Aren’t we all worrying endlessly and banging our heads against a wall, knowing well that the frightening recession would not disappear in the foreseeable future? We are repeatedly told: “Jobs are scarce. Housing is a mess. And the difficulty of making money threatens our comfort and leaves us feeling anxious and stressed.”
What is the way out? Pray that Barack Obama and Co, and other world leaders, would bail us out? Or is there any other possibility? Is self-help the best help? Yes, says Dr. Srinivasan Pillay in a well argued write-up in The Huffington Post.
Pillay writes: “At times like these, we may hear advice columnists tell us to ‘visualize success’ or to ‘imagine our greatest possibilities’. While this is inspiring, is there actually a science behind this?
“The brief answer to this question is: Yes. Although visualization was regarded as ‘new age hype’ for many years, research has shown that there is a strong scientific basis for how and why visualization works. It is now a well-known fact that we stimulate the same brain regions when we visualize an action and when we actually perform that same action.”
Dr. Srinivasan Pillay is an internationally recognized executive coach, public speaker, psychiatrist, and brain imaging researcher who is focused on the fields of personal and organizational transformation.
He is currently an Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and has a clinical practice in Cambridge, MA. (Full bio here…)
Swaraaj Chauhan describes his two-decade-long stint as a full-time journalist as eventful, purposeful, and full of joy and excitement. In 1993 he could foresee a different work culture appearing on the horizon, and decided to devote full time to teaching journalism (also, partly, with a desire to give back to the community from where he had enriched himself so much.)
Alongside, he worked for about a year in 1993 for the US State Department’s SPAN magazine, a nearly five-decade-old art and culture monthly magazine promoting US-India relations. It gave him an excellent opportunity to learn about things American, plus the pleasure of playing tennis in the lavish American embassy compound in the heart of New Delhi.
In !995 he joined WWF-India as a full-time media and environment education consultant and worked there for five years travelling a great deal, including to Husum in Germany as a part of the international team to formulate WWF’s Eco-tourism policy.
He taught journalism to honors students in a college affiliated to the University of Delhi, as also at the prestigious Indian Institute of Mass Communication where he lectured on “Development Journalism” to mid-career journalists/Information officers from the SAARC, African, East European and Latin American countries, for eight years.
In 2004 the BBC World Service Trust (BBC WST) selected him as a Trainer/Mentor for India under a European Union project. In 2008/09 He completed another European Union-funded project for the BBC WST related to Disaster Management and media coverage in two eastern States in India — West Bengal and Orissa.
Last year, he spent a couple of months in Australia and enjoyed trekking, and also taught for a while at the University of South Australia.
Recently, he was appointed as a Member of the Board of Studies at Chitkara University in Chandigarh, a beautiful city in North India designed by the famous Swiss/French architect Le Corbusier. He also teaches undergraduate and postgraduate students there.
He loves trekking, especially in the hills, and never misses an opportunity to play a game of tennis. The Western and Indian classical music are always within his reach for instant relaxation.
And last, but not least, is his firm belief in the power of the positive thought to heal oneself and others.