Tag: self help

Overcoming Weekend Work-Week Blues

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A short while ago, I could feel the pressure of futuristic events that I knew I’d have to deal with. It was that Sunday feeling that 9-5ers have the day before going back to work – because it was the day before going back to work! Since I began working full-time again, I’ve noticed this pressure building on the weekends, that sigh of knowledge harking the end of short leisure time, and the beginning of a long work week ahead.

Because I normally can’t stand that way of being, I decided to try and let go of it, relinquish the thoughts and the ‘netflixing’ of projecting myself into the future and what I’d be doing.

Being Present

Pose a logical challenge to your mind while it ruminates over this. Ask yourself, is this useful? The quick obvious answer is no. Try following up by asking yourself why would I want to sacrifice my present moment, for thinking of what is going to happen? The true answer to your life is that the present moment is all you ever really have. You cannot experience the past again and the future hasn’t happened yet. Try to focus on your present moment wherever you are. It could be at the cinema, with your family or in your bedroom alone. Listen to the sounds, notice the fundamental details of your surroundings, whatever they might be, and accept it. You’ll find not only have you curtailed the ‘before work week’ blues, but can experience joy in the moment.

Surrender

Surrender. Accept whatever it is that is your life. I think we sometimes become transfixed to what we deem as ‘ideal’ and are so dissatisfied with what we have that we refuse to be happy until we get it. However, the goal posts never really stop moving back in life, when you finally get what you want, you’ll soon want something else. It’s the nature of the beast. Difficult at times to accept I know, but know that change is a constancy in our universe, and that the river of time pulls us all downstream. Everything is subject to change, no stone is left unturned. And since what you’re feeling is not of any use, surrendering it means it doesn’t have any more power over you.

Sense of control

You’re 100% responsible for what you choose in life, remembering that you chose to take on the job you’re at will give you a sense of control. Try to remember why you took on the role in the first place – more money to save, supporting your family, climbing the corporate ladder or something else, can help in your resolution of going back to work every Monday morning. Don’t forget your why. It’s what drives you beyond other things such as salary or benefits.

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Staying Strong and Knowing Your Value

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14-10-2016-12-00-16I’ve noticed that last few months that my sense of self-worth and value has decreased, or at least, has disappeared so much so that I’ve lost touch with myself. With what I know my abilities are and what I’m ‘good at’, not having a job can do that to you.

A good way to boost yourself is to write all your achievements down. In an effort to try and recall and remember what it is that my strengths were, I decided to write some of them down from the past 1-2 years. Here’s a quick shortlist to share:

  • Completed a postgraduate qualification that really opened up my mind and helped me realise the various possibilities that I had.
  • I finished my book and managed to edit it nearly four times.
  • Set up my blog and inspired some readers with my stuff.
  • Learned a lot about myself through setting up my own business. What I’m good at, not so good at and what I like doing most.
  • Traveled to far distant countries alone and met some great, unforgettable people.

Besides writing down all your achievements, one other interesting thing to consider is how you measure your self-worth? The ‘Looking Glass Self’ was a theory proposed by a university instructor called Charles Cooley, who said that we only develop a self-concept when we know how others see us. This is supposedly where our self-image stems from. Remaining conscious of that, you could also question the various sources that contribute to your self-worth. Does it come from being a loving parent or family member? Is it climbing the corporate ladder or being the top student in your class? Does it come from putting work into your passion?

Identifying sources of your self-worth is a good starting point of taking control of how you value yourself, and perhaps cutting off sources that reduce it such as negative comments from others.

Here’s a radical question, what if breathing as you are right now in this space was enough? As I write this blog post, I’m telling myself I need to be doing something else, something more of value and importance. And I realise this is how I’m hard-wired to think. When was the last time you felt that being in the moment that you’re in right now, even as you read this post and breathing, concentrating, on these words I write, was enough? What if the only way out of a self-defeating process of negative self-worth, was to first dispel what others taught us was of value to them? When I’ve looked back at my own successes, the road to achievement was so much easier and enjoyable when I accepted myself completely, no matter what I was doing. There was no judgement, only an unconditional love for myself. My healthy self-worth was naturally matched with healthy successes.

