Happiness is just a touch or sound away!

Emotional flotsam looks for an anchor, and if you understand that and consciously choose your cues, you can be on top of your emotions and choose the way you feel at any time!

Have you ever experienced a fleeting, unattached memory that has surprised you, coming as it does from nowhere, often in the middle of an activity that is completely unrelated? For instance, sometimes, I suddenly remember the street corner my home was on several years ago; other times I am revisited by a clear vision of myself on the emerald greens outside a British castle I visited more than a decade ago! You wonder what triggered the memory of that seemingly inconsequential moment, but then shrug and move on.

However, several visitations later, you realise there must have been something special, almost magical about that moment, which visits you repeatedly across time and space, even though you cannot figure out what. Most probably, it was the emotion attached with it.

I have long wondered and worried about such emotional flotsam that evokes uncalled for memories or momentary emotions that pass on. In fact, science has a term for it ­ involuntary memory, when cues from everyday life evoke past recollections without any conscious effort on our part. It is almost like these moments or incidents are attached to a stimulant or trigger one is unaware of ­ ever heard of the concept of anchoring emotions? Experts explain that most of us can and do anchor emotions onto activities, even to simple acts.

Our sensory experiences get associated with incidents and trigger memories. Sometimes the intensity of a moment in which you were completely present in the `now’ gets associated with a smell, an action, a sight or a sound, which will always whisk you back to that moment. So the smell of a barbecue may remind you of a bad moment you had at a picnic many years ago where there may have been a barbecue around without your remembering it.The sound of a buzzing bee may transport you to a pleasant moment in childhood. Did you know, when a woman plunges her hand into her oversized bag and withdraws the exact lipstick she is looking for, she is relying on her haptic touch memory?

Scientists suggest that sensory memory -memories triggered by sound (echoic), smell (olfactory), sight (visual), taste or touch (haptic memory) -bypass the logical part of the mind and travel to the seat of instinct and memory, the primitive part of the brain. And so, sometimes memories and sometimes just the emotion associated with them can be vividly recalled upon being presented with the trigger. A study at the National Institute of Neuroscience in Turin, Italy, reveals that the same part of the brain involved in processing our senses is also responsible for storing emotional memories. So that effectively explains the involuntary memory recalls and fleeting emotional impressions we may get at times. Though mostly a subconscious association, therapists suggest this knowledge can be used to create voluntary connects that can help people. For instance, if while feeling an intense emotion such as happiness, you have been in the habit of rubbing your fingertips to your forehead, the same action in the future can instantly recall that happiness all over again even without any other trigger. This can effectively be used in moments when you desperately need a dose of happiness.

This ability helps patients in the process of recovering from emotional turmoil. Those affected are advised to avoid actions that are associated with memories that tear them apart. This lessens the frequency and intensity of the painful memories. And with a focus on actions or sensory experiences that evoke happy memories, the process of healing can be hastened. Experts suggest that this can be done by repeatedly recalling happy healing memories and associating them with an action such as, for instance, opening your hand wide and shutting it.

Thus, by turning involuntary memory into a process of voluntary, deliberate recall of happy memories, one can walk around with a bagful of happiness, calm, positivity and healing available literally ­ a touch, smell, taste, sound or sight away.

Do we think too much? Or, not enough?

Clearing your mind of thought may help calm you down, but cannot help resolve  issues!

Thoughts are like wild horses. They gallop on unfettered, kicking up dust. But if reined in and trained, they accept the mind as master and trot in more planned, useful ways. Thoughts don’t need quieting as much as a sense of direction and focused application.

Most of us believe that our chaotic minds are the result of thinking too much. But, I suspect the cause is that we probably think too little. The chaos in our minds need not necessarily be the result of too much thinking, too many ideas and too much work. It results from allowing thoughts and ideas to accumulate, and aspirations and desires to mount. We do not allow ourselves to sort out, analyse and de-clutter the mind– ­ by giving enough thought and sharp focus to what we really want or what is good for us.

Like with most other things, our natural instinct is to put aside issues that need to be thought through. Just as ignoring work leads to a desk piled with papers, an Inbox screaming with unread mails and a pile of washing– similarly, thinking that is not indulged in, ends up cluttering our mind. Rather than examining our emotions, responses and dreams, we tend to just let things flow, and matters build up till we reach a breaking point.

From here it is easy to allow the mind to be seduced by talk of calming activities that blank our minds, creating an empty, calm space. That half-hour in the bathtub; staring out of the window; that time between sleep and wakefulness; gardening; stargazing, and, of course, meditation! We come out of such an exercise feeling peaceful– ­ till the next turbulence hits us.

But though a somnambulating mind, blank of thought, may help rejuvenate and re-energise us, is that the solution? In order to arrive at a permanent state of calm, those moments of meditative calm must be balanced by moments of focused meditation.

Most religions advocate some type of meditation aimed at taking your mind away from normal everyday activity and focusing on the inner self. Some suggest clearing the mind of all thought, others teach meditation for a purpose– ­ be it health or cultivating emotional equanimity. Buddhism teaches meditating while aware of everyday activity around us.

Taking a cue from the mindfulness that Buddhism teaches, it is important to focus on the thoughts and issues that bother our minds, rather than trying to blank them out. Sleeping over an issue does help us calm down our heartbeats and lower blood pressure, but sometimes it may end up in pushing back the worry altogether rather than dealing with it.

It is important to pay attention to our anxieties and worries because they are indicators of what needs fixing.

How can you sort out your thoughts and anxieties? Putting things down in black and white is always a good beginning. Write down your thoughts, worries and anxieties. Categorise them, figure out which of these are continuing, recurring or are new worries. Identify one problem at a time to focus on. Try to get to the root cause of the issue and begin there.

Think the issue through like you would a problem at work. Stay objective through the exercise. Try and look at it as somebody else’s problem; that will make it easier for you to figure out the advice you need to give yourself.

How would you ideally like to deal with the situation? What stops you from taking it head on? Can you live with the issue or is that impossible?

Focusing on and resolving your issues one by one will give you a similar calm as the one meditation and calming activities do– ­ with the added bonus that your problems would have been dealt with as well.