Tag: selfawareness

  • The need to be godly

    The need to be godly

    Godliness, like humility, is lost the moment we lay claim to it.

    It is something that we may exhibit in our conduct or demeanour, but not something that we can directly claim.

    It is our ability to manifest the attributes of the divine in our character and in our treatment of others without wanting to appear pious or godly in our approach.

    The need to claim such attributes of godliness reflects the insecurity that we feel about our standing among those around us.

    The moment we’re focused on how we appear to others, we begin to lose ourselves to their validation.

    Similarly, the moment we claim godliness, we lose ourselves to arrogance.

    And arrogance is only required to compensate for our insecurities. It is a mask to hide our shame, or to claim our needs because we believe that we’re not significant enough for others to want to care about what we need from them.

    That’s why we take, instead of waiting to be offered. Or why we insult or demean rather than advising sincerely.

    It’s all a means towards demanding that our virtues be acknowledged because we feel unappreciated by those we care about the most.

    If you don’t appreciate who you are, in the absence of validation from others, how can you expect others to appreciate you?

    Gratitude begets sincerity, and sincerity fosters brotherhood. Or sisterhood. And claiming divinity or godliness has no place at all.

  • Don’t burn your own hands

    Don’t burn your own hands

    The logic of this is quite obvious, yet we do it, don’t we?

    Sometimes we find it difficult to apologise because we’re afraid that others will think less of us. It feels like a weakness. So we protect ourselves from appearing weak.

    At other times, we find it difficult to apologise because we feel unappreciated. So our offensive behaviour was our way of getting justice for having been treated badly or taken for granted.

    The same reasons that would drive our resistance to admitting fault is what drives others to avoid doing right by us.

    Problems arise when we lose sight of why we expect that much more from them, or worse, why we may be holding them to a standard that is unfair to who they are.

    Sometimes we grow tired of being taken for granted at home, so we lash out at hints of being taken for granted at work. And vice versa.

    Similarly, when our parents may have treated us as insignificant, we end up lashing out at our partners because we fear growing insignificant with them as well.

    That’s how we do the right thing for the wrong reasons. Or why we find it difficult to do the right thing when we know better.

    We complicate life when we lose sight of what we’re dealing with in the moment because we don’t realise that we’re waiting for justice about something that is long gone and forgotten, or unrelated to who we’re with now. .

    Invest in your past, or invest in your present. The choice you make is what determines what you’re investing in your future.

    Emotional mindfulness is key to creating a fulfilled life.

  • Chasing dreams

    Chasing dreams

    Chasing dreams is not all butterflies and roses, or unicorns and rainbows, or whatever.

    Actually, it’s more whatevers than it is anything else because it provokes and inspires changes and new realities in all your comfort spaces.

    But, if you have an endearing relationship with your comfort zones, then chasing dreams is not for you.

    When you chase your dreams, you must be willing to reinvent yourself every step of the way, because what you’re trying to achieve is more than what you have.

    It means that you want to create a version of who you are that will be unfamiliar to those around you, so you risk isolation, being misunderstood, ridiculed, and rejected.

    Chasing dreams means that you’re serving a vision of something you believe to be truly valuable. A vision, not a goal.

    The goals that you define for yourself must be focused on contributing towards that vision.

    Most importantly, it’s your vision. So don’t expect others to believe in it with the same conviction that you do.

    That also means that when others question it, you must recognise that you have more work to do in selling your vision to them. It doesn’t mean that your vision is worthless.

    Chase your dreams. But, before you do, make sure that you own it, or else someone will come along and quite innocently question it, leaving you doubting yourself and potentially abandoning your dream for all the wrong reasons.

    There’s a reason why the majority choose to live by other people’s rules. It’s because they don’t believe in their own dreams, so instead, they dedicate their life enabling the dreams of others.

    There’s no shame in that, provided your doing it consciously, and not out of fear.

    What’s your dream?

  • We’re all searching for home

    We’re all searching for home

    Remember, at some point someone also looked at you in your childhood and thought, “Damn, is this what the future looks like for humanity?”

    Our children have the best of us and the worst of us, and somewhere between those ends they form their own unique character.

    If you hope to understand them, you need to begin by understanding yourself.

    The same way that you didn’t raise yourself, neither did they.

    Therefore, when looking for answers about their behaviour, there is no reason to look any further than the people who have the greatest influence in their lives, their parents, or those fulfilling such parental roles.

    And if you’re a single parent, don’t assume that absent parents don’t hold such influence.

    Often, they hold more influence than the one who stuck around.

    Dealing with the influence of a problematic parent who is present is easier than figuring out the impact of the parent who is absent.

    Either way, understanding is more important than judging.

    Children behave badly when they struggle to find an emotionally safe space for themselves in this world.

    Understanding how this manifests in their behaviour is the secret to raising an adult with a healthy self-esteem, or a troubled child in an adult’s body with adult privilege.

