How to overcome anxieties about issues that have life-changing consequences?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
so if the thing which we are worried about that has very big consequences we understand we should not be emotionally fixated with sports, whether it is career or family relationship which may adversely affect us for years and what to do in such a situation spiritual life is not about becoming hard hearted or apathetic we are meant to be responsible and to some extent responsibility means investing our emotions, when will I be responsible in something, when I am invested in it so it is not that we should be completely emotionally disinvested from the world around us or our roles and relationships in this world the point is that we always need a sense of perspective sense of perspective means that this particular thing it is important but still it is a part of a bigger whole so we are bigger than our circumstances we are bigger than our careers we are bigger than our relationships, when I say bigger it is not egoistic sense, bigger in the sense that we are connected with something far bigger, we are connected with God so that means that things may go wrong in these things, but still we at our core have it within us to tolerate this, to transcend this to emerge stronger through this so to the extent our identity we identify with the circumstantial to that extent we will lose perspective to the extent we identify with the transcendental we identify, I am a spiritual being to that extent we will keep perspective and we will do the needful to navigate with that situation for example, suppose we are going by car we are driving a car and then there is a tunnel, if you go from New York to New Jersey, a tunnel along the way now some tunnels may be just 100 meters, some tunnels may be 1 kilometer some tunnels may be 10 kilometers now some tunnels may be longer than others, but if you understand, oh it’s all dark over here what’s happening? the tunnel will come, tunnel will go I just keep driving when we think oh this whole road for the rest of my life is going to be a tunnel, then we will think how can I move on understand this tunnel may be long but it is temporary and my own, this road is bigger than the tunnel and my own journey is bigger than the tunnel once I understand this, then we can perceive it through the darkness of the tunnel also so materialism makes us believe that life is like a 100 meter sprint if you don’t get to the destination, you don’t get to the destination first then everything is lost but spirituality helps us understand that life is like a 100 mile marathon in which there may be some sprints there are many laps we may come first in a lap we may come middle in the lap, we may come last in some lap also, but it doesn’t matter we can pick up later so when we see that life is much bigger than whatever phase we are going through then that understanding that I am bigger than my circumstance, that will help us to calm down and by calming down that way even if the stakes are high see the problem is not that the stakes are high, the problem is that we become too agitated by those stakes sometimes the problem sometimes our reaction to a problem becomes a bigger problem than the problem itself so by keeping the problem in perspective, we will make sure that our reaction doesn’t worsen the situation, say if I am going along a road I feel a bite on my leg, I look down and see a snake slithering away now the snake is between me, I get angry how dare the snake bite me and I start running after the snake, I will stamp it to death even if I succeed in stamping the snake to death, what is happening? in all my running and stamping the poison is spreading through my blood stream faster and I will die ok, so what has happened here? the problem of snake biting was there but my response made the problem much worse so like that, if we get too caught in the moment the moment may be very big but still if we get caught in the moment we often react in a way that is counterproductive by remembering that I am much bigger than this moment that my life my existence, my relationship with God is far more enduring than this by that we can get a sense of perspective and then we can respond appropriately did I answer your question?