Tag: sincerity

  • Does your therapist stroke your ego?

    Does your therapist stroke your ego?

    You know that old adage about ‘practice what you preach’?

    At some point someone replaced it with ‘those who can’t do, coach’.

    And the world has been worse off since then.

    Yes, I know I identify as a coach, but it would be opportunistic of me to ignore the large number of charlatans using the profession to project their world view on others.

    Too many people are ready to tell the world how to be better, but only so many who try to be better than they were the day before.

    Authenticity is not about the spoken word, it’s about action.

    Everyone has a nugget of wisdom to throw around, but only so many have the conviction to give it life.

    Most often, people already know what they need to change about their lives to be in a better space, but their lack of understanding in how they may be counter productive in their efforts is what holds them back.

    So when you tell them what to change, you’re effectively making them dependent on you for solutions rather than improving their understanding of how life works.

    Good intentions are never enough.

    Understanding the effectiveness of the methods that we adopt is what determines how successful we are at creating the life that we want.

    And because you don’t know what you don’t know, it becomes that much more important to choose your advisors carefully or else you risk getting advice that makes you feel better about your contribution towards the struggles of your life while blaming others for it.

    Are you sure you’re choosing advisors to help you grow, or do your advisors make you feel better about your faults?

    Don’t just preach your philosophy about life, live it.

  • Forgiveness without understanding is virtue signalling

    Forgiveness without understanding is virtue signalling

    If there is one piece of advice that will help you through the worst of times, this is it.

    Internalise this, connect with it, make it your mantra if you must, but understand that forgiveness on its own, without acceptance, will leave you yearning for retribution or justice.

    More than this, acceptance is only wishful thinking if not accompanied by understanding.

    We need to understand the motives behind someone’s betrayal of trust, or their indiscretion, or even their neglect of what is important to us or else we’re left with believing that it was intentional towards us.

    Most often, we treat others badly because of our demons that are provoked by what they need from us.

    Even if we’re justified in treating them that way because of how they treated us, tit-for-tat is an indulgence of the ego and not an investment in rising above that which weighs us down.

    Understanding doesn’t mean condoning, justifying, or defending bad behaviour. It simply lifts the burden of not knowing so that making peace with the experience becomes possible.

    By seeking understanding, we immediately shift our focus to what they were struggling with rather than grappling with our lack of significance to them.

    It is only through such understanding that we learn to accept that people’s actions are a reflection of who they are more than it is about what we mean to them.

    And while we’re contemplating all this about others, we need to reflect on our own bad behaviour within the same context or else we will inevitably become like those whom we judge.

    Judge less. Understand more.

    Peace is within reach.

    Otherwise bitterness will be your friend until you meet your end.

  • Have you ever truly lived?

    Have you ever truly lived?

    Is your definition of success really your definition of success?

    Or did you perhaps borrow it from society without really noticing?

    Our fixation on appearing successful is so toxic, that we readily give up our hopes and dreams in favour of acceptance.

    Most people don’t have a greater purpose in life beyond achieving what secures their place in society, or in their social circles.

    The chase for acceptance or validation is how we die a million deaths in a single lifetime, but rarely live a single wholesome life before death.

    Do we even know what a wholesome life feels like between all the distractions and our efforts to appease others?

    When was the last time you reconnected with the idealistic teen in you?

    If you had to meet your teenage self, would you be proud or disappointed in who you are now?

    Or were you already wasted to the peer pressure back then that you’ve never known a life beyond that?

    Today is a good day to reconnect with you.

    death

  • Raging into oblivion

    Raging into oblivion

    The rage that we hold within us feels like a justified protest or demand for justice or fairness from those around us.

    But rage is a master of distraction.

    It is born in moments of legitimate duress, but continues long after.

    The rage of being unheard in one moment leads to harshness when we feel misunderstood in a totally different moment.

    Rage is the intensity of our demand to be treated with significance or respect, while not realising that rage undermines both, our significance and the respect we need from others.

    Rage only ever achieves compliance from others while they may fear us in our moments of rage.

    The moment those around us no longer fear us, rage becomes a tool that destroys what we’re trying to achieve, and isolates us from the ones who we wish would see us more clearly.

    But we only rage because we don’t see ourselves clearly.

    And that’s the greatest distraction that rage offers us.

    It convinces us that we’re right and that everything that we see is wrong with others is good reason for us to rage.

    And in those moments, we lose our connection with reality and replace it with a focus on who is taking our pain seriously while not realising that we’re causing pain, leaving them to see nothing more than a brute rather than a hurt soul.

    Beyond the release of the anguish we hold within, rage offers no value at all in securing the peace or harmony that we want with those who matter to us.

    Don’t only try to restrain your rage.

    Instead, seek to understand why you feel that rage at all.

    Otherwise your rage will grow to define you while you may think it’s defining your battle cry to the world.

  • Are you owning it?

    Are you owning it?

    This is a painful truth for many.

    One of the most prominent trends in people’s lives when things go wrong, is that they surround themselves with those who make them feel better about where they’re at, rather than those who push them to step up and own their life.

    You won’t ever grow beyond your current challenges if you constantly have people telling you how brave you are for living with it.

    Cherish those who hold you to a higher standard, not those who pacify you when you’re wrong.

    Of the rarest of creation, I believe, must be the sincere advisor.

    Too many offer advice because they think it’s good advice and not because they genuinely understand or are invested in supporting or uplifting the one who is experiencing difficulties.

    Such advisors regurgitate advice that worked for them, meaning well, but not realising that they’re making it about them rather than focusing on what you’re grappling with.

