Ae dil, but it is not so mushkil!

Detailing a ‘what if’ scenario is a good way to kill anxiety and expunge worry.

Someone I met recently wrote to me about how her husband was unable to cope with unemployment. He is over 50 and lost his job in a lay-off two years ago. His efforts to get a job are not bearing fruit and he’s feeling depressed. The lady said he had shown suicidal tendencies and was undergoing counseling. She requested us to meet the gentleman.

So we met him for coffee last week. He said he was anxious about the fate of his savings, which were slowly getting depleted and he wondered how he would put his only child, who is in high school now, through college. “I am desperate for a job. My income cannot be nil like this. I am at the end of the road. It is scary,” lamented the man.

It is often the fear of, or not knowing, what will happen that drives people to desperation. We are all gripped by this fear at some point or the other. None can escape it. The most effective way to deal with such a fear, with anxiety and insecurity, is to face it.

So, we advised the man that instead of only asking ‘what if’, he must go ahead and answer that question. “For instance,” we told him, “If you are facing uncertainty – meaning, if you fear all your savings going up in smoke – don’t just allow that ‘what will happen to me’ feeling to keep building up within you. Complete the scenario to the last detail – “I will sell my apartment or move to another less-expensive city or whatever…I will survive a few months and then when I am totally broke, I will go live with my parents or brother or sister…and if they won’t have me, I will take up a small-time job and live within my means until I get the break that I will need to rebuild my Life and career.” – And don’t worry about your daughter. Life will take care of her!””

The man seemed unconvinced initially. But he has read my Book Fall Like A Rose Petal. When I drew parallels to our own story and shared how Vaani and I have been coping with uncertainty, and how our children Aashirwad and Aanchal got through college through ‘acts of the Universe’ and the compassion of fellow voyagers, he felt a lot reassured.

Actually, it is not at all difficult to face worst-case scenarios. When the fear of the unknown, yet-to-be-born future arises in us, we play out each detail granularly. Each time it has helped us anchor in equanimity and face the situation stoically. You too can do this. You will be amazed how much you will benefit from such an exercise. For one, you will discover that whatever is the worst case that you imagine, and fear, is not so bad after all. Your detailing that ‘what if’ script will reassure you that you can cope with any impending crisis. You will, over time, also realize that the worst almost always never happens!

Life always, unfailingly, provides you what you need – perhaps not in the form in which you envisioned it, but in the way Life has planned it for you. No need of yours has ever been unmet. And no need of yours will remain unmet either. When you start seeing this magic and beauty in your Life, you will understand that all your anxiety and insecurity is such a waste of your time and energy! To be sure, everything is happening to a plan, Life’s plan – just because you can’t see it, doesn’t mean, there isn’t one!

Imagining the worst that can happen is not being defeatist. It is the only way to kill feelings – like fear and anxiety – that may otherwise consume you. Your fears often blind you to your own resilience. Resultantly, you stop believing in your ability to face Life’s innumerable challenges. Looking your fears in the eye may not take any problem situation away. But it will most definitely help prepare you to meet that situation confidently when it arrives. So, perhaps, you do realize now that facing Life is not so ‘mushkil’, difficult, after all!

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Face Life: only what you run away from, chases you, torments you

You too can be courageous in a situation – if you choose to face whatever you fear!

A reader of my Book ‘Fall Like A Rose Petal’  (Westland) met me at The Uncommon Leader Event I was curating last evening. He said he found my Book very useful in developing the courage to deal with his own Life: “I was running away from my problems. Your story inspired me to turn around and face Life. Thank you!”

I am grateful to this reader for his feedback. It makes me feel blessed that our experience and learnings are useful for someone, somewhere.

It is only through living with fear, from feeling insecure, desperate and despondent, that I personally woke up to the futility of those emotions. When I was tired of living that way, I decided to turn around and face my situation. And, interestingly, what I feared most stopped haunting me. In fact, my worst fears have never come true and only facing my fears have made me be courageous in dark, apparently, no-go situations!

To be sure, fear spares no one. Even so, interestingly, all of us have the ability to be courageous. Because courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is what fear delivers when you face up to the fear. Only when you face up to something, will you realize that it cannot harm you; only what you run away from chases you, haunts you.

For instance, with a health challenge like cancer, you will feel fearful of death. But as long as you run scared of death, it will torment you. But the moment you discover that death is a non-negotiable eventuality that all of us who are born have to confront, you will no longer fear death. Then you start living. And you begin to feel blessed that at least you reasonably know how much time you have left to live. So, you start investing in the process of living than obsess with the process of dying. Clearly, fear of death has delivered to you the ability, the courage, to live simply because you stopped running away from death.

So, it is with every Life situation. The more you run away from a problem, the more fearful you will be. When you face it, the problem, even if it doesn’t go away, will at least stop tormenting you. Try this approach on anything that you are dealing with presently – watch your fear dissolve and feel the courage rising in you! Let me assure you, you will feel infinitely stronger, no matter what your circumstances are!

Happiness involves taking tough calls

We all want to be happy but none of us wants to work toward it, for it or on it!

Being happy is not hard work but requires hard decision-making. But we are not ready to make those hard decisions or those important choices. Which is why we stay pining for happiness while it is pretty much within our reach. To be happy we must choose between focusing on what we have and what we haven’t. As long as we focus on what we don’t have, we will never be happy. Another reason for our unhappiness is that we don’t practice detachment. When we are aware and conscious of the reality that we came with nothing and will go with nothing, we will be detached from whatever we gain or lose in this lifetime__money, relationships, material things and even opinions, either our own or of others. From detachment comes happiness. The third reason why we don’t find happiness is that we tend to give too much importance to fear__of the unknown future, of not being around in some time, of death, of leaving unfinished business on this planet. The way to deal with this fear is to know that when we are dead, and gone, we will not even know we are dead. So, why fear something that we will never know? Also, why grieve now for a state that is yet to arrive?

