The most fundamental requirement before you start anything in life is to find out what you want; this introspection will give birth to what we call as ‘vision’. A vision gives absolute clarity and direction to our ultimate goal; it empowers us to create a path and a plan to achieve the goal effortlessly.

Bob Proctor, in the book, The Secret, quotes: “If you see it in your mind, you are going to hold it in your hand”.

A lot many people have achieved material success with their unshakable belief and strength in their conviction. The same can be applied to what we call ‘a vision for the baby’. It is vital, though, to start early, even before the baby is conceived in the womb — right from the stage of planning.

1. creatingavisionforYOUR baby

Start to visualise the features of your baby, how you would want the baby to ‘look’ and ‘be’. Have a strong belief in what you want. Feel and respond to having the baby of your choice. Focus on these thoughts with all your intentions and you can actually create what you want.

To help yourself to be in these thoughts continuously, you may decorate your room with pictures of a baby of your choice. It is recommended to have the picture of a single baby that you like instead of having pictures of many different babies. Having the picture of a single baby (it could be with different expressions) will give direction to your thoughts and will help you to visualise your baby with the image in front of you and in your mind.

1. givingvaluesandvirtuestoyourbabyandcreatingaVisionChart

Vision can be divided into:

What you want your child to ‘be’ in life?•

What you want your child to ‘do’ in life?•

What you want your child to ‘have’ in life?•

What we require to focus on is the level of ‘being’. ‘Being’ means imbibing the basic values and virtues in life.

“Anybody and everybody who is soon to become a parent is anxious about whom the baby is going to look like. What will the features be like. Will he/she be cute enough? With all those questions in mind, when we attended ISP, Kusum, our trainer, had a simple solution to this. She said, ‘Simply visualise your baby, the way you want him or her to be’. She advised us to get a poster made as per our vision. All I, the would-be-mother, had to do was believe that the little angel who was soon going to enter this world would look exactly like the one in the poster.Fortunately, we got a ready made poster which was matching one hundred percent with our vision. I happened to keep looking at this poster umpteen number of times. Not intentionally or as an exercise but naturally, while doing some work in the house, while taking rest etc. And we were pleasantly surprised with the results! What more should we say, you will yourself believe it after looking at Veer’s photograph and the poster! They are strikingly similar! It is simply unbelievable!”

Ketki Shah, Director, Curlz & Cutsketkiad@rediffmail.com

If the basic values and virtues are in place, then what the child will grow up to do and have in life will be for the world to see. Hence, as parents, when we have a vision for our baby, we need to, and must, concentrate only on the basic human values. It is absolutely necessary to be able to differentiate these from the ‘end result’.

Here’s an example: Being compassionate, loving, peaceful and honest (basic human values) would make for a social person who would have many true friends (end result). This person would possess clarity of thinking due to his peaceful nature and so would be very efficient in whatever he takes on in life; also, due to his honest nature, he would be a person who would be able to stand up for himself and others.

Contrary to the above, if you have a vision for your child for him to be successful, rich, social, punctual, obedient and so on, though, at face value, it may seem that you are wishing good for the child, it may not actually be so. This is because you are focussing only on the end result; the means with which he attains the success and the riches may not always be correct. Thus, being social may not always mean that he has true friends; likewise, being punctual always may lead to too much stress.

To help the parents to get their focus right, we ask them to create what we call a ‘vision chart’. It is a beautiful experience when both the parents participate to create a vision chart for their baby.

This chart should be a colourful expression of your thoughts, complete with images, pictures and photographs of the ideals (a person whom you hold as the epitome of that particular value) whose values and virtues you may want to inculcate in your child.

If you choose the value ‘compassion’, then you may have ideals like Mother Teresa, Baba Amte etc. Should you choose values like ‘intelligence’, you can have an Einstein. If you would like your child to be ‘peaceful’, your ideal can be Gautam Buddha or any other person who is the epitome of that quality. It would be better still if that ideal were alive.

The focus of such exercises should be on the virtues and values you want your child to imbibe in order to build a strong character rather than idealise on the physical appearances or riches an individual may have amassed.

No matter what beautiful visions we may write out — as well as read aloud — regarding our child when he/she is small, ultimately, what will have an effect on the child is the way we live our lives. For example, our being compassionate to the child is not going to impact him/her much if we, the parents, are a frustrated duo with pent-up anger within; here, the show of compassion is not going to serve much the purpose of transmitting the emotion to the child. The child is only going to pick up the intrinsic nature of the parents by default. So, vision charts have to be followed with by a definite endeavour on the part of the parents to transform their own selves.

We have seen that parents who rarely change for their own sake, change very readily for the sake of their child. This way our little ones are indirectly parenting us by becoming catalysts for our individual change and growth.

Have a ‘Vision’ for an effortlessdelivery

If you ask any pregnant lady about her vision for her delivery, her immediate response will be, “Easy, smooth, quick and painless, and at the end of it, a healthy baby”. How you want your baby to be born and how you desire your delivery to take place has a direct relation to the vision you create for yourself and that alone can make the entire experience effortless. A lot of people have a vision of a painless delivery. However, here, the focus is on ‘pain’. “We don’t want pain!” “We don’t want the labour process to be lengthy.” Again, the focus is on ‘length’.

So, the vision you need to write down must be in positive, present tense. For example, ‘I deliver the baby with ease’, ‘my delivery happens quickly’ and so on. You must have immense faith and conviction in the vision you have created and believe in it under all circumstances and situations, positively, and you will be surprised to observe: everything will happen the way you have envisioned it to be!

I was 34 when I got pregnant. Though I was supposedly a few years beyond the natural age limit for conceiving, I used to always see myself as having a natural delivery, with the baby being a beautiful, gorgeous Krishna coming into our lives, somebody who is really great. I have always seen her in the same light, all through her childhood and adolescence now. Even at the time of the delivery, I knew it was going to be a normal and natural delivery even though I was 34 — and that is how it turned out to be.

Nina Lekhi (Entrepreneur, Chairman – Baggit) ninalekhi@yahoo.com

It would be yet better if you could include specifics within your vision. For e.g. the exact length of the delivery process.

“I am an advertising professional, where working hours are endless. My father-in-law inspired me to join ISP as he has been an SSY meditator for a long time now. ‘Visions’ was the first topic that we were introduced to. From the day I was introduced to ‘vision chart’, I had made one for my delivery, which said, ‘I am delivering my baby normally, my baby will come with his own force, I will be out of the labour room in half an hour and my husband will be with me during my delivery’. And, believe me … it happened EXACTLY the way I had visualised it to be.”

Lanchee Holmukhe, Advertising professional vlanchee@gmail.com

Actually, it is best to remove the word ‘labour’ from your vocabulary when it comes to the process of delivery. The very word ‘labour’ creates an imagery of agony on the canvas of our mind. It would be better to call it the ‘process of delivery’.