What is the spiritual recourse amidst abusive relationships?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
on expectations then what about abusive relationships and what are the spiritual recourse see whenever we face a difficult situation a difficulty there are broadly three responses that are possible one is we change ourselves and tolerate the situation second is to change the situation and make the other person or the circumstances change third is we walk away from the situation now whatever be the specific problem there are three these three broad patterns of responses that are possible for us and it is not that one is right and the other is wrong each of them will be appropriate at different times we see in the lives of the pandavas initially when they tried to poison bhima they tried to burn them when the pandavas at one hour just change themselves and tolerate this is a family issue don’t i don’t bring it in public keep it private don’t um so they did that but eventually when draupadi was dishonored at that time the line was crossed and after that the panda was ready to fight a war so they initially were changing themselves but they said now such adharmic rulers cannot be allowed to be in break never been so soon they fought to change the situation and eventually when krishna departed from the world when the panda was also retired he walked away our role in this world is over we are leaving so whether to change ourselves whether to change the other person whether to walk away from the situation now walking away is different from running away in running away we are so we are still obsessed with that particular situation this is so problematic i just want to go away from it so where we are going is not as important at that time as where we are going away from whereas walking away means they understand you know i have more better things to do in my life i have i don’t want to waste my life in trying to resolve this mess so i walk away from it so now which particular response will be appropriate in our situation we cannot decide based on impulses so spiritually it is it is best if we before making any major decision in our life especially my relationship that is important for us you know we try to spiritually ground ourselves then spiritual practices bring a certain level of calmness within us and when the calmness is there then from that clarity so when the emotions are very strong we can’t think very clearly that doesn’t mean the emotions are wrong emotions can be strong and they can be right or they can be strong and they can be wrong they need to be evaluated so by by by chanting by studying scriptures by coming to temple by these devotional practices we bring a certain level of calmness in our in our consciousness from that calmness clarity will emerge and we can if we have a relationship with some some senior devotees some spiritual practitioners whoever we practice we can we can consult them and we can take their guidance also ultimately it’s our decision to take one thing which we can do is that we can often get our thoughts outside our head that means when thoughts are inside they congest eat us up mentally why is he doing this what should i do what should i do what should i do just get the thoughts get the thoughts out of you you can write them in a journal you write them down just the the part of the thoughts come outside it brings a certain level of objectivity and then when they’re out there you can evaluate it this you just first write them down and after that this makes sense this means not immediately after that let it come let down maybe a day or two pass then evaluate and then instead of when when perplexing or resentful situations are there in our life we just eat up our mental image so instead of just letting them constantly gnaw at the back we decide okay every day i’ll give some time for thinking about this other times i just go on with my life and then if we it’s the major decision we may decide to to write down our thoughts and revisit maybe write some fresh insights write some additional perspective if you do that for one month two months three months and if you overall see okay my overall thoughts emotions are remaining the same then this is not just an impulsive reaction to our trouble this is actually this is what how i feel strongly consistent then we can choose a particular course of action basically when we write down our thoughts we are getting a snapshot of our mind and sometimes the mind is full of emotions that are knee-jerk reactions but sometimes the mind is full of emotions that are actually the way we consistently think and whether it’s just a knee-jerk reaction coming from a particular circumstance or whether it’s a consistent consistent inclination of feeling that we have that we can evaluate when we see over a consistent period of time and based on that evaluation then we can make a decision so when we have done a decision after such kind of evaluation the result is that whatever decision they will take we will follow it through because otherwise after we take a decision maybe i could have tried this maybe i could have tried that that kind of indecision or half-heartedness will eat us up also but if we have thought deeply and we have written down this is the pros of this the cons of this and this is what i have decided this is why i have decided this then we can avoid the mind making us go back and second guess ourselves we give time for deliberation and after that we take a decision and we move forward wholeheartedly