By Jennifer Kumar, LMSW, Cultural Adjustment Coach/Mentor on Monday, January 25, 2010

When transitioning to a new lifestyle, be it in your own country, your own town, or around the world, new habits may be required to feel successful and comfortable. Refer to the three tier technique as narrated through my culture adjustment in India to help make habits unconscious to increase success and ease.

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By Jennifer Kumar, LMSW, Cultural Adjustment Coach/Mentor on Friday, January 22, 2010

By taking inventory of your strengths and challenges we can help you be successful in all areas of your life while facing transitions in life.

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By Jennifer Kumar, LMSW, Cultural Adjustment Coach/Mentor on Wednesday, January 06, 2010

Moving around the world or across the country can offer opportunities of self-growth and self-exploration. Some moves require us to adapt to totally new surroundings- behaviorally, mentally, and emotionally. Sometimes when we are adapting to a new area, having a mentor help us through the changes can be encouraging.

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By Jennifer Kumar, LMSW, Cultural Adjustment Coach/Mentor on Friday, June 19, 2009

What does homesickness mean to you?

In your culture and in your upbringing, what did it mean to you and others to be homesick? What were circumstances that created homesickness in you?

As you have gotten older has the idea of homesickness or the feelings of homesickness changed?

In this post, I share some cultural insights on homesickness, spending time away from home at different times in my life, and how my life experiences after having lived in India has changed my views on homesickness and notions of childhood independance.

 

By Jennifer Kumar, LMSW, Cultural Adjustment Coach/Mentor on Wednesday, June 17, 2009

For them, possibly an average day. For me, the culmination of aspirations, dreams and fantasies, in other words, an experience of pure joy!

Watching these small children connect with their cultural heritage was an experience of overwhelming joy for me. It was more than watching the dance that stirred emotion in me, but the dance was the catalyst. Are you curious why? Read more, and watch the video of the cute kids performing the dance that inspired me to write this post...

Photo, right, one of the girls peeking through the curtian ready to perfom. Taken by Krishna Kumar.

 

By Jennifer Kumar, LMSW, Cultural Adjustment Coach/Mentor on Wednesday, February 04, 2009

The story of how Ganesh came to have an elephant’s head can teach us how patience, tolerance, clear communication, understanding and other virtues can help us better prepare ourselves for change and crisis. Read more...

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By Jennifer Kumar, LMSW, Cultural Adjustment Coach/Mentor on Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Have you ever felt frozen in a moment unable to know what to do next? Are these moments desired or avoided? How chilling out in these moments can help us to learn more about ourselves...

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By Jennifer Kumar, LMSW, Cultural Adjustment Coach/Mentor on Wednesday, July 16, 2008

People have expressed to me that in caring for others, they felt they were unable to care for themselves. I reflect on this sentiment in this post.

 

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By Jennifer Kumar, LMSW, Cultural Adjustment Coach/Mentor on Friday, April 18, 2008

In anticipation of getting something, I have learned giving first and not waiting until you get something reaps amazing outcomes!

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By Jennifer Kumar, LMSW, Cultural Adjustment Coach/Mentor on Wednesday, March 05, 2008

The inability to control our thoughts can lead to many challenges and problems in life. Earlier in a post titled Is it Time to Turn The Channel I touched on this subject. In today’s post, I want to explore this topic deeper. I want to explore what happens when we are so overcome with unproductive or dramatic thoughts that it adversely affects our lives and the lives of others close to us.

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By Jennifer Kumar, LMSW, Cultural Adjustment Coach/Mentor on Wednesday, February 20, 2008

When I want to be motivated and reminded of my inner strength, I look to the wisdom and encouragement Debra Moorhead shares in her blog.

In this month's Website Wednesdays segment, I introduce you to Debra Moorhead and welcome you to surf on over to her blog for the same reasons I do.

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By Jennifer Kumar, LMSW, Cultural Adjustment Coach/Mentor on Monday, February 18, 2008

We are so divorced from our natural food cycle. What happened if right now we all had to hunt and gather all our own food? How many people would continue to eat meat? All the processing that goes into the piece you buy from the store would not exist- the meat eater would be in charge of every part of this process.

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By Jennifer Kumar, LMSW, Cultural Adjustment Coach/Mentor on Friday, January 11, 2008

What's life like once organization replaces clutter? I explore three ways the lack of clutter and increased organization has improved my life! 

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By Jennifer Kumar, LMSW, Cultural Adjustment Coach/Mentor on Monday, December 17, 2007

submitted by TN Mahesh

Are you living to your true nature and full potential? Or are you living behind of the guise of mask that is holding you back? What or who can initiate you out from behind the mask so you can live your life true to your nature and to your fullest potential?

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By Jennifer Kumar, LMSW, Cultural Adjustment Coach/Mentor on Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Reflection on requirements to see the world more clearly. It's not what you might think!

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By Jennifer Kumar, LMSW, Cultural Adjustment Coach/Mentor on Monday, December 10, 2007

How long have you been watching, listening or tuning into channels that drain your energy? Why is picking up the remote to change the channel a challenge? I share some of my thoughts on this.

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By Jennifer Kumar, LMSW, Cultural Adjustment Coach/Mentor on Friday, November 16, 2007

Most of us like to have stuff - physical, tangible items. But sometimes, like our outdated behaviors, thoughts, emotional reactions, and other intagibles are not discarded when not useful, cluttering our lives, making it challenging to move forward. I will explore that in this suprise article.

