Mind, Body, and Spirit (Part 1 – The Spirit)

Note: This is part one of a multi-post blog series exploring the connection between the mind, body, and spirit.

We often hear of the mind, the body, and the spirit as separate concepts that are somehow connected. From my own experience, I’ve noticed that this relationship runs deep, as the health of one is dependent on the health of the others. I like to think of the mind, the body, and the spirit as parts of a tree. The concept of a tree does not exist without a trunk; similarly, we do not exist without a body. However, what makes a tree truly special are its branches and leaves. This is similar to the human mind, which can think, reason, and be creative. Without this unique mental capacity, a human is no different than any other animal. All that said, there is one other part of the tree that is unseen but nourishes and serves as the foundation of the trunk and the branches, which are the roots. For us, this unseen essence of who we are that nurtures our mind and body is our spirit.

What is the spirit?

Society seems to neglect the spirit the most, perhaps because we understand it the least. We see and feel the body every day, and we endlessly converse with the mind, but what does the spirit do? What is the spirit? The spirit is the unseeable essence that gives us our breath and life; a body without a spirit is just a corpse. Like the roots of a tree, it is connected to the same soil that nourishes and gives life to all of creation. This is why we feel an intrinsic desire to connect with something greater than ourselves, whether with other people, animals, or nature. It is also why we always feel empty when we pursue a hedonistic lifestyle, one that focuses primarily on the self and maximizing pleasure. The spirit defines our purpose, connects us to the greater universe, and it represents the purest and most idealized version of ourselves.

The power of the spirit

What makes the spirit so powerful is that it is not bound by the limits of the mind or the body. The most prevalent example is a mother who can lift a car to save her trapped child. This miraculous feat defies the logic and limits of the body, yet examples of this have been documented several times. Not only does this suggest that we are capable of more than we think, but it also suggests that we must have access to power and strength far greater than our own. If you pour a glass of water from the river into your garden, it will only nourish a small area. However, if you could channel the river itself, it could nourish an entire forest.

To channel the strength and nourishment that allows us and those around us to flourish, we must merge ourselves and connect with the greater divine universal power, the source from which the spirit originates. In other words, we need to develop a strong connection with this universal force that created us, God Himself. However, it is not just about pleasing some Supreme Being that lives in the clouds, but it is about living a virtuous life, beyond the self, that nourishes the seeds that our Creator has planted deep within us — the seeds of love, compassion, truthfulness, humility, and contentment.

The end goal of the spirit is a humble one. It is not to channel some supernatural power or strength but to set a strong foundation for the body and mind to be built upon, which can help us find inner peace and happiness.

Freeing the spirit

If you ask someone what they want from life, even those with endless wealth, you’ll almost always hear everyone say they just want to be happy and free. If you take what they say at face value, it makes little sense. You have a roof over your head, all the food you can eat, and you can do what you want when you want it, so how can you say you are not free? The problem is that we look at this problem with an external lens when, in actuality, both the captor and the prisoner (the spirit) lie within. The spirit is bound and entangled in worldly illusions and attachments that make us feel as if we are not free. The root of the things that often keep us bound are not our careers, our families, or some external oppressors, but it is internal oppressors and criminals such as our ego, pride, and anger.

For example, imagine you have a family member coming over to your home for a visit. Some people will tidy up as a courtesy to make their guests feel welcome, while others will go beyond that and feel the need for everything to be perfect. They think their home is a reflection of them, and they don’t want to be viewed as slobs. Both individuals try to achieve the same goal, but the person who feels their home reflects them is likely to be more stressed and anxious because they’ve attached their sense of self-worth to how others perceive their home. The stress doesn’t come from the family member visiting but from the ego’s need for validation and approval, alongside a fear of judgment.

For our spirit to be truly free, we must strip ourselves of this illusion that external things will free us from the barriers that lie within. Once the spirit detangles from what is truly holding it captive (the ego, pride, anger, lust, greed), we can cultivate an inner environment that nourishes the seeds of virtues that will help us unlock the transformative power of the spirit.

Final words…

“Make your mind the farmer, good deeds the farm, modesty the water, and your body the field. Let the Lord’s Name be the seed, contentment the plow, and your humility the fence. Doing deeds of love, the seed shall sprout, and you shall see your home flourish.”

~ Guru Granth Sahib Ji

The spirit is the essence that gives life to our body. We rarely give it the attention it deserves because it is the most mysterious and challenging to comprehend. Many may even question the very existence of the spirit or the soul. However, deep down, we know that something within us goes beyond our flesh. We cannot see it, but like the wind, we feel it. Like gravity, we may not be aware of its presence in our everyday lives, and yet, when there is even a slight change in gravitational force, its existence becomes evident.

