Overcoming negative emotions 2 – Acceptance, Aspiration, Analysis, Action

[Talk at Midwest Yoga Festival, Wisconsin, USA]

Video:

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So I’ll speak on this topic of overcoming negative emotions. This is the second part. In the first part I spoke about this.
Four levels of education, explanation to understand where negative emotions come from. Then, experimentation to understand how we are different from the mind that is the source of the emotions. Then, evaluation, learning to evaluate which thoughts to pay attention to, which not.
And lastly, elevation. Now, to further elaborate on these two stages of evaluation and elevation, I’ll talk about two broad approaches which we often have to deal with our emotions. And a third approach which is healthier.
So, let’s take an emotion such as anger. Somebody does something which just infuriates us. Now, there are two broad responses we could have.
We just express the anger. Now, when we express the anger, quite often we speak things that hurt the other person and that we are since regret. Since my childhood, I was quite short tempered.
I had friends who were even more short tempered than me. So, one of my friends when he would get angry, he would speak such things that the hearts would be shattered. So, once his friend, I told him he was yelling, he just quietly started recording everything that he had spoken.
And then he replayed what he had spoken and he was shocked. He said, I spoke this? I can’t believe this. So, the ancient Greeks had a saying that anger is like temporary insanity.
So, when our emotions come within us and we express them in a completely unfiltered, unprocessed way, then often that doesn’t reflect who we are. Sometimes people say, I just be myself. It is good to be ourselves.
But, to be ourselves means that we want to be the best that we can be. Say now, a musical performance is going on there. If somebody without any practise comes up on the stage and they start, I be myself.
And they start practising playing some music. They will not be able to play well. So, being yourself means, yes, we need to train ourselves.
So, expressing emotions in an unfiltered way is not necessarily self-expression. Because it may just be expressing our lowest self. Our lowest self.
On the other hand, sometimes when we are angry, we might repress our anger. That’s the other extreme. Repression also doesn’t work for long.
Because what is buried within will come out eventually. And often, the way it works is that if we get angry with one person, we repress it. Second person, we repress it.
Third person, we repress it. We may repress it with 10 incidents. And then the 11th person just does something small, which annoys us.
And then, the cumulated anger from the previous 10 people vents out. And we all may have this experience. We just say something to someone, and they explode.
What did I do? I just made a simple request. But what has happened is, they were repressing my emotion and then it came out. So, both expressing emotions and repressing emotions are unhealthy.
Because expressing hurts others. Repressing hurts us. And eventually, it comes out and we hurt someone else who just happens to be a victim.
So, sometimes it happens that if somebody who is more powerful than us has hurt us, then we repress the emotion over there. But then it comes out against somebody who is weaker than us. And that’s how we could have a tradition of abuse going on.
Somebody abuses somebody else. And that person can’t abuse back the person who is more powerful. So, they abuse somebody who is younger to them, who is weaker than them.
And it just becomes tragic as well as horrific. So, we need a balanced approach in between expressing and repressing emotions. That is, processing emotions.
So, processing means that we acknowledge the presence of the emotion and then we focus on moving forward in a constructive direction. So, I’ll talk about this in terms of three E’s. Acceptance, aspiration and analysis.
So, acceptance means that when we have a particular emotion, we can’t live in denial of that emotion. When we have a particular situation, if we keep denying or resenting that situation, that drains us. Our emotions, we can compare to some extent to the weather.
The weather refers to the physical situation around us. If we understand this three level reality, body, mind and soul. So, just as in the bodily situation around us, the weather changes and its change affects us.
But still, we are different from that weather. Now, it’s very cold. We accept that it is cold.
If we keep resenting, why is it cold? That’s of no use. So, just as we accept our environmental weather, similarly, we need to accept our emotional weather. That means, just as the environment sometimes changes unpredictably, similarly, our emotions may also change unpredictably.
Say, two people get attracted to each other and they feel, oh, I’m in love. I’m in love with you. Now, that is one emotion, attraction.
Relationship scientists, they say that generally romance has a bench life between 9 months to 18 months. What that means is that initially these hormones get secreted and we feel attracted to someone. So, at that time, the two people may be ready to fight against the whole world.
They say, I can’t live without you. And they fight against the whole world. But after some time, as the hormonal excitement starts going down, then we start seeing the negativities in the other person.