    If you find a sincere and credible advisor (emphasis on credible), cherish them, because their commitment is to your upliftment, and not to their own ego.

  • Break the stigma

    Break the stigma

    I think it was Dr Wayne Dyer who said that if you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.

    This is true both positively and negatively.

    Do you know someone who has a problem for every solution? Who sees doom and gloom at the happiest of moments? Who is preempting a negative outcome despite things going in their favour?

    Do you think they have a mental illness, or have they just been hurt so many times before, that they are afraid to hope for a positive outcome? Are they simply protecting themselves from being let down again?

    This is how we experience life when we finally give up hope about the future, or we give up hope about being appreciated.

    That absence of hope is what causes us to feel depressed. Depression is a legitimate experience of human emotions after we’ve taken one too many hard knocks from life about something important to us.

    The same is true for every other emotional experience.

    Emotions are not deficiencies. They’re the essence of what makes us human.

    If we ever hope to win this battle against a consistently declining quality of life, we need to stop referring to emotions as mental health, and we need to stop defining the duress that we experience in life as a mental illness.

    We need to reconnect with the human behind the pain, instead of dehumanising them by denying the legitimacy of their emotional experience.

    Break the stigma. Stop the labelling. Embrace the humanness.

  • Mental health myth – Social contracts

    Mental health myth – Social contracts

    People will have no reason to remind you about what they’ve done for you if they felt appreciated by you.

    This popular meme encourages a selfish view of life and convinces us that we’re victims of manipulation rather than giving us reason to question if/how we may have wronged someone, or taken them for granted.

    If this meme were true, then every parent who sacrifices their own joys and advancement in life for the benefit of their children will have no right to feel betrayed if they’re neglected by their children later in life.

    It’s become fashionable to write people off just because we’re not getting what we need or want from them.

    The fact that we feel entitled regardless of what they’re going through is often ignored.

    But the circle of life is such that what we judge others about today, will meet us as a test under very different circumstances tomorrow.

    When you write people off because of what they complain about regarding feeling hurt or betrayed by your actions towards them, you will remember them when someone you are convinced will always have your back turns around and walks away from you because they want something from life that they can’t get from you.

    When someone says ‘after all I’ve done…’, step back, dismount your high horse, and consider why they may be feeling betrayed or used instead of getting defensive and assuming that they’re toxic.

    How you respond to someone in their moment of duress is a reflection of who you are, and what you need from them.

    That’s why abandoning family ties, cutting off parents, demanding divorce, and breaking social bonds has grown to define our self-care routine.

    When we stop needing others, they become optional while we think it’s our right to live our best life regardless of their contribution towards getting us through our worst times when they could have been living their best life.

    Be careful what advice you take from the Internet.

    You could end up living your best life, alone.



  • The Illusion of Control: Unraveling the Quest for Peace

    The Illusion of Control: Unraveling the Quest for Peace

    Peace is not the absence of drama, nor is it the avoidance of life. Yet, I find myself bemused by so many who believe that avoidance is a sustainable way to find peace, or happiness. It isn’t. Avoidance is merely a delay of the inevitable.

    Inevitability has always been such a complicated subject. Otherwise seen as fate, destiny, karma, or even manifestation, we convince ourselves that our failings and sometimes even our successes are a result of such larger-than-life forces at play in our lives. I think that’s how we satisfy our ego when we find it difficult to accept that we’re out of control.

    The myth of control offers a temporary comfort. Predictability assures those who have grown weary of change. That weariness is the threat that I have been fending off for some time now. Sometimes I embrace it deliberately hoping that it will find space within me, but it never does. If anything, it leaves me restless. As restless as I once was when I realised that there was no gentle hand to show me the ropes of life. Of course, that realisation came long after I had already sunk my teeth into creating a life out of the dreary reality that surrounded me.

    Why I felt a need to create something better than what I had rather than finding peace within those circumstances is what occupies my mind on most days when I have space to reflect. It’s the same struggle that brings so many to my door looking for answers about the ravages of the obliviousness of others, the worst being our obliviousness to the impact that we have well beyond our range of visibility.

    Peace is lost in those moments when we peer ahead instead of glancing around at our immediate vicinity. What lies ahead in the distance is hope and aspiration. What confronts us immediately is the probability of achieving any of it. Most wish away what they see around them because they’re so desperate for that mirage that they behold in their mind’s eye. Some find a meaningful pursuit between where they’re at and what they wish to reach, and they appear purposeful and resolute as a result. But there is a group who see a little more than that. They see what surrounds them, they see what is in the distance, they see the path between the two, but they also see the impact that they have on those who have rights over them. Choosing how to expend themselves between those demands then becomes the source of what robs them of their peace.

    I resonate most with the latter group. The group that feels responsible when others feel free of obligation. The group that sees but is not seen. That hears but is rarely heard. That understands but is misunderstood. And though that may appear self-indulgent, if not smacking with self-pity, it isn’t. It simply is the reality presented by the evidence of a life of resolve to figure out how it all works. Sometimes I consider if perhaps that is the purpose of life, but then I also realise that if it were, what would be the point of advancement if the only endeavour is to understand the here and now?

    That there is more to life than figuring it out is clear. What more there is to life, however, remains a slowly unravelling secret that will hopefully avail itself before I have exhausted my breaths in the pursuit of everything intended to unlock that greater purpose. Nonetheless, in its pursuit I have found joys and depths that have enamoured me in my journey that most view with confusion at best, or disdain at worst, neither of which has given me cause to alter my trajectory.

    In that has been my greatest liberation and my greatest test, the combination of which leaves me eternally perplexed. Peace is still a distance away.