Digital media workshop series

BUILDING A COMMUNITY AROUND FACEBOOK AND INSTAGRAM GROUPS

The Love to Share Foundation America hosted an online session on “Building a community around Facebook/Instagram Pages/Groups” on Wednesday, September 20th, 2023 led by Muthu Annamalai from Seattle, WA. The session started by covering the fundamentals of brand building including a discussion on how the marketing funnel is applicable when thinking about building communities on social media. The session then covered several strategies for how to generate and present content that will not only help grow a community but will also help with ensuring healthy engagement with existing.

Ranking Up on YouTube SEO Tips

On behalf of Love to Share Foundation America, Jayashri Jambu, a Digital Media Marketer, Content writer and E commerce specialist conducted a YouTube SEO workshop where she delved into effective strategies for ranking YouTube videos higher. It was an excellent session with active participation from the attendees. She organized this primarily for Love to Share social media volunteers.

Effective Parenting in Challenging times - The EPIC Program

On July 29, the Love to Share Foundation held a Parenting Workshop, exploring how to effectively parent children in challenging times and situations. The goal of this workshop was to illustrate the various factors involved in the relationship between parents and their children and how to enhance the connection and bond between both sides of a family.

Although there were a plethora of topics and ideas covered, one of the main points made was the role and importance of parental communication in building a strong and long-lasting connection with the child. Communication is an extremely broad term, and this workshop went into detail about the systematic
process of communication that is necessary from the parents to the child so that the message reaches the child in a way that does not impact the child’s self-image or confidence. The main steps to communicate in a way that builds healthy relationships within families are as follows: observing actions/words, recognizing the feeling with regard to the observations made, identifying what the ultimate need is, and communicating the need through these observations and feelings in the form of a request.

As described in the workshop, being able to communicate in such a systematic, compassionate, and empathetic way will foster the relationship between parent and child while also resulting in the child responding in the proper way, as opposed to an argument that damages the connection within a family.

Although we all enter this world as infants, it is essential to realize the importance of strong familial relationships and connections, as these connections are the building blocks for the future of the family, especially the child. Not only did the workshop contain the blueprint on how to maneuver through the intricacies of effective parenthood, but also provided hands-on exercises for the audience to employ each of the methods and processes described throughout the presentation for all of the topics such as Children’s Challenges and Parental Roles, Compassionate Communication, Connecting Empathetically, Goaded by the Past or Guided by the Future, Focusing on Strengths and Praising Wisely, and Keeping an Eye on Purpose and Valuing Values. This workshop was a huge success and was extremely rewarding and useful for all parties involved.

Love to Share Foundation focuses on self-improvement and personal development, which led to the emergence of the EPIC Parenting Workshop which focuses on building a congenial environment for positive, honest exchanges in a household leading to the all-round development of a child. This EPIC Parenting Workshop falls under the Building EPIC Relationships Module(registration link at end of article), which consists of in-depth sessions (extending till Fall) revolving around building strong interpersonal relationships at home, work, or a nonprofit one volunteers for. One of the many ideas demonstrated in these sessions is the PERMA model of happiness which conveys how positive relationships are key to one’s happiness. Mr. MK Ramanujam and Ms. Poornima Kumarasami have been working tirelessly on training and guiding the speakers of these workshops.

Reality Retreat Sessions in Bay Area,CA

Love to Share Foundation’s Bay Area chapter had its first Reality Retreat on the 23rd and 24th of April 2018  in two different locations, San Jose and San Ramon respectively.

Mr. M.K. Ramanujam, who guided us through this session helped us discover our true nature of peace and bliss through the calming practice of mantra meditation.

Mr. M.K. Ramanujam, very beautifully explained that meditation is not the first step but the penultimate step to perfection and he showed how we could meditate upon a sound- a Manthra, to silence the mind.

Manthras are powerful words which by nature has the ability to silence the mind.B ut the questions arises – How to silence the mind with a sound?

Ramanujamji explained this paradox with an analogy. He said, in order to prevent a plain neat compound wall being suddenly invaded by unwanted posters, its not just enough if we remove them all, but we also need to stick another message that would say – “Stick no posters” and we need to hold on to this  poster until we are assured that there would be no other new ones on the wall. Likewise in order to silence the mind, we need it to hold on to a mantra – until the mind is devoid of all unnecessary thoughts. That’s why the meaning of the mantra is -“mananAth thrayathe ithi mantra” – that which the mind can hold on to and that which protects the mind from unwanted thoughts.

Ramanujamji, demonstrated this with the powerful mathra called the “mahamanthra” and he used a simple technique to practice this meditation by slowly draw the mind inside from outside with this manthra – first physicaly by calling out the sound, then a little subtle(sookshmam) by imitation of the sound by mumbling and finally very subtle(athi sookshmam) as a thought in the mind.

All those who had gathered for this retreat session thoroughly felt revitalized and were amazed to learn this very simple technique of meditation to calm the mind.  Close to 80 people attended the reality retreat workshops on both days.

