Taking pride in the colour of your skin or ethnicity distracts you from your humanity.
Our humanness, our gentleness, our inclination towards kindness – these are all part of our natural state.
It’s our need to be associated with significance or superiority that distracts us from this, and replaces it with the fear of being inadequate.
When we lose sight of the fear, responding from a place of fear becomes our new normal.
Everything that threatens the source of our significance – that is, our skin colour, religion, cultural roots, etc. – then feels like a threat to our sense of self.
Thus, we feel the anger, resentment, or blind rage that rises when we feel undermined because of the colour of our skin, or any other association that makes us feel significant.
In the absence of an awareness of who we are, it is inevitable that our external attributes will be all that feeds our self worth.
#racism #colourism #religion #culture #prejudice #bigotry #socialacceptance #herdmentality #ownyourshit #ownyourlife #theegosystem #mentalhealth #mentalhealthawareness #mentalhealthrecovery #selfworth #selflove #selfawareness #selfrespect #mindfulness #inspiration #zaidismail
Tag: inspiration
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You are more than how you look
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Gratitude before regret
It’s impossible to be grateful for a blessing that you don’t acknowledge.
Like believing that we’re entitled to certain outcomes because of our effort or contribution.
Or believing that we’re entitled to be treated a certain way because we believe we’re a good person.
Whether those entitlements are true is not the issue.
The issue is that we are less likely to treat with due care and appreciation those things that we believe we are entitled to have in our lives.
Anything that is neglected in care or attention withers and eventually dies.
That’s how relationships deteriorate, and how our quality of life diminishes when we’re not paying attention.
Our absence of gratitude is therefore most often acknowledged only after the regret of the loss sets in.
Be mindful of what you have before you no longer have it.
#appreciation #gratitude #mindfulness #inspiration #ownyourshit #ownyourlife #theegosystem #embracingME #motivation #zaidismail #mentalhealth #mentalhealthawareness #mentalhealthrecovery #motivation -
The absent parent
Even an absent parent is still parenting.
It’s then on the shoulders of the present one to compensate for that.
Sometimes, the absence of someone has a greater impact on us than the presence of others.
This is especially true for parenting.
The absent parent leaves the child with feelings of abandonment, insignificance, and a low self-esteem, to name a few.
Worse still, it tortures them with the hope that it could be better if only…while distracting them from embracing the life and love that they have.
It’s that unfulfilled hope and the failed expectations that become the burden of the parent who is present, who is still committed to the wholesome development of the child, to mitigate the impact of that negative influence.
While it’s true that the children suffer, not enough is done to recognise the impact on the single parent.
Because the human is often forgotten behind the role or the label that we assign to them.
#parenting #singleparenting #children #selfworth #selflove #selfawareness #selfrespect #mindfulness #inspiration #ownyourshit #ownyourlife #theegosystem #mentalhealth #mentalhealthawareness #mentalhealthrecovery #zaidismail #divorce #marriage -
Empathise
Empathy is expressed when we desire for others what we wish to have for ourselves.
Sometimes, it’s something we have, and we hope that others will be able to enjoy the same value and benefit that we enjoy from it.
Sometimes, it’s what we don’t have, yet we hope that we may be able to contribute towards others having it, despite having no reason to believe that we’ll be able to experience it ourselves.
Empathy is founded in our desire to alleviate our struggles that we see in someone else’s life.
That struggle could be something we currently experience, or something that we have experienced before.
It is core to our humanness, and only gets tainted when we respond with bitterness, hoping to see others suffer or struggle in the same way as we may have. Either at their hands, or at the hands of those whom they represent in our life.
Empathy is the difference between peaceful acceptance, and bitter vengeance.
Like that old proverb says, a bitter heart eats its owner.
Protect your heart from the bitterness of this world by practicing empathy instead.
#empathy #sympathy #compassion #gentleness #love #affection #mentalhealth #mentalhealthawareness #mentalhealthrecovery #selfworth #selflove #selfawareness #selfrespect #mindfulness #inspiration #zaidismail -
Invest purposefully in your life
Invest in creating the life that you want, rather than escaping the life that you don’t want.
It might sound obvious, but take a breather and consider what drives your choices.
Are you driven by the need to avoid unpleasant encounters in your life?
Or are you driven by the need to create encounters that connect with your soul?
