Category: relationships

  • Expect to expect more

    Expect to expect more

    There’s a fallacy out there that it’s possible to live without expectation.

    Yeah, it’s a fallacy, cos it’s impossible.

    When you try to live without expectation, you’re defending yourself against being hurt.

    When you defend yourself preemptively, it means that you believe that you’re weak enough not to be able to deal with disappointment.

    More than this, it means that you’re judging others because of their human failings, and you’re convinced that you’re incapable of failing others.

    Just because you may not be aware of it doesn’t mean that you haven’t hurt or betrayed someone by not living up to their expectations.

    We all do it.

    When we judge others for being human, we lose the right to ask for understanding or empathy when we fall short because of our humanness.

    Rather than not expecting, we should focus on whether our expectations were based on what we thought we deserved, or what the other person was capable of.

    Before you look at capability from the perspective of what they’re physically capable of, remind yourself that your expectations are based on your emotional needs, not your physical needs.

    So when you consider what someone is emotionally capable of rather than what they are physically capable of, you’ll find understanding about why them letting you down is not because of who you are, it’s because of what they’re struggling with within themselves.

    You can’t wish that away.

    You can either create space for them to grow, or exit their space because what you represent is what they’re grappling with.

    When you believe someone is capable of something but they don’t believe it themselves, change your expectations to hope that they will see what you see, rather than writing them off because they disappointed or betrayed you.

    It always starts with you.

  • The right to demand your rights…

    The right to demand your rights…

    The more we emphasise our rights, the less time we spend understanding our responsibilities.

    The rights that others have over us is the responsibilities that we have towards them, and vice versa.

    The moment we focus on only one side of that equation, we become oppressors.

    If we focus on our rights but neglect our responsibilities, we oppress others.

    When we focus on our responsibilities without calling to account those who do not fulfil our rights, we not only oppress ourselves, but we enable the oppression against us.

    The moment we remain silent to keep the peace, we destroy the peace for the next generation.

    Understanding the boundaries of supporting each other in fulfilling our rights and responsibilities is an important step in ensuring that you don’t lose yourself and your peace to your fight for justice with someone who is not invested in justice.

    How we conduct ourselves will benefit or harm our bodies, which in turn enables oppression by ourselves against ourselves.

    Therefore, the balance to be struck is not only in what we do or what we demand from others, it is most critically in how we establish balance within ourselves.

    Approaching rights and responsibilities from a social justice perspective only, or from a perspective of what you should be able to demand from your partner is not about rights at all.

    It’s about demanding significance when you feel insignificant.

    That’s how our opinion of ourselves results either in our fair and kind treatment of others, or it results in oppression and abuse while we blame them for how we feel about ourselves.

    Focus on what you need to do, and most importantly, on who you want to be.

    As long as that is your focus, establishing healthy boundaries will come naturally because you’ll be mindful about what is within your control or influence to change, versus what is beyond your ability to change.

    It always starts with you.

  • Telling yourself sweet little lies?

    Telling yourself sweet little lies?

    You lie to yourself most when you tell someone, “You make me feel…”

    No one can make you feel anything without your permission.

    You give your permission when you’re more focused on what you need from them to feel whole, rather than what you value about yourself.

    The moment you hand over the custody of your emotions to another, you deny yourself the opportunity to own your life.

    When you don’t own your life, you hold others responsible for the state in which you find yourself, which becomes your distraction from doing something to improve your own state.

    When we demand such priority from others, we need to be absolutely certain that we’re offering them as much priority in return, but not the way that we want to prioritise them, but the way that they need it.

    If we need them to create space for us the way we need, we must be willing to do the same in return.

    Unfortunately, when you don’t own your life, you only focus on what you need from others, and rarely is there any focus on what others need from you.

    That’s how the score-keeping starts, or the tit-for-tat, or the guilt tripping when you don’t get what you need or want.

    Self-worth is literally the worth that we place on ourselves, and has nothing to do with the value that others see in us.

