Radiate
Positive Energy
by Thota
Srinivas
Negative energy cannot be driven away
by negative energy. Only positive energy can deter negative energy.
Unfortunately, we haven’t trained our mind to be stable in tough situations. We
have trained it to be more agitated, more nervous, more scared and this will
only give rise to handling the situation improperly or taking quick and wrong
decisions. Therefore, the more serious the mistake…..the more severe the
punishment we give to ourselves or others.
If an adult confides in his parents that he smoked with his friends, what would the parents say? Naturally…the parents would resort to the routine way of reprimanding…and saying…”You are wrong”. By repeatedly saying “YOU ARE WRONG” what do you think the parent wants to prove or achieve.
We are
generally of the opinion that this way of repeatedly pointing out the mistake
would make him feel guilty and he would get rid of it. But as a matter of fact-
things work out in an opposite way. This sort of destructive criticism only
radiates negative energy which can only deter the child from understanding the
good intention behind the blatant disapproval.
What the child needs here is acceptance. Instead of saying that the child is wrong, the parents can say that smoking is wrong. There is a lot of difference between these two statements.
If a parent can
have the patience and understanding to say to his child,” You are right but smoking cigarette is wrong because it is harmful . The
desire to smoke when your friends are smoking is natural and seems right.
Nevertheless, cigarette smoking is wrong”
By saying so the parents are validating the
action of the child so that he doesn’t feel guilt-conscious and they are
invalidating the things which could prove harmful to the child.
This is what the child needs in today’s scenario especially,
when things are at his reach and approach and when he needs to take decisions
at every step of his life. He must feel like approaching his parents for help.
And it is in our hands to give not just that comfort zone but those positive
vibrations to him so that he doesn’t hide things from us.
We are paradoxical. We grow up with
both positive and negative qualities. It is quite natural to have opposing
qualities owing to the fact that we grew up observing and noticing a myriad of diverse
things happening around us. If we are active, we are passive too in some cases.
If we are careful, we are careless too sometimes. If we are polite, we are rude
too in most of the cases. If elders themselves exhibit both negative and
positive qualities, what about the children?
It is but natural that they are naughty and
careless and lazy at times. But pointing out their negative qualities
repeatedly in children shall only strengthen those qualities.
Just imagine that a child is careless. There might be some cases where the child was careful. But the parent is so conscious of him being careless that he/she keeps on calling him ‘a careless brat’ and they even go to the extent of introducing him to their relatives or friends with the same title.
Interestingly, from then on, the child gets used to the title so
badly that he starts feeling that he is destined to be careless. His mindset
gets programmed in that way. Who must be blamed here?
If there are two plants and we want
one plant to grow and the other to die- what do we do? We water one plant, it
grows. We just ignore the other, it dies. That’s what we are doing here. We are
watering the bad qualities by pointing out at them in our children repeatedly
and killing the good qualities without identifying them.
Identifying good qualities seems easy
and simple but we need a lot of patience, love, understanding, acceptance and
concern to do this. Generally speaking we are not good at identifying and
appreciating the small acts of our children because that is how we grew up.
Our little good acts were ignored and
bad acts were criticized. This happens everywhere because it is easy to
criticize but pretty hard to appreciate. One needs a heart of divinity to see
good and appreciate good in everything around him.
Just because we did something good in
our childhood it is unfair to expect the same thing in a better way from our
children. On the whole expectation itself leads to unhappiness….whereas acceptance
leads to happiness. When we accept the fact that people are different even
though it could be our own child, we learn to stable our mind.
We are always faced with two options:
situations or persons out of our control; our mind out of our control. Which
one is dependent on which one? Obviously our mind goes out of control when
situations or persons are out of control. Perhaps, we can’t control a person or
a situation; can’t we at least control our mind? Controlling our mind means
changing the way we respond and react to situations or people by accepting that
it is impossible to expect others to be under our control.
Every negative thought depletes our
energy while every positive thought strengthens our energy. A thought which
stabilizes the state of mind is positive whereas a thought which destabilizes
or disturbs our state of mind is negative.
It is possible to re-programme our mindset. It is possible to change the way we respond to situations. But it requires will-power. We can change our mindset for our family, our career, our life and happiness. WE CAN-WE MUST if we desire to have and radiate happiness in our life and in the lives of people around us.
Thank you!