Tag: ownyourlife

  • Who’s draining your joy?

    Who’s draining your joy?

    Avoidance requires distractions, and distractions are exhausting.

    We don’t always avoid the truth because we want to.

    In fact, most often, it’s because we’re persisting in what we believe to be true that causes us to ignore the reality that we’re facing.

    Like investing in someone who is at war with themselves.

    Or expecting opportunities to work out when the others involved have a different agenda.

    Or wanting to believe that we’re significant to someone when we never were because they were chasing significance in something or someone else.

    And of course, when we deny the reasons for not achieving something by insisting that it was due to actions from others rather than accepting that we didn’t quite commit to it the way we should have.

    Protecting ourselves from admitting the truth is only necessary when we attach shame to having gotten something wrong.

    That shame is not because of how others would react, but because of how we judge ourselves relative to how much weight we place on the opinions of others.

    Life gets a whole lot simpler and more fulfilling when our opinion about ourselves matters more than what others think of us.

    That’s when the truth becomes easier to embrace because instead of viewing ourselves with shame, we see less than ideal outcomes as feedback on how to raise our game.

    Unfortunately, most of us are playing our game by someone else’s rules and then blaming them for why we’re unsuccessful at achieving our goals.

    Maybe that’s why you’re tired before even stepping out of bed.

    It’s time to own your life.

    It always starts with you.

  • To me… From me…

    To me… From me…

    This may seem vain, but I’ve been wanting to do this in my copy of my first book since I first published it.

    And today, sitting and reading through it to remind myself of some of that advice that I give others but don’t use, it felt like the right time to finally acknowledge me.

    There was no one cheering me on to walk this journey that I started in 2018.

    Rarely did anyone cheer me on in my journey up to that point either.

    And I often have to remind myself to give myself a break because it’s easy to get life wrong when you’re trying to figure it out by yourself.

    The best things to come out of my mistakes, have been the most fulfilling lessons that I’ve been able to share with whoever thought it worth listening to.

    So don’t go through life judging yourself harshly for getting it wrong at times. Or even most of the time.

    Success makes us haughty while failure and mistakes inspire us with wisdom.

    It all depends on what you take from it.

    Peace.

  • Are you sure you have an attitude of gratitude?

    Are you sure you have an attitude of gratitude?

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    Are you sure you have an attitude of gratitude?

    With all the ‘attitude of gratitude’ narratives, I thought it might be helpful to identify when we’re not being as grateful as we think we are.

    Gratitude for the self is reflected in how you value who you are without a need to diminish the value of others.

    Sometimes, we convince ourselves that we need to take care of ourselves at the expense of the rights that others have over us, while not realising that this mindset is one of a victim who feels oppressed.

    Defensiveness and imbalance in how we deal with life is therefore a common outcome when we lack gratitude for who we are.

    Gratitude is not reflected in putting yourself first.

    Again, that’s a victim mindset.

    Gratitude for the self is reflected in how you feel about yourself when others are grappling with their self-worth while blaming you for it.

    As mentioned before, gratitude is what we do with what we appreciate, that’s why the truth of your gratitude for yourself is reflected in how you exercise your abilities to create value in your life and the lives of those around you, despite not being acknowledged or appreciated for it.

    So, if you connected with any of the 9 points in the above post, you have some introspection due.

    You cannot give what you don’t have.

    If you’re lacking in gratitude for yourself, you’re likely teaching your kids and others how to be selfish, or how to be martyrs, but it’s unlikely that you’re teaching them how to be grateful for who they are.

    It always starts with you.

  • How much are you worth?

    How much are you worth?

    When your behaviour is driven by how others treat you, the good times become dull, and the bad times become dreary.

    It might seem endearing to focus on how others treat you so that you can return the favour if they’re being sweet or kind, but that means that you are not being true to yourself in that moment.

    Your response to someone should be based on how you feel about what is going on in that moment with them, and not a pacified version of you to avoid conflict or to not let them feel bad.

    The reason this is important is because if you hold back for long enough, you slowly build up resentment about not being able to be yourself, while the other person has no idea that you’re holding back all the time.

    That results in two entirely avoidable issues.

    Firstly, they have very good reason to doubt your sincerity when they discover that you’ve been less than sincere all this time.

    Secondly, neither will you nor they know the real you behind that show of pleasantries.

    That’s just one more way to suck the joy out of life while waiting to find happiness.

    Being true to yourself must be your first priority in any relationship. That’s what adds to the substance of it all.

    But being true to yourself doesn’t mean being inconsiderate or abrasive, or being self-centred or offensive.

    It means speaking your truth and expressing yourself with passion and sincerity without diminishing the other person in the process.

    It’s about giving them an opportunity to experience the real you, the way that you want to be experienced, and not the way that you think they deserve to experience you.

    It always starts with you.

  • Life is nothing without gratitude

    Life is nothing without gratitude

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    Life is nothing without gratitude

    Gratitude is only possible if you’re present in the moment you’re in.

    Fear distracts us from the present moment by reminding us of the past and tainting our experience of the present.

    It’s when we look for evidence in the present moment of the causes of pain from our past, that we find reason to protect ourselves from the future, while missing the value of the present.

