One of the paths to insanity is to try to reason around someone else’s actions or behaviour by assuming that their value system is the same as yours. When you find it difficult to get through to someone, step back and consider two things. Are they genuinely interested in hearing you? Do they respect the same value system that you do? If the answer to both questions is Yes, consider a different approach. If No, walk away.
Blog
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Optimism versus Reality
Positivity is about focusing on opportunities, not about wishing away reality.
Wishing it’s a sunny day when it’s raining is not going to make the sun come out. So leaving your umbrella behind is an act of foolishness, not optimism. A positive mindset can often lead us into delusional states. When our overbearing sense of deliberate positivity doesn’t produce results, it crushes our spirit even more than before we started because the little hope we were holding onto becomes more difficult to believe in.
Keep it real.
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Serve a greater purpose
Life always has more purpose when you’re serving others. We’re built to serve others. When we lose hope in being served by others, we withhold our service in protest until we convince ourselves that no one will take care of us so we must take care of ourselves. That’s when life becomes hollow because it pulls us away from our core need: To be of significance to others. If you find yourself in this space, consider changing who you surround yourself with, otherwise you feed the very cycle that robs you of peace.
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A Beautiful Mess
The last year has been a beautiful mess. It has been a year of pushing boundaries and testing long-held truths. People, relationships, skills, passions, and even hobbies all came under close scrutiny as I peeled away the layers of assumptions that coated them over the years to test whether they still served me well, or at all.
I tested my hand at mindful living, more so at carving my own path through the forest and the lessons that I learnt along the way, most of which are still incomplete, have unlocked new realities and resurfaced old joys. My sense of self continues to evolve, almost on a daily basis. Accepting a truth about my reality on one day seems foolhardy or delusional on another. But in between it all there has been a lightness in my steps that has been absent from my gait for decades.
I lost myself to life over the decades. Courting authenticity with a naive mind can be taxing and expensive. Living out my convictions has increased the isolation around me. Only, it’s an isolation that holds much peace despite the loneliness that it threatens to share. The peace is the absence of expectations, except for the moments that the capitalist structures around me tear away at my being through the yoke that still weighs down on my shoulders. The realisation that what feeds the soul doesn’t feed the belly intensifies each day.
Uplifting quotes or extended hands to those that find relief in its offering falls short of its reciprocation of upliftment. The multitude of needy hands reaching out while their eyes look defiantly away cuts short any embrace that might once have offered some fulfillment. Fulfillment has been replaced by servitude and servitude proves to be no more than a payment of debt. Social debts and divine rights are pervasive. Harmony and a divine handhold not so much.
The unbeaten path always promised solitude. Perhaps that is the only promise that has been fulfilled. Everything else carries with it the weight of expectation or reciprocation. Distractions and virtual embraces offer more comfort than the distracted ones around us. Do we connect virtually because we see each other more clearly without the social stigmas and classes present, or do we connect virtually because it is the only connection that is accessible?
I no longer serve the social structures that I once courted, and along with it gave up any hope of finding the support that this new life demands I have. This used to be a cryptic space but I’ve realised that any confusion or mystery resulted only from my hope that there was more to be enjoyed, or acquired. Seeing the social constructs for what they are leaves little room for expectation, or even hope. Hope is only relevant in a symbiotic relationship, not a cannibalistic mutually exclusive one. Such has been the interaction between society and I for as long as life has held any promise beyond the immediate breath. Serving the divine is all that keeps me tethered to such contracts.
This beautiful mess is the freedom that such realisations and independence endows. The absence of belonging and only the belonging to absence. It once seemed so vapid in its concept but has proven to be utterly grounding in its experience.
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Smashing Writer’s Block
I always advised others to get over writer’s block by writing about it. This morning seems to demand that I take some of my own advice. Fair warning then that this post may appear incoherent and nonsensical, but only to you. To me, it will probably be a perfect reflection of the madness that stirs within. We all have such madness, but I think the surrounding of friends or family, or just familiar recognition of who we appear to be subdues the madness because when we feel recognised, we have less reason to demand recognition of what stirs beneath the surface. Most of us hide it, some over-emphasise it, and some of us, the odd few, try to leverage it to feed our passion without appearing totally insane.
I’m not quite sure which category I fit into this morning. Writing this novel that is inspired by true events from my life makes for some interesting introspection. Regrets threaten to surface as I find myself looking with fresh eyes at incidents from many years ago that I always assumed to have played out differently. Catharsis has nothing to do with it, nor does an indulgence of the ego. It’s the stark realisations or a gentleness of judgement that is possible now but felt unreasonable or unjustified then. Trying to understand the most disruptive influences in my life often leads to realising that they were also the most constructive. Not because they meant to be, but because of what about me was forced to grow because of who they were .
