As an Audiologist one of my interests is the area of tinnitus. As part of my job I counsel people who have tinnitus and try and help them in understanding this symptom and how to go about managing it. One of the things I look at is how tinnitus becomes part of a vicious circle. Looking at this negative vicious circle we see that tinnitus leads to stress, stress leads into not being able to sleep and poor sleep patterns feeds back into the stress! This cycle keeps going round and round. One can’t get rid of the stress because of the tinnitus constantly being present and one can’t stop thinking about the tinnitus as the stress heightens the fixation on tinnitus and so on.

One thing that can sometimes help break this vicious circle is relaxation therapy. Introducing some method of relaxation into life has been shown to break the cycle. As you become more relaxed and happy through incorporating the relaxation techniques, the symptoms of tinnitus can reduce and, in turn, stress can reduce and sleep patterns improve.

This got me thinking. Life can sometimes have vicious circles which we can’t get out of.  To break a vicious circle that goes round and round there needs to be strong catalyst that breaks this cycle! The strength of the catalyst would depend on how deeply routed the vicious circle is. It has to be radical to break the deep habits and flow of the cycle. In life we are products of our upbringing : what we learn from our parents, culture, the society we live in, how to deal with the challenges we face in life. But as society changes so do our needs of dealing with it. In raising children, how many times do we hear people say ‘well that’s how I was raised and it never did me any harm!’ We see how some of the youth of our neighbourhood have learnt that its ok to break a window as that is what the films show youth doing, the constant image of youth in the media showing them to be empowered is to contribute to the disintegration of the neighbourhood rather than to have the vision of carrying acts of service to the neighbourhood in which thy live and contribute to the integration of the community of which thy are part of. I raise the question that in life one needs a catalyst to break some vicious circles of habit and to set this catalyst into action, one would need consciousness! To become conscious is to ask the questions, seek the answers, to be courageous to investigate truth and open minds to greater learning. To do this it takes knowledge, volition and then action. In light of tinnitus, to break the vicious circle which tinnitus occupies, one seeks knowledge from the clinician and seek the technique to manage the tinnitus. One has to then have the will and determination to persist and put it into action on a regular basis. Only then can a new cycle be created: a cycle of new consciousness, a cycle that contributes to growth, fulfilment, well being and happiness.

Baha’u’llah the founder of the Baha’i Faith says in his Writings that ‘men have been created to carry forward an ever advancing civilization’. The point I raise is that to do this one needs to have that consciousness and seek to find out how to do that, to ask the questions, seek the answers, to get the knowledge, have the volition and to put it into action! Baha’u’llah in another part of his Writings says that ‘spiritual consciousness is the generating power of human society’.

One quote that I have been reflecting a lot on recently is-

“Life in this world is a succession of tests and achievements, of falling short and of making new spiritual advances”

(Universal House of Justice)

It has created consciousness within my mind that actually, being part of the family of humanity I am part of something bigger than myself. In the greater picture of the world, an individual can sacrifice that which is lower for that which is higher. It reminds me of a song I learnt as a child that ‘we are drops of one ocean and the waves of one sea’ and how true that is!

Baha’u’llah says that ‘The betterment of society is through pure and goodly deeds’. I think that if one is conscious of the bigger picture and strives to act in a way that is to the betterment of society then, one by one vicious cycles can be broken down and new positive and prosperous cycles can be created.

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