Roma Khetarpal's Blog, page 3

Understanding the Nature of Our Minds

Happy President’s Day and Mindfulness Meditation Monday!

As we read more reports on the mental health crisis caused by the pandemic, it becomes urgently important for all of us to educate ourselves on the foundation of mental health— exploring and understanding the nature of our own mind. 

Just as each parent, for the well-being of their child, works with and around their personality, each of us for our own well-being has to work with and around our own mind. If we can take the first steps toward understanding the tendencies of our own mind, we can carry ourselves, our children, and other family members to the doorstep of mental wellness. 

Unfortunately, we are never taught this skill in school or by our parents. So, when our mental well-being is tested with life’s big challenges—such as this pandemic—we have a mental health plight. And as the community numbers in this condition grow—which has been reflected in visits to doctors and drug prescriptions—we enter a mental health crisis. I find great truth in this quote by one of my first spiritual teachers, Wayne Dyer.

Could there be a more pressing time for us to start understanding and then learning to manage the nature of our mind? This truly is one of the biggest imperatives of this pandemic. It has issued a red-carpet invitation to cultivate a necessary life skill. When we take on this responsibility for ourselves, we take it on for our children, our families, our partners, our friends, and our peers. The ripple effect is immeasurable. 

This will be our mindfulness meditation practice tonight: Exploring the nature of our mind. Please join me for a 30-minute drop-in, tonight from 8-8:30 p.m. PST. It’s FREE. The only thing required is registration: https://courses.toolsofgrowth.com/p/mindfulness-meditation-monday 

I sincerely hope to see you tonight.

The post Understanding the Nature of Our Minds appeared first on Tools of Growth.

Our Wise Views & Intentions for 2021

I’ve taken the last few weeks to really dig deep and evaluate my personal view and the intention of my life. I’ve done this a few times over the years, but this time it’s different, and I know the reason why: I didn’t do this evaluation intellectually. In fact, it was quite the opposite. Instead of going to my logical, thinking mind, I intentionally dialed inward to hear, process, and answer my inner responses.

We often bypass our own wisdom when we look for life’s big answers in our intellect or in our mind. We often “think” of answers and try to fit them comfortably into our current lives. The truth is, for most of us, our current lives are uncomfortable. Many of us are changing careers paths, going back to school, learning new skills to fulfill unmet dreams, or even experimenting with fueling our passions. While 2020 seemed like a year of discomfort and incubation, I believe 2021 will be a rebirthing process for many of us—myself included.

The most important thing that we can do when we are filled with new ideas or are parenting new life-visions is to revisit our intentions to make sure that these foundational values underpin the new paths we are charting. Just as parents who are about to give birth reaffirm their family values, it’s important for us to reaffirm our life-vision and intentions as we go forward.

This is what Mindfulness Meditation Monday is about tomorrow. Together we will till our inner soil to explore, uncover, and strengthen —through Mindfulness and Meditation — the new seeds of growth we are planting in our lives. These could be a passion or hobby that hasn’t found its expression in our daily lives, a career path that’s calling to us, or a relationship waiting to be nurtured with a child, parent, partner, or loved one. We shall explore, learn, and go within together.

Please join me for this weekly 30-minute drop-in to explore and anchor your own wisdom. It’s FREE!

https://bit.ly/mmmwithroma

The post Our Wise Views & Intentions for 2021 appeared first on Tools of Growth.

Post Inauguration

Are things on the upturn in 2021? It seems so. At least where our nation’s leadership is concerned. After years of escalating political unrest, we seem to have taken a healing turn with the new presidency and vice presidency, in particular. As a nation, we can undoubtedly be grateful that the inauguration was uneventful and unaccompanied by the chaos that took us by surprise in the attack at the Capitol just a few weeks earlier.

However, many of us have huffed, puffed, and cursed the former president for several years. Where does all the angst that he caused us now reside? It’s in our minds and bodies, right? If our brains and bodies have the capability to store and recall pleasant and unpleasant experiences, it means that the challenging, uncomfortable disgust arising from the last four years is stored somewhere within us. Those emotions will get pushed further deep inside as we move past the Trump-era.

So how do we detox? How can we cleanse the wound and heal our hearts before we move on? That will be the topic of conversation in my upcoming weekly Mindfulness Meditation Monday. I’ll share with you a very personal experience that became a driving healing force in my own life and how I now apply it to every big challenge I face. Together, we will build a strong and mindful perspective as we explore in meditation where our past heavy experiences live in our body and how we can release them.

