Dr. Bhagyesh Kulkarni started the online session for Forever Abundance batch of DFF for 2024 on 11th September, 2024. This is a six days session covering the seven pyramid of life. This is the introductory session. The actual sessions will start from 12th September 2024. This can also be considered as wheels of life. Each component of this wheel is important in a person's life. In the normal course, we don't pay much attention to analysing which element in life is a significant contributor or which is insignificant contributor. We are so much engaged in the daily routine that we don't focus much on this aspect.

DAY 1 : 11.9.2024

Dr. Bhagyesh Kulkarni has taken upon himself this exercise of reaching out to the participants to take time to analyse what is happening in their life and what needs to be done to achieve some of the key parameters of life to enjoy a healthy and fruitful life.

The basic and the first and foremost concept is the BASIC NEEDS. Once these basic needs are fulfilled, a person moves towards ASPIRATIONS. Once basic needs and aspirations are fulfilled, the person moves towards SPIRITUALITY and then ultimately to SELFLESSNESS.

There are 5 stages of needs in life according to Abraham Maslow.

Sr.No.	Stage	Description
1	Physiological stage	At this stage needs like food, water, sex, sleep and homeostasis are sought after. These are basic needs.
2	Safety stage	At this stage safety and security takes importance like living in a safe area, financial reserves, job security and good health.
3	Love and Belonging Stage	Love and belonging is a social need like family, friends, sexual intimacy and emotional connect.
4	Esteem Stage	Esteem can be external or internal. External esteem relates to social status and recognition whereas internal esteem is understanding self-esteem. Excessive reliance on esteem may result in ego.
5	Self-Actualisation stage	Self actualisation relates to morality, creativity, spontaneity, problem solving, lack of prejudice, acceptance of facts, truth, justice, wisdom and meaning. It is a stage of reaching out to others.

7 Pyramid of Life

Dr. Bhagyesh Kulkarni assisted us to draw our Wheel of Life covering the eight areas viz., Body, Mind and Emotions, Relationships, Lifestyle, Career/Mission, Money/Finance, Spirituality and Contribution/Giving back to Society.

This Wheel of Life circle is an eye opener in analysing and understanding the purpose of life and my achievements in life so far.

I drew my life circle by providing scores on each of them. First trying to understand what each of these imply, then where do I stand at present and what are the areas in which I need to work on for improvement. I could identify that most of the areas I need to work on by looking at the score – a little more in some and extensive in some others.

The marks are on a scale of 10.

I have graded each of the element according to my assessment.

The guiding factors for arriving at the score are item-wise as under :

1. Body : - How is my health and how do I feel at present - How is my fitness at present - How is my body appearance and composition

2. Mind and Emotions : - Follow the “8 principles” list - Mental Health - Intuition - Lifelong learning - How I feel about myself when I am by myself

3. Relationships : - Family relationships - Significant other relations and intimacy - Children and parenting - Business partnership/employees

4. Lifestyle : - Arts and Music - Rest and Leisure - Sports and Hobbies - Travel and Vacationing - Humor/fun

5. Career/Mission : (ikigai) - What you are good at - What the world needs - What you can be compensated well for - What you love to do

6. Money/Finances : - Earn money (active income) - Keep money (tax regime) - Grow money (investments) - Financial Freedom (passive income covering living expenses)

7. Spirituality : - Morals and Ethics - Relationship with a higher power and one’s inner voice - Detachment from ego - Meditation practice and stillness

8. Contribution/Giving Back : - Time (volunteering) - Talent (skills) - Treasure (money and resources) - Legacy

Why this wheel of life becomes relevant is because our life's purpose is to achieve balance in all spheres. Where do I need improvement? This enables focus on the areas needing improvement. Once these areas are identified, massive action like consistent and gradual follow up action becomes possible and achievable. Each of these elements of the pyramid will be explained in detail in the next few days.

DAY 2 : 12.9.2024 - Body and Mind

This session is about the first two basic areas of life
I. Physical Welness
II. Mental Welness.

I.Physical wellness :

This is fundamental to a healthy life. This has four important segments on which I need to grade myself.

