Tag: selfmastery

  • Betrayed expectations

    Betrayed expectations

    Without realising it, expectations create an underlying sense of entitlement regarding the outcomes that we want.

    That entitlement is what influences our attitude and demeanour in how we approach things or relationships.

    When we feel justified to have such expectations, we lose sight of the entitlement, which leads to the intensity of emotion that we experience when our expectations are not met.

    That intensity of emotion is the sense of betrayal that we feel because entitlement is based on an assumed trust between us and the person who we believe was supposed to show up for us.

    Problem is, most times, that expectation is in our heads and is unknown to the ones around us.

    Sometimes we communicate it, but most times we don’t.

    We need to trust the sincerity behind what significant others do for us, that’s why we are unlikely to tell them specifically what we need from them for two reasons.

    Firstly, once we ask for something, we don’t know if they’re doing it out of obligation, or sincerity.

    And secondly, we don’t want to appear needy or vulnerable, assuming that we’re even aware of the expectations that we have of them.

    Mindfulness is key to healthy relationships. And healthy relationships are ones in which we can trust each other with our expectations of what’s important to us, without feeling like an imposition on the other.

    How healthy are your relationships? And more importantly, how healthy is your relationship with yourself?

  • Reframe what brings you joy

    Reframe what brings you joy

    Reframing our perspective on life is more important than trying to solve problems that have been plaguing us for years, if not generations.

    Like Einstein said, “You cannot solve a problem with the same thinking that created it.”

    Or something like that.

    Point is, if you keep hitting your head against a brick wall hoping for it to break, you know it’s more likely to break your head instead.

    So, either find something softer to hit your head against, if that’s what you’re into…or…

    Find a more effective way of breaking that wall.

    Hint: it’s not your head.

    This meme is a quote from my upcoming release, Own Your Life. It’s the revised edition of my last book titled Own Your Shit, with some new chapters added, and a lot of work done to improve the way in which the reader can connect with the message in the book.

    Copies should be available by beginning December 2021.

  • Are you losing yourself?

    Are you losing yourself?

    It’s easy to lose yourself if you don’t really know who you are, or who you want to be in a given moment.

    Far too often, we demand a specific response from others because of what we need, not because of what we are hoping to achieve, or create.

    Do we want to create peace, understanding, harmony, affection, and a sense of belonging?

    Or do we need to get all those things from others?

    We cannot give what we don’t have.

    When we lack some or all of that within ourselves, we’ll respond in kind towards those who also don’t have that within themselves.

    That’s how we lose ourselves to the situation in which we find ourselves, and also how we become part of the problem, instead of uplifting those who need it most.

    It always starts with you.

    You either feed the cycle of dysfunction or harshness around you, or you disrupt it by rising above it.

    The choice you make reflects how you feel about yourself long before it reflects how others feel about you.

    Own Your Life.

  • The insincerity of self-loathing

    The insincerity of self-loathing

    As always, you cannot give what you don’t have.

    You can’t give someone a smile if you don’t have one yourself.

    Similarly, you cannot appreciate what you’re ungrateful for.

    If you take yourself for granted, any appreciation that you express towards others is based on you wanting them to feel appreciated the way that you want to feel appreciated.

    It’s about wanting them to have something that you believe you don’t have.

    As magnanimous or noble as that seems, it’s a transaction.

    It’s a judgement.

    It’s insincere.

    It’s manipulation.

    Is there some good in it? Definitely. Because there is nothing so bad that there is no good in it.

    But, it still means that the gratitude you express is hollow, and the one you hope to give reason to feel appreciated will eventually sense that emptiness of your sentiment.

    It’s only when we truly and meaningfully connect with the value that we hold as humans, that we are able to recognise and connect with that value in others.

    Until that point, all we’ll see is judgement and comparison about who has more than us, who deserves more, who we want must appreciate us, and so on.

    Our expression of affection and gratitude becomes transactional because we want to be seen a certain way, or thought of in a certain way.

    That’s not sincere appreciation. That’s transacting for significance.

    The question is, how many of us know ourselves well enough to truly appreciate who we are, or do we only see ourselves as a means to an end for others?

    How many of us are living martyrs?

    It always starts with you.

  • A life full of things…except happiness

    A life full of things…except happiness

    While there may be truth in the saying that money doesn’t buy happiness but at least you can choose your misery, we need to consider if we really want to be choosing our misery or experiencing happiness?

    It all starts out with good intent.

    Earn some money to improve your quality of life, or create a home environment that is welcoming and comfortable for those you love, and hopefully in the process, feel appreciated for your efforts.

    But what happens when that appreciation is not as forthcoming as you need it to be?

    Sometimes, we look for that appreciation in a specific shape and form, and if it doesn’t appear in exactly that way, we assume that we’re not appreciated.