If you were or are a supporter of the former president, I respect and honor that. I promise that you will still walk away with an invaluable tool that you can apply to any uncomfortable past experience that you wish to heal and release from the memory of your mind and body.

Please join me this Monday, Jan 25th, from 8-8:30 pm, for a mindfulness perspective and practice on setting a healing intention for the future.

Register Here:  https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMuc-iopzwpHtVLy9a7WxdQPp5MIJvBqPOP Infinite Love and Gratitude,

The post Post Inauguration appeared first on Tools of Growth.

2020 —> 2021: What is in our control?

As we bid adieu to 2020 and enter 2021, this past year has undeniably been one of internal and external discomfort and agitation, one where we have seen with clarity—with 20/20 vision if you will—our connection to ourselves and to each other, individually and collectively. Our sameness and differences, in hindsight, have all surfaced in our opinions and experiences of the pandemic, of racial separation, and even of our political climate. We have begun to learn to let go of what doesn’t serve us and build on what does. But one thing is clear: Accepting and letting go of what we cannot change and staying strong on what we can has got to be a continuing practice. 

So what then is in our control? 

The pandemic is still raging out of our control.The progress of the Black Lives Matter Movement is slow, very, very slow.Our political climate is fraught.The attack on the Capitol attack last week was out of control.The exact events of January 20 are an unknown.

So what is in our control? 

How we manage our response to the uncontrollable happenings of life.How we show up to meet the chaos.

These things are very much in our control—but they require us to build our MINDFULNESS MUSCLE, our MINDFULNESS MIGHT.

This is not a one-time reaction. As I mentioned before, This is a CONTINUING PRACTICE. One that has a tremendous effect on our lives and a ripple effect on the lives of our family, friends, community, nation, world, universe.

This is why our Mindfulness Meditation Monday (MMM) family meets EVERY MONDAY to learn new mindfulness tools and build our mindfulness might. It’s easy, it’s beautiful, it’s empowering, it’s 30 MINUTES, and it’s FREE. It’s a fallback like no other!

Join us! Details Below:Registration Link:  https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMuc-iopzwpHtVLy9a7WxdQPp5MIJvBqPOP When: Jan 18, 2021 08:00 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada)Infinite Love and Gratitude,

The post 2020 —> 2021: What is in our control? appeared first on Tools of Growth.

Family Mindfulness. Meditation. Monday.

It’s been a year! 2020 will go down as THE most epic year of our lives—ALL of our lives. It has been a year of truth telling, a year of revelations, and a year of deep inner reflections. I for one feel like life held me by my feet—upside down—and gave me a good shake several times over.

The beginning of the pandemic revealed to me how “out-of-mind” I can get. I was beckoned to understand the nature of my mind, its repetitive mind-blowing patterns, and the unrecognized biases that I held. I’ve never studied my inner world and my worldly connections more deeply than I did this year, thanks in part to my year-long training at UCLA, where I earned some very well-respected mindfulness industry credentials:

Trained Mindfulness Facilitator (TMF) through UCLA Mindfulness Awareness Research Center (MARC) at Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, and
Member of IMTA (International Mindfulness Teacher’s Association).

However, as I was graduating earlier this month, it became clear to me that this year was a year of self-study—learning more about myself—personally and professionally as well as a year to observe and learn about my threads of connection with family, friends, community, and the world. Talk about being turned inside out! Through this discovery of self, I experienced the extremes of my life—my strengths and weaknesses—both emotionally and physically. One thing was clear to me, the two things that sustained me were my mindfulness meditation practice and my family.

I know each of us has leaned into our family as never before. This year of revelations also showed us how connected (or disconnected) we are with our partners, children, parents. Many of you have been regulars of the Mindfulness Meditation Monday sessions. Many of you have commented on how showing up every Monday has carried you through this difficult time. Needless to say, I am grateful and humbled by this. But imagine if you had this life-sustaining and enhancing tool during other life challenges. How differently would you have traversed obstacles if you had this space to lean into? I believe that’s also true for other members of our family, including the younger ones. Don’t you agree that our children would benefit from Mindfulness Meditation as well? Don’t you think that building their mindfulness muscle early in life will help them through their own challenges, including those that they face during this pandemic?

I’d like to invite you to bring your children or any family member to our Family Mindfulness. Meditation. Monday tomorrow where I will offer your little ones and loved ones a small but fun dose of mindfulness, a bit of simple meditation, while sharing with them the immense gratitude for this year that we have all traversed together as family! It’s just a 30-minute drop-in, and it’s FREE and tailored to children and adults of any age!