When I made a decision to leave my job two years ago to go abroad, I never expected all that happened to transpire. I thought I would stay in Australia and get a great marketing job and find someone and settle down; coupled with a nice, secure future. I thought that when things didn’t quite work out that way I would home and go back to working full-time. But I didn’t because I wanted another adventure, and to improve myself more by upskilling and start a business. I wanted to know how far I could push my limits because travelling alone was one of the scariest things that I’d ever done, and I wanted to know what else I could do. I know now that if I’m not being challenged, I’m not growing and I’m bored. That’s something I may never have known if I didn’t take the chance and leave.

At the end of the day, it’s really how you define your own success, and determine your own self-worth. You devise your own measuring stick for weighing your achievements. Don’t use one that was given to you, distorted and patterned with someone else’s perceptions and ideals.

Press the Reset Button Everyday

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Every day is different to the next. Certain situations that happen one day that don’t occur on the next. A variety of people (at times) appear for whatever reason that we need to converse with, and challenges arise that require our attention and problem solving abilities. Sometimes some circumstances can be so intense, so challenging, that we carry them on our shoulders for days. Like a cartoon that continues to replay in the backs of our minds as we try to focus on our work or whatever it is we’re doing. But what if we could consciously press the reset button each day?

press-the-reset-button

Start from Zero

This is a term I think is appealing in different aspects. First, beginning from zero means you’ve rid yourself of expectations, emotions and thoughts on how something is going to unfold. When you do this, you allow space for whatever actually happens, to happen. Of course, positive visualisations can always help but perhaps release them once done and don’t get attached. Instead, accept how a particular circumstance, situation or person proliferates in reality and not get caught up in disappointments. You will be well more equipped to deal with a situation as it arises as you become more flexible and elastic with all kind of occurrences with life. Approaching all things with an open mind means you’ll learn more and be calmer as well in the midst of whatever is going on.

The only way to do this is by consciously letting go of whatever has hurt us, disturbed us or otherwise has thrown us off from our normal mode or way of being. The best way of doing this is ‘catching it in the net’ as it comes. This was stated pretty well on an episode of Soulful Sunday where Michael Singer said to let the things people say pass through us without resistance or cause for defence.

One good thing to remember that when a particular person conveys to us in a manner that is hurtful or otherwise not favourable, it can be in many situations a reflection of how they are with themselves. This can help to take the poison out of their bite so to speak.

People tend to give themselves away in a million different ways and there is little need to allow for it to disturb how you are with yourself. Let the chain of reaction of hurt end with you, let it pass through you.

Walking the Courageous Path

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Walking that crucial path means being more risky and take actions that are against your status quo. You begin to move in foreign lands and you build new road maps of your life. Consequently, it becomes more accurate, colourful yet deep and meaningful like contour numbers conveying depth.
If you do this long and consistently enough (being sure to comfort and reassure yourself along the way), you begin to realise how illusory your fear really is. As it fades, possibility grows. Liberated, you realise how you thought, act and generally how you were previously was so unnecessary. You stop self identifying with the past.

walking-the-courageous-path
Travelling, for example, was one of my biggest first leaps of faith that required courage, resilience and trust in myself and for whatever was in store for me. I learned that the world is not as scary as the news makes it out to be, and people are mostly good no matter what continent you’re on. I learned indirectly from counselling to be courageous in extending love to others and at times, I’ve even caught people by surprise by my openness with them because I know on some deep level, they resonate with my honesty. I learned from writing a book that nothing is not too late to pursue if you have the courage to implement it. If it doesn’t work out, there is always the small comfort of knowing that you tried. But the important part is that you tried and learned instead of allowing fear to swallow the energy you could have used to go for it.

