Creating Our Mental Sanctuary

Tags

healing, mental body, mental health, sanctuary, wellness

He would often be standing by the wrought iron gate that led to the small stone patio in front of my grandparent’s home. A tall, handsome figure, his silent presence would convey some unknown greeting from behind his large, sunken eyes. On every weekly visit, we kids would wonder – what kind of mood is he going to be in today? We kids  were told that he was a brilliant young man, and that he had an ‘almost drowning’ while serving in the Navy, which affected his brain. I hoped that my aunt (his older sister, who raised me) or my grandfather (his father) would be spared his rage which would sometimes pour forth in an unmitigated verbal barrage of obscenities.The two people that he rarely tangled with were the two ladies of the home – his mother and his sister-in-law. I remember watching him drink his evening cup of tea with such peace, standing outside the kitchen or at that wrought iron gate. His moments of silence seemed to be as deep and impactful as his lapses of rage. 

On Tuesday of this week, I stumbled upon the fact that many organizations across the world were observing “World Mental Health” week. I am not sure why, but after all these decades, the memories of my dear Uncle came flowing through my mind. Buried deep within my own brain’s cognition, the memory of his pain returned to my awareness. It made me ask the question – what actions and practices can we, as travelers on our spiritual journeys, take, to create mental sanctuaries – for ourselves, and those who cannot create them for themselves? Some answers were revealed in a live webinar titled “Love and Compassion for Mental Well-Being”, which I attended on Wednesday morning. The three practices, not in any particular order, that emerged from this conversation were:

1. Work to remove Isolation. Those, like my Uncle, who suffer from chronic inner pain due to improper mental health, often choose inner and outer isolation. Isolation becomes their sanctuary, because it is perhaps their only safe space. When we observe such a tendency towards isolation, within us and in others, we can work towards reaching out and taking action towards its mitigation. Even though my Uncle lived in the same house with his family, I am sure that he felt isolated in many ways, because nobody really knew how to  engage with him in a way that would be meaningful to him.  

2.  Choose Self-Compassion. We, in the #SpiritChat community often talk about the practice of compassion, and how we ought not to forget to apply compassion to our own selves. We are often more aware of being compassionate towards others, than towards ourselves. Why is self-compassion essential to creating a mental sanctuary? One reason is that “self-compassion is necessary because it is an antidote to shame”. We may have been raised in a family, a relationship, a work environment that inflicted shame upon us. Self-compassion helps us break the circle of shame, and allows for healing to enter the mind. With compassion, we can create an environment for a new, healthy mental sanctuary to emerge. 

3. Create a New Self-Image. How do we see our own self? Our image of our self is often created on the lens of our mind by the impressions of our past experiences, our current life situation, and what we expect our future to be like. A mental lens that is overly clouded with impressions, weak and strong, can affect our mind and heart. Regular practice of (self) forgiveness can help us clean some of these impressions. As our heart forgives, we become lighter, we admit new light that can create a clear, new, radiant, brilliant self-image. A new self-image, when combined with self-compassion, erases self-hatred. 

Those who are suffering due to poor mental health, often do not have the resources to break the triangle of isolation, lack of love, and lack of compassion that becomes their ’sanctuary’. It thus becomes our responsibility – all of us who have the resources of love, compassion and companionship to offer – to offer the sanctuary of these three, to them and to ourselves, with kindness and grace. Will we choose to share, to create a new sanctuary? Or will we let the suffering continue?

Kumud 

P.S. Join us in our weekly twitter chat, Sunday October 13 at 9amET / 630pm India. We shall share some love, compassion and companionship – and share our practices which can help each other create healthy mental sanctuaries. I also invite you to reach out to someone you may not have heard from in a while, who may be feeling ’isolated’, and ‘check-in’ on them. Maybe even invite them to some ‘tea and cookies’. Namaste – @AjmaniK

The bridge that leads to one of my ‘sanctuaries’

Inner Workings of the Mind

Tags

mental body, mind, spiritchat, spirituality

In the book titled “Light on Life – The Yoga Journey to Wholeness, Inner Peace, and Ultimate Freedom”, the author BKS Iyengar dedicates an entire chapter to a discussion about “the mental body”. Specifically, the author delves into the working of the mind, and the elements that constitute the mental body. The intersection of the physical mind, the ego, intelligence, and our consciousness, is where the mental body is said to reside.

We are all too familiar with the mind as the pathway for thoughts. Our behavior, constructive and destructive, seems to be dependent on our thoughts. The mind tends to run wild with thoughts all day long, and very often, the more we try to control them, the more frustrated we get. Some of us may have tried techniques like meditation, mindfulness, self-awareness and more, in an attempt to bring our wandering thoughts under control. In fact, this may be one of the toughest tasks of all – “to still the movement and fluctuations of our mind that disturb our consciousness”.

Let us step back a bit. If we want to repair something that is not working well for us, it would behoove us to first know how it works. Similarly, an understanding of how our minds actually work, can provide us the key(s) to the origin of our thoughts. We can then employ tools and techniques, which may help us still their movement. If we practice enough, and master these techniques, we would have overcome a significant obstacle on our spiritual journey – the distracted, unruly mind.

Indulge me for a few moments. Imagine a quiescent lake, perfectly still, with no ripples on its surface, or below the surface. Quiescent and translucent. If one were to throw a stone into the lake, the stone would sink, and cause waves on the surface that would appear as concentric circles around the point of impact. In addition, the sinking stone would create waves in the depths of the waters – waves that an observer standing on the shore would not see clearly, but they exist. So, there is breadth and depth to the disturbances created by the stone falling into the lake.

Now, imagine, that our mind is like that lake. It is constantly being pelted by stones, which are the external inputs from our five senses of touch, taste, smell, hearing and sight. In addition, memory from past inputs, stored by our brain, creates additional inputs. Every input creates surface waves, which manifest as our external actions, and are perceived as positive or negative reactions by others. Every input to the mind also creates depth waves, which may be said to manifest as inner reactions, say, our emotions. It would seem that one way to lessen the disturbances in our mind, is to decrease the inputs that it receives – the fewer the inputs, the fewer the chances that surface waves (reactions) and depth waves (emotions) would perturb us.

This is perhaps why practices like self-care, silence, stillness, solitude and such are on the rise in modern society. We are waking up to the awareness, the realization, that unless we teach and train ourselves to modulate our inputs, our mental ‘lakes’ have no chance to withstand the perturbations. In the absence of modulation, we slowly degenerate into a lake full of dangerous algae, whose water becomes undrinkable. And if our minds cannot be free of perturbation, even for a few moments, we have no chance of experiencing the Joy that comes with inner peace. It is inner peace that opens the door to that awareness, to that consciousness, to that joy – which lies beyond the mind – and gives credence and credibility to our spiritual practice(s).

Thank you for reading this far. It is perhaps self-contradictory that I talk about “stilling the mind” while giving you even more “food for thought”! But I won’t stop here. I invite you, on behalf of the #SpiritChat community, to join us on Sunday August 17th at 9amET in our weekly twitter chat. We will talk about the importance of overcoming mental chatter, developing a quiescent mind, and its relationship to enhanced consciousness.

My friends, my brothers and sisters – may your lake be still, and may peace and light be yours…

Namaste.

Kumud