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  • Navigating relationships – 1 of 5

    Navigating relationships – 1 of 5

    When faced with a serious disagreement in their relationship, couples often turn to their own families or friends for advice or support.

    This can be helpful if the people providing such support or advice are mature and objective, rather than loyal above all else.

    Most often, family and friends will support us in our complaints against our partners, hoping to protect us from being taken for granted, or treated badly.

    This is especially true if we come from a family that has very traditional roles that focus on duty and obligation, rather than mutual contribution towards making a home.

    When we are troubled by something that our partner is doing, we must seek to understand why they’re doing that, rather than judging them and rallying support for our position against them.

    If you don’t have such maturity and wisdom in your relationships or your support structures, it’s best to identify up front in the relationship who will be your go-to in such situations.

    Even if it’s a counsellor, coach, or therapist, be sure to find someone that you both trust when times are good, because it’s very difficult to agree on something like this when times are bad.

    If you focus on understanding, being understood will be easier to achieve.

    That’s why we should develop a good understanding with our partner’s support structure so that we can trust them to be objective when we need to figure out such issues in the relationship, rather than slipping into victim mode and presenting ourselves as the neglected or abused one to our own support structures, which often contributes to the break down of the relationship, rather than making it stronger.

    Choose your advisors carefully.



  • Who defines your worth?

    Who defines your worth?

    When our self-worth is low, we convince ourselves that we deserve pity and support for the state we’re in, because rising above it seems too daunting.

    But it’s unlikely that we’ll realise that it’s a low self-worth driving such behaviour.

    Instead, we’ll be convinced that the most important thing in the world is for the world to recognise just how difficult life is for us before we are willing to pick ourselves up and power through that last betrayal, or disappointment, or failed relationship.

    The kind of thoughts that occupy our minds when in such a state include thoughts of preemptively defending ourselves against negative judgements about our life, or our lack of motivation, or our fear of commitment.

    That’s how we start living inside our heads while believing that we’re just being realistic because we’ve learnt the harsh lessons after trusting one time too many, or being emotionally vulnerable to the wrong person.

    The low self-worth is therefore a result of us losing sight of the good that we tried to contribute, despite the bad that we received in return.

    It sets in when we convince ourselves that our best was not good enough, while ignoring the internal struggles that others were dealing with when we needed them to show up for us.

    Our self-worth only suffers when we lose sight of the value of who we are, because we got distracted by the low self-worth of those around us.

    When the need to protect yourself from the prying eyes of those who would judge you poorly triumphs over your need to aspire to achieve your dreams, you lose both, your self-esteem and your dreams.

    Gratitude for the self is established through gratitude for the self. Not through the gratitude that others have for who you are.

    It always starts with you.

  • Dehumanising struggling humans

    Dehumanising struggling humans

    Trigger warning ⚠

    As destructive as narcissistic behaviour is, it is not the entirety of any person’s being.

    Narcissism is a result of intense insecurity about the self.

    To compensate for this insecurity, the one who is insecure about their worth to others will always focus on hiding their shame, rather than admitting their vulnerability.

    That’s why they’re so quick to preemptively defend themselves or to direct blame at others when things go wrong.

    It’s simply a result of being exhausted from never having been enough, or significant enough to significant others in their lives.

    People often assume that narcissistic behaviour is selfish because people who tend towards such behaviour come from privileged backgrounds, or always got what they wanted.

    That’s part of the problem.

    Having privilege doesn’t mean that we feel heard as human beings. Or that we feel seen.

    Narcissistic behaviour is real, but it’s not something that cannot be changed, nor is it something that is consistent in every sphere of their life.

    The worst thing for narcissism is to be coupled with someone who is needy or also insecure themselves.

    If you’re insecure about who you are, your needs from someone who is struggling with narcissistic insecurities is like a threat to their feelings of inadequacy.

    That’s why an insecure individual will be more affected by narcissistic behaviour than one who is grounded in their self-worth.

    We must stop dehumanising humans by labeling them based on how we experience their behaviour.

    Instead, we must seek to understand, with compassion and empathy.

    But we can only do that if we have it within ourselves, for ourselves.

