If you could pin-point one root cause for all your problems, what would it be?
The answer may surprise you – it’s so simple that you may be blind to it – and the reason why you are blind to it is that it involves those very individuals who you are in contact with regularly or irregularly in your life.
Do this exercise:
- At the end of the day today make a count of those people who you came in close contact with. This can be anyone – gas station attendant, grocery store cashier, bank teller, spouse, house cleaner, teacher, child, boss, co-worker, enemy, friend, etc.
- Now make an emotional assessment of your interaction. This can be a positive, neutral or negative impact to your emotional level.
- A positive impact is something that elevates your mood. It’s an action that someone takes that increases the level of happiness within. This can be a compliment someone says to you about the way you look or takes some action to help you out.
- A neutral impact is something that has no impact to your mood. It may be a quick interaction where someone just says “hi” or “bye” or simply “have a nice day.”
- A negative impact is something that the interaction does to trigger a pain-body within you. You may get into a fight that increases anxiety. You get cut off driving in your lane that triggers anger. You are criticized at work by your boss which increases stress.
- Evaluate all those interactions. How do you feel about the interaction? Did the interaction make you happy, sad, mad, etc?
- Keep those interactions that are neutral or positive on one side and focus on those that are negative. What does this negative assessment do to you? How do you feel? Did the interaction stress you out, make your anxious, make you angry, make you sad? How does your body feel?
What will be revealed in all circumstances that is the root cause behind all your problems is this: people. Specifically, it is the action someone takes on you that has a negative effect on you. It is very much the gift of pain they have given you that you have accepted.
It’s what people do or don’t do to you that is the source behind your pain. Every action that is performed in the kingdom we belong to (the Human Kingdom) is performed by a human being – not animals, not plants. Neither of these kingdoms can impact your emotional level as they don’t have the capacity to reason, compute and judge you.
However, people do – they question, debate, and find reasons for everything and it’s this very action that will drive you to insanity. The worse is that, in many cases, we are attached to people – particular those close to us such as parents, sisters, brothers, grandparents, friends, etc.
Here are some characteristics of most people today; they:
- Have no concept of letting people be as is. They will make comments about anyone’s action at any time of day.
- Are seeking control. Being king of the human jungle is a goal.
- Want power. They take pride in looking down on others.
- Only want their view-point to be heard. Who cares about listening to others and what they say –the concept of only “what-I-say” prevails.
- Love questioning the actions of all people. If they are on doing something opposite to what others are doing, they will question it.
- Gossip. This is so easy over a cup of coffee or tea. Why talk about me when I can talk about the person who lives down the street.
- Are bored in life. Many people have no hobbies. Since they are not able to do anything. Observing and questioning others becomes a hobby.
- Have no sense of individuality. They can’t make a decision on their own. They need to ask others, be with others and do things with others. They can only act if others walk beside them.
These characteristics of people are what you need to be cognizant of. Increase your awareness of these kinds of people. Now, not everyone is like this. You will know who I am talking about as we don’t need to be involved in finger-pointing at all people in our life. Your body and mind will tell you about the comfort level you have with some people.
Now, what we need to be aware of is what happens to our bodies when we have a pain-body. For example, a person does something to piss you off – say, a spouse buys an expensive watch without your input. Now, your anxiety level increases making your stomach churn out gastric juices.You fume inside creating acid in your stomach and now “milk of magnesia” is the answer to your problem. Get my point?
Bodies of pain don’t become pain-bodies unless they have an adverse effect on our bodies. It’s only when you become attached to the emotion such as anger that anger takes over. It’s only when you become attached to anxiety that anxiety takes over you.
If you recognize the state of emotion and detach yourself from it – your body thrives and survives. If the emotion takes you over, your body decays.
The quality of the ties you have with people will be the foundation for your happiness. But now – here is the challenge: how do you stop interacting with people? We love to meet others, socially network, exchange Facebook messages, and call our friends.
Our lifestyle revolves around people – yet people are the reason behind our problems. This is the dilemma – we can’t live with others, we can’t live without others. What a problem!
I am not going to tell you to stop interacting with people. In fact, interaction is necessary to create a world that is non-violent. It is only with your actions that are non-violent toward others that only non-violence can be possible to rub off on them. So interaction is important.
What is the solution if people are the problem? To detach yourself from the emotion you feel when you are interacting with others. Furthermore, to increase discovery of enjoying all aspects of life at the individual level and not relying on others for your happiness.
This is the fun of living life – and the art is not to get pissed, angry, sad, stressed by others for prolonged periods of time. Think of it as a workout where you get your heartbeat up and then can quickly bring it to a stable level within minutes – this is a sign of a healthy person.
Recognize the emotions of pain as soon as they happen. As soon as you start talking to your body and say “I am angry” and recognize you are angry and try to figure out why you are angry, that the road to defeating your emotional state will begin.
Once this is done, you would have started to create a world within you that is more peaceful which allows your body and mind to thrive.