1. Nutrition :

This has been bifurcated into three sub-segments like
  (a) Balanced Diet : Consuming nutrient rich food.
  (b) Hydration : Drinking enough water and liquid to keep the body alkaline
  (c) Portion Control : Consuming food in the proportion of 40:30:20 by way of salad, vegetables and grains to maintain overall health and to manage weight.

I would rate myself as under :
  Diet - 9
  Hydration – 9
  Portion control – 6
  Avg. rating - 8

2. Exercise :

This also is bifurcated into three sub-segments :
    (a) Cardio Vascular health : Regular exercises which improve blood circulation.
    (b) Enhancing Muscle Strength: Resistance training to build muscle mass.
    (c) Boosting Energy levels : Physical activity to increase oxygen flow and reduce fatigue.

I would rate myself under these parameters as :
  Cardio vascular – 6
  Muscle strength – 5
  Boosts energy - 7
  Avg. rating : 6

3. Sleep :
This is bifurcated into three sub-segments :
(a) Importance of sleep : Adequate and sound sleep for physical and mental well being. (b) Sleep Hygiene : Maintaining consistency and environment for sound sleep.
(c) Sleep Disorders : Addressing disorders like insomnia for improve overall health.

I would rate myself as :
  Importance - 8
  Sleep hygiene – 8
  Sleep disorders – 0
  Avg. rating - 8

Physical wellness is fundamental to enjoying other elements of life. Dr. Bhagyesh Kulkarni explained how body posture is directly connected to mental wellness. He asked the participants to sit straight on a chair or stand straight in a military posture and then try to be sad with wrinkles on our face. I tried – it is not working. Same way, if you are in a sad posture, and try to laugh, this is also not possible. So, physical posture has an important role to play in our mental stage also.

II. Mental or Emotional Wellness

Like Physical wellness, emotional wellness is also a basic need. We normally expect respect, appreciation or gratitude from others. But to achieve this we should first practice it with self and then extend it to others.

Self Awareness is an important ingredient of emotional wellness. Self Awareness as three sub-categories :
  (a) Understand emotions : Recognise and manage personal feelings.
  (b) Mindfulness Practice : Cultivate present moment attention and acceptance.
  (c) Introspection techniques: Explore inner thoughts and motivation

Emotional Intelligence has three sub-categories :

(i) Understand emotions : Recognise and manage personal emotions to improve relationships.
(ii) Empathy Development : Cultivate the ability to understand and share the feelings of others.
(iii) Stress Management : Learn techniques to cope with and reduce emotional stress.

I would rate my mental or emotional wellness as :

  Understand emotions - 9
  Empathy development – 8
  Stress Management - 8
  Avg. Rating – 8.3

I have to now work on not only in those areas where my rating is lower but also to maintain the present level of rating.

This rating technique has helped to introspect and work out a chart on areas which need further improvement for leading a better and healthy life.

DAY 3 - RELATIONSHIP: 12.9.2024

The third most important area of needs is Relationship. This is the most sensitive area in human life. There are six needs of any human relationship. Why do these needs arise? When we expect something from another person like love, understanding, trust, care etc., we get into a relationship. The two most important, essential and sought after needs are LOVE AND CARE.

The word Relationship can be split into relation + ship. Relations are like a relay. When one person passes on his thought, action, expectation, expression to another, there is a relay and it works like a ship sailing in waters – whether calm or turbulent. This relay gets into emotional area where there is a expectation mismatch. The first step in any relationship should start from self and not from others.

The needs of Love and Care create hormone like Dophamine and Seratonin. These positive hormones creates emotions of love and care. Excessive requirement of this need may result in ego and clashes. The problem comes when we expect other person to express love and care in a certain way that we want. But in actual life this does not happen. Like parents, although they love and care for their children, expect stability in the children's life and express themselves differently than what the children expect.

The six needs of any Relationship are :

  1. Physiological/Certainty/Stability need
  2. Uncertainty need
  3. Love and Belonging need
  4. Esteem Need/Growth
  5. Self-Actualisation Need
  6. Transcendence Need

All these needs have a positive side and a negative side.

