Getting Past the Downpour...

I am almost certain a many of us absolutely relish a rainy day filled with thunderstorms! At least I do. It’s one of my favorites. I love watching the rain drops splashing on the window panes and creating sweet melody. It brings a unique joy to my day and instantly uplifts my mood. Curling up by the fireplace with a cup of tea while it’s raining is my perfect concept for a day off from work. 

Although rain and clouds are not the only ones that can bring a downpour, on quite a contrary note sometimes in life we experience a heavy downpour of thoughts and emotions, of past and painful and of difficult situations and events in our present. The thunderstorms are often heavier than the ones we enjoy with a cup of tea and the aftereffects quite devastating. The downpour of emotions clutters our mind and put a thick sheet of frost on our senses. Our mental faculty turns numb and everything seems frigid, cold and unhappy. The chain of thoughts seems to choke every happiness we have ever known and experienced. In other words we feel low, depressed, miserable and stuck in a low tide. Other people’s actions or unhappy events leave us drained and dejected. When stuck by one such thunderbolt of emotions how to get past the downpour is a question worth a million dollars! Like everything else in life, keeping check on a situation that takes you and your senses by storm is not easy. However with awareness, conscious effort and a strong determination to stay connected with the realized self, everything is possible and achievable.

The fact is that the real cause of such emotional overhaul does not lie anywhere outside in other people’s actions or unhappy events or unpleasant situations, the actual or the root cause resides within us. Our deep attachment and fondness of particular person, situation, and object becomes the cause of our future miseries. Every attachment is born with an equally powerful fear of losing it. We condition ourselves to live in a world where favorable people, situations and things make us happy and even a slight exposure to unfavorable, unpleasant or inconvenient causes aversion, anger, pain and hostility. When we’ve achieved some condition that makes us feel whole and complete, we want everything to stay exactly as it is. The deeper our attachment is to whatever provides us with this sense of completeness, the greater our fear of losing it, and the more brutal our pain if we do lose it.

The solution to taking hold of your emotions and saving yourself from taking a plunge into a sad state of mind is simply the art of balancing the pleasant and unpleasant, happy and unhappy, favorable and unfavorable with an equal sense of neutrality. With spiritual knowledge and practice we can reach the platform where we maintain a reasonable distance between our senses and our reaction to environment around us. We neither get ecstatic on our achievements nor do we feel devastated upon losing something we consider highly valuable. If you think this is something very hard to practice, think again. Just like over the years we have conditioned ourselves to live in the ‘fairyland’ where everything is happy and rosy, with just a little bit of conscious effort we can train our mind to experience life with a fairly grounded sense of detachment. By detachment I do not mean not having a love for things you like but rather enjoying the love for life without getting stuck in the quagmire of complicated emotions. Living the life in its fullness and totality rather than within the miseries of split emotions. Just like a person traveling in a train still enjoys the pleasure of journey by just watching the passing by landscapes and stations from a distance without necessarily getting down or involved, the same way we can live through different phases of life with a sense of admiration and wonder without getting emotionally attached to it!

Just like nothing in this world is permanent so is the pain or anger or situation that you are experiencing. ‘This too shall pass’ is the mantra for testing and turbulent times and with the right attitude of ‘Non-Involvement’ the time shall pass reasonably easily and fairly quickly.

 By experiencing both the good and bad as command and wish of God and treating harsh situations as the ones ultimately strengthening and grooming us for a better tomorrow, you can instantly guard your emotions from getting involved!  There is some good hidden in every testing situation, which we may not be able to see right away but it will unsurface itself when its time and you will be glad that you had the opportunity to go through the experience that made you the person you are today. Get past the downpour because there is a brand new shiny day awaiting you...go ahead and embrace it!