My mother has a one-line solution for all my problems - you are not eating well. These days she is worried about my eating habits and my running madness. I have been a vegetarian for a year now and I only eat when I am hungry. I keep an eye on what I am eating and when I am eating. “How can you run when you hardly eat.” On the contrary, I say that I can easily do 20 KM three times in a week without much of a fuss. Pain is there but we are friends. Most importantly I now have the vision to have a fit mind and body. (Trust me my health is indebted to my mother’s cooking. But the thing is mothers will always think that their child is weak.)
Everyone wants a fit body so that they can look good on Instagram. Nothing wrong but we hardly speak of having a fit or a healthy mind. Looking back no one ever told me about having a fit mind. Because if we are professionally successful and have money in our bank accounts we will have a better life and hence we will have a healthy family.
But is that the reality? Ask yourself.
I accept money is required but if you don’t have a healthy mind all you are doing is just surviving.
“My soul is not contained within the limits of my body. My body is contained within the limitlessness of my soul,” said Jim Carrey while giving his commencement address at the 2014 MUM graduation.
Psychologist and writer Guy Winch makes a general observation - “We'll go to the doctor when we feel flu-ish or a nagging pain. So why don't we see a health professional when we feel emotional pain: guilt, loss, loneliness?”
Because if we say or ask anyone that we need psychological help then we are judged. Why go to anyone, I never believed in psychological help and I would joke that you pay someone to listen to your shit. “Be a man and solve your problem, don’t be a sissy.” But by the end of 2017 I realised that I am on the verge of collapsing, I decided to meet a psychologist and it wasn’t a great experience.
Time passed by, I was professionally and personally broken. I left Mumbai and came to my parents. Changing places didn’t help, it made things worse and I found solace in drinking and smoking. Basically I wanted to avoid reality and wanted to live in the past and dream of a future with the help of my past. I would drink in the afternoon, evening, get high, beg people to love me and then just wander till everything closed. I just hated everything - myself, my life, and people in general. A guy who wanted to create a dent in life was wondering why am I living on this planet.
“You’re trying to make yourself feel better with eating or drinking or sex or gambling or shopping or whatever. But that ends up making your life worse. Then you do more of it to make that discomfort go away. Then the real pain starts. It becomes a vicious cycle you can’t break. That’s at least what happened to me,” shared Ben Affleck, the Oscar-winning writer — and, yes, alcoholic, divorcé and proud possessor of a mythical back tattoo.
“It’s not particularly healthy for me to obsess over the failures — the relapses — and beat myself up,” he said. “I have certainly made mistakes. I have certainly done things that I regret. But you’ve got to pick yourself up, learn from it, learn some more, try to move forward.”
(He has four movies lined up this year and the Netflix movie “The last thing he wanted” where he plays one of the important characters has a boring story.)
Guy in his popular TEDx talk shares, “It is time we closed the gap between our physical and our psychological health. It's time we made them more equal, more like twins.” So that we beat loneliness and failures.
“Our mind is hard to change once we become convinced. So it might be very natural to feel demoralized and defeated after you fail. But you cannot allow yourself to become convinced you can't succeed. You have to fight feelings of helplessness. You have to gain control over the situation. And you have to break this kind of negative cycle before it begins.”
My journey of loving myself started a year back, after hitting new lows in life. I finally found a psychologist in Bangalore and it's been a year I have been visiting him. My family isn’t aware but it’s fine, I accepted that I needed help. More than that for the first time in my life I wanted to have a healthy mind and body. I went inside me to find what are the things that make me happy. Running is one of them and the other is writing. So I practice both of them with a lot of love.
In 2016 for the first time, I attended a 10 day Vipassana session. I wanted to see if I can detach myself from my startup. I did but apart from that I didn’t learn much and I also didn’t practice. In 2018 again I went for a 10-day session just to hide from my personal problems. And finally last December I went to my third 10-day course in Leh. I returned with a lot of emotions but the work finally started because I went this time with a simple thought that I want to be a better human being.
You may control a mad elephant;
You may shut the mouth of the bear and the tiger;
Ride the lion and play with the cobra;
By alchemy you may earn your livelihood;
You may wander through the universe incognito;
Make vassals of the gods; be ever youthful;
You may walk on water and live in fire:
But control of the mind is better and more difficult.
The above poem is from one of the great saints of South India - Thayumanavar. Paramahansa Yogananda shares in his beautiful book Autobiography of a Yogi. Few years ago someone told me about this book and I laughed about it. A year ago I wanted to read to see if I can find peace and get a solution from my problems. I had peace when I decided to face my problems.
This is my first book of 2020. I am at the end of the book and I don't want it to end. I can’t review the book, how can I describe an experience. Maybe everything has a time and hence I am in love with the book. (My mother is very scared that I am reading this book. First, she has a problem with my love for Vipassana and now this book. She keeps me asking are you planning to run away and become a Yogi. I also make her life hell by escalating the fear.)
No, I don’t want to be a yogi or a godman. I just want to be human and not an asshole. However, for some, I will remain the asshole but its okay. I still have a lot of issues, I am very fragile when someone shows interest in me, I am in fact scared. I have anxiety issues. But I know how to keep calm, control my feelings and I don't find the answer in alcohol.
As my dear friend Rumi(The Essential Rumi) says :
“I used to want buyers for my words.
Now I wish someone would buy me away from words.”
Yesterday I and my psychologist did our session online and we spoke on so many things beyond life. He is not my friend and I still have to pay him. However, today I think there's nothing to be ashamed of if you are seeking help. You will have to pay but you will find someone who will listen to you without getting judged. Finding the right psychologist is a process especially when online reviews are crap. I went to two idiots before I found my psychologist and it’s been a year of seeking help.
Similarly, meditation won’t solve your problems or you will find god. I think it gives you the strength to control your mind so that you don’t make emotional decisions. Mind is a chimpanzee, you need to control. It won’t be easy but the process has to start if you want to have a healthy mind.
And please don’t follow or practice what I have told you. Listen to everyone but do what is right for you. Your life and experiences are going to be different from mine so walk your own path.
The other day my mother remarked that these days there's something about your smile. Are you…..? I knew what she meant and I said: “I am in love with life.”
She left the place by saying: “Go work and make some money first.”
If you are still with me how happy I am with you. Time for a quick recap of my articles from the week.
Brands showed some love to Vir Das. Find out why I think Dabur way cool like Parle-G and Old Monk
Earlier this week I was invited by Suresh Babu to speak to his students on Content. I thought I will summarise my thoughts in a post, so here is what I think about content.
And finally with Covid-19 proliferating like it wants to finish the world in 2020, social networking and tech giants are facing a big issue on content moderation.
Before I buzz off, Caronavirus is helping my creative juices work extra time. Even though I have been working from home for the last 9 years. I am starting Instagram Live sessions with interesting people talking about their cool interests. If you have a cool interest, then ping me and I will do the rest. The idea is to listen and have fun.
My first guest is a beautiful lady who runs a kick-ass agency Flying Cursor with my dear friend Parag Gandhi in Mumbai. Shormistha Mukherjee(Her Instagram profile and do read the amazing bio) is a fun-loving person with interests in yoga, history, and heritage. She is also a cancer survivor. I call her Di and she will be live with me on Sunday(22/03/2020) at 9:00 PM. Isn’t that a cool way to beat the Covid-19 stress a bit. (My Instagram profile)
And I have some very interesting people lined up for coming Wednesday and Sunday.
Thank you if you are still with me. Please take care of yourself during these tough times. I am sure you know what to do, if not then check WHO for all kinds of trusted information.
Peace and happiness ❤️