1. Physiological/Certainty/Stability need. A person coming in this bracket looks for stability, no risk or less risk like family stability, financial stability, less or no hassles in life.

Positive side : He is constant in life. Contended with the present way of life.

Negative side : Life becomes boring and routine. There is no thrill or the will or challenge to look for new things.

2. Uncertainty need. A person in this bracket looks for thrill, takes more risks unmindful of the consequences, freedom from restrictions - an explorer.

Positive side : Risk taking or exploring brings out the best in a human in his latent talents including innovations.

Negative side : Excessive risk taking may lead the person into depression if unsuccessful or indulge in alchoholism or drug addiction.

3. Love and Belonging need. Most of the people fall under this bracket. Each one expects the other person should love and show concern and belonging without realizing that in any relationship the first step should start from self and not the other.

Positive side: Love and belonging are the most emotional attachments between humans unlike animals whose love is unconditional. It gives a sense of belonging and happiness, drive to get things and a purpose in life.

Negative side : Where a person is completely emotionally attached, any change may bring about depression and stress.

Here understanding the two characters in a human are very relevant. The first character is Masculine and the second is Feminine. The masculine character has characteristics like logical, confident, focused, strong, stable, clear, assertive and goal driven whereas Feminine characteristics are like intuitive, generous, nurturing, creative, collaborative, caring, respective and grateful. The character of each person is based on his or her hormones.

If both personalities become Masculine at the same time, then there will be a clash of interests. If one becomes masculine and the other becomes feminine, then there will be a balance of interests. To set things right, a person may have to switch between masculine and feminine character depending upon the situation to maintain a harmonious relationship.

4. Esteem need : This need is both internal and external. The internal need emanates from the requirement of looking good, presentable, appreciable. It also respresented self-esteem, confidence and achievements. The external needs are those covering social status, reputation and recognition.

Positive side : It is good to be looking good, presentable and appreciable because it caters to our need of boosting our self-esteem and respect of others.

Negative side : Excessive reliance on self-esteem may convert it into ego, show off, excessive reliance on credit, which may ultimately result in depression, bitterness and stress between individuals.

5. Self-Actualisation need : This need stems from the requirement to be more social and fulfilling. This need springs from morality, creativity, spontaneity, problem solving, lack of prejudice, acceptance of facts, truth, justice, wisdom and meaning.

Positive side : This gives a purpose or ikigai to the person's life. It makes the person realise his worth.

Negative side : His or her passion may lead to miscommunication and distancing between individuals which may result in negative aspects of life.

6. Transcedence Need : This need will be felt by very few who have risen above the other needs.

Dr. Bhagyesh Kulkarni explained these concepts with example and videos. He also asked the participants to identify any two core areas of need from the among the six listed above.

I have identified 1 and 3 are my core needs because I like life to be stable, uneventful and peaceful. I also would like a balance of love and belonging between my family and friends. As my basic nature is introvert, I prefer to keep to myself rather than go all out in creating or maintaining relationships. My spouse on the other hand, is an extrovert who would like to create more relationships.

Now I understand why Masculine and Feminine needs are needed in each and every person to balance the scale of life and to lead a healthy and peaceful life. Thank you Dr. Bhagyesh Kulkarni for this important lesson.

DAY 4 - OTHER NEEDS - 14.9.2024

Day 4 was a continuation of the subject of Relationship from the 3rd day.

To emphasise the point of masculine and feminine traits, a video was shown wherein the speaker spoke with a lot of humor about man's brain and woman's brain. How there are compartments and boxes. Men confine to the specific boxes in their conversations whereas women mix up all boxes during their conversation. The feminine character has more emotions attached.

It is also a fact that basic relationship needs may change according to age.

Say upto 20 years – the relationship confine to learning and exploring.

From 20 years to 40 years – it looks to experiment. Be it be employment, love, social status etc.

From 40 years to 60 years – it is a stage for stability. Stability of family, income, social needs etc.

From 60 years and above – it is a stage to pass on the learnings of life to the next generation and work more as a Mentor. This is a stage of movement towards spiritual life.