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By Jennifer Kumar, LMSW, Cultural Adjustment Coach/Mentor on Friday, November 16, 2007

There are plenty of things in my life that have frustrated me and forced me to ask if I should give up. Some of these things, obvious, some subtle. I want to explore how self-limiting behaviors can set up frustrating situations and how I overcame one of these frustrations.

Part 8: Blogging Through a Book: Eat, Pray, Love

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By Jennifer Kumar, LMSW, Cultural Adjustment Coach/Mentor on Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Elizabeth confronts age and time on her path of self-discovery around the world (as so have I throughout life).

Part 7: Blogging Through a Book: Eat, Pray, Love

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By Jennifer Kumar, LMSW, Cultural Adjustment Coach/Mentor on Wednesday, October 31, 2007

I have been meeting a ‘dream guru’ for the past two years, who has been teaching me this through intrepreting my own dreams. Since, I have some idea of dream interpretation, I will attempt it here in relation to Elizabeth’s dream in Eat Pray Love (page 146).

Part 6: Blogging Through a Book: Eat, Pray, Love

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By Jennifer Kumar, LMSW, Cultural Adjustment Coach/Mentor on Friday, September 28, 2007

How many people can relate to a smell reminding you of the past? Yes, maybe a smell of that food cooking, or smells of your neighborhood, or home, etc. But have you ever smelled something that actually doesn’t seem to exist in your vicinity? An aroma so powerful that the memory of that time you smelt it or had the item in your hand related to that smell brings that smell back to you?

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By Jennifer Kumar, LMSW, Cultural Adjustment Coach/Mentor on Friday, September 21, 2007

I am quite content to say I have grown older. Hopefully, I can say with my age comes wisdom. Part of this wisdom is understanding I am not 10, 20, 28, but 31. At 31 I am such and such a type of person with such and such attributes, I am not those other ages. Those other ages helped me gain the wisdom of today, not be trapped in the lack of wisdom in my past. Maybe this wisdom is a better gauge of age than mere numbers. Numbers help humans understand time, but not the timeless aspect of wisdom!

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By Jennifer Kumar, LMSW, Cultural Adjustment Coach/Mentor on Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Everyone likes to be unique in some way. I’ve tried a lot of things in my life to stand out in the crowd, some intentionally, some out of awkwardness of learning about what is expected of me in various situations.

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By Jennifer Kumar, LMSW, Cultural Adjustment Coach/Mentor on Friday, August 24, 2007

Today married women in most parts of South India will pray to Lakshmi in her 8 forms- aasthalakshmi for various attributes.

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By Jennifer Kumar, LMSW, Cultural Adjustment Coach/Mentor on Friday, August 17, 2007

Like how Paula intended to learn and earn a degree in Shiatsu from the school in Japan, is similar to how I intended to earn a degree in Social Work from Madras Christian College, and how I currently intend to learn a classical Indian dance. It is creating a vision, over time, of what I want as an end product and not allowing obstacles to deter me that I define as my creative zeal or Sankalpa.

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By Jennifer Kumar, LMSW, Cultural Adjustment Coach/Mentor on Wednesday, August 01, 2007

When things become routine, things seem to be easier. When things become easier, I think it’s easy to underestimate the skills we have that got us into the routine and keep us efficient.

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By Jennifer Kumar, LMSW, Cultural Adjustment Coach/Mentor on Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Shiva Nataraj is Lord Shiva in a dancing pose. Shiva is one of the trinity in Hinduism- Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva: Brahma being creator, Vishnu being preserver, and Shiva being a destroyer completes the trinity. But at first glance these simple definitions can pose some interesting and prejudicial views of god as different forms of the same. What I mean by that is maybe of the three, could Shiva be ever looked up on as not as favored because of that alias: the destroyer?

Part 6 in Series: Kerala 2007

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By Jennifer Kumar, LMSW, Cultural Adjustment Coach/Mentor on Wednesday, May 23, 2007

I was at the scenic Varkala beack in Kerala, India with my husband and his family. Above the beach is a boardwalk type area with shops, cafes and nightlife. To get there from the beach, you must climb quite a steep set of stairs. I wondered if I’d make it.

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By Jennifer Kumar, LMSW, Cultural Adjustment Coach/Mentor on Friday, May 18, 2007

The aspects of wealth are many and span over many areas of our lives. Often in modern life when the word ‘wealth’ is spoken, people think of money. But is money the only aspect of wealth? I believe true wealth encompasses a good balance of many aspects of our lives.

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By Jennifer Kumar, LMSW, Cultural Adjustment Coach/Mentor on Friday, April 20, 2007

What we require of others, we must require of ourselves. If we can not give what we want to receive, is it fair to consistently ask for it?

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By Jennifer Kumar, LMSW, Cultural Adjustment Coach/Mentor on Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Can you dream up your future to-be and get what you want!? Why not? If you can feel things to make them come true, then why can’t day dreams of your perfect to-be also come to fruition. I believe it did for me.

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By Jennifer Kumar, LMSW, Cultural Adjustment Coach/Mentor on Monday, April 16, 2007

He wrote himself a fake check for $1,000,000 made out to him from his employer (whoever that is!) and sent it to himself. When he received it and opened it, he acted as if it were real! And, what happened when the paycheck came from that movie? He earned his first $1,000,000 paycheck!!

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By Jennifer Kumar, LMSW, Cultural Adjustment Coach/Mentor on Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Letting things go is the key to finding the answer!

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