Contemplations and Musings – The Blog of Nishant Garg

Courage to Quit and Courage to Show up

“I’ve quit more times than I can count, sometimes too soon, sometimes for the wrong reasons, but more and more often without drama and with a calm feeling in my stomach. Safe in the knowing that a no to what I don’t want is a yes to something more important. My health, my love, my heart’s work.

My very own life.”

—Anna Lovind

“The ego’s core feeling of “not enough” causes it to react to someone else’s success as if that success had taken something away from “me”. It doesn’t know that your resentment of another person’s success curtails your own chances of success. In order to attract success, you need to welcome it wherever you see it.” —Eckhart Tolle

Dr. Cortney Warren — Letting Go of Your Ex: CBT Skills to Heal the Pain of a Breakup and Overcome Love Addiction

This is a guest post from Dr. Cortney Warren. Her new book Letting Go of Your Ex: CBT Skills to Heal the Pain of a Breakup and Overcome
Love Addiction released in Feb 2023. I am grateful to share an excerpt from her new book on this post. You can also check out my interview with her in 2022 on Choose Honesty, Honest Liars, The Psychology of Self-Deception

Dr. Cortney S. Warren is a Board Certified Clinical Psychologist and Adjunct Clinical Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health at the Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). Having won numerous professional awards for her research, Cortney is an expert on addictions, self-deception, romantic relationships, eating pathology, and the practice of psychotherapy from a cross-cultural perspective. Her newest work is a self-help book that explores breakups through an addictive framework called Letting Go of Your Ex: CBT Skills to Heal the Pain of a Breakup and Overcome Love Addiction (2023)

Excerpt and overview of the blog

Are you struggling to get over a former lover? Do thoughts and memories of your ex occupy your mind day and night? Do you wish you could talk to them, touch them, see them—anything to make you feel close again? Are you consumed by anger, sadness, frustration, or unbearable pain that your relationship is over? If so, you’re not alone—and you may be going through a love-addicted breakup. For people who struggle with love addiction, breakups can be downright devastating. Yet, there are tools you can use to start healing.

My Thoughts on Entrepreneurship and Building Connections

Playing a long game: It’s a belief that building a Tech startup is always hard. It’s true. And, it’s an eliminating belief too. Life works in duality. On the other hand, it’s easy if we take our time to build something without grinding and hustling mentality. Working long hours isn’t the solution. Founders and team who understand the philosophy of ‘slowing down’ succeed in the long game because they have high degree of emotional and mental endurance over the long haul.

Courage and Confidence: Working on a Tech startup is damn hard. Isn’t starting something new is hard? It’s hard! The confidence level is low and we require courage to keep showing up. I started podcast in 2020 knowing nothing — it was hard, and now I’ve 200+ episodes and it’s less hard.

On creativity: People force themselves for creative solutions when they feel tired and hence push more and more, and eventually nothing happens. Why not take a break and replenish yourself to fill your energy tank?

Founders with diverse experience: You can build a company at any age. Startup founders with diverse prior experience in different industries, even as an employee, who have built different kinds of designs and products are more likely to succeed in their startup venture. They already have gained many skills along their career such as how to build teams, how to leverage existing network, etc etc.

Light Always Follows Darkness

Hey Friends, I am excited to share some of my favorite contemplations from my favorite teachers.

Abraham Hicks: “If something you want is slow to come to you, it can only be for one reason: You are spending more time focused upon its absence than you are about its presence.”

Yung Pueblo: “You can not build a deep connection with someone who’s disconnected from themselves.”

From article: You Don’t Deserve Better – “So no, you don’t deserve better, and you don’t get a pony. Get a coach. A therapist. Find a support group. Read a book. Something! The harsh truth is that your relationships are not going to improve until you do something about it. Cancel the self-pity party and the I-Deserve-Betterpalooza. Shut down the excuse factory and put down the blame-thrower. It’s time to heal!”

Trust Within and Listening to Life

Hey Friends, I am sharing some of my favorite and interesting quotes on intuition, trust, and how to listen to life.

Life is guiding us in every moment when we get to do and who we get to become. It’s simple and not easy. There are many contemplative practices to learn to listen to life a.k.a. intuition. It’s a skillset to develop and worthwhile.