MONEY AND FINANCE

Money, as we know, is the medium of living a life. Financial needs can be categorised into two :

1. Active Income
2. Passive Income

Active Income : Income generated from employment, business, self-employment where you need to devote your time and energy. This income will continue as long as you remain active in the area.

Passive Income : It is a earning without working i.e., earning interest from FDs, Pension, investment, rent, royalty etc.

Where your passive income exceeds your active income, you are said to have achieved financial abundance.

To arrive at this financial abundance, it becomes necessary to save atleast 30% of the active income as a retirement planning. You can take assistance of an expert or Mentor to manage such financial independence. Managing finance is as important as earning money.

What is the level of finance required by me to cover my basic needs and passion. I need to rate it.

CAREER/MISSION :

Each one of us have to find out our Ikigai vi., purpose of life. To know this, you have to get inwards to find out what interests you more in life and what is your passion. Pursuing that area will provide satisfaction.

Even in building a career, whatever you do should not only for benefit of yourself but for the benefit and solving the problems of others too. This will give you blessings which fulfils your karmic need.

SPIRITUALITY :

After satisfying the basic needs of physical, emotional, esteem, relationships, career, money and finance, a person tends to move to the spritiual need. Here spiritual needs does not mean becoming a sanyasi. In the day to day life, being satisfied with the other basic needs, a person would tend to reach out to others in solving their minor or major problems. The experience gained in life will be of immense help in reaching this level. The most important requirement is detachment from ego and practice meditation and stillness.

CONTRIBUTION AND GIVING BACK :

This need arises essentially on a voluntary basis. With contentment in life, a person would spend his time, talent and passion in helping others either in monetary terms or in kind to alleviate their problems. The lifestyle 'paropakari' leads to getting blessings from the beneficiaries thereby improving your Karmic account.

In today's task, Dr. Bhagyesh Kulkarni asked the participants to draw out a chart of "where are you now?" to "where you want to be" in the needs where the ranking are low. This would be covered in next session.

DAY 5 - REVISION - 15.9.2024

The fifth day session was revising the 4 days of learning. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs covers Physiological, Safety, Love/Belonging/Esteem and Self-Actualisation. Abraham Maslow worked on development of motives of people and how people want to achieve the deficiency motives.

Dr. Bhagyesh Kulkarni revised the last 4 days of sessions in brief and while explaining the Tony Robbins chart of ‘Closing the Gap’, asked the participants to analsyse their standing at each of these needs, which need is ranked lower and which need requires action to be discussed in the next session.

DAY 6 - ACTION PLAN: 17.9.2024

This is the concluding session of Wheel of Life. In this session Dr. Bhagyesh Kulkarni explained Tony Robbins formula for Closing the Gap in achieving the needs. Having closely looked at each of the needs, now it is time to find the gaps and work out an action plan for bridge the gap.

1. Where are you at present ?

There are 3 steps checklist to finding out where you stand at present.

Step 1: Note down where are you now in respect of each of the 7 needs viz., Physical body, Emotions, Relationships, Lifestyle, Work/Career, Finance and Celebration/Contribution in Tony Robins chart. Work out an action plan to achieve the goal set in the next 9 months. For Example, in physical body, if I wish to reduce weight by 9 kgs., break it down to 3 kgs per quarter and 1 kg a month. To achieve this goal, follow the DFF protocol of detox and diet, fasting etc. Identify the area where you need improvement and how to improve the ranking.

Instead of aiming for the idealistic score of 10, take out an average of all the seven needs and fix that as the goal for all the needs. For example, if the average works out to 7, then starting from the needs which are ranked less than 7, work out a plan to raise it to the level of 7. So, once all the needs are level at 7, then move to next level and so on.

Step 2: Find strong reasons for achieving the goal. Merely noting down the scores will not do. Concrete action plan needs to be drawn out and a conscious effort made to improve upon each of these areas is needed.

Step 3: You need to be totally honest to yourself in assessing the current level and the level you need to achieve. The promise is to yourself and not to anyone else.

