Go to work on your problems than just lament about them

When Life’s problems seem insurmountable, take each day as it comes, but keep at your problems without thinking of the outcomes.

There will be times when nothing will seem to go your way. Situations at work will be unproductive – stressful, political and complex. Your relationship could be heading nowhere – often leaving you lonely and lost. The money may just not be enough. And any efforts you make to fix things, to find solutions, to make the situation better, may only end up confounding matters. The normal response to such a situation is anger, frustration and depression. When these emotions arise, observe them. Hold them and give them your attention. Ask yourself if feeling angry, frustrated or depressed is of any use in a situation when you don’t like what you are getting in Life. When you realize the futility of anger, frustration and depression, you will immediately want to let them go.

Running away from Life or feeling sad continuously for what has happened or feeling guilty for what you may have contributed to what has happened – none of these serve any purpose. In fact, Life never cares how you feel. Life just goes on happening. And if you bring debilitating thoughts to the table, if you keep clinging on to the negativity that arises as a result within you, you will feel bogged down and held hostage.

What is a problem situation at the end of the day? Any situation that you dislike is a problem situation. Plain and simple. If what you dislike must go away – one of two things must happen. Either you must work on driving it away. Or you must walk away from it. You can’t forever be lamenting that you dislike a situation. That’s escapism. Of course, in any situation, you can act, you can take remedial steps. So, act. Don’t worry about the results. Simply act. An action may lead you to a result. And you may like or dislike that result. Then act again if you must change that result. That’s how it works. Inaction on account of depression, anger, guilt, grief or worry is sacrilege. For anything about a current reality to change, you have to change something within you first. Which is, you must be ready and willing to go to work on your problem regardless of circumstance, outcome, reward or recognition. Just keep chipping away. When the going gets tough again, when you face rejection, failure and hit another no-go place, you may well face another bout of depression and frustration. Hold your depression again and examine its futility. Then let it all go. And you go back to work, to chipping away at your problem. One day, one day surely, what you are chipping away at will give way. And that day, when you connect the dots backward, you will be grateful for the choice you made – to have gone to work on your problem than sit and bemoan it!   

To simplify Life, be aware, be honest

Nothing about your Life is going to change unless it does. Life is what it is. Feeling negative about it is never worth your while.

Someone asked me the other day if it is possible to not feel negative about Life at times. Of course it is possible. Yet, don’t expect negative thoughts not to rise. They will. Such is the nature of thoughts. They will always keep swimming in your mind. But you can develop the ability to recognize and rid yourself of negative emotions as they rear their ugly head. This calls for being both aware and honest.

Be aware first of the futility of negative thinking. Can you solve any problem by brooding over the fact that you don’t have a solution in sight? And is there any point in brooding over a problem that you cannot solve? Even so, negative thinking will insist – and ensure – that you brood. This is where awareness comes into play. It is simple – if you are aware, if you observe your thinking, you will not heed the negative thoughts that will arise in you. And what you don’t heed, what you don’t give attention to, doesn’t grow. Period.

Take self-pity and jealousy for instance. When you compare yourself with others, naturally, you are bound to pine for what you don't have and feel jealous, often subconsciously, of what someone else has. Neither of these emotions is constructive. Self-pity keeps your feet nailed to the ground and jealousy fills you with negativity. This when you must be brutally honest. Ask yourself: What are you pining for? And who are you jealous of? Continue this train of awareness-based questioning: Is what you are pining for really so critical for your Life? Can you not manage without it? And is feeling jealous of someone going to make you get what you are pining for? These questions can have an awakening effect. You will be amazed at your own ability to realize that these emotions are wasted, unproductive and are shackling you. Out of that ruthless honesty will emerge the simple clarity that you are who you are. Unique. And what you have is all that you have. You will awaken to the reality that pining and brooding is not going to make you, or your situation, any different.

Employ awareness and honesty to simplify your Life. Being positive about Life may not solve your problems. But it will at least make you smile. As a line I often quote, ostensibly from the Guru Granth Sahib, goes: “Taqdeer teri apne aap hi badlegi aye dost; muskurana seekh le, wajah ki talaash na kar!” It means: “Your Life will change when it must, my friend…Learn to smile (in the meantime), without looking for a reason!”

Be vulnerable, be open, be peaceful

The best way to deal with your detractors is to not resist them. Let them do what they must. You be vulnerable, be open. Let Life take care of the rest.

This approach really ensures that you stay focussed, conserve your energies and don’t let any negativity consume you. But this approach is rarely taken.

Whenever someone wrongs you, the first reaction is: ‘How dare she or he do this to me?’. You rush to respond with rage and simply end up staying agitated. The more you cling on to anger, hatred and hurt, the more you will burn in them. If somebody is doing something to you, which you think is against your interests, please know and accept that she or he is doing it because they think it is right for them to do it! The viewpoints are different. That’s all. Perhaps, if you explained your viewpoint or if the other person in question considered your viewpoint upon review, things will be different. For the present however, you feel you have been wronged. And someone feels they are right. Further you are seething with rage, wallowing in self-pity, looking at the whole world as being dark, hellish and full of hideous people. Know also that you are the one who’s burning. The perpetrator of your grief is possibly happy, unperturbed by his or her action. That makes you even more angry. And you now seek revenge. What is the point? You cause pain to that person in retaliation. She or he responds with more acrimony. And then it’s your turn again. So, the ping-pong battle goes on, on and on. And all through this tenure you are burning. You are unable to concentrate on your work. Even anger or self-pity or staying grumpy or being cynical is an addiction. As ruinous as any other physically debilitating habit! You don’t even realize that you are destroying yourself in the process.

