This Independence Day Break Free From The Invisible Shackles Of Your Mind

Our mind is so impressionable and trainable. It gets shaped by the people, environment, events, circumstances and conversations around us. We can trace the growth and development of brain and mind by merely curiously observing an individual’s life span. Let’s go through the journey of different stages; from being a baby to an adult in the next two paragraphs.

It’s fascinating how as babies we are free of all the notions, operating on tabula rasa mode. The brain has limited functioning and most of the meta cognitive functions are not formed.

Physically and emotionally the needs are simplified. We live in the moment as babies; no worries of tomorrow, no log kya kahenge (what will people say) mindset, no chinta (stress) of people’s perception or self-impression. It’s moment to moment expressions, basic emotions and temporary reactions.

Eventually with every milestone and forming year, tabula rasa mode switches off and we move to more concrete operations. We learn and memorise things our parents, grandparents, guardians, relatives, teachers, friends say. We build our inner concepts through positive and negative reinforcements from the outside world. We form personalities based on rewards and punishments, dos and don’ts given by our family, teachers and society. We form perspectives by interpreting the reality around us, by giving meaning to the experiences we formed, by using the higher formal operations of our brain and mind. Pheww, now we are grown-ups! Adults who carry the self-modified version of the previous generation’s learning. Adults who unknowingly assimilate the limiting beliefs. Adults who subconsciously accommodate similar biases as their previous generations. Adults who accidentally build the invisible shackles in their own minds.

Also Read: How To Let Go Of The Past Tips By Mental Health Expert

Does growing up sound complicated? It sure does! But we can simplify ourselves by following the two rules. 

Rule number 1. Keep all the healthy functioning learning/lessons from the previous generation with you, because there are so many of them that are so useful and good. They have helped in forming our core and value system too.

Rule number 2. Question and if needed discard the unhealthy learning that may/may not work in today’s operating system or your reality. Understand that they are damaging and making you a resentful human being.

We cannot be notion free like babies, however, we can definitely break free from ideologies that serve no purpose any longer; ideologies that make us rigid and mentally/emotionally tied. 

5 Shackles You Need To Break Free From

Here are the 5 unisex, not so invisible shackles that I have noticed in people during my 15 years of practice that we can untie ourselves from for a healthier life and happier mind.

Serve others before self: In earlier years life was relatively not as fast paced as today. Serving others before self was easy to attain with lesser work pressure. The job roles were mostly clearly divided with a few exceptions. Females were home leaders and males were leaders outside. Today, everyone is running from kids to women and men. If you don’t take care of your depleting energy then it would be impossible for you to serve anyone without feeling drained and dragged. Revitalise yourself FIRST.

Also Read: Mental Health Matters: Why Do I Overthink So Much

Focus more on improving your weakness than highlighting your strength: It’s good to improve for long term holistic development. However, if you focus more on improvements you will feel overwhelmed, super critical and underconfident. Strike the balance by living life based on your unique strengths and pick two shortcomings a year that you can improve upon.

Look at others’ achievements and do something about yours: Earlier we didn’t have so much exposure so we derived motivation from the people around us. Our elders were right in their own way in finding extrinsic motivation. In today’s time we have too much exposure so if we compare, we are only going to collapse due to over availability of information and extrinsic motivation. It will only result in anxiety that you are not doing enough.

Toughen up, no need to express your emotions, keep moving: Mental health has not been a part of our cultural system earlier. Its primarily because of the lack of exposure and also the covertness aspect of mental health which means you can’t relatively see when someone is not doing mentally/emotionally okay. You can gauge fever by temperature but you can’t out rightly gauge depression. Times have changed now. Every other platform speaks of mental health so it’s our responsibility to accept it as an essential health package and educate ourselves of signs of a healthy vs unhealthy mind.

Also Read: Why Do I Feel Sad All The Time?

Space? What space? Family and privacy do not go hand in hand: Space and privacy are essential for healthy functioning. Each individual is unique in its own way. Letting the person be is the best way you can provide the space. His/her style of coping, healing, being may not match yours and that is absolutely okay. Let the person reach out to you on their own rather than coaxing them in the name of bond or connectedness. Half of the everyday basic battle of poor mental health can be won here.

There are a few more that I am adding for your contemplation.

• Don’t be so happy you will cry later.
• Don’t talk back it’s disrespectful and argumentative.
• Be appropriate with people outside and do whatever you want to do at home.
• What’s the need to celebrate? We will celebrate when it’s something big.
• Watch yourself and your choices if you want to be accepted by the society.

To summarise, I would say that we have a beautiful, simple and innocent mind. Its amoeba like flexibility is quite intriguing. So, it’s in our hands what we are exposing this flexible mind to. It’s in our hands how we comprehend the available information aka reality and form perceptions. Use this control very consciously. Make choices that work for your long-term health both physical and mental because society is made of us. Norms are set by us too. Don’t just upgrade technology, upgrade and reform the mental software too with the changing times. Start with yourself, don’t wait for others to bring the freedom of change.

This article is authored by Sakshi Mandhyan, Mental Health Expert, Award winning Happiness Coach, Founder, Director Mandhyan Care