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER NOW














 

Wishing you and your loved ones a safe, peaceful and restful Holiday Season.

Infinite Love and Gratitude,

The post Family Mindfulness. Meditation. Monday. appeared first on Tools of Growth.

The Art and Science of Meditation

Good wishes to all of you on this Mindfulness Meditation Monday.

As we brace ourselves for another lockdown, it’s important that we have a space where we can anchor ourselves and immerse in learning how to live through this challenging and ever-changing time. The practice of meditation teaches us this art of living. When we understand the art of living, our health and mental well being are enhanced. We become equipped and skilled at managing our state of mind — moving from unrest to rest.

The Art:































The Science:






























 

What other proof do we need other than THE EXPERIENCE of this art and it’s benefits! I invite you to join our Mindfulness Meditation Monday family tonight — and every Monday — so we can build and deepen our experience, together. #WeAreAllInThisTogether.


















Register here. It’s FREE!

Topic: Mindfulness. Meditation. Monday
Date & Time: Dec. 7th, 2020 8:00 PM – 8:30 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada)
Meeting ID: 873 4109 7341
Passcode: 442594
Registration Link:  https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMuc-iopzwpHtVLy9a7WxdQPp5MIJvBqPOP




















Hope to see you tonight. May you be safe and protected.

 

The post The Art and Science of Meditation appeared first on Tools of Growth.

What can MEDITATION do for us RIGHT NOW?

I’d like to say Happy Monday Funday or something cheery like that. But honestly, I’m not feeling it. If anything, I’m feeling tried, tested, and over the edge. I felt like this yesterday and woke up feeling the same today. This past Friday was my parent’s SIXTIETH wedding anniversary, so needless to say I’ve had every reason to celebrate. In fact, my siblings, nieces and nephews, kids, and I spent the week planning for that grand day: First, on Thursday, there was a surprise Zoom call with family from all over the world. Next, a video slide show with more than 50 good wishes from my parents’ kids, grandkids, family, and friends from around the globe. Friday was our grand finale: Ten honking cars, all blasting music, showed up in front of their house, where we posted a huge “Happy Anniversary” sign and watched them dance together from a safe distance.















Here they are, our cutest parents and role models and our family quarantine party:


















With so much to celebrate, why am I feeling over the edge? I’m still vividly aware of what’s happening around us with this pandemic. The celebration was a beautiful escape but not without the sadness that each of us faces as we enter another serious lockdown—perhaps more severe than the first one. My personal refuge is my practice of mindfulness and meditation and, most importantly, all of you, my Mindfulness Meditation Monday family.

I’ve thought a lot about what this discomfort looks like for all of us. I’ve delved even deeper into what we need to birth, build, and center within us to sustain ourselves and our loved ones during this time. I’m looking forward to sharing this with you tonight, during our time together, where we learn from each other, grow in our practice of mindfulness, and then set in motion the feeling that can maintain us and our world through this challenging time. I invite you to join in. It’s 30 minutes and it’s FREE.



















Details Here:

Topic: Mindfulness. Meditation. Monday
Date & Time: Nov. 30, 2020 8:00 PM – 8:30 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada)
Meeting ID: 873 4109 7341
Passcode: 442594
Registration Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMuc-iopzwpHtVLy9a7WxdQPp5MIJvBqPOP

The post What can MEDITATION do for us RIGHT NOW? appeared first on Tools of Growth.

The Purposeful Parent Toybox & Mindfulness Meditation Monday

Our children’s minds were designed to learn, explore, discover, and create!  Children are hard-wired to test ideas, find answers, and try things over and over again to find a solution that works.  They crave opportunities where they can let their growing minds run wild!  HOW can we capitalize on this and provide them with toys and products for the holidays to nurture this hard-wired curiosity?

Join Kristin Bednarz and I, along with leading developmental toy companies, in this FREE online series, The Purposeful Parent Toybox to learn about toys and products that will optimize your children’s overall development!

In addition to these high-quality toys, we are also featuring companies that provide gifts to enhance family bonding and gifts to nurture mindfulness/emotional intelligence!  As an added bonus, many of the companies are offering discount codes exclusively for this series!

CLICK TO JOIN FREE HERE
Here’s what you’ll get out of this series:

Gain powerful insight from LEADING EXPERTS on the BEST toys and products you can provide for your children to optimize their overall growth and development
Gain access to EXCLUSIVE discount codes provided by many of these companies
Understand the benefits of having open-ended toys/products in your home, and how to find the best ones
Build a collection of toys that will engage your children for YEARS to come rather than toys that they lose interest in before the battery dies.

