MAY 18, 2020
Topic: MIND. MARVEL. MAGIC.
In this session of I-CAN Conversations we had the opportunity to have Dr Mickey Mehta, a global leading holistic health Guru and a corporate life coach. He is a recipient of the Health and Wellness Icon of India Award by the Economic Times. He is amongst the 100 most impactful wellness leaders of the world. He has written two very popular books, named ‘Shoonyam Quotient’ and ‘Lose Weight Gain Shape’. He has trained our police, our Indian Army and India Air Force. He has also been a mentor to many celebrities and politicians as well. He is an incredible personality with incredible thoughts and perception towards life. This conversation was facilitated by Ms. Mandira Popat, a digital entrepreneur, Ms. Disha Gulati, a fitness and marketing expert and Ms. Sheetal Shetty. The session was very stimulating and majorly focussed on the importance of maintaining wellness in our lives and how it leads us towards positivity and wholesomeness.
Compiled by Somya Jain
Maintaining our physical and mental health is one of the most important things to do but we choose to ignore its importance and keep ourselves indulged in our hectic lifestyle so much that it does not allow us to take care of our body, mind and emotions. This behaviour exposes us to a lot of distress and interrupts the normal functioning of our bodies and tends to change our behaviour as well. It is very necessary for all of us to keep ourselves away from all the negative thoughts and we can do this by practicing some techniques and following some tips given by Dr Mickey Mehta, which would definitely encourage us to have a positive perception about everything, keep us energetic and healthy.
The session with Dr Mehta started off with a phrase – “BLESS CORONA”. He used this phrase to appreciate the fact that due to the outbreak of the virus everyone is getting to spend so much time with their families, time to work on their skill development, time to follow their passions, time for doing everything one has always wanted to but couldn’t because of the limited time on hands in their busy life. He said that instead of looking COVID-19 as a crisis, we should start taking it as an opportunity to cleanse ourselves by following a good diet, doing exercise, yoga, meditation, learning new skills, helping and loving others, uplifting our thoughts etc. He enlightened our audience with his commandments of wellness and some of them are:
- The best exercise for strong biceps is to uplift the poor.
- The best exercise for strong shoulders is to take care of the unprivileged.
- The best exercise for strong vision is to have a collective vision with collective consciousness for everyone’s growth.
- The best exercise for strong legs is to be deeply rooted in humility to be a better fruit in humanity.
- To sleep every night with a wish to heal yourself and wake up every morning with a promise to heal the world.
Such sanguine thoughts give us a power to part with our lazy and gloomy selves.
The very important thing that Dr Mehta said during the session was “Let wellness be the religion number one”. Through this he tried to elaborate on a point that wellness will make a person realise self-actualisation, provide calmness, energy and fill a person with the qualities of becoming a fit, healthy and a better person. This will further make them a better Sikh, Hindu, Christian, Muslim. They will be able to play their role in family and society more efficiently. Maintaining wellness will rejuvenate their character and personality. He shared his own routine with the audience. He starts his day by praying the sun, has bread and herbs in his breakfast, and does yoga. He advised everyone including adolescents to senior citizens to start inculcating the habit of doing yoga every day. YOGA can be broken into two different words – YOG and A. ‘Yog’ means connectedness, feeling of wholesome and ‘A’ refers to Asanas, different postures. Yoga attaches mind and body together and brings stability and calmness. While doing any asana, one can feel the working of one’s own body and how it is relaxing. He stated that yoga was the first neuro-lingual programming. It consists of EFB (Emotional, Freedom, Breathing) techniques. One can start with the 5 minutes workout in the first whole month, 10 minutes in the second, 15 minutes in the third month and so on. This would make us carry out a 60 minutes workout in 12 months every day. He further explains the importance of doing yoga or any physical relaxing workout by stating its advantages which includes optimism, openness, realisation, calmness, peace of mind, harmony and clarity. He also made us realise the necessity of following the healthy diet is as important as doing yoga. He opinionated that vegetarian food can make immunity grow more stronger than a non-vegetarian diet won’t possibly do. He stressed on the inclusion of green food in order to follow a good diet by saying that “consciousness grows with vegetarianism” and using the WHO (World Health Organization) statement that meat eating is harmful for health. As food helps a person in improved perception, intelligence and spiritual growth, therefore, it is very important to check upon our meal intakes frequently. His other cardinal advices to attain the magic of wellness during and after the lockdown included:
- Managing sleep routine
- Self-loving, self-caring behaviour and self-nourishment
- Developing and learning new skills
- Believing in Ayurveda
- Meditation
- Productivity
- Helping others
On being asked about some tips that he can give to the adolescents who are facing difficulty in balancing their lives as this stage of life is very crucial, he said that they should be treated with empathy, parents should communicate with them and vice-versa. Staying away from the negative news exposure during these days would also help them a lot. By getting rid of peer pressure, they can start visualizing the pressure positively which will further alter their perception. This will lead them towards peace of mind and they would be able to turn themselves into a fit, healthy and better human being. Youth is the future of BHARAT, they are the assets of our country and therefore, required to grow and develop into strong citizens to become strong leaders in future.
Coming towards the end of the session, he appealed to the audience to stop forwarding the false information on social media platforms and try to send out more uplifting, inspiring and motivating messages which would help generate positivity in people as it is very necessary to stay positive in these days of crisis. He motivated everyone to keep themselves happy because until and unless we aren’t happy, we can not keep others happy. Inspiring us in such troubled times, Dr Mehta made us realise that physical distancing does not mean social and emotional isolation. Staying focussed on our emotions and well-being can bring us eternal happiness and prolonged stages of pressure and stress will fill us up only with feelings like hate, rage, sadness, laziness, loneliness etc. Therefore, it is our duty to keep us well both physically and mentally to surround ourselves with positivity. At last, he gave his three magical remarks-
- May life move from untruth to truth.
- May life move from darkness to light.
- May life move from death to life.
It was such a great and worthy session which explained a lot and made us learn a lot. Listening to Dr Mehta saying, “Get optimized, Get Maximized, Get Mickeymized” inspired most of us to get up and start working towards staying calm and active. We can get through any trouble if we are not troubled within ourselves. This is the lesson that we learned from this brilliant conversation.
Key pointers of the conversation:
- Commandments of Wellness and its importance
- Tips for self-development
- Importance of yoga and meditation
- Inclusion of more green food for intaking healthy diet
- Suggestions on how to get rid of pressure in day to day life
- Message to the adolescents on peer pressure, social media and balance of life.
- To change the compromising behaviour towards our well-being
