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Having Too Many Opinions Is Bad for Your Health · Spiritual Sense: Practical wisdom to quiet an overthinking mind and recharge your soul

• 0:00
  Speaker A: What if having strong opinions is actually bad for your health? What if it's actually making you mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually drained? That's what we're diving into today in this episode of Spiritual Sense Podcast. So, Shireen, tell us, why is having opinions bad for our health?
• 0:27
  Speaker B: That does sound like a trick question. Give me your opinion of why having opinions is bad for us.
• 0:34
  Speaker A: Why? So tell me all about why you think this. Why do you have such a strong opinion that opinions are bad for you? Convince me that this is the truth.
• 0:51
  Speaker B: You know, if all said and done right, when the dust settles, the dust settles. I feel I have deep care for people. And I'm noticing a trend, a trend of swinging with the pendulum, right? Especially living in the US the pendulum swings from here to here. Everyone has an opinion on this. And this. And also this trend of not having an off ramp, right? Like, we. What is overthinking, actually? What is overthinking? There's an epidemic, I feel, of overthinking now. What I feel is overthinking this obsessive problem solving. Like, obsessively I'm solving and planning and doing this and doing that inside, and that kind of obsessive problem solving, right? We are not experiencing just the stillness of the moment. You're not being in the present moment.
• 1:59
  Speaker A: The most things in life we can't do anything about. Realistically, that. That's just the truth of it. That's why I'm a big fan of the serenity prayer. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change our things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. And having strong opinions about things I cannot change is just a total waste of my time and energy because I can think, I can watch the news and go, oh, my goodness, how could this be possible? Oh, my God, they shouldn't have done that. They should, but, like, what good is it doing me? And what good is it doing anyone else? And then. And then we get all swept up in it. And then people have arguments, and if you go on social media, there's all these people posting poisonous things to each other and then another bunch of people, you know, like, attacking them back. And everyone's like, ra, ra, ra. And is it actually making anyone happy? Is it solving any problems? Is it making any actual difference? Do we have any control? So it seems to me that all these excessive opinions are actually causing what could possibly lead to a civil war, actually. I mean, that's what a lot of people are saying, but that Again, that again, is another opinion. And some, sometimes it's just nasty comments that ruin people's day. And sometimes people actually go to violence, you know, so it can lead to extremes. So how, in. In the smallest sense, it's just wasting our time. And in the biggest sense, it can lead to possible major problems. But all the way along, is it making our life better and is it making any difference and can we control it? That's really what we have to ask, honestly.
• 3:45
  Speaker B: You know, there is one thing, right, about overthinking where I don't have an off ramp of my own life. Whatever is going on in my life, all the problems that are there, I'm constantly overthinking. And then there is one swinging with the pendulum, right? There's right and then there's left and the right or right and the left or right and then the right or right, and then you swing with the left and then you think, oh, no, no, no, what they're doing is bad. And then you swing with the right and whatever they're doing is bad. Which is what you're really talking about here. And recently, right. A few weeks ago, we had an assassination in this country. I felt very bad for the life lost and I also felt very bad for the child, right? Like 22 is a child for the child that. That life is also lost, right? So, and what happens is all this is where the world is coming to is people don't feel belonged anywhere else. And they go into these, you know, decision boards and, you know, talk talking boards, you know, chat rooms and all of these things and then they feel belonged and then they get extra extreme and then they decide, oh, this is what I'm going to do. But they don't realize what a waste of life, right? And everyone, everyone on those decision boards, they have one of the three issues going on. They either want to be relevant, they either want to be first with the opinion or they want to be right. Right? Either you want to be right or relevant or first, but we are ruining our lives. There's no peace. There is no goodwill towards people. Why do I have goodwill towards anyone? Why do I need to have goodwill toward you? Not because you need it, but because I need to have goodwill because I need it. Right? And so we lose our goodwill, we lose our peace, we lose our. Sometimes our whole life is lost and sometimes like the person who did it is also their life is lost because they're going to be in jail for the rest of their life and where are we coming to? Right? Because we have so many opinions. So on certain level, on a personal level, we are losing our peace, but on a societal level, we are losing so many things because we want to be right or we want to be relevant or we want to be first or we want belonging or we think some random, random, you know, like chat somewhere, you know, on, on the Internet is going to make me feel belonged. That's not real.
