OSH for the Soul: Why Your Mind Needs a Safety Protocol

In the corporate world, I specialise in something called OSH—Occupational Safety and Health.

Whether I am consulting for a high-risk industrial site or designing a Resilience Toolbox for a corporate team, the principle is the same: You cannot run high-powered machinery without safety protocols. If you ignore the temperature gauges, the machine overheats. If you ignore the structural integrity, the building collapses.

We have checklists, emergency stops, and maintenance schedules to ensure physical safety in the workplace.

But here is the question I ask the leaders who come to my retreats: Where is the OSH protocol for your soul?

We run our minds—the most complex machinery in existence—at maximum speed, 24/7, without a single safety check. We ignore the "overheating" signals of anxiety. We ignore the "structural stress" of burnout. And then we wonder why we crash.

Welcome to January. This month, I am not asking you to make a resolution. I am asking you to install a Safety Protocol. In the ancient Yogic sciences, we call this protocol Tapas.

Tapas: The Heat of Maintenance

There is a misconception that Tapas (often translated as discipline or austerity) is about punishing yourself. It is not.

Think of Tapas as the heat required to sterilise a surgical instrument. Or the heat required to temper steel so it becomes resilient. As a Standard Mental Health First Aider, I see what happens when the human nervous system lacks this "tempering." We become brittle. We snap under pressure.

Real discipline is simply the heat of friction that occurs when you go against your comfortable habits.

• Waking up early when you want to sleep is friction.

• Sitting in silence when you want to scroll your phone is friction.

This friction creates an internal fire (Agni) that burns away the mental lethargy and "viruses" that have infected your operating system. It isn't suffering; it is system maintenance.

The Art of Empty Space (Studio Update)

This year, I am embarking on a massive project: "The Science of Oneness," a visual exploration of the elemental forces of life leading up to my exhibition in August 2026.

Right now, I am in the studio working on the first element: Ether (Akash). Ether represents Space. It is the container for everything else.

As a Spiritual Painter and Lucid Dreaming Practitioner, I am facing a blank canvas that needs to represent the vastness of the universe. My corporate brain wants to fill it—to plan it, structure it, and optimize it. But my training teaches me differently.

If I clutter the canvas with noise, I cannot paint the "Sound" of Ether. The same applies to your life. You cannot hear your intuition—your inner guidance system—if your mental space is cluttered with noise.

The January OSH Protocol

I apply my background in Siddha Varma Oil Therapy to treat the physical body, but you can treat your own mind starting today. We need to clear the blockages.

Here is your Safety Protocol for January.

1. Identify the Hazard (The Leak) In OSH, we identify safety hazards. In Life Design, we identify energy leaks.

• Locate the #1 source of "mental overheating" in your routine right now. Is it the news? Is it saying 'yes' to meetings without agendas? Is it the phone in the bedroom? Name it.

2. Install the Guardrail (The Friction) A guardrail prevents you from falling off the cliff. Tapas is that guardrail.

• Set one non-negotiable hard limit this month (e.g., "Phone goes into Airplane Mode at 8:00 PM. No exceptions"). It will feel uncomfortable. Good. That means it’s working.

3. The System Reset (The Ether) You cannot run machinery 24/7. You must power down to cool off.

• Commit to 20 minutes of "Ether"—absolute silence—daily. No music. No podcasts. Just you and the silence.

Final Thought

In my resilience programs, we don't focus on "bouncing back" from a crash. We focus on building a structure that doesn't crash in the first place.

Let’s build that structure together.