Question: “I usually have peaceful and good days, I meditate and study the dharma and I feel alright but then my mother comes back home and she often starts shouting at me and puts me down and I am not angry with her or anything but it affects my peaceful mood and I get depressed. what do you think I can do to not let this put me down?”
If her shouting doesn’t make you angry, then what do you think causes your mood change? You! Buddhism and meditation is a mind-centered practice, so everything that would affect us is in our own control. You may not be getting angry at your mother, but you’re still letting it affect you and bring you down, so ultimately you are “letting her in” just in a different way.
Sometimes when people yell or get angry at us, we tend to just ignore it. But sometimes by ignoring it, we unintentionally store it in our mind and it slowly feeds on our mindfulness. So instead of ignoring the yelling, embrace it, try to recognize it and feelings come from it and what feelings arise. But being able to “pin point” specific feelings or ideas of something, we can then meditate on it and try to accept it, so when/if it happens again, we understand it and we won’t cling to it.
No one is in control of your happiness but you. Only you can control what you allow and block from affecting you to change your attitude or mood.
Smile and be well!