Taking Charge

Nisha JamVwal walks you through the emotional rollercoaster that is life

If I were to describe our times, I’d say two things stand out in this era – technology and stress. On one hand we live in zappy times of social media and holograms, but on the other side of these exciting happenings are stress, selfishness, envy and angst. Yes, I am a victim too, so trust me; you’re hearing it from the horse’s mouth. When we overlap personal pain, angst, stress at work and hormonal upheaval, have you noticed how we offload baggage onto our loved ones? That’s only one part of the problem. The other is when we allow tough times to collide with the other aspects of our life and cast a dark shadow on relationships by not separating problems. That’s when we set out into the pattern of constantly seeking reassurance.
In an example drawn from a recent stressful phase I went through personally just this year, I find in hindsight that I became oversensitive and began to question the love and care of people whom I would otherwise have known had nothing but affection for me. In one instance, my friend had not replied to some messages of mine and I had attributed all sorts of issues to our relationship and computed some unrelated coincidences and created a mountain of tiny molehills. The reality was that she had left her phone in a cab and lost all her contacts along with her phone. The molehills are part of life, but to collect and magnify them is to form a big mountain of problems which is detrimental to one’s equanimity and peace of mind.

THE DOWNHILL JOURNEY
Difficult times affect us and can cause us to be unreasonable and less rational when dealing with near and dear ones. I experienced this in the last year and found that especially in the more intimate relationships one can become less involved and nearly find it difficult to enjoy time together. The obvious answer is to push oneself to objectively compartmentalise problems and not allow them to spill over onto every personal and work aspect of one’s life. It is when we are unable to objectively separate our troubles from other aspects of our life that we enter into conflict, lack of communication, withdrawal and arguments in other relationships that are unrelated to our problems. The things that get disturbed almost always are sleep and concentration, and of course, energy levels fall to an all-time low. This makes you irritable and you turn into a worry wart. So you see how there is just a catapulting viral effect of not dealing with problems objectively?
To occasionally vent with near and dear ones is not taboo but to overuse this privilege is something I’d feverishly advise against. Any licence when overused gets withdrawn. Another adverse effect of tough times that you don’t deal with is depression and the consequent lack of desire and libido in your relationship. Your resentment and emotional trauma may also lead to a poor self-image, exhaustion and performance anxiety. Weight gain is another symptom of this very real life issue. The problem, of course, is that in India mental upheavals and troubles are not viewed as tangible, while a fever or flu are treated with great concern. The irony is that the greater of the two is the mental malaise, isn’t it?

THE ANSWERS ARE HERE
One smart way out that I’d suggest is to speak to a friend, play a sport or travel. If none of these work, meet a counsellor who will look at your problems objectively and assess them with you, using your own intellect to solve the problems by encouraging objectivity. This, by far, is the smartest way out. A trick that works wonderfully is leaving a work problem at the door, like hanging up your coat before entering home; it is healthy and allows the mind and nerves to regenerate so you can face the challenge in a more composed way the next day. The same goes for personal problems before entering your work place. These compartments allow you to be more productive and get back to a problem with greater fairness, detachment and unconventionality. Everybody’s life has problems. You can either face them head-on or fall deeper into the sad, downward spiral. Just leave your problems at the door and live in the moment. Carpe diem!

Read more of Nisha’s point of view at www.nishajamvwal.blogspot.in, tweet to her @nishjamvwal and write to her at nishjamwal@gmail.com

Volume 4 Issue 6