Assertiveness: Keeping Things Private

In order for us to be assertive, we need to create clear boundaries between us and other people. In the previous post about assertiveness, I explained that assertiveness is the ability to express our needs and desires without hurting others and that this skill is important, yet nobody learns it at school. In this post, I will describe the things we do (and should not do) that sacrifice our own best interest and let other people into our personal space.

In order to be assertive, we must understand that everyone is entitled to his or her own thoughts, beliefs and actions. At the same time, we do not have to accept them as applicable to us. We should always stick to the things that are important to us and take care of ourselves first.

This post is part 2 of 6 in the series Assertiveness

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Assertiveness: It is better to be Wise than to be Right

I believe in me with a man jumping for joy

What a shame! Assertiveness is not something we learn at school, so if you cannot learn it from your parents, because they never learned it from their own parents, then you can be easily manipulated and pushed over.

Everybody hates being pushed over. I see it as a natural part of life. We all do everything we can to improve our position, and if others are in our way, we push them aside. Sometimes, well, most times, we hurt people along the way without any bad intentions. Assertiveness can help us do better in life without hurting anyone.

Many of my clients mainly need assertiveness. When we do not have it and we cannot express our needs and assert our rights, we resort to either avoidance or aggression. It is the old “fight and flight” response. We see a lion or a snake and we either run away or attack. So when I see aggression or avoidance, I know that assertiveness is needed.

This post is part 1 of 6 in the series Assertiveness

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The Expectations Paradox: Mindfulness is the Cure

In the last two posts about the expectations paradox, I explained how expectations from others and ourselves can cause us lots of pain and why respect and acceptance are the keys to overcoming them. It is much better to be prepared for the future than to try to control a specific outcome. Today, I will describe how to develop respect and acceptance with mindfulness.

Mindfulness is a state of reflection with no judgment. This state is similar to mediation. We observe and do not let the ego interfere with our observation and tempt us to label and judge what we experience. In a mindfulness state, we do not give a rating to the event, thought or feeling. We only name it. In a higher state of mindfulness, even naming it is not necessary. We just notice.

I remember the first time I mediated. Gal and I were in California at a meditation course. Every week, we learned a different kind of meditation. We did walking, eating, light, mantra and visualizing meditations and we were very confused. Millions of thoughts ran through our minds and we had no control over them. When we got home, we went to sleep and felt overwhelmed.

This post is part 3 of 3 in the series The Expectations Paradox

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The Expectations Paradox: Self-inflicted Pain

In the last post about the paradox of expectations, I explained how unmet expectations can bring lots of misery to life when we do not understand them properly. Today, I will explore additional aspects of expectations and what happens to us when our expectations are not met.

Many people think that expectations are part of their identity. They expect so much of themselves that they believe this gives them the “right” to expect the same from others. I am sure that if you examine the definition of arrogance (“having or revealing an exaggerated sense of one’s own importance or abilities”), you will see someone who expects a lot from themselves and from others as arrogant. Thinking highly of yourself is great, but expecting others to fulfill your expectations is not!

Most people care a lot about what others think about them. They are in the approval trap and have the disease to please. It is very hard to be assertive and to take care of your own interests when you are busy pleasing others. It may be easier when you are young, but it becomes more complicated during the teenage years, when you realize that that some of the expectations of those around you contradict others.

More people find the pain we experience from unmet expectations unbearable. They think that life is hard when things do not happen the way they expect them to. But this is only because they believe life is supposed to work as they expect.

This post is part 2 of 3 in the series The Expectations Paradox

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The Expectations Paradox: Danger Ahead

From the minute I woke up, at the age of 16, and took control of my life, I had a good understanding of the power of expectations. At least this is what I thought for a long time. I thought that I switched from having low expectation to high expectations and believed that high expectations were the key to success in life.

I still think so, although I believe that it is important to distinguish between expectations from ourselves and expectations from others. Even more important is what we do when our expectations are not fulfilled.

Expectations can be a blessing or a curse and we can always determine what they were after the event. Subconsciously, when we succeed, we tend to consider our expectations as blessings, as a ladder that led us to victory. When we fail, we consider them false, frustrating and painful. In victories, we reward ourselves for having “motivating expectations”. In failures, we blame circumstances and/or people, and sometimes, we blame ourselves.

