Cherish the child, man and woman in you to love,
appreciate and empathise with every being around you.
I remember reading
this message on the packet of QuickFix glue tube “Joins Everything Except
Broken Hearts.” Now, when I recall the message, it fills me with many
questions. What can cause my heart to break? What will happen if it breaks? How
will I mend it? True, these questions are direct from my mind; if my brain is
dead then I am merely declared ‘brain dead’, but if my heart stops beating,
then I am clinically pronounced dead. Yes, this is again from my mind, which is
trying to reason out why, what, when and how my heart can metaphorically and
clinically break down. My mind is my rationality with respect to the conscious
and subconscious state of my mind. My heart denotes my emotions and feelings.
My wisdom is to maintain a harmonious balance between the two.
When I try to
answer the questions, I realise that both biological and emotional factors together
affect the heart. When I am overpowered by negative emotions such as sorrow,
stress, anxiety, depression, anger and resentment due to various reasons, it
affects the clinical health of my heart. This, to certain extent, answers my
questions of when and why heart breaks.
My mind does not
stop here; it wants me to find out how can I know my heart is broken?
This again makes me ask myself what are the causes of negative emotions
that affect me mentally and my heart’s health too? The most popular reasons I
am aware of are: losing a loved one, marriage or a loving relationship that
does not work out; setback in professional and personal life; when someone
betrays me or breaks my trust; when I don’t achieve what I am aspiring for;
when I am unable to fulfill the expectations of not only myself but also of my
family, friends, colleagues, organisation or community; when my self-worth (dignity)
is hurt. When I narrate the causes to my mind then it makes me
think of the biological symptoms like respiratory and gastric problem,
heartburn, hypertension, high blood pressure, various heart ailments that indicate
heart break and can be fatal enough to be a clinical ‘heart break’. Needless to
say, strong negative emotions apart from snapping the heart strings (tendons) can
also cause severe mental depression results in addiction or suicide: a heart
break of its kind.
Now, my mind asks
me what I should do when I suffer from an emotional heart break that can affect
my health and happiness. If possible, can I avoid such heart break? This
question makes me delve deep into my heart and mind and find this: I have to be
true (honest) to myself, have faith in myself, believe in myself that is my
true strength. This will help me see through lies, deceit, manipulation,
discrimination, exploitation and aggression resulting in jealousy, resentment,
sorrow, anxiety, helplessness, depression, anger and vengeance. How can I avoid
negative emotions by being true to myself; in fact, what does being true to me
really mean?
Being true to self
is to be aware of my strengths in the form of my potential and capabilities; my
fear and apprehension in the form of my weakness and dislikes (the mental
blocks) that can make me biased or prejudiced that invariably affect my
thoughts and decisions. To love myself means to accept my weakness and
not be ashamed of it; if I don't, then I will try to hide it giving in to
negative emotions, thoughts and actions. When I am aware of my strength and
weakness, then I can constantly make every effort to improve on them to meet
the challenges that come my way to achieve my objectives or goals, such as to
harmonise with the environment - the surroundings.
Believing in self (being
true to self) means being aware of my potential, and accordingly should reason
and develop the strategy to achieve my objective. For instance, my objective is
to be happy. Then I will reason out the cause of my sorrow and use my potential
to deter the cause of unhappiness. This I can achieve only when I believe in
myself. If I don’t believe in myself then I deceive myself and succumb to
failure.
Let me take the
example of being happy. At the moment I am tired and I ask myself how can I be
happy? My heart replies that a refreshing cup of tea or coffee would do.
I do not heed to the answer and fix myself a cuppa. Instead, I lie down
and let negative thoughts crowd my mind only to take me farther away from being
happy.
Another example is:
my heart urges me for an alcoholic drink to feel happy. I give in to its wish
and continued heeding to it for more drink and drink until it affects my mind
and body to the extent that I fall into an intoxicated stupor. Why did this
happen, when I was merely heeding to my heart’s demand?
The answer is
simple I did not listen to my mind too that was trying to reason with me to the
beneficial limit of the alcoholic drink. To believe in myself I have to
constantly strike a balance between my mind and heart. This will prevent me
from harming myself, or from getting overpowered by negativity.
Why should I believe
in myself? Having faith in or believing in self is the hope that keeps me moving
on to achieve my day to day objectives and even bigger objectives of life. It
is hope that keeps me alive.