The spirit serves as the bedrock for the mind and body, helps define our unique purpose, and connects us with the rest of the universe. It is not bound by the limitations of the mind and body, but we often cannot unlock the full power of the spirit as we are trapped by inner criminals such as our ego, pride, and greed. These criminals create a hostile environment and prevent the seeds of contentment, humility, and love from blossoming. As a result, we feel an inner void and emptiness despite having fulfilled all our extrinsic desires. When we feel this emptiness, these criminals convince us that the solution is to fill it with more extrinsic desires, as they fear that we will wage a war against them if we look within. Despite falling into this trap repeatedly, we can and will overcome it. The spirit is strong. We have the support of the Divine. However, we must not waste away this precious human life. The urgency to free the spirit is now because we don’t know if tomorrow will be our last day.

Here’s how your thinking might be flawed…

As we all know, most of our thoughts and reactions are automatic. Think of all the times when you’re watching TV and your mind randomly drifts into that project you haven’t finished at work, or think of when you instantly get annoyed at that driver who isn’t moving when the traffic light turns green. The good thing about this process is that we don’t get overwhelmed by the amount of information our mind is processing. The bad thing, however, is that this process has some hiccups. According to David Burns’ book on mood therapy, there are ten cognitive distortions that many of us suffer from:

All-or-Nothing Thinking. This flawed type of thinking is when we see things as black and white. Either you succeeded or you failed, nothing in between. You’ve succeeded if you got a 4.0 GPA, but anything less and you’ve failed. All-or-nothing thinkers are perfectionists. The slightest mistake or flaw and they assume the worst of themselves or their performance. These thinkers are too hard on themselves (and possibly others as well). Their expectations are unrealistic, and as a result, they’re almost always going to fail to meet their expectations.
Overgeneralization. This flawed type of thinking is when you treat a singular occurrence as a common occurrence. For example, you’re working on a project on your computer when the computer randomly restarts. You lost your work as you did not save it and say “This always happens to me! I’m always unlucky!” In actuality, this may have been the first time that it ever happened to you, or maybe it happened once before. It’s not an every day occurrence but you are treating it as if it is. When a friend doesn’t respond back to your text message, you might say “she never responds back” even though it was a rare occurrence for your friend to not respond to your message.
Dwelling on the negative. This is when you identify a negative detail from a situation or occurrence and you dwell on it. For example, you have your performance review at work and get heavily praised, but are given one small piece of criticism. Rather than appreciating that you did so well, you dwell on that negative piece. As a result, you question how you messed up, or maybe you get annoyed at your supervisor because you felt that piece of criticism was unfair. Either way, you fail to put the situation into perspective because all you can focus on is the negative.
Disqualifying the positive. This is when you take a positive situation and either fail to acknowledge that it’s positive or you disqualify it. For example, if someone gives you a compliment, rather than believing it, you might say “They’re just being nice” or “anyone could have done it.” If you do something well, you might say “I was just lucky.” This could be perceived as humility as well, however, what matters is the intent behind it. A humble person would say “I did well, but I acknowledge that there were other factors involved too and I was fortunate to be in the right situation at the right time” whereas someone who is disqualifying the positive would say “Anyone could have done it. I was just lucky.”
Jumping to conclusions. This is when you make assumptions that are not justifiable by any type of facts or information. For example, if you’re talking with a friend who seems disengaged, you assume that you’re boring him, when in actuality he might just be stressed or tired and is finding it difficult to concentrate. Burns refers to this as a “mind reading” error. Another type of thinking error in the realm of jumping to conclusions is the “fortune teller error.” This is when you make an assumption by predicting something that is unrealistic. For example, if your left arm is hurting, you say to yourself that you must be having a heart attack even though you’ve had left arm pains before and it was never a heart attack.
Magnification and minimization. You catastrophize small negative occurrences whereas you minimize positive occurrences. You make a small mistake at work and think that you’re going to get fired, or maybe you get into a small argument with your girlfriend and think she’ll never forgive you. Magnification and minimization is sometimes also called ‘unfavorable comparisons’ because this type of distorting thinking often happens when comparing yourself against others. For example, you might think “John’s so successful because he’s a lawyer (magnifying another’s strengths) whereas I’m not because I’m just an accountant (minimizing your own strengths).”
Emotional Reasoning. This is when you think your emotions are the ultimate truth. This is when you say “I feel stupid, so I must be stupid” or “I feel guilty, so I must have done something bad.” You might think that you do not do this because the examples I have shown are a bit extreme, but ever think that you can’t solve a problem because you’re feeling overwhelmed? That’s an emotional reasoning flaw. “I feel overwhelmed so I must not be able to solve this problem.”
Should/Must Statements. This can be either self-directed or other-directed. When it’s self-directed, you assume that you should or must do something and add pressure on yourself. You say “I must go to the gym” or “many people have it harder than I do so I should be happy and not sad.” Alternatively, when it is other-directed, you make assumptions as to how others should behave. You might say “He’s already overweight, he shouldn’t have eaten that brownie” or “she should’ve been here five minutes ago.” As you see here, you create somewhat of a faulty logic for yourself and others and operate under the assumption that you know what is right and how things should be done for yourself and/or others.
Labeling. Burns states that labeling is an extreme form of overgeneralization. It’s when a negative occurrence happens and you label yourself for it. It’s when you say you are a certain why because of something you did. You don’t get the job and say to yourself “I’m a failure.” The labels are generally oversimplified and just wrong.
Personalization. What defines this distortion is guilt. This is when you blame yourself or conclude that a negative occurrence resulted because of you. Your child got detention because he yelled at this teacher and you think to yourself that it’s your fault because you are the parent. In this circumstance, you’re operating under the assumption that you control others and other situations. You can influence others, but you cannot control them.

