Just like we don’t blame the fruit for the tree from which it came, we can’t blame our children for their character before they reach an age of self-awareness and critical thinking.
If we find the fruit of a tree to be lacking in sweetness, we pay attention to the tree and what it needs to produce better fruit.
We don’t try to sweeten the fruit itself.
We first need to consider why it is that our intended outcomes for our children in character and values are not what we wish for them, before we focus on disciplining them towards compliance.
When we feel compelled to resort to harsh disciplinary measures, we need to realise that we lack the influence that we need to have on our children for them to want to adopt our values and principles.
The problem to solve is then to figure out why they’re not connecting with us as parents, rather than driving them further away by treating them harshly.
Our insecurities as parents, coupled with cultural norms that discourage emotional availability between parents and children, result in a focus on being dutiful towards our children, while dismissing how much they need to feel seen and appreciated by us.
Seen and appreciated through sincere, meaningful, emotional bonds, and not through participation awards, or through buying them stuff.
But we can’t give what we don’t have. That’s why we need to understand ourselves better when we find that the outcomes we wish for ourselves with our children may not be what we hope to achieve.
When the village holds more influence over your children than you do, and if that influence goes against your value system, life as a parent becomes a struggle.
That struggle can only be alleviated by demonstrating, through action and not words, why what you want for them is more beneficial for them than what the village around them stands for.
That’s when you need to pull them closer, not increase the fear of consequences if they don’t do what you expect of them.
Give them an opportunity to learn from you how life works, so that they don’t learn it from the village instead.
Raise adults, not children.
#parenting #mentalhealth #mentalhealthawareness #lifecoaching #zaidismail #raisingkids
Category: Life
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Raising adults
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Self-indulgent self-loathing
Self-indulgence leads to self-loathing because there are too many who think that contentment lies in putting yourself first.
Putting yourself first is easy.
Look around and see how many self-indulgent people you have in your life, and then consider how it is that they may really just be trying to take care of themselves because they don’t feel cared for.
And then consider how many around them feel the exact same way because they’re invisible to the one who is self-indulgent, while finding that to be reason to be self-indulgent too.
That’s how the crazy cycle of loneliness and isolation of spirit is maintained.
The lower your self-esteem, the more you try to raise visibility for your struggle.
‘You don’t know how hard it is…’
‘If only you experienced what I experienced…’
‘Nobody understands…’
‘Nobody cares…’
‘No one gave me a start in life…’
Whether that is true is irrelevant to what you need to do.
When you need your struggle to be heard, to be seen, to be appreciated, or to be celebrated before you move on from it, you hold yourself back while looking for validation.
Only, you don’t think it’s validation. You think it’s honouring yourself.
Your struggle is for your growth so that you can contribute what you didn’t receive.
That’s how we improve the world and the quality of lives of those we care for, because that’s what feeds our soul.
The more you indulge yourself before others, the more you’ll chase fulfilment in a never ending spiral while blaming everyone for not caring, or for using you.
If you only offer material benefit, how is anyone supposed to take emotional comfort from you?
Own your life, because if you’re not owning it, you’re probably messing up someone else’s without meaning to.
#hope #expectation #sincerity #selfworth #selfawareness #mentalhealth #mentalhealthawareness #lifecoaching #zaidismail #parenting #fatherhood #motherhood #ownyourlife #theegosystem -
You will, or else…
If it is true that the path to hell is paved with good intentions, then it confirms that good intentions are not enough to create positive outcomes.
If we raise children with the fear of negative consequences, they’ll never truly connect with the benefit of doing what’s right.
When that fear barrier is broken, and it will be broken at some point, we lose our children to influences and social structures that offer them inclusion and acceptance, rather than fear and punishment.
With ease of access to alternate value systems and cultural norms, fear and a demand for compliance is no longer sufficient to influence children towards doing good or being good.
Methods of escape in the form of substance abuse, pornography, demeaning and abusive social media trends, and more are accessible by toddlers, let alone teens or adults.
The only sustainable approach towards combating such harmful influences is not through the fear of hell fire, or the threat of punishment,it’s through the establishment of a healthy self-esteem.
A healthy self-esteem is built on how emotionally available their parents are.
But parents can’t give what they don’t have.
That is, if the parent doesn’t have a healthy self-esteem, they will rely on compliance and obedience to measure their worth with their children, failing which they will resort to being more controlling and intolerant towards bad behaviour.
