People will have no reason to remind you about what they’ve done for you if they felt appreciated by you.
This popular meme encourages a selfish view of life and convinces us that we’re victims of manipulation rather than giving us reason to question if/how we may have wronged someone, or taken them for granted.
If this meme were true, then every parent who sacrifices their own joys and advancement in life for the benefit of their children will have no right to feel betrayed if they’re neglected by their children later in life.
It’s become fashionable to write people off just because we’re not getting what we need or want from them.
The fact that we feel entitled regardless of what they’re going through is often ignored.
But the circle of life is such that what we judge others about today, will meet us as a test under very different circumstances tomorrow.
When you write people off because of what they complain about regarding feeling hurt or betrayed by your actions towards them, you will remember them when someone you are convinced will always have your back turns around and walks away from you because they want something from life that they can’t get from you.
When someone says ‘after all I’ve done…’, step back, dismount your high horse, and consider why they may be feeling betrayed or used instead of getting defensive and assuming that they’re toxic.
How you respond to someone in their moment of duress is a reflection of who you are, and what you need from them.
That’s why abandoning family ties, cutting off parents, demanding divorce, and breaking social bonds has grown to define our self-care routine.
When we stop needing others, they become optional while we think it’s our right to live our best life regardless of their contribution towards getting us through our worst times when they could have been living their best life.
Be careful what advice you take from the Internet.
You could end up living your best life, alone.
#hope #expectation #sincerity #selfworth #selfawareness #mentalhealth #mentalhealthawareness #lifecoaching #zaidismail #theegosystem #ownyourlife #narcissisticabuse #narcissist
Tag: mentalhealthawareness
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Mental health myth – Social contracts
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The Illusion of Control: Unraveling the Quest for Peace
Peace is not the absence of drama, nor is it the avoidance of life. Yet, I find myself bemused by so many who believe that avoidance is a sustainable way to find peace, or happiness. It isn’t. Avoidance is merely a delay of the inevitable.
Inevitability has always been such a complicated subject. Otherwise seen as fate, destiny, karma, or even manifestation, we convince ourselves that our failings and sometimes even our successes are a result of such larger-than-life forces at play in our lives. I think that’s how we satisfy our ego when we find it difficult to accept that we’re out of control.
The myth of control offers a temporary comfort. Predictability assures those who have grown weary of change. That weariness is the threat that I have been fending off for some time now. Sometimes I embrace it deliberately hoping that it will find space within me, but it never does. If anything, it leaves me restless. As restless as I once was when I realised that there was no gentle hand to show me the ropes of life. Of course, that realisation came long after I had already sunk my teeth into creating a life out of the dreary reality that surrounded me.
Why I felt a need to create something better than what I had rather than finding peace within those circumstances is what occupies my mind on most days when I have space to reflect. It’s the same struggle that brings so many to my door looking for answers about the ravages of the obliviousness of others, the worst being our obliviousness to the impact that we have well beyond our range of visibility.
Peace is lost in those moments when we peer ahead instead of glancing around at our immediate vicinity. What lies ahead in the distance is hope and aspiration. What confronts us immediately is the probability of achieving any of it. Most wish away what they see around them because they’re so desperate for that mirage that they behold in their mind’s eye. Some find a meaningful pursuit between where they’re at and what they wish to reach, and they appear purposeful and resolute as a result. But there is a group who see a little more than that. They see what surrounds them, they see what is in the distance, they see the path between the two, but they also see the impact that they have on those who have rights over them. Choosing how to expend themselves between those demands then becomes the source of what robs them of their peace.
I resonate most with the latter group. The group that feels responsible when others feel free of obligation. The group that sees but is not seen. That hears but is rarely heard. That understands but is misunderstood. And though that may appear self-indulgent, if not smacking with self-pity, it isn’t. It simply is the reality presented by the evidence of a life of resolve to figure out how it all works. Sometimes I consider if perhaps that is the purpose of life, but then I also realise that if it were, what would be the point of advancement if the only endeavour is to understand the here and now?