And those same people may say after a few months, I can’t live with you. The complete opposite. So, these are emotions which will arise.
Sometimes we feel attracted to someone, sometimes we feel averse to someone. If the weather alone became the basis of our actions, if we have a job, today it’s very cold, I won’t come for my job. If we did that, then we would not be able to keep any job.
So, just as we accept the weather, it’s cold. But then I prepare myself and move on. So, similarly, sometimes we feel attracted to someone, we feel averse to someone.
So, we can’t deny the weather. Similarly, we can’t deny our emotion. But just because the emotion is present doesn’t mean that that emotion has to determine our action.
The emotion is one factor. Just like the weather is one important factor. But it is one factor in our decision of how to move on.
So, acceptance simply means that this situation and this emotion are there within me. If the unpalatable situation that might be there, which is triggering a negative emotion, if we keep resenting that, then that dissipates our energy. Resentment of reality often hurts more than reality.
Resentment of reality often hurts more than reality. And acceptance is what can minimise that hurt. Say, we were to go for a outing, a picnic, a trek with all our friends and just the night before that trek we get a flu and we are on bed with no energy to go anywhere.
Now, having a flu is uncomfortable. It is not unbearable. Okay, you feel weak, you feel a lot of tired, digressed, might feel a little feverish.
But it is not unbearable. However, if we start resenting, the mind, the inner screen eventually starts, why did this have to happen to me? All my friends are enjoying the trek, I am lying on this wretched bed. Life is so unfair.
And as we start resenting what has happened to us, that resentment will hurt us more than the flu. The flu is simply uncomfortable. But the resentment makes our situation feel unbearable.
So, acceptance simply means that we acknowledge, this is how it has happened, I accept it. We often resist accepting situations because we feel that will make us powerless. This is unfair.
This is not how it should be. We all have, when we go into any situation in life, we go in with some expectations. And when those expectations are frustrated, at that time we feel disturbed.
However, our expectations and the situation, the two are not intrinsically tied to each other. The two can be separated. So, give an example for what I mean.
The point which I am making here is acceptance, we often think of as disempowering, as passive. Why should I accept this? It’s unfair. But, I am giving analysis to explain how acceptance can empower us.
Suppose, we learn rowing. And then, we wanted to exhibit to our friends, loud ones, how nicely we row. So, we have got a boat, we have got oars and we want to exhibit the rowing in the sea.
And as we go into the boat and as we start rowing, we plan how elegantly to move our hands in a symmetric harmonious way and let the boat move smoothly. So, we have a mental picture, expectation. Our boat will just go smoothly and people will applaud.
And as we go into the atom, see, suddenly a monster wave comes over there. And the wave is so huge and so strong that it just knocks us over completely. And we are outside the boat and the oars have slipped out of our hands.
Now, if at that time if we keep moving our hands as if rowing, all that will happen is we will sink, we will drown. So, now, when the situation has changed so dramatically, we need to deal with the situation. Yes, we may not be very deep into the ocean.
We can swim and get back to the coast, to safety. But, if we are still resenting. Why? Why was my plan shattered? And still I want to execute my plan.
Still I want to row. But there is no row oars and there is no boat. So, our expectation of reality can sometimes come in the way of our dealing with reality.
And the expectation that I will row so smoothly. But, now when the reality has changed, I am here, the expectation is here, the reality is here. Expectation is not bad.
Expectation can help us to shape the situation. This is how I want to do things. That can inspire us to practise diligently, to become an expert in that field, whatever we are doing.
So, expectation can help us to shape the reality in a desirable way. In that sense, it is not bad. But, what is bad or what can be disempowering is the attachment to the expectation when the reality has changed.
So, the greater the difference between the reality and the expectation, the greater is our frustration. And, say normally if somebody is rowing on a boat and they are knocked off, it is troubling, it is annoying, we just get to the coast. But if we had this dream and at that time this happens, it is embarrassing, it is mortifying, it is even more frustrating.
But, when that happens, we can’t go along with our scripted plan to accept that the reality has changed. How do I deal with my reality? So, acceptance doesn’t mean abandoning our plan. It doesn’t mean simply being passive with respect to whatever has happened.