So, to be happy, just focus on what is, let go and stop fearing, among other things, death. There are simple choices that you can make. The harder part is to stay with these choices. That and that alone can guarantee a lifetime of happiness.

To stop suffering, embrace your insecurities!

Fear of the unknown often kills you in each of your living moments. Many of us have already died a thousand deaths in our lifetimes, worrying stiff about what will become of us, if this or that happened or did not happen to us. Anxiety and insecurity hold us in their vice- like grip. We are all like the character Thenali, in Kamal Hassan’s comedy movie ‘Thenali’ (2000), who is fearful of everything in Life. In one epic dialogue he tells his psychiatrist that he is scared of the sun, the stars, the moon, the sky, the water, the earth, Gods, angels, demons and just about everything in the Universe. He confesses that he has become a nervous wreck and some way, any way, to get out of this fear-trap! So it is with you__and me!

You may not be fearful to Thenali’s bizarre extent, but there’s a lot you worry about. Principal, and common, among your anxieties are:

• Will I ever have enough money?
• Will I be successful__with money, business, career, academics, love, relationships, whatever?   
• Will I be respected, recognized, famous?
• Will I die sooner than I want to?
• Will people cheat me, betray me?
• Will the people I love be around me as long as I want them to?
• Will my health be good?
• Will my children be happy, healthy, successful, safe?
• Will I get all that I want?

Obviously, the list can be endless. And a global list may be close to Thenali’s too!

Anxiety breeds insecurity. Insecurity causes suffering! Understanding insecurity can help us deal with it better. Fundamentally, insecurity haunts you because you dislike it. Instead welcome it. Anything that you resist persist. If you are feeling insecure about something don’t hate it or fight it anymore. Just accept it. Because insecurity is the very essence of Life. Life is all about change, impermanence, uncertainty. So, it is perfectly fine not to know what’s your Life all about or how things will be or what will befall you. You are suffering only because you demand security in a compulsively, naturally insecure scenario. Yet you insist on being convinced that you are secure and will be secure forever. So, when that sense of security is unavailable__because it can NEVER be available or given to you__you grieve. You plunge yourself into worry, anxiety, depression and enslave yourself to such dark, debilitating emotions.

Someone I know was telling me that he has saved over a million dollars in cash in his bank accounts. Besides these he has invested in shares and real estate. He has two apartments. One in the heart of Chennai and another in an up-market suburb called ECR. Yet he said to me on his 60^th birthday a few weeks ago that he was feeling insecure. He said, post retirement, his monthly inflow had stopped. And that gave him sleepless nights. He confessed: “I feel so incomplete and insecure. I wonder what will happen if my wife or I fall gravely ill and all our assets have to be liquidated to meet our healthcare expenses. So, I am desperately trying to create an income stream by seeking a retainer assignment with a couple of companies I know so that I can feel confident that the money I have saved will not be touched and will be available for an emergency on a rainy day!”

A family we know insists that their 22-year-old daughter must marry before she gets into grad school in the US (for a post-graduate program). Since we are reasonably aware that the young lady is not interested in anyone presently we asked why is marriage a pre-condition to her academic pursuit? “So that we can feel secure that she’s with someone she knows and also to ensure that we complete her marriage before something happens to us,”explains the girl’s mother. The girl’s parents are in their mid-40s and they don’t necessarily believe it is important their daughter be with someone she loves than someone she knows!

This is how most people define, and perhaps invent, their insecurities. They define them through demanding a sense of security in an environment, in Life, where none can be guaranteed. Demanding means you insist Life should be the way you want it to be. But Life works only the way it IS and never works like it SHOULD. And how Life IS you can only say in the moment, in the now, in the present. You cannot create a Life by aspiring it, anticipating it, fearing it or demanding it! You can only live the Life you are given in the moment. So, there will always be a fuzziness, a certain insecurity, a cluelessness that you will always experience about Life. You will have to yield to this insecurity by welcoming it, by accepting it and by living it!

Referring to our prolonged bankruptcy, a creditor asked me and my wife the other day how is it that we have managed at an emotional level when we see no evidence of Life improving for us financially.

“It must be very fearful__living the Life that you live,”declared this person.

I replied speaking from, and sharing, our experience: “It used to be fearful. It used to be scary as long as we demanded that evidence__that semblance of security. It is only when you want to seek the light that the walk up to it becomes fearful. Supposing you don’t want the light anymore? Because you have tried you damned best to get to the light but it hasn’t happened. All your attempts have come a cropper. And the fear of what-will-happen-now suffocates you every single time, makes you insane, leaves you to suffer. It was such a horrible, reclusive existence we led. So we broke free. We gave up on seeking the light. And accepted the darkness and began to love it instead. We have accepted that we will never know what will happen to us next! We have also realized by now that we wouldn’t have known any better had we been financially secure. So, we live in a newfound awareness__call it happiness__having made peace with our insecurity. The light of our awareness makes it possible for us to love our insecurity and live in it peacefully!”

Accepting and embracing insecurity in any Life situation does not mean inaction. It simply means stopping to look for or demand evidence that comforts or reassures you. It means to know that such evidence does not exist in the first place. So, it is foolish to demand it. Instead it means starting to live with the insecurity and working through it, with it. It means realizing that nothing is permanent. Nothing is certain. Nothing is secure.

When you embrace your insecurities, all your suffering will magically, instantaneously, cease! So, don’t demand security from Life. Learn to love it for what it is. Then, and only then, will you be able to live it in peace, joy and bliss!