One girl who had been married for 15 years tried committing suicide. She got married in a joint family and before leaving her home, her mother advised her that she had to keep everyone happy or else she would fail as a daughter and a daughter in law. She was just 21 when she got married and followed her mothers advise. In that she also had to suppress her emotions and she had to keep aside her desires. They said that you need to wear this, she wore that, they said that you have to eat this, wake up at this and they decided everything for her. She felt that she was doing everything she could but she never heard any words of appreciation. She always heard someone or other talking bad about her. She wondered what she could do? This frustration and constant efforts to keep everyone happy, reached to a breaking point and she tried committing suicide. No one could understand her reasons and everyone felt that she seemed alright always then what has gone wrong? After she came back from hospital, her suppression turned into aggression and she would leash out a anyone anytime. It was like a volcanic eruption. The day she had come to me, she had tried committing suicide again. She said that, what do I do with this life? No one likes me and I do not like myself either.
I asked her, why do you want others to like you? She had no answer but she managed to say that this is what we have been taught and this is a wrong conditioning which we all get. Before others can like you, we need to like ourselves. We can give what we have. If we do not like ourselves how can we expect others to like us? If we are frustrated, we would give only frustration. So the journey begins from self not from others. So first we need to make an effort to like ourselves, be happy and then only we can think of what others would like. This is an irony, we think we can manage others happiness but when we do not know what would make us happy, it is a wastage to even think that we know about others happiness and likeness. most of the people focus too much on what they do not like in life and others and that is why we all are stuck in a very bad logjam. Where everyone focuses on what they do not like but want the results for what we like. So we need to make an effort to keep self happy, what we like in others and then for others. She started working on same and first thing happened was, she stopped being suicidal Because she no longer felt she was wasting her life. She genuinely started liking her. Then she could like others and after that others also liked her.
