If someone is very pessimistic about themselves, how to help them?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

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some people have a particular negative attitude it’s very strongly rooted in them I’ll never get a job, I’ll never get married this is never going to work out for me then what do we do about it again it’s a the important thing is the consciousness keeps moving positively sometimes if we consider a river which is going through many different channels one channel may get blocked, river finds another channel and it moves on so if this channel is blocked sometimes trying to persuade them to open that channel that just exhausts us and exhausts them the more we try to say no you can do it no I can’t do it the more we try to say you can do it they just become more closed, more insecure, more defensive then what we could do is find out some other channel in their life by which they can at least keep moving forward in other areas and then over a period of time maybe some taste of success in other areas may give them the confidence maybe I can do this in this area also so it’s a matter of progression so basically stagnation may happen in life and in some cases the stagnation may be reversible in some cases it may not be reversible if somebody wants to be an athlete and they suffer a crippling injury then I am never going to be an athlete it’s just a fact of life but that stagnation doesn’t have to lead to stagnation that particular ambition doesn’t have to lead to stagnation in their entire life now sometimes even if you are physically crippled still now there are Paralympics also for physically challenged people that’s a different thing sometimes the stagnant channel might also open but just because one channel in life has become stagnant doesn’t mean life has to become stagnant so that’s where I feel spiritual understanding helps because spiritual understanding helps us understand that we often say you are not the body but that’s so generic as to not be very helpful but included in that is you are not just an athlete you are more than an athlete you are not just you are more than you are a software engineer and you lost your job you are not a software engineer you are bigger than this particular profession you are bigger than this particular ambition you are bigger than this particular relationship also somebody may lose someone and they may lifelong define themselves I am an orphan, I am a widow, I am a widower but if you understand that we are souls then that means we understand that all these are roles and we are bigger than our roles so then as long as I identify with that role then I think this is the only channel for my consciousness this will become stagnant but if I understand that I am bigger than this role then I can find other channels for my consciousness to move on so in some cases breaking down of channel is essential for people to move on if somebody say alcoholic and they think I am alcoholic and I can never give up alcohol in that case you are alcoholic but at least drink in moderation drink in such a way that you can still do your responsibilities in life and then gradually they start becoming more responsible if they are told you just have to give up alcohol I can’t do it, you can’t do it, fine try to do it in such a way that it doesn’t disrupt your other life and then as they start gaining a sense of control in their other life maybe if I can control this, I can control this also so in some cases change may be just change may be impossible so just leave it and change other things in some cases change may be manageable, you just need some confidence to be encouraged in some cases change may just be essential if somebody has got say cancer and it’s curable but they just say ok now I am going to die that in some way or the other you have to infuse there are treatments available, try out this treatment so if it’s curable then at that time infusing that change is vital but that kind of situations where that very situation needs to be changed or that very conception needs to be changed that may not be immediate see most often even when a person says ok I want to die it’s not so much because a particular thing has gone wrong in their life it’s basically they have lost a purpose for living if they get a purpose for living then they will get a purpose for fighting against disease also they will get a purpose for fighting against adversity also so many times we tie our purpose down to some small things if somebody, say if a boy or a girl have decided the purpose of my life is to have a relationship with this particular person and that person rejects me that person goes and marries someone else then I feel my whole life’s purpose is defeated so we have to find a big enough purpose for our life and one of the biggest challenges in encouraging others is to help them to find a purpose ultimate purpose is to love Krishna and to go to Krishna that is true definitely but at the same time how do I serve Krishna in my life what do I do in this world practically to serve Krishna so if we can find some purpose that way that can help us to overcome a lot of obstacles what is this idea about having a purpose it is universal