Ranjini Manian likens the mind to a puppy. “You just have to train it. It will listen to you,” says the founder-chair of Global Adjustments Foundation. A self-confessed frenetic person in the past, she says ever since she started meditation three decades ago, it has made her life a million times better. And so she advocates meditating everyday, at least for 10 minutes (beginners), within 45 minutes of waking up. This simple practice can help one go from having a mind full to being mindful, explains Ranjini. Her series of webinars titled The Champion Woman Life Leadership Programme aims to incorporate this while training people in life leadership skills.
This free-of-cost programme was started five years ago by the Global Adjustments Foundation. “The goal is to help women and girls live out their potential. During my tenure with Global Adjustments, I worked with 450 multinationals and noticed that even with the companies offering a lot of facilities, there weren’t enough résumés from women. It was clear they needed to be told that they are tremendous. So, we built a programme for resilience, and for resilience you need to have mindfulness,” says Ranjini. Over the years, The Champion Woman Life Leadership Programme took her to schools, colleges, medical institutions, corporates and even to the Officers Training Academy, Chennai where she worked with lady cadets of the Afghanistan army.
“The goal is to help people respond to situations than react,” says Ranjini. There is a difference between the two. Reaction is immediate, instantaneous. It is when your emotion translates to your lips and, inevitably, leads to regret. Responding, on the other hand, is taking a step back for 90 seconds to break the negative emotion and follow the strategy of mindful relationship building,” she explains.
Looking back
A businesswoman — she founded Global Adjustments in 1995 — Ranjini says she managed to integrate work and family life. The capability of doing so successfully comes from training the mind. These webinars also help teach this vital art of work-life balance to women in the workforce. Even though the programme started out with women in focus, while training medical workers during the pandemic, Ranjini realised that regardless of the gender, their issues and concerns were the same. As a result, it started involving men as well.
“The sessions cover eight topics, and start with emotional strengthening. The programmes are fixed depending on the interest of the institution. Some allocate two hours, some six and some even 12,” she says.
Global Adjustments Foundation organises an open session on YouTube titled Mindfull to Mindful. The 30-minute live session will be held on February 12 at 5 pm on www.youtube.com/c/champion woman. For details, log on to www.championwoman.org