It just means acknowledging that this is how things are. Now, we can work to change the things also. We can plan, ok, next day I will come and next day I will do this exhibition of my skills.
That’s fine. But right now, I have to deal with the situation as it is. So, a lot of negative emotions come because of the reluctance to accept the reality.
Once there is acceptance, then a significant amount of negative emotions go down. So, as long as I am dealing with the frustrated expectation, this is how it should be, this is how it is, why is it like this? Why is it like this, not like this? That negative emotion is what disempowers us. But, if I accept it is like this, we got a job and we expected the job to be like a particular way, but then the boss turns out to be too demanding, too domineering.
As long as we are resenting it, we can’t function. We may later decide, ok, this is what I want to do, I am not going to continue with this job later. I may change the job later.
I will talk about how to act as a last part. But acceptance simply means that we stop wasting our mental energy on that which is unchangeable. And, that internal act, ok, this has happened, I accept it, I accept it.
That itself will decrease our emotional temperature. It will not solve the problem, but it will help in preventing the aggravation of the problem. So, accepting the situation helps us to move ahead.
And, for moving ahead, the second part is aspiration. Aspiration means, what is it that I aspire for in life? What is it that is really important in my life? So, generally, say, if we are, we drove here today morning from Chicago, so it was a two-hour drive. Now, if there is a lot of traffic along the way, sometimes we just go for a casual ride, and then there is too much traffic, we say, ok, I was going to see that park, but I will go some other time.
So, if something is not very important for us, we just say, I don’t want to do it. But if something is important, then, ok, this traffic is very heavy today. Let me see if there is some other route to go.
So, we can’t change the traffic. So, acceptance simply means that I accept that the traffic is bad. But, aspiration means it shifts our focus.
Where do I want to go? And, how can I get there? So, for all of us, there are things which are very important, there are things which are somewhat important, there are things which are of minor importance. And, this hierarchy of importance which is there for all of us, this gets lost if we are not clear about what is our aspiration, what is most important for us. So, the nature of emotions is that the emotions distort our perception.
They make us lose a sense of proportion. So, small things require a small response. Big things require a big response.
But, when we become emotional, small things will lead to a big response. So, if I am clear, what is my aspiration? What is it that is most important in my life? What is it that matters the most to me? So, acceptance is not about simply being passive. It is about keeping small things small, so that we can focus on the big things.
So, this if, going back to the earlier situation where we were rowing. Now, what was my aspiration? My aspiration was it that I want to become a skilled rower? That I can still do. I have learnt and I can still do.
I couldn’t exhibit on this occasion. But, I have already become by my practise a skilled rower. Or was it I wanted appreciation from my friends, my social circle of what I was doing? Okay, if that is what I wanted, then, okay, I didn’t get it this way.
Is there some other way I can get it? Do I need to do something else? Or can I do this again? A common metaphor in the bhakti yoga tradition is of a river. How the river moves steadily towards the ocean. Now, the river moves steadily, but the river doesn’t move smoothly.
Because, along the path of the river, there are many obstacles. So, sometimes if there is a big mountain, the river can’t erode that mountain. The river finds a way this way.
It may go left, it may go right, or it may just sometimes go underground and then emerge as a spring later. Or the river may just persist and veer out the obstacle. Just as the river keeps moving towards the ocean, the river is not attached to the path.
The river is attached to the purpose, you could say. Okay, if this path gets blocked, then, okay, turn around. If you look at the history of rivers, many rivers have changed paths quite dramatically.
And sometimes whole civilisations can go down if a river suddenly changes their path. And a new civilisation can emerge somewhere else if the river changes its path. So like that, our aspiration is about that which is the most important for us.
When we focus on that, then acceptance becomes easier. All of us have different aspirations in our life of what we want to do. Another word for aspiration could be purpose.
We are not afraid of pain, per se. What we are afraid of is pointless pain, purposeless pain. We are walking along the road and suddenly some thorn pricks us and we are barefoot.
That will annoy us. But suppose a thorn or a nail has pricked us and then we go to a doctor. And the doctor gives us an injection.
Now, the sensation is more or less the same. Something is pricking our body. But in the second case, we voluntarily go there.
And we may even pay the doctor to give us the injection. So, the pain itself is not what we resent. The pain, it is pointless pain.