    You can’t give what you don’t have.

  • Reclaim your worth

    Reclaim your worth

    Peace is most ravaged when we convince ourselves that we were treated badly by others, or by someone we trusted, because we weren’t good enough for them.

    A betrayal of trust, no matter how noble the person, reflects cowardice on their part.

    We only betray the trust that others place in us when we feel burdened by that trust, or we avoid accepting the responsibility that it demands of us.

    Either way, it’s a shortcoming on the part of the betrayer, not the betrayed.

    Sometimes we’re so focused on getting even with those who betrayed our trust that we fail to notice how that fixation distracts us from fulfilling the rights of others, which in itself is also a betrayal of trust.

    Understand the internal struggle of those who treated you badly, so that you will realise that they were simply incapable of being better than that in that moment.

    It may not take away the disappointment or the hurt, but that is part of your humanness.

    When that disappointment overwhelms your joy in life and steals your enthusiasm for the future, it’s no longer because of how someone treated you,it’s because of how you see yourself because of how they treated you.

    It’s that easy to give up your power to influence the outcomes and the happiness that you experience in life.

    You do so by believing that how you were treated by troubled souls is a reflection of your worth.

    That’s simply ingratitude for who you are.

    Misplacing your trust in someone is a mistake made from good intentions.

    Discard the mistake after learning from it. Don’t discard the good that inspired that good intention.

    It always starts with you.

  • Who says you’re not enough?

    Who says you’re not enough?

    When we find a need to repeat affirmations like ‘I am enough’ to ourselves in the mirror each day, we’re trying to convince ourselves to believe something that we are already convinced is not true.

    If we believed it to be true, there would be no reason to try to convince ourselves about it each day.

    Rather than convincing yourself that you’re enough, focus on understanding who convinced you that you weren’t enough to begin with.

    When you figure that out, you’ll realise that you’ve been living life viewing yourself through that person’s eyes, which is why your relationship with yourself is based on judging your achievements relative to what you think they would think of you, rather than understanding what is needed to achieve your goals when you fall short.

    Judgement is always based on how we think others see us.

    Understanding is based on what we are trying to figure out in our efforts to achieve our goals.

    The emphasis is on ‘our’ goals, and not on achieving milestones that are needed to get approval from others.

    Recognising the difference between these mortivators that we focus on will result in mindfulness about whether we’re truly pursuing something we’re committed to, or is it something that we hope will win us favour with others.

    If the latter, expect to be exhausted in your efforts to constantly please others, while convincing yourself that you’re enough when you look in the mirror, even though you don’t feel like you are.

    You were born enough!

    You lost sight of that when you focused on rejection or betrayal from one who themselves lost sight of the same thing earlier in their lives.

    Break the cycle. Connect with gratitude for who you are, and compete with yourself only in improving who you are.

    The rest will take care of itself. Especially the anxiety of life.

    It always starts with you.

  • Have we forgotten how to love?

    Have we forgotten how to love?

    Most of us have forgotten how to truly love another.

    Love has become so commercialised, that we confuse a mutual exchange of interest and benefits as love.

    That’s why we end up believing that only as long as we’re getting what we need, do we have reason to feel loved.

    Meanwhile, we lose sight of the struggles of those we love when they are at war within themselves.

    If we truly love another, we must love what we believe is the true essence of who they are, so that when they stumble or err out of being human, we’ll be inclined to want to understand why, rather than to judge them harshly before pushing them away.

    Such sincerity and conviction is only possible when we connect with our humanness.

    But most of us go through life seeing ourselves through the eyes of our parents or grandparents, or some other figure whose validation we need, before we feel OK about ourselves.

    The longer we live life this way, the more anxious and unfulfilled life will be, because everything will be driven by the fear of not being good enough, and not by the aspiration to be the best that we believe we are capable of being.

    As long as we judge ourselves based on how we need to be accepted by others, we’ll never be able to truly connect with the good that may exist between us and our significant others.

    That’s how life becomes a transaction, and love becomes fragile.

    Self-awareness therefore precedes acceptance of who we are, and acceptance is only possible with understanding, which is the root of gratitude for what we’re capable of.

    It always starts with you.