Expectations are a double-edged sword if we do not define them properly.

This post is part 1 of 3 in the series The Expectations Paradox

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My Personal Spring Cleaning of the Mind

My life changed when I was a teenager. I was in the middle of 10th Grade when the school counselor gave me a letter telling me that since I had too many failures in my report card, I would not be able to stay for 11th Grade.

There was nothing special about it. I counted the days to the end of the year, so I would not have to go to school anymore. I hated school with every cell of my body. I was looking forward to the end of it.

The change happened when there was a contradiction between what I wanted and how it felt. You see, I wanted to leave school at the end of 10th Grade anyway, but it just did not feel right.

This inner conflict was a very big quantum moment in my life. It made me wonder, “How was it possible to get what you want and still be unhappy about it?” It is a big question. Have you ever asked yourself this? I suggest you do!

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The Devastating Relationship between Expectations and Conflicts

Couple under signs in opposite directions saying "I am right" and "Me too"

Conflicts determine the quality of every relationship. Even the most loving couples, friends or family members face conflict in their life. It is because we are different people, with different life experiences, tendencies, desires, fears, challenges and upbringing.

Every moment in time, whether we have judged it as a negative, positive or neutral, has molded us into the people we are today. We can define ourselves as the accumulation of all those split-second moments of experience and how they have affected us.

It is important to remember that even twins, having the same genetic code, do not have the same path in life, because each of them was in a different place in their mother’s womb, was born at a different time, has a different name and reacts differently to the same experiences. As hard as it may be to accept, the chances that two people will go through the same experience and come out of it the same way is zero.

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Emotional Freedom: Let Go and Be FREE!

Barbed fence with plant growing outside it

I do not know about you, but once, whenever I thought about freedom, I thought of a prison. I imagined someone trapped in a closed place against his will. It was always a physical place, with bars and darkness, and just thinking of it upset me.

When I started studying how the brain works, my perception changed. I learned that there is another prison – a very secure place that is the hardest to escape. Most of us live in the prison of our own mind, in which we are limited by our way of thinking.

I remember the time that I experienced the loss of my child. I could feel how quickly I was building my own prison and how each thought was adding one more bar and one more lock around me. The hardest realization was that only I could set myself free.

No one in their normal mind wants to be trapped inside their mind. Yet, in some way or another, we all are. This is because we are not in our normal mind. Yes, me too. Do not take this too hard, but Buddhists think we are all delusional, trapped in the prison of our own ego.

Think about it: imprisonment is the absence of freedom. We only desire freedom when we feel that we do not have it. If you feel free, why would you search for freedom? This comparison between what we have and what we lack, followed by the bad feeling we have about it, is a prison in itself.

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Play Wizard Games to Strengthen the “Wanting Muscle”

In my kids’ assessments, I often need to discover what motivates the kids, so I play wizard games with them.

I believe that wanting is the essence of life. This is the battery that keeps us moving. I know that many parents tell their kids that life is not about what they want, when they really want to say that in life, we do not always get what we want. This is true, but I think they are making a mistake. Life is all about wanting.

Even in Buddhism, the intention or desire is what starts everything. Without it, we do nothing at all. We do not think, do not feel, do not do, do not move, do not connect and do not even search for happiness and good life. Without wanting, life has not meaning.

What do you want?

This is a simple question and your answer reveals a lot about you. I teach my clients to ask themselves this question from time to time and answer it.

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Addiction in the Family

Addiction a dependency on an object, a substance or an activity. As hard as it is to admit, we are all addicted in some way or another. If you want to know if you are addicted do something, take it out of your life for a week and watch your reaction.

People can be addicted to food, phone, TV, a person (like their spouse), work, coffee, alcohol, cigarettes, glue, sex, medication, gambling, drugs and more. I had a friend who was addicted to pain killers. She took them as if she was eating candy, and it became obvious she had an addiction because she could not cope without them and needed more and more of them over time.

It is very important to remember that every addiction we develop is an attempt to fill an emotional and/or physical “hole”. We want it to give us the feeling we are missing without it. This is as true when we talk about drugs as it is when we talk about food.

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