by Pinky Jangra | February, 2021 | Emotions, Pinky Jangra
The ‘be positive’ movement has been running for a while now. On the surface, it feels like a great thing – why wouldn’t you be positive? It makes sense that being positive is better for you mentally, emotionally and physically. The problem is that a lot of people employ what I call ‘false positivity’. False positivity can actually get people into more of a pickle or at least, keep them stuck where they are instead of helping them move forward during times of difficulty. True optimism is much more complex and powerful than false positivity. What is false positivity? False positivity is a sticky plaster we put on things when they’re broken. It is a cover we put on our painful feelings. It’s the glitter we sprinkle on our negative thoughts. Key signs of false positivity are avoidance, dishonesty and naivety. We tend to use false positivity to avoid a painful truth or to pretend that we’re fine when we’re not. We also use it often unconsciously, to mentally and emotionally detach from what might be a very serious situation that needs properly addressing. When we use false positivity we don’t really believe the positive words we say to ourselves e.g. “it’ll be fine” or “it’ll all work out in the end”. I’m not saying it won’t be fine or, that it won’t work out in the end but, I am suggesting that most people are just paying lip service when they say things like this. They don’t really believe it. In fact, what they deeply believe is probably the opposite. If your life is crumbling and all you’re...
by Pinky Jangra | December, 2020 | Emotions, Pinky Jangra
Emotional baggage is heavy. It weighs us down mentally, energetically and physically. You’ll notice for example that people who have a lot of stress tend to get backaches, headaches and tension in their shoulders. People with anger and anxiety tend to get stomach issues. Bodily pains will often show you how much emotional weight you are carrying. This emotional weight is something we’ve been carrying all our lives. We’ve been packing a rucksack full of emotional rocks and carrying it on our backs for 20, 40, 60+ years. In 2020 with all the challenges we’ve faced and are still facing, we’ve taken on even more emotional weight, we’ve put even more rocks in our rucksack. Right now, it’s REALLY heavy. And that is taking its toll. It’s time to lose that weight. Feel it to heal it Have you ever noticed how light you feel after a good cry? That’s because you took an emotional rock out of your rucksack. Have you noticed how relieved you feel when you have that honest conversation with someone and express your truth? That’s because you took an emotional rock out of your rucksack. Expressing pent up emotions is healthy, natural, powerful and I’m going to teach you a way that you can do it entirely alone. Emptying your emotional rucksack is all about you and what you’re holding on to. You don’t need the object of your anger/ pain/ sadness etc. to be there with you. You don’t need anything in the outside world to ‘change’ or ‘receive’ or ‘respond to’ your emotions. You have the power to transmute it all...
by Pinky Jangra | October, 2020 | Pinky Jangra
Changes are happening in all areas of our lives due to continual covid lockdowns. Work, home, business, education, socialising, family, entertainment, health, economy, finance, travel, community – many things are crumbling before our eyes. This leaves us with both a challenge e.g. how to deal with financial collapse and, an opportunity e.g. the potential benefits of long-term flexible working. To get through all this we need new ideas, new solutions to new problems, new ways of doing things and a new design for the future. I don’t mean ‘new-ish’ ideas that are born out of a mish-mash of old ideas and old ways of doing things. We need to get radical. We need to not only get out of the box, we need to get rid of the box. We need to get free and imagine new possibilities. We need to engage our creative genius. Creativity – what is it? Quite simply: “the ability to produce original and unusual ideas, or to make something new or imaginative” (Cambridge Dictionary). It’s important we grasp this clearly as often, people associate creativity with art, painting, music and the like. But to me, technology, science, maths, business – these are equally creative endeavours. Creativity is simply the act of creation. Genius – what is it? Cambridge dictionary offers this: “very great and rare natural ability or skill, especially in a particular area such as science or art”. I’d like to remove one word from this: rare. I think the fact that we believe genius is rare and associate it only with people like Einstein, Nikola Tesla or Leonardo Da Vinci is why...
by Pinky Jangra | February, 2020 | Pinky Jangra, Values
There’s something I’ve learned through studying many successful and highly resilient people over the last 13 years and, from observing myself when in my most resilient state. It is the immense power of living in accordance with your own values and therefore by default, not living to other people’s values instead of your own. Whether at work or in our personal lives, if we don’t live a life that aligns to our core values – that is, things that are truly most important to us – we soon become the weakest version of ourselves. You can do all the personal development work to build resilience like taking care of your body, building healthy relationships, healing past emotional wounds and fostering an optimistic mindset; but, if your life is out of sync with your true values, I fear you’ll always be chasing your tail. What happens when we do things we don’t value? If we define values as things that are most meaningful and important to us, then being out of alignment with them would simply mean spending lots of time, effort and energy focussing on things that are not meaningful or important to us. This might manifest as working 80 hours a week when what you value most is time with your kids. Or, sitting in accounts all day when what you value most is art and creativity. Or, being a stay at home parent when what you value most is your career. It may manifest as being in a relationship with the wrong person, living in the wrong place, hanging out with the wrong social group. Anything that...
by Pinky Jangra | December, 2019 | confidence, Pinky Jangra
I know I’m very, very, good at what I do. I have been studying human development for 13 years, I have been blessed with a keen sense of awareness and when I’m tuned in, I can spot truth in situations and people pretty fast which allows me to get to the root of problems. I am a great speaker and teacher – put me in front of a group of people and as much as I will get nervous, I’ll also smash it out of the park. Because, that’s what I love doing. And I’m great at it. Also, I now feel so incredibly awkward and uncomfortable after writing all that! You see, I was taught that boasting was bad. It doesn’t feel good to me to blow my own trumpet. And the truth is that I don’t always feel that sure of myself. I infrequently speak about my accomplishments or share my successes unless I have to, like when I’m writing a C.V. or, if someone explicitly asks me about something I achieved or, if it naturally fits into a conversation. I don’t post on social media every week about how my work has helped people or, the wonderful testimonials and messages I received about it. Although I do have big goals, I don’t proclaim myself as being a ‘world changer’ who ‘wants to affect the lives of a million people’ and I only share my goals with a select few. Yet, I see other people proclaiming their greatness online and in person every single day. They full-on go for it and often, it seems to work. People who...
by Pinky Jangra | October, 2019 | Pinky Jangra, resilience
You know that feeling when you’re doing something or being somewhere and your heart’s just not in it? It might be your job, your relationship, a family event or a social gathering. Whatever it is, you know deep down that you don’t really want to be there but, you felt like you had to do it because that’s what everyone else was doing. You felt like you didn’t have any other options. You felt like you just couldn’t say no. So, there you are, in that icky situation and you’re feeling… strong, capable, empowered, resilient? Of course not, you probably feel the opposite of all those things. You feel irritable, weak, trapped and maybe even like the slightest challenge could tip you over the edge. This is the opposite of resilience and it’s what you experience when you follow the crowd, instead of following your truth. Resilience isn’t just about how you think and how you handle your emotions. It’s also about authenticity, it’s about how true you are, to you. Why we choose the crowd over our truth There are many things that we could say no to but, we don’t because we’d rather follow the crowd. We might think they are just small things – like going to social gatherings with people we don’t really connect with or, wearing clothes that are popular even though we don’t feel comfortable in them. The problem is, we do these small things repeatedly and the negative effects compound as we get further and further from our truth. We do this because we don’t want to be the odd one out,...