Given the norms of intolerance and compliance that set the tone for many of today’s adults, connecting meaningfully with our children has become a struggle that many are not even aware of as we interpret the behaviour of the youth as willful disobedience, rather than as a desperation to feel significant.
If we can’t connect the youth with the value of the value system that we want to instill in them, they will connect with value systems that stroke their need for inclusion and understanding.
#selfworth #selfawareness #ownyourlife #selfmastery #mindfulness #personalpower #mentalhealthrecovery #mentalhealth #mentalhealthawareness #lifecoaching #zaidismail #socialorder #peerpressure #culturalbias #blindfollowing #theegosystem -
Own your own life first
The causes that we’re afraid to fight in our own lives, we fight through proxy in someone else’s life.
When we lack the conviction to apply ourselves to full effect in our own lives, we pacify our conscience by coming to the aid of those whose struggles offer an opportunity for us to find significance in ways that are lacking in our own lives.
Our efforts may appear noble or sincere, and we may even believe that we’re pursuing a noble or sincere cause, but nobility or sincerity cannot be measured in the absence of authenticity.
Authenticity demands that we conduct ourselves in our own lives consistent with how we conduct ourselves in the lives of others.
When such consistency is lacking, authenticity is eroded, and our insecurities grow to define our sense of justice and righteousness.
Thus, the victim mindset causes new problems while believing that we’re solving existing ones.
Any problem left unresolved only grows in complexity and intensity, slowly festering until it becomes intolerable or unavoidable.
At that point, it overwhelms us to the point of hopelessness, giving way to depression, anxiety, and unexplainable fatigue, including chronic illness.
The victim mindset causes more problems than the problems it solves.
It undermines our credibility, while diminishing the significance of those around us.
When we lack the courage to meaningfully tackle the problems in our own lives, we lack the self-worth to hold ourselves accountable for what we claim to stand for.
It always starts with what we think about ourselves long before we formulate any opinions of what we think of others.
Reflect and connect with the resolve that you have for taking action in your own life before you set out to change the world for others.
If there is a difference in how you show up between those two domains of life, you have a crisis of authenticity about who you are.
It always starts with you.
#hope #expectation #sincerity #selfworth #selfawareness #mentalhealth #mentalhealthawareness #lifecoaching #zaidismail #theegosystem #ownyourlife #victimmindset #mindfulness #authenticity -
A destined misery…or is it?
Are you sightseeing while wishing that what you see could be your reality?
Most often, it is our belief in what we deserve that limits us more than what we actually deserve or are capable of achieving.
In fact, considering what we deserve or don’t deserve is a distraction most likely grounded in self-pity or entitlement, neither of which changes reality.
Couple that with resigning your fate to destiny and you have a recipe for misery.
It’s like waiting up all night to witness an amazing sunrise only to give up as the first streaks of dawn appear, followed by convincing ourselves that it was our destiny not to see the sunrise.
No. Destiny is the sum total of the choices that you make with the opportunities that present themselves to you.
If you’re too distracted to notice those opportunities, or lack the courage to embrace it, that’s your choice, not destiny.
The only thing that can reasonably be blamed on destiny is the consequences that affect us of the bad decisions that others make.
Likewise, they are confronted with the fateful outcomes of our poor decisions, or our inaction to improve things.
How we respond to that which is out of our control is a reflection of who we are and what we value about life.
Don’t settle for less and then blame the world for not treating you fairly, or for not allowing you to have the life that you want.
You only accept or pursue that which you believe you deserve, or that which is safe for you to pursue when you’re distracted by what others think of you.
That’s why most of us settle for the dawn because we believe that we’re undeserving of the majestic sunrise.
It always starts with you.
Not with destiny.
#fate #destiny #happiness #conviction #commitment #confidence #optimisticquotes #resilience #tenacity #mentalhealth #mentalhealthawareness #mentalhealthrecovery #selfworth #selflove #selfawareness #selfrespect #reflection #mindfulness #opportunity #ownyourlife #theegosystem #lifecoaching #zaidismail -
Are you accountable to you?
You know that feeling that you get when you see someone say or do something and you just know they’re talking nonsense?
That’s because they lack authenticity.
But when you get that feeling and they actually do follow through with what they say and do, and they mean it, then you lack authenticity because you were projecting your insecurities on them.
