If a tragedy makes us forget everything good and makes us do bad things, what can we do?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
If something tragic happens in our life, we just forget whatever good things we have learned and then we end up doing bad things. We all are creatures who have a body and a mind.
And the mind, in many ways, works like the body. So, if my hand gets fractured, then normally I might have been able to lift a heavy suitcase. But when my hand is fractured, I can’t lift.
So, the doctor might say, just keep your hand motionless. No weight on it. So, that is essential for healing.
But after sometime, the same doctor will say, you know, start moving your hand. Start lifting it. So, in the journey of healing, there is some time when we need to be motionless and then afterwards, emotions are there.
So, similarly for each one of us, when we get emotionally wounded, life’s tragedies can emotionally devastate us. So, at that time, we will go through different phases in the healing journey. And when we are wounded, we have to understand that emotional wounds are like physical wounds.
I cannot expect to see things about myself as I expected when I was healthy. So, yes, I can’t lift weights. So, if we have to lean on others, the heaviest burden that we carry is not on our back.
It’s on our knees. A mask is often the heaviest burden to carry. So, if we are emotionally wounded, then we need support.
And there is nothing, nothing, nothing humiliating about that. It’s just like a physical wound. I have a fracture.
I can’t carry this bag. So, yes, I am too troubled right now. I can’t deal with this.
So, when we are in that phase in the healing journey, we need to take care of ourselves. So, just avoid stressful situations, avoid things which are going to torture us or strain us and try to heal yourself. So, what do we do for healing ourselves? First is lower your expectations for yourself in the immediate wake of a tragedy.
And then within that, it is we all need something unchanging in our life. See, tragedy means something which is essentially something which is very important for us that has been taken away from us. So, the closer the thing to us and when it is taken away, the greater is the impact.
So, we need some unchanging thing to hold on to. And usually, spirituality, meditation, spiritual wisdom texts, these can help us in our consciousness to something unchanging. So, one is social support.
We need, but along that, spiritual support. And with that spiritual support, we find things like this is a terrible devastation in my life, but still life goes on. The more things change, the more we need to hold on to things that don’t change.
And that’s what the Bhagavad Gita talks about, indestructible code within us, the spiritual dimension to reality that is unchanging. So, turning toward that is quite helpful. And then gradually, just like if a fracture recovers, you don’t start lifting big weights.
You start with these small steps. So, after tragedy, don’t be too harsh with yourself. So, to be impulsive, to do things which we should not be doing, understand it.
Sometimes you might snap at people, sometimes you might say things which people should not have said. But don’t be too harsh with yourself. Now, don’t, in general, in a relationship, it’s important to not see intention in things that are done intentionally.
When somebody is in tension and they do certain things, don’t see intention in that. That is not done intentionally. That doesn’t make somebody a bad person.
So, even if in a situation we do something which we should not have done, don’t be too harsh with yourself. Just find out where you can get that strength and start doing small things. We have far greater resilience than what we think we have.
But resilience comes through gradual recovery. So, I might not be able to even lift my finger when my hand is fractured. But maybe couple of months later, I will be able to lift a huge weight also.
But I have to go through that journey. So, we have strength. But first we need social support.
So, don’t feel embarrassed or weak about seeking that. And see according to your spirituality how you can get some higher support. And then just be kind with yourself.
Gradually take steps forward. And then our resilience will act and we will find that we have strength that we didn’t know we had. Did I answer your question?