Tag: selfworth

  • The magic of accountability

    The magic of accountability

    Many people struggle with authenticity and finding a healthy balance in relationships because they are unaware of the impact of how they show up for themselves and for others. That lack of self-awareness is in a very huge way impacted by how we hold ourselves accountable for who we are.

    In this interview with Haafidha Rayhaanah, I unpack the little known dynamics of the far reaching consequences of accountability in our relationship with ourselves, and with those around us.

    Remember, without accountability, you have absolutely nothing of substance in your relationship with anyone, including with life itself. Give yourself a fair chance to unlearn what has been holding you back for so long.

  • Hypocrisy destroys you

    Hypocrisy destroys you

    Avoiding the truth to avoid responsibility is an exercise in hypocrisy.

    Supporting oppression to avoid the loss of privilege is an exercise in hypocrisy.

    Hypocrisy harms the hypocrite more than it ever harms others.

    The ones who experience such hypocrisy can still act against it, and can champion a cause to resist it.

    The hypocrite, however, loses their soul and every ounce of their humanity when they stubbornly persist in their hypocrisy.

    Not only does this deny them fulfilment or peace, it also destroys everything of value that makes their lives worth living, or their struggles worth enduring.

    Thus the bitter are the most hypocritical, and the most hypocritical at the most oppressive among us.

    Rationalising their hypocrisy to convince them otherwise is a futile exercise.

    Instead, we must reject their assertions that are blatantly erroneous or contemptable, so that we don’t exhaust ourselves in their deliberate attempts at distraction from the truth, while the cause of justice suffers from our lack of focus.

    It only gets complicated when we are unwilling to take a stand for what is uncomfortable or for what threatens the comfort of our existence.

    Tyranny prevails when the masses value their so-called quality of life over their dignity and their humanity.

    #watermelon

  • Why envy is not good for you

    Why envy is not good for you

    The Japanese have a proverb that says that a bitter heart eats its owner.

    Envy or bitterness begins with how you see yourself before you find reason for it in what others have or do.

    When we’re cautioned about the negative effects of these traits, we often focus on the punishment and the harm to others.

    Remember, we cannot give what we don’t have. Therefore, the envious or bitter one is consumed with such thoughts about their inadequacies, but from a position of blaming others for it.

    Whether they have a legitimate gripe or not doesn’t change that reality, nor does it reduce the impact that it has on them and their health.

    Trying to pacify them or trying to excuse them because of their difficult experiences (even in childhood) does nothing to uplift them.

    Nor does it help us if we’re the ones struggling with such feelings of envy or bitterness towards others.

    First, we must be willing to be unpopular before we are able to assist, because not validating someone’s emotional disposition often results in a negative response from that person.

    Nonetheless, being told what we need to hear and not what we want to hear is the beginning of planting the seeds that will eventually grow into self-awareness and understanding.

    You cannot uplift if you protect yourself or others from the truth just to spare them their feelings.

    Similarly, we make it impossible for others to assist or advise us sincerely if we lash out each time we’re not supported in our views about life or about others.

    To grow, you must be willing to be corrected.

    Ideally, such correction should be gentle and reassuring, with empathy and compassion.

    But that doesn’t mean that we should reject it if the tone is not what we want.

    We must be more invested in wanting to learn than in how we want to be taught, otherwise we will go through life blaming others for not treating us the way that we want to be treated.

    It always starts with you.

    #mentalhealth#selfworth#lifecoaching#zaidismail#ownyourlife#mentalhealthawareness#narcissist

  • Heal yourself before you heal the world

    Heal yourself before you heal the world

    When we’re in a problematic relationship, it becomes easy to focus on what others are doing wrong.

    This may be justified, or maybe not. Either way, it distracts us from our contribution towards that situation that we’re party to.

    That’s the important part. To recognise that we are either enabling or sustaining the cycle in which we’re caught.

    Focusing on what others need to change is only productive if we’re having a meaningful discussion with them about how we’re affected by their behaviour.

    Beyond that, it serves as nothing more than a distraction from how we conduct ourselves in response to their behaviour.

    The moment you go into such a situation assuming that you’re right and they’re wrong, you become part of the problem, if not the problem itself.

    Relationships are about finding a balance, not about finding a compromise.

    Compromises lead to scorekeeping and bitterness if either person thinks that they’re contributing more than the other.

    Stop compromising and start focusing on what you’re both wanting to create together.

    If you need them to make you feel complete, you’re horribly distracted from what you find lacking in yourself.

    Healthy relationships are formed when two people own their contribution towards the joint goals of the relationship and create space for each other relative to their strengths and weaknesses without judging each other for the same.

    If that sounds like a mouthful, or if it sounds complicated, then chances are very good that you’re getting it wrong, or you’re not acknowledging your contribution towards whatever frustrations or challenges you’re experiencing with your partner.

    Everyone wants to feel heard.

    Everyone wants to feel seen.

    Everyone wants to feel appreciated.

    Not just you.

    Keep that in mind the next time you approach addressing an issue with your partner and hopefully the outcome will result in understanding and a commitment towards mutual goals that will create a bond between you that you never experienced before.

