Sometimes Love Means Holding Back

The battle within the battle

Photo by Ekaterina Shakharova on Unsplash

I feel the most painful thing for someone would be to see their loved ones going through pain and do nothing about it.

Not because they cannot, but because they know it is something which they, and only they, have to fight to change things around them, for themselves and the people around them.

However, the urge to go through the battle instead of those loved ones feels much easier than resisting the urge to do so. You know how to deal with it, what to say, when to say, how to say and why to say it. All at once. Sometimes in the form of verbal actions and sometimes in the form of physical actions. But it all seems so much easier.

I was reflecting on what makes it so much easier to fight than to resist the urge to do so.

The first thing that comes to mind is protecting the loved ones. But is it? Is it really about protecting the loved ones.

It may be, but not entirely.

When you fight on behalf of someone else, you subconsciously tell yourself that you can handle this better. And in turn, you start feeling that the other person may not be capable enough to deal with it.

You repeatedly start seeing things through the memories you have built over time. You don’t see the other perspective. What you feel might be the right way may be the wrong way for the other person, and vice versa.

And in this process, you feed your ego.

Your moment of pride to face everything just the way it should be, which is all as per you. Nothing else.

Ego grows. Pride grows. And with it grows your sense of victory within.

All of these are food for the mind to feed on and keep feeding on. A loop which would never end. A loop which you built, and you are going to pull yourself and your loved ones into as well.

A loop which may not have existed had you not faced it and instead given the other person an opportunity to deal with it in their own way.

Not just that. It doesn’t end here.

You feel everything is in your control because you are the one who is facing it now. You feel you have taken into account a thousand possibilities which may or may not go right or wrong.

You keep satisfying your mind to feel safe within yourself, without realising that it is the mind which has already started tricking you.

It has already started playing games with you, and you are not aware of it.

On and on it goes.

Most of the time, you do it by yourself. And sometimes, you feed the minds of others by taking inputs from them or making them do things your way only. Because you, and only you, feel it can be resolved that way.

No other way seems possible because you have never experienced it before. Your memories have never accounted for it.

The mind doesn’t know what else it can do.

The mind is neither still nor calm now to figure out what can be done. It feels like it is never going to end.

You suffer, and you make your loved ones suffer along with you.

So what can you do?

For once, hold yourself back.

Trust your loved ones. Trust the way they are dealing with things, even if you may not know how to deal with them yourself. Trust that it is all for the good of everyone.

Don’t let your ego or pride take control of you.

Let it sit. Let it know that peace can only be found when these emotions are observed and not acted upon.

Yes, it is tough.

But the tougher it is, remember, the more you are fighting your own ego.

And the more the ego fades, the more you find peace within yourself, with or without this entire situation.

And the more you find peace, the happier you become.

So sit back and be happy.

With Gratitude,

Swati Jena