Category Archives: Self improvement

Conscious life

Self improvement

After publishing my article “Why I quit programming” I got this message:

Hi my name is Michael I’m 25 and from Scotland.

Your article has really spoken to me this morning. As I’ve battled frustration and anger my whole life. Blaming other people for my own actions and issues inside my head and causing a lot of hurt for family and myself. Trying to as you said, change others and not my own perception.

Right now the main reason why I’m so frustrated and angry once again is I’m in a lot of debt which I am deciding whether to go bankrupt and start again. To get this chain around my neck taken away and relieve all stress, I had taken out a loan to go traveling around Asia with my girlfriend as My ex partner who I have a son to stopped me seeing him for 3 months so I went away for two months to try and find myself.

It was good but I still don’t think I used my time there to the absolute best I still felt the same trapped emotions about money and being away from my son etc. So I had to come home. I’ve been home almost a year now and it’s just the same again if not worse as I got into a lot more debt etc. and repeating the same mistakes.

I have a 4 & a 1/2 year old boy to a previous partner and I can see similarities in him from when I was a child, and what I felt from my angry father, and I really want to break the cycle as he is very intelligent but I can see the anger will let him down in life as it did me.

I’m just now getting some answers and I’ve often thought about meditation but really I am unsure on how to go about starting. Do you have any tips or any help I could maybe download to begin with?

Thank you for you time,

Michael

My answer

Hello Michael,

thank you for your story. It’s very interesting and I think many people come through similar issues. Existential problems, fear, blaming, anger, depression… You at least know that something is wrong and you want to change it. That’s the first important step for a change.

You can learn about meditation and try to meditate. It can push your consciousness forward. There are many types of meditation – mantra meditation, sound meditation, guided meditation, breath meditation,… and also many types of yoga – karma yoga, hatha yoga, bhakti yoga, jnana yoga, raja yoga,… so many ways to change your perception of life. You have to study a lot and then try to pick some tool (meditation, yoga) which you like the most and try it. Each person has a different path and each person likes different tools. Some people can’t even meditate. They just can’t sit and calm their mind, meditation is not for all.

But everyone can learn to live consciously instead of unconsciously. Many people live unconsciously and they are driven by their emotions. It’s a problem when people are driven by fear, anger and hate. To live consciously means to be aware of your emotions and work with them. If you are angry, ask yourself: “Why am I angry? Do I really have to be angry? Where does the anger comes from?“. I got angry quite often and I created a mess around me. The anger in me was not a good feeling and I realized it. I didn’t want to be angry so I started working with anger consciously and asked the questions above. I was able to find the reason why I was angry and then I could work with it. If you have a problem, you can try to solve consequences but if you don’t solve the root of the problem, you will have to solve consequences again and again. Once you solve the root of the problem, the problem will disappear.

So once you get angry, ask yourself why you are angry and try to find the root of the anger. Be sure that it’s really the root. Go as deep as you can. Once you find the root, you can work with it and you can stop being angry. You have to realize that anger is not a profitable emotion neither for you nor for others.

It takes some time to learn to live consciously but if you can do it, your life will change. You will be no more ruled by your emotions.

Conscious life includes more than just working with your emotions. Conscious life means to be aware of every action you do and its consequences. Ask yourself: “Why do I do this and that…“. For example if you eat, you should ask: “What do I actually eat? Where does the food comes from? Is the food healthy? When I eat this food, do I support something that I don’t want to support?“. People do unconscious actions, they don’t realize what they cause by their actions. That’s why we can see the world as it is now. Air pollution, water pollution, global warming, food waste, meat industry, milk & egg industry, excessive use of palm oil and ruining rainforests, poverty, debts, wars, violence, murders… this and even more is the result of unconscious living. To stop this madness we all should live more consciously and realize what are consequences of our actions.

Good luck with your conscious life!

What actually happens if you step out of your comfort zone regularly

Life, Self improvement

There has been written many articles about stepping out of your comfort zone. You have probably read about it. If you haven’t, just search for “Step out of your comfort zone” in your search engine and you will find a lot of articles. I will describe what’s the problem of not stepping out of your comfort zone and I will describe my personal experience with this topic.

Are you lazy to read? Listen to it here: https://soundcloud.com/elfoslav/step-out-of-your-comfort-zone

Small comfort zone

Many people have very small comfort zone nowadays. They need hot water to wash themselves, they need to eat each 3 hours, they don’t want to get wet if it’s raining, they put themselves in their bubbles which protect them from discomfort zone.

People are afraid to step out of their bubble, to step out of their comfort zone because everyone wants to feel safe and comfortable. It’s natural to want to be in comfort zone. Unless it’s not.

Need to discover

Except natural need to stay in comfort zone, people have natural need to discover new things. We want to discover what’s behind boundaries of our knowledge. If we want to discover new things, we often have to step out of our comfort zone. Stepping out of our comfort zone means facing our fear. We have fear because we don’t know what’s outside of our bubble. We have fear of the unknown. Once we discover there is no reason to fear, we will want to discover more and more.

From comfort zone into discomfort zone

When we get out of our comfort zone, we literally feel uncomfortably. We want to get back into our comfort zone. But if we persist in discomfort zone, we will discover that it becomes our comfort zone.

From discomfort zone into comfort zone

Once we discover the fact that discomfort is not in fact discomfort any more, the discomfort will become our comfort zone.

comfort zone

We will not have fear of the unknown any more and we will enlarge our comfort zone. This will significantly improve our life. Someone calls it magic.

where the magic happens

Stepping out of your comfort zone means pushing your boundaries.

You will basically become a superhero. Your comfort zone will be much bigger than comfort zones of other people’s. You will not have a problem to do things that regular people don’t do. comfort zone of other people

Getting out of my comfort zone

I had known about benefits of getting out of comfort zone for a long time before I tried it. I would probably never try it if the following thing did not happen:

It was 3rd January 2015 when I wanted to take a shower. I found out that hot water did not work. I needed to take a shower so I underwent a cold shower. It was not so bad as I expected. I told myself that I will take a cold shower instead of hot shower since then. It was hard to abide by this resolution. I was tempted to combine hot water with cold water to lessen the discomfort. But I realized that if I resist the temptation, it will improve my willpower and it will have positive impact on other things in my life too. I like to do things that majority of people don’t do. Majority of people don’t take a cold shower (at least in my country). If I tell someone that I take only cold shower, they say: “Really? I don’t believe you”, “Why?”, “You are crazy”,… you will get the same reactions if you do something that other people don’t do. If you will get out of your comfort zone.

Regular visiting of discomfort zone

Regular visiting of discomfort zone is important. If you step out of your comfort zone just once, it will have almost no impact. If you step out of your comfort zone regularly, you will see the result after a few cycles.

When I started taking a cold shower, I was resistant, but I persisted. I noticed that cold shower has really positive impact on my life. My hair started to grow more rapidly. I had no problem to swim in a cold lake whilst my friends had. And I started visiting discomfort zone more often. I tried to walk barefoot in a city, now I walk exclusively barefoot. I talked to homeless people and made friendship with them. I was able to talk in front of people at a conference without stage fright. And I will surely do a lot of uncommon things in the future.

I know how hard is to step out of your comfort zone. But once you start and you will do it regularly, your life will change significantly in a positive way.