• 6:50
  Speaker A: And, and my personal view on all of this stuff because I'm, I personally try and avoid media entirely, you know, and it's not that I'm always successful, but still. And the reason for that is because I, I feel that the algorithm of the media, it is designed to promote content that gets engagement and clicks and whatever else. And the content that gets engagement is the ext type of content. If someone has a very moderate, centrist, sort of simple view which most people actually hold, it's completely ignored. No one wants to hear things like let's just be nice to everyone and just have like a balanced system. No one wants to hear that. That's boring. That's extremely boring. Right? If someone is on either side of the spectrum and they say extreme things, that gets promoted and then the people on the other side attack it and that, that gets promoted. And so most of what you see on the Internet is extreme positions attacking each other because the algorithm is designed to do that, which pushes most people unconsciously to the, to the edges, further than they perhaps are aware. And then there's all this back and forth, back and forth and back and forth and everyone wants to be right and everyone's in a bubble so that they're just. Whatever view you have, you're going to have that reinforced thousands and thousands of times for years and years and years. So whenever you come across any view that doesn't support that, you're like, yeah, but I've got like thousands of pieces of evidence to support my views which are all you could say, valid. But you didn't see all the other side of the evidence because no one showed it to you, right? So this is what's going on and it's a huge problem actually because no one. People are seeing these very sort of slanted realities.
• 8:44
  Speaker B: Yeah, silos, Right. You know one thing I was thinking about any of these, right? The swinging with the pendulum. It's not our dignity, it's not our self respect to do this because every soul fundamentally is the same. If I'm going to lose my dignity, swimming with a pendulum, thinking right is right is right, right is right, whatever. Right, right, whichever One is right. And I keep swinging and I keep having these opinions. I lose my dignity. I just at the basic. We lose our dignity. And it's interesting the way you are talking about the, the all of the social media algorithms really promote extreme views, right? And so people who want to be influential, they're called influencers in either side, then have to have, they can't have moderate views even if they have moderate views in their private life, right? They are not going to say those things because that's not promoted sometimes even.
• 9:56
  Speaker A: If they say it. Now, let's say they do say moderate things, right? Let's say they say like 90 moderate and 10%. So somewhat more extreme. The 10 that they say that's extreme is going to get 90 of their views. And so even if they're not wanting to be extreme, like, I wouldn't be surprised if this episode gets some attack from various people in the comments because we're saying, saying, do you know, I mean, like, we're not trying to be extreme here. We're trying to calm everyone down. But it's quite possible just the title of it will get people say, what the hell, you better have struggle.
• 10:33
  Speaker B: So, yeah, it's, you know, what I'm saying is I feel like a elder, right? Even though whatever, you know, as a someone who's been around and who's seen and like you see young people destroy their lives, you feel, you feel for them, you feel, you know, that's not whatever you're looking for, you're not going to get in those extremes. You're not going to get it. You're not going to get in those chat rooms, you're not going to get in those, you know, extreme positions you're holding. And because many times you have to see that you don't become a pawn for someone else, right? So let's say there is someone who gets paid for holding extreme use. And even if they have 90% extreme use, moderate views, 10% extreme views, they're getting paid for the 10% extreme views. They will kind of work that, right? Because it's their salary, right? It's their livelihood. So they will work the extreme a little bit. And you are being a pawn and you are losing your very valuable life is going away because someone else needs to make money. And so even social media, right, even social media, like sometimes I wonder of the people who sit down for hours and spend billions of dollars deciding this algorithm is going to get people addicted. How are they sleeping well at night? But okay, they're doing their, they're doing their job. My good wishes and pure feelings to everyone. Right. I'm not here to say they're bad or anything, but sometimes I really wonder how is it that you're sleeping with yourself at night when you know that you're doing this to people and you know, extreme like when you know, like as a company, right. You know, you're promoting extreme views and you know that's what is getting you money and you're still promoting it and you know people are losing their lives because of it and you're still promoting these kinds of things. There has to be some kind of, what would you say? Accountability, I feel. But more than that, right? Okay. They are not going to do it. Fine, let them not do it. Let them do whatever they want to do. But why should you be a pawn? You're just being a pawn in this. We should sit in our self respect and say I refuse to be a pawn.
