Family Matters

Human beings are formed united with the universe, unaware of dangers, evils or even simple discomforts. Then, the warm water is gone, there is a bright light, a blend of strong sounds, pulling and shaking. This is the beginning of realizing we may need to protect ourselves from what is outside of us, i.e. the rest of the world.

It is not that the world is necessarily bad, but there is a chance parts of it might be bad for us. It is not that we are uncomfortable all the time, but in-between comforts, we learn to fill our time with concerns about when the next pain or problem might hit us and what it might be.

So we find ourselves in a familiar enough situation – waiting in line at the bank, driving on the road, entering a busy car park or going to the doctor – and our protective mind kicks in and starts to imagine the worst case scenario.

In the life-long search for personal development and growth, we try to find support for our actions, beliefs and attitudes towards life. Many people think we form our beliefs based on what happens to us, but it is important to realize just how much the things that happen to us are influenced by our beliefs.

Most people think that what they believe is set in concrete and is beyond their ability to change. Humans always have explanations for why they think the way they do. Whether it is genetic inheritance or a result of something that has happened to them in the past, it is there and untouchable. A fact of life.

I always say to my clients, “If you have only happy, joyful, loving, understanding, accepting, forgiving, kind and healthy beliefs, I would not change them if I were you. Then, the idea of them being unchangeable is great, but if you are not happy about something, it means you hold a belief that is causing this and it is better to change it than to keep it”.

In any personal development program, there comes a time when the coach asks the client to answer this question. If you have ever been seriously sick or had a chance to meet someone who had to answer this question for real, you know it is one of the biggest and most important questions in life.

Of course, I do not wish you to ever have to plan your last year for real, but playing with it in your mind may just do that thing it does to those who must do it in real life. However, this question is important for most people as a way of gaining perspective.

About 90% of people live life without direction, purpose or drive. They live life based on what they must/should/have to do or what others might think of them and feel disempowered to take the responsibility over their own life. The reason they do it is because their parents did just the same and their grandparents and great-grandparents before them. By living like this, they are neglecting to update the things that are important to them.

Every frustration, failure or problem is an indication of such neglect to update our priorities. For example, in all my parenting workshops, parents claim the most important things they want for their kids are happiness, health and love, yet most of them spend most of their energy on fighting with their kids over homework, manners and housework.

Being efficient is every parent’s dream. Time is a limited resource and the faster we do things, the more time we have left to spend with our kids. So when I meet “the girls” for an evening out, we always talk about household stuff and share ideas.

Making dinner is one particular task that takes lots of energy. I have heard many parents saying they come home at the end of a working day and start making dinner. As you know, if you do not buy fresh meat just before you cook it, you may need to take it out of the freezer and wait for it to thaw or spend valuable time to defrost it in the microwave or in tons of running water.

Last month, I visited my sisters and nephews. One of my sisters is in her late 30’s and the other is in her early 40’s and both became moms just last year. For years, they had lived on their own and managed a household perfectly, but when their babies arrived, they started dedicating most of their time to their “bundle of joy” and managing their house became a challenge.

Although it seem like a gradual progression from living on your own to living with a partner and then living with kids, the shift from managing a house as a couple to managing a house with kids is huge and can shake the most organized people just as it happened to my sisters.

As a parent, you probably remember yourself saying, “I don’t have a spare second to do the basic things anymore”. My younger sister was happy simply because I was with her baby so she could take a shower in the middle of the day. “Sometimes, I don’t have time to eat”, she said.

I visited my parents and discovered the house where they had raised 4 kids was now too small for only 2 people, because it was full of boxes, blankets, appliances and clothes that could dress a whole battalion.

When I opened the fridge, I was shocked. In the packed mess of boxes and jars, only my mom knew what was in the depths of her fridge. They are only 2 people, but they still buy and cook for 7. You see, my parents’ house was so full of things they had been collecting and holding on to for years, those things did not allow anything new to enter their life anymore. They had blocked themselves.

As we approach the end of the year and it is time to have the “closing ceremony” and review what we have achieved, I found out during my visit that there was a neglected section in this whole New Year celebration and that was creating space for the New Year to enter.

Time is a precious thing. Everybody knows that. Although we have had 24 hours every day all our life, it feels like every year we have less of it and the days get shorter, doesn’t it?

It may be hard to accept, but all the people in the world have the same 24 hours each day. Some of them just use it better. People who manage their time well have better control over their life. It is safe to say that people who use their time better are more successful at what they do or at least they feel that way.

If you ever tell yourself “I do not have time” or “When I will have the time, I will…” or “I wish I had more hours in my day”, this post is for you. Unfortunately, people are not born with time management skills, but fortunately, they can develop them.

Kids are not born with organizing and planning skills and do not automatically adopt them, even if their parents are planning junkies. They need to be taught how to be organized gradually, as their mental abilities develop.

My 20-year-old daughter Eden is so organized she managed to work full time in a very demanding job, study psychology full time and get 100% and 99% on two of her university assignments. If Tsoof had to do what she did, he would not have a chance.

But…

At the age of 13, Eden could not plan ahead very well, much like most of the kids and teens I work with.

Just last term, during the school break, I discussed with my busy son Tsoof how to prepare for his last term of school. Because he is a busy kid who performs and rehearses during school hours, he misses many hours and even whole days of school.

The reason I talked to him about it was that the previous term had been too hectic and there had been mornings when he had gotten up and lacked his usual spark about going to school “Yay, today I have…” He had been nearly exhausted, so I hoped that preparing for his last term would make it easier on him.

Rules were meant to bring us some confidence in life. People without rules live life as if they have a very short memory span, let’s say 10 minutes, so they cannot make sense of what has happened to them in the past and they cannot predict what might happen to them in the future. If you ask me, this is a scary place to be. Rules form a useful survival mechanism. We do not need to bang our heads against the wall over and over again in order to re-discover it hurts, right?

Rules are limiting if they do not put order in your life and do not give you certainty and stability. Successful people are those who adopt good rules of success and stick to them. If you are looking for success in your life, in any area that is interesting for you, remember that your successful rules of living are the blueprint of that success.

In our time, pressure seems to be everywhere. There is a wealth of information like never before, which means we could find out about anything we wanted, only this takes time, so we look for “drip feeds” that will give us up-to-the-minute updates and we assume our sources do a reasonable job at finding and telling things as they are.

Reality is a bit different, unfortunately. Most of our information feeds are controlled by a fairly small group of huge profit-driven conglomerates, which make their money by selling. To sell well, they need people to “see red”, so they inspire fear via TV news broadcasts, bold newspaper headlines and various other methods.

The result of this is the general view that violent crime is everywhere, that different people cannot live together in harmony and that all too often, the only way to sort things out is to wage war on another ethnic group or country, even at the cost of “friendly” life.

So what can you do?