Santa Clara Meditation Anxiety – Throwing Away Victim Mentality and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
Is someone laughing at me?
Everyone has something in their mind that nags at them. However, these concerns are largely caused by the remembered thoughts of the life one has lived—the pictures of the mind that one has accumulated little by little since childhood. Starting with this issue, we would like to share some interviews with people who are truly living new lives after tossing out those pictures of the mind. As honest and daring these answers may be, we do not plan on keeping the interviewees anonymous (unless they really want to revealed). – Editor’s note
○ Please briefly introduce yourself.
I’m an ordinary, South Korean young adult who has finished military service and returned to college.
○ What mind caused you the most distress in your life?
I was typically very exhausted because of resentment and victim mentality. For example, when I hear laughter, I couldn’t stop myself from wondering if that person is laughing at me. ‘Do they think my clothes are weird? That I’m short? What’s wrong?’ I was always very self-conscious. On the other hand, I also was extremely competitive. During my school years, I couldn’t stand it if my grades fell even a little bit and pushed myself deeper into the frame of studying, which also made me develop an obsessive-compulsive disorder. But in 11th grade, there was an endless flow of distracting thoughts that I couldn’t control, especially music, and I couldn’t read properly because of this.
○ That must have been really hard for you. And you wanted to try anything you could to change that about yourself?
I visited a psychiatrist regularly since high school. They prescribed medications, but said it was an illness that cannot be cured. I tried taking a more relaxed mindset, reading, and traveling across the country, but I still wasn’t confident and was afraid of the world. The psychiatrist then recommended Ma-Eum Soo-Ryun Camp for University Students to me, explaining that it will help me understand the root cause of my problem.
○ Oh, so do you understand the cause now?
As I threw away the pictures in my mind one by one with meditation, I began to understand. The biggest thing was my resentment toward my father. When I was young, my parents fought too often. In that environment, I was always afraid to do anything for fear that I might anger someone. Eventually, my parents divorced while I was in the military. My father stopped supporting us altogether and cut off all communications. I started hating my father even more from then on. Even though I had decided to live on having erased my father from my life, as I threw away my minds, I realized that pictures of my father had already taken their places in the deepest part of my heart and made me who I am now. ‘I’m someone who has been abandoned and unloved by his father. No one will love a loser like me.’ I was drenched with such thoughts of inferiority and of being a victim. To top it off, thinking that I had to take care of my mom and younger sibling made me put a lot of pressure on myself and start being obsessive-compulsive. So I threw away the negative minds about my father. At first, I didn’t even want to recall those memories. I never thought that these minds could be thrown away. But I started thinking differently. Because they really got tossed out.
○ How did you know that your minds were being thrown away?
To put it simply, I became liberated from the memory. When I think back on those times during childhood when my parents fought, it was so painful even to think about. But now, I can see that situation objectively. The more I brought up and threw away those memories about my father, the lesser my pain became. I could feel that those feelings toward my father had imprisoned me in an iron cage. What’s important is that those pictures of my mind have never existed, but only I thought they existed.
○ What does it mean that those pictures have never existed?
For example, despite growing up in the same environment, there are people who turn out like me and people don’t. So the pictures of my memory do not exist objectively in the world, but rather are the picture world that I alone have made and that I alone was struggling in throughout my life. When you throw those pictures away, you can meet your original self. It’s difficult to describe in words how it feels when you find your whole self that is free from the memories of the past. Liberation? Relief from dissatisfaction? Freedom? Becoming one with the world? That’s what it felt like.
○ Do you think differently about your father now?
If I were to meet my father again, I think I’ll be okay now. I can understand his perspective; perhaps it was because my father also grew up without the love of his parents. I do want to ask why he did what he did back then, but if I were to meet him again, the first thing that would just come out of my mouth to him I think will be a sincere apology.
○ Are the victim mentality and obsessive-compulsive disorder gone now?
Absolutely gone. It seems to have happened automatically when the inferiority disappeared. I thought no one loved me. But I have my mom, my younger sibling, and my friends. As I realized that I am loved after all, I started trusting myself also. I think more positively now. And the biggest change is that I can laugh now. Even the people around me say that I’ve changed a lot. When the week of University Student Camp was over, about 300 of us took a group picture while jumping. I jumped and made my own pose. There was a huge smile on my face. I didn’t take pictures because I wanted to cut away half of me, which is my father. But that day, I was so joyful and grateful for everything in the world. My mother also is very happy to see that my face is so much brighter.
○ That’s so fortunate. How are you nowadays? Happy?
Very happy. I’m satisfied with my life. I’m really living joyfully without thoughts. That I have no thoughts means that there are no distracting thoughts. My head was always full of thoughts, delusions, and day-dreams, which I realized were useless, mental toxins as I practiced Ma-Eum Soo-Ryun. They say thinking makes the brain expend 40% of one’s total amount of energy. Maybe that’s why I would get tired and exhausted so easily even if I move just a little. Nowadays, though, since my mind is clear of thoughts, I move a lot more and have become healthier. At home, I can recognize and do the chores. Anywhere I am, my body moves during the time I would have spent thinking.
○ Is there anything you’d like to say to people who have the same concerns?
All those minds that are giving you pain are all things that don’t exist. Because they don’t exist, you can throw them away. When you throw them away, you will break free from the burdens of those minds and truly enjoy your life. I really want to tell people that.