• 13:12
  Speaker A: Yeah, it's a choice. We have to step back. And I find that's the most dignity, the greatest choice ultimately to, for our dignity is to say I'm not going to waste my life absorbing random nonsense on the Internet basically because it is, it is mostly toxic and it's harmful and it's a waste of time and it pushes everyone to the extremes without realizing it. You know, if you were to take average person like 20 years ago and their views at that time and then you were to stick them in this situation and see what their views are now are having, you know, absorbed all this stuff, it's getting more and more and more ridiculous as, as time goes on.
• 14:01
  Speaker B: It is getting ridiculous, right. I, I'm not going to name names, but I was hearing someone's opinion on women in marriage or women and I'm thinking that it was very extreme. Right. I feel it's very extreme being a woman that you know, the women should subjugate themselves to the men and bow down and you know, blah blah, blah, all of those things. Right. And I was thinking I really doubt that in their own marriage that that's going on. Right. I highly doubt it. Like how much of is that is performance for views and money and how much of it is you really actually practice that in your life?
• 14:50
  Speaker A: Again? We just don't know, do we? This, this is what the Internet is full of. It's full of out of context clips that have been curated to cause outrage and views. That's basically what, that's what it is about. What was it 30 years ago? 30, 35 years ago, roughly A great Book came out called Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman. Great book, great book. And he basically predicted what we have now, that everything has become extremist nonsense. And essentially, and. And this true, like this is. Adverts were the. Were the foundation of this. Advertisements are short, they. Loads of clips, they try and like, get your attention and all these different ways. And now pretty much everything is an ad in. In its own way. And so that's where we're at, basically. So the best thing to do, my opinion, is my opinion, because my opinion, of course, is the most important thing. And I'm always right about everything because that's the basis of opinion, isn't it? I'm always right. What I personally do, whether you want to do, it's up to you, is I try and avoid it because I know it's bad for my mind and I. It's not helping me, it's not helping anyone else. And the other thing is, when it comes to politics, what I personally. My personal feeling about this is that my life as a spiritual person is to be a loving towards everyone on all spectrums or wherever they're at, right? If I hold any strong views politically, I will, in my heart, I will close off my heart to half the country. And I can't do that. Do you know? I mean, that feels wrong in my heart, right? Because, Jimmy, because on some level, I'll say they're all a bunch of whatever, right? So if I turn down my opinion about these things, then I can have love for everybody, right? And end of the day, what can we actually do practically in terms of the world we live in, except vote, right? Or like, there's like a handful of actual actions that we can do practically that can make a difference. But having strong views and shouting and screaming at it all day long isn't making us happy and it's not. It's showing our heart down to loads of people and it's certainly not making the world better either. That's just my humble opinion. My humble opinions.
• 17:22
  Speaker B: Yeah, it sounds. It sounds like a really good plan. The other thing I was thinking of. In your own personal life. No, having opinions. I remember when I first came to this country, I didn't know much. I was very young. I didn't know much and I didn't have that many opinions, right, Because I didn't know much. And then I felt that people were looking down upon me for not having opinions. And so I was this sweet little innocent thing that didn't have opinions too. All of a sudden, having Opinions on everything. Because that's the way I was fitting in. My fit in was have an opinion. And so now I realize how much of my peace of mind I traded for fitting in. And I would not do that trade right now. I don't care what people think of me. I don't care what happens in the world. I don't have an opinion. I don't want to have an opinion because like you are saying, I need to have love for everyone. And you know, just recently I started really feeling this, right? Love for people. I mean, before I used to feel. But some people, not so much now, for everyone, right? And so I don't want to lose that. I want to safeguard that. I want to safeguard my feelings for people and I don't want to lose that. And in my own personal life, right? Like I'm talking about before social media, before everything, anything, when I first came to this country, just having opinions was like, so not good for my peace of mind. So not good for my peace of mind. And so I think back, and I think back to the time when I didn't have opinions and I think that's what I want to be, right? Why do I care what someone thinks of me? That's where I want to be.