To have fear and do something anyway stems from our core which is determined to grow. Serious growth can be spurred on from our defining sweaty moments of anxiety, uncertainty and self doubt. These definitive moments are intrinsic to your development of identity and self.

What I would say is lean into experiences that we’re afraid of doing and don’t run away from them. In every situation there is a key learning for you and the more experiences you accumulate, the wiser you are and not only that, you begin to see how strong you really are. And you will be shocked.
Your strength is demonstrated and vindicated through practice, whether it’s through a breakup or losing a job. The critical factor here is that you realise it. Once you do, there’s no going back. Fear is reduced, if not eradicated and it’s taunting doesn’t influence you as much. Love can be found in more places than you realised and you see people have the ability to react to love from others, even strangers. You will see things and people for how they really are, not how you thought they were.

The more codes you break the more you come to know yourself, and the world. And I think you will do humanity a great service in doing so.

‘Now you are no longer caught
in the obsession with darkness,
and a desire for higher love-making
sweeps you upward.

Distance does not make you falter.
Now, arriving in magic, flying,
and finally, insane for the light,
you are the butterfly and you are gone.

And so long as you haven’t experienced
this: to die and so to grow,
you are only a troubled guest
on the dark earth.’
– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Self Value from Within, Not Others

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When faced with a challenge or situation, I’ve realised that one of the first ports to call is checking your internal strength; your self love and acceptance.

I became anxious recently when faced with a new challenge that involved managing others, and was put into a leadership related position – something I had little to no experience in. Ultimately, it was a real test of how much faith and belief I had in myself and my capability.

Confience-through-self-acceptance

Because I was unsure of myself, it came across very strongly to others and because they verified this back to me, it only became stronger to the point where I was afraid to take any course of action, or apply any kind of solid decision or solution.

I basically froze.

I spent some time agonising over this whilst being really disappointed in myself. Continually refilling myself with negative emotions, it morphed into a vicious cycle that I kept feeding.

Only when I talked it over with someone did I manage to emotionally untangle myself and gain a more objective, less fearful perspective on the situation. It involved detaching my value from what others thought of me and realised that was the key reason for my perception of self inadequacy and my fear in taking action. The fear of being doubted and questioned by others froze me and deprived me of opportunity for growth and learning.

All I can say is that you need to be prepared to be wrong, to make mistakes and not judge yourself because of it. Once you do it’s game over and you’re back in the cycle. Acceptance for your humanity and treating yourself like you would a friend in distress is key. No self criticising is going to make you feel any better so why do it?

View yourself like a plant that needs nurturing and watering. How you do this is focusing on self acceptance and self love, a place where there is no judge, jury or barristers. A place only you can take yourself. Everything else stems from this and will influence the choices you make and life is too short for anything else.

Once I realised all this I was then ‘unfrozen’ to take action, and achieved enough mental clarity to realise what I had to do. I devised the next steps for my group and then took action.

Letting go of being self conscious of what others think of you frees you up enough to focus on acceptance of yourself and from that, confidence. Don’t let the small things stop you.

Loving Yourself and Finding Your Calling

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In the midst of my struggle in liking someone, I knew and felt the torment and lamentation of knowing I’ll never be able to have a relationship with this person. The pain of it in my chest was unbearable.

I began to wonder why such a powerful, obsessive attraction that is so strong it cancels me completely, and makes it difficult for me to concentrate on anything, regardless of the time of day? How did this make me so blind?

Love-Yourself-and-Finding-Your-Calling

As I sank deep into myself in meditation, I explored and found something profound. What materialised out of this conundrum, this dark ether, was the plain simple fact that I Saw this person. I saw their vulnerabilities and it wasn’t my eyes that Saw it; it was my heart. And it was only because I opened up my heart to them that I was able to see that.