Here’s the deal, though: we both know how busy life can get when you have children running around, so make sure to register NOW while you have the time! Trust me…you don’t want to miss this opportunity!!!

Sneak peak: Here’s a clip from my talk with Kristin.

I will be featured on November 29th!

I’m almost done with my final assignment for my UCLA MARC Trained Mindfulness Facilitator program! After such a busy week of catching up with lectures, professors and peers, I’m ready to wind down and meditate with you. I want each of you to know that sitting with you is the highlight of my week.

Last week’s Abundance, Responsibility and Silence practice with you really nurtured my heart. I do hope your practice of spotting abundance, stepping up to responsibility or turning to stillness or silence was helpful in lifting up your own spirits and serving those of others. Your real life shares always touch my heart and inspire me to keep leaning into learning deeper and deeper.

On Monday, we’ll do a special practice for our children — your own or the one’s in your family or friends’ network. It’s been a rough ride for our children and they need our high vibes. If each one of you is present, imagine the uplifting, ripple effect we can send to our children!

Registration Details:

Topic: Mindfulness. Meditation. Monday
Date & Time: Nov. 23, 2020 08:00 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada)
Meeting ID: 873 4109 7341
Passcode: 442594
Registration Link:  https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMuc-iopzwpHtVLy9a7WxdQPp5MIJvBqPOP

The post The Purposeful Parent Toybox & Mindfulness Meditation Monday appeared first on Tools of Growth.

I’m overjoyed to be back to you!

We rented a home on the water in San Diego this past week, and it was truly refreshing to get away with the family. At first I wasn’t sure if it was a good vacation idea to go from one home to another. So much work went into the prep—planning groceries, meals, and snacks for 7 people for 7 days. My kids all were COVID -19 tested to keep Grandma (who lives with us) safe and healthy. My parents also joined for a couple days, so needless to say, we were a full house.

It was a fun, crazy busy, family time. Watching the gorgeous sunset became a daily habit, and we stayed up late every single night having ping-pong tournaments and then finishing off most nights off with a swim in the pool and a dip in the jacuzzi. The time we spent together was priceless. It’s truly amazing to tap into a powerful connection with nature and the ones you love.

After the last few turbulent pandemic months, the week helped me detox, heal, refuel, and uplift my body, mind, and spirit. My disconnection from work (which I love) and social media (which I’m challenged by) was the best decision I made this year. It made me realize how I love my work and communing with all of you, and how much stress I put upon myself to keep a social media presence alive.

So I’m overjoyed to be back to you! Tonight, together, we will our reconnect at our “Mindfulness. Meditation. Monday” MMM drop-in from 8-8:30pm PDT. I’ve been diving deep into exploring HEART PRACTICES, and I can’t wait to share one with you tonight! Be sure to sign up/register here: https://courses.toolsofgrowth.com

Then, on Thursday, October 8, I invite you to join me for SESSION 5 of my biweekly Pandemic Parenting Essentials PPE Live webinar from 5-6pm. (Can you believe we’ve been doing this for 10 weeks?) This week’s topic is: Back-to-School: Keeping Calm and Cool. We will discuss our expectations and the new adjustments that you and your children have had to make and how we can use mindfulness to help us stay calm and cool during these shifts. Please register here: https://bit.ly/PPEWebinarByRoma

Looking forward to seeing you all tonight for MMM and on Thursday for PPE! Happy Monday!

Infinite Love and Gratitude,

The post I’m overjoyed to be back to you! appeared first on Tools of Growth.

The Gifts of a Beginner’s Mind

When I published my first book five years ago, I had no idea where it would take me. I came into it with a clean slate, with no preconceived ideas, plans, or strategies for where I was going. I truly had a beginner’s mind—curious, open, willing to surrender to what would show up. The only promise I made to myself was to enjoy every moment, and, when I didn’t, that would be a cue for me to step back. I guess I had filled my life quota of serial entrepreneurship over the previous 20 years, as my husband and I built our family business and raised our two beautiful children.

