By Sriharsh Vaidya
Contributory Author for Spark Igniting Minds
With an attitude of gratitude to the entire spark family on bringing forth the book on emotional and mental health, the subject which is gaining the attention of the entire globe today, I have attempted to put forward my thoughts on the same.
I must appreciate you for giving your valuable time to read this article. for me, anyone who is interested to read articles on emotional and mental health is a person of higher consciousness or is a person who is willing to elevate his/her consciousness to a new level. in both ways, you rise above the majority.
I believe this article will either reaffirm what you already know, or it will give you a new value-added perspective to lead a harmonious life. So, let’s get started…
For a very long time, for the majority of people, the term health meant to be physical health.
“Good health” generally reminds things like having a balanced body, good physical stamina, regular exercise, etc. the first thing that comes to mind when we talk about improving health would be joining a gym, having regular checkups, healthy food with proteins and nutrients, etc. The awareness about the impact of emotional and mental patterns on physical health is still not known to people at large. Maybe you can see people talking about stress and depression as the major cause of chronic illness etc. But still, the majority aren't having a focused approach in understanding and implementing the remedies to overcome or prevent the illness.
Let me ask you some simple questions…
Do you feel that our emotional intelligence and mental strength have a major role to play in how we lead our lives?
Do you feel there is a need to understand various factors that impact our well-being?
Do you feel that the majority of us are not guided or trained to look after the various aspects that actually determine how we live our lives?
Do you feel that most of the people are paying attention to the advanced technology that is creating amazing gadgets and machines for our comforts but not paying enough attention to explore and understand the world inside of themselves?
If your answer is yes for all the above questions, then I believe you will find further write-up interesting…
Let’s sail through some little deep knowledge from the ancient authentic scriptures...
Human beings are considered as one of the most sophisticated creations of all time. the human being is one wonder that can create many wonders. according to biologists, all human beings belong to one species whereas Vedic literature list 4,00,000 human species. in other words, there are 4,00,000 grades of human beings on different levels of consciousness. To be precise every human being attains a different level of consciousness based on how he/she chose to live life.
Every individual is an incarnated soul with two types of bodies.
The gross body which includes all our physical body elements
Subtle body which includes mind, intelligence, and false ego*
(*true ego is to understand that “I am a spirit soul; an eternal servant of God” & false ego is to think in an illusion that “I am this body”)
The reason for taking the basis of things that mentioned our existence in Vedic works of literature is because many of the times we initiate talks by considering an intermediate point rather than the originating point.
I believe to understand more about the subtle nature of our emotional or mental behaviors which determine our well-being, we first need to understand the components that we are made-up of. Do you agree that “the better we know the instrument and its nature, the better we will be able to use it for our benefits?”
Our mind, intelligence, and false ego are the major factors that determine our emotional and mental health, and that ultimately impacts our physical health condition. what is unknown to many is how these work, how these get influenced, what all things that are required to be done to alter their work patterns, and most importantly how can we master them.
Let’s first understand the benefits of having mastery of our mind and intelligence. When we know why then it’s interesting to figure out how and then it feels worth doing what is needed to do.
You can have emotional stability.
There will be harmony in all your relationships.
You can regulate your responses based on your own will unlike reacting impulsively due to external impacts.
Your decision-making ability will get improved.
You will have a bigger perspective on life.
The people around you will enjoy and value your association.
You will become a problem solver.
Your thought process will have a paradigm shift.
You will be aloof to the negative impact of other cynical behaviors.
Your ability to know and relate to others will improve remarkably.
Achieving success and wealth will become a simpler process.
Ultimately you can prepare yourself better for your next life.
it’s good to have all the above benefits in our life. but all these benefits are achievable when we deeply understand various factors that impact our mind and intelligence and what actually feeds our false ego that it will keep in an endless loop of misery or any other negative emotions.
Association: Good people good feed, bad people bad feed.
Choices: The choices you make whether it’s about your career or relationships have a significant impact on your emotions.
Environment: According to energy sciences, the aura of the environment you live in impacts your thought process.
Books & videos: What you read and what you watch programs your mind.
Social Media: Being emotionally sensitive to social media leads to a greater amount of stress levels.
Self-talks: Psychologists say that 86% of our self-talk is negative and it goes undetected by our conscious mind.
Finance & Money: Money is a concretized form of energy which is one of the strongest factors that can drastically influence any emotional pattern.
Food: According to Ayurveda it’s good to eat healthy food but it also equally important to have positive emotions while you eat.
Intoxication: each type of intoxication has its own remote and ultimate damaging phenomena.
Chemical remedies: the volume of drugs you take for curing your ailments should be assessed meticulously.
Physical Exercise: we all accumulate used up and diseased energy with time, physical exercise will remove that energy from our body. so, when we don’t do exercise we actually lead towards diseases.
Meditation & Yoga: one of the most talked and less practiced activities in the world. the mastery in the inner world is majorly done through different meditation and yogic techniques.
Coach/Guide/Mentor: to observe, guide, and train our mind we need someone who has a higher consciousness than us. many don’t get proper guidance in life.
Spirituality: to find some answers one must pursue the realm of spirituality.
Law of karma: apart from the karmic account of this life sometimes we carry certain baggage / karmic debt from our past lives also which results in misery and ignorance.
Every factor mentioned above has its own capacity to contribute to one’s life. When explored meticulously each factor can be considered as a vast subject to be studied. Deep understanding and effective management of all those factors will lead us to achieve all the desired results.
The more we open ourselves to pursue different dimensions of our existence, the better we will be able to build our life. when we understand the benefits and the factors that can make or break our emotional and mental health, the next step is to take necessary actions to make sure that you become the master of your subtle body.
In the end, I would like to share a verse from the Bhagavad Gita where Lord Krishna unveils the ultimate reason to conquer our mind.
उद्धरेदात्मनात्मानं नात्मानमवसादयेत् ।
आत्मैव ह्यात्मनो बन्धुरात्मैव रिपुरात्मनः ।।
बन्धुरात्माऽऽत्मनस्तस्य येनात्मैवात्मना जितः ।
अनात्मनस्तु शत्रुत्वे वर्तेतात्मैव शत्रुवत् ।।
(Bhagavad Gita 6.5, 6.6)
Meaning:
“Elevate yourself by your own intrinsic power. never enervate or degrade yourself. One’s self alone is one’s friend, and equally so one’s enemy”
“for one with sufficient self-control and orientation, his self will be a friend; for one devoid of this self-control and self-orientation, he himself will be his enemy”
I believe reading this article has added some value to you. Effective implementation of what I shared will lead to greater results.
I have brought many changes in my life in the last 8 months by considering all the factors that I have mentioned. The wisdom from the scriptures like Bhagavad Gita, Krsna, and the study & practice of pranic healing and various other alternative wellness solutions has played a major role in my transformation.
If you find the insights given in this article are helpful in making substantial progress in one’s emotional and mental health, then I request you to share with your near and dear ones. If you feel any need to discuss more with respect to this article and or related concepts, then please feel free to connect to me.
Hare Krishna!
(Featured Image by Okan Caliskan from Pixabay)
https://pixabay.com/illustrations/meditation-spiritual-yoga-1384758/
About the Author:
Sriharsh Vaidya is a Pranic Psychotherapist, a Life Coach, and a Licensed Practitioner of NLP. He also contributes to and supports various learning and development initiatives that focus on areas such as entrepreneurship, psychology, and spiritual science. He is an MBA with a specialization in Marketing & Finance. Before he ventured into his business in 2013, he had worked at few chemical and biotech companies.