So, about a month or so ago I read this article on Elephant Journal (hyper link is within the text, ps: you can only read 3 Elephant Journal articles a day so pick wisely!) about self-healing and ended up investing more of myself into this seemingly simple 3-step program than I ever expected to.
The first step tells you to take accountability for your problem, whatever that may be. And while that sounds simple, it never has been for me. BUT what got me was when Ben Ralston told me to physically put my problem in my hands and hold it... look at it. So often when my feelings are involved I detach myself, releasing my problems into the abyss of who knows where, which resulted in no healing what so ever. But when I pictured my suffering as a tangible object that I was responsible for, everything changed.
I consider myself to be very empathetic towards other people. If people need my help, no matter who they are, I try my best to help in a logical way. But for myself, I don't. I never act in a sense of urgency in terms of my own happiness or wellbeing. So I get that this kind of sounds like, look at how selfless I am, I'm such a good person omg. But in all honesty this is me saying, I destroy and distract myself so that I don't have to take responsibility. And let me tell you, abandoning yourself when you're in need is just as bad as abandoning the people you love when they need you. An act of selflessness towards others is equivalent to selfless love towards yourself. Existing is balance of give and take. So when I neglected myself I was becoming an increasingly worse version of myself, regardless of what I did for other people on the surface.
So going back to this "journey of healing," I began to accept that I have this problem or these problems and they're all sitting in my hands, as Ben Ralston has told me to do. They are my responsibility now and they require intentional action and care. In my own mind, I pictured it (although this sounds absurd) something like having a child. I was holding this symbolic problem child baby in my hands and realized that if this were the case there isn't anything I wouldn't do to help this tangible little problem baby of mine (yeah, my mind is weird...). By placing my problems outside of myself, I could now see them as a priority, just like I do when other people are having problems and need help. Realizing that was the most important step.
Second on Ralston's list was to figure out the root of the problem. This is the core of where my heart has been focused for a while now. What was the true source of my suffering?
It's important to realize that "vairagya does not mean suppression or developing repulsion for material objects," it simply focuses around the spiritual self in order to emphasize values. That is the bottom line. For example, you aren't posting a picture in anticipation or expectation of 'likes' or achievement in a sense of self image, you aren't working out to achieve a perfect body, you aren't giving to the homeless in hopes of 'good karma', you aren't doing anything really because of anything but you just are. You are simply creating an outlet for the present moment in your own life and soul, you are listening and receptive to what your body and mind want in their natural essences because they work together to speak to us, whether we listen or not. With this state of existence you become truly selfless to yourself and others through presence. These are things that are lacking and the reason suffering is so imminent in today's world. Although I don't claim to have mastered any of which I have learned, the awareness of these truths have helped me work towards being the person I want to be.
Validation.
I believe that is the source of almost all cases of suffering I see within people in general.
Every problem we have as humans we inflict upon ourselves. The way we perceive situations is how our mind and body react. Depending on how much love you have for yourself, other people, and the world depends on how much validation you require in order to accumulate a certain level of satisfaction. And that sounds absolutely horrible, because it is.
What I've realized, through my own experiences, is that most of my negative emotions and reactions towards myself and others stem from a place of feeling incompetent. When you fight with others you are actually in a much more severe war against yourself when you consider the premises for which you are angry or why these emotions are effecting you in such a strong way. There is a sense of apathy needed in order to realize the importance of self empowerment.
To be more clear, I came to this conclusion through the realization that most of the negative emotions I experience from other people are mirrors of other people's struggles. When you think about it, we all are as each of us are individually. This world is intrinsically and undoubtedly interrelated. When people say that you are who you surround yourself with, they are right.
In the western world we are taught to perceive ourself through lenses that we are taught, many of which are detrimental to the wellbeing of our extremely advanced minds.
Here is a little scenario I would like to share with you all.
A lot of emphasis of the modern world is validation through social media. We all know this and I know I am a good example of this. I have over 500 followers on Instagram and constantly receive over 100 likes. BUT the pictures in which I initially did are almost always of myself and never of things that truly spoke volumes about what I value. Only through creating my preconceived image did I see myself getting praise for being the person I truly am. We are obsessed with the image, never the person.
Just the other day I posted an entry from a poetry book I am reading called This Human By: Serena Chopra.
"I admire you human but I am embarrassed for the body
once made critical by function and utility and now made critical by consumerism,
and conniving utility of a transparent entity, something like power,
and equally without adequate ends.
This environment has made the physical body irrelevant.
The body has become an affect
of the individual who possesses it, who is falsely convinced of its significance
and is sacrificed plastic atop a mound of market.
This looks like the architecture of a modern, middle-class home.
The architecture of an actual body is more honest."
In earlier days of humanity, people found happiness and fulfillment in the capabilities of providing for their family and implementing the physical capabilities of the human body. The reward system was tangible and physically apparent (ex. Dad would hunt food for family, family is fed, Dad sees smiles on his children's faces, the family's bodies are healthy and strong etc). Now, praise is "transparent" and the reward system is omniscient. The proximity in which we are providing for others is increasingly separating. With an undoubtedly interrelated world, this fact is horrifying.
Unsurprisingly, this post received 32 likes and was overlooked by an estimated 800 of my 900 followers for the mere fact that it is time consuming to read and unfocused on the self.
So, what the hell am I going to do about it? What are we all going to do about it? Ben Ralston asks us to "heal the problem" as his third step. He also makes the claim that this is the easiest step. To me, it is not.
There are no answers, only actions.
Awareness of the problem progresses the process but doesn't justify the difficulty in surpassing pressures we all feel. The means through which I found myself healing was through release.
Grasping is a source of suffering involved with validation that needs to be let go in order to grow. To me, this is one of the most beneficial means of healing the problems of societal influences. There is no way that this world is going to regress and part with the impositions we face now. There are always forces causing validation, there always will be. If it's not how many "likes" we get or how many friends we have on fb, it's how much food we can accumulate for our families, it's how much education we achieve... it's always something.
Vairagya is a sanskrit word that translates to "dispassion, detachment, or renunciation, in particular renunciation from the pains and pleasures in the material world," this is what I was referring to when I spoke about apathy earlier. It is a hierarchal means of thinking that is beneficial to human growth because it is detached from the idea of the ego, which is separate from things that truly serve us as opposed to what we are told benefits us.
I can, I am is a mantra I repeat to myself daily. It is my way of letting go of the egotistical self in order to focus around the values I see as important. To me this means eliminating the ego all together. I can ____ , I am _____; an "unfinished" sentence filled with endless capabilities which nobody can fill in. This is detaching from outcome, validation, and motivation. This is presence and purpose.
