Pratima Shah

Have you ever come across persons who are 'Baba Black Sheep Managers?' This phrase means a person who is always saying Yes Sir, Yes Sir / Yes Mam, Yes Mam, The eponymous character in the nursery rhyme was able to answer the question asked to him in the rhyme but in real life when persons keep on saying Yes Sir, Yes Sir for anything that is conveyed / told to them; it acts as an impediment to effective communication. I wonder how do people fall into this trap of saying 'Yes Sir, Yes Mam'. Most of the time it comes out of nervousness when one is required to address a senior. They may sometimes even want to behave respectfully. This particular behavior of a person may backfire as it puts off the person who is being addressed. Rather than being taken as showing respect towards someone; the person may appear  submissive or may be even as a flatterer. Sometimes a senior may also assume it to be a part of your skill to show that you are lacking in the information / knowle...

As per a recent survey of the top billionaires; it was found that seven out of ten of them had formed a habit to read since their childhood. People who are associated with creative fields and those who have achieved landmarks had also inculcated the habit of reading since a very tender age. Out of the top five most read writers, Geoffrey Archer being one of them, said in an interview, ' All the genius people  who are related to creative forms of expression have a habit of reading and would always strive to spare time to read amidst their busy schedule. Be it a writer or a director, but if the person is lazy when it comes to reading; then that person is not an artist but just a mere technician". According to modern science, there are three advantages of reading: 1. Reading is the greatest time saving weapon.According to psychologists reading makes one enjoy and experience all the emotions which would take years to experience as a person. Reading helps us to save these year...

To each and every woman "The stigma of our society and the dogmatic world around you has made you forget your self worth. Tap your hidden reservoir and heal the 'hurt well' within you. This well is full of anger, sadness, fear and so many other traumas which you have gone through. You have hardened and burdened yourself through the storms that came into your life. Break free from these obstacles and rise above them. Make peace an intimacy with yourself. Laugh a lot. Seek abundance. Dance more, relax more, exercise more and eat right. Be of help to other women around you rather than bitching around or feeling jealous. Stop behaving like enemies with one another. You are a primal hero who is above your limitations; seek yourself and love yourself. You do not need any validation from those around you. Embrace your flaws and keep going to achieve everything you desire." You are an eternal celebration not a one day hype for the world. Love and prayers for  all the l...

   To push ourselves out of negativity we tell ourself and others - 'THINK POSITIVE'. But do positive thoughts come that easily? To remain positive always people try various things - like meditation, exercise, venting out and seeking advice from others, following their religion and even taking the help of psychologists. How long does one survive on these techniques? We are not able to keep ourselves positive even though we tried the above mentioned techniques. But this is not what real spirituality demands from us. Real spirituality lies in the fact that you just be an observer and observe the kind of thoughts that come rather than critically analyzing them as positive / negative.    We must feel the thoughts and experience them instead of labeling them as positive / negative. Let them come and go because the more we try to suppress them / stop them they will attack us in our weak moments and make us their slave. When one has negative thoughts; one needs to und...

   Our life is full of sweet - bitter memories; and we humans focus more on the bitter / negative aspects / memories. We remember the positive events for a very short time and the negative events imprison our minds for a long time. Confucius once said, 'To be wronged is nothing, unless you continue to remember it.' But human as we are, we focus more on negative events / inevitable experiences. Life is a mixture of positive and negative but still we dread the negative events and relish the positive events with immense joy.     We are able to accept the day to day minor wrongs but the grave ones leave an indelible impact over our lives. They are nurtured as wounds by us and keep on reminding us about the trauma that we faced in that particular negative / bitter incident of our life. The behavior that is prompted by any person during the trauma is that some may take pleasure in self pity by nursing the wound for a life time or some may become bitter, vindictive and...

Time and again God, the Almighty takes away from us what we have had. It could be a relationship, a job, an ability or anything that we hold on. We feel everything that we possess is eternal and ours. But God takes it away; his taking it away is a way to make us realize that 'it was God's grace and it was never yours'. This holds true for each and everything we possess. It is true with our relations too. Eventually whether we like / dislike we keep losing our relations too - either through death or any other reason. When we begin to lose our relations we try making the grasp firm; because we feel sad and deprived of the person without whom we cannot live. When faced with such situations, one needs to ask a question to the self - What is it that I will take with me? The answer would be NOTHING. We have no control over death which very cold bloodedly separates us from every ability / wish / person / cherished possession. Grasping tightly to things makes us realize that t...

    When one does not love the self, one keeps on trying to prove something to someone - that you are a good person, a good partner, a good employee or a good parent. But the fact is unless and until one doesn't learn to love the self , you will forever run yourself ragged and never feel complete. One may play blame games by blaming the self, or by thinking that one lacks being organized enough, that you are not able to take correct decisions and many other escape mechanisms that will give a boost to your self destructive pattern of negative thinking. Why does one need to say 'yes' to someone for doing a task even though you don't have the time, energy or desire to help. It is because you don't want to disappoint the ones who count on you. But its OK to refuse help at times. Its OK to ask for help when you do not have time. Do not put yourself in such an unloved state that you keep on hating yourself more and more. Set priorities and make your SELF the top most p...