Beyond our Thoughts!

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"Our idea of happiness may be the very obstacle standing in the way of our happiness"

-Thich Nhat Hanh, The Art of Living

 

Childhood Conditioning

All of us are trying to live our lives with an aim like to become a doctor or an actor or someone etc etc. From the moment a child learns a bit about the world, we start pressing our aims on the child - be a good child, be a good student, be social, be the topper, be the best in your life so on. That's how we think is the proper way to raise a child. 

As the child tries to make sense of the world around him or her, he/she begins to identify with these ideas because mostly they are coming from the most trusted sources - parents, teachers, family, society in general. These are great ideas and there's nothing wrong with them. As soon as the child internalises these notions 'to be' in life, he/she tries their whole lives living up to these ideas. When the exposure is less, the child thinks of them as truth, a command to follow or order to obey.


The War in Our Heads

However as soon as the child steps out of the home into the world, many other ideas, some outright contradictory or opposite to the notions may hit him and he may choose to immediately deny such opposing notions as false and try to stick to previous notions as ultimate truth because that's been his life for the last many years or he may choose to entertain these ideas and expand his view point. The first scenario maintains a completely peaceful scene at home because the child's notions are in sync with parents but may create a lot of confusion and conflict with the child. The child may feel torn between ideas (called cognitive dissonance) and feel extremely uncomfortable with these ever increasing mental cacophony. To get rid of the discomfort, he/she may use several strategies like avoiding, sleeping, sex, alcohol, cigarettes or express in art, poem, theatre, music. Some of these strategies may help with coping with the discomfort, others may make life outright worse. 

In the other scenario, he/she may choose to pursue some other ideas, contradictory to what has been taught to him/her which will again lead to a lot of conflict between people, which can again create a lot of dissatisfaction. 

It's true when they say that we are all the same but with different ideologies. Open the internet and you will be bombarded with ideas about everything - how you should eat, what you should wear, how to date, how to maintain a long distance relationship, how to be single, how to raise kids, which jobs to choose, what career to follow etc etc. These can be really confusing for anyone if we do not what what we truly desire.

It Does Not always Fit our Version

All our conflicts arise because we have started our life fixated on some ideas of 'to be'. However we undermine a very important point about life- it is never fixed. Life is always flowing. It's dynamic, ever changing and evanescent. It's there one moment, it's not there next. How can we keep something sticking to one fixed idea when it goes against its basic nature? True, it can happen that sometimes life coincides with our version, but that's only a coincidence. 



These very ideas about how our lives 'should be' prevent us from living our lives. We remain caught in ideas about living that we forget to live. We get enmeshed with ideas of 'how to be happy' that we don't realise that being happy is not something we need to read or understand, it's an emotion and we are all capable of feeling emotions regardless if we know about it or not. We are so preoccupied with the stories of 'who I can be or should be or must be' that we lose who we already are. 

The result is that we become disconnected from ourselves first, then we become disconnected from people and gradually we are disconnected from life. Every day is a struggle to be someone we don't know. Every day is like a war going on with yourself. 


Beyond Beliefs

It's not easy to break free from ideas because all of us think that ideas define us but we ignore the fact that we were present even before these ideas or notions that we built for ourselves. We were present as human beings with all the wonderful qualities bestowed upon us by nature before we built these castles of ideas to define ourselves. Try thinking about it for a moment, it may be revolting for some, peaceful for some. 

Looking through the Eyes of a Child

If you find it difficult, look at a child, an infant who barely knows anything about your notions but knows how to feel emotions, understands love, anger, fear, knows whom to trust and whom to fear, pays attention to every details 'mindfully' without knowing what it is, sees the world in a new light every day because the child is free from ideas of 'to be'. 

If we can look at the world through the eyes of the child, a lot of our misconceptions will clear up and we will be freed from ideas about how our lives 'should be' or 'must be'. 💕

 

-Suhasini Das, MD (Psychiatry), FIPS,Consultant Psychiatrist

 

 

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