麻豆社

The physical health of the nation has been the priority during the pandemic. The last few months have also shone a light on the health of our relationships. With law firms citing an increase of up to 40% in divorce inquiries and anecdotes of how people are finding ways to cope with the pressures that are being placed on their relationships. As a psychiatrist, I鈥檓 also having many more conversations with patients about how they鈥檙e noticing the cracks in their relationships, and this hasn鈥檛 been limited to romantic ones.

Although relationships can be tricky to objectively analyse, a common theme I'm seeing is that the silence that comes with the absence of outside distractions makes us more aware of our own emotional discomfort: whether this is generated by who we are living with or from other areas of our life, including our past, the tendency can often be to project it onto the people we have been spending most time with. However, our ability to tolerate emotional discomfort can actually be a useful skill to enable healthy relationships. It can help people to use a wider range of emotions as a barometer to assess themselves and others.

This can go against human instinct. I鈥檝e noticed how people use many excuses to avoid confronting difficult feelings. It is not always easy to be open about them, for fear of becoming vulnerable. In the vedic literatures one of the key aspects to healthy, loving relationships is confidential dialogue rooted in trust, compassion and speaking the truth in a palatable way. Krishna is most famous for his conversation with Arjun in the Bhagavad Gita, but he has many such conversations throughout the vedas where he is approached by someone in distress, sometimes they are even criticising him. His response, coming from a place of love acknowledges his own feelings of discomfort but is simultaneously compassionate and truthful. This is how he is able to take Arjun from a relationship with him which starts out with grief, fear and doubt and leads to enlightenment and a deeper connection between the two of them.

Human beings aren鈥檛 strangers to enduring pain for a greater outcome. I remember my mother removing a splinter from my finger with a needle, tolerating the pain of the needle became more bearable knowing that there would be long term relief. It鈥檚 ok to not feel ok, but when difficult emotions are heightened, it can often be intolerance of our own feelings that can push us to speak our truth in an unpleasant manner. But if we just try to stop and experience the feeling, assess it and then use it as a stepping stone for open compassionate dialogue, I have seen how it can lead to effective and deeper communication and be very healing.

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