When we can’t avoid anxiety what can we do?

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So when we can’t avoid anxiety and depression then how can we be calm or grateful in those situations See, we can’t be grateful for all situations but we can be grateful in all situations Now what do I mean by this difference? That I can’t be in fact yeah, so at the end of the talk I will give you a handout which you can, the reflection which you can carry with you, but basically there are sometimes in life when bad things do happen and when bad things happen it’s very difficult to have a positive emotion about that bad thing If I’ve been diagnosed with some disease now it’s very difficult for me to be grateful for that disease What do you mean? How can we be grateful for that disease? But even in that situation I can’t be grateful for that situation but I can look at what is good in that situation Yeah, I’ve got this disease but I have a supportive family, I have good friend circle, I have a good doctor who is guiding me well, I found the diagnosis this treatment is known to work, so I can be still, I can still look at the good things in my life and be grateful for those good things The nature of the mind is that especially our mind when it is filled with negative impressions, it just fixates on the negatives, this has gone wrong and when it goes wrong then it is that wrong that has happened that zooms up within us and that occupies our mind completely so that bad event that has happened, that’s happened and as an inner screen it’s representation is going to come as a window on our inner screen that’s also there, but how much do I obsess on it? Okay, I’ve got this disease, that’s true it may be a major disease, I have to deal with it but if I just keep looking at bad and keep feeling sorry for myself then the problem is going to become worse but if I turn and look at what is good in my life at that time so then we can be relatively more peaceful, the nature of the mind is, it always tends to be dissatisfied to look at, this is not there, this is not there like sometimes if we have some children we give them 50 toys and they go to the go to a shop and they say want a 51st toy, I want this toy he says, no not now, I want this toy no not now I want this toy, no not now and the child starts crying throwing a tantrum and the child says to the mother you don’t love me only now the mother has given 50 toys and not just toys, the mother has provided so much for the child but the child just looks at that one thing which has not been provided and from that one thing that is not given, the child starts saying you don’t love me only similarly for us the inner screen that mind is like that child, that means there may be many good things in our life but the one thing that is wrong that’s what we obsess on and then this is not working, that means nobody cares for me, nobody loves me one of my friends is a mental health care counsellor and he was telling me he responds to suicide calls somebody just calls and there is suicide watch or sometimes people are about to commit suicide then just before committing suicide you can call on this line and then talk with them and people may console them or if somebody has committed suicide, they are rushed to their place and then they try to save them he was telling about this girl she was in a relationship with a boy and they were having some ups and downs in the relationship, but this girl called this boy and the boy didn’t pick up the phone and just from that thing, the girl tried to commit suicide it was just a missed call, she thought oh, this boy didn’t pick up didn’t pick up my phone he doesn’t love me, means that now I am alone, I am unloved if he didn’t love me, maybe no one else will also love me I will always stay alone and single and I will have a lonely life I am unloved I am unlovable, what is the use of my life and she tried to commit suicide now somebody not picking up a phone call how big is the thing is that but the mind can work in such a way that one call not responded can be made into a devastating event so I am giving this as an example to illustrate that that the bad thing may be there in this case it was not even a really bad thing the boy was just busy he himself was very apologetic, I didn’t pick up the phone call but he never imagined that she would try something like this because of that but the thing is that sometimes a small thing can be made by the mind into a big thing and even a big thing is there it doesn’t have to be made the only reality of life our mind is such that even if we went to paradise where everything is good everything is as we want the mind will say yes but so it will always find something which is not to the mark that’s why the bad things will happen and it is difficult to be grateful for the bad thing but what we can do is in that bad thing if we shift our vision to what are the good things in my life that can give us some perspective that can give us some peace and then we can deal with that bad thing better