    And don’t forget that you’re raising an adult, not a child.

    So speak to the human behind that bad behaviour and don’t only focus on correcting, through discipline and consequence management, the bad behaviour.

    If you only focus on discipline, you’ll lose the human and repeat the cycle of the problematic parent who themselves also continue to struggle for their place in this world.

  • You judge others as you judge yourself

    You judge others as you judge yourself

    The irony of helping others out of the dark spaces in their lives is that when they emerge, they’re often inclined to avoid you because you remind them of a time when they were weak.

    When we believe that such weakness is deplorable, we remain weak.

    When we view ourselves through the lens of weak versus strong, good versus bad, and so on, we are judging ourselves and others, rather than trying to understand what got us into such states.

    There is a time and a place for judgement. But that time and place is only when we need to stop an oppression from taking place.

    Beyond that moment, we must focus on understanding the human struggle behind that behaviour, or else we diminish the struggle of the one who behaved badly, giving them ever more reason to continue behaving badly. Or worse.

    Gratitude for our moments of weakness is not possible if we still carry a sense of shame about our weakened state.

    It’s one thing to regret what we did and to put in the effort to make up for it. But it’s not the same as carrying shame within us that we need to hide from the world.

    That need to hide our shame from the world is how we judge ourselves harshly and then look for evidence of others judging us.

    That’s often the reason for our defensiveness or aggression in response to any mention of what we once did wrong.

    When you find yourself judging yourself or others harshly, it means that you have yet to appreciate the reasons for your weakness or have yet to connect with your humanness.

    You’ll only allow others to be human when you believe that you’re allowed to be human.

    Right there is the path to peace in your life.

  • Live life. Really, live it.

    Live life. Really, live it.

    How do you cheat life? You focus on what you don’t have, instead of what you can give.

    We’re hard-wired, even before birth, to create something bigger than who we are.

    We need to be part of something that gives us a sense of belonging or significance.

    Anything that will convince us that our existence is not inconsequential inspires us to invest our time and energy in its pursuit.

    Time and energy is simply life.

    Both are limited in supply, but so abundant, that we take it for granted until it is taken away without notice, by which time it’s too late to appreciate it.

    Living with conviction and loving with sincerity is only possible when we have gratitude for who we are and what we are capable of creating in the lives of those around us.

    Sadly, too often we hide behind masks and facades to protect ourselves from being hurt. That’s how we create the self-fulfilling prophecies that hurt us the most.

    When we interact with those close to us from behind our masks, we not only deny them the true beauty of who we are, we also deny ourselves the beauty of their responses to the side of us that they otherwise would not have experienced.

    In the same way, we deny ourselves the side of them that we believe to be true, but that they don’t feel safe enough to reveal to us.

    And all this life is wasted out of fear of being true to ourselves because we fear being rejected or ridiculed.

    In other words, we have yet to accept ourselves, but we hold others accountable for accepting us first.

    That’s how conviction is abandoned, and love is lost.

  • What is purpose anyway?

    What is purpose anyway?

    While we chase the big question about the purpose of life, we lose sight of the life that we waste daily as we go about serving some purpose or the other without realising it.

    That’s the thing about being distracted from the present moment.

    We’re so concerned about the future, and often still processing the past, that we lose the present.

    Popcorn wisdom aside, we must connect with the reality of what purpose is driving our actions in this very moment.

    However, we often confuse long term goals with purpose.

    Purpose is not something that has a finite end. Nor is it something that is tangible or measurable on its own.

    It’s a higher calling. Something that inspired us to want to achieve goals that serve that purpose, and not a goal in itself.

    There is only ever a single purpose in life, from which all other purposes are spawned.

    That is, the need to be of positive consequence to those around us, and to the world at large.

    We often behave badly when we feel like the fulfilment of that need is under threat. But we’re so focused on complying with expectations, our own and others, that we lose sight of why we feel overwhelmed, taken for granted, abused, or even invisible.

    Reconnect with purpose and life becomes more fulfilling without the conscious effort of making it so.

  • What consumes your thoughts?

    What consumes your thoughts?

    The gravity of life is often a distraction from living it.

    So obsessed do we become with the future, or needing retribution for the past, that we lose the present moment.

    But this is a philosophy that many know, yet few understand.

    What we take from the past, determines whether we live in the present moment with hope and joy, or in fear of the future.

    So deeply ingrained is this fear that those who do not embrace it are shunned as being irresponsible, or out of touch.

    Connecting with the reality of your contribution towards your past, offers you insights into how to maximise the value of the present, leaving no room for fear of the future.

    Because the future then becomes a beautiful surprise, offering new opportunities to take even more from each moment that it offers.

    Lose yourself to judging yourself or others about what has already passed, and the future will offer nothing more than the fear of loss, or the absence of peace.

    Choose wisely what you take from your past, and the present becomes the gift with which to create a beautiful future.

    Live. Don’t just exist. And definitely don’t stop at surviving.