2. Next step is get the Tools and Strategies for success.

7 points checklist for getting the tools is :

1. Work out a proven map of steps that you would like to take. Tony Robbins chart may help in this direction.

2. Look for an expert in the respective areas of need or an effective guide or mentor. Doing things on your own may be not very effective but taking the help of experts will save time and it helps to draw on their experience and guidance.

3. Improve your skills : To do this, you need to take the help of books in the respective fields, go through YouTube videos or digital media or AI tools. To help the participants, Dr. Bhagyesh Kulkarni provided a list of 30 good books to read as under:

Sr.No.	Name of the Book	Author
1	The High 5 Habit	Mel Robbins
2	Atomic Habits	James Clear
3	When the Body says No	Dr. Gabor Mate
4	The Universe has your back	Gabrielle Bernstein
5	Four thousand weeks	Oliver Burkeman
6	The 5 am Club	Robin Sharma
7	You can Heal your Life	Louise Hay
8	Good Vibes, Good Life	Vex King
9	You are a Badass	Jen Sincero
10	Think like a Monk	Jay Shetty
11	Attached	Dr Amir Levine & Rachel Heller
12	The Chimp Paradox	Prof. Steve Peters
13	Self Love and Spiritual Alchemy	Dani Whatson
14	The Power of Now	Eckhart Tolle
15	Self Care for Real World	Nadia Narain
16	The Secret	Rhonde Byrne
17	Big Magic	Elizabeth Gilbert
18	The Power of Habit	Charles Duhigg
19	12 Rules for Life	Jordan B Peterson
20	Dopamine Nation	Dr Anne Lembke
21	Peak Mind	Dr Amishi Ja
22	Your One Wild and Precious Life	Dr Maureen Gaffney
23	Burnout: Solve your Stress Cycle	Emily Nagoski & Amelia Nagoski
24	Awaken your Power Within	Gerry Hussey
25	I May Be Wrong	Bjorn Nathiko Lindeblad
26	The Little Book of Manifestation	Astrid Carvel
27	You are Enough	Cheryl Rickman
28	You're Not Broken : Break Free From Trauma and Reclaim your Life	Dr Sarah Woodhouse
29	52 Ways to walk	Annabel Streets
30	Are you Listening?	Jenny Rogers

Knowledge is power and knowledge in the area of life, is something that needs attention and focus.

Thank you Dr. Bhagyesh Kulkarni for providing this important reference to books to enlarge our knowledge.

4. Work out schedule which is critical for success. Find out experts and attend their seminars or webinars. Get knowledge first before proceeding with your action plan.

5. Join Communities which are active in the respective areas. Community learning gives a different fillip to the effort as it provides incentive, encouragement and competition. This we have experienced from DFF as to how community or group learning works.

3. Getting Results :

Follow the 3 basic principles :

1. Focus on your vision for improvement and be committed.

2. Work out a clean plan of action. Like what improvement you expect every month, every quarter and every year. What steps should be taken to achieve these goals.

3. Massive Action : To achieve these goals, what daily follow up action will be taken. The action has to be continuous and relentless. Otherwise, the entire exercise will not be fruitful. For example, if you have decided to lose weight. First set a goal how much of weight you wish to lose? The actual weight loss may turn out to be different but you need to set a goal first. Then what action you propose to take like say consuming salad every day before meal, fasting for 14-16 hours every day, consuming smoothie in the morning and evening for weight loss, limiting consumption of carbohydrates etc. Note down the measurements periodically so that you know whether you are making the required progress.

Law of Attraction of the Universe needs manifestation. First you need to manifest that you wish to lose weight. Put this need before the universe and ask for help in achieving it. Use the meditation given by Mrs.Gayatri Kulkarni during the webinar for manifestion to the universe.

4. Celebrate: How do you wish to celebrate your achievement? First by being happy for yourself and then by touching the lives of others. What you have achieved could be passed on to others so that they also can achieve their needs in life.

A much needed webinar by Dr. Bhagyesh Kulkarni to those who wish to not only be free of diabetes and diseases but live a happy and fuller contended life. Kudos to Dr. Bhagyesh Kulkarni and his team for giving us this opportunity to learn something important in life.