‘Yuva 2018’-Youth Leadership Workshop in Seattle

On Saturday, April 21st  2018, Mr.M.K.Ramanujam conducted the youth leadership workshop, Yuva 2018, for children 10 and above. This was conducted at YMCA in Sammamish and had very good attendance by about 25 children.

The talk walked the children through various stages that one goes through before having an emotion. Through this process, the children became familiar on how to deal with these various stages and how not to end up in an emotion without understanding why they are experiencing it. Through these types of workshops and through the teen Gopa Kuteeram classes, our hope is to instill self-confidence, clarity of thought and love for life with the generation next.

Work Life Balance Workshop at Microsoft Seattle

Mr.Ramanujam started out his visit in Seattle with a talk to the DevDiv Women Leadership Council at Microsoft that was attended by around 50 Microsoft employees. The talk covered work life balance and how one should look at work as a means to enrich life and not as something to be at odds with. His talk received very positive feedback with many wanting the presentation materials. This one hour talk happened on Thursday 19th April 2018.

Empathy for Leadership Workshop in Atlanta

On Friday March 16 2018,  a wonderful corporate event led by Mr. MK Ramanujam on Empathy for Leadership as part of Love To Share Foundation America initiative was conducted at Roam Perimeter, Dunwoody, GA.  Mr Ramanujam conducted a thought provoking session on the importance of Empathy in the corporate world and brought different perspectives with practical anologies on how to apply Empathy on different situations understanding the opposite party’s needs without compromising our need. The event was well attended; very interactive and over 60 software professionals attended the session. The audience were requesting for a longer workshop-kind session in upcoming year. Thanks to Mr. Manohar Ashwath for organizing the program.

Empathy for Leadership Workshop in Atlanta (Copy)

On Thursday March 15th   2018, Mr. MK Ramanujam addressed a group of medical professionals – doctors, nurses and Medical graduates as part of Wellness Program facilitated by Emory Hospital Wellness Program. The program was organized by Dr.Subra Kugathasan, MD.

Mr. MK Ramanujam talked about mind dynamics and how mindfulness techniques help improve listening skills, decrease professional burnout, improve workflow and help efficiency at work. He expounded various kinds of techniques that are widely followed for mindfulness and what benefit we can derive out of it. At the end of the session, Mr. Ramanujam also did a demo on the Mantra meditation technique which all the audience participated and experienced it firsthand. Over 30 Emory Hospital medical professionals attended the session. Thanks to Mr.Sabari for coordinating with Emory team.

‘Effective Stress Management’ Workshop at Facebook Seattle

Ms.Poornima conducted a  “Effective Stress Management” workshop at Facebook, Seattle office on Wednesday, December 5th 2017 from 12pm to 2pm. A diverse group of Facebook engineers attended that session. Facebook members from Menlo Park, California office, joined remotely through video conferencing session.

‘Building Inner Strength’-Workshop for Students in Bay Area

MK Ramanujam (Ram) held a youth workshop on Jan 15, 2017 in San Ramon and it was attended by 25 middle and high school students as well as many of their parents.

The workshop encouraged students to first develop one’s inner strength by understanding one’s feelings and needs. Then to build close relationships with others by understanding their feelings, actions and needs. Relationship building will become particularly important as the student transitions into college and work environments.

Needs are expressed through feelings. Reading one’s feelings correctly is key to analyzing the underlying needs. Ram stressed the importance of distinguishing ‘wants’ from ‘needs’ in order to build inner mental strength and to empathize with others’ actions. The message to students was that more one is open to understanding and fulfilling others needs, more they will be willing to connect and reciprocate to fulfill one’s own needs.

Students were grouped in small teams and given an exercise to act out feelings for their teams to correctly guess them. To wrap things up, each team had a chance to share three things they learned from the workshop with the rest of us.

Many parents also attended the workshop and in the end were able to share their learnings with the students as well.

Workshop on “Happiness and Inner Transformation” at MD Anderson Cancer Center

MD Anderson Cancer Center (one of the most prestigious cancer hospitals in USA) invited Mr.Ramanujam to deliver a lecture on “happiness and inner transformation” on December 29 2016. The lecture was attended by around one hundred Doctors, Surgeons, Nurses, QA Experts from the Hospital’s anesthesia department. Mr.Ramanujam dwelt in depth the need for focusing on the need rather than just judging and blaming. The key highlight of the one hour lecture was the way he articulated a complex idea “how to accept without agreeing”. The audience enjoyed the lecture so much that the Hospital already invited Mr.Ramanujam for a similar lecture next year. The Management felt the lecture was a key in the overall learning process of the medical professionals and therefore awarded one hour credit to each of the participants towards “ethics continuing medical education”

‘Happy and Harmonious Living’-Workshop for Acton-Boxborough Community in Boston

On the 1st December 2016, Love to Share Foundation America conducted a program for teachers and parents of the Acton-Boxborough (AB) community on “Happy and Harmonious Living” at Conant School in Acton MA.  This session was led by Mr. Ramanujam who talked about the paradigm of acceptance.  A happy and harmonious family can definitely influence a society to live in harmony.  Highlighting the difference between the terms ‘agree’ and ‘accept’ he underlined the fact that though we don’t agree with each other every time, accepting one as they are helps in a happy and harmonious community. For the teachers, if they have succeeded in installing the ‘eagerness to learn’ in a child then they have done their job successfully.