• 19:29
  Speaker A: There's a nice quote. You can either be right or you can be happy. What do you want? You know, because the opinion is basically I am right and my opinion is right. And. And there's so much stress that comes with it because there's going to be a counter opinion. No, you're not right. Because of these reasons. And some things you can prove, some things you can debate, some things you can't. And some things, even if you debate them, it doesn't get to a proper.
• 19:54
  Speaker B: And no one's going to change their mind about these things, right? Everyone.
• 19:57
  Speaker A: Exactly.
• 19:58
  Speaker B: Fixed opinions and Shanti. Right.
• 20:00
  Speaker A: It's true.
• 20:02
  Speaker B: Like, why are we getting.
• 20:03
  Speaker A: You can debate somebody, you can debate somebody and you can beat them in a debate and they'll still carry on believing whatever they believed anyway. So it's not like it made any difference, you know?
• 20:12
  Speaker B: Right.
• 20:13
  Speaker A: So end of the day, we. But we don't need to. Why do we have to care? Like, what do you think about, like these, these glasses? Why, what are they? Why do you have yellow glasses? Why haven't you got black glasses? Or, you know, what about this? This, what do you think about. You don't need to. Well, it doesn't matter, does it? I don't have to have an opinion on why is that Plant there. Shereen, why is it on that stand? And how come those books look a bit like we. We can just look at life and just look at it neutrally and go, it just is what it is. I don't have to say this plant is wrong or it's right or I like it or I don't like it or I want it. You know, I don't want. Should be different. Like, it's right now. There's thunder and lightning outside, right? And it's raining. I actually enjoy it, but it's not like. But I could just see it. It just is raining, right? I mean, it. It just. It just is what it is. Whether or not I have an opinion or not. It's just. It just. There it is. And that's the same with everything and everyone, really.
• 21:19
  Speaker B: One of the things I feel that we mistake in personally, right? When I watched how my life went from no opinions to lots of opinions, it actually swung right, from no opinions to lots of opinions. And then I started meditating to now, okay, minimize the opinions. What I've noticed is that we mistake thinking for control. If I think about something, then I think I can control it. And actually that's the paradox that you can't. The more you think about it, the more it controls you. You're not controlling it. And so we are mistaking thinking for control, right? Like, let's say I have opinions about politics, left or the right, or whatever, right? I have opinions. I don't like this. I like this. I don't like this. I like this. Whatever, right? And I'm thinking about these things because I think if I think about them strong enough, then I have control over the outcome of what happens in politics. How ridiculous can that be? Not happening, right? You're just losing your peace of mind.
• 22:40
  Speaker A: Yeah, that's called magical thinking, you know, where we somehow think that just having an idea somehow fixes it without anything actually happening.
• 22:53
  Speaker B: Right. And the other thing I wanted to share. You want to share something, brother?
• 23:01
  Speaker A: Well, I just want to know everyone, to know that I'm always right about everything. And that's just how it is.
• 23:13
  Speaker B: You know? The other thing is when I look at people, right, the way we. The reason we started talking about this is we feel as a society, we are just losing the plot line. And to be able to come back to center. Not. I'm not talking about political center, maybe that too, but to come back to our own center, right? Come back to who you are. What truly matters, you know, in the grand scheme of things is that really going to help me. And try not to make these extreme points of view your livelihood. You know, it's because like you're just living off someone else not being fine. And so try to not to make it your livelihood. And the one thing that I feel is we all need to understand the difference between awareness and thoughts. And awareness is where you are observing, right? You can observe your thoughts also. You can have, you have awareness of your thoughts and thoughts, right? Like are narrating constantly narrating, narrating about this, that, that, this not right, right? Good, bad, ugly. The flowers shouldn't be there, the flowers should be here, what are they doing, Blah, blah. All of those narrations are going on with thoughts. And you as a soul can actually sit back and be aware of these things. You can look at the thoughts as detached observers. And it's really important even if you're not able to do it for long stretches of time, 1 minute, 2 minutes to sit down and watch your thoughts because they are hijacking your life, right? Opinions are hijacking your life. Thoughts are hijacking your life. And relationships too. Like so many fights about, you know, my political party is right, and yours is not so many fights, right? Like relationships are being hijacked. You, your thoughts are being hijacked. Everything is being hijacked for what? Because someone else wants power and so you're just being a pawn. We have to live in our dignity.