We can’t acknowledge people’s vulnerabilities in a humane, understandable and accepting way if we don’t see it from the heart. There and then, I realised that I accepted that person with loving feelings because I acknowledged them not mind to mind, but heart to heart. I also saw some of myself in them, making this connection even stronger.

Once I came to this realisation, something else profound happened. I felt a bursting sensation of love coursing through my body and I knew in that moment I had touched on something deep, like a massive root beneath a tree that goes unnoticed beneath the ground but is of huge significance.

The tree root was love, and it is something we rarely show to the world above. It pumps away giving life to the tree but it’s work goes largely unappreciated and and noticed unlike the smaller, more insignificant roots above are given the limelight.

I noticed how strange it was in how we strive to keep it under wraps.

In that moment, I completely loved and accepted myself as I was. Whether it was obsessing over someone or other perceived wrong doings and things I still think I’m doing wrong, it didn’t matter. Because no matter what, it was all ok.

From this came one final realisation; to spread it. To give it out into the world and from somewhere deep within or deep beyond I found a calling of some sort. A calling to connect people, to unify and strengthen the relationships between humankind. To foster, facilitate and act as a conduit of love. For everyone to realise we are all one. It’s in the silence that we come to know our purpose.

And is there any other kind of calling more beautiful than that?

Overcoming Obstacles in a Hostile Environment

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My mental health has been severely tested several times by those closest to me, resulting in moments of high anxiety. I was constantly getting anxious thoughts about what would happen to me in the future. 

Overcoming-obstacles

My natural state of mind and emotion is not anxious – it is the actions of others that heighten it to a point where it began to happen sporadically regardless of what was going on in my environment, and that’s when I knew it was spilling into my life and affecting how I behaved.

How I got through this very difficult time (and now still) came down to a few things:

  • Self acceptance. Accepting that I was anxious more so than most people was difficult to accept, especially when everyone else ‘seemed ok’ (I say it that way because a lot of people to some degree are not what they put themselves out to be).
  • Mindfulness. I had to start watching my thoughts and heighten my sense of self awareness. I did this through meditation each morning, regardless of what was going on. It’s pretty difficult, especially when there’s a part of me that crying inside and distraught over what has happened or is happening. But gaining a perspective and recognising my anxious thoughts was the first step to being free of it. It allowed for an objective knowing leading to an acceptance that it’s there.
  • Space. I gave it to myself in the form of time and giving myself space around all the traumatism I had been experiencing, and an almost solemn yet peaceful acceptance of it. I basically took my own side instead of parenting myself harshly through shitty self talk. I moved to a place of self love and allowed myself to wallow and feel the pain before moving on.
  • Loving Others. This I have found always comes afterwards – once you completely accept and love yourself, it naturally extends to others. Could you imagine what the world would look like if everyone worked on this?
  • Randomly tarot. I bought a pack when I was 16 and although I didn’t know it at the time, it was in itself a form of meditation and looking inward. I understand now why I liked doing the spreads so much, because they offered me additional insight and angles I hadn’t considered before.
  • Perseverance. Acknowledging that life goes up and down, and knowing good times lie ahead, helps in a lot of ways. If you really think about the pain you’ve been through before, you know that it’s possible to emerge intact and stronger than before. We are in essence the sum of our experiences.

A family member asked me once where I got my strength from, this blog post is the answer.

The Sickness of Denial

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My counsellor revealed something extraordinary to me today – he told me I was in danger. I sat in the chair and said nothing. We were in the middle of discussing something else when he dropped the bomb. It’s amazing how denial can do that, can put your life at risk. It was related a family issue that had somewhat peaked weeks ago but was left unsettled, like a poisonous gas and everyone decided to wear masks instead of trying to rid it. I had my own on and was unwilling to take it off; to deal with the heart of the problem.

Sickness-of-Denial

The clock ticked away on the tabletop next to me, marking each second of my withdrawn disposition; I wasn’t sure if I should respond. He looked across at me expectantly and I could only express my guilt around the problem that I hadn’t talked about in the last while.