Final words…

In all of these distortions, you’ll notice some overlap. For example, most of these distortions are a result of faulty assumptions, false logic, and based on no real evidence. Furthermore, most of these have a tendency to either (a) fixate on the negative or (b) negate/ignore the positive. What Burns and most psychologists don’t usually talk about is individuals who have a tendency to do the opposite. These individuals are those who generally are overconfident with possibly an overinflated ego and are those who (a) assume everything they do is positive or (b) everything others do is negative. Either way, cognitive distortions exist and we are all guilty of them.

Which ones are you guilty of?

Optimism wins

Way too many people out there have this belief that optimism is synonymous with delusion and/or being unrealistic. I hear it all the time that optimists are just sunshine, rainbows, and flowers. They don’t see or acknowledge the hurt and pain that’s out there in the world. They are optimistic because their life is good. Their reality is distorted. One individual on Fox News went so far to say that optimism was at fault for why a US soldier killed 16 Afghan civilians because “soldiers are actually taught to deny stress and trauma, and false bravado is actually encouraged.”

But did you ever stop to think that maybe optimists are the realists? Maybe their life is good BECAUSE they are optimistic? The truth is that optimism and positivity wins. A mild dose of pessimism has its utility, and extremism of anything is unhealthy, but by and large, optimism wins. According to the research shared in Martin Seligman’s book on optimism, on average, optimists have better physical and mental health, and they are better achievers than pessimists. It’s just a fact.

That being said, optimism is not necessarily what you’ve been fed by other people. It’s not just turning everything negative into something positive, and nor is it something you can experience by just having a positive pep talk with yourself while standing in front of a mirror. Ultimately, the way you distinguish an optimist from a pessimist is based on how an individual explains to themselves the bad things that happen to them in their life.

Optimists vs. Pessimists:

When something bad happens, an optimist WILL feel bad. Of course they will. They’re human. It’s not just that their glass is half full. They’re not delusional. However, the difference between them and the pessimist is that the optimists’ feelings of helplessness are temporary and they are more likely to contextualize the bad event. The pessimist, on the other hand, views bad events as more permanent and a general occurrence in their life that is inevitable and unavoidable.

The pessimist is very passive and helpless. The pessimist accepts the inevitable doom of his or her life, and a bad event is just a reflection of that. The pessimist feels they cannot really do anything about the situation. The optimist is also passive and helpless, but that’s very short lived. Soon the optimist realizes that:

The bad event is not a reflection of my life; it happened because of X, Y, and Z. Maybe I can’t do anything about this situation, but I can do A, B, and C to move forward.
Bad things happen, and they suck, but that will not stop me from growing, getting better, and achieving my goals. Just because I feel bad about this doesn’t mean I need to feel terrible about my entire life.
I have the power to move on and not feel terrible anymore.