Let’s try to
understand it through an example. I want to become an artist so that I can paint
and sketch beautiful pictures and even take beautiful photographs of natural
surroundings, animals, birds and people around me. I need to believe in myself so
that I can fulfill my dream: My mind confers with my heart about my interest
with respect to my strength and weakness (my true potential) to realise my
dream of becoming an artist. When I listen to my heart and mind together, then I
can devise a realistic plan and take necessary steps to develop my talent and fulfill
my objective: paint and sketch beautiful pictures.
While trying to
develop my talent I may take a famous artist as my role model and his works as
the standard I aspire to achieve to become an artist. This is where I again
make the mistake of listening to my heart more than I do to my mind:
A role model is a
person I intend to emulate and not imitate. To emulate means to imbibe his
principles, his good habits and his way of developing himself and the way he
addresses the challenges he faces in his life. I do not blindly copy his
favourite colour, clothes, food, his handwriting, his hairstyle. Such a
fallacious imitation will evidently frustrate me as I will invariably
experience an identity crisis because I ignored my true self and blindly copied
someone I consider to be my role model. This also means, I should not
constantly compare my work of art to that of my role model, then that will make
me doubt my ability to achieve my objective. Again, if I enroll into a course
with this objective in mind: to become a painter as good as my role model and
paint exactly like him, then the I am confirming my failure to achieve my
objective through formal training too, as I have already explained it: I will constantly
compare my ability with that of the famous painter: my role model. I begin to
ignore my true potential, work on them to develop my talent. This results in
frustration and self doubt. I become sensitive to explicit and implicit remarks
and comments of my friends, family and the community and that reinforces self
doubt and slackens my effort in achieving my aspiration. Therefore, I should
emulate the qualities of the people I admire, I should not imitate them. I
again miss out on striking a balance between my heart and mind. Unfortunately, self
doubt evokes negative emotions of frustration and I miss out on rationally
striking a balance between my heart and mind and develop my unique potential
with or without professional help. I miss out in believing in myself.
Then the need of
the hour is to strike the balance through proper introspection or reflection
that I can achieve through mindful
meditation to effectively strike a balance between my heart and mind. The
objective of mindful meditation and introspection is to regain dignity-self
worth (self confidence), while valuing and respecting all that is around me.
Let’s try to
understand it with the help of an example: My parents want me to become a
doctor, they constantly remind me of the tacit commitment I have made to them
to become a doctor. I give in to their wish; or I want to become a chartered
accountant because it is a lucrative profession, I ignore the fact, I may not
have the aptitude to be a chartered accountant and I may not be interested in
becoming a doctor as my parents desire me to. My heart tells me that I have the
potential to become a Teacher Learner, but I ignore it. I reason out ways and
means, both fair and unfair, such as bribing or intimidating the authorities to
get necessary academic scores or marks to become a doctor, if I have acceded to
my parents wish or to become a chartered accountant that my heart desires and
ignore my mind’s reminder of my true potential. Have I really achieved the
objective? Have I been true to myself? Have I really believed in myself to
realise my parents’ or my dreams? What will happen then?
In fact, I have
succumbed to negativity at the very instance of trying to ignore and falsify my
potential. I will give in to negative attitude. I will become arrogant to defy
the truth. I will try to avoid any introspection to address the cause of my
sorrow and frustration. I will get into a vicious circle of being attentive to
the failures and misgivings of other people in order to ignore and cover up my
own weakness. I will indulge in gossip, libel, discrimination and even give in
to aggression and vengeance to hide from my own truth. Intense negativity will
take its toll on my health and above all, on my heart and mind. The cause of
all this is anyone’s guess, I refused to trust myself, love myself, believe in
myself and have faith in myself. The resultant negativity can also make me a
timid and submissive person without a mind of my own, when I constantly give in
to undue expectations my parents, well wishers and invariably I will set skewed
expectation from myself. I fail to be assertive enough to reason with self and my
well wishers. I avoid being a skeptic rationalist and helplessly give in to
blind faith: I give in to the "herd instinct".
I cannot ignore
the fact: “hurt people, hurt people”. When there is negative emotion in me, I
will share negative thoughts and emotions with those around me. I become a
victim of my own negative emotions and I display it through my negative
thoughts and actions.
