How does one achieve internal quality of life?

By Murali Neelamegam

My first experience of seeing care, compassion, and courage in action without fanfare was in my late mother.

I had always wondered how she raised 6 children so selflessly. I was told that, as a teenager, my mother was not encouraged to pursue her dream of becoming a teacher. Instead was told to stay at her home and take care of her siblings. She continuously carried on her role as a caregiver as mother, without a break for herself to pursue her own dreams. As our family grew and we developed, I remember her persistently enabling and encouraging us to pursue our dreams.

Over the course of my life, I’ve meandered through the uncharted highs and lows of life, engaging and dealing with life’s wonders and challenges with trepidation, fear, excitement and hope. As the youngest in my family, I was the “witness”, always observing what was happening in life. For most of the time, I remember feeling that I did not have the voice to authentically and truthfully connect with the world, due to my lack of knowledge and experience.

As I progressed through life, I began to realise that for a person to engage with life’s wonders and challengers with agility, resilience, and confidence, it’s not just about attending self-development courses, reading self-help books, going away on indulgent retreats, being inspired by others, or undertaking some sort of physical healing. While I personally believe these activities are essential as part of one’s journey towards evolving and building a sense of purpose built on positive values, it’s equally inspiring seeing those who do without.

My late mother never had access to most of these activities, so external assistance aside, what are some of the other ingredients that are required for a person to be elegantly poised to transact and relate in the world with agility of mind and emotion, resilience to have the courage to take risks, and the confidence to act without fear or trepidation?

Are they internal drivers? Or based on perception?

Share your thoughts in the Comments section below.

I have been inspired to share stories, both personal and through my observations, on what I learn about people, situations and life principles. Many of these instances have impressed upon me that there are other essential ingredients in life one can access to be caring, compassionate and courageous. My intention with this space is to share these stories: not as solutions, but to evoke emotions of change and provoke thinking towards gaining knowledge about the essential nature needed to achieve agility, resilience, and confidence in life.

Being A Witness

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By Leonie Brackenreg

“Be still then, for each tree is a silent prayer”
Indian Poet, Tagore

What a wonderful forum this is to freely access Murali’s holistic and dynamic approach to life and work.

Murali has been my mentor for 3 years or so and how blessed I feel to have crossed his path. Murali is a book of soulful guidance and knowledge who always gives generously and consistently his time, energy and spirit to those who seek it.

Conversations with Murali can be as simplistic or profound as you like but whatever the dialogue, it guarantees to be authentic, challenging and enlightening!

My journey is to continue developing self-awareness and inner harmony, and create a warm environment for those around me. I have been able to do this through Murali’s reminder to be a more of a ‘witness’ in life.

Initially, I did not understand this advice, and confessed to Murali “But I do not want to be an insipid observer who does not engage with people and life. I want to make a difference and voice my thoughts and ideas”. However, Murali impressed upon me that being an “observer” is not about watching life go by, but is indeed acquiring mindfulness through developing a ‘knowing’ of when to act and how to do so, gracefully and diplomatically.

I look forward to more intelligence, philosophy and spirit this forum has to offer. Curated by Murali this space is destined to be wholesome and engaging…

Eye-opening: My experience with Dynamic Wisdom

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By Aniya Roslan

They say it’s best to write about what you know, and for the purposes of my first post on the Dynamic Wisdom blog, I thought I’d avoid all pretensions (and hope for the best that the former sentence does not deter you from future visits) and instead give you some insight on why I am here. After all, nothing quite so simplifies the idea of both meaning and confidence. To do so, I’ll need to start from the most realistic beginning.

I met Murali some years ago through a mutual friend. As a third-year psychology graduate, I was eager to gain some on-the-road, first-hand experience, and Murali was one of the few future mentors who were raring to go. Our first meeting was a rather unorthodox session at a nearby restaurant to where I worked, where it was unlike my expectation for a head-on interview and I had to get all the answers right — quizzically enough, one of the first few questions I was asked was “How are you?”; and by God, I had no clue!

If you’re accustomed to Australia, you’ll know that this is perfectly normal coming from the absolute stranger. How many times have I told a shopkeeper, barista, tram inspector, and/or the guy at the local supermarket that yes, I am fine. It comes like second nature unless you’re actively looking to pour your heart out during an errand to somebody who couldn’t know and/or care less, but to have the question come directly at you and the expectation for an honest answer felt like a whole other realm… and you’d be shocked by your immediate response.

Fast forward a few month later, I survived third-year but unfortunately, didn’t scrape through enough to make a spot in an Honours program anywhere throughout Victoria. In an effort to keep afloat, I wound up in a market research position, and walked around for that good 9 months with what seemed like a perpetual dark cloud over my head. My relatively lifelong dream of becoming a psychologist was put on hold for abject laziness throughout the first couple of years abroad, and no amount of focus groups was going to help in making that happen. In this time, I kept in touch with Murali, and every so often would catch up over a call or casual meet-up and check-in.

During this time, it was easy to get distracted. Moreover, the next step in a career in market research seemed like a rather simple progression and it was far too easy to get disheartened by the regressively slimmer chances of continuity in tertiary/postgraduate education. Murali persistently followed up on where I was in my game plan, and adopting a proactive approach, had me getting creative on strategies on where to go next. This was immensely helpful and allowed me almost a forced-upon opportunity to look at the picture and create the next few steps; quite relative to Tic Tac Toe game, with all the stresses of chess. And as mentors do, it’s helpful to have someone breathing down your neck to get those answers, because we’re all well aware of how distracting a good TV show can be.

