for a couple of years in high school. But then something clicked in me and I changed my self-talk. I realized the only person who is finally convincing myself about the words she is hearing is me. No matter what the world around me would say, it is me who has the filter to have some selective listening.

So here you go: a 3 step process I have mastered over the years, to be able to survive the body shaming that goes on in our heads.

Step 1: Always always be kind to yourself. Make it a habit to spend at least 10 minutes with yourself in front of the mirror. It could be 2 minutes 5 times a day or 5 minutes 2 times a day or a whole 10 minutes.  Find the smallest features of you that you absolutely love. If you are too shy to say it out loud, just watch yourself in the mirror and repeat the nice words you would say to a friend, to yourself

Step 2: Give yourself a warm tight hug every time you have a few minutes alone. Like perhaps in the car driving. You deserve the love you often give out to people. So, make it a conscious attempt to make space for yourself to give a warm hug to yourself

Step 3: Last but not least, write yourself a love note in a diary. Imagine what you would say to your little self, when she was a toddler. You would only use kind and loving words to describe yourself wouldn’t you? Just take 10 minutes each day for a month to journal in your self love diary.

At the end of this consistent practice, believe me, whatever anyone says, including you when you compare yourself to others or the old self-talk surfaces again, you will be equipped with the shield of love you have been creating around yourself. Body shaming might take a while to let go of, but the intensity of the self sabotaging self talk will continue to peel off. 

You could be using this to wean off of any negative self talk you happen to put yourself through. It starts with taking care of your mental health just like your physical health. Your charming self deserves to see the light of the day.

This is where I come in, with Doturminds as your destination to take a pause while you are keeping your mind active and in a state of flow through the symmetrical dot art. All it takes is 10 minutes of your time to keep that mind mindful and young. The idea is to get you exposed to your awareness by attending one of the pencil dot art sessions or in person sand art sessions.

Enjoy this Autumn season as you shed those leaves of self criticism.

As women in the modern age, we are expected to wear a million hats by others as well as us. In fact the most pressure comes from within us. We wake up each morning feeling like the world is going to crash upon us. A tsunami of tasks engulfs us every morning leaving us gasping for a minute of focus and calm even before the day has begun. How then can we women lead ourselves and others with those brilliant ideas and initiatives that we feel like we can achieve, without the focus?

To be able to find ways to successfully focus, we have to first understand the definition of focus in a more tangible way. In the terms that we heart centered emotional human beings can perceive. Focus is that muscle we sense when we are giving our newborn a bath in the tub. You know how we ensure that all our attention is on our child to make sure we don’t drown them in the water? That intensity of aiming to get things done without distraction is called focus.

Now let us talk about what gets our focus distracted in the first place? It is this constant fear of not having enough time to complete the mile long list of TO-DOs that await us. Since this is such an uncomfortable feeling, our mind goes out to reach the easiest thing that it can do to feel good and gain endorphins. That is browsing through the web or just changing to a non trivial task which gives an illusion that you got something accomplished.

Now that you can visualize what focus is, let us talk about 5 simple steps you can follow to make sure we can improve our ability to focus. Just like anything else improving your focus is nothing but strengthening the muscle to focus with practice. There is no magic pill to fix this problem.

Step 1: Maintain a Focus Journal

First, start with maintaining a FOCUS Journal. As soon as you sit down at your desk write down whatever comes to your mind that you need to work on. I know I have had a hard time creating a master plan for every hour of the day, week, year etc. That just has not worked for me. Because as a living being, made of chemical compositions, we are changing every minute of the day. To expect yourself to stick to a plan that you created a week ago or 24 hours ago is a huge challenge. So, let us just accept the fact that you will go with what comes to your mind as the priority for that given hour.

Step 2: Pick the task you are going to work on or at least get started on within a minute of creating your hourly list.

Second, pick one of the things in that list within the next minute. Do not give yourself the luxury of giving yourself explanations on why that is right or wrong. Seriously there is no perfect task that exists. As a mindfulness practitioner, who teaches mindfulness through Sand art, one thing is obvious. There is nothing called perfection in the world. It is just a limitation we force upon ourselves, so we kind of know where to stop. That’s all. A guideline.

Step 3:Turn off all your messengers and chats

Third, the most important step is to turn off all your messengers and chats and place them on mute. Even better, put them in airplane mode. If you really want to be the CEO of your life, you need to start with helping her out with reducing distractions.

Step 4: Turn on your focus music

Fourth step have a focus music that you listen to anytime you want to focus for say 20 minutes to an hour. It is a cue for your mind when you have this music that you get to work just on one thing. And this makes you feel safe to do so.

Step 5: Focus on your task. Get stuff done. Have a sticky note pile for random task thoughts.

Last but not least, is acting upon the task and working on it. You are for sure going to be bombarded by many other tasks that you feel like jumping off to. But all you have to do is in the same focus notebook, have a sticky note pile, where you promptly write down the new tasks that are seemingly calling for your distraction. This way you know they are not forgotten. That’s all. Next thing you know, focus is all yours for however long you wish to be in this blissful state of flow and not distracted.

Hope you get to try the 5 step process to stay focused. Put what you learnt to practice. Follow the top 5 steps and copy the dot art image above. See how long you are able to keep your focus over each time you practice.

If you feel like you need a boot camp for your mind to stay focused and you want to ensure the CEO in you gets to reach where she belongs, connect with me for Mindful Sand art Focus workshops at www.doturminds.com

Does it happen to you? When you fail to notice a new haircut on a friend while the other next door neighbor happens to spot the difference?