That there is more to life than figuring it out is clear. What more there is to life, however, remains a slowly unravelling secret that will hopefully avail itself before I have exhausted my breaths in the pursuit of everything intended to unlock that greater purpose. Nonetheless, in its pursuit I have found joys and depths that have enamoured me in my journey that most view with confusion at best, or disdain at worst, neither of which has given me cause to alter my trajectory.
In that has been my greatest liberation and my greatest test, the combination of which leaves me eternally perplexed. Peace is still a distance away.
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Respect is not earned
The old saying of ‘respect is earned’ robs you of self respect and replaces it with entitlement.
How we treat others is a reflection of who we are, not who they are.
Our ability to self regulate our offering of respect to those who may treat us badly is a reflection of how much we need them to treat us well before we feel good about who we are.
In other words, the less grounded we are in who we are, the more likely it is that others will impact our moods, our temper, and our overall emotional wellbeing.
Trust, on the other hand, is earned through consistency of effort about what’s important.
Trust cannot be negotiated or contracted.
If we have reason to doubt someone showing up for us, we won’t trust that they will.
That reason is sometimes because of them being unreliable, but is also often because of how someone else in the past may have disappointed us or betrayed our trust when we needed a similar thing from them. Like comfort, support, or just being there for us.
If we go through life trusting recklessly while withholding respect to those who, in our eyes, don’t deserve it, we will find ourselves reeling from betrayal long after it has passed while disrespecting those who don’t understand our pain.
Problem is, even we won’t understand our pain, so we’ll never be able to communicate it in ways that will allow those close to us to understand why we’re raging.
It all starts with self respect and self worth.
Without that, you will need others to treat you well before you treat yourself well.
Own your life.
#hope #expectation #sincerity #selfworth #selfawareness #mentalhealth #mentalhealthawareness #lifecoaching #zaidismail #theegosystem #ownyourlife #narcissisticabuse #narcissist #rage #anger #angermanagement #marriage #divorce -
No Thanks!
When you get bad service from a restaurant, you won’t go back there if they show no remorse or accountability for how they treated you. That’s boycotting.
Boycotting products or people who enable harm on others is no different.
It’s a choice that reflects who we claim to be and what we want to be associated with.
The lower our self-worth, the less attention we pay to what we stand for and the more we focus on what others think of us.
That’s when image and tokens of success become more important than values or principles.
It’s never a decision that affects only you.
It influences everyone who may look to you as a role model, or a leader, a parent, or an inspiration.
More than this, it shapes what you contribute towards the peace and dignity that the world offers us, versus being part of the degradation of the human condition.
Boycotting is about what you are comfortable being associated with as a moral, ethical, religious, spiritual, and humanitarian standpoint.
It’s not about politics or privilege.
It’s about self-worth.
You are part of a village, whether you accept it or not.
Your actions and your choices affect others in the same way that you may be bitter or unhappy about the choices of others that have negatively affected you.
If you are unaware of the impact that you have, there is a very high probability that you are harming others without realising it, or intending to do so.
Who are you?
What do you stand for?
Before you answer, look to an innocent being that may depend on you to show up for them, and then consider how your answer will affect them.
#accountability #free #nothanks #mentalhealth #mentalhealthawareness #narcissist #narcissisticabuse #humanity #palestine #israel #gaza #lifecoaching #zaidismail #istandwithpalestine
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Don’t forget the human
Did you know that there is zero science to support the above beliefs about what we call mental health?
Instead, there is research that confirms that new neural pathways are formed in response to new information or new experiences. It’s called neuroplasticity.
Other research confirms that the physical gesture of a smile, regardless of your emotional disposition, releases feel-good hormones into your brain which uplifts your mood. Try it. Smile at yourself in the mirror without having any reason to smile.
When we try to rationalise life through the lens of science, we discover technically fascinating facts about the functioning of the human body, but we lose sight of the human in that body.
Feelings of anxiety, depression, rage and more, including observing others to behave in a narcissistic or bipolar manner is very real.
But it’s critical to understand that it is simply what we observe regarding their response to very real emotional experiences for them.
Depression is the absence of hope, anxiety is the fear of not being able to cope with potential outcomes that we are facing, and emotional duress about the stressors of life is what we call mental illness.
We describe what we experience in others or in ourselves as bipolar, or narcissistic behaviour, not because that is who we/they are, but because that’s how we experience that part of life.
