Tag: selfmastery

  • Celebrate your humanness

    Celebrate your humanness

    Tears are not weakness because it takes strength to embrace your humanness.

    The worst brutes lack the courage to be human because appearing unaffected by others is their idea of strength.

    Sadly, such a show of strength seals their hearts to emotion and blinds their eyes to the harshness that they exhale, creating distance between them and those they wish to have closer.

    They convince themselves that their cold exterior is needed to protect themselves from hurt while not realising that they created the self fulfilling prophecy that hurts them.

    When comparing yourself against such emotional detachment, it’s easy to believe that you’re weak for feeling something that leaves them untouched.

    No. The weakness is in them.

    Strength is found in knowing that your humanness doesn’t define your resilience.

    Being human makes makes resilience a beautiful trait.

    Without it, life loses its sweetness, and resilience becomes a cold comfort without fulfilment.

    Photo credit : Adobe Stock

  • Own your self-worth

    Own your self-worth

    Before we can allow the world to define us, we have to first give up what we believe to be true about ourselves.

    I’ve seen so many test their significance in the lives of significant others, and when they don’t get the affection or inclusion that they want, they readily assume that it’s because they’re not good enough.

    Why are we so inclined towards questioning our value, instead of seeing the complete human in the other person?

    To see that complete human, we can’t dehumanise them by assuming that they are free of the self-doubt or insecurities that we may be struggling with.

    We all just conceal our faults through different defences.

    One of those defences is to appear aloof or uninterested in response to a show of affection from others because we’re afraid of rejection or disappointment.

    We protect ourselves by only allowing safe options into our personal space.

    Remember: if you appear too confident or composed in front of another, they may see it as a threat to revealing their lack of confidence.

    Think about that the next time you don’t get the warm reception you were hoping for and decide to convince yourself that you weren’t good enough.

    Everyone has their demons that they’re struggling with. Don’t always make it about yourself.

    Photo credit : Adobe Stock

  • Waiting to live…

    Waiting to live…

    When we are raised in an environment focused on discipline before purpose, or compliance before understanding, we develop the belief that fitting in is more important than who we are.

    This same mindset leads us to be bullish in our efforts to uphold the status quo because of the inclusion that it offers, while violently rejecting any opinions that challenge our cultural heritage or traditions.

    The need to belong, to be validated by that social structure smothers any passion to contribute towards improving anything, because we’re led to believe that our traditions have already perfected everything.

    Thus, the unique expression of the individual is snuffed out, only to be replaced by a militancy of spirit that is celebrated as devout submission.

    Critical thinking is abandoned in favour of academic prowess, and without realising it, indoctrination is readily believed to be higher education.

    All this leads to the subservient mindset that needs permission before choosing consciously, or seeks permission before thinking independently.

    That’s how cycles of abuse are maintained, and the unique contribution of the individual is seen as an offence against the collective.

    Everyone must know their place to uphold a power structure that reveres the powerful, while enslaving the minds of the masses.

    And that is how the masses, the average soul, grows to believe that unless they have permission to break the bleak and toxic cycles of their lives, they have no choice but to comply quietly for the greater good of society.

    Photo credit : Adobe Stock

  • Two rules for life

    Two rules for life

    There are two rules that I wish more people would apply in their lives.

    Rules that will result in more sincerity and less hypocrisy.

    More trust, less betrayal.

    More wholesome relationships, less infidelity and betrayal.

    The two rules are simple.

    Firstly, don’t exhaust yourself explaining your behaviour to people who don’t matter. This not only gives you a false sense of your significance when they pretend to listen, it also gives them a false sense of significance in your life when they believe that you’re explaiming yourself because they matter to you.

    Secondly, when choosing who matters, be sure that you’re doing it based on who really matters to you. They must be consequential to your happiness and sense of belonging in this world. If not, you’ll surround yourself with anyone and everyone that you want must care, because you need to fill the void of human connection in your life.

    Sometimes we think that by being polite we’re treating others with respect. However, when that polite attitude leads people to believe that they’re significant when they’re not, it causes more hurt and betrayal when they realise that you were just being polite, rather than sincere.