  • Dignity is yours to claim

    Dignity is yours to claim

    There is no shortage of examples of dignity in war zones, poverty or drought stricken areas, or in the midst of heinous terrorist attacks.

    Notice how some people, when faced with soul-destroying realities, are still dignified in how they rise above it?

    If you wait for your aggressor or abuser to treat you with dignity before you find reason to respect yourself, you’re doing life back to front.

    When we expect recognition of our humanness from the world, we’re expecting our tormentor to become our mentor.

    It’s irrational.

    Dignity is not bestowed, it is claimed!

    It is undignified to ask to be treated with dignity because that means that your dignity is dependent on how others treat you.

    We either tolerate being treated with indignity, or we challenge and reject it.

    If we don’t challenge such behaviour from others, we enable them to treat others badly.

    Self-worth is at the core of dignity.

    But self-worth is an outcome of the value that we see in ourselves.

    It’s about how much worth we place on ourselves despite how others may take us for granted.

    When we connect with that value that we hold within, gratitude for who we are, and importantly, gratitude for what we are capable of contributing in good towards others, will establish dignity in our sense of self, and resilience in our response to the trials of life.

    It always starts with you.

    Don’t outsource your dignity to others. They’re not responsible for how you feel about yourself.

    P.S. For the first time in a very long time, I used my own photo for my post, and not one from Adobe Stock. Taken in San Lameer, on the KwaZulu-Natal South Coast.

  • To be…

    The oddities of life continue to befuddle me. The restlessness intensifies each day, and the feeling of incompleteness resonates deeper than before. The most bewildering of all is the sense that my chosen path is lacking in fulfilment. But not entirely.

    The nagging of responsibility whines on in the background and creates a backdrop of morbidity to most endeavours, followed by the incessant cacophony of clutter from the ones who live in denial while imposing the consequences of their chosen obliviousness on those who feel responsible to buffer their fall.

    The mediocrity that has grown pervasive is only exceeded in intelligence and brilliance by the creative humour encountered through online reels of mishaps and caricatures of the monotony of humanness when such humanness has been left unattended.

    Cryptic clues leave bread crumbs for the blind, and serve only as a further reinforcement of the isolation in which I find myself. Being part of a greater whole continues to escape me, even though there may be a solitary soul, or two, that consider me a part of their whole.

    That’s the conundrum of life that plagues many. The perception of exclusion because of the absence of understanding. I’m not sure if it is a generosity of spirit on the part of those who embrace without understanding, or is it a desperation for inclusion that drives such acceptance.

    I project on the world’s intentions that which would have been my motivation to act in the way that they do, and it fills me with angst to realise that I am more at odds with life than I ever imagined. To criticise or coach from the sidelines is easy, if there is no demand for offering solutions to accompany your input.

    I demand such solutions of myself, or else I remain silent. Until one comes along and projects their assumptions of intent on me for my silence, or for my volunteering of observations about my own reality, culminating in a vent of venom that they’ve been fermenting in their chest for too long.

    I once set out to be understood, followed by an extended period of seeking to understand instead, only to be followed by a period of being in limbo between the two. Which phase will be the defining outcome of my life remains to be seen.

    To be, to do, or to live. They each seem equally exclusive when the insanity clouds the clarity of the etches of the silver lining that escapes us in our search for rainbows and unicorns. The search is tedious and ever unfulfilling. The trial of awareness is one that prompts action while reminding us of our insignificance against the vastness of the human struggle.

    Perhaps in that is the solace that I should take when feeling compelled to act, or to overcome. Or even to simply exist. I must tame my expectations to be tampered by the realisation of the limited impact that I have on the world around me. Any reach beyond that point is a goal too far, and a distraction too great.

    Hence, the pursuit of leadership is a foolhardy one of self-imposed strife, as we endeavour with seeming sincerity, to alleviate the plights of those who echo the plights within us that we wish one would seek to alleviate. Alas, there are none who look close enough to realise the desperation behind the plea of the uplifter, or the do-gooder, given how desperate each are for another to lighten their load as they journey through the desolation and distractions of a life too brutal to ignore, but too endearing to abandon.

    To be…continued.