Anxiety and Needless Thoughts? Simple Solution.

Questioner: Good afternoon, my name is Aryan and I am in my first year. So, my question is how to control anxiety, as I have a problem called ‘Hyperhidrosis’ where my hands are too sweaty. So, without thinking, my hands and feet start to sweat and it’s because of anxiety, over-thinking and all.

Acharya Prashant: See, the problem is due to a physiological reason, obviously only a medical practitioner can advise best. Having said that, I am sweating right now probably as much as you, it’s just that I don’t care for it, and that ends it. You have no control over what your body does, what circumstances or chance can do, and who can control that, right? You didn’t control your birth, you’ll also not probably control your death. We do not know when the next earthquake or tsunami might hit us. There is so much in life that we have no handle over, no control over at all. But there is one thing we can choose, and that one thing is everything.

You can decide, what is it you care for and what is it you ignore. If you cannot ignore all the trivia in life, life will enslave you, are you getting it? There is just so much that can happen to you, just randomly, let it all happen just on the outside; even the body must be considered an outsider. If something is happening to the body, it is something happening to somebody external.

How many of you got COVID infected? Many. Did the virus take your permission? That’s how life is — It infects you without your permission. But inwardly your consent should be everything. The body is an outsider and the virus can infect it without your permission. But, let no virus infect you inwardly without your consent. You have that freedom, that authority over yourself, and you must exercise it. It is possible there is something in your body, in the brain, in the physiology, that causes the condition you named. You can’t help it, maybe it is genetic, who knows? But is it not in my purview to accord it importance, or to willfully ignore it, I am asking you?

Has it not ever happened that you are running a high fever, and yet you are engaged in something, simply because it is important, simply because you love it, does it happen or not? This happens with little kids as well, 101 fever and the little chap is running away to play cricket. Seven years old and Mumma is running after him, “You, you stop!” He says, “No, I have to play.” 101 fever, he wants to play. Equally, 101 fever, you may decide you are very sick. Fever you cannot control, your attitude you can, or can you not, please tell me. Please tell me, and that’s everything.

If you cannot control your attitude towards the strange things, life throws at you, you’ll simply be a pitiable slave controlled by, possessed by situations. Do you want to live like that? Something, anything can come and control you, you want that? Do you want that? But then, there are things outside the body, there are things inside the body, you know of hormonal changes, you know of mood swings, you know of how heat affects you, you know of how humidity affects you, you know of how food affects you. And these things are happening, do you want to allow them to possess you? Or do you want to rather lord over them, you say? Yes! something is happening in the body, but I don’t, but I don’t? I don’t care. Don’t care.

Roger Federer recently retired. One of the reasons, why for me, he will remain the greatest ever is not because he had twenty grand slams, Nadal has twenty-two, he’ll be the greatest ever because he played a lot in pain and through pain. He was forty-one when he retired, and that means a lot. Interestingly, even against Rafael Nadal, most of the matches that he won were after he crossed the age of thirty-three. Federer was losing a lot to Nadal, but in the last eight or ten matches that they played, Federer dominated. And that was after Federer had crossed the age of thirty-three, thirty-five, thirty-eight, forty. And the body was creaking. There was a phase in between, where his backhand had totally broken, he was just slicing, and also losing, but he kept playing, and that’s something I have found in all great players. They play through pain. They simply tell pain, “C’mon, I don’t care.”

And if you can learn to say, I don’t care, to your body and everything associated with the body, you’ll go very far. I don’t care. Are you hungry? Of course, but I don’t care. It's animals who are ruled by their physical instincts, am I an animal? No, I don’t care. If an animal is hungry, it will go for food. If a human being is hungry, she will decide whether to go for food. You have the power to choose, and that choice is, I am saying, is everything in life, and that choice is called — consciousness. That alone is the characteristic of consciousness, the authority to choose, the power to not be ruled.

I will not be ruled, I’ll choose whether to go for food. And the body may keep crying for food, I might decide I am not having anything for two days, I am not having anything. Have you ever seen an animal fasting? We manage to fast because we rule our bodies, and that’s why we are human beings, we rule our bodies. The body keeps saying so many things, we don’t care. Even examination tomorrow, it’s just 10:30 PM and the body is saying sleep, what do you do? Crash on the bed? what do you do? You say, “I don’t care.”

Your comfort is less important than my priorities. The body is saying, “Give me comfort.” You are saying, “No, something else is more important.” Have you watched the movie — A Beautiful Mind? Did you see how Nash fights against his own body? How many of you have watched it? It’s worth it, go for it. You must, especially. See how he fights against his own body, and that’s why he is great and that’s why the movie is wonderful, getting it?

Don’t be a normal, timid soul. Why did you fall asleep? Because I was sleepy; that’s a kid’s argument, it doesn’t behoove grown-ups. Why did you fall asleep? Why didn’t you hit hard? Because I was tired; that’s a loser’s argument. When you are tired, that’s when you should be hitting the hardest. When you are afraid, that’s when you should be the boldest, getting it. Remember, these are all things, embedded in the body, and the body comes from the jungle. We are no more creatures of the jungle, we are not to be ruled by the body. We must understand the body, and we must use the body for the purposes of consciousness.

Consciousness will decide the destination and the body will be the vehicle to reach that destination. The body itself cannot be the destination or the ruler. What do you want, to use the body, or be used by the body?

Questioner: Use your body.

Acharya Prashant: Yeah, use your body, otherwise you body will use you.

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