Prior to Ramanujam’s talk, special invitee, Ms. Susan Reynolds, a social entrepreneur and educator from West Concord, laid the foundation for the evening by talking about the behavioral issues that the youth today are facing that lead to various mental ills like depression.

About 50 adults participated in the program.  The program was facilitated by parents from the Acton-Boxborough community.

‘Purpose of Anger’– A Workshop in Houston, TX

On Friday,December 18th 2015, 2015,  15 people assembled at the New Life Plaza in Houston, TX  to gain better understanding  on one of the most fundamental yet one of the most complicated and potentially harmful emotion – anger. The interactive 2 hour workshop was led by Mr.M.K Ramanujam from Love to Share Foundation. He  explained how or what causes anger, how people express it (the aggressive stance shouting, arguing, throwing things or the passive aggressive stance- “silent treatment”) and what the effects of anger are on the individual as well as on people around him.

 He then gave a four step process on how to be mindful when one got angry. The four step are Observe, Feel, Need and Request (OFNR). The first step – Observe, involves taking a step back and analyzing the situation and trying to separate the event from the underlying cause that triggered the anger. The second step – Feel, is to understand the feelings(fear, hurt, pain.etc) that are coursing through oneself. The third step – Need, is to recognize the underlying unmet need that is getting projected as anger. The final step – Request, is to know how to place a polite request based on the observation, feelings and need combined with an actionable item and not a demand to the other person.

The interactive workshop was very well received by everyone.

‘Purpose of Anger’- A Workshop in Seattle

On Sunday, December 6th 2015, at the Old Redmond Schoolhouse, Sri Ramanujamji lead a “Purpose of Anger” workshop from 2PM to 4PM.  There were 30 attendees who attended the event with the hope of understanding the root of their anger and learning techniques to tackle it.  Sri Ramajunamji started off by talking about how observations turn to evaluations, and finally become judgement and how if we are conscious of all this, it is possible to respond as opposed to react in situations when anger takes over.  He talked about the need to explicitly analyze the mind for unfulfilled needs when anger kicks in.  Once the need is identified, he stressed the importance of fulfilling that need to stop anger in its roots.

Towards the end of the session, everyone took a small break for snacks following which, Sri Ramanujamji invited six attendees to share their overall thoughts about the workshop and what they found most useful.  Numerous attendees personally interacted with Sri Ramanujamji at the end of the workshop and had a one on one question and answer session.

‘Anchoring Anger’ Workshop in Bay Area,CA

11 people assembled at the Evergreen community library in San Jose, CA on Sunday morning, November 16th 2014 with a goal to gain better understanding on one of the most fundamental yet one of the most complicated and potentially harmful emotion – anger. The interactive 3 hour workshop was led by Mr M K Ramanujam from Love to Share Foundation of America.

He started off the session by asking the participants to reflect on their last anger episode and note down the cause that triggered it, the underlying emotion and on hindsight, how could the situation been handled. The participants used the episodes they had noted down throughout the workshop to try out the concepts that were taught.

He then explained how or what causes anger, how people express it (the aggressive stance shouting, arguing, throwing things or the passive aggressive stance- “silent treatment”) and what the effects of anger are on the individual as well as on people around him. He made the point here that, although anger gives a clue about some perceived deviation from expectation or sense of right and wrong, if left unchecked, the same anger could cloud one’s judgement and deviate him further from the original goal. However righteous the anger is, no good comes out of it.

He also mentioned that any situation had four choices: blaming self, blaming others, understanding one’s emotions or understanding emotions on both sides. Typically, people reacting to anger choose option 1 or 2. Mindfulness will get an individual to Option 3. Option 4 is a stretch goal that one can strive for after attaining Option 3.

He then gave a four step process on how to be mindful when one got angry. The four step are Observe, Feel, Need and Request (OFNR). The first step – Observe, involves taking a step back and analyzing the situation and trying to separate the event from the underlying cause that triggered the anger. The second step – Feel, is to understand the feelings(fear, hurt, pain.etc) that are coursing through oneself. The third step – Need, is to recognize the underlying unmet need that is getting projected as anger. The final step – Request, is to know how to place a polite request based on the observation, feelings and need combined with an actionable item and not a demand to the other person.

The participants were then divided into groups of two to practice these ideas. Finally, two volunteers who were comfortable sharing their anger episodes, were asked to do so to all the participants and the whole group discussed how the principles that were taught could be applied to the situation.

At 12 PM, the workshop concluded and lunch was served. All the participants left on a happy note having learned anger management!