Let’s take a
simple and mundane example: I go to a public place where I have to remove my
hat before entering the premises. When I return to the place I had kept my hat,
I find someone has stolen it. Instead of informing the administration of my
loss, I wear someone else’s hat on my way out. When I discuss this with my
family and friends, I do it with an implicit expectation that they will endorse
my action, which people often do by sharing their similar experience and
unknowingly transforming such act into an unwarranted norm.
In the future, if
I revisit the place and remove my hat only to find it has been nipped yet again,
and I this time I report the incidence to the administration. They may assure
me of corrective action. When I share the experience yet again with my peer
group and friends, the same people who had validated my action of taking
someone else’s hat and not reporting the incidence to the authority will ask
me, why I did not use my ‘common sense’ and wear someone else hat. This will
make me question my belief (in my integrity) and invariably shake up my self
confidence.
My mind says,
survival is more important than integrity. My heart responds integrity(humanity)
is the very basis of my survival. Constant subtle and severe backlashes of this
kind will affect the balance of my heart and mind resulting in negative impact
on my emotional and clinical health...
Now, my
heart and mind together ask me, it is easy to deceive self than to be true to self.
Why is it so?
They want me to
explain it:
When I am exposed
to gossip, slander, aggression, vengeance, discrimination, rejection,
animosity, deception, connivance, derogatory practical jokes, black humour,
negative competition, when social validation is more important than to be true
to self (Believe in self).
I reiterate, ‘hurt
people hurt people’. To be true to self, love self, and believe in self and
have faith in self culminates into my dignity in the form of deep sense of self
respect, self worth, and this result in the courage to be compassionate. To be
able to understand the person’s hurt that has caused him/her to hurt me and
respond to him/her accordingly instead of reacting negatively to their negative
action. Such response is a sign of wise use of mind and heart. It’s easy to
become vengeful and retaliate when hurt, but it takes real courage to
comprehend the hurt caused by a hurt person. The ability to be compassionate is
a mark of true faith in self.
Negative intentions
in the form of thoughts transform into action can be negative and I am
responsible for them. My ability to take responsibility of my thoughts and
actions is the basis of my integrity and self respect.
My heart and mind
are not satisfied with my response, they want me to explain how I can overcome
the continuous onslaught of negative emotions that may distort my perception affecting
my dignity and self confidence, causing stress and anxiety the precursor of
both emotional and clinical heart break?
My
instinctive response to the question is, if I am true to myself, then I will
respect my personal space and also that of those I interact with. I will give
time to myself to relax both physically and mentally through reflection in the
form of prayer, meditation, yoga, physical exercise, creative pursuits:
pursuing in leisure my hobbies using my creative abilities to transform my
negative emotions like sorrow, anger, resentment in creating a aesthetically
beautiful art, craft or a delicious dish. I may tend to the plants in the
garden; spend time with children, elderly and animals. In this way, I am able
to take care of my emotional and physical well being. I pursue only the
creative activities I like and not indulge in activities with the intention of
gaining social recognition or social validation. Often people decide to go to
the gym to gain community/social recognition or social validation.
There are people
who vacation in specific tourist places that have been endorsed or recommended
by their friends or by the professional circle or social community they are
striving to establish themselves in. Such actions only prevent them from being
true to themselves and genuinely enjoy and are truly happy and relaxed during
the vacation without being self conscious. When I am true to myself, I value my
individuality and that does not make feel lonely, value myself enough to value
my surroundings and the environment within and without.
I reiterate, the
need for self development is not to feel emotionally weak- to need someone's
shoulder to lean on. Self
development is to improve my emotional intelligence and my ability to emapthise.
My mind
laughs at my heart and says, ‘without me, you cannot identify sorrow and anger,
you cannot control your anger from becoming self and object destructive. Are
you aware of it? I scratch my head as I really wonder what will be heart's
reply.
It gently put a
smile on my lips and I hear it reply, “the sorrow melts into tears and wells
out of the eyes. It is always better to cry and lighten the weight of fear,
sorrow and resentment to weigh down the heart and transform into destructive
anger. True, I do feel much better when I cry away my sorrow. My mind echoes
the smile and says, “I cherish the positive sense of humour that does not
belittle or hurt anyone's heart. It is a universal truth, if I hurt anyone, I
hurt myself. Therefore, I am true to myself, love myself, believe in myself and
have faith in myself, and all this I am able to do with you, heart. You help me
to avoid emotional or clinical heart break.”
References:
Meditation
for Mindfulness:
Selfie Mode
of Self Development:
Acknowledgement:
Picture Source:
Google Images