To break away from this destructive cycle of negative emotions, something has to give. And it has to be your desire to cling on. Give that up! Wisdom lies in the fact that you unshackle yourself from this rage, from this hatred, from this injury and become free. It takes two people to cause any enmity. And you can decimate that cause by refusing to enjoin in it! Let go of all animosity within you. Give up your need to be right all the time. Give up your need to get even. This is the only way – to be vulnerable and open – to inner peace, to be free and to perhaps win the battle – without even fighting!

You will heal if you are free from guilt

Feeling guilty after saying or doing something that you ought not to have said or done is completely in vain. Grieving over what you have done is the most futile of all emotions. It is debilitating and shackles you completely.

What are the few things that we often feel guilty about? We get angry with someone and regret it later. We cheat and feel miserable when we reflect on our action __ especially when we are not caught cheating. We overindulge in loose conversation or alcohol or food in a social setting and say and do more than we must have. These occurrences are common place and all of us are prone to feel guilty after we conduct ourselves in the manner in which we did. The mind will insist that you have lost your self-esteem and that you must redeem yourself. This is when brooding begins and you start descending down a negative, depressive spiral. Cut out the self-pity and focus on what caused you to get angry, cheat or overindulge in the first place. You will find that invariably it’s your mind. When your mind controls you, you are but its slave. You are angry because your mind is telling you not to accept the situation. You are cheating because your mind is seducing you with its unputdownable logic that no one is watching, so you may as well cheat. You overindulge because you are succumbing to the temptation of the moment.

To free yourself from the mind controlling you, you don’t need to work on controlling the mind. Meet the mind, meet its desires, take them head-on and tell them you are infallible, indestructible, and that you refuse to succumb. It is possible because that is what your true Self is __ infallible, indestructible, invincible, infinite. What the mind has done, over years of education and conditioning is that it has told you that it is the Master and you are its slave. On the other hand, the Master is you. This does not mean you must control. Because whatever you control today will erupt tomorrow out of sheer suppression. You go on controlling your anger, one day, it will explode. You go on controlling your urges to indulge__be it sex or alcohol or food, whatever, one day, you will go on a binge. So, don’t control. Just meet the situation, challenge it and tell it who you are.

Believe me, initially, the mind will resist. It will fight tooth and nail. But slowly it will get convinced. And will obey you.  Because you are true. Because the real Self in you is acting. And all of this can happen if you can give up, let go of, feeling guilty. It’s over. It happened. You were a slave of your mind. Now, come discover your true self and focus on just being. You will heal and turn a healer for the world!

The crippling BOGO Offer – Self-pity and Suffering!

Self-pity can cripple and suffocate you unless you are mindful and aware.

We all love to pity ourselves for our conditions and plights. First, let’s accept it, pitying yourself is so, so comfortable. Because to be depressed, to moan and to dwell on what is not is so convenient. Say someone is rude to you, hurts you, then all you need to do is to have that sullen look on your face. And the whole world will come and pamper you, will cajole you, give you all the attention that your ego demands. And you, like the famous McDonald’s line – ‘I’m lovin’ it!’ – will love all that attention. Suppose you get over your hurt, your pain, people will soon stop referring to it. Your ego will then lose its sense of importance. So, your ego will force you to cling on to this debilitating emotion of pitying youself, because it wants to control you. Once in your ego’s stranglehold your suffering is complete.

But while you may wallow in self-pity, know that no change can happen unless you break free from that state. You cannot be pitying yourself, resultantly, take no action about what’s causing you pain, and expect to be free from your misery. Self-pity and suffering come as a BOGO offer – Buy One, Get One Free!!!

Look at yourself. Look around you. You will find so many people living miserable lives, only because they simply love pitying themselves. Poor things, they don’t understand their pain. Pain really is a cosmic wake-up call. It is a call for you to be alert. What happens, for instance, when you jam your fingers in your car door (ouch!!!) – don’t you instantaneously become alert? Until that moment you were not bothered. Driving, speaking on the phone, losing yourself to music, you were not even aware you were in your car. But the moment the fingers got jammed, you were shaken out of your stupor. You became alert. Now you can use that wake-up call and snap out of your reverie or you can choose to stay aloof, writhing in pain and then lament about how everything’s wrong in your Life. If you lament, you will be stuck in the door of your car – metaphorically. And the physical pain will translate into considerable anguish and suffering. But if you heed the wake-up call, become alert, vigilant and choose to move on, your pain may be there, but you will break-free, unstuck. This applies to every situation in Life.

The truth about Life is this: Self-pity is comforting but crippling. Awareness is liberating. When you keep on pitying yourself, you keep prolonging your suffering. When you stop pitying yourself, you not only end your misery, you make progress!