We leave things behind because we find them unpleasant, not because we find them endearing or cherish-able. The same is true for relationships. Perhaps this is why it is more difficult to recall the good times when you focused on the bad times for so long. Idealism can taint judgement and spawn good intentions that are disastrous at times. Good intentions don’t always result in wholesome outcomes. Sometimes it causes more destruction than any bad intention ever could.
Speaking of idealism, I am reminded about my own quote recently that claimed that there are no bad intentions, only poorly informed decisions. This is more true and real for me this morning than it was when I wrote that a few weeks ago. Even when we go about deliberately wanting to cause harm or pain, the motivation to do so is grounded in a need to avenge a wrong, or to teach a lesson, both of which are inherently good intentions. Understanding and compassion will probably improve the method we use when setting out to teach someone a lesson, but understanding and compassion are seldom traits that we court during moments of despair or disappointment. Reclaiming our significance is all that seems to matter, which is why regrets only follow after destroying the significance that we fought so hard to claim.
Being an anomaly of society has its romantic connotations but only until the moment that human connection is needed, or desired. It’s impossible to connect with normal when you’re an anomaly. Normal appears boring and shallow, or distracted at best, and being anomalous feels dysfunctional in a society that is normalised by tradition, culture, or social standing. Each time I thought I found a place for myself in this world, I discovered that I was simply a placeholder for someone else instead. I hate tokens and trinkets because they rarely have any inherent value other than the sentiment that we endow on them. Being anomalous feels like that on most days.
Self-pity is pitiful, and it also assumes that there is something worthy of pity. Therefore, true self-pity can’t exist, and any appearance of self-pity must therefore be a desperation for attention or affection, or both, rather than any sense of remorse or regret. No one truly believes that they are pitiful, or useless. Any professions of the same is nothing more than a desire to find someone to disagree with them.
Writer’s block is for writers. But we’re all writers of our own story, with some of us having the requisite level of narcissism to believe that our story is worth sharing. Narcissism itself is not a bad thing. We all have it in us. It starts out with believing that we’re worthy, and gets out of hand when we believe that we’re more worthy than others. Believing in your worth is a healthy form of narcissism, because anything less would be self-deprecation which is a sign of ingratitude. Therefore, it suggests that a narcissist is potentially more grateful than one who appears humble. Now there’s something to ponder on cold nights and warm hearths.
My reasons for writing and sharing what I write sways between wanting to contribute towards improving the world we live in, and wanting to point out the obvious to the oblivious so that I can see the a-ha moments on their faces as I feel significant in knowing that I caused it. The truth is probably somewhere between those two ideals. I’d rather continue rambling than facing that novel again right now. It feels like much ado about nothing, personified.
Similar to the first book that I wrote. Great feedback from those that found the tenacity to read it to the end, but dismissive remarks of its complexity from those that lack the conviction to look closer, at themselves more than at me. Perhaps the greatest lesson that I’ve learnt from my journey towards becoming a writer in my own right is that unless you come from a family with a strong tradition in a similar field, you will be the odd one out that no one else gets. Chances are therefore also good that writers are most often middle-children or an only child because those with familiar or kindred spirits have less reason to articulate their soul’s desires or aspirations in their search for peace.
The madness must abate. Alas, I have deadlines and bills to pay. The cynic in me must rest so that the demands of a practically boring and slavish existence can prevail in order to maintain the semblance of sanity that society pretends to hold.
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Why we sometimes despise hope
There is a concerning trend in the self-help world that appears to be getting stronger. Life coaches are sprouting out from every troubled soul, ignore that irony for now, and motivational speakers are plentiful. Clinical psychology is supposedly more advanced than ever with better understandings of the working of the human brain through complex and sophisticated scanning technologies, and psychiatry with a pill for every mood. Given this very elaborate range of therapies and interventions that are available, you’d be forgiven for wondering why the world is still in such a state of dysfunction and only getting worse.
If you didn’t wonder about that, then perhaps you’re one of the many that seem to be distracted by the sea of movement in the doctors of the soul while not noticing any meaningful shift in the souls being doctored. Perhaps the message, the intervention, and the feel-good therapy is not reaching the soul. What if the collective wisdom of them all is misguided in its point of departure?
Mainstream medicine denies the existence of the soul, and by implication, denies the possibility of intelligent design in the created world, humans being a very core part of that creation. If this were merely a philosophical point of interest, there’d be no harm in it. It would be each to their own and life goes on. Unfortunately, when it becomes the basis for defining physical and emotional health, it’s no longer just philosophical, it’s physical, and it’s dangerous.
What has the existence of a soul got to do with health, you might ask? Let’s avoid the distraction of religion or spirituality before answering that question, and instead of the soul, let’s just assume that there is a higher seat of intelligence that is not bridled nor defined by the chemicals in your brain. Instead, consider that those chemicals in fact respond to that higher intelligence. But why? Why is it important to consider this? The more important question is why is it detrimental to dismiss this as an option?
