Thinking Beyond Science

Sensory inputs- -such as the sights of people, places and things; or smells, fragrances and aromas; or sounds, music and songs-can govern how we feel. These are all things that can transport us to another part of the world as they connect with the strong memories that are associated with them. Some of those memories are very pleasing and can thrill our minds, while others are not, and can leave our minds disturbed.

Everyone goes through difficulties in their life. Our emotions move up and down like the waves in the sea. It should be normalized that no one is perfect, and we all struggle in some areas of our lives. We may get into a bad mood after being stuck in traffic after work, we may be irritated by how our partner leaves their laundry all over the house, we may even go through misunderstandings with our friends over petty issues.

When we know that someone’s toxic behaviour is not situational, it could be a habitual toxic trait. At first, we should give them the benefit of the doubt as their habit may be unintentional.

Although the responsibility of our actions is our own, we are a product of our environment. Therefore, the way we develop habits may be unconscious. If a person is toxic because of this, they also may need a dose of empathy from someone to get out of this behavior pattern.

The way we deal with toxicity depends on why the person is being toxic. If it is situational and within our capacity to overlook the person’s mishaps, we can let it go. However, if their toxicity is habitual or intentional, it must be challenged and communicated. We have to say no in order not to be treated like a doormat and thereby protect our mental health.

Every action we perform is our choice. Although we may not be able to limit our interactions with negative people in some situations, such as work or family events, and might have to do the needful, we can choose who we spend time with outside of that.

Making choices and saying no is tough, but they are imperative to our success. We must increase our association with those who have a higher vibration. A tip to know who carries a higher vibration is to observe their habits: how they speak, how they act, what they do in their spare time. We can understand someone’s demeanor by how they act in public, but we can understand their character by how they behave in private.

Taking control back doesn’t mean that we become stoic, emotionally uninvolved or that we stop interacting with others. It just means that we slowly minimize our dependence on others for how we feel. In a world where we seek so much validation from others to make us feel good, we can feel devastated when it doesn’t come or we get the opposite of it.

If we cannot control our emotions when we are happy, we will be overwhelmed when we are sad because our mind gets conditioned to react to emotions in an extreme way. It is important that we start taking charge of our feelings. The more we depend on others for feeling good, the more the scope for disappointment. And that’s not because people are inherently bad, or they intentionally want to hurt us. They may just be having a bad day or going through a bad day situationally and therefore cannot reciprocate with our expectations.

The past may haunt us, but there are many lessons that we can learn from it. We should definitely not be imprisoned by our past; it is there to teach us lessons about how we should live and not a life sentence on how we are bound to live. We can bring back memories of things we have done that have helped us in the past and repeat them.

Life is like a book. The number of years we have in life are the number of chapters we are meant to live. Each chapter has 365 pages. Until now, there are a certain number of chapters of our life that have already been written. The ink has dried regardless of what is written. Some are beautiful: great handwriting, clean ink and the correct grammar. However, in other parts of the chapters we have already lived, the quality of the ink is low, the handwriting is illegible, and the story is quite messy. The good news is that the pages from now on are empty. We can write the chapters to come as we wish.

Our mental space is the most expensive real estate that we possess. We have to be cautious that these negative memories do not make their home in our mind, just like the bird’s nest we discussed before. If we spend our time on the negative memories of the past, there is no space for the fresh positivity that we can create. We have to make space for the remarkable by releasing the rubbish.

What we tell ourselves is more important than what others tell us. To release and recover from negative memories, we should first understand and tell ourselves that we cannot change people. Their core nature is hardwired from years of repeated action. It is extremely unlikely that they will change based on a few interactions we have with them. Therefore, we have to let go of the situation.

Often, we don’t realize how other people hold the remote control for our lives, even if their actions that are affecting us are from the past.

• Emotional independence is a great strength that allows us to find our own happy space and help others find theirs.
• Over a period of time, our memories settle down and go to the back of our mind as if nothing ever happened, just as dirt settles down at the bottom of a lake. But then a sight or sound, or the experience of a situation can act as a stimulant to stir up the lake and bring the dirt back up again.

Source : Energize Your Mind by Gaur Gopal Das

Goodreads : https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60758158-energize-your-mind

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