When we go out searching for safe spaces in which to grow, we’re more invested in hiding the shame that we feel about ourselves, than we are in growing.
Rather than focusing on pushing ourselves into spaces that are uncomfortable, we need to focus on why we feel such shame to begin with.
Shame doesn’t always feel like shame.
But, if we pay attention, we’ll note how difficult it is to talk about what we’re struggling with, or what we think we’re failing at.
That difficulty is because we’re judging ourselves for failing or being inadequate.
So we protect ourselves from that becoming visible by disguising it as our legitimate struggle against everyone and everything that treated us badly.
That’s why we polarise towards those who share such weaknesses, because there is less shame in failing together than there is in failing alone.
That’s how we limit our growth.
If you want to be successful in business, you don’t seek advice from others who have failed at it.
Similarly, if you’re not reaching your goals in life, don’t surround yourself with others who are also messing up theirs.
Choose your role models and your advisors carefully.
If you choose them out of self-pity, they’ll convince you that nothing is your fault and that everyone else is to blame, including the dead.
That may make you feel better in the moment, but it will also keep you stuck in that moment for that much longer.
It always starts with you.
Own Your Life.
#selfworth #selfawareness #ownyourlife #selfmastery #mindfulness #personalpower #mentalhealth #mentalhealthawareness #lifecoaching #zaidismail
Tag: mindfulness
-
Self-pity is never a recommendation
-
Do you remember you?
Sometimes, we lose ourselves to the hopelessness of others.
Sometimes, we lose ourselves to the failed expectations of life.
And sometimes, we lose ourselves because we thought it was our failings that earned us pain, while oblivious to the fact that it was in fact our success that threatened the ones we loved.
In these, and so many other scenarios, our perspective is tainted by our belief that what we wish to achieve with others, is what is important to them to achieve with us.
When this belief proves to be false, we question our self-worth when our best efforts only cause upheaval, and our best intentions are always misconstrued as arrogance or materialism.
If we don’t stop to see the demons that our significant others are battling, we’ll judge ourselves by how they fail to overcome their demons.
That’s when our demons strengthen their hold on us.
Unless we reconnect with who we are, we’ll forever wait for someone else to do right by us before we allow ourselves to find joy in who we are.
Rediscover who you really are, so that you can shake off the debris that you accumulated through the years with each toxic character that convinced you that you were someone you’re not.
The risk of coping with failure or betrayal is that our act of coping grows to define who we think we are.
But that’s when we lose sight of who we were before that moment.
The only way to move beyond it is to recognise that coping is only needed as long as we’re still holding on to the hurt or the disappointment of what could’ve been, but didn’t happen.
Let go of it, and the joy that you experienced before that defining moment will return.
It always starts with you.
#selfworth #selflove #selfawareness #selfrespect #reflection #mindfulness #validation #mentalhealth #mentalhealthawareness #mentalhealthrecovery #thebookofmindfulness #personaldevelopment #growth #growthmindset #gratitude #lifecoaching #zaidismail -
Where is your humanity?
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.
We lose it when our need to be associated with significance or superiority distracts us from this, and replaces it with the fear of being inadequate.
When we lose sight of the fear of inadequacy, 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 are judged by the colour of our skin, our religion, our ethnicity, or any other association that makes us feel significant.
But, we grow convinced that we’re standing up for a good cause by protecting what we value, even though the way in which we protect it undermines the very essence of what we claim to stand for.
That’s when it becomes clear that we only stand for what we do because it offers us a place in this world through being associated with the cause.
It offers us significance and protects us from irrelevance.
That’s when we’ve traded who we are, for who we want to be perceived as, because we’re convinced that we are not enough.
Own Your Life.
It always starts with you.
#racism #colourism #religion #culture #prejudice #bigotry #socialacceptance #herdmentality #ownyourshit #ownyourlife #theegosystem #mentalhealth #mentalhealthawareness #mentalhealthrecovery #selfworth #selflove #selfawareness #selfrespect #mindfulness #inspiration #zaidismail -
Are you there for you?
We’re more inclined to recognise the needs of the weak, than we are of the strong.
Without meaning to, we diminish the humanness of those who persevere without complaint, because they often make it look so easy.
When we’re the strong ones persevering without complaint, we risk diminishing our own humanness as well, because we become defined by being strong for others.
Whether you’re strong or weak, you need to take time to connect with the human behind the strength, or the struggle that you observe in others, and especially within yourself.
If you don’t, you risk becoming the enabler of weakness and dependence, or the enabler of harshness and insensitivity.
Because that’s what happens when we lose contact with our humanness.
We stop expecting, or allowing ourselves and others to be human.
That’s when everything becomes dutiful and focused on rights and responsibilities.
And empathy and compassion, let alone love and affection, leave through the window.
All this because we forgot that we’re human, and that the ones failing us are human too.
We cannot choose differently for how others show up in our lives, but we can choose how we show up for them, and for ourselves.
Focus on that, and let the rest take care of itself.
When you achieve this, you’ll taste the sweetness of life and not just the accomplishment of goals.
Own Your Life.
It always starts with you.
#selfworth #selfawareness #ownyourlife #selfmastery #mindfulness #personalpower #mentalhealth #mentalhealthawareness #lifecoaching #zaidismail #compassion #companionship #relationshipgoals -
Do you matter to you?
To be of consequence, or to feel significant, lies at the heart of our inspiration to accomplish anything.
When we connect with conviction to the significance of who we are, and what value we add to the lives of others, we achieve a sense of peace and contentment.
But, when we doubt this, we set out in search of validation through observing how others respond to our efforts to improve their lives. To make them happy.