• 26:02
  Speaker A: The key thing from my own experience is that there, there are certain things in my life practically that I have some control over. Mainly, you know, my thoughts, words and actions and my immediate environment realistically. I mean, that's kind of the locus of control is these, these things, right? And I have some relationships and I can influence people to some degree and there's some level of control, right? But there's most things I can't control. So it's worth having an opinion around things that we can make a practical difference with to further the highest good for all, you know, to improve our life and improve the lives of others. But beyond that, I don't think there's any need to have any opinion at all because it's, what difference does it make? Like, the only thing is it's just a waste of thought power unless we plan on doing something about it. So like if someone's actually in politics and their entire life is politics, fair enough. They should have opinions about whatever it is because that's their job, right? But if you're, if you're not involved in all these different things, Like, I don't have strong opinions about, like, the manufacturing of car parts, for example. Like, I don't know anything about car parts, so why should I think about it? Do you know me? Like, I, I, if someone, what, showed me a video, here's how these manufacturing car parts happen in some kind. Oh, my God. They should be doing like, that they should be doing. I don't know anything about this, right? Why do I even need to think about it? So I think it's helpful to separate out what is actually relevant and useful in our life that's worth thinking about having some sort of opinion or philosophy around. And what's this huge amount of stuff that's totally random that we might as well just cancel and just delete it out of our head? And if someone says something, we just say, I don't know, don't care, I'm not interested, because what can you do about it, right? You know, I was thinking opinion on this matter.
• 28:04
  Speaker B: Oh, strongest opinion. I was thinking about what you're saying, right? So there is those three circle of influences. The inner circle is what you have control over. The second circle, right, Is what you have influence. And sometimes, right? Not all the time. And the way out a circle is what you have. No control, no influence. So let's say the inner circle of my control, right? It's just my thoughts, my words, my actions, and possibly I don't want the table here, I want the table there. That kind of thing. That's it, right? Nothing else. Nothing else is really in my control. And, but influence, right? We all have spheres of influence, right? Sometimes I have influence over you. Sometimes. Absolutely not. When I said, let's do a podcast last week, you said, absolutely no. So I realized, no influence. Om Shanti send you good wishes.
• 29:16
  Speaker A: No control, no influence.
• 29:18
  Speaker B: No, no control, no influence.
• 29:21
  Speaker A: People will do whatever they want. Realistically, yeah.
• 29:24
  Speaker B: So I can just send you good wishes and say, okay, so even the influence, right, Is very sporadic. That's what I'm saying. Like, you can't always have influence over people. Like when you have kids, right, Sometimes they listen, sometimes they don't listen. They become teenagers and then they know better, so they're never going to listen to you. So all of this is happening. So you have some people you can influence in your life, but it's very few, right? A lot of your Life and LOT, 99% of the world around you is way outside of your influence and your control. And so why it's outside your control anyway? You can't control it. But we think by thinking about it, we can control it. And that is where the false belief is happening. By thinking about it, we are not controlling it, it is controlling us.
• 30:27
  Speaker A: Absolutely. And this, this idea of the pendulum, right, let's just talk about that. There's. Whenever there is like a mass movement, whether it's, you know, a major news event or a sporting event or a war or anything that has large numbers of people involved in it, there's like a, is like an energy swinging right. And it might not be swinging from left to right politically, but it's like there's a vibration and it's moving around and it wants to suck everyone into it. Like it's got a force, it's like a big wave. And so when like any major news story, especially around like the US elections or assassinations or war and any big, big, big event, right, it sucks everyone in. And what we have to realize is we are actually becoming like energetic pawns where we're, we're charging this thing up with our opinion. It's sucking us into itself for its own purposes. We're not getting anything out of it. It's just sucking us in.
