‘What are you doing to take care of the mind?’

‘What are you doing to take care of the mind?’

We are already at the end of the second month of the new year. Just like every year, many people must have taken gym memberships to achieve their ideal body. True, leading a healthy and active life can do wonders for your life. However, what one should never forget is that the well-being of their brain is as important.

Anubha Doshi, founder and director of Artsphere and Soulsphere, recently held an event in the city on how we have started to lose touch with ourselves and how self-compassion, loving-kindness and mindfulness practices provide a powerful tool to inner resource building and emotional resilience.

“It is easy to be compassionate with others but really difficult to be nice to ourselves. We were never taught to be lenient with ourselves. So when your friend faces a crisis, you don’t tell them that they are stupid, silly or they are always in a mess. Instead, you kind of hold face for them. However, most of us have this really critical voice inside us and when the situation is not right, it tells us everything that is wrong with ourselves,” she says and adds that it is important to treat yourself as a friend. 

It is observed that people who have high self-compassion are better at coping with life’s challenges and problems. They have high emotional resilience and better chances of coping with conditions like anxiety, stress and depression. 

When a critical voice rises, your body starts to feel threatened. The stress hormones get activated impacting your body in negative ways like weight gain, insomnia, and other diseases. However, self-compassion shifts your body from the pity state to feel-good state. “It is so fascinating how we can, through our own system, bring ourselves into stress and get out of it,” Doshi says.

The two very important aspects of self-compassion are soothing touch and voice. People facing any kind of mental issue can practise it. Loving-kindness also helps you overcome the negativity that is there in your life.

A common observation has been made where people blame today’s lifestyle to ruin their happiness and state of peace. Speaking about the same, Doshi says, “It is a vicious circle. Society has become very dynamic over the past many years and we are conditioned by it. So in a way, we are serving as per its demands. We ourselves are giving it the power. Society is not be blamed but we ourselves,” Doshi says adding that bringing mindfulness in every action we do is very important.

HOW TO HEAL
Giving away a few tips to heal from within, she says that people can join yoga or meditation classes. Something they do to care for themselves will do the magic. “We are going to the gym to take care of the body, what are we doing to take care of the mind, questions Doshi. 

Sitting in silence, watching the breath, simple walking or meditating in nature can help you tune in with your mindset. There are also many apps available which people can access and use to change their lives. The minute you start practising any kind of self-care, you move from a reactive brain to a responsive brain, from a critical to a self-compassionate way. You move from just being to existing.

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