Similarly, when we face negativity in our life, the negativity will trouble us much more if we don’t have any purpose. If this is my purpose, I can’t go this way, I’ll find this way. So often, when obstacles come in our life, that is an opportunity to go deeper inwards, to understand what is really important for us.
Say, we are in a relationship and we experience a rejection, a breakup. What did I really want by this relationship? So, often when we are moving through life, we have a certain set of goals which society may have set for us. Okay, you should be good looking, you should be wealthy, you should be like this, you should be like that.
Those may not be what is most important for us. If we are not clear about our aspiration, then the negative emotions that are caused by small, small problems, they will overwhelm us so much that they will stop us from doing what is much more important for us. We all will experience, if we are doing something very important, say, if we are going for an important meeting, and we are driving and somebody cuts across.
Now, across our road, that is annoying. But if you know, I have to go for this meeting, yes, okay, it happened, let me move on. So, the vital positive aspect for dealing with negative emotions is the aspiration to be clear about what it is that is most important for me.
The third part I talked about is analysis. Analysis simply means that in our life there are some things which we can change, some things which we can’t change. And while this seems common sense, but if we can analyse in this situation, what can I change, what can I not change? Often, our negative emotions come because we are obsessing on that which we can’t change.
That which we can’t change. And when I was one, I got polio in my leg. And I was born in India.
My parents had given vaccination to me when I was small, but somehow the doctor who had been in charge of that vaccination, he did not keep the vaccine properly. So, the vaccine became defective and it had a counterproductive effect. The vaccine, instead of protecting me from polio, the vaccine gave me the polio.
So, when that happened, my parents were, I don’t remember any of this, my parents told me about all this. But, my parents were naturally heartbroken. But as I grew up, I didn’t realise what a blessing I had in the form of my parents.
Till I grew much older, I came into my teens and then, or almost into my twenties, when first I went to an association of physically handicapped people, especially able people, and I was asked to give a talk over there. And then, after that, I was talking with other people who were also having polio or some leg issues, some physical handicap. And then, one thing struck me was that many of them were still fighting battles that were already lost.
That means, maybe it was 5 years, 10 years, 20 years, still they were resenting why that handicap had happened to them. Why they had lost a limb, why they couldn’t have a properly functional body. So, then I looked back and thought that I don’t remember in my life resenting this.
It’s a fact of my life, I have to use crutches for walking. But, just a fact, just like I have to use spectacles for seeing, I use crutches for walking. Crutches are a little more unusual than spectacles.
But, we don’t keep thinking of our spectacles all the time. So, I hardly think of the crutches. So, I went back in my life and I looked back and I realised that it was because my parents accepted me as I was.
So, I was also able to accept myself as I was. So, when my when my parents would meet some of my relatives or family or acquaintances. Sometimes when a child has a special disability, there might be some pity, some sympathy, some kind of expression of sorrow about it.
Since my childhood, I was a good student, used to do well in my exams. So, my parents, whenever somebody would speak about this, my parents would tell me that. Tell me and tell them, I would overhear.
Now, whatever he doesn’t have in physical ability, he has more than that in intellectual ability. So, that just gave me a focus on not doing so much physical activities. I couldn’t do much sports.
But, I would love to read books, study, play, speak, write. And, I was able to develop myself in that direction. This is where I am talking about analysis.
Analysis means, in our life, there are certain battles which are already lost. That doesn’t mean everything is lost. So, analysis basically is putting the previous two together.
Acceptance and aspiration. So, this particular situation, whenever a negative emotion is coming, the negative emotion becomes worse when we focus on the things that are not in our control. And, we can get a sense of power and purpose if we focus on that which is in our control.
So, analysing, what is in my control right now? And, what is not in my control? If we just ask ourselves these two questions, what is in my control? That helps us. Going back to the earlier example of suddenly somebody getting flu when they were planning to go for a trek. What is in my control? My own consciousness right now.
What I think about. What I focus on. That is in my control.
So, at all times in our life, our consciousness is always in our control. Our circumstances may not be in our control. But, we can begin inside out with consciousness.
But, this analysis is simple, but it is powerful. What is in my control right now? By default, our culture today makes us believe that we are meant to be the controllers. As compared to say 50 or 100 or 200 years ago, we have much more control over things than earlier through technology.
