I recently came across some excellent videos by Prof. Baldev Mutta. He started the Punjabi Community Health Services in Brampton, which is a charity that holds programs to help Punjabi families with issues such as parenting, mental health, addictions, domestic violence, and immigration. In his videos, he gives us some skills for dealing with our everyday interactions with our parents, children, and partners, incorporating lessons from Sikhi. I highly recommend the videos as they can really get to the root of our problems in Punjabi culture and help us to understand ourselves better on a whole new level. He discusses that marriage breakdown is often one out of these four issues: communication, problem-solving, expectations and control. He uses examples from all types of relationships including parents and children, to describe how these four factors affect the health of our relationship. HIs videos are actually really entertaining mostly because they are relatable and true (so fun to watch!). I will try to summarize some of the key points of what he discusses here in English. There are valuable points for everywhere whether you are married or not, but especially for people prior to marriage because it gives an idea on how to build a successful relationship.
Communication
Mr. Mutta describes that one of the main problems in communication is that as a marriage goes on it seems communication reduces to just talking about the daily necessities such as “I’m making dinner.” This doesn’t count as real communication as nothing deep of value is being shared. He describes that often times couples don’t stay in touch with each other over the years and just stay stuck on the same amount of little information they knew about each other when they got married. Without attention, he describes that relationships go stale and moldy over time and the couples grow apart thinking “how did you become like this?” Ongoing discussions about ethics, values, common goals and interests solves this problem, otherwise you will fight because you simply don’t know each other anymore. He describes that silence and arguing/violence are both really negative in a relationship and serve the same effect.
In terms of problem-solving, he gives many tips on how to solve-problems effectively. These include having self-awareness of your own emotions, being aware of the other person’s emotions (social awareness), self-management to manage your own emotions, and relationship management. Some of the techniques he talks about is to first listen to the other person’s position and if you are ever in trouble say “tell me a bit more”, writing things down in the moment, postponing the discussion when you are calmer, to choose one’s words carefully and agree to both never say disrespectful words (swearing etc.) when arguing, and to use “I statements” (I was worried when you were late) instead of focusing on the other person. There are so many techniques in there that I definitely learned new ones. He explains that it is important to not let your emotions take over by taking the topic of argument personally; just see it as they are taking a certain position or stance instead. One needs to recognize that they have a problem to deal with it, and to deal with the root of their problem and not just the result (ex. Underlying reason for the drinking). Unfortunately in Punjabi families we are not used to dealing with the actual root of the problem and are used to focusing on changing end behaviours.
One of the important points he made was there is a lot of interference in punjabi families- both families then get involved and he made it a point to say that if you constantly rely on others, you won’t build your own problem-solving skills as a couple and will continue to fight. The external influence of different opinions, and having other people knowing about your problems also doesn’t help the situation. He encouraged that if a couple needs help problem solving they should see a professional to help them confidentially.
Expectations
Mr. Mutta discusses the importance of a couple understanding each other’s talents, beliefs, virtues, etc. and understand from the background of how they grew up. A few years ago I realized that I didn’t even know what my own expectations were of a partner, or of my own future self and what I wanted. I spent a lot of time working on this because it is an important piece of being able to understand what your own values are before you can understand what you want and need from another person, or why there is a conflict. He explains that before a couple gets married its important to ask what the other person, and their parent's expectations are. It is so much easier and clearer to discuss it then rather than waiting. He describes that we can live a great life with a person who is different for us, but we also need to understand how to do it.
In Punjabi culture, he describes that often our values are deep-seated in irrational beliefs, rather than analytical critical thinking, which our religion teaches us. For example, we have a belief that parents know better and have a right over their children no matter how old they are, so if a person challenges the, they feel insulted and get angry. He explains that all fights ultimately come down to this insult based off of an expectation the person has. Then the individual tries to fulfill the unrealistic expectation with power and control (can be the man or the woman). This is why understanding expectations is so important.
One interesting thing that comes out of this topic is the concept of Ghosti- active debate where people listen to each other’s arguments without anger, and expand their thinking. This happened during the times of Guru Nanak Dev Ji. It is important for us to continue to do this type of spiritual discourse in our homes, to challenge the irrational cultural beliefs that are working against us. When we are able to learn to listen to each other and not take it personally, or as an insult, we have an increased awareness of ourselves. He used the example of when Guru Angad Dev Ji’s son kicked Guru Amardas Ji, who instead of getting angry, or accepting any sort of insult, looked upon him with compassion and asked if he was hurt. He shows us that Guru Ji teaches us that when someone is swearing and yelling at us we could think “this person is in anger and wants to say something else to me but can’t find the words right now” and that is a high awareness. I think it is very rare to have these deeper discussions, about the types of topics I post about on this blog for example. These are topics that need to be discussed but we don't seem to be talking about them. This is partly why I have been so excited to learn about the work Professor Mutta is doing to engage families on these topics. It has made for some great discussions in my own house this week as we have been watching these videos together. The concept of Ghosti is definitely one that I will be bringing with me moving forward.
Control-Freedom
He explains that happens to due lack of trust, when the couple is overly dependent on each other and does not create space for their own lives. For example a man stuck between his wife and his mother, or when he has trouble balancing his time with her vs outside the home. There needs to be room to breathe in the relationship, so he talks about not being possessive of each other because that is “moh” and not love; love is respect, care, responsibility, and knowing how to live at a higher level.
I still have a lot of videos to watch and will be re-watching some for more learning. I think that “How do you Change the ‘other’” Part 1 and 2 are great ones to start with. I hope that you can find some time to watch them either on your own, or even better, with your families. I have learned a lot this week and it gave me a way better understanding of the dynamics of Sikh marriages.
References (forward the first few minutes of horrible music in each video)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uj1v6s0kFno&list=PL9GV_JMNuQ5KBUkChSYk4Qd5jTqm4-Xaj&index=80&t=0s How do you change “the other” part 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7amIEkVtRg&list=PL9GV_JMNuQ5KBUkChSYk4Qd5jTqm4-Xaj&index=85 how do you change “the other” part 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2f7co8bU7iA&t=2s Communication
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evX-JAtsb84 Communication Part 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwp03TC1NsA Marriage understanding the concept
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuOUXUUbhL0 Problem Solveing Tips
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-D1hApJCUrI Pre marriage counseling Part 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y11hdnz0850 Pre marriage counseling Part 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrwqTLPdgJw Understanding the Reasons for Abuse of our Loved Ones
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WozKI0X2HY Identifying Problem in Marriage Part 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kazstRnMRo0 Identifying Problem in Marriage Part 2
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