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Sadly depressed

Depression sets in when we look for signs of hope in those things that are important to us, but find none.

It doesn’t mean that there is no hope for anything in our life. It just means that what we choose as a defining relationship or experience to reflect our significance provides us with no reason to believe that we are significant in that way.

This is why from the outside looking in, we may think that people who are depressed are actually happy, or carefree.

Sometimes when we see everything else that they’ve got going in their life compared to others, we consider them to be ungrateful.

But that’s because we’re looking at them through our eyes, and not through their own.

The absence of hope occurs when we insist on receiving from others that which they’re either unwilling or incapable of providing. Their unwillingness often being more about their insecurity than what we’re worth to them.

If you find yourself struggling to reconnect with hope in the most important domains of your life, I can help.

WhatsApp me on +27836599183 or contact me via my website at zaidismail.com. Affordable coaching to clients internationally.

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Judging is easy

Judging each other only becomes easy when we assume that we are above the behaviour that were judging.

When we receive the benefit of the doubt from others, we assume that we deserve it, rather than it being a result of their generosity of spirit.

When we’re misunderstood, we may be inclined towards accusing others of misunderstanding us, rather than considering that they had good reason to get it wrong.

Being defensive or judgemental are two traits that originate from the same source. That is, feeling emotionally vulnerable.

Judgement demands compliance with a standard that is larger than who we are, and therefore associates us with something that must be respected or revered.

That’s why it’s easier to judge than it is to understand. Because understanding demands that we set aside such associations and invest of ourselves in assessing the behaviour of others.

Sometimes, that investment means that we must suspend our focus on our rights in that relationship in order to understand. When we’re afraid of being insignificant, suspending such rights feels like an attack on our self worth.

The result…anger or bitterness.

If you need help navigating through such complex relationships in your life, I can help.

WhatsApp me on +27836599183 or reach out via my website at zaidismail.com.

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Be you…unapologetically

The opinions that others have of us affects us most when we are not convinced about who we are.

It’s self-doubt that creates the space for others to influence how we feel about ourselves.

Be it a troubled relationship with a family member, a partner, an ex spouse, or even a friend or colleague, the moment their words about us weighs more than what we think of ourselves, we need to recognise that we needed validation more than we needed companionship or a healthy relationship with them.

Our disappointment in them when they behave badly should not extend to disappointment in ourselves.

The moment we judge ourselves harshly after they’ve treated us badly, we’re diminishing our self-worth by believing that we’re not even good enough for someone who has questionable values.

That’s how we lose ourselves to the lack of self-respect in others, or in ourselves.

If you find yourself questioning your self-worth or struggling to connect with who you are in the face of the struggles of your life, reach out via WhatsApp on +27836599183 or via my website at zaidismail.com for affordable coaching rates that could be the fresh start that you need in life.

Serving clients internationally.

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Break the stigma

We dehumanise the human when we label their emotional experience as an illness.

The moment we attach a label to a life experience, we focus on the label and discard the merits of the experience.

We make people invisible when we deny the reality of their experience by suggesting that there is something clinically wrong with them, despite causality of their emotional upheaval being clearly associated with their experiences in life.

The victim readily embraces such labels because it offers hope where they feel hopeless.

The oblivious happily embrace such labels because it demands less emotional investment, or less accountability in their efforts to uplift or support those around them.

Our aversion to embrace the entirety of the human behind the troubled behaviour denies the victim a voice, or a claim to their painful experiences in life.

These labels are worn with shame because it denies us our humanness and makes us a symptom.

You cannot break the stigma of mental health by undermining the humanness of the ones affected by the stigma.

Kill the label, kill the stigma.

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#mentalhealth #mentalhealthawareness #mentalhealthrecovery #suicide #suicideprevention #suicidalawareness #suicideawarenessmonth #depression #anxiety #ownyourshit #ownyourlife #theegosystem #embracingME #zaidismail

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Always hope

When we focus on the struggles of our lives, we feel defeated.

When we focus on the growth, we feel empowered to overcome future obstacles.

But we’re human. We doubt ourselves and sometimes we feel entitled to peace.

In the process, we create self-fulfilling prophecies by growing despondent when things go wrong, rather than looking for the opportunities to create something better.

We limit our ability to overcome obstacles by telling ourselves that there is a limit to what we’re capable of dealing with.

Rather than embracing the challenges without preempting the outcomes, we end up focusing on how close we are to that limit that we set for ourselves and then grow defensive the moment we believe things are getting too close to it.

That’s how we prevent ourselves from trying beyond a certain point, and that’s how we grow to believe that some things are impossible to overcome.

Sometimes, when things seem like they’re falling apart, they may just be falling into place. But when we fixate on what’s falling apart, we deny ourselves the opportunity to see how it may be contributing towards our dreams and goals that were being hindered by what we had in the first place.

Breathe, beloved. And let faith, not fear, guide you through the storm.

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Respectfully dishonest

This is especially true for our relationships with ourselves, more than it reflects on our relationships with others.

We disrespect ourselves when we avoid truths that feel shameful or disappointing about who we are.

That shame or disappointment that we feel is because we’re looking at ourselves through other people’s eyes, or at least what we think they would think of us if they knew what we’re hiding within.

We respect ourselves when we focus on understanding rather than judging why we’re not being true to the standard that we want to live up to.

But that standard must be our own aspiration, and not a standard defined by society or anyone else.

Someone else may suggest or advise on what is worth pursuing, but we must adopt that as our own aspiration, with conviction, or else we’ll again judge ourselves to be a success or a failure when we exert ourselves towards achieving that goal.

If you’re dishonest with yourself or with others, then respect is no longer part of that interaction.

Take time to reflect and recalibrate your efforts, and leave the judgement to those who will judge regardless of your best efforts towards them.

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