If the weather becomes bad, we can just use some heating or air conditioning and we can make things comfortable. If we are feeling bored, we can just turn on television and we can watch and stimulate ourselves. As technology has increased our capacity to control things, it has also created within us the conception that we are controllers.
And that is why when we are not able to control things, it becomes unbearable. But, if we understand that technology may have increased our control in some ways, but still, everything is never in our control. And somehow, because of social pressure or social expectations, sometimes we think that if I am not able to control things, then something is wrong with me.
I did a study about success and failure, how it is perceived over the centuries, 18th century, 19th century, 20th century, 21st century. So, it is from the middle of the 20th century or early start of the first half of the 20th century that failure is seen as, previously, failure was seen as a bump on the road of life. But, for many people today, failure is seen as the end of the road of life.
Failure is just an event in our life. But, when we think of us as controllers, then failure becomes the end of our life. Failure becomes the definition of a person.
This person is a failure. No, nobody is a failure. Failure might be an event that we experience in our life.
So, here I am talking about the analysis means there is something always in our control. But, if we identify that I am meant to control the situation, I am meant to control this relationship, I am meant to control this person, then we just can’t and we get frustrated. If we are parents, then we want our children to grow up in a particular way.
So, there is Mark Twain who said that when I was 15, my father was a fool. Now, I am 25 and I am amazed how much the old guy has learned in 10 years. Now, it is not that the father may also have learned, but it is just that the way people think at 15, the way people think at 25 is different.
So, if as a parent, we think that I have to be able to control my children. If I can’t control them, if I think I am a failure because of that, that is not true. The child has its own free will and they can act in a particular way which may be different from what we want.
That doesn’t make us a failure. So, analysis means what is in my control right now. And I will conclude with the last part, that is act.
So, if we focus on what is in our control, then we can create positivity even in a negative situation. There are three things that are always in our control. I refer to an acronym TAB.
If in a computer, say some horror movie is going on or something unwanted is going on, we can always just open a new tab and we can see something else. So, TAB is T in thoughts, attitude and behaviour. That means, when something bad has happened to me, what do I think about? That is in my control.
If I keep thinking about why did this bad thing happen to me, why did this happen to me, that will simply disembowel me. So, if I was going for a trek and I am now bed ridden, so I can keep thinking about what everybody else is doing and feel sorry for myself. Or, I can think of something else.
Maybe I can read a book. What we think about is always in our control. This doesn’t mean that we deny the problem.
Sometimes, we need to think about a problem to solve it. But sometimes, we need to stop thinking about the problem to solve it. Because we just keep thinking about the problem and the problem seems to become bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger.
So, life determines our problems but we determine the size of those problems. So, if we understand that what I think about is in my control, always. In fact, our spiritual practise is meant to give us an unchanging spiritual object to think about.
Ultimately, when we practise yoga, when we do kirtans, in kirtan, we sing sacred sounds. These are centred on the supreme spiritual reality. The infinite consciousness, known by different names and different traditions.
In our bhakti yoga tradition, we know him at infinite by the name Krishna. So, if we train ourselves to think of higher spiritual reality, of Krishna, of the infinite consciousness, then that will give us some strength and some solace. Because that, what we think about is in our control.
And the purpose of meditation, the purpose of spiritual practises is to make our mind attached to thinking of spiritual reality. The more we practise meditation, the more we become, it becomes easier for us to think about higher truths. And I talked earlier about elevate, elevation.
So, by our thinking, we can elevate ourselves. Now, A is attitude. That means, whatever situations happen in our life, we can’t control that situation, but we can control our attitude towards that situation.
I can see the same situation as a problem or I can see the same situation as a growth opportunity. Suppose we had to carry a huge weight. Somebody told us, carry this bag for me.
Now, because of social obligation or whatever, we can’t say no. But we might resent carrying that big bag. But we might go to a gym and there we might lift similar weights.
The action is the same. There, if somebody asks us to carry a weight, we would resent it. We would ask someone to expect something in return for that.
We go to a gym, we actually pay the gym so that we get weights to lift. So, the attitude is in our control. And if you understand that there is a higher plan, a higher purpose to life.
Higher purpose to life by which actually whatever happens is ultimately for our growth. Bad things may happen in our life, but even through those bad things, good will eventually emerge. So, if we have that, then rather than focussing on the negative, we can look for the positive with it.
