Emotional ownership

Turn offs are nothing but our own weekness inability  to spontaneously handle something or someone. Some people don't turn us off because they have the character which does not interfere with our weekness. They make situations easy for us. While some others make situations difficult for us, but difficult never means impossible.  We need to put some effort to handle them.Instead of blaming the people who turn us off, we should focus on how to handle them.The shift should be from "who" to "what". Shift from emotional memory to cognitive memory. 

The immatured and selfish invade our  boundaries and drain  our energy.How to handle them ? By learning to set boundaries. By learning to express if we are forced to do what we dislike. Many people may not know what we dislike so we need to express ourselves.

The superiority complex people, jealous people and complaining people crush us with their negative words.How to handle them? By setting a filtre and not absorbing everything. Validate and take un only what is required.

Insensitive people hurt us. How to handle them ? Love and trust is a positive emotion.  But don't have a emotional dependency on people. Each of us are totally complete by ourselves and should not have excessive emotional dependency on people though it's important to give and receive trust and love.

When we work on ourselves we can handle our anger/irritation without blaming it on others.

When something goes wrong after giving our 100 percent can break us or make us angry especially when  the decision making authority is in someone else's hand. We should learn resilence and keep moving.Understand that anger only spoils our peace and makes things worse.

Emotional memory

Among the many people we meet, why do we remember or value some people much more than others?

It's a blessing to have these categories of people: -

The gentle lovers

People who love without demanding love, giving you the required space, and not thrusting their insecurity or excessive demands are gentle lovers. These types of people are rare and makes us feel perfect just the way we are.

Gentle people are rare; loving people are also rare. The combination of the two is very precious. We are lucky if we have such people at any point of time in our life.

The encouragers 

People who don't have an inferiority complex or superiority complex are the genuine well-wishers; they are the ones who will encourage and motivate you. the other category will try to criticize and will be fault-finding and demotivating just out of their superiority complex or inadequate feelings. 

The encouragers uplift us. They make a positive impact on us. It's a blessing to have them in our life.

The helping hands 

All human beings are interdependent; the people who reach out to us, offering help and support, will forever remain on our gratitude list.

The admirers

It's good to be appreciated. But never be carried away by those who admire or respect you without solid experience about you. The appreciation from those who have spent a reasonable amount of time with us is a good sign. Otherwise, it's just a positive opinion from surface observation or interaction. 

Be careful with the following categories of people: -

The energy drainers

The jealous people, selfish people, people who constantly complain, people with a superiority complex.  These four categories of people constantly drain us. It is better to limit spending time with such people. We need to have a mental filter not to allow their negativity to affect us.

The insensitive people 

These people may be good individuals but not sensitive to the affection and care you show them; it's better to keep a safe emotional distance from them. They make you feel bad for being good; they can never receive and reciprocate the affection we show to them.

The boundary invaders

Some boundary invaders who are selfish and aggressive can be identified easily.

Some people lovingly invade our boundaries because of their immaturity, lack of understanding, or forcefully drag us into things in which we are not interested. They gradually thrust their demands on us knowingly or unknowingly, interfering with our freedom of choice and space. The well-wishers who push us into something for our good are different from those who drag us into something for their joy.

Moving beyond the emotional memory:

The above categories also help us to understand how we behave with others. Treat others the way we would like to be treated. 

People are only instruments to make us understand how to be and how not to be. Our focus should not be on the individual, but instead we should focus on the qualities; we should imbibe the good qualities and avoid the bad qualities.

To be gentle and loving, an encourager, and a helping hand shows a certain degree of evolution. But how unconditionally one can be that way irrespective of what comes from outside shows mastery.

Benefits of meditation and challenges of meditation aspirant

 Benefits of mediation:

1. Worldly desires goes down as the focus shifts inwards. This brings in contentment with what is. 

2. Restless tendency of the mind settles, and calmness prevails.

3. Anger subsides, forgiveness, empathy and compassion grow. Jealousy and competition subside appreciation and gratitude grow.

4. Worry and fear subsides, trust and courage grow.

5. Confusions subsides, and clarity grows.

6. Ego refines paving way to right understanding, collaboration and cooperation for the right things. 

All this keeps happening only if we continue to practice mediation on a regular basis and most importantly with the right attitude. We can easily get out of track if we are not able to practice regularly or other situations can cause deviations in our path.

Many a times we can stumble, deviate or even feel lost. In all those moments guru helps us directly or indirectly to keep going.

What are the common challenges for a meditation aspirant?

1. Since meditation is an inward tuning activity where we enjoy our own company, we may not always find like-minded people to share our joys with.

2. When many needs naturally shed off from us, we may be looked at as a bit indifferent for not doing what many people do. It is not necessary to get into things which we have outgrown. But we need courage to move on in our way.

3. Moderation and integration of both the worlds (the spiritual and the material) is very important.

While contentment, calmness, compassion, courage is liberating. It's very important to moderately apply those qualities in our day-to-day life. Excess of anything can be dangerous. 

What meditation does not directly provide:

Meditation does not directly lead us to worldly success, power, position, health, wealth, love, respect or admiration.  It can lead us to a calm state of mind and it's up to us to utilize the calm mind to pursue our goals.