In the absence of this belief of a higher intelligence, not at a universal level, but simply in our individual lives, we’re confined to studying the state of the brain as being a result of itself. Apart from the logical challenge of this idea, we create a very curious chicken and egg situation. Does the thought shape the brain, or does the brain shape the thought? If the brain shapes the thought, then we are compelled, by human nature no less, to question to what end would the brain be motivated to spawn a thought. Apart from physically maintaining the state of the body in a healthy or balanced condition, why would the brain have any reason to need to go beyond that absolute minimum? In fact, why would the brain have a need to maintain even that much? What is the consequence of it not fulfilling that purpose apart from death, beyond which it simply ceases to exist?
Back to the alternative based on the absence of a higher seat of intelligence. If the thought shapes the brain, what then is the origin of the thought? Chemicals, you say? But that would again suggest that the brain is spawning and shaping itself since those chemicals are an intrinsic part of the brain function. However, science tells us differently. According to science, a smile generates feel-good hormones even if the smile is forced or based on a manufactured state of happiness. Even Psychology Today agrees:
Each time you smile, you throw a little feel-good party in your brain. The act of smiling activates neural messaging that benefits your health and happiness.
The idea that chemicals in our brain are influenced by our thoughts and experiences is not new, nor new age-y in origin. This is what Nobel Laureate Eric Kandel has to say about the way the brain works:
“You could double the number of synaptic connections in a very simple neurocircuit as a result of experience and learning. The reason for that was that long-term memory alters the expression of genes in nerve cells, which is the cause of the growth of new synaptic connections. When you see that at the cellular level, you realize that the brain can change because of experience. It gives you a different feeling about how nature and nurture interact. They are not separate processes.”
Science has also confirmed that through a process called neuroplasticity, which is basically what the above quote from Kandel confirms, changes in the brain result from experience, and not the other way around. The choices we make influences the chemical balance and the neural pathways in our brains. Keep making bad choices, like choosing to be ungrateful, or seeing the worst possible outcomes and ignoring the good of what you’re faced with, and your brain will reflect that balance. Smile in the middle of it all and suddenly the clouds part and there’s a chance to see things more optimistically rather than pessimistically. Having the mental fortitude to force that smile on your face, well, not so easy because it is directly related to how entrenched you are in your choice to be bitter at the world, or optimistic about what it still offers.
Optimism or pessimism are both choices. The trials we face can be unending or brutal with barely any space between them to just pause and take a breath, but succumbing to them is still a choice. Allowing our spirit to be broken is also a choice, even though it isn’t a choice taken lightly, nor one that should be made light of. Depression is a state we achieve after persisting in pessimism or losing hope in what we assume the future to hold for us. None of us knows with absolute certainty what the future holds, so again, assuming the worst of the future is based on trends of negative outcomes in the past. But the moment you recognise even a single moment in your life when your projections about the future, or even the next moment turned out to be wrong because of a surprise occurrence that benefited you or gave you hope when you were expecting life to continue being bad, you know that it requires a deliberate effort to ignore such hope.
But why would anyone want to ignore hope? We ignore or even actively resist hope if we are deathly afraid of being hurt again, or betrayed, or failing at something that has grown to define us in the eyes of others, and so much more. We avoid hope because we are afraid of getting it wrong, again, and then losing face with the people around us. At the core of this fear is our need to be significant, or to feel significant. The moment that significance is threatened, we find reason to protect ourselves from losing any shreds of credibility that remain in what little significance we feel. Thus, we find people holding on to struggles, bad relationships, horrible jobs, or toxic family members because their perseverance under such circumstances defines their strength, which in turn defines their sense of significance, and often, their sense of purpose.
There is much camaraderie and solidarity in being victims. Support groups, if poorly facilitated, feed such a victim state of mind and result in victimhood becoming a badge of honour, or a statement of strength.
But back to the question of the soul, or the seat of higher intelligence. Does it exist? Well, we already confirmed that the brain responds to what we choose, and what we experience. Choose to smile, and the state of your brain will reflect that choice. Similarly, choose to lose hope or to give up your right be happy, or to pursue happiness, and your brain will reflect the state of one given to depression. Depression is the absence of hope, and as stated above, sometimes we find good reason to spurn hope because its absence carries more certainty and a sense of familiarity than what hope has to offer. When we’re fearful about failing, spurning hope or denying opportunities by holding on to past events is all that gives us that sense of significance that we so desperately need in our effort to respond to a harsh world, without placing at risk the little significance that we already have.
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A Contaminated Ego
I’ve grown to accept that I am not acceptable by most. I have never been black enough, Indian enough, or Muslim enough, and dare I say pliable enough. I speak my mind without permission because there is none to grant me permission. I don’t intend to give a voice to the voiceless, or a platform to the oppressed. Both are in the state that they are in because of inaction either on their part or the part of the collective to which they actively subscribe.
