Sometimes, our setbacks in life can feel as if our world is coming to an end.
In many ways, it does spell the end of a lifetime for us because we reach points where everything that we know to be true comes under question.
Major life events like health issues that compromise our quality of life, divorce, death, or even losing a job all carry with it an impact that could easily derail all our hopes and dreams for the future.
Choosing to hold on to the hurt, or the pain, or the sense of loss from such experiences doesn’t change the reality that it brought with it.
Instead, holding on denies us the opportunity to grow from such experiences, and to continue to build that life that we set out to achieve.
But what is there to learn from bad experiences?
More than the lessons that it taught us about the shortcomings in decisions that we may have made, it is only in the presence of pain that the depth of joy can be appreciated.
It is only through loss that we learn to appreciate what can be lost when we have it.
When we experience loss or tragedy, or even disappointment and betrayal at the hands of others where we have no control over the outcomes despite our best efforts, we must recognise that it is a moment of grounding that will reshape what we take from life from that moment forward.
If we’re not aware of the good that we can take, we will remain invested in the bitterness of the experience as we convince ourselves that remembering is the only way to protect ourselves from feeling such pain ever again.
No. Remembering beyond the lesson learnt doesn’t protect us from such pain in future, it simply holds on to the pain of the past and denies us a future without it.
Embrace the good, learn from the bad, and appreciate the present.
Photo credit : Adobe Stock
#loss #love #betrayal #traumaresponse #ownyourshit #ownyourlife #theegosystem #mentalhealth #mentalhealthawareness #mentalhealthrecovery #selfworth #selflove #selfawareness #lifecoaching #zaidismail #lifelessons #optimism
Tag: theegosystem
-
Live, and let die…
-
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.
-
Empty promises
Some promises are broken before they’re even sealed.
Some are honoured before they’re even made.
The promises that are sincere will be blessed in their outcomes, well beyond the obligation that they carry.
But the promise made out of obligation or compromise will always be burdensome and restrained in its fulfilment.
Like apologies, promises are often made to avoid an unpleasant moment, rather than to create a beautiful one.
It is this insincerity more than anything else that destroys what could be a beautifully fulfilling relationship.
It is in the nuances and innuendos of how we honour the commitments that we make that leaves the most defining impression, and not just the fact that we kept our word.
No one wants to feel like a burden or an obligation.
When we lack sincerity in fulfilling our promises, or following through on our apologies, that is exactly what our unspoken words scream at those who cherish us.
It tells them that they’re not important, only us keeping our word matters to us because we value our image more than we value them.
Let your unspoken words reflect sincerity and conviction, and not leave room for doubt or ugliness.
Anything less is a lie.
#promises #commitments #principles #obligation #relationshipgoals #sincerity #selfworth #selfawareness #mentalhealth #mentalhealthawareness #mentalhealthrecovery #theegosystem #zaidismail #mindfulness -
Humanity for sale
The ones driven by the validation of others turn themselves into victims.
The ones driven by the belief that no one cares or no one understands, turn themselves into oppressors and abusers.
But when we’re so focused on our own struggles, we fail to see the struggles that we introduce into the lives of others.
That’s why we have no shortage of people reminding others to treat everyone with kindness, but rarely treating anyone with kindness if there’s nothing in it for them.
Even our humanity has become a transaction in this capitalistic world of individual worship.
We worship our needs before we revere any principles or values that we claim to uphold.
Hence humanity’s slide into the abyss of loneliness.
When will we awaken? 😞
#givingup #hopelessness #isolation #redundant #forgotten #selfishness #selfloathing #ownyourshit #ownyourlife #theegosystem #mentalhealth #mentalhealthawareness #mentalhealthrecovery #zaidismail -
Soul food doesn’t feed the ego
Be careful about advice that makes you feel good but doesn’t resolve anything.
Things that make us feel good either provides us with an emotional high and feeds our ego, or with a spiritual high and feeds our soul.
When we strike a healthy balance between the two, we find peace.
So, be careful of people that only feed your emotional needs, but don’t know how to feed your soul.
Worse still, be careful about confusing emotional fulfilment with soul food. The one makes you feel good about where you’re at, and the other inspires you to grow beyond where you’re at.