The difference has a profound effect on your sense of peace and well being.
Things only thrive if we nurture it. Nurturing is not always an act of kindness.
Sometimes, nurturing is feeding a toxic cycle without realising it, or validating untoward behaviour by actively engaging with it.
Emotional mindfulness connects you with the present moment so that you may make more informed investments about the outcomes of your life.
*Connect with me to find out how I can help you to achieve this. Video sessions available at very reasonable rates.
#hope #expectation #authenticity #mentalhealth #mentalhealthawareness #mentalhealthrecovery #selfworth #selflove #selfawareness #selfrespect #mindfulness #inspiration #ownyourshit #ownyourlife #theegosystem #embracingME #pursuitofhappiness #zaidismail -
Happy Father’s Day
Father’s day. It might be one day of the year for others, but for father’s, every day is father’s day.
For those father’s who had to figure it out by themselves.
For those who are prevented from being fathers.
For those who think that they’re not enough.
And of course, for those women who had to step in for the sperm donors that didn’t step up.
Every day is your day, because you understand why you’re blessed to be able to shape the characters of innocent souls to be the best version of you.
To the sperm donors who think that their insecurities, or their needs are more important than showing up, consistently, for their children, I pray that you realise what harm you’re causing for yourself, as well as those innocents, by wallowing in self-pity instead of owning your shit.
Happy father’s day. If you were blessed with a guiding hand, and gentle wisdom to prepare you for your role as a father, make this day a celebration of the one who gave you such a wonderful start in life.
And use your blessings to pay it forward. This world needs it.
#fathersday #parenting #father #mother #spermdonor #ownyourshit #ownyourlife #theegosystem #mentalhealth #mentalhealthawareness #mentalhealthrecovery #selfworth #selflove #selfawareness #selfrespect #mindfulness #inspiration #zaidismail #children #singleparenting #singledad -
Exhale. Peace is within reach.
Wisdom is the re-finding of innocence.
We’re born innocent, but then life happens.
Almost imperceptibly, our innocence wanes, and our disappointment in life replaces it.
Focused on remedying our justified gripes with this world, we lose sight of our innocence that once brought us peace.
Our life then becomes a struggle to regain that peace, sometimes further contaminating our innocence in that effort.
Until, one day, quite by chance, we realise that peace lies in reconnecting with our innocence.
And innocence lies in relinquishing our justified claim for justice or retribution.
Our path then shifts from striving for peace, and instead, discovering why life happened the way that it did.
In discovering the why, the disappointment and bitterness recedes, and the space once occupied by innocence becomes available once more.
Thus, innocence is allowed back in, not because we pursued it, but because we allowed it to return.
Exhale, beloved. The breath you’ve been holding in, waiting for justice, is better spent exhaling the toxins that cloud your heart.
Let your heart rise. It knows how. We just need to stop weighing it down with expectations of those whose growth is not aligned with our own.
Exhale, beloved. A breath of peace awaits you.
#hope #expectation #sincerity #beauty #gratitude #appreciation #zaidismail #authenticity #relationshipgoals #joy #mybeloved #mentalhealth #mentalhealthawareness #mentalhealthrecovery #selfworth #selflove #selfawareness #selfrespect #mindfulness #inspiration -
Your perspective is your choice
Perspective is a choice, not an inheritance.
Improve your awareness of why you believe what you believe, and it will be possible to consciously choose what resonates with your personal value system, and discarding what doesn’t.
When we lose sight of why we hold the perspectives that we do, and those perspectives create a conflict within us, we feel an increase in stress and anger without always understanding why.
At those times, it’s easy to explain our emotional state by connecting it with our perspectives that are being challenged.
However, responding from a position of anger or defence because of a perceived attack on what we believe to be true is a defence mechanism.
We would have no reason to defend that which we believe is based on an objective truth.
The only way to achieve such a level of confidence in our perspectives and beliefs is by improving our self awareness, and thereby improving our ability to critically assess what we stand for, and why.
This will go a long way towards finding balance in life, and knowing which battles are worth fighting, and which are not.
#perspective #trust #truth #trustissues #beliefsystem #valuesystem #mentalhealth #mentalhealthawareness #mentalhealthrecovery #selfworth #selflove #selfawareness #selfrespect #mindfulness #inspiration #ownyourshit #ownyourlife #theegosystem #embracingME #zaidismail