    The more you need others to make you feel good about yourself, the more likely you are to drive them away.

    The ones who are drawn to you because you need them to feel good are lacking in self-worth themselves, creating a co-dependence that suppresses your growth potential, rather than enhancing it.

    That’s how ‘toxic’ relationships are formed.

    When one person grows from feeling supported and the other doesn’t, it creates reason for the one who stagnated to feel as if they’re being betrayed because their needs are no longer such a priority for their partner.

    And so the vicious cycle spirals out of control.

    Own Your Life.

    It always starts with you.

  • Are you abused, or an abuser?

    Are you abused, or an abuser?

    While abuse is never to be taken lightly, if we’re not careful, we can easily become a tool of the abuser.

    A betrayal of trust, especially if repeated often, changes the lenses through which we view the behaviour of others.

    If we’re not careful, the bitterness of such betrayal wears down our tolerance or patience to deal with any disagreement or challenge resulting in an intensified response to innocent mistakes.

    It’s like the irritability that sets in when we experience chronic or sustained pain or discomfort.

    Eventually, we snap at anyone asking us questions about petty issues, or demanding responses to things we have no interest in.

    All we want at that point is relief from our discomfort or pain, leaving us with little tolerance to deal with anything else.

    When that source of pain is because of how we’re treated by someone we love, or someone that we have rights over, we feel abused each time we fulfil their rights while they dismiss ours.

    That’s when, despite having good reason to feel that way, we falsely accuse them of being deliberately abusive, while they were simply behaving selfishly for reasons that have nothing to do with us.

    The moment you have to demand your rights to be fulfilled in a relationship, understand that you are in the wrong relationship.

    And if it’s with blood ties, accept that you cannot change them, but don’t let it taint how you live up to your values and principles.

    When you return the favour by abusing the rights of others because your rights have been abused, you lose yourself to the very bitterness that drove them to deny you the rights that you have over them.

    That’s how you lose yourself, and that’s how you cause pain for others, because of the pain you receive from another.

    Reclaim your dignity.

    It always starts with you.

  • Your misery is your downfall

    Your misery is your downfall

    We rarely share with the world the conversation that we have with ourselves in our head.

    Our internal conversations are only shared when we’ve exhausted all avenues in trying to understand why someone important to us could have had reason to treat us so badly.

    The harsh tones and unwarranted criticism that we try to convince ourselves is true about who we are or what we’re worth is how we project on ourselves what we think a significant other thinks of us.

    In other words, we put ourselves in their place and then assume why we would treat someone that way if we were them.

    What we forget is that we’re not them, and they’re not us.

    And the same way that our insecurities about ourselves are closely guarded secrets, the same is true for everyone else no matter how amazing we think they are.

    Self-loathing is born when we assume that how others show up for us is a reflection of how they feel about us, when the reality is that they treated us the way that they did because of who they are and what they were grappling with in their own minds.

    The moment we lose ourselves to self-loathing, we focus on demands for our rights to be fulfilled despite not fulfilling the rights of others.

    We focus on playing on the sympathies of others so that they don’t think less of us when we fall short in showing up for them.

    The war within results in the harsh treatment, or even abuse, of those around us.

    While we’re feeling justified in our rage or complacency because of the self-loathing that has taken over our perspective of who we are and what we’re worthy of, we treat others the way we were once treated, with insensitivity and inconsideration.

    That’s how we pay forward the misery that we received, while complaining about the miserable state of life.

    We always want to believe that we’re justified in feeling miserable about life while failing to see that we’re taking for granted the very life that can lift us out of our misery.

    Ingratitude for who we are is the root of our self-destruction.

    It always starts with you.

  • Who cares?

    Who cares?

    How often do you indulge in self-care because you truly value yourself, versus doing it because you have no reason to believe that anyone else cares enough to do it for you?

    Just because we believe we’re worth it, doesn’t mean that we treat ourselves kindly out of gratitude for who we are.