    That’s how being insincere to avoid hurting someone’s feelings causes more hurt than you would’ve caused had you been honest and sincere in the first place. .

    Be sincere, always. Even if it means that you will be unpopular for that moment.

    That moment of unpopularity could save you and others from a lifetime of disappointment and pain.

    Photo credit : Adobe Stock

  • The hypocrisy of self-loathing

    The hypocrisy of self-loathing

    The most toxic plague in the human condition is that of demanding kindness while withholding it.

    I watch with morbid curiosity the volumes of memes and quotes shared by many in which we are reminded to treat everyone with kindness because we never know what struggles they are enduring. Yet, those same people are waiting for such kindness to be shown to them before they are willing to share the same with those around them.

    It’s not as complicated as it sounds. Everyone wants to claim victim-hood, but no one wants to accept that they’re oppressors. We all believe that we’re justified in our harsh treatment of others, or in withholding our gentleness from fear of being taken for granted. It’s that same sense of justification that leads us to experience cruelty or callousness at the hands of those we wish would treat us with significance.

    But we don’t want to see in ourselves what we despise in others, because we can’t be held responsible for the vile behaviour that we display, because you know, we’re too angelic for that. So it must be because someone else made us that way.

    This life is replete with people demanding justice but denying the rights of those around them. People crying for compassion while treating with contempt those who hold them to a higher standard. People who remind others of what kindness looks like, while treating harshly anyone who disagrees with them or calls them out for their double standards.

    Life takes on burdensome tones and vapid outcomes when we try to live by a code that is not shared by those we hold dear. My idealism dictates that we must remain true to ourselves or else we risk becoming the very contaminant that leaves us feeling used and discarded. But idealism has exhausted my soul more than any other investment of myself in the lives of others.

    Idealism is what courts with madness when my ideals are seen as naive or foolish in the face of the disappearing humanness around me. My madness, however, has never been a cause for the concern of another. When it rears its head, I am quickly discarded. When it is tamed, I am superficially celebrated.

    It’s that superficiality that grates away at my reserves. The very fragile reserves that I have to pull me through another tiresome day lacking in warmth, understanding, or even a mildly sincere embrace.

    Window shopping rarely reveals the reality of the purchase. We dress ourselves up to appear as wholesome or as nonchalant as we’d have others believe we are, until they reach in to touch the essence that lies beneath that window dressing, not realising that what they caress beneath that facade is in fact the rawness of our self-loathing.

    It’s that self-loathing that is revealed in our harsh treatment of others. Our cold, callous ways towards those who would draw us closer out of love, not realising the we don’t know how to return such love. Rather than appear incompetent or lacking, we strike at them with feigned confidence and a dispassionate smile, subtly telling them to get lost while smiling sweetly as if to promise them a beautiful trip when they decide to undertake that journey. That journey of leaving us alone.

    What self-loathing doesn’t do is it doesn’t allow us the space to realise that when we despise in ourselves what others admire, we don’t only reject ourselves, we invalidate their love for us as well. And that invalidation leaves them questioning their worth, spawning within them the same self-loathing that we hold within. Thus, paying forward a harshness while reminding the world to treat us with kindness.

    The hypocrisy of self-loathing is a source of destruction that will forever be ignored, because our pity for our pathetic condition will forever convince us that the courage it took for another to see in us what no one saw in them is merely their misplaced investment in something that doesn’t exist. Perhaps it’s just their need to convince someone to see in them what they need to have seen.

    It’s a circle-jerk of epic proportions. And those who break that circle are ridiculed in moments of ease, but desperately sought out in moments of pain. And as soon as the pain passes, that misplaced confidence once more convinces us that they’re just reading too much into everything, or that they just don’t know how to have fun. Or they’re among those who take life too seriously.

    At least that’s what the delusional tell themselves in their efforts to justify their abdication of the responsibility that they have in destroying the self-esteem of those who once loved them. The world is lacking in compassion and understanding because of our self-loathing, not because of the cruelty of a few.

    As I’ve said before, the less human we feel, the more inhumane we behave. Those who view themselves with contempt have caused more pain than any other I’ve ever observed.