We can’t be grateful for all situations, but we can be grateful in all situations. I can’t be grateful for all situations. If somebody gets a terrible sickness, it’s difficult to be grateful for the sickness.
But, I can be grateful that I have got good health insurance. I can be grateful that my disease has a cure. I can be grateful that I have a friend circle who is ready to support me, emotionally, practically.
So, we can change our attitude by looking at the positive amidst the negative. And that attitude can make a huge difference. And the last part is behaviour.
We can’t control the situation, but we can control our behaviour. How we act in our life is up to us. I’m a part of the Bhakti Yoga tradition.
This Bhakti Yoga tradition was brought to the West by many teachers. A prominent teacher was Swami Prabhupada. When he came to America, he came at the age of 69 and he had at that time, no followers, no institutional support, practically no contacts in America and he had just 40 rupees with him.
Which is, in today’s currency, less than a dollar. And he came all alone. And when he was coming, the only thing he had, you could say, the resource was his body.
And he got two heart attacks on the ship. He didn’t even have money to take a flight. He came by a cargo ship in which somebody gave him free passage.
So, at that time, you could say everything was negative. He was alone, he was penniless, he had got a heart attack. But, he had that faith that there is a higher plan.
And he prayed, Oh Lord, whatever you want, let it happen. He prayed that I am a puppet in the hands of the divine. However you want to make me dance, make me dance.
So, rather than looking at the situation which was all negative, he looked at the higher plan. And there was indeed a higher plan. He came to America in 1965 and within 10 years, he had ended up establishing 108 temples of spiritual learning across the world.
He travelled the world 14 times. He had written over 70 books. Inspired millions of people to grow spiritually.
To learn about their own spiritual strength and move forward in life. So, his action was that at that time, Okay, what is not in my control is not in my control. But, a mode of service and contribution was what helped him to move on.
Yes, in this situation, how can I serve others? How can I contribute to their spiritual well-being? He took small, small micro steps. Sometimes in our life, we are going along a particular path and suddenly the light goes off. It’s completely dark.
We may temporarily curse or rant. But, if we turn on our flashlight of our phone, the flashlight won’t show the whole light but it will show one step ahead. We take that one step, it can show the next step ahead.
And like that, we can cover a significant distance. So, this, the attitude of service and contribution, that we are here for a purpose and we can serve, we can contribute. So, if we focus on that, that will become like that light, the flashlight.
When things go wrong, when it’s dark, we turn on the flashlight. How can I serve the situation? How can I contribute to the situation? Rather than resenting, why is it not like this? Why has the light gone off? Okay, what can I do? We find that we will be able to take small, small steps forward and eventually the lights will come back. And, a better reality will emerge for us.
That way, I put it, I said that whatever life may get us to, our spirituality will get us through. Whatever life may get us to, our spirituality will get us through. I’ll summarise.
I spoke on this theme of overcoming negative emotions, second part. Instead of expressing or repressing our emotions, we process them. And, in processing, I talked about four parts.
First was acceptance. That when bad things happen, as long as we are resenting the reality, that resentment hurts us more than the reality itself. So, acceptance means that we stop fighting battles that are already lost.
Acceptance is not passivity because there are certain things which are more important for us and that brings us to aspiration. We have to do introspection to find out what is it that is most important for us. There is a path and there is a purpose.
Just like a river has a purpose to get to the ocean. But, sometimes when a particular path is blocked, river finds another purpose, another way to get to the ocean. So, we, if we become too attached to our expectations, we think, this is how things have to work out.
This is the path my life has to take. And, when that doesn’t happen, we get depressed. But, if we focus not on the path, but on the purpose.
What is my aspiration in life? Then, we will find some other path to move on. Then, I talked about analysis, wherein, I talked about how I was able to accept my polio because my parents accepted it. And, I was able to focus my energy not on presenting my physical inability, but on developing my intellectual ability.
So, we have been brought up to believe that everything is in our control. But, there are things which are not in our control, there are things in our control. Analysis focusses on what is in our control and we act positively.
So, what we think about, what attitude we have towards our situation and how we behave in the situation is in our control. And, by focussing on this tab, opening a new tab in our life, whatever life may get us to, our spirituality will get us through. Thank you very much.
Thank you.