I have used these quotes as meditative and they guide me in different directions. Interestingly, I learn and get new guidance every time I read them as I evolve from one stage in life to another stage.

I hope you enjoy these quotes which help you in slowing down and guide you to listen to your life.

“Can you embrace the notion that your intuitive voices and life are not always going to be clear? Can you trust that you’re not always in control, driving the car of your life, but simply a passenger looking out the windows? And can you trust you will be okay regardless of what happens? In ambiguity, we often learn our deepest lessons.” –Source: Molly Carroll: book Trust Within

Creative Labour and Defining Success

How do you define success for yourself? I’ve been very curious to know how people define success for themselves. I started the podcast in 2020 with the clear intention of building skills and relationships with people, and I’d say that I am super successful as I’ve been achieving what I wanted based on my intention.

In my quest to learn more about how people define success — I’ve asked several of my podcast guests about it and read other articles and quotes on the web. This post is a short compilation of podcast interviews and selected quotes that I’ve struck me deeply.

If this post resonates with you, please help me in spreading the word about it. That’d mean the world to me. Thanks!

Podcast interviews:

Quotes and Passages:

“Excerpt from Maria Popova, founder of Brain Pickings: “…I frequently get emails from young people starting out and asking, ‘How do I make a successful website or start my own thing?’ And, very often, it’s tied to some measure of success that’s audience-based or reach-based.’ How do you build up to seven million readers a month or two million Facebook fans?’ But the work is not about how to get that size of an audience or those numbers. That’s just the byproduct of what Lewis Hyde calls ‘creative labor,’ which is really our inner drive. The real work is how not to hang your self-worth, your sense of success and merits, the fullness of your heart, and the stability of your soul on those numbers—on that constant positive reinforcement and external validation. That’s the only real work, and the irony is that the more “successful” you get, by either your own standards or external standards, the harder it is to decouple all of those inner values from your work. I think we often confuse the doing for the being.”

Belonging and Courage to stand alone — Resources from Brené Brown

The theme of Belonging has shown up for me over and over in 2022. I’ve asked myself questions such as who am I? What am I? Where do I belong? Who are my true genuine friends? in exploring the landspaces of inner being and authenticity.

Who better to know more about belonging than Brené Brown. In this post, I mention some powerful quotes from her and 2 youtube videos that have made a huge impact on me and how I show up at work and personally. As always, I am sharing what I am called to do.

Brené Brown is a research professor at the University of Houston, where she holds the Huffington Foundation Endowed Chair at the Graduate College of Social Work. Brené is also a visiting professor in management at the University of Texas at Austin McCombs School of Business.

“The thing is that we are wired to be a part of something bigger than us so deeply, that sometimes we will take fitting as a substitute, but actually fitting in is the greatest barrier to belonging because fitting in says, ‘Be like them to be accepted.’ Belonging says, ‘This is who I am. I hope we can make a connection,”

“Because true belonging only happens when we present our authentic, imperfect selves to the world, our sense of belonging can never be greater than our level of self-acceptance.”

“As it turns out, men and women who have the deepest sense of true belonging are people who also have the courage to stand alone when called to do that. They are willing to maintain their integrity and risk disconnection in order to stand up for what they believe in.”

The Art of Ending Things and The Lost Art of Closing Rituals

Endings are always hard. Trust me, I’ve had to end many things internally and externally in 2022. I found this fantastic article The Art of Ending: 3 Steps for Pruning Your Life and I’ve read it dozens of times. Below is an excerpt from this article which I personally read over and over.

“Our lives are very similar to this rose bush. They are often filled with so many good things; so many opportunities, commitments, endeavors, and relationships that we are overwhelmed. Our resources are stretched, and nothing, or no one, is getting our full attention. In most areas, we are surviving, not thriving. What would happen if we were to prune back some of the good for sake of the best?

“So, too, does this happen in our lives. We limp along with broken relationships, hang onto toxic habits, and linger in commitments that deplete us physically or emotionally. It feels as though all of our energy is being diverted to sustain parts of our life that are not meeting our hopes and expectations. Essentially, the season of possibility for these buds has passed. What would happen if we were to get out our shears, and extract the parts of our life that are no longer giving us the results they once did, or are never going to amount to anything no matter how much we try?