Best Left Where It Belongs

Alina is an urban youngster at thirty-one, employed with a renowned MNC, best performer at work, popular with friends but unfortunately also suffers from a condition known as SAD (social anxiety disorder) that may lead to a complete nervous breakdown any day. She needs help.

In case you too are an emotional vagabond and to push anything and everything against its natural flow, is your tendency, there is a popular Osho saying for you to sleep on, ‘Easy is right’. That’s the kind of inner acceptance you may require to course correct your approach in life.

What made Alina’s case unique is the fact that from a distance, everything seems alright and well under her control. But during therapy sessions, her revelations about her core belief systems were startling! They did not support her current actions at all. She was swimming against the tide and she had no idea how to return from there. All the temporary façade she had woven around herself, could effectively hide the actual problem she was triggered towards, or so she thought.

Being on her case, made me analyse human psychology at various precarious levels. How would she walk back to her original self and her core values after almost reaching the other side?.

There are a few underlying learnings in this case for everyone who is still trying to fight against their natural flow of thoughts, emotions, conditions and environment, giving in to the competitive ask of their ambitious lives.

A careful observation around yourself will prove it time and again that, anything substantial that matters in life, unless that effortlessly makes its way towards you, is not going to turn out right in the end.

Just imagine your life to be the dot where it all began, and then the amount you digress from that dot, is the amount of grief life can give you. You will constantly be at a stretch from your core and suffer. Staying where we truly belong, mentally, emotionally and spiritually, simulates our soul and of course solves all self-initiated problems.

But external influences in life can push us against our will and still put us in the guilt quite often of not living up to it. We also accept this guilt as reality and that mounts up as an anxiety of performance.

Taking a thoughtful cue from Alina’s case, I have summed up six observations and their subsequent inferences, which can help remould your weak links with self and reinstate your original belief system, where you truly belong:

Tampering with the natural flow of talent: If you are a genius, all chances are that you will shine. But if you are an active participant in empty competition with the rest, you must learn to lose as well at times. It's fine to lose, rework, resubmit and then claim your worth. Curb the tendency to fight with self.

Let the lag be sometimes: The deadlines are there for a reason, but the reason can’t be traded with your mental health and energy all the time. There is a burn out zone for every one of us. Take a breather and take your time. You are not slow, just sanely human.

The Balancing act: There may have been long lost hobbies, that you have left behind. It’s time to give them a wake-up call and high time they return for your mental rescue. This is one therapy that can keep you going for longer than you think. Balance your work and personal life. One is useless without the other.

Keep up the practical side: Work on your practical side more in comparison to your emotional one. Staying ahead should always be a practical decision. Any other superficial, temporary feeling that makes you feel attached to your job, assignment or work must be dropped there and then.

The bigger picture matters: The plan always needs to have a larger objective and goal setting. If it does not matter after five years, you can confidently drop it for now. This approach will keep you much stronger emotionally and lighter mentally. The focus will be sharper on your long term goals and less on the in-betweens.

Un-victim yourself: Even if you like playing the victim card superficially to get your work done, at least don’t start believing in it. To walk out of one situation after your work is done is the best approach to have.

There is definitely no harm in dreaming big for yourself, but if that comes at the cost of losing personal balance and makes you live a superficially impressionable life from the fear of social stigma, it’s not acceptable.

Own your thoughts and do not tweak your limits for someone else, for you never know how far this flight is destined to take you. Steer clear, stay grounded and be you.