A HEALTHY EMOTIONAL DIET FOR THE MIND 🤔

We all know, Architecture discipline is very different from other courses. ‘Architecture Design’, the main subject can be a daunting process, especially for those who are new to it. Thus, having a clear and fit mind becomes absolute necessity for students pursuing architecture and nurturing it continuously becomes very important. Here, we share ‘Soul Sustenance’ articles compiled by Ar. Ashish (alumnus CCA) about nurturing your mind for positive effect.

A Healthy Emotional Diet For The Mind

Let us choose a healthy emotional diet by incorporating 5 simple steps in our lifestyle –

1. Avoid reading newspaper, watching news channels or even TV shows that are very
emotionally stimulating, as the first thing in the morning. Instead, let us spend at least 15
minutes to read or listen to pure and empowering messages. To beat time constraints,
we may even combine it with our morning routine of walk, exercise, while cooking or
travelling to work. This way we begin our day with a healthy breakfast for the mind.

2. Choose one positive point from what you read in the morning and create an affirmation.
Customize the thoughts to suit our personal, current life situations. Let us remember that
affirmations should aim at what we already have or what we want in reality. After every
hour, pause for a minute and repeat the affirmations along with visualizing the thoughts.

3. Let us delete negative messages on WhatsApp even without reading, ignore such
messages on Facebook or any other social media. Let us not read critical opinions about
anyone, a joke showing someone in poor light, a message that shows bias for a person,
religion, place, political views and so on. Once we read the message, we have
consumed it. It influences our thoughts not only about that particular issue, but even
otherwise we tend to create thoughts of criticism, anger and pain. We are what we read,
watch and listen.

4. Avoid watching news, daily TV shows or reading the newspaper at bedtime. Instead, set
aside 10 minutes before going to sleep to absorb positive information. This ends our day
well and calms the mind so that we enjoy good sleep. It also ensures our last thoughts
for the day are not scattered around any negativity.

5. Let us always carry a positive book or messages and talks on our phone. Any moment
we feel disturbed or low, immediately read or listen. Even a 5-minute intake of elevated
and positive information in the day stops the series of negative thoughts in our mind. The
message may give us a solution to our problem. The instant healthy diet strengthens the
soul and gives us the power to create a positive response. This is our emotional first aid
kit.

We saw how to avoid consuming negative emotional diet from the print, electronic and social media. We also came up with simple steps for our emotional detoxification.
Let us now become aware of another very common and critical source of negative information.
It comes from people around us – where we live, our extended family, friends, acquaintances or office colleagues. What they often talk to us is about things we can do nothing about – like problems, issues, sanskars or behaviours of other people. But we listen to this information with attention. Listening to such information means consuming a harmful emotional diet.

Whatever we listen to, becomes our perspective not only about a person we are listening about, but it also now becomes a part of our thought process.

When someone gives an opinion about a person, it is not necessarily the truth. Such people are only sharing their perspective based on their sanskars. Don’t we see what happens in
relationships or at the workplace – how someone with a sanskar of criticism, someone with a sanskar of jealousy, someone with a sanskar of worry talks about other people?

The first layer of wrong emotional diet fed to us is about the weakness of the person being
talked about. Second layer is of the weakness of the person talking to us. We add the third layer of our own weakness by listening to it. So, we end up consuming three layers of fattening emotional diet. It is only a negative baggage we will carry. If we want to be light and happy, we need to protect ourselves from such diet.

We saw the impact of listening to people who talk to us about things we can do nothing about and decided that we stop listening to them. To do this, most of us tend to tell the other person –
Let us not waste our time. Actually we must say – Let us conserve our energy. We may all have time on our side but we are already weak emotionally. Indulging in waste conversations depletes us further.

Below options help us to stay away from a negative emotional diet. Using any of them will be
beneficial to us, to the person talking to us, and to the one being talked about –

Option 1: Have the power and ability to decline politely but assertively that we do not want to
listen about anyone else’s issues, sanskars or behavior. We need to handle the situation exactly the way we consciously watch our physical diet – we refuse to eat certain negative things, regardless of how tempting they are, or how lovingly they are offered. Let us extend this discipline here by plainly refusing poor emotional diet.

Option 2: Progress the conversation from being problem-oriented to solution-oriented. Shift the focus on how the person talking to us should handle the situation, so that issues he or she has with the other person are resolved. We are then discussing about the sanskar of the person talking to us and not about the sanskar of the person who is not present.

Option 3: Shift perspective of the person talking to us. We can help them look at all the positives in the person they are talking about. When complaining about someone, people fail to acknowledge the good qualities of the person they complain about.

Option 4: Let us not be passive listeners, quietly nodding at everything being said. It gives rise to our approval of the views. Too often, we hear out someone in the name of courtesy,
obligation, or fear that our refusal to listen will hurt our relationship. Just as we do not feel bad when refusing to eat anything unhealthy for the body, we should refuse anything unhealthy for our mind. It’s good for us and them.

Our first responsibility is our own physical, emotional and spiritual wellness. So just as we take care of the body, let us also take care of nurturing the mind.We explored that we are what we read, watch and listen. We also evaluated how to avoid taking in negative information from people taking to us about someone we can do nothing about.
Let us now see what options we have, to tackle another similar situation – a person wants to
share what someone else says about us –
Option 1: Let us listen to the opinion about us. If there is something we can do about it, we must by all means do it. Else we ignore it completely and not think about it and carry it like a
baggage. Let go.
Option 2: Like it happens many times, it may just be an opinion that is exaggerated and
influenced by many people based on their sanskar. So the version that reached us can be
extremely different from the original. Again, let go. If needed, we can talk directly to the person whose opinion we have received. We do this only if there are issues which need to be resolved.
Option 3: We can politely refuse to hear the information. Let’s make it clear to the one sharing it with us – Please share what others are saying about me, only if you feel there is something I need to do about it.
By choosing any of the above options, we increase our will power. We will also begin to take
only healthy information. Such situations test us. By facing them well, our wrong sanskars and negativity finish. Let us remember that if we consciously refuse consuming negative information twice or thrice, people around us will stop bringing up such matters to us.
The most important benefit is that the soul gets strengthened. When the soul is strengthened, all our weaknesses are removed. We know that we cannot work on individual weaknesses like finishing anger, finishing fear and so on. But when the soul becomes powerful, all weaknesses ago away. It is comparable to our physical health – if our immunity is high, we don’t have to fight individual illnesses like cold or fever, our immune system prevents them all.

Compiled by Ar. Ashish

Source :- Soul Sustenance Articles