Sounds harsh?
If it does, you’re approaching life from a position of judgement, rather than growth.
No one does that deliberately.
NO ONE. NOT EVEN YOU.
So when you find yourself or others living with a disconnect between who they are and what they say, understand that they’re compensating for an insecurity that they may not be aware of.
And again, the same applies to ourselves when our behaviour is inconsistent with our values.
Blaming others for giving you reason to behave badly further erodes your authenticity, no matter how principled you may be in every other sphere of your life.
The reality is, we’re responsible for the choices we make, whether it relates to how we’re being treated, or how we’re responding to the behaviour of others.
If life is about wanting to be better than who we were yesterday, each time we get something wrong, we’ll be inspired to try again until we get it right.
If not, we’ll need distractions like substance abuse, or other unhealthy addictive behaviours including mind altering medications.
Alcohol, drugs, and other mind altering substances are not just innocent pastimes.
They’re a need to escape what you’re not willing to embrace because you’re judging yourself based on how someone else treated you.
Not necessarily the person you’re with.
The price that you pay, and the price that innocent people pay as a result of your need to cope or escape, is not worth it.
Step up. Face your demons. And if needed, get help.
The evidence is clearly against any excuses that you might make.
Your life doesn’t have to be an escape from your past.
It can be amazing because of it.
It always starts with you.
#hope #expectation #sincerity #selfworth #selfawareness #mentalhealth #mentalhealthawareness #lifecoaching #zaidismail #theegosystem #ownyourlife -
Who’s broken?
There are no broken humans.
Nor are there perfect ones.
As we contemplate whether our cup is full or empty, we lose sight of whether we’re in a position to receive what is being offered, or if others are able to receive what we’re offering.
One of the biggest contributors towards misery and struggle is that we try to solve the wrong problems.
When we focus on how we feel about things, we lose sight of why we feel that way.
The same applies to how we feel about people.
When we honour those emotions without understanding where they truly stem from, we grow passionate about addressing those symptoms by claiming our rights, or demanding space, and so on.
That’s how we go about trying to solve the wrong problem.
The problem with that is that when we’re distracted by the symptoms of a problem, we forget that the real problem continues to fester, growing more intense and toxic as we lose ourselves to it’s symptoms.
Like looking for pleasurable distractions in an illicit relationship because we feel neglected by the partner that we have.
Or extending ourselves to help others while believing that our own family doesn’t deserve our efforts because they take us for granted.
We make such poor decisions when we’re distracted from why it is that others have such an impact on how we feel about ourselves.
Each act of ours that goes against our claimed values reveals a struggle within that is provoked by what we’re facing in life.
That’s when we need to look within, rather than blame others for our behaviour.
If not, we become the proverbial broken cup that can never be filled, because life will always feel like a struggle instead a pursuit of passion.
Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.
#hope #expectation #sincerity #selfworth #selfawareness #mentalhealth #mentalhealthawareness #lifecoaching #zaidismail #theegosystem #ownyourlife -
Live the life that you have
Having dreams and goals are great, but not if it robs you of the beauty of what you have.
Like it has been said, there is nothing so bad that there is no good in it.
Similarly, no matter how desperate or miserable life appears, there is always something to be grateful for, or something to be excited about.
The more we invest in the future, the less we connect with the present.
Most often, our investment in the future is to protect us from something that happened in the past.
Past, present, future – they’re all relevant.
But, as always, moderation and balance is important.
It’s the moments of joy and accomplishment that gives us hope for how the future can be better than what we have now.
However, if we’re so fixated on creating that future that we desire, we may lose sight of the fact that the present ease or comfort that we have relative to what we had before, is in fact that future that we’ve been striving to create.
But here’s the real kicker.
It’s only through embracing the reality, the opportunity, the joy, or the pain of the present moment that we are able to do something constructive with it that will contribute towards that future that we desire.
The future is the very next moment after the moment you’re in.
It’s not some distant point in time.
Don’t confuse investing in long term goals with living the life that you have.
Otherwise you’ll put your life on hold without any guarantee that your goals will be reached, thereby losing both.
Work with what you have.
Be purposeful with what you have.
And the future will take care of itself.
It always does.
#hope #expectation #sincerity #selfworth #selfawareness #mentalhealth #mentalhealthawareness #lifecoaching #zaidismail #theegosystem #ownyourlife #mindfulness #optimism