It doesn’t mean that we’re not dealing with very real fears or duress that causes us to behave in that way.
However, when we label behaviour, we lose sight of the legitimate human experience behind that behaviour.
No one ever behaves badly when they feel appreciated, significant, or understood.
Bad behaviour or emotional duress simply means that as a human, we’re struggling to reconcile the experiences of life with our efforts to create a good life for ourselves, or others.
Medication, affirmations, supplements, and deliberate exercises to cope with such emotional duress will only ever provide interim relief.
If we don’t resolve the root cause of that duress, those interim measures become lifelong chronic crutches.
#mentalhealth #mentalhealthawareness #lifecoaching #zaidismail #theegosystem #ownyourlife #narc -
The struggle for self-worth
Our relationship with our father, whether they’re present or absent, still with us or passed on, shapes how we feel about ourselves more than any other influencing factor in our lives.
It’s not about whether they were good or bad as humans or as parents, but rather what we took from our experiences with them, or what we took from their absence.
A father who is absent because he has to work long hours to provide for his family, could still have a positive impact if he is not harsh and impatient with his children when he does have a few moments to share with them.
Similarly, a father who is present but always fixated on rules, boundaries, rituals, and the like, will create an emotional barrier between him and his children that will convince them that who they are doesn’t matter, and that what they achieve is all that matters.
That directly conflicts with our core human need to be of significance.
What we take, or what we believe to have been their motivation to be that way towards us in our early years, is what shapes how we show up for others in our later years.
Most people who have had a difficult relationship with their father know exactly how they don’t want to do things, or how they don’t want to be as parents, but that doesn’t mean that they know how to achieve what they want in their relationship with their children.
That’s how, without meaning to, we often become exactly like the parent/so that we once judged harshly for failing us as a parent.
The most effective way to break this cycle is to understand the true reasons why your father may not have been what you needed him to be despite his best intentions or efforts.
It’s only in seeing the demons of others that we will realise that how they showed up for us was not because of who we are, but rather because of how our needs from them provoked the demons that they were grappling with.
That’s how we learn from the shortcomings of others, rather than falling into the same deficiencies because we think we’re better than them.
See the human behind the role and you’ll feed the soul of those who desperately need it.
#parenting #narcissist #narcissisticabuse #lifecoaching #zaidismail #toxicparents -
The magic of accountability
Many people struggle with authenticity and finding a healthy balance in relationships because they are unaware of the impact of how they show up for themselves and for others. That lack of self-awareness is in a very huge way impacted by how we hold ourselves accountable for who we are.
In this interview with Haafidha Rayhaanah, I unpack the little known dynamics of the far reaching consequences of accountability in our relationship with ourselves, and with those around us.
Remember, without accountability, you have absolutely nothing of substance in your relationship with anyone, including with life itself. Give yourself a fair chance to unlearn what has been holding you back for so long.
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Hypocrisy destroys you
Avoiding the truth to avoid responsibility is an exercise in hypocrisy.
Supporting oppression to avoid the loss of privilege is an exercise in hypocrisy.
Hypocrisy harms the hypocrite more than it ever harms others.
The ones who experience such hypocrisy can still act against it, and can champion a cause to resist it.
The hypocrite, however, loses their soul and every ounce of their humanity when they stubbornly persist in their hypocrisy.
Not only does this deny them fulfilment or peace, it also destroys everything of value that makes their lives worth living, or their struggles worth enduring.
Thus the bitter are the most hypocritical, and the most hypocritical at the most oppressive among us.
Rationalising their hypocrisy to convince them otherwise is a futile exercise.
Instead, we must reject their assertions that are blatantly erroneous or contemptable, so that we don’t exhaust ourselves in their deliberate attempts at distraction from the truth, while the cause of justice suffers from our lack of focus.
It only gets complicated when we are unwilling to take a stand for what is uncomfortable or for what threatens the comfort of our existence.
Tyranny prevails when the masses value their so-called quality of life over their dignity and their humanity.
#justice #oppression #watermelon #palestine #genocide #gaza #icj #mentalhealth #integrity #selfworth #authenticity #zaidismail