Choose carefully.
#selfworth #selfawareness #ownyourlife #selfmastery #mindfulness #personalpower #ownyourshit #mentalhealthrecovery #mentalhealth #lifecoach #soulfood #theegosystem #mentalhealthawareness #selfloathing -
Elusive peace…
Peace…that elusive mist that needs to enshroud everything.
Its absence creates the need to change the circumstances of our lives, so that we leave no space for nothing, needing every space to be filled with something.
Some look to fill those spaces with trinkets and tokens.
Others look to fill it with purposeful endeavours.
But central to both, lies the need to benefit someone in our efforts to avoid being no one.
Without that someone, we remain unfulfilled and incomplete.
Similar to the nothingness in the absence of peace.
Because life must be lived, and living must leave a legacy.
But a legacy ceases to be a legacy if it has no inheritors at the moment of our passing.
This primal instinct to be something is what drives our efforts towards avoiding being nothing.
The threat of which is the root to losing ourselves to the distraction of everything, when we lose hope of ever being something…to someone…but not just anyone.
Thus, the test of gratitude enters, as we reject some in our pursuit of others, never knowing for certain the impact we have on the lives that we touch.
Photo credit : Adobe Stock
#life #love #loneliness #solitude #companionship #foreverincomplete #ownyourshit #ownyourlife #theegosystem #zaidismail -
Be what you need
In a world that is demanding attention all the time, it’s easy to get caught up in what we need from others while ignoring what they need from us.
Our humanness is often celebrated for ourselves, but set aside in our expectations from others.
We all need sympathy and compassion, but are hesitant to give others the benefit of the doubt when they fall short in giving us what we need from them.
The same way that we must seek to understand why we sometimes disappoint ourselves or others, we need to afford others the same consideration when they disappoint us.
We all have our demons that we’re fighting, but we each succumb to different ones.
Just because we’ve reigned over one of ours doesn’t mean that everyone else should be able to overcome the same demon in their lives.
The next time you find yourself demanding compassion or understanding from others, pause for a moment to consider why it is that they may seem incapable of being compassionate in that moment.
They may just be struggling with something themselves and don’t have the capacity to do more than they’re already doing.
Photo credit : Adobe Stock
#compassion #understanding #kindness #kindnessmatters #beinghuman #selfworth #selfawareness #mentalhealth #mentalhealthawareness #mentalhealthrecovery #theegosystem #zaidismail #mindfulness #inspiration #motivation #ownyourshit -
Master patience
Remembering to hold on to hope, and to abandon my expectations of others has always been my saving grace for my sanity and my dignity.
Expectations, whether legitimate or not, are rooted in a sense of entitlement to receive what we need from others.
Expectations are key to a healthy relationship, because when we can trust another to fulfil our expectations from them, it nurtures the bond that exists between us. Provided, of course, that such trust is mutual.
However, if we’re not aware of our level of expectation and why we want it to be fulfilled by that specific other, we’ll become distracted by the feelings of betrayal should they fall short of our expectations.
Worse still, when we’re unaware of the level of expectations that we have from those who are not in our circle of significant others, every acquaintance and every stranger is given power over our emotional state.
Their failure to live up to our expectations feels like betrayal because entitlement is that unwritten social contract that convinces us that we deserve something from another, even if they may not be aware of it.
If the relationship is important, switch to hope and continue to contribute as best as you can. Hope is grounded in the belief that they are capable of being better than who they are in that moment, but understanding that whatever is troubling or distracting them is what they need to first rise above before they can show up the way that we want them to.
Expectations, and entitlement, is reflective of our needs, which when fulfilled, convinces us that we’re significant. Hence the anger or bitterness, or depression that sets in when our expectations are frequently taken for granted, making patience difficult to muster.
Hope is the nourishment of patience, while expectation is the enemy of patience. So when you find yourself being impatient, check your expectations and consider embracing hope instead.
Photo credit : Adobe Stock
#hope #expectation #sincerity #selfworth #selfawareness #mentalhealth #mentalhealthawareness #mentalhealthrecovery #theegosystem #ownyourlife #ownyourshit #embracingME #zaidismail #victimmindset #lifecoaching #counselling #coachforlife
