Blog

  • Who is that voice in your head?

    Who is that voice in your head?

    There are signs in everything, if only we paid attention, or reflected deeply enough on it.

    It’s like noticing all the cars on the road that are similar to your own.

    You may also notice cars that you really dislike, and cars that you love.

    But do you notice cars that don’t interest you in any meaningful way?

    No. Those, we navigate around as objects or obstacles in our efforts to get to our destination.

    The same is true about everything else in life.

    We notice that which feeds our interest in what we’re trying to achieve.

    Convinced that your partner is annoying? You’ll recognise every annoying habit and you’ll dismiss every endearing quality.

    Convinced that you’re not good enough? You’ll doubt every sincere gesture, and you’ll hold onto every criticism.

    You’ll even selectively interpret things the way that you want it to fit into your belief about what is true.

    That’s how we convince ourselves that the universe is sending us a sign.

    It’s not. We’re looking for the evidence of what we want to believe is true.

    Hence the importance of being mindful. Not just of what’s going on around you, but especially being mindful of what’s going on within you.

    It always starts with you.

  • Understand before you judge harshly

    Understand before you judge harshly

    Before you get upset with someone for not treating you the way that you want them to treat you, consider that what you need may not come naturally to them.

    Without meaning to, we oppress others when we assume that just because we’re capable of something, they should be too.

    This is especially true when it comes to emotional expression.

    How emotionally expressive we are is directly related to how emotionally accessible our parents were to us during our childhood.

    And no, not all siblings in the same household have the same experience, because not all parents treat their children equally.

    So when we look at the behaviour of our adult partners and we compare them either to ourselves or to their siblings or other family members, we’re dismissing their specific life experience, while insisting that they be like everyone else around them.

    Emotions cannot be sincerely and authentically expressed if it was never received in that way.

    How it’s received – again – is relative to how emotionally grounded our past experiences may have been.

    When you’re not getting the kind of emotional availability that you need from your partner, consider that it’s something that they may just not be connecting with because they’ve never experienced it in a safe and fulfilling way themselves.

    And just because you’re expressing it to them now doesn’t mean that it suddenly changes it. It doesn’t, because your expectation of them to reciprocate makes that setting an emotionally vulnerable space for them.

    Create an emotionally safe space for your partner before you judge them for being insensitive or cold, or else you may destroy their love for you just because they couldn’t express it the way that you wanted them to.

  • Who defines your resilience?

    Who defines your resilience?

    “Resilience is our ability to cope with adversity when we focus on rising above, rather than sinking below. Too often we wait for a sympathetic outstretched hand to lift us up because we’ve convinced ourselves that we need lifting.” (The Egosystem)

    Your resilience is directly affected by your belief in your ability to rise above what you are facing.

    It’s OK to feel overwhelmed in the moment. Or even for a while after.

    It’s OK to pause for breath, or to choose your battles.

    It’s OK to have moments of weakness, or fragility.

    Those are all part of the essence of being human.

    But, the moment you allow that to define your self-worth, or you use it to convince yourself that you’re incapable of making something of your life because no one believes in you, you’re no longer being human. You’re being ungrateful for who you are.

    Some may see this as judgemental. Or perhaps even harsh.

    It’s harsher and more destructive to suppress the good that we are capable of creating while waiting for the bad that was done to us to be redressed.

    That’s how evil triumphs over good.

    That’s how misery becomes more important than joy.

    All because we grew to be ungrateful of who we are without realising that it was just another struggling soul that treated us badly.

    But because we’re unworthy of love or affection, or understanding, but because they were incapable of what we needed from them.

    It always starts with you.

  • Daydream your life away…

    Daydream your life away…

    Sometimes we lose ourselves to nostalgia to the point of disconnecting from the life that we have.

    Good memories are great, as long as it’s not a reason to take our current blessings for granted.

    Many of us are so fixated on the life that we once had, that we neglect the people and the quality of life that we have now.

    Sometimes, in fact often, we even neglect our health, because if we don’t have much to look forward to, there’s not much point in taking care of ourselves. Right?

    Wrong.

    When you only take care of yourself on special occasions, you’re taking yourself for granted the rest of the time.

    Memories are created between those special occasions more than on any specific occasion itself.

    When we hear of the good old days, we don’t hear of weddings and birthdays. The majority of the stories are about the wholesome and uncomplicated lives that we once lived. The family bonds, the solid friendships, the lekker meals and adventures.

    If you find yourself only celebrating life on special occasions, you’re taking yourself and your life for granted.

    Worse than this, you’ve probably lost your self-worth to how you want others to see you, and you don’t see yourself clearly anymore.

    You reclaim your life by reclaiming the present moment.

    But you can’t reclaim the present moment if you don’t see value in it.

    And you won’t see value in it if you spend your days longing for the past.