I am currently in a Marketing position at a company in the energy space, and while still not where I thought I’d wind up (psychology students seem to get smarter every year, so…), Murali continues to support me in terms of creating plans and sticking to my guns… or in this case, a future career in clinical psychology. Through this relationship, I’ve unearthed several key learnings;

a) It is good to have someone who truly cares for your well-being; because constantly trying to pass off as ‘okay’ is psychologically exhausting

b) Stuff do not always go as planned; be prepared for monkey wrenches

and finally, quite possibly most importantly…

c) You can’t control where you wind up, but only you know where you’re going next.

In speaking with Murali (and the perks of the new job), I rediscovered a love for writing; and apparently, when you truly enjoy doing something,it exudes out of your every pore. As mentors do, he provided me with this incredible opportunity to headline this effort, and I’m only too happy to kick-off the initiative. Additionally, this is a driver to complete that book I’m working on, adds to whatever value I’d like to bring to a future in psychology, and gives me a reason to look up on days where the trials and tribulations of what was supposed to be a straightforward path simply have me wanting to pull my hair out. I truly believe that many like myself can benefit from this space, and while I may not have done a swell enough job of outlining its purpose, this is an invitation for you to participate.

Share your stories, ideas, and experiences. Tell us the good and bad.

If you feel like they might benefit others, we’d like for this to be your space. You could be an avid writer or someone just looking to blow off some steam, but if there is anybody else in the world who might relate (and in the world of millions with access to the Internet, that’s quite possibly the case!), we’re looking to simply be the hub for this activity and we can take your experiences home with us to learn from.

I hope you enjoy this blog, and my personal take on meaning.

All the very best,

Anya

Welcome All!

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By Murali Neelamegam

When I set up this blog, with the wonderful help and enthusiasm of Anya Roslan, I did it with a sense of excitement and anxiousness.

The human mind is an amazing ‘instrument’; you can be in control of it, while at other times, it can play the controller. I have always wanted to share my experiences, observations, learning, and experiences in a public form for further dialogue, but to an extent, my anxiety emanated from one of my values – that is, to strive for excellence – and that belief that my work had to be as close to perfect as possible in itself was a factor in why it has taken this long. Surely, it was an erroneous belief since nothing can indeed be perfect, and once I had accepted the fact, this has finally come to fruition.

With the blessings and encouragement of my colleagues, friends, mentees, family, students, clients, and Spiritual Mentor, I am excited to be starting this journey. I’ve created this with and for the community, and how it evolves will be determined that same way.

As per the earlier post, the purpose of this blog is simply to share observations and experiences, and making stories of the average day – quite simply, penning thoughts and the meaning we derive from them into a public space. These thoughts are in relation to how people can live authentically with purpose and meaning, and can be based on readings, stories, experiences, learnings, observations, reflections… anything that makes your mind truly tick. Essentially, it’s about creating a space for people to learn from others, and to be in a space where you are encouraged to do so with Agility, Resilience, and Confidence.

Please share your thoughts, comments, and feedback, and should there be a particular space in which you would like to contribute, feel free to contact the Site Administrator. Contact details are available on the About page.

Warmest Regards,

Murali Neelamegam

An Introduction to Dynamic Wisdom

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By Murali Neelamegam

Through the day-to-day grind, we welcome distractions. We welcome a moment where our thoughts are allowed to travel, be it during the 5 minutes between tasks, the 15 minutes at lunch, or the 5 hours after 5pm where it’s time to unwind before tomorrow begins.

This day and age of technology provides us with these tools to take us away from what we’ve identified as work – it’s a short, seamless solution to the small problem at hand.

Now, how often have we used this time, not to or for, but on ourselves?

At Dynamic Wisdom, two of the underlying factors to both personal and professional success are directly linked to our minds. Based on psychology the concept of Self-regulation, which examines how the brain processes thoughts, moods, and emotions, as well as self-renewal and self-referral, have shown time and time again that the key to unlocking our full potential is within reach. This potential is the “subject” within us in other words our pure consciousness . Pure consciousness is that inner spirit of purpose and what gives us meaning in life.

When the mind is properly utilised, it supports the body and the intellect, allowing for growth, resilience and confidence. These three ‘tools’(mind, body and intellect) energised by what gives us meaning are vital to our success, but most often, are put on the back-burner for what we believe is the definition of success. We have unintentionally turned ourselves into a distraction, and part of the objective here at Dynamic Wisdom is to help work with this hurdle.

The underpinning framework , process and philosophy of the work undertaken by Dynamic Wisdom is based on the Science of Self-Knowledge (subjective) and the Science of Psychology (objective).

The purpose of this blog is to share the observations and experiences, and making stories of the average day – quite simply, penning thoughts and meanings we derive into a public space. These thoughts are in relation how can people live authentically with purpose and meaning. These can be based on readings , stories, experiences, learnings, observations and reflections. This blog is also about creating a space for people to learn from peoples stories and experiences. Fundamently the Blog will be energised intellectually and emotionally by the contributors. The hope is that you will find comfort, and the yearning to share your thoughts in an integrated space that will help make you and others aware, and mindful of both the choices we have made and are yet to make in relation to living our lives with purpose and meaning. We will do this with Agility , Resilience and Confidence.