He discussed at some length how it was a problem I needed to address at home, because if I didn’t, the situation could only get worse. Problems don’t go away on their own. And he’s right. I hate it when he is.

I left in quite the introspective mood when I left, reflecting his words over in my mind like a Rubik’s cube. I realised in that moment how easily we trick ourselves into denial of many things, even in situations where we really are in potential danger. Perhaps this is something seen widely in people in the Middle East, where wars have been raging for the better part of the last decade, and denial is probably part of mental preservation in hostile areas.

Healing and maturation only comes when we face up to what it is we are running away from. It sound so simple but a problem will persist until we solve it. The sickness of denial happens when it gets to a point of it affecting our lives, but we continue in the delusion of disassociation. We essentially run away. And as a result, we need a reality check.

I was thankful in a way that he had brought it up. It seemed to be another test for me, one that I have to ultimately overcome regardless if I want to or not.

I love how life never stops teaching us.

You Can Always Save Yourself

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This post is a little different than my previous entries as it relates to a very recent experience I encountered, and I feel the need to share what I’ve learnt.

self-love

I was recently rejected by someone (with very good reason) who I liked a lot and whom I had gotten close to very quickly over a short period of time very unexpectedly. I suppose I had the haze of love hearts that bubbled out of me over this person, and there was serious chemistry and attraction.

This is the second time I couldn’t be with someone I liked and once again I found myself in a position of yearning but not having. But this is the jewel of the learning that I discovered the next day; only you alone can save yourself. You are totally responsible to how you react. If you decide to cry, then do that, but at the very least come away with some understanding and learning from it.

Abraham Lincoln once said, ‘What hurts, instructs.’

If this scenario highlighted anything for me it was the urgency to ensure that I had a stable and healthy relationship with myself, and it gave my wavering identity a full on, solid boost. Something snapped and when it did I realised that no matter what happens in this life, I am and always will be my own hero. I may not always be able to depend on others, but I can depend on me and there is some comfort in that. And it was an inspiring realisation, I was almost a little proud of myself for coming to that conclusion.
I don’t need anything from anyone to make me feel valid, I am as I am. If you have enough love within yourself, it’s all you really need. You are already whole.

Patience for Others

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Patience Blog

I’m on a course that focuses a lot on teamwork and I have to say I’ve learned quite a bit in the last few weeks on communicating and working with others effectively. It has highlighted a key issue that I’ve been struggling with: patience.

Why is there a real need for patience with other people? Because for a lot of us we don’t have it. It’s a lot easier to interrupt when others are speaking so that we can blow out the tension of thoughts that form in our mind like dark clouds to a storm. We seem to think that what we’re about to say is more valid than what they’re currently saying and therefore, we stop listening. Game over.

The reason it’s game over is because you’ve fallen into a trap that a lot of people fall for when communicating: impatience. Patience and listening requires self discipline and is attained only through practice, and the realisation that people are not what our judgement tells us they are, and may have a better point to make than what we may be pushing to say. What I’m saying is that they are complex creatures like ourselves, and when we realise this we can then begin to be empathetic. But I’m diverging.

Impatience can be applied to other situations but regarding people it normally boils down to frustration or disagreement with what they’re doing.

I’ve found that concentrating on inner calm regardless of the environment in which I’m operating (takes practice!) and giving space and real estate within myself for others to make their impressions and have their voices heard, has been an effective tool.

It’s also made me an attractive team member to work with and I’ve found myself in quite a lot of demand as a result!
Collaborating is tricky business, but an essential ingredient to the betterment of humankind. Think of when perhaps Martin Luther King had to be patient and flexible with others in his campaigning, or Ghandi’s non-violent protests which resulted in the liberation of a country. There is something to be said for allowing others to express themselves, whilst maintaining your own counsel and having enough sense of knowing when to exercise power. I believe that can only be achieved through our more intuitive side. It’s maturity manifested in full circle, and others do pick up on it.