STANDING UP TO THE SUNSET
“Scandal of Soul, Betrayal of Body, Manacle of Mind. It feels like my stomach is on fire, I am weak at the knees, and my chest is shackled with a weight that’s never really going away. It’s there! Even in my happiest moments, even in the serene sunrise. It is always there. Now, the sun is getting real low and the tide is rising up to get me.”
Too much to say & too little to tell, hence I am not going to waste any words describing mental health because most of us have different definitions of that. The goal of this article is to expose the demons living in the dark corners of your mind feeding off the uncertainty and unawareness. Also, to show how Inequalities (henceforth an externality) can trigger them but ultimately it is the psyche and value system of a person that will decide the extent of the impact.
Broadly, I will talk about —
- Chakras of Existence
2. Axis of Emotions
While externalities can induce stress, anxiety, and depression into life. Routine suffering to such feelings even when nothing terrible is happening in your life can happen if “the Chakras don’t align” or if “the Neutral Axis is broken”.
Chakras of Existence — Why do some people hate themselves? Why do they feel miserable in their own company? Is it because of lack of money, fame, love, or respect? Or is it something much more fundamental?
Body, mind, and heart (or soul). A healthy person has all 3 chakras aligned. Let’s understand this with the help of illustrations.
If your mind is not pleased with your body. You see yourself in the mirror and you hate it.
Or, if your heart is not happy with your mind because it keeps bringing logic into emotions.
The core of your personality gets weaker as the pillars of your personality gets misaligned. There is a constant war within yourself because the mind, body, and heart want different things.
The Key to align your Chakras is “Acceptance”. Accept your body as it is, accept the mistakes you made in the past & accept that you will make some in the future as well. Accept that things will take time, most people overestimate what they can do in a year and underestimate what they can do in a decade. Accept that life is not a test that you will either fail or pass, it is an experience. You are having your own unique experience and as long as you are not ruining anyone else’s experience with your actions, you are not a failure no matter what score this world tries to give you.
Axis of emotions — Consider a graph where the X-axis denotes Time and Y-axis denotes Emotions that you feel at any moment.
The X-axis is the neutral axis. On X-axis you don’t feel happiness or sadness. You are nonchalant about everything in your life. You are in a state of Nirvana.
Your efforts can put you in a state of Happiness or Sadness but, the closer you are to the X-axis, the content you will be.
The way I see it, Normally X-axis has its own gravity. If you are extremely happy about something, slowly it will come down to the neutral axis, and if you are extremely sad, the same thing should happen.
But poor mental health happens when your neutral axis lies below the X-axis, so you constantly need to make efforts to get some happiness or to feel less sad. People here, constantly need external assurances and distractions to take their mind off the anchoring sad feeling that is constant in their life.
How to fix the broken neutral axis?
The answer to this is extremely subjective and that’s why there are professionals to deal with it. But you should start by finding out the reasons. What broke your axis? Or shall I say what broke you? The “WHY” is important here. Often, a persons’ neutral axis gets haywire when their value system gets broken. When they believed in something or someone and it didn’t pan out the way it was supposed to, and it alters how they look at things in an unhealthy way. This is loosely what Nihilism is all about (Read Nihilism by Friedrich Nietzsche). Find those things, those incidents, those expectations, those people that hurt you.
Being aware of oneself is paramount. Distractions won’t last, People won’t last.
“Find yourself, Know yourself, Love yourself!”
