Tag: mindfulness

  • It doesn’t make you stronger

    It doesn’t make you stronger

    The belief that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger is a lie.

    It may prepare us for greater trials and opportunities, but we also grow impatient or intolerant when we find ourselves facing the same issues repeatedly.

    Life feels fulfilling and purposeful when we solve a problem and move on, but feels exceedingly frustrating when we are compelled to deal with the same problem every day.

    Eventually, it’s not the repeated problem that gets to us but rather anyone associated with such problems.

    Like going to work and dealing with disrespect or unreasonable demands to constantly have to explain or defend yourself, and then getting home and being faced with similar experiences in a different context.

    Those themes that are similar between work and home is what feels like a trigger or a provocation because emotionally, it resonates with the insignificance that we feel in both places.

    And the same is true in reverse.

    What we experience in our home life preloads us for what we’re willing to tolerate in our public or professional life.

    The more mindful we are about this, the less likely we are to rage at those who have nothing to do with our misery. Be they loved ones, or strangers.

    Don’t go looking for character building experiences that will make you stronger.

    Life has plenty in store for you by design.

  • You cannot make them rise

    You cannot make them rise

    I’ve seen, and experienced first hand, the disaster that awaits when we convince ourselves that the demons that others deal with is our responsibility to resolve.

    Being kind, compassionate, and even understanding does not mean that we must own the decisions that others have made, especially when those decisions include them choosing to hold on to anger from their past instead of embracing the opportunities of the future.

    Remember that you can only offer someone a hand up, you cannot make them rise.

    The same way that you must own the consequences of your decisions, you are responsible for giving them every opportunity to own theirs.

    That includes not making yourself available as a doormat to them when they’re not owning it.

    You’re not a hospital for the wounded egos of others.

    Compassion doesn’t mean that you must be a martyr.

    Sacrificing yourself to uplift another not only reflects ingratitude on your part for who you are and what you have, it denies your contribution of love to those that have a right to it, including yourself.

    Moderation in everything, and everything in moderation.

    Embrace your life fully, not only its struggles.

  • A peaceful fight

    A peaceful fight

    Insanity is subjective.

    So is truth.

    The less we remember this, the more likely it is that we will oppress.

    To pass judgement without understanding reflects our insanity.

    To restrain judgement until we reach understanding reflects our search for truth.

    These two positions define the efforts of our days and the contemplations of our nights.

    And mindfulness is lost between the two.

    Striking a balance becomes the true pursuit of life if we hope to taste peace.

    But balance is only achievable if we know how much of each is valuable as our days progress.

    The enemy of mindfulness is distraction.

    The friend of mindfulness is therefore being consciously purposeful.

    You may not always be able to rein in your thoughts, but you can make a habit of reflecting, in the moment, if you are being purposeful regarding your objective.

    Live consciously and purposefully, and life will be woven into a relatively peaceful tapestry without fighting for peace.

    Sometimes, it’s the fight that denies us the peace that we yearn, while we yearn for peace as we fight.

    Pause.

    Choose your battles.

    Or else you’ll always be at war, blaming others for the choices that you make.

    And remember, if you’re trying to be mindful, you’re distracted.


  • The meandering twists of fate

    The meandering twists of fate

    Betrayal is not always a result of harsh words, lies, or cruel action.

    We’re often so focused on what we’re not getting from others, that we don’t pause to consider what they may not be getting from us either.

    The deepest cuts are those that are inflicted when we trust someone to be there, but they walk away instead.

    It’s when our rock in this world goes silent when we desperately need to hear their comforting voice.

    The searing edge of the blade of betrayal is when we repeatedly make excuses for others failing us, but we’re discarded the moment we have a moment of weakness.

    When there is inaction from those towards whom we look expectantly while recalling the times that they drew on our energy in moments when we barely had enough to sustain our own spirit, we find ourselves holding on, desperately clawing with both hands, to the remnants of the shards of our broken spirit, knowing that only we will be there for us, with the only solace needed being our trust in the One who created us.

    People fail us for the same reasons that we may fail others.

    It doesn’t make it right.

    It doesn’t make it wrong.

    It makes us all flawed humans who sometimes succumb to the demons of the past, while oblivious to the demons we just spawned in another because we were distracted.

    Striking a balance between recognising their humanness, while allowing ourselves to be human, while protecting ourselves from the impact of their demons, while grappling with our own demons is what defines the struggle of life, and the devastating risk of love.

    But we do it anyway, because without it, what would be the point of life?

    reflection

  • You will, or else…

    You will, or else…

    If it is true that the path to hell is paved with good intentions, then it confirms that good intentions are not enough to create positive outcomes.

    If we raise children with the fear of negative consequences, they’ll never truly connect with the benefit of doing what’s right.

    When that fear barrier is broken, and it will be broken at some point, we lose our children to influences and social structures that offer them inclusion and acceptance, rather than fear and punishment.

    With ease of access to alternate value systems and cultural norms, fear and a demand for compliance is no longer sufficient to influence children towards doing good or being good.

    Methods of escape in the form of substance abuse, pornography, demeaning and abusive social media trends, and more are accessible by toddlers, let alone teens or adults.

    The only sustainable approach towards combating such harmful influences is not through the fear of hell fire, or the threat of punishment,it’s through the establishment of a healthy self-esteem.

