The power of changing our perspective
It’s a common thing for us to experience emotions directly through the body. For example, when we go out to meet someone whom we love a lot, we walk lightly with our hearts pounding with excitement, whereas anxiety might tighten our muscles and make our hands sweat and tremble before an important job interview, right? Numerous studies carried out over the last decade or so have established that emotion systems prepare us to meet challenges encountered in the environment by adjusting the activation of the cardiovascular, skeletomuscular, neuroendocrine and autonomic nervous systems.
This link between emotions and bodily states is also reflected in the way we speak or behave. For example, a young girl who is about to get married in a week’s time may suddenly have cold feet and experience nervousness. Similarly, those lovers who have had a bad break-up and are heartbroken may experience a shiver down their spine on hearing their favourite song being played somewhere. To put it in simple words, all the above examples mean that our thoughts and feelings can affect our body directly, and they can very well have an effect on what we think, what we feel and what we do.
Shakespeare rightly said, “For there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” The fact is that even though we are not faced with sabre-toothed tigers every day, life presents us with lots of situations which can be perceived as threatening, naturally triggering a stress response from within us. For example, if you climb the stairs instead of taking a lift to your fourth-floor apartment and, immediately after entering your home, you experience uncomfortable symptoms like a pounding heart and excessive sweating, you might instantly have the thought: “Gosh, I’m not as fit as I used to be; maybe I need to see my doctor and get a thorough check-up.”
Now suppose that instead of having a negative thought on entering home, you just sit down calmly and do a simple deep-breathing exercise. You may feel completely fine in a few minutes and continue with your day as usual, without any great change in how you feel. This example clearly shows that the same experience, if interpreted differently, can result in very different feelings and emotions.
Today, most of us are living in body consciousness resulting from the false identification of the self with the body. Such limited identities then influence our thoughts and actions and give rise to emotions like insecurity, fear, selfishness and hatred. Thus, those who are ignorant of the soul are severely bound by their body, and they think, act and live their whole lives in a narrow, limited way that makes everything in their lives limited.
Hence, in order to live a liberated life, we need to realise the truth that we are all spiritual beings in a human body and, birth after birth, we continue to play different roles. Thus, by being soul-conscious, we can transcend our fears, attachments and vices, and we can also conquer the fear of death and any kind of physical loss, thereby experiencing our original qualities such as peace, joy and love in an unlimited way.
The writer is a spiritual teacher and a popular columnist; Views presented are personal.
