Tag: personal-growth

Vulnerability, Strength or Weakness?

Published on by ohlala80Leave a comment

What is vulnerability and is it a sign of strength or weakness? Vulnerability to me is the ability to reveal or share parts of ourselves that may lead to judgement directly impacting our sense of being. For many, showing ones vulnerability may be perceived as a sign of weakness however the intent on showing ones vulnerability in itself, in my opinion, is the greatest form of strength. Vulnerability is a form of sharing, bonding and mutual understanding, the experience of exposing and experiencing those very sensitive parts of ourselves and to be willingly open to judgement or criticism requires great strength.

Being vulnerable with your loved ones opens opportunities for communication, bonding and acceptance. Vulnerability isn’t just about sharing your emotions. It’s about sharing what’s deep within, even at the risk of being rejected. Vulnerability is something we tend to ignore in our day-to-day life, however, without it, we miss the core to our being. We miss our authenticity.

Vulnerability doesn’t only center upon feelings and emotions it is also about sharing achievements, milestones and experiences. To be brave enough to take that fist step wether it is in your career or in an important life decision, to share your accomplishments and be open to criticism. Vulnerablility strengthens us as human beings as it makes us authentic sharing parts of ourselves and our lives that might feel too delicate to share.

Just like a job, a test or an achievement it’s not always going to be easy. Sometimes one worries that exposing our vulnerabilities may be used against us, that we will not be loved the way we want to be loved if we were authentic, however it requires confidence and a strong belief in yourself to share your vulnerability.

In today’s society we are conditioned to mask what may be  perceived as weaknesses, however, these weaknesses, such as fears, our dreams and aspirations are the essence to our being. A lot of people today are hiding behind that mask, afraid of revealing who they truly are. Social media, job titles, statuses are all masks we tend to hide behind to mask our vulnerability. Sharing this post is a an act of vulnerability. How my posts are regarded and perceived is a form of vulnerability. You must be brave enough to take that first step towards vulnerability or forever remain confined in the same dilemma of living an inauthentic life.

Measuring Happiness

Published on by ohlala80Leave a comment

In our consumer driven, material pursuing world we are mislead into believing that success is measured by our career, wealth and social status. With time and since we were hit with covid I’ve come to realize that true success is measured by having faith, health, self acceptance, family bonds, friendships and the ability to enjoy the present. If careers were a measure of success then CEO’s would be amongst the happiest of people yet most times they are the most stressed. Often times in their quest to reach the top of their career ladders, they sacrifice their connections with their families and friends and are amongst the loneliest of people. If wealth was a measure of success then the wealthiest people would be the the most content but more often than not they’re the ones who suffer addictions and depression and are taken advantage of. If social status was a measure of success then presidents would be able to roam around their countries freely without worrying about their safety however wherever they go they are surrounded by guards and security and are abided by protocol and politics.

Sometimes it is the people with the simplest lives who are the happiest. People who have made the conscious effort to live in the present moment and enjoy it fully without worrying about the past or the future. Simple lives lived in nature using your hands to build things and make things and to cook your own food can bring true happiness. In a book I read called Ikigai a study was conduced on a large group of Japanese people who lived to be over 100 years old and still maintained good health showed that those people have lived a simple life full of purpose. They grew their own crops, tended their own gardens, sowed their own clothes and commuted by bikes or on foot to work regardless of how old they were. They were constantly moving and constantly creating with pleasure. Their sense of purpose was derived from doing most of their daily chores themselves regardless of how old they were. They led simple lives yet they lived it with joy excelling at whatever simple task they did wether it was cooking or farming or sewing.

So what if true success isn’t about how much money you make or what your position is in your career. What if it’s about the meaningful connections you make with others, how you care for yourself, the healthy food you intake and the choices you make to wake up every morning with gratitude doing what you do in life well and with pleasure. To live in the present moment and to realize that true happiness truly comes easier than you think from the simplest things in life… For me this was a true awakening.

The Ego

Published on by ohlala80Leave a comment

Last month my entry was about honoring yourself and keeping the promises you make within. Like many people I struggle with sticking to my promises to myself sometimes. It’s easier to ditch the gym, procrastinate on my writing, slack on my online classes and organize the house tomorrow. Lately I learned that the ego has a big role to play in that. You see the ego detests and resists change ultimately residing us in the familiar. Even though the familiar may be detrimental to our growth and wellbeing we still seek it because well it’s familiar. We stay in painful relationships, we slack in our work and our duties, we ditch that job opportunity and we avoid that uncomfortable conversation for the sake of the familiar, the status quo.

The ego has such a huge influence on us it even leads to self sabotage. It does that by making us doubt ourselves and our abilities. According to research only 5 percent of our cognition is conscious while the remaining 95 percent is subconscious. The ego is part of the subconscious therefore it makes sense that the ego has a profound influence over the reality we create. Our subconscious has the power to drive us towards our dreams and the power to withhold us from them.