    That’s when our relationships become transactional as we start comparing who does how much to maintain the standard of living that we’ve grown accustomed to, while dismissing the efforts and intentions of the one doing all that.

    Valuing yourself comes before any expectation or need to be valued by others. If you don’t value yourself, you’ll look for that validation or appreciation to be served up in a specific way by others, thereby holding them accountable for how you feel about yourself.

    That’s how you end up having a life full of things, but a heart that lacks contentment.

    It always starts with you. You teach others what is important to you by how you treat them.

    And when you value yourself, you’ll realise that when others don’t value you, it’s because they’re struggling with their own self-worth and not because they don’t appreciate you or your efforts in their life.

    Own your life, and your emotional wellbeing will take care of itself.

  • Eat more humble pie

    Eat more humble pie

    It only tastes like humble pie when we feel humiliated after being corrected.

    Arrogance is the belief that we’re better…humility visits us when we realise that we’re not.

    The root of arrogance is insecurity, but that’s a discussion for another day.

    If we’re sincere about wanting to benefit others or wanting to create good for those around us, when we get it wrong and we’re corrected, we’ll appreciate it.

    In such cases, we’ll eat gratitude pie, not humble pie, right?

    So, when it feels like we’ve been made to eat humble pie, we need to consider what our intention was behind what we did before we got things wrong.

    On the surface, our intentions always appear noble.

    But it’s that appearance of nobility that distracts is from sincerity.

    When connecting with or checking your intention, be sure to dig deeper than what you experienced in that moment.

    It’s only when we connect with our intention, our true intention, that we’ll be able to recognise how others are not deliberately malicious or selfish in their actions.

    Instead, it will allow us to connect with empathy to the emotional needs that they have.

    That’s how we break cycles of unhealthy behaviours.

    Perhaps if we eat more humble pie we’ll discover gratitude? 🤔

  • Who controls you?

    Who controls you?

    Sometimes, we’re so focused on reacting to the disrespect that we receive from others that we don’t realise how we give up our self-respect in the process.

    If we continue in reaction mode for long enough, we’ll find ourselves not only returning the favour by treating them the way that they treat us, but we’ll also find ourselves blaming them for our response.

    That’s when we go beyond losing our self-respect and we begin losing ourselves completely.

    Strangely though, we’re unlikely to do this with everyone.

    We’ll often encounter total strangers or mere acquaintances who will treat us badly, but we’ll ignore them and continue focusing on what is important to us.

    Therefore, the answer lies in how much significance we place in those relationships to which we lose ourselves.

    The more significant that we want to be in their lives, the more we’ll convince ourselves about their significance in ours. That’s how we become emotionally invested in being treated with respect by them.

    The less respect we receive, the more intense our emotional experience, resulting in us fighting fire with fire. In other words, giving them a taste of their own medicine.

    That’s when respect becomes optional. When we convince ourselves that treating others the way that they treat us is in fact justice, when the truth is that it is returning their bitterness with our bitterness towards them.

    That’s how we give up the good of who we are.

    The greatest tragedy in all of this is that when we lose ourselves, we also lose sight of the struggles, or the low self-esteem that they’re experiencing which causes them to treat us badly.

    Instead of breaking that cycle, we feed it, and in the process, harm ourselves as much as we believed they were harming us.

    When respect becomes optional based on how we’re treated by others, we give them the power to define how we feel about ourselves.

    To whom are you giving your power today?

  • Who makes you feel worthy?

    Who makes you feel worthy?

    Confidence comes from caring less about what others think of you, and caring more about what you think of yourself.

    The question is, do you know yourself well enough to have an informed opinion of who you are?

    When we rely on others for more than just feedback and instead allow them to validate who we are, we essentially give them the power to define how we feel about ourselves.

    Listening to what others think of you must be done with one single focus in mind.

    It must be with the objective of determining whether or not the message that you intended was in fact the message that they received.

    But that means that you must know what your message is.

    What is your unique contribution?

    Chances are good that a lot of the good that you do, you simply see it as duty or responsibility.

    And yes, the outcome that we must achieve may be our responsibility or our duty towards others, but how we achieve that outcome and how we make them feel in the process is uniquely us.

    When we lose sight of that, we lose ourselves to duty.

    When we lose ourselves to duty, we feel worthless when our contribution is not appreciated, because our self-worth has grown to be defined by how much others acknowledge and appreciate our efforts towards them.

    That’s when ingratitude for the self kicks in.

    When we diminish who we are because we’re not validated by someone else, we essentially convince ourselves that all the good that we possess is worthless, because it’s not appreciated by one who probably doesn’t appreciate themselves either.

    So. So you know yourself well enough to appreciate who you are? Or is your self-worth nothing more than an affirmation in the mirror?