If we’re fortunate, we’ll find ourselves surrounded by those who willingly and sincerely acknowledge our contribution and our place in their lives.
If we aren’t fortunate enough to have such people around us, we’ll lose ourselves in our efforts to be enough for them, without realising that they’re also not enough for themselves.
It’s an empty cup trying to fill a broken one, where the one who is giving is depleted, and the one receiving is distracted by their own demons.
Chronic illnesses set in, accompanied by rage that is often directed at the self, because we didn’t realise the value of who we are, while hoping to be validated by those who were distracted by their own self-loathing.
Thus, the joys of life are traded for servitude and a living martyrdom, hanging onto faith by a feeble thread, praying that our sacrifices and self-deprecation will be rewarded with everlasting peace when this harsh reality finally ends.
That’s how we harm ourselves long before we allow anyone else to harm us.
Worse still, we forget that through self-loathing, we withhold the best of who we are for the innocents around us, and end up giving them reason to believe that they were never good enough to bring out the best in us either.
That’s how generational trauma is passed down.
It’s not because of what was done to us, but rather because of how we see ourselves through the eyes
of those for whom we were never enough.
#selfworth #significance #conviction #dreams #sincerity #authenticity #mentalhealth #mentalhealthawareness #mentalhealthrecovery #theegosystem #mindfulness #lifecoaching #zaidismail -
A path to insanity
We work with the assumption that our partners and our children share the same values that we try to uphold in our lives.
This is rarely true.
While we may share the same frame of reference or even the same cultural norms, values are much more personal, and therefore unique.
Our personal value systems are shaped by what we take from life.
Note, what we take, not what we’re taught.
Our teachings form the frame of reference within which we live our lives.
However, what we place emphasis and priority on, and what flexibility we allow ourselves within that frame of reference is what shapes our unique value system.
For this reason, two siblings raised in the same home under the same rules of discipline, and with the same privilege and emotional access to their parents may adopt very different values because of what they assumed to be true about the motives or sincerity of their parents towards them.
The difference between the two is self-worth.
The important thing about self-worth is that it’s about how we feel about ourselves, and not how someone else feels about us.
No matter how much we convince ourselves that we feel how we feel because of how someone else treats us, it doesn’t change this fact.
Self-worth is about how we feel about ourselves.
How we develop this sense of self is a complex process that can change with life experiences, but until we’re aware of what we allow to influence how we feel about ourselves, we’ll blame the world for our unhappiness or misery.
It is this that we must bear in mind when we try to rationalise the behaviour of others when it conflicts with the value system that we thought we shared.
Self-worth or self-loathing is what makes the difference between authenticity and selling ourselves short to gain validation.
It always starts with you.
#selfworth #selfawareness #ownyourlife #selfmastery #mindfulness #personalpower #mentalhealth #mentalhealthawareness #lifecoaching #zaidismail #loveyourself #lifegoals #parenting #singleparenting #pursuitofhappiness -
That self-loathing demon
Ingratitude for the self is reflected in how much time we spend self-loathing.
But self-loathing is disguised in many creative ways.
The above list of 10 common points is only the tip of the iceberg.
Self-loathing is rarely, if ever, a result of our current circumstances, and almost always a result of how we felt about our place in our parent/s home.
The less space they made for us in their lives, the less worthy we feel as humans.
This is especially true for problematic relationships with our fathers, but often extends to criticism or insensitivity from our mothers as well.
Because that shapes our sense of self early in life, it’s difficult to realise its impact because it just feels normal for us.
That’s when we grow to believe that our partners are responsible for how we feel about ourselves, or that they’re responsible for our enthusiasm towards our dreams.
That’s how we grow harsh and cruel, or rigid and abrasive towards them, not realising that we’re holding them accountable for how we feel about ourselves because we had one, or both, parents who were emotionally inaccessible when we needed to feel like we were worthy, or like we belonged.
Self-loathing, beyond our early years when we didn’t know better, is a testament of ingratitude for who we are, and what good we have access to.
Until we start owning how we feel about ourselves, we’ll always have reason to rage at the world, and at the innocent ones around us.
Own Your Life.
It always starts with you.
#selfworth #selfawareness #ownyourlife #selfmastery #mindfulness #personalpower #mentalhealth #mentalhealthawareness #lifecoaching #zaidismail #loveyourself #lifegoals #motivation #optimism #purpose #companionship #relationshipgoals #selfloathing -
Raging for love
Nothing destroys more than ingratitude, and ingratitude for the self is expressed through self-loathing.
But self-loathing is disguised in many ways, the most common of which is anger.
Anger is a defence mechanism that distracts attention away from what we feel inadequate about.
It demands that we be taken seriously when we have no reason to believe that who we are is worthy of being taken seriously.
But more than this, anger is a profession that in that moment, we believe that we are not good enough for one whose validation we desperately need.
Hence it being the most common confirmation of self-loathing when all our defence and coping mechanisms are claiming otherwise.
It also happens when our internal conversation is focused on comparing ourselves to those we think are better than us, or those whose validation we need.
And then we get married to feel complete, only to hold our partners accountable for how we feel about ourselves.
And then we have children to fill that void that just doesn’t seem to fill up, and we become ever more threatened with fears of inadequacy when we don’t know how to be enough as parents.
Thus, innocent lives get destroyed, all because we didn’t learn to be grateful for who we are, while trying to make up for it by raging at those who have nothing to do with how we feel about ourselves.
It always starts with you.
#selfworth #selfawareness #ownyourlife #selfmastery #mindfulness #selfloathing #selflove #mentalhealth #mentalhealthawareness #lifecoaching #zaidismail #angermanagement