  • Don’t raise a tyrant

    Don’t raise a tyrant

    Understanding right from wrong is the easy part.

    How to effectively respond to what is wrong without creating a new problem is the difficult part.

    With the emphasis always being on knowing who is right and wrong, but hardly any focus on how to deal with such differences, we raise children who are intolerant or misguided in their fight for what is right.

    Learning how life works is about more than just the rules. It’s about knowing how to be firm while still being empathetic, compassionate, and fair.

    Every tyrant believes in their own mind that they are justified in what they’re doing.

    Every tyrant has reason to compromise on what they believe is right because they are convinced that there is a greater good that is being served through such compromise.

    Every tyrant doesn’t accept that they’re being a tyrant. They see themselves as defending a just cause.

    If you don’t raise your children with understanding why there is benefit in upholding what is right, and why there is benefit in being gentle but firm about opposing what is wrong, you will raise a tyrant who will turn against you when you challenge them about something that they feel justified about.

    That’s how we create Zionists in our own homes, and unleash tyrants into the homes of other people’s children when our children get married.

    Understanding why is always more important than simply know what to do.

    Without understanding why, we lose critical thinking, empathy, compassion, and worst of all, we lose our humanness.

    Go beyond instructing your children about the rules to live by, and demonstrate through meaningful action and participation how it is that they must live by those rules.

    Not only will the participation improve their self-worth, but the active demonstration will lead to more credibility behind what they must stand up for.

  • Don’t outsource your dignity

    Don’t outsource your dignity

    Dignity is the ultimate social currency.

    With dignity comes accountability and self awareness.

    Or perhaps dignity is only possible through self awareness and accountability.

    But accountability is an outcome of self respect and integrity which in turn demands that we care more about who we are and what we stand for than what we want others to think of us.

    That’s when it gets complicated.

    It gets complicated when we focus on what we are likely to lose from others if we take a stand about what we believe to be important.

    But that complication is not because the issue is complicated.

    It’s because we complicate our lives by contaminating it with what we want others to see in us instead of being true to our values and principles regardless of what they think.

    Dignity demands that we be open to correction because of the shame we feel when we are dishonest.

    It demands that we protect the dignity of others because we must not be able to live with ourselves if we willingly and consciously look away when another is treated poorly.

    What we would want from others in our time of need or vulnerability is what we must offer.

    If not, we sow seeds of hypocrisy in our hearts which eventually contaminate the entirety of our being because dignity is lost and validation from others becomes the only peace we will know.

    Your dignity is yours to claim.

    Don’t outsource it in exchange for popularity or personal gain.

  • Check your entitlement

    Check your entitlement

    Expectations breed entitlement.

    Like the entitlement of privileges that weren’t earned, or a free pass to abdicate responsibility because we’ve got it tough. Or entitlement to a homeland that belongs to someone else.

    Conviction and sincerity are lost when we do things hoping for a good return.

    We should do good because of who we are and what we choose to stand for. Not because we expect a return.

    A return on investment is for business transactions, not for moral positions.

    If you choose to fight for a cause, do it because it resonates with your values.

    You honour your value system when you live by it, especially when it’s inconvenient or unpopular to do so.

    When your values are used as a trading commodity with others, they’re not values, they’re tools for manipulation.

    Accountability is a trigger for too many.

    If you feel triggered when someone calls you to account, you have work to do on yourself.

    Our triggers, frustrations, annoyances, anger, and emotional volatility is ours to own.

    We cannot make others responsible for tiptoeing around it just because they ‘don’t know what we’ve been through’.

    Their empathy or compassion towards us is a reflection of who they are, in the same way that ours is a reflection of who we are.

    Outsourcing that or claiming that someone deserves not to receive it from us is an indulgence of our entitlement mentality, and not a defendable moral position.

    Own your life. It always starts with you.

  • Hopefully…

    Hopefully…

    Hope is not hope when it is rooted in futility. That is simply wishful thinking.

    Hope is born from the belief that things can change.

    It is not predicated by statements of ‘if only’ or ‘I wish’, but rather inspired by focusing on the probabilities and the opportunities that we have.

    Hope is born when we focus on what we can do to uplift ourselves or change our state, rather than focusing on what we need from others before things can improve.

    Hope is the most powerful statement of gratitude without having to claim being grateful.

    It is not an attitude, nor is it blind faith.

    It is awareness of who we are and what we’re capable of, so that what we discover to be our limits creates a yearning in us to acquire the skills, knowledge, understanding, and resources to push beyond those limits.

    Hope is always present.

    But when we surrender, we invest that hope in someone else saving us, because we gave up hope in our ability to rise above what we are facing.

    Fear is the enemy of hope, and conviction is hope’s armour.

    If you desire relief from an oppressor more than you desire to destroy the oppressor, you invest your hope in the benevolence, or the mercy of the one who oppresses you.

    That is surrender, no matter how rebellious you may appear in your response.

    If your optimism is not followed by meaningful and decisive action, you’re lying to yourself about being optimistic.

    Where and in whom is your hope invested?

    If you say that it’s invested in the Almighty, then be true to exercising the abilities and competence that He has endowed you with, instead of praying for Him to exercise it for you.