Three months after publication, my book caught the eye of our local school district leaders, who hired me to extend the tools in the book into a year-long mindfulness training program customized for their recess staff. That aligned with my higher purpose of serving children through adults who cared, taught, and raised children, so I jumped right in. I spent the next four years writing eight different mindfulness educational programs for recess staff, before- and after-school staff, teachers, administrators, paraeducators, bus drivers, and even junior lifeguards —impacting more than 40,000 children. Meanwhile, my book won four renowned industry awards, was featured in Publisher’s Weekly and Library Journal and was translated into Chinese and Korean. Yes, I was exhausted at times, but my personal promise of enjoying every moment was very much alive. Early in 2019, as I started to notice how online education was soaring, I decided to scale back my teaching commitments for the 2019/2020 school year so that I could shift my teaching model online.

I also decided to enroll in MARC UCLA’s Mindful Teacher Training for the whole year. It was a huge commitment, but in retrospect, I couldn’t have chosen a better time to walk the walk of mindfulness personally.

As for the online courses, little did I realize the work that would go into it! Delivering information over a video recording is quite different from in-person teaching. The recordings, the edits, the subtitles, the re-recordings, the educational technology platform, the design and layout—it was all new to me. There I was with my beginner’s mind again! From October 2019 to February 2020, I prepped the courses and the platform, while dealing with unexpected personal events—nursing my mother and my husband through surgeries in December and February. My launch date got pushed a bit but nevertheless looked pretty promising for April 15. I think you all know where I’m going with this.

Yes, the pandemic took over our lives as we knew it. On March 19, stay-at-home orders were issued in Los Angeles. The halt in our personal and professional lives—both at home and with our family business—was huge as we sped up to deal with it. But as far as Tools Of Growth was concerned, literally, everything stopped. It didn’t slow down gradually; it came to a full stop. The most interesting thing was that the team that I had put together to carry me through the online launch disintegrated. POOF! Within two weeks, all three people who were working with me had decided not to continue. I felt like I was stranded on an island watching my family members in speedboats racing around me trying to rescue, support, and meet the needs of front-line workers and hospitals. They would stop to refuel emotionally and then take off again while I just sat there and watched. I was so exhausted from filling their mental and emotional tanks that I often forgot to fill mine.

In April I shared my sense of loss and sadness with a dear friend, wisdom teacher, and mentor. I showed her my white wall, which was covered by a step-by-step launch strategy with nowhere to apply it! She asked me if I was willing to erase it all and just publish what I had completed. She reminded me that with the unchartered territory that the pandemic had presented, we ALL had a beginner’s mind with no clue as to what tomorrow would hold. I did erase my white-wall strategy, and I felt the weight come off of my shoulders. That same evening I spoke with another wise friend who also advised me to finish the open pieces of my program first. However, the fact remained that I needed someone to complete the video editing and clean up the sound—tasks I couldn’t accomplish on my own. I gathered all my courage and reached out to my video editor and begged him to just finish up the project. We were two days away from the end. To my surprise, he agreed, and by mid-May it seemed like my ship was starting to sail once again.

The last two months have been the most trying months of my life. This pandemic has reshaped my go-getter, get-stuff-done personality. I was no longer moving at my preferred pace. I was moving at everyone else’s collective speed. I was at the mercy of the time that independent experts could give me, based on their own family lives and schedules. It has been a time of letting go of expectations and timelines. But with the help of some friends and my kids, slowly but surely, people have started to show up to help me complete the pieces that will lead to the launch of my new online trainings.

This journey of publishing my online courses has reminded me of the beginner’s mind that I had when I first published my book. I have no idea where this new venture is going to take me. I have no idea of how parents and teachers are going to receive this. With three social media flyers, three emails, three promo videos, and a ton of passion in my heart, I’ll be offering my courses on Teachable: my very first online Mindful Relaxed Parenting Workshop and the Mindful Teacher Training.

as I open the doors to my School Of Growth, I promise I will have a special price for you. For those who have been on this journey with me since day one! I’m so grateful for your continued support. For those who are new to my Tools of Growth family, thank you for joining me at a pivotal time. Below is a raw, short clip from my upcoming promo video for the parenting workshop that I shot on my iPhone—in my son’s house, in quarantine last week. Yes, I was! And yes, I’m fine. I just had a slight cold, and I tested negative for COVID-19. What a relief! This is not the professional video that I had planned on, but it delivers my message well considering the current restrictions we all are under.

Please watch for social media announcements and share the love! Most importantly, if you have friends or family who really need support with mindful parenting and are experiencing hardship and are unable to pay, please email me, and I will do my best to work with them personally. My goal is to make this as affordable as possible.

May you all be safe, healthy, and well.

Infinite Love and Gratitude,

Roma

The post The Gifts of a Beginner’s Mind appeared first on Tools of Growth.