Ashok Gupta offers guidance for coping with holiday-related anxiety, depression, isolation, and grief. He emphasizes sharing vulnerabilities and deep listening, retraining the brain through acceptance and surrender, self-care (nature, sleep, exercise, nutrition), regular meditation, gratitude, and reaching out to help others; he also promotes resources (Meaning of Life Experiment app; guptoprogram.com).
And so one of the ways that we can do this once again, is not only accepting and validating our emotions, but beginning to share our vulnerabilities with people around us. We want to talk more. When was the last time you actually had a deep discussion with your friends or your family or somebody around you? See, the reason this egoic sense of dread is getting worse is because we're not communicating with as many people. We're doing zoom calls and whatever, but we're not meeting as many people. So these emotions have another reason that they're not being validated and accepted. Yeah. So can we share our vulnerabilities with people around us? Can we reach out our hand and ask people how they are doing? Because what we choose for ourselves, let's give to another. If we want to relieve our anxiety, can we really help relieve someone else's anxiety? If we want to relieve our own sense of isolation, let's relieve someone else's sense of isolation. And we shall be healed too. Because what you give to another, you receive tenfold. And of course, that's not the reason that we do it. We do it because the nature of our soul, if we go beyond the mind, beyond the car, the nature of our soul is to want, to share, to give, to uplift ourselves and uplift those around us. That is the glorious invitation that we are given each moment of our lives. And therefore, this is immensely healing. This is what the world needs right now. It needs you. It needs you to step up and become more mindfully aware of your own emotions and then support the coaching and healing of those around you. And we are all each other's coach. Of course, we may not be formally trained as a coach, but just deeply listening to what someone else is going through can be transformative and can uplift. You don't know what healing, what salvation you may bring to a soul around you, just through the power of your empathy and the power of your voice and the power of your listening. And so for ourselves, if we become aware that now the anxiety we're experiencing is an opportunity for us to become more aware of our responses, our past conditioning and our ability to shift perspective and to see this pandemic as not in and of itself positive, but as an opportunity for us to grow, become more resilient. So with anxiety, we become aware that we're not in control. It's like flowing down a gentle river. We can resist the flow of the river and cause ourselves even more stress and anxiety and be pushing against the current, or we can learn to accept and surrender to what is so and just. At the moment that we think we've accepted and surrendered, another challenge comes into our lives to take us to an even deeper level of surrender. People say, Ashok, I'm fed up with growing. Why does it have to work that way? That's just the way it is. We're here to grow, to expand, to become the next best version of ourselves, to reach our potential. And in terms of depression, have we been indulging in self care recently? Have we really looked after ourselves? Or what are we attached to that is causing us these depressive thoughts? Same with anxiety and depression. That worry is being caused because we want things to be a certain way. We're attached to a certain outcome. And when things don't go our way, then we feel that suffering, that oof. That anxiety within us, that tightens within our chest. And the antidote to that is to retrain our brain to say, I'm not in control. The only thing I can do is float through this, accept and let go and surrender. With isolation, do we find it difficult to be in our own company? Do we use others as a way of distracting from our own sense of aloneness, Our own sense of that feeling of dread, of having silent moments or being in our own company? There is much joy and much expansion to be found in that sense of isolation. But it's not really isolation, it's a sense of being with oneself. So if you are on your own this Christmas, if you're finding that challenging, first thing we've said is reach your hand out first to others. But then secondly, become aware of that feeling of loneliness. Go deeper into it and just witness it and you'll transmute it into something positive. And the same with grief. Are we like an oak tree or a willow tree? An oak tree stands strong in the storm and gets uprooted, loses its sense of groundedness. But a willow tree is able to float. It is able to backwards and forwards with the ebb and flow of life. Can we have that flexibility? And finally, so that's the retraining of the brain. So we can retrain our brain through taking this new perspective. And of course, with relaxing the nervous system, that second wing of the dove, let's indulge in that self care this Christmas. Let's realize that although we may be in isolation or there may be lockdown, parks are not cancelled, nature is not cancelled. This is an opportunity for us to really commune with nature and deeply relax our nervous system. And of course, eating well, sleeping well and exercising all of those Good things we know we should be doing. And mentally and emotionally, can we make sure that we are meditating? Regular meditation is the antidote to that sense of isolation or that anxiety we're experiencing. Study after study has shown that. So I'd love for you to do is to start up a practice of meditation. And we have a free not for profit app called the Meaning of Life Experiment. So you can go to app store or play store, type in Meaning of Life Experiment. You can download our free not for profit app to help you meditate. Lots of 10 and 20 minute meditations there. And of course, mentally, emotionally, can we become more mindful? So when we're feeling stressed, let's just take a slow deep breath in. And as we breathe out with a smile, how can we shift perspective? And perhaps we say to ourselves, this pandemic, this situation is helping me become stronger, helping me become more aware of that anxiety within. And of course, gratitude. The antidote to a lot of these emotions is to feel grateful for what you do have in your life. There are a billion people on this planet who are suffering through the pandemic, but also don't have guaranteed access to clean water. There are billions who are malnourished right now who are economically insecure. They don't know what's around the corner for them in terms of survival. That's true survival anxiety. So let's feel grateful for what we do have in life and focus on that during this period of time. And finally, let's be the source. Instead of looking for the outside world to be dependent on for our happiness and our joy and our sense of being. Instead of being dependent on Christmas or festivals, let's be the source. Let's recognize that we have all the joy within us. We have all the love within us. We can be the source of that which we are looking for in the outside world. And that is the irony. We're like a hungry beggar looking for that in the outside world. And yet our plate is full. We just don't realize it. So let's soothe and reassure those who are anxious. Let's listen and uplift those who are feeling depressed, those who are isolated around us. Let's reach our hand out first. And when it comes to those who are feeling grief, let's know that we are not alone. There are people around us who are there for us. And the universe deeply loves us. Reminds me of that song. You, you are not alone. I am here with you. Though we're far apart, you're always in my heart. So let's remember those messages deep within us. So all it's left for me to do is to say that you are being looked after. There is a deeper love within this universe that is taking care of us all. And when we let go of looking for these things in the outside world during this period of time, let's recognize the joy which wants to spill out of us, wants to emanate from us. That love wants to pour into the lives of others. Let's connect with that. And for the resources, please do download our not for Profit app, the Meaning of Life Experiment. If you're suffering from any kind of chronic illness, then please do have a look at our website guptoprogram.com lots of brain retraining and neuroplasticity techniques to support your recovery from chronic illness. What a great time. This is time on our own to go deeper into our own healing.
