Right from my first day of training in June, 2019, my quest has been on I how could personally benefit from the values and processes followed by Ankahee. Yes, it smacks of selfishness, but even Maslow’s hierarchy of needs does not get past Self – (Self Actualization at the top of its pyramid). Do not want to pontificate on heightened selfishness etc to justify my quest- In any case, this is meant to be a reflective piece while on the journey rather than at the end of it!
Someone would be, prima facie, right if they were to think, why such a song and dance about this? Why not just imbibe the values and just carry on. Yes and no.
Before I get into the “Yes and No” debate, what are the key values for team Ankahee to get to be proficient on, while delivering on the program:
- Developing deep listening.
- Strengthen and build the “non judgemental” sinews in our brain.
- Bringing 1 and 2 above together, to offer empathic support to callers in distress.
I am sure we could pick up many other elements as well, but for our discussion today, I limit myself to the above three elements.
Reverting to yes and no.
Yes, because these are inarguably the right set of values to practice, whether at home or work, with your family, with your colleagues and with people in general.
However, this comes with a price to pay for those practising them. That’s why you often hear Sachin, the chief trainer and co founder of Ankahee insisting that we donned the Ankahee hat while at calls and consequently take it off, once we were off the shifts. For me, this has been a struggle as I believe the human brain to be a composite whole than a bunch of discrete compartments.
Of course, Sachin knows what he is talking about- he knows and wants us to realize that following these principles is not a piece of cake – it brings stress and anxiety to us. Of course, we do not have support volunteers in tow, all the time to offload to. So, perhaps, he was just being considerate in asking us not to take the stress of practising Ankahee at all times. Well, I haven’t discussed this with him and just putting out my reflections here.
Personally I find my position skewed more to integrate Ankahee principles in our day to day, however, challenging it could be- the caveat being, one needs to be mindful of the consequences and have to have their own antidotes to be able to manage them if they need to carrying on healthily in their quest for their personal growth! For me, the appeal in integration lay in what seems organic and natural and hopefully beneficial to us!
Obviously, this is no prescription- each follows their instinct and code – this piece is nothing more than a point of view coming out in my thinking aloud!