While I may not be able to resist the physical oppression that overwhelms any physical means of resistance I have at my disposal, it has never been a reason for me to remain oppressed in my mind. Far too many see the shackles on their wrists and assume that to be a denial of their freedom to think and to choose. I may not be able to choose my freedom of movement or association at all times, but I can always choose how much of that oppression defines me or what I am capable of contributing towards its dismantling.
I choose not to be oppressed by the self-serving leaders that I see around me. From government to community to religious structures. The contaminated ego has pervaded all such structures resulting in the stench of moral and ethical decay that I see. Tribal, cultural, and fraternal allegiances define the principles and values by which we live, rather than the common subscription to such principles and values that should supersede such allegiances being the glue that bonds us. As a result, I see leaders serving each other before they serve their subjects, and subjects aspiring to such stations of promise and praise because they wish for such self-serving worship as well. Service to their community rarely factors into that equation.
Everyone wants to believe that they’re the chosen ones. Some claim this through divine appointment, others claim it through association with the divine, but none appear to claim it through serving the divinity that they worship. Instead, they seek to be worshipped for the divinity that they believe resides within them. Their man-made titles convince them that they are morally, academically, and religiously superior while they fail to recognise the irony of using man to proclaim their divinity.
The contaminated ego has convinced many that they are superior by way of association and subscription rather than through action. I claim none of this. As I’m often reminded by the saying of a long forgotten scholar, if you knew me as I know myself, you’d throw sand in my face. A desert of sand. Each time I flirted with the idea that I was better than another I realised that such comparison confirmed that I was worse. The need to compare, even if inspired by a noble endeavour, is arrogance. I either aspire to adopt the ways of those I admire, or I choose to avoid the ways of those that I don’t. Better or worse must never feature because that will be a self-serving notion, not unlike the contamination I see in the leadership that prevails.
Leadership itself is misleading. To aspire to leadership is to court with worship. To have leadership thrust upon you through no effort of your own is a burden imposed by the divine. A burden is never a burden if deliberately chosen. A burden deliberately chosen is a need for validation or acceptance. The true burden is the choice to accept such validation through a rejection of the self. Any subsequent burden is merely a progression of that rejection.
The struggles I have chosen for myself only appeared as struggles when I lost sight of the convictions that I chose to serve. Any hardship or difficulty that resulted was often a result of misplaced expectations or self-pity, both of which faded from view the moment I reconnected with the convictions I held dear. Reconnecting with those convictions was never possible while surrounded by admirers but was only ever realised in the quiet moments where I found myself with no means to placate my failures or shortcomings. It is only through an accepting embrace of the same that I was ever able to rise above it. Denial always only tethered me to that which I hoped to ignore.
The ego itself is neutral. Like the body, it thrives with opportunity and benevolence when sustained with that which humbles it, and it crumbles under the weight of expectations and entitlement when fed with that which makes it gluttonous. Abdication for our choice of spiritual diet leads to the latter and quickly manifests in the unpleasant disposition and appearance that we develop on the outside.
Spirituality and physical wellbeing are not mutually exclusive. The one who professes to be spiritually enlightened will not be physically distorted from their natural proportions, and the one who exerts themselves in being physically attractive are most certainly not spiritually enlightened. It is the consequential balance of the two that reflects the true state of our ego, and not the contemplation of one or the other independently.
[This is an incomplete train of thought]
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Defining Moments Life Coaching
Defining moments are those moments that mark a turning point in our lives. It’s either recalled as a moment of upliftment, or sadly too often a moment of duress. Both, however, define our lives and influences our behaviour in ways that we rarely recognise.
When those defining moments are positive experiences, recognising them allows us to build on the momentum that it offered and makes such moments sustainable and repeatable. The moments that weighed us down can stifle our growth and confidence for years to come. It leaves us feeling burdened and exhausted compelling us to find ways to cope with what feels like external stress from work, family, social, or all of the above.
At the core of any growth effort is the need for mindfulness. Mindfulness must be grounded in practicality and not approached as something external to your life. It must become an integrated part of who you are and how you immerse yourself in your daily life. This is the only sustainable and most powerful form of mindfulness. A mindfulness that allows you to navigate your emotions with clarity and your circumstances with a quiet confidence.
Defining Moments Life Coaching focuses on a practical and effective approach to achieving balance in life, and especially understanding and working through past experiences that may be holding us back. With the emphasis on being accessible to those that would not normally be able to afford such services, coaching sessions are virtual to reduce transport and logistics costs for the client, and improve convenience and cost effectiveness.
Schedule your consultation today and make a major positive step forward in achieving your dreams and aspirations without compromising your soul or your personal relationships.