  • If tomorrow never comes…

    If tomorrow never comes…

    So often I hear people speak of tomorrow not being guaranteed, but still packing away that dinner set for just a special occasion.

    We delay making changes that we know we need to make to improve the quality of our life, or of the lives of those around us, because we think we have time.

    We look at inspirational memes that speak of valuing and appreciating loved ones while they’re here, but avoid reaching out to them, or inviting them into our spaces because we are not ready for it yet.

    Worse than all this, we hold within us the pain of past wounds, refusing to let go, because we convince ourselves that a single moment of hurt is what defines or contaminates every moment with someone thereafter.

    That’s how we deny healing.

    That’s how we defer life.

    That’s how we suffocate our dreams.

    And it’s all because of fearing the possibility of experiencing such pain or rejection, or failure again.

    So we protect ourselves from being vulnerable, while denying ourselves the love of life itself.

    The reality of death only sets in when death stares at us without blinking.

    Until that moment, we convince ourselves that we have time to start that important project tomorrow, or next week, or when we get leave from work, or maybe when we retire.

    Each time assuming that we’re guaranteed to reach those moments when we think things will be just right for us to finally make that change or to take that step.

    When time runs out, it runs out without warning, because it reminded us that we were losing life each time we celebrated another occasion but neglected the moments between those occasions.

    Stop taking your life for granted and begin today what you’ve been putting off for so many yesterdays.

    Tomorrow is not guaranteed.

    Photo credit : Adobe Stock

  • In pursuit of a life worth living

    In pursuit of a life worth living

    We get it wrong so often.

    We chase the means to an end and neglect the end.

    We find reason to exhaust ourselves in accumulating the trophies of life while discarding life along that journey.

    The celebrity lifestyle teaches us that a celebration of our accomplishments is rarely a celebration of who we are.

    The accumulation of wealth, the active pursuit of health, or the courting of fame all distract us from the truth of who we are as we grow to be defined by what we achieve.

    And in that way, we give others reason to judge us or to embrace us based on those achievements, rather than allowing them to connect with the human behind it all.

    A life well lived is one that is an expression of your authentic self.

    To know your authentic self, you must reach within before you become defined by what you have around you.

    It is through connecting with who we are, appreciating ourselves for the beauty and the flaws birthed from the struggles of our lives, and recognising the resilience of spirit that we possess that instils an authenticity of self that no trial will ever be able to smother.

    It is through this realisation of the self that we will apply ourselves with conviction, passion, and purpose in our pursuit of creating value in the lives of others.

    It is that value that is uniquely ours to contribute, that creates the fulfilment that feeds our soul, nourishes our body, and creates space for the rewards that such contribution inevitably earns.

    Wealth is relative. Contentment is not. Be sure you’re chasing the right one before you lose both. Or worse, before you lose yourself.

    Photo credit : Adobe Stock

  • Looking for love in all the wrong places

    The shame that we carry within us about what we believe is lacking about ourselves, sometimes causes us to reject those who embrace us despite knowing the worst side of us.

    But because we reject that part of who we are, and are not willing to see our humanness attaching shame to it, we try to escape the embrace of the one who accepts it, so that we can avoid facing it or dealing with it.

    That’s how we find ourselves pushing away those close to us, while trying to win favour or earn the affection or validation of someone who doesn’t know that side of us.

    Because when we try to escape who we really are, we find it necessary to also escape anything that reminds us of that version of ourselves that we’ve rejected.

    Growth and healing is not found in rejecting the scars or the wounds of the past.

    Growth is experienced when we dress those wounds with understanding and acceptance, and when we caress those scars with love and affection.

    Looking for acceptance from others while rejecting ourselves, creates a tension within us that makes us defensive the moment they get close to revealing the shame that we still hold within us, about ourselves.

    It is that defensiveness that destroys yet another good relationship, as we hold them accountable for the very same reasons that we once rejected those who made bad decisions in response to the hurt that we caused in their hearts.

    This is how we sabotage the life we’re trying to create, while blaming the world for not accepting us.

    Photo credit : Adobe Stock