    Many of life’s beautiful moments are lost because we’re waiting for someone to recognise our struggle, or to make up for our pain.

    It’s not about whether you deserve better or not.

    It’s about whether you do better with what you’ve got.

    Putting your life on hold while waiting for justice or revenge only puts YOUR life on hold. No one else’s.

    When you finally realise this, you either have reason to rage even more because you suddenly noticed how everyone else’s lives moved on while you still haven’t received justice, or you have reason to realise that it’s your life that is being wasted for a moment that has already passed.

    By all means, seek justice if need be.

    However, don’t cause further injustice to yourself and to those who have rights over you by destroying the good you have while waiting for the bad to be avenged.

    Gratitude is impossible when we’re fixated on the past.

    And happiness is impossible if we’re afraid of the future.

    It always starts with you. Now.

    Own Your Life.

  • Avoiding life is waiting for death

    Avoiding life is waiting for death

    Sometimes, avoiding drama seems like the only possibility of experiencing peace.

    But, that’s like saying that as long as we’re not sad, we must be happy.

    We know that’s not true.

    The absence of unpleasant events in our life may give us reason to be grateful for not having them, but it doesn’t mean that we’ll feel fulfilled or content with the life that we have.

    That lack of contentment is what leaves us feeling uneasy or restless, knowing that we should be grateful that it could be worse, but also knowing that there must be more to life than just the avoidance of drama, or the fulfilment of responsibility.

    We weren’t created to maintain a status quo.

    Since birth, we were driven towards progress and improvement, and stagnation felt like a threat to the joy of life.

    Because it is.

    Stagnation kills our spirit and convinces us that there is nothing much to look forward to.

    If every day seems like a repeat of the day before, what then becomes the purpose or reason to want to rise to a new day?

    Avoiding unpleasant outcomes is only enough to avoid unnecessary trouble, but it doesn’t mean growth or fulfilment.

    If you want to experience the sweetness of life, you need to go beyond avoiding things, and instead, start embracing new experiences, new ideas, and new concepts.

    You must be improving the quality of life of those around you, and not just your own.

    Fulfilment and joy is experienced from seeing the face of another light up because of your contribution towards their life, it’s not through seeing an extra digit on your bank balance.

    That bank balance means nothing if it doesn’t bring joy or upliftment to those around you.

    And not having someone to share your joy with is like witnessing a beautiful sunset, by yourself, each day, every day, until witnessing the sunset by yourself feels inconsequential.

    That’s what the absence of drama is like.

    It feels empty and pointless, because there is no point to a life of stagnation.

    Own Your life.

  • Celebrate the victim, destroy the human

    Celebrate the victim, destroy the human

    What we take from a traumatic event is infinitely more important than the event itself.

    It’s how we feel about what we experienced that weighs down on us more than the experience itself.

    The more it shakes our confidence, the greater our need for reassurance and support.

    While it’s entirely understandable to be overwhelmed in the aftermath of a terrible experience, it’s entirely avoidable to become defined by that experience.

    That’s when we need to be careful about celebrating or revering the experience of the victim to the point of not building them up to rise above it.

    Rising above the horrors of life doesn’t mean carrying a badge of honour to let the world know what you survived.

    That’s honouring the victim.

    Rising above it means seeing the experience for what it was, recognising what you didn’t know or couldn’t have controlled, and most importantly, remedying your trust that was broken in that moment of upheaval.

    Because that is what is lost when we experience a traumatic event.

    Our trust with the world is broken, leaving us gripped with fear because of the uncertainty of everything that we once embraced as our safe space.

    When we celebrate the victim, we redirect their trust to be placed in their support structures and safe spaces, rather than rebuilding their trust in themselves so that they don’t carry that experience as a dark shadow for the rest of their lives.

    This is not victim blaming. It’s destroying the impact of the aggressor beyond the moment of aggression.

    Own Your Life.



  • Recycling generational trauma

    Recycling generational trauma

    One of the biggest mistakes in trying to break the generational trauma cycle is that we focus on NOT wanting to be like our parents.

    All that allows us to do is figure out what we don’t want for ourselves and our children.

    While that might seem like enough, it also means that we will only become aware of our own unhealthy traits that we’re passing onto our children through trial and error.

    Remember that knowing what you don’t want doesn’t mean that you know what is good or healthy. It means that you only know what of the unhealthy stuff you don’t want, but it doesn’t mean that you know what other unhealthy stuff awaits you.

    Trial and error is a very painful and exhausting way to figure out how to build healthy relationships with our children, or with our parents, and by extension, with our partners.

    By focusing on what we don’t want in life, we go through life in defence mode because we’re constantly protecting ourselves from the threats that may lead to a repeat of our experiences in our childhood or past relationships.

    Thus, we risk replacing one cycle of generational trauma with another.

    Seeking to understand why our parents may not have been capable of more than what we got from them is key to breaking the cycle.

    But, we don’t know what we don’t know. That’s why fresh perspectives are needed in our efforts to unravel these difficult experiences of life.

    This will be one of the key discussion points at the next event on Gender Wars on 29 October 2022.

    If you haven’t booked your ticket yet, do so now at zaidismail.com.

    Zoom tickets also available.