What’s the solution then? Well the solution first starts by being aware of this unhealthy dynamic with our subconscious minds. Being aware of the ego’s role and being aware of our limiting beliefs. Instead of feeling like we will fail at the new job why not consider it a win to even try? Wether we do in fact fail or not at the job or at the new course we are taking it is still a learning opportunity. When you look at it like that, like everything is a learning opportunity then failure doesn’t exist. Awarness should also come in the relationships we are keeping. Are these relationships expanding us or contracting us? Are these relationships making us thrive or are they pulling us back? What is the alternative and do we dare find it? The ego will ultimately tell us to stick to the familiar even if it hurts but our small conscious minds know better.

Awareness also comes in acknowledging the way the ego allows for self sabotage. Keeping us in bed when we’re supposed to get up, keeping us in the same unhealthy relationship, making us believe we are not good enough or smart enough for the job so why bother… and so on… Often times the ego will purposely make us sabotage our relationships and our jobs to fulfill that self professing delusion that we are not good enough.

Everything starts with awareness so while being aware of honoring yourself and the promises you give it let’s also be aware of the self limiting beliefs of the ego. Let’s strive to give more power to that 5 percent of our conscious minds as opposed to the unconscious.

And keep smiling 🙂

Honor Yourself

Published on by ohlala80Leave a comment

With the beginning of the new year 2024 I’d like to reflect on a matter that really resonated with me. During my readings and when I’m on social media I come across passages or videos that truly intrigue me. In one particular video I happened to scroll by, the speaker said that we should honor the promises we give to ourselves. We are always told that we must keep our promises to others but who ever thought that there are promises you must keep for yourself? The speaker said honoring the promises we make for ourselves means for instance that when we say we’re going to wake up early in the morning that we must make sure to commit to waking up early in the morning. Another example is when we say we’re going to exercise and stay fit then we should commit to working out and staying fit. On a daily basis we make promises to ourselves that we don’t honor however we make those same promises and commitments to others and we honor them. We tell our friends we will be meeting them for brunch and we make sure we do meet them and on time. We tell our bosses that we will meet the deadline and finish the project on time and we do meet the deadline and finish our work on time. We tell our parents that we will accompany them to their doctor’s appointments and we do that to show support. We tell our children we will reward them when they ace their exams and we do reward them. However when we make similar promises to ourselves we tend to slack, to procastrinate, to self sabotage. We press that snooze button on our alarm clock way too many times, we slack off when it comes to exercising, we list our New Years resolutions and don’t accomplish half of that list. In a wonderful book I’m reading called “Manifest” by Roxi Nafousi she talks about our subconscious self sabotaging us when we try to accomplish something new. When we try to manifest new goals we must come out of our comfort zone and that is threatening to our subconscious. Our subconscious would rather us stay where we are comfortable and familiar rather than explore new opportunities and ideas, thus we self sabotage. We tell ourselves we know nothing about businesses and shall fail that business prospect, that we can never lose that weight so why try, that our dream partner doesn’t exist so we settle for the familiar traumatic relationships and so on…

It is time to take those steps and keep our promises to ourselves the same way we keep them with others. We owe ourselves the same courtesy we so freely offer others. Once we honor the promises we give ourselves we will be better able to achieve all that we desire, we will become better people because before anyone else we are being honest and are sincere to ourselves. We will be filled with an abundance of satisfaction from being true to ourselves and from that feeling of abundance we can continue to honor everyone else in a better way too.

40’s

Published on by ohlala80Leave a comment

It was 2020 and during the heart of the covid pandemic that I blew my 40th candle. Social distancing and seclusion got me re-aquainted with my true, inner self. Was it the age or was it the situation that did that? I believe it was a little bit of both.

Today while I am in my early 40’s I must admit that I am loving this age. I’m at an age where I’m not too young to be naive or impulsive nor am I too old to feel feeble and inefficient. I’m just right. I’m not too old to pursue my hobbies and interests nor am I too young to be impatient and dependent. I’m at a stage of calm. A stage of self reflection and self discovery. In my forties I now fully appreciate and accept myself as I am even with all my flaws. In my forties I no longer participate in heated discussions and I no longer find myself lost in dramas for all I want is peace. I’m at an age where my bond with my children has reached a higher, most amazing level, a level of friendship and companionship rather than constant discipline and apprehension. Today I can truly call my children my friends even with all our ups and downs. My relationship with my husband too has become calmer and more balanced as I truly accept and appreciate him as he is knowing that we are all fallible.

In my forities I discover peace and serenity and joy over the small things before the big things. My early cup of coffee, my exercise, my readings and my faith. In my forties I make new hobbies, engage in healthy habits and learn new things. At my forties and for the first time in my life I put myself as a priority. It makes sense to me now why Allah had bestowed upon prophet Mohammed pbuh the gift of Islam when he was forty for this is the golden age of contentment and gratitude.

