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  • The victim bully

    The victim bully

    The common trait between the blatant bully and the passive aggressive victim is that they both share a victim mindset.

    The one demands significance through invoking fear in others, while the other tests for their significance by shaming or guilt-tripping others.

    The victim mindset sets in when we allow ourselves to be defined by the impact of a harsh or hurtful experience long after the event has passed.

    We hold onto the impact for a number of reasons, the most common of which include our need to have our struggle recognised by others so that their expectations of us can be reduced in line with what we believe we are only capable of.

    In other words, it’s an excuse to avoid accepting accountability for those moments when we feel overwhelmed or incompetent.

    The other common reason is to protect ourselves from creating an opportunity to be treated poorly or harshly again.

    That’s how we end up sabotaging good relationships by constantly testing the sincerity and commitment that others have towards us.

    Those with a victim mindset are in survival mode, denying themselves the sweetness of life while emphasising their struggle to create such a life, hoping that they will be appreciated for their courage and strength to persevere long after their struggle has passed.

    At the core of the victim mindset is ingratitude.

    It is ingratitude for everything that we are capable of, and all the opportunities that we have to create value for others.

    Being a victim of aggression or hurtful behaviour in the moment of its occurrence may not always be avoidable, but remaining in that victim space beyond that moment is a choice that we make.

    Those who own this choice will find it possible to move beyond the experience, while those who don’t will forever remain stuck in a moment that has long passed because they refuse to accept that they were not enough for someone important to them.

    Choose carefully what and who you allow to define you.

  • Own your dream

    Own your dream

    When you find yourself putting your dreams on hold because you’re waiting for others to confirm that it’s a feasible project, or that you’re capable of achieving it, know that it’s not a dream. It’s simply a wish.

    Dreams can either be an indulgence of escapism, or it can be a seed of passion.

    Most use it as escapism to wish away the state of their lives, while believing that they’re oppressed by not having the opportunity to pursue their dreams.

    Unless you are being physically restrained from making that big change, or taking that next step, your dream is yours to claim, or yours to abandon.

    By the way, there’s nothing wrong with escapism, or daydreaming.

    As long as you accept the purpose behind such moments and you don’t use it as reason to blame others for the lack of passion or progress in your life.

    Caution: If you chase your dreams at the expense of important relationships, no matter how much your success will be celebrated by strangers, success will feel hollow.

    So strike a balance between pursuing your dreams while being sure not to shut significant others out of your journey towards achieving it.

    Moderation in everything.

    Remember, once you’re successful, it’s a lot more difficult to determine who is sincere towards you, versus who is using you for your wealth or status.

    So leave the door open for those around you to join you on your journey when they’re ready, but don’t stand at the doorway waiting for them before you pass through it.

    Success is most enjoyed when we can share it with those we love. Otherwise, we’ll find it at our is never enough as we continue to seek fulfilment in achieving more, because we have no joy in what has already been achieved.


  • The enemy of mindfulness

    The enemy of mindfulness

    We find ourselves in a state of duress, or stress, when we lose sight of what we can influence, whi fee helpless in the face of everything that we think is out of our control.

    Whenever we’re faced with a problem, we either focus on mitigating the impact of the problem on us, or we focus on the opportunities to overcome the problem.

    When we convince ourselves that the problem is bigger than us, and we also believe that walking away from it is not an option, or possible, we slip into a victim state of mind that weighs us down.

    As a side note, whenever something appears impossible to resolve, it means that we have gaps in our understanding about what’s causing it to occur.

    At that point, we should set out to seek a better understanding of the problem, rather than persisting in trying to find an answer with the limited information that we have.

    This is the kind of thinking that needs to be applied when we’re faced with challenges in our lives.

    The most common reason for feeling overwhelmed by life is because the assumptions that we made over the years about our significance or our ability to influence important relationships have grown to become the truths by which we live.

    So we don’t even think of questioning those assumptions, despite circumstances having changed over the years, and more importantly, despite us having grown over the same period.

    Becoming aware of these assumptions that we make when trying to solve any problem is the first critical step towards searching for answers.

    But, mindfulness is needed to regain such perspective, and mindfulness is lost to the victim mindset.

    The victim mindset is one that leaves us feeling defensive, or defenseless. Reclaiming your ability to positively influence the outcomes of your life then becomes the important problem to solve.

    It always starts with you.

    #personalp

  • Success at what cost?

    Success at what cost?

    The core of being human is the need to be significant to others, especially with significant others.

    Our efforts to be successful feel empty and unfulfilling if we have no reason to believe that it positively impacts the lives of those around us.

    So, we set out to be successful so that we can be valued, so that we can feel fulfilled or at least have reason to believe that we’re making a meaningful contribution towards the good around us.

    But, what happens when we have an unhealthy self-esteem?

    Our focus shifts from wanting to be of benefit, to being afraid of not being good enough.

    To compensate for the fear of not being good enough, we focus on equipping ourselves as best we can to avoid failure.

    Ethics and integrity become optional when what feels like survival overtakes our better judgement.

    And in this way, our low self-worth becomes the basis on which we raise our children, convincing them about the importance of education, while setting loose boundaries for integrity.

    Thus, by not understanding the state of their self-worth, we raise what appears to be narcissists while believing we’re raising responsible adults.

    All because we exaggerated the importance of education compared to the emphasis that we placed on self-esteem and integrity.

    No one intentionally or deliberately raises children with a low self-worth, but we cannot give what we don’t have.

    That’s why, when we’re lacking in self-worth as adults, we compensae for it by focusing on equipping our children to fit into the world around them, rather than to define that world.

    That’s how we place education and success above honesty and integrity, or sound character, while only intending good for our children. Or for ourselves.