Or when you pass by a perfectly newly tended garden and fail to observe that gorgeous new rare exotic plant they brought in? Do you ever wish you could become much more keen, observant and attentive to be able to catch these details. Ah well, but you think this is how you were born and continue to live a non attentive, non curious life? There is so much you could miss by living in an auto mode. Luckily this is a condition that can be treated. All you need is the will to improve your observation skills. Let me tell you 5 ways you can start using mindfulness to enhance them.

1. Take a pause
2. Breathe
3. Get curious
4. Become aware
5. Become intentional

Once you have this in your armor goahead and find an object around your living room perhaps, where the sunrays fall on it in different angles at different times of the day. Promise yourself that shall be your focal point for the day to stop and observe. Notice where the shadow falls in the morning. Come back and see how the shadow has shifted by noon and so on.

Why should one improve their observation skills?

The biggest reason is to make use of this skill is to be able to slow down. Also once you train your observation skill muscle, you might take a little more curiosity and interest to see what has changed in the people you love. This could lead you to finding that mistake on your email to your boss faster, so you do not create blunders. Being observant can save you your job literally. Learning to pay attention to what you are eating could improve your health.

If you are looking for improving your attention span one way is to sign up for my newsletter and receive one dot art a week and observe the lines and copy them on to your journal.

Hope you will become a tad bit more observant after you read this article.

Now with the workforce preparing to return to their offices following the pandemic, it has become a dire necessity for employers and managers to find ways to care for their team’s mental wellness. In this blog I provide to you top three reasons it would be beneficial to introduce Mindful creative activities as a team bonding exercise.

In its most traditional form, called kolam, the women who create this sand art, start with a template in mind. It requires planning and forethought. Just how a team member would need to be able to learn the skills of having a plan to be able to complete a project.

Once she enters the process however she may add elaborations and extensions of the design. Template of the grid of dots is her guideline. This art being with sand allows for one to be creative and flexible. Exactly how it helps for a team to be agile, creative and flexible with their plan and project.

For example she might begin with simple lotus patterns of eight petals and continue with more abstract petals that lead to a denser ornamentation. Sand art is a practice that engages a great deal of imagination. Innovation would not exist without an active imagination. The very underpinning of innovation is rooted in the creative process, being able to imagine new ideas and being open to diverse experiences. To quote Einstein, “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”

Imagination is the key to increasing innovation and productivity. The benefits of investing in the professional development of an individual’s ability to imagine new ideas in a creative workplace should be a top priority of every human resource officer. Imagination and creativity, like other 21st century skills, have a proven link to successful entrepreneurship, intentional risk taking and the “fail fast” ideation process.

Once she is done with the design, since in the traditional form this art is placed in front of the homes, it becomes a conversation piece with neighbors leading to compliments to the creator. Receiving and freely giving compliments to your peers flows naturally as the teams participate in the process of Art creation.

So, the top three benefits of bringing in a modern mindful team building activity would be

1. Improve the team’s ability to plan ahead
2. Enhance the imaginative power of teams
3. Teach them to be flexible with their plans ready to innovate

A bonus benefit would be to learn the art of complimenting your team members on their wins.

I welcome you to create this space to be creative for yourself and your teams. Enable them at the end of the event with skills they can take to become more productive, creative and innovative.

If you want to see how it the Modern Mindful Team building works, sign up here for this once a month event.

Happy team bonding!

Growing up in a small town in India our daily routines were pretty simple. The Internet was not a thing yet. Most of the jobs that my parents, uncles, aunts and neighbors did were manual essential sort of work. Each job was a supportive service to another. Since everyone’s job was a service to others in person, the job was predictable and manageable. Burn out at a job was not a term yet.

You see, physical burnout is sort of an exercise and you are just growing stronger while you get access to tangible touch and feel of products or tools in your hands. Whereas with the advent of automation and computer revolution, human beings are expected to work with and on processes that are not physically tangible. Most of the jobs now involve analytical thinking thus leaving hardly any room for emotions or physical interactions with other humans including dealing with ourselves based on how we interact with other humans.

Despite hardly lifting a pencil and moving from their chairs the whole day, people are exhausted. Why? The modern electronic and automated world was expected to make our lives comfortable. Did the world misunderstand the word comfort and relate it to doing less physically? Unlike the life I led growing up, where I knew my vendors in person who brought me groceries, now we can buy stuff with a click of a button. Thus missing out on simple basic interactions with another human. Or even a physical engagement of our senses involved in selecting our groceries.

New world which is now tipped all the way to one side of relating comfort to doing less physically is what I feel is the basic reason for burnout. Human minds long for touch, feel, smell, sound and taste along with emotional support. You need to participate in your daily activities with intention engaging with focused attention. Many small daily routines and interactions are what makes life pleasurable and less exhausting.

We are in dire need to find this balance. First and foremost we need to pause. So we can become aware of our current state of mind. Through mindful living. We have to now create special wiring in our minds to live around the artificial Intelligence driven machine worlds. Introducing mental health awareness, resetting and pausing to feel and touch to find ways to enhance the amount of time we have that enhances your parasympathetic mode is key. Something like cooking or creating jewelry or creating sand art. 

That is exactly what I do at Doturminds to provide a space for burnt out women and men to come break the cycle of burn out in their mind to take a pause and shift their attention to feeling the sand. Creating something with their own hands. Learning to get to the basics is as simple as a dot. Getting us closer to mother earth where we all came from. As this ancient Indian sand art teaches us, when we bend down to create the art on the threshold each morning. Mindful awareness leading to emotional connection could be what we need more of in our families and your teams need to feel alive, less burnt out and feel more. Leaving us alive and ready for the automated existence of a human life. 

Burn out can be prevented. With Mindful living.