    Self-care that is driven by true gratitude for the self will result in emotional tranquility despite the trying circumstances of our lives, or the lacking substance in our relationships with others.

    It will result in moments of pause that happen spontaneously because we connect with the value of that moment, rather than because we have to pace ourselves in the hope of remaining functional in our duties towards others.

    Self-pity subtly transforms into self-loathing when it grows to define how we see our place in this world relative to what we need or want from others.

    When our internal conversation shifts towards convincing ourselves that who we are is why we’re not getting what we need, or why we’re not being treated the way we’d like to be treated, that’s when our thinking is driven by the belief that we’re not enough.

    True gratitude for the self is not driven by how others react to you.

    Their reaction is only ever an indication of two things.

    Firstly, the effectiveness of your efforts to communicate what is important to you relative to where they’re at.

    Secondly, a reflection of their ability to receive what you’re offering because of where they’re at.

    Figuring out the difference between the two demands mindfulness and the absence of self-loathing.

    Judging yourself based on your ability to get through to others is nothing more than a distraction from what you should be improving in your efforts to be more effective at achieving what you believe is important,

    Judgement is always only ever the first step in growth.

    It is driven by self-loathing when it becomes the final step.

    What truly drives your reasons for self-care?

  • A hard heart beats its owner

    A hard heart beats its owner

    We become defined by what we have when we lack substance in who we are.

    We offer material comfort and chase material gains when connecting with the human, both in ourselves and in others, seems like a stretch too far.

    What we think of ourselves is what we surround ourselves with.

    The one who loves the scent of perfume won’t spend their day in the bellows of a blacksmith if they had the option to spend it in the indulgent space of a perfumery.

    The reason we avoid people who demand more of our humanness and less of our outward success is because we can’t give what we don’t have.

    Therefore, we only give of what we have.

    Similarly, we only find what we’re searching for.

    If we’re searching for evidence of why who we are is not enough, we’ll find it.

    But, in the process, we’ll also lose sight of every bit of evidence that confirms what is enough, or more than enough about who we are.

    There is nothing so bad that there is no good in it.

    When we focus on the bad, we become selfish and hard-hearted.

    Hard-heartedness only ever leads to misery, and self-imposed misery loves company.

    That’s why, when our opinions of ourselves is shaped by how others respond to us, or what we don’t have, the only thing left to give is bitterness and anger.

    Nothing more. Nothing less.

    And then we blame the world for being a cruel place.

    The world is what we make of it. And what we see in others is a reflection of how we see ourselves.

    It always starts with you.

  • Ingratitude, the illegitimate child of self-loathing

    Ingratitude, the illegitimate child of self-loathing

    When you judge yourself harshly, you lose sight of the good that you’re achieving.

    That you judge yourself at all is an indulgence in breaking yourself down, rather than lifting yourself up.

    That’s why those who judge themselves most, are also most dependent on others treating them well before they feel significant, even if their behaviour doesn’t warrant such fair treatment.

    That’s how social validation becomes the motivator for everything that we do.

    But, we’re so focused on hiding our shame of what we believe to be inadequate about ourselves that we forget that we’re hiding our shame.

    We then grow to be defined by the validation that we receive for everything on the outside while losing sight of how we’re avoiding everything on the inside.

    The more successful we are in gaining such ‘respect’ or validation from others, the more we become convinced that we’re right, and that anyone who points out our shortcomings must be wrong…or at the least, they must be cruel or envious, they just don’t understand us. .

    When judge others by the same standard that we judge ourselves.

    You must be OK with oppressing yourself first before you’ll find justification in oppressing others.

    You can only give what you have.

    That’s how the ones who are sincere in our growth will be taken for granted when we discard them in favour of those who are looking for validation for their ability to validate us.

    Victims support each other towards being OK with being victims.

    Unless you break the cycle of victim mentality, you’ll lose sight of what good you are capable of achieving, while focusing on what shame you need to pacify yourself about.

    Ingratitude is the illegitimate child of self-loathing.

    That’s when life feels most torturous.

    It always starts with you.