    This is yet another reason why the best gift you can give your child is not a good education, it’s a healthy self-esteem.

    The rest will take care of itself.



  • Generational assumptions

    Generational assumptions

    One of the most common incorrect assumptions we make in life is assuming that others treat us badly because of who we are, and not because of their own demons.

    This is especially true about how we feel about our relationship with one, or both of our parents.

    Without realising it, two critical outcomes result from this incorrect assumption.

    Firstly, we feel like victims in our lives because what we need from others always seems to be so elusive.

    And secondly, it distracts us from the reality of the struggles that the other person, including our parents, may be going through.

    When it comes to our parents, we easily lose sight of the human behind the role, until we eventually become parents and then judge them for not adequately preparing us for that role.

    That’s how we inevitably make the same mistakes that they made because we lost sight of who we are.

    If we connect with gratitude for who we are, and we focus on understanding, not judging why we may fall short from time to time, we’ll find it easier to connect with our humanness and in turn, with the humanness in others, rather than to judge them for not doing justice to their roles in our lives.

    Generational cycles are not broken by trying to be better than those who came before.

    It’s broken by seeking understanding of why they are the way that they are, so that through understanding them we can make better choices for ourselves.

    When you ‘heal’ from your past, don’t abandon those who didn’t have more to give.

    Treat them with the empathy and compassion that has been lacking in their lives so that they may also feel like significant humans who are not only valued for the role that they are expected to play in the lives of those around them.

    This will improve our relationship with them, which in turn will improve the quality of life that we pass on to the next generation.

    It always starts with you.

  • Escaping addiction

    Escaping addiction

    It’s not drugs that steal our children from us. Like us, they also need to feel significant.

    Taking drugs is not just a bad habit. It’s a means to escape what we don’t want to deal with in the world around us.

    Is it a bad decision? Absolutely. Because escaping something never resolves it, it only defers it to a later time.

    But we all indulge in escapism of some kind, that’s why we have little to no communication in homes that centre around technology or social media, leaving the young ones struggling to find a space in which they belong, physically and emotionally.

    The emotional connection that they then forge with fellow escapees is what makes drugs the escape of choice.

    If we treat them as addicts, they will behave like addicts. If we deny what is lacking in their emotional make up, we’ll deny ourselves the opportunity to address it.

    Addressing it doesn’t only benefit them, it also benefits us because the only reason that they would feel emotionally isolated is because we’re not emotionally accessible.

    That means that we’re also denying ourselves the sweetness of life because if we’re emotionally unavailable, then we’re convinced that what is important to us is not important to anyone else.

    That’s why we lose ourselves to duty and dismiss any demands to be emotionally available for those around us.

    That’s how we create the environment that makes substance abuse or gambling, or other escapes attractive as a coping mechanism.

    Break the cycle.

    It always starts with you.

  • Cyclical abuse

    Cyclical abuse

    At first, we remain in a bad relationship because we truly believe in the sincerity of the claims of our partner to want to improve, or to overcome what they’re struggling with.

    After some time, if we’re not careful, our inability to get them to follow through will convince us that we’re not a good enough reason for them to be better.

    When that continues for long enough, we begin to doubt our ability to be enough for anyone else, and thus find ourselves trapped in a cycle that we’re unintentionally sustaining.

    Some may claim that they stay because it’s their way of expressing unconditional love.

    Unconditional love, if it ever exists, is the sacrifice of one in favour of another. When you sacrifice yourself to compensate for the bad behaviour of someone else, that’s not love, that’s self loathing.

    If you don’t love yourself, loving another becomes a cry for significance or acceptance, and love has nothing to do with it.

    More importantly though, the choice of how to respond to bad or abusive behaviour is not binary. It’s not just about staying or leaving.

    Between those two choices lies a number of ways to potentially break cycles of abuse, all of which requires a better understanding of why the abusive behaviour is the way in which the other person is trying to feel significant, or to rage at an injustice done to them in the past.

    By understanding what drives their behaviour, we allow ourselves to see the human struggle behind the behaviour, rather than to judge the entirety of the human by their behaviour.

    But this is only possible when we don’t feel inadequate about who we are in that situation.

    A healthy self-esteem is therefore at the heart of truly breaking cycles of abuse, otherwise we may exit that situation, but we’re likely to be attracted to yet another cycle of abuse in our search for significance.

    It always starts with you.

  • Allow them to learn

    Allow them to learn

    Sometimes, out of concern, we try to protect those we care about from mistakes that they are inclined to make.

    We become the buffer between their bad decisions and the consequences thereof, so that they don’t find themselves in harm’s way.

    This show of concern or compassion is good, as long as it doesn’t become their crutch in life, or ours.

    If we’re not careful, we may give them reason to believe that they’ll always have a soft landing, or someone to bail them out.

    By protecting them from the consequences of their decisions, you also prevent them from growing to appreciate why they should trust your advice and support.

    However, choose carefully when to allow them to fall, because you don’t want to set yourself up for regret if there are long term consequences.

    Focus on opportunities where the outcome or the impact can be contained or minimised.

    The point is to allow them to learn from their decision making process, and not to maliciously prove a point that they should trust you more.

    Always be focused on the benefit that you want to create for them, and not on the satisfaction that you need to feel when you point out that you were right.

    Connect with compassion, not malice or bitterness.

    This is especially true for parenting teens who are more inclined to demand control of decisions in their lives.

    Not everything that they get wrong will hound them for the rest of their lives, so choose instances to teach such lessons based on the effort required for them to make right what they got wrong.

    And sometimes, you’ll be surprised at how what you thought you needed to protect them from was actually beneficial for their growth.