Put an end to your sufferings by understanding the secret of 3 circles of life.

After reading the title, you must be wondering “Is it really possible to end our sufferings?”

Let me ask you few questions:

• Have you ever eaten something when your mind wanted it and felt guilty about it later?
• Have you ever said something to someone when your mind wanted to and later regretted saying it?
• Have you ever entered a shopping mall or a branded store to buy something when your mind said it and later felt that it was not necessary to buy it?

If the answer to any of the above question is yes, then you have become slave to your minds, rather than being master of your mind.

The fact is that, our mind creates sufferings, when it starts controlling us. 

Lets first understand what do you mean by suffering?

In simple words, suffering means being in constant pain. In this context, it means being upset about something over a long period of time.

As a NLP Practitioner and Counselor, I assure you that understanding how our mind works, it is really easy to put an end to our sufferings.

Human mind works on the principle of ‘Avoiding Pain’ and ‘Gaining Pleasure’.

When our mind associates pain with any situation or task, it identifies it as a problem or challenge. And when you are unable to resolve that challenge, then it becomes a suffering.

Consider example of developing a habit of waking up at 5 am for exercising. Most people set the alarm and when the alarm rings, they put it off and go back to sleep. This happens because in their minds they have perceived waking up at 5 am and exercising as a painful experience and instead of exercising they rather choose to suffer from health issues.

Such people instead of taking control of their mind and waking up at the sound of alarm clock, they blame the situations of the previous days or mere out of laziness they avoid taking responsibility of their own health. But by taking responsibility and associating pleasure with waking up at 5am and exercising, the mind gets trained to change a painful situation into a pleasurable one.

So in this way you can end your suffering.

Now, as you have understood the above example let me tell you a secret of how you can take control of situations of your life and end your sufferings.

And that secret is the “Secret of 3 Circles of Life”

The universe works in totality. At any given point of time, all these three circles of life are working.

These three circles of life are

• Circle of Control
• Circle of Influence
• Circle of No Control

Do you want to understand how these circles work?

Ready?

So Let’s begin

Circle of Control

Circle of Control means the circle in which you have control over things, situations, results.

So now tell me who belongs in Circle of Control?

Yes. That’s right.

It’s YOU and only YOU

Believe it or not, in your life only you have the control over your actions.

You can control your life only when you know how to handle your mind.

Whatever is your current situation in life, you have to take responsibility for it. It simply means that if you are facing any challenge related to health, relationship, or finances, then you don’t blame it on your spouse, parents, or your children.

You take the responsibility and find ways to resolve the issue. By taking responsibility I don’t mean that you take responsibility of other’s mistakes. 

Believe me, even if you blame someone else and you don’t take the responsibility, nothing is going to change in your life.

So, its YOU who belongs in the Circle of Control.

Circle of Influence

Circle of Influence consists of all those people, who are around you and they get influenced by you. These people can be your parents, spouse, children, co-workers, etc.

You can influence these people, but most people try to control them.

So, the simple truth is these people including your spouse,

children, parents, co-workers, neighbors all belong to Circle of Influence and they do not belong to Circle of Control.

Frankly speaking, after understanding this one fact you will see major changes in your life because in most of the situations of life, we try to control the people that belong to Circle of Influence.

Circle of Influence consists of a powerful principle of Cause and Effect.

Let me ask you a simple question

Are you living your life at Cause End? 

              OR…

Are you living your life at Effect End?

 What does this mean?

At any given time of the day in any situation or problem you are in

Check whether are you causing or creating it?

Or…

Are you getting affected by it and in turn creating suffering for yourself and the people around you?

Believe it or not, being consciously aware about this  principle of Cause and Effect can bring a major difference in your life.

Today, most people are living their life at Effect. Being at Effect end keeps you in victim mode. When you live your life at Effect end, then you give power to other people to control your state of mind.  People living at effect end tend to blame others for everything that is going wrong in their life and they do not take responsibility for their actions.

Most people are living their life on an Automatic mode that is they react without thinking and later when the consequences are in front of them, they are not able to accept those consequences. They start playing the blame game.

Being at Cause end gives you control of the situations in life. It simply means that you are decisive in creating what you want in life and take responsibility of what you want to achieve in life.

There are very few people that live their life at cause end which means they have control over their actions and behavior.

Now, can this be true in every situation of life that you are at cause end?

The answer is “No”.

There will be some situations where in you will be at cause end and in some situations, you will be at effect end.

Let’s understand this with simple example.

Suppose that you want to improve your health and you want to lose weight. So, there are few things that are under your control like for you will take good diet, do exercise and your health will improve gradually. If you are eating fruits (choosing a healthy diet option) and it is spoilt or it is grown using lot of harmful fertilizers and unknowingly if you consume it, then you will be affected by it. This comes under Circle of Influence. Spoilt fruit becomes the Cause and you are at the Effect end.

There will be some situations where there is no control at all. That is the third circle of life “Circle of No Control”.

Circle of No control comprises of all the situations or events that are beyond your control like natural disasters like earthquake, floods, etc. If an earthquake takes place, definitely you will be affected by it. Even if you are a healthy person if there is pollution in your city, then surely you will be affected by the pollution.  Many life situations like accidents, death of a loved one also come under this circle of life.

Now let me tell you, if you feel victimized with the above situations, then just tell yourself that they belong to ‘Circle of No Control’ and I have the power to choose my response in such situations.

Believe me, this will help you to come out from most of the painful situations in your life

Life is a big system. It is completely designed on the principle of cause and effect. Everything has an effect on every other thing. Some things will be at the cause end and some things will be at the effect end. 

Pain may be unavoidable, but suffering is.”

It means that situation may be painful, but you will keep suffering because of it, is entirely your choice.

Let me explain you this in more detail with the example of a butterfly.

We know that the caterpillar goes through a lot of struggle to come out of the cocoon and in the process, it gets converted into a butterfly. After that moment, the butterfly gets busy in flying and collecting nectar from flowers. It does not recall and remember the struggle it went through.

Similarly, I agree, most of the situations in our lives are painful, but we should not keep thinking about the struggle (suffering), but we should enjoy the process(journey called LIFE) and the results we get and move ahead in life.

A powerful statement by my Mentor Mr.Ved:

People create their private hell with lots of efforts and they do not want to disturb it.

It simply means that even if most people in present times are healthy and happy, they keep thinking about their struggles day in day out and create a life of hell and they do not want to come out of it. They like being the victim of the situation, as by being the victim they get sympathy from the people around them. Even if someone tries to give them solution to their problem, they still choose to be in the victim mode as they do not want to take responsibility of their actions.

It all boils down to one thing and that is:

The most important thing in life is life itself.

Now analyze yourself and your present circumstances and tell me which circle are you spending your life in?

Here are 2 questions you should ask yourself if you feel stuck in any situation:-

• How can I take control of myself (Circle of Control) in the present situation?
• Even if, I am at the effect end(Circle of Influence) in the situation, how can I reduce its effect on me?

Trust me, you will become master of your mind and you will be able to improve the quality of life.

So, from now on which circle of life will you spend your life in to end your suffering?

Do share your answers in the comment section.