    Live romantically. Now. Not in the past. And your life will be everything you dreamed it could be.

    It always starts with you.

  • Cutting your nose to spite your face?

    Cutting your nose to spite your face?

    Spite is that thing we do when we don’t want to appear needy or dependant on others for something that we need from them.

    Like needing attention or validation, but not wanting to appear desperate.

    If we feel valued, we’ll have a reasonable discussion without feeling as if it’s going to make us appear weak.

    If we don’t feel valued, and we don’t want to appear vulnerable or needy with that person, we’ll express our dissatisfaction through behaving in a way that is deliberately unpleasant or spiteful about something that we know the other person doesn’t appreciate.

    Either way, spite is driven by our need to be appreciated by someone who is important to us, while we judge ourselves for being weak by needing them to make us feel good.

    So when someone is being spiteful, consider in what way they may think you took them for granted. But also consider how weak they feel for needing your appreciation in the first place.

    You can either feel burdened with the responsibility of having to make them feel better about themselves, or you can focus on the fact that you’re important enough for them to need your validation or affection.

    But, as always, you can’t give what you don’t have.

    So if you don’t feel secure about who you are, you’re likely to focus on feeling burdened by their need for validation from you, resulting in you returning the favour of spite because you also don’t want to appear weak to them.

    Thus, a juvenile cycle of tit-for-tat ensues, as each partner tests the resolve of the other to see who is going to give in first, while both lose sight of how much life is being wasted in the process.

    Who breaks the cycle?

    Who is responsible for your feelings of weakness or inadequacy?

    As always, it starts with you.

    Own Your Life.

  • What are you taking from life?

    What are you taking from life?

    Our efforts towards others is what we give.

    How they receive and reciprocate those efforts is what we get.

    But what we take from that exchange is often lost to the emotional experience that lasts long after the moment has passed.

    What we take is OUR interpretation of what was behind the way that someone responded to our efforts towards them.

    It’s the assumptions that we make, and the signs we look for to confirm our assumptions to be true, that define what we take from others.

    Those assumptions are most often due to what we believe to be our value to them. It’s our assumption of how much they value us.

    It doesn’t mean that what we assume to be true is a reflection of how they truly value us.

    That’s when we become distracted by how our efforts are validated, rather than focusing on what value we want to create in that moment with them.

    The healthier our self-esteem, the kinder we’ll be towards them and ourselves with the assumptions that we make.

    Otherwise, if we don’t our own value, we’ll assume that their less-than-enthusiastic reaction towards us is because of who we are, and not because of what they may be grappling with in their own self-worth.

    When two unhealthy self-esteems collide, innocent beings are hurt, and a lifetime of pain is nurtured.

    Break the cycle by owning your self-worth, so that you don’t hold others accountable for how you feel about yourself.

    It always starts with you.



  • Reframe what brings you joy

    Reframe what brings you joy

    Reframing our perspective on life is more important than trying to solve problems that have been plaguing us for years, if not generations.

    Like Einstein said, “You cannot solve a problem with the same thinking that created it.”

    Or something like that.

    Point is, if you keep hitting your head against a brick wall hoping for it to break, you know it’s more likely to break your head instead.

    So, either find something softer to hit your head against, if that’s what you’re into…or…

    Find a more effective way of breaking that wall.

    Hint: it’s not your head.

    This meme is a quote from my upcoming release, Own Your Life. It’s the revised edition of my last book titled Own Your Shit, with some new chapters added, and a lot of work done to improve the way in which the reader can connect with the message in the book.

    Copies should be available by beginning December 2021.

  • Gratitude starts with you

    Gratitude starts with you

    The very essence of gratitude lies in recognising the value of what we have.

    That sounds obvious, yet so many take for granted the lives that they have while yearning for a life that feels out of reach.

    The moment we long for something that isn’t there, we risk taking for granted that which is there.

    When we focus on what we don’t have, we’ll be focused on the shortcomings and flaws of what we do have.

    This applies to both people and things.

    We grow distracted by what we believe we deserve when we don’t trust those around us to be concerned about what we need.

    That lack of trust is due to many reasons, most of which relate to how we see ourselves.

    But, most importantly, the underlying expectation that accompanies such a focus on what we believe we deserve means that we feel betrayed each time we don’t get what we need.

    Expectation, by default, carries with it a sense of entitlement. That’s why we feel betrayed when our expectations are not met.

    But back to gratitude. If you look at what you get from others, and you assume that it’s simply their duty or obligation to provide it, then you won’t appreciate the blessing contained in what they provide, regardless of their reasons for providing it.

    That’s how we become ungrateful without meaning to.

    That’s how life becomes transactional.

    That’s how happiness and peace becomes elusive.

    It always starts with you.

    Own Your Life.