Yes I am grateful today for how far I’ve come. How much I’ve achieved mainly raising three amazing children and managing a home and a marriage. Today I can kick back and relax as I return to my readings and my self re-discovery. Would I want to go back in time and do things differently? Absolutely… there’s so much I could’ve done better. However we can only move forwards and in moving forwards I promise to improve, forgive and accept myself and where life and God have brought me. As life starts to slow down and become calmer at forty I fully accept and love the woman I’ve become.

That being said I would like to share a quote I loved and related to about being in your 40s it said “Life begins at 40, anything before that is just practice.” And practice it truly is!

In Honor Of Endings

Published on by ohlala80Leave a comment

life seems simple when we are young. We go to school, make friends, get good grades, go to college, get a job and then start our own families. When we are young we feel invincible, in control, full of aspirations. When we do graduate high school we expect to enter a good college, and then when we graduate college we are confident that a decent job awaits us. After securing that job we fall in love believing that that special someone will share the rest of their lives with us and we will live happily ever after. Those are the dreams we grow up believing in as no one teaches us otherwise. So after obtaining that degree and landing that dream job and after we tie the knot with that special someone and start our own families we develop a sense of security. Our positive outlook and young stamina only envisions success and consistency however, slowly and painfully life hits us hard and we learn the hard way that just as there were bright beginnings there are also painful endings. We start facing many challenges and difficulties in life that make us question our very existence and makes us redefine our dreams. What makes the notion of endings so hard is they happen just as we’ve become accustomed to the life we’ve built. We start to realize that in our naive notion of believing that success only leads to success and that a marriage is a union where only death does us part and that our families and friends and our jobs will be there for us forever that nothing in life is ever lasting. In our young naive minds where we felt we were in control, we started taking our partners, our families and our lives for granted never once questioning that they could slip away. We believed that the friends we’ve had since childhood will continue being our friends till adulthood, and that the job we secured for years is financially binding and that the spouse we spent our life with will always be there to support and comfort us. The harsh reality though is that there is no such thing as a lifetime guarantee. That even security doesn’t last and that the greatest regret we form is taking the friends, job or family around us for granted. How much we’ve changed and how much wiser and mature life has made us.

So this months entry is to honor endings. This is an entry to bring to the realization that nothing lasts forever. If we were raised to be prepared that just as things in our lives are beginning they do also end we would never take anything or anyone or any day in our life for granted. With the realization that there is no lifetime guarantee to anything not even health, marriage, jobs or life itself our outlook and approach to life and each other would be very different. We will be better and more understanding partners, we will be more grateful and honest employees and we would be much more patient parents. We will spend that extra hour with our families and we will put down our devices to play another round of hide and seek outdoors with our kids before they grow and head off to start their own beginnings. The little things in life like food on the table and a roof over our heads will become the big things. Our relationships and our communications will rise to another level and we will think twice before going to bed whilst in dispute with a loved one. We will make amends to old friends and we will cherish the new friends and we won’t skip our daily jog around the block. We will master enjoying the present moment cause we will finally realize that that’s the only guarantee we’ve got… the present.

So the next time you receive that job bonus aspire to how you could perform even better the next year to maintain that financial security and when you celebrate that 10th wedding anniversary don’t just go out to dinner, honor each other and think of how to renew your relationship and how to better serve each other in order to maintain a lasting union. When you’re struggling with a friend or a family member that you care about don’t just go to bed upset with them, come up with a resolution; studies have proven that a major indicator for a positive quality of life is the quality of your relationships with others. If we cherish and honor the relationships and achievements we have big and small including our own well-being, the more likely we will be able to face endings with honor rather than with regrets. We will have insured our lives and empowered ourselves by planning ahead in case of an ending. If we make the effort to control and repair the damages done today by vowing to do better and be better tomorrow the more secure our lives would be and the better equipped and the better insured we become mentally and emotionally when facing an ending. Life is extremely fickle and every day someone faces an ending to a job, a friendship, a relationship or life. Honoring endings gives us the insight of how to protect and maintain our personal security from the beginning. This is where self empowerment comes in and where independence, personal stability and self awareness forms. Honoring and preparing ourselves for endings just as we prepare our whole lives for beginnings should be something taught at school. Dealing with grief, dealing with loss, resolving conflicts and realizing downfalls should be made into a curriculum with a section on insurance and resilience. Learning shouldn’t just be about language, maths or science it should also be about life, and a big part of life is dealing with endings. This is something I learned the hard way and I hope to make it easier for my children. I hope we all finally realize how precious yet fickle life is and that contemplating its end seems almost inconceivable when in fact it is the very essence of life itself.