On average, both the optimist and the pessimist experience the same bad events. Furthermore, they feel equally as bad when bad things happen to them. However, the difference is that soon after, the pessimist enables the helplessness whereas the optimist suppresses it. The pessimist feels a lack of control while the optimist takes control. The pessimist becomes passive while the optimist becomes active. Optimists forgive themselves and the negative events in their lives whereas pessimists hold a grudge.

When it comes to how we perceive the good things that happen to ourselves in life, we see almost the exact opposite thing happen. Optimists view the good events as more permanent and a general occurrence of their life whereas pessimists view good events as more temporary and are more likely to contextualize or think it is a fluke. An optimist takes a good event, savors it, and then is motivated to replicate the good event (they feel a sense of control). A pessimist, on the other hand, sours some of the good feelings by thinking this occurrence is not sustainable and is a result of luck or chance.

Final words…

Both optimism and pessimism are habits. The good news is that optimism can be learned and pessimism can be unlearned. Again, it’s not to say that all optimism is good and all pessimism is bad (that’s a conversations for another day). Also, it doesn’t mean that optimists can’t have pessimistic moments or vice versa. A bad event is a bad event and everyone is going to feel bad about it. The difference, however, as Seligman states in his book, is that “in optimists, a failure produces only brief demoralization” (p.76). It’s short-lived. Optimists rebound faster and take control of their situation. This is why they are generally healthier, happier, and higher-achievers.

Optimism wins.

If you’re excited about Friday, something might be wrong…

Friday is great. For most of us, it’s the last day of the workweek and the beginning of the weekend where we can be relax, be lazy if we want, and actually do the things that we enjoy. We can stay at home, or we can go out. We can spend time with family and friends rather than our manager or boss. However, if we’re excited about Friday, and we spend the greater part of our week in anticipation of Friday, then do you wonder that something might be wrong?

Think about it.

We’re happy on Friday night, Saturday, and the greater part of Sunday. Sunday night comes around and we start dealing with the Sunday night blues. We’re dreading the fact that our weekend, our mini-vacation, is over. We come to the realization that we now need to start preparing for the worst part of the week – Monday. On Sunday night, we’re sad that the good part of the week is over and now the bad part of the week is about to begin. Then comes Monday and we try to survive. On Tuesday it’s a little easier to survive. On Wednesday, we’re somewhat adjusted to the week and feeling okay because it’s hump day and half the work week is over. Thursday is also okay because it’s almost Friday, but Friday needs to get here soon! On Friday, we jump for joy because it is FINALLY Friday!

Our whole work week revolves around waiting for Friday night. However, is 57-71% of our week so bad that we’re just waiting and waiting for the moment to arrive where that part of the week is over? And we expect to live 40+ years like this where from Sunday night to Thursday we’re just waiting for Friday? Here’s an excerpt from a few talks by Gary Vaynerchuk that describe the problem with Friday:

To live your life where you love Friday night, Saturday, and Sunday, and despise Monday through Thursday or Friday morning… it’s devastating to me because you’re wasting too much of your life, and I’m trying to put pressure on the conversation to say if you love Friday that much, then you really need to look at Monday through Thursday

If you start your week being sad, and it progressively gets better, you have a problem. We spend way too much time in our lives doing our jobs. When you’re spending most of your life working, it’s important that that thing is on point. It’s a math game. If you’re spending 83% of your time, 72% of your time, 64% of your time on something you hate, that’s devastating.

We basically live to work. If you’re not happy, where are you going?

Final Words…

Let me say this – being excited about Friday is not necessarily a bad thing. We should be excited to have more time for ourselves, our families, and our non-work related interests. However, if you’re excited about Friday, but you are dreading Monday, then THAT is a problem. If you sleep eight hours a day and work 40 hours a week, you’re spending about 36% of your waking hours at work. You can probably add in an additional 10-15% for overtime, commute, and when you’re not at work but thinking about it. That’s almost half of your waking hours every week.

We’re never going to be in a situation where we’re 100% happy or a 100% satisfied with our work life, and sometimes we might even have to do a job that we do not like. However, if you’re so eager for Friday and not about Monday, I strongly encourage you to find what you love and pursue it, or find a way to transform what you do into something you love (or at least find bearable). If you can do that now and it’s feasible, then do it. If you can’t do it now because it’s not feasible, find a way to make it feasible.

It’s easy to fall into the trap and say to yourself “I just don’t like work” or “I am in a situation where I can’t leave my work and find something else even though I dislike it,” but if you don’t make a change, you’re going to be spending almost half of your waking life for up to 40+ more years miserable and just waiting for Friday. Find a way to make it happen. Either transform your work or find better work.

Happy Friday…!?