• 31:42
  Speaker B: Right? It's like we are getting sucked into the Matrix.
• 31:45
  Speaker A: Sucked into the matrix. And then the more people get sucked in and fight with each other, so it doesn't matter whether you're pro or against, you're getting sucked in and it gets bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. This is why, like, anti war doesn't get rid of the war, because it's, it's still against the thing, so it's still part of the same pendulum, right? So for us to not get it sucked into it, we have to have no opinion. We have to say, I don't care. Like, I'm not, I don't, I'm not, not invested interest in this. So if you're really into something or you're really against something, either way, you're feeding, you're feeding that thing and it's getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And then we get spat out at the end. And the pendulum, the thing got fed and we were just basically robbed of our time, money, energy, and, and our sanity, really. So it's really important to recognize there's loads of these pendulums spinning around, sucking everyone in all the time. And if we want to have a sovereign, masterful life, we have to realize what's going on and release the importance. I'm not giving any importance. There's nothing I can do about it. I'm letting it go. And that's how we can kind of snip the. It's like an energetic cord. We have to cut it, chop it off and come back to our center. Otherwise our whole life could be spent like this, spinning, spinning, spinning, spinning, spinning. And then afterwards think, what happened to my life. It was just in service of all these things. So that's one of the main benefits of having an opinion, in my opinion.
• 33:22
  Speaker B: You know, I want to talk about one last thing before we finish. A few years back, I met a lot of seniors. They would come to the center and a lot of them were not doing well. Like not financially, they were fine, but, you know, some kind of depression, some kind of, you know, not good with life kind of a thing going on. And at that point, I don't know if it's true still that one of the cities in Florida was the one which took the maximum number of depressants. The residents of that city ingested the maximum number of antidepressants.
• 34:13
  Speaker A: Wow.
• 34:13
  Speaker B: Antidepressants. And I was looking at them and I was thinking, it is because they are not looking at their life. They didn't look at their life. They did whatever they wanted in the moment. There was really no compass, there was no guidance, none of that stuff. And they did whatever they want. You know, if this felt good, that, that felt good, that, you know, led very bogey lives. It finally was catching up with them, you know. And so before it's too late, I mean, you think, oh, I'm 30, but before you know it, you'll be 50. And before you know it, you'll Be 70. Right. These numbers come around very fast. And to really take stock of your life, do you really want this to be your life? Right. You don't have, like you, your opinion is not going to affect the way things are moving. But do you want that to be your life where you're so consumed? You hate everyone. You hate everyone who doesn't have that opinion. You hate all your family members who don't hold the same thing. Do you want that life?
• 35:28
  Speaker A: And it's. It's not as if having these strong opinions is changing anyone else's opinion, is it? You know, it's so there needs to be some people, I feel, in the world who have peace and love in their heart and love everybody. Right. And that actually isn't possible if we hold strong opinions and hate half the people or most of the people. And that's, that's the danger of a lot of these different political and religious doctrine is that they basically make people hate Everyone, everyone else. It doesn't agree with them. And how can you have a society of goodwill when that's going on? So if you wanna. If you want to have strong opinions, by all means. And if you don't, then file means either way, it's totally up to you. All right, so, Shireen, what is your life?
• 36:19
  Speaker B: And go on antidepressants. That's up to you.
• 36:22
  Speaker A: If you want to do whatever you want to do, it's entirely your life and you can choose whatever path you want.
• 36:31
  Speaker B: Lightness. So this is God's blessing for you. Lightness, you've stilled your mind by cultivating the ability to receive God's guidance. As you've opened yourself to this divine communion, his love has lightened your burdens. This spiritual practice is your refuge, a beacon of lightness amidst the chaos.
• 37:01
  Speaker A: So thank you for your presence, Shireen. Thank you to everyone for listening, watching. If you have any strong opinions about this, feel free to leave us a comment.
• 37:11
  Speaker B: Tell us how wrong we are.
• 37:13
  Speaker A: How wrong we are. Oh, my God. You can by all means, leave us a long comment if you want. It's totally up to you. Or not. Either way. Either way, we love and appreciate you. So thanks for being here. Thanks for listening and talk to you soon.