Last evening, after returning home from work, my friend suddenly burst into a fit of intense rage. He was howling, screaming, followed by an outburst of tears. His mother approached me asking me to look into what exactly was troubling her son. After interacting with him, I learnt that his boss had reprimanded him that morning for an error that he had committed in his work. Now, something that the boss told him just once that morning had been lingering on his mind all through the day right till the time he reached home. It had not only caused extreme anxiety, ruined his productivity, devoured him internally, drained him emotionally, but also overpowered his mental health and endangered his physical state of existence.
This episode prodded me to contemplate on this very crucial challenge we all go through in our lives.How often do we allow people and circumstances to control our moods, emotions, our state of mind and our life?
If our boss criticizes our work, or tells us something we don’t like, how do we react?
When a driver without signaling, drives recklessly and cuts into our lane on the road, how do we react?
When our parents, our husband or wife, our in-laws, our friends or relatives tell us something we don't approve of, how do we react?
In these and similar situations, don't we keep thinking about the incident over and over again? Don't we get angry, upset or frustrated?
Everybody experiences such emotional upheavals everyday of their lives. Let's give this a thought. How many minutes, and often hours, do we spend every day, dwelling on what this person said and that person did. We have to comprehend that if we take these incidents too personally we lose focus from our higher purpose, our goal in life. In turn we let our emotions, our mood, our happiness and our life be remote controlled by someone else. This happens at home, school, college, work, at the mall, on the street, and everywhere else.
We let people and circumstances control our life, if we let them affect our moods and state of mind.
We don’t always have control over circumstances and situations. This is how life is. We don’t have control over people's words, and we don’t have control over people’s behavior, but we can teach ourselves to react differently.
We don’t have control over everything that happens to us, but we can learn to think and respond, emotionally and mentally, in a different way, in a spiritually matured manner. We must learn to choose our reactions and behavior. We must learn to remain detached and unaffected.
The following four keys should be kept in mind:
MOOD (Mercy, Overlook, Optimistic, Detachment)
Mercy:
Look at others with mercy or compassion. There are certain universal laws of spirituality. It is rightly said that we should hate the disease but not the diseased. In Bhagavad Gita As It Is, Lord Krishna proclaims that he is the father and mother of every living being. So that means everyone is our brother and sister. Everyone is inherently divine. Everyone is part of God, but due to disease of ego one becomes incriminated in ever increasing bondage of lust, envy, anger, pride and greed, and one becomes a slave of these things. If our mother is sick we hate the disease but we love our mother. So when our brothers and sisters, in the form of whoever they may be in this world, when they are acting in a perceived cruel, evil or selfish way, it’s the symptom of chronic disease. If we see it that way, instead of hating them we will actually feel mercy for them. To feel hate or nurture anger for a diseased person, that hatred burns our heart; it doesn’t heal our heart. We cannot control their thoughts, words or actions but we should train our own minds to remain calm, composed and develop an equipoised state of mind.
Overlook:
We must learn to overlook the small things and let go. If we hold onto the negative energies, we would harm no one but our own selves. Just like when an iron rod is put in fire for too long, when touched it would cause burns and permanent scars that cannot be healed. Similarly if we hang onto undesirable thoughts, words or actions of the other person, we would ourselves be the cause of our own emotional agitation. As a result our reasoning and judgement gets clouded. It gets covered with the dust of resentment, bias and miseries, which makes every moment of our existence morose. We cannot experience the original constitutional position of being happy. We should master the art of forgiveness by developing a transcendental state of existence.
Optimistic:
Always look at the brighter side in every situation. We need to have faith on God's higher plan for us. Never lose hope. Only when we completely surrender to Him and have firm conviction that He is our supreme protector, we can remain in a perfect state of bliss even in the most trying circumstances. We must inculcate a consciousness wherein we feel that we deserve more sufferings, more heartache but due to the Lord's kind nature, we have been fortunate to receive a discounted version of the distress. If we embed this heightened level of character, nothing and no one can snatch away the smile of our soul.
Detachment:
Developing a certain degree of emotional detachment can bring about great positive transformations in our lives. We need to practice letting go, substitute our negative thoughts, fears, and worries, with happy and positive thoughts. We must learn to observe our thoughts and feelings. In time, this will enable us to detach from unwanted thoughts, feelings and reactions. Learn to loosen our attachment to unpleasant memories and the past. Avoid association of people who exhibit negative vibes, let us down, or unjustly criticize us. If we cannot avoid them, we must become transcendental to them by bringing forth a radical change from within.
When we begin to practice the four keys discussed above and express emotional detachment in challenging situations, in a natural way, with no effort, it becomes second nature, and we won’t have to worry about having our strings pulled. We will gain a deep sense of inner strength, serenity and remain unaffected by external forces.
For this, we need to avoid negative reactions, anger, and constant dwelling on hurt or pain inflicted on us. We have to stop taking too personally what someone said or did to us. We have to stop behaving like a puppet on a string, letting people and circumstances pull our strings.
By having the remote control of our mood in our own hands, by staying strong emotionally, by staying grounded at all times, by envisioning the greater good hidden behind the pitfalls, obstacles we are facing and most importantly having faith in the Divine, we can protect ourselves from being upset or affected by external conditions, people or situations. It does not necessarily change the reality of our circumstances, but it definitely allows us to act and respond to them more intelligently, appropriately and in perfect spiritual consciousness. We cannot always change everything and everyone in this world. But we can surely change ourselves and that gives us this great strength, the immense power to be an instrument of change.
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