Inna Shukshina

It is morning now, I look out of the window and see a clear blue sky, quiet pines, and mountains that are not high but are calming in their monumentality. The bed is soft, with pleasant fresh linen on it, from the next room come the sounds of a balalaika — my elder son recently started learning and has become absorbed in it, while the younger children have already begun building some slightly crooked tower-garage (yes, my daughter has had to start playing with toy cars too, because of the constant requests from the youngest). And my work makes me glad — my clients really are growing and moving forward. My heart tells me that everything is good! Right up until the moment you decide to turn on the news or read deeper into the internet.

Am I burying my head in the sand, is my heart growing hard, if I limit the flow of information from outside? A counter-question — is it possible to live happily and joyfully while letting into yourself all the horrors that happen not even every day but, statistically, every minute? Let us try to work this out. I am going to share my view of this topic, based on real experience and a fairly long path towards my choice.

What happens when we let negativity into ourselves?

There was a period in my life when it seemed that something bad was happening in the world and that something would soon happen. Events confirmed it. I shrank into a ball with fear and felt constant anxiety. The Bible invites us to judge everything in our life by its fruits, and also points out that a deed done without love is meaningless. A very interesting point — we usually think that if we do what we must, then that is how we show love, and it does not matter what we feel while doing it. But the phrases saying that you can, after all, give away all your goods without love and there will be no benefit in it make you wonder what is meant and what our feelings are telling us.

So, let us examine the fruits of closely following everything bad in the world, reacting to it and letting it inside ourselves.

1. Anxiety

One of the expected consequences is that your thoughts constantly start running off somewhere and your imagination paints frightening pictures. We may start worrying excessively about those close to us, and nervous breakdowns become likely. Is anyone better off for this? Is this “fruit” tasty? Let me share one of the techniques that helps me — in sad, heavy moments I sometimes go and watch videos by bloggers who are doing well, who buy things for themselves and write reviews, and straight away there is more inspiration to do my own everyday tasks.

2. Anxiety about the future

You do not feel like doing anything — neither making good, “big” plans, nor baking gingerbread men with the children, nor helping the elderly neighbour. Why do anything if it will all soon be over. The consequences are that we give up on carrying out our ideas, which might have been useful to other people. We simply become useless when all our thoughts and feelings are taken up with anxiety.

3. Fear

As is well known, fear is the opposite of love, and when you feel it, know that love has stepped aside. Fear has its own important functions — such as caring for our safety — but when there is too much of it, we switch into survival mode and put “on pause” everything wonderful we have in our life: our creativity, our useful work, our relationships with people.

4. Your heart aches for others

What will you be able to do here? Most likely, running on fear and strain, you will take a couple of actions, and then you will get tired and simply live in a foul mood. Those who can be regular volunteers are those who have no family of their own; those who do have one have to work for real pay, do the housework, take the children here and there, be kind to their husband or wife, and cultivate the small “garden plot” given into our keeping — the area of our real responsibility. And only once you have mastered that can you share love and deeds with someone else out of your surplus. When everything is bad inside, nothing good comes out into the world either.

5. Guilt

It may appear when you do something for yourself. As in Soviet times — you do not want to finish your porridge, while children in Africa are starving! What buying things for yourself, then! What fun, when such things are happening in the world! Here you must sit in a corner and be afraid. That is exactly what the Lord called us to — to sit and be afraid! Or is it not? Or did He speak of the need, in this vain world, to rejoice, to pray sincerely and to be grateful for what we have?

The combined result of all five of these consequences is despair. Your hands drop. We are “not indifferent”, but the world is neither warmed nor cooled by such non-indifference. In reality it is reflected only on us and our family, and also on the work we are called to do. And often not for the better.

Is it realistic to “know nothing”?

No; even if you do not watch the news and do not read the grim stuff, everything will still reach you from the people around you, so you will not miss anything important in any case.

I want to quote here a wonderful poem by Darina Nikonova:

“I write: “Here, I am baking a pie and making compote.”
In the comments they answer me:
— There!
So you have a peaceful life, and compote,
And do you know there is a war going on in the world?

I write: “Look, this here is a cat.
He is funny and behaves terribly…”
In the comments they answer me:
— Hell!
How can you?
In such and such a place people have died!

I write: “I was feeding a baby thrush.
It barely survived, since it fell out of the nest.”
And they write to me:
— What thrush is this?
— You must have gone out of your mind, right?
Do you not know that trains have come off the rails,
What do we care about a baby thrush?

And one day you will write: “I am lying in the grass,
Silly thoughts are leaping about in my head…”
And suddenly there will come this answer:
I thought I was dead. It turns out I am not:
I read about a cat, about a thrush, about compote:
It means that life goes on for other people.
It means there is still a chance.
For people like us.
For me.
For us.

Is it immoral to enjoy life when such things are happening in the world?

Did the war in Ukraine, for example, pass me by? I know its main points and at least I have not quarrelled with anyone over it, as many people have. Let me tell you about my experience as a practising psychologist. The war reached me like this: more women from Ukraine started coming to me — those who had moved from Donetsk, and those who live not far from it even now. I talk with people from different cities and countries, because I also consult over Skype. People come to me not so that I will be horrified, feel sorry for them and become nervous and anxious. They do not need that; they have enough of it in their own life, and they are learning to cope with it, to come out of it, to live on, rather than wishing that there were more people experiencing inside themselves the same thing as they are.

And the requests people came to me with were not at all the ones that might seem fitting to us. Life moves forward, and it is the same as everywhere else. One young woman’s relationship with her boyfriend deteriorated after he was called up, and she did not know what to do — to keep carrying it on her own shoulders despite the fact that he had changed a great deal, or to move on. Another moved from the war zone to a different city and wanted to start everything from scratch. Another simply wanted to learn to enjoy life and to communicate with people more easily. She laughed for a very long time when, in response to her “I have a feeling that the apocalypse is coming soon”, I said, “Then maybe we should spend the last days joyfully? Since nothing can be changed anyway.” And as a result of our work she wrote that she had begun to feel alive and had plans for life. And I believe that is the best thing I could have done for these people.

So what should we do?

I think we should keep peace in the soul, love and faith in the best, no matter what. If you look closely at history, there has never been an ideal time. Something was always happening, and rulers were always criticised. But even from those times, besides the horrors, cheerful songs, bright toys and painted matryoshka dolls have come down to us — which means there was always joy, creativity, love and hope, and now we too have no reason to give up all of that in our own life out of solidarity with those who are having a hard time. Bring peace and love to those around you, care for your soul and for yourself — then there will be a better chance that you can actually support someone.

Write and tell me what consequences of letting negativity into yourself you see in your own life, whether you like them, and whether you could bring more benefit while in a state of love and inspiration?

This article of mine was published on the portal http://www.matrony.ru/ne-vpuskat-v-sebya-negativ/

Write to me at inly@list.ru if you want to learn not to let negativity into your life!