    A healthy self-esteem is built on how emotionally available their parents are.

    But parents can’t give what they don’t have.

    That is, if the parent doesn’t have a healthy self-esteem, they will rely on compliance and obedience to measure their worth with their children, failing which they will resort to being more controlling and intolerant towards bad behaviour.

    Given the norms of intolerance and compliance that set the tone for many of today’s adults, connecting meaningfully with our children has become a struggle that many are not even aware of as we interpret the behaviour of the youth as willful disobedience, rather than as a desperation to feel significant.

    If we can’t connect the youth with the value of the value system that we want to instill in them, they will connect with value systems that stroke their need for inclusion and understanding.

  • You judge others as you judge yourself

    You judge others as you judge yourself

    Judgement is easy.

    Understanding, empathy, compassion…not so easy.

    It only gets easier when we are capable of treating ourselves with kindness.

    But that isn’t as easy as it sounds.

    In fact, many of our efforts at kindness are harmful because we’re distracted from recognising what prompts our deliberate acts of kindness. Towards ourselves, and towards others.

    The moment anything is done deliberately and isn’t a natural consequence of our value system instinctively driving our behaviour, the risk of it being self-serving is very high.

    It’s like doing the right thing because it’s expected of you, rather than because you believe it’s the right thing to do.

    The moment no one expects you to do it, you have no reason to continue doing it.

    The same with empathy, compassion, and understanding.

    If we do it because we would want someone to do it for us if we were in their position, then it’s self-serving.

    When we have no reason to expect anyone to treat us in such gentle ways, we’ll easily stop treating others well as part of our protest against the world that is seemingly treating us badly.

    That’s when judgement becomes easy.

    The more aggressive or blatant we are about how we judge others, the more desperately it reflects our need for our struggle to be appreciated by others.

    You are responsible for your self-worth.

    The moment it is dependent on how others treat you, it’s not self-worth.

    You cannot give what you don’t have.

    That’s why you can only give what you have.

    Your unwarranted judgement of others reveals how harshly you judge yourself.

    Own it. And you may just be able to own your life.

  • Do you truly respect yourself?

    Do you truly respect yourself?

    One of the most important questions you could ever ask yourself in any situation is, ‘Who do you want to be?’

    Life is quickly defined or tainted by who we think others deserve us to be.

    We start out believing, often with good reason, that we need to be a certain way so that we don’t enable or encourage others to treat us badly, or to take us for granted.

    That’s when we lose ourselves to the assumptions of what we think others think of us, and along with it we lose our self-respect.

    Self-respect must be measured in the same way as what we use to determine if we are respected by others.

    If someone treats us in a way that lacks consideration for who we are, if they break their promises to us, if they lie or avoid accountability for what they do to us, or how they affect us, we feel disrespected by them.

    Why then do we not feel as if we’re disrespecting ourselves when we treat ourselves in similar or worse ways?

    It’s easy to blame others for our reaction of for not following through on commitments that we make to ourselves.

    But we need to realise that when we do that, we’re effectively giving up who we are for how we need them to treat us.

    That’s what happens when we assume that how others treat us is a reflection of who we are, rather than it being a reflection of what they’re dealing with within themselves.

    That’s how life gets complicated, and withholding who we are begins to appear as a needed defence against being treated badly.

    Before you go demanding respect from others, consider what it means for your self-respect if you believe that demanding respect is an effective way to be respected.

    When you demand respect, you only receive good manners or compliance. Not respect.

    Because the one who is disrespectful is only giving what they have.

    Have you got enough self-respect to treat others with respect regardless of whether they deserve it, or have you traded your self-respect for anger and self-loathing without realising it?

  • Own your own life first

    Own your own life first

    The causes that we’re afraid to fight in our own lives, we fight through proxy in someone else’s life.

    When we lack the conviction to apply ourselves to full effect in our own lives, we pacify our conscience by coming to the aid of those whose struggles offer an opportunity for us to find significance in ways that are lacking in our own lives.

    Our efforts may appear noble or sincere, and we may even believe that we’re pursuing a noble or sincere cause, but nobility or sincerity cannot be measured in the absence of authenticity.

    Authenticity demands that we conduct ourselves in our own lives consistent with how we conduct ourselves in the lives of others.

    When such consistency is lacking, authenticity is eroded, and our insecurities grow to define our sense of justice and righteousness.

    Thus, the victim mindset causes new problems while believing that we’re solving existing ones.

    Any problem left unresolved only grows in complexity and intensity, slowly festering until it becomes intolerable or unavoidable.

    At that point, it overwhelms us to the point of hopelessness, giving way to depression, anxiety, and unexplainable fatigue, including chronic illness.

    The victim mindset causes more problems than the problems it solves.

    It undermines our credibility, while diminishing the significance of those around us.

    When we lack the courage to meaningfully tackle the problems in our own lives, we lack the self-worth to hold ourselves accountable for what we claim to stand for.

    It always starts with what we think about ourselves long before we formulate any opinions of what we think of others.

    Reflect and connect with the resolve that you have for taking action in your own life before you set out to change the world for others.

    If there is a difference in how you show up between those two domains of life, you have a crisis of authenticity about who you are.

    It always starts with you.