I Learned it from the Best

Parenting is a really important part of every child’s life. Not only because we rely on our parents 100% for food and shelter, but also because it lays the foundation for our futures. I want to share some things I learned in my psychology degree about how important parenting is in shaping kids’ lives, for better and for worse.

In my third year of psychology, I did a course on Psychopathology – the study of mental disorders. I found out that humans have an amazing capacity to cope. And boy, are we complicated! I also found out that one of the most important things with regards to mental illness is what happens to people in their early family life. On the one hand, if it is bad, it is one of the strongest contributors to mental illness. On the other hand, one of the best protective factors against mental illness is a supportive family. So what I want to talk to you about is the importance of a positive childhood. Because it is important.

As children, we look up to our parents. They are all powerful and all knowing. They tell us how to behave, and the difference between right and wrong. We turn to them when we need help. We copy their behavior, their coping mechanisms, and their attitudes. We define ourselves based on their feedback.

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Compassionate Relationship: Failed Sympathy

In the last chapter on tests in relationships, we talked about the risks of hidden apathy. Today, I will cover the risks of sympathy.

If you remember my example story, I was very, very sad when a contract I had been working on for about 3 years was suddenly stopped 2 month after it started. I was so excited and happy when it started that I was extremely sad when I was told the organization will not continue the project. To manage my feelings, I shared the story with people I have a relationship with. Lucky for me, most of my relationships were very supportive and I made sure not to share with those who were not.

Here are more examples of getting things wrong and failing the relationship test.

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Compassionate Relationship: Hidden Apathy

Here is an example of a relationship test at a level one – when one person is experiencing pain from an external source, which has nothing to do with the supporter/listener. Notice how easily things can go wrong and the relationship test can fail.

Last year, I was offered a position working within a team of people doing something that I absolutely loved. I had been working with them for over two years before that in an external capacity. We had been going back and forth for about a year, in discussions about me joining their team to write and implement a very special project. This whole time I was very happy and excited, waiting for the technical things to be sorted out so I could start the project. After two years of talking, it took a year to sign the contract and then I finally started writing the project. I was very hyped. But two month into the project, things changed in the organization. The person managing the project left and the wisest decision for me was to stop the project. I was soooooooooooooooooooooo disappointed. I was very sad and even cried. To manage the overwhelming challenge I was facing, I shared the story with other people, which put our relationships to the test. Lucky for me, most of my relationships were successful. While sharing my challenge with others, we both passed the test of support. But this is not always the case for every challenge. Here are some examples of relationships and how things can go wrong.

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Make a list: Inspiring Movies

I really love movies. I remember the first movie I ever watched on the big screen at the age of 11. My dad used to have a second job selling movie tickets in the small town we lived in. He could never let us in for free but he would make cones out of newspaper and give us free popcorn.

Movies have always been a source of inspiration for me. As an author, I see the stories I write unfold like movies in my head. I think an author is kind of like a director, only an author has to do all the aspects of production in their head.

I get a lot of inspiration for my writing from the people in my life. Lucky for me, my profession allows me to meet lots of them, which means I can mix and shuffle their stories to create new situations, scenarios, and outcome for my books. This is something I can do entirely in my head, and when everything is arranged just right, I write down on paper the story I saw in my mind.

People are also a great inspiration to me for how I want to live my life. I have made a point to learn something by observing the lives of the people around me. Each of them has something to share.

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Compassionate Relationship: Empathy, Sympathy and Compassion

Most people have conflicts in their relationships and fail to resolve them because they confuse between empathy, sympathy and compassion. This confusion can be caused by either person in the relationship. It can be a result of ineffective expectations or insufficient support. Regardless the reason, life, the ultimate examiner, would give a “Fail! Big time!” on this test.

Understanding the difference between the three is essential to passing the relationship test. Here is my version of the difference.

Empathy is when you notice and understand the other persons’ situation, experience, perspective or feelings. It does not mean you share their feelings, agree with them or have been asked to share your judgment, thoughts or ideas. It definitely does not mean you need to solve their problem.

The best way to proceed is to say, “I can see that you are very disappointed and upset”, or just be a sounding board and repeat back to them what they said, “So you are sad because he was rude to you. I can understand why”. Often times, people only want empathy. Someone to talk to that will understand their perspective and feelings. Empathy is a way to give support with your presence.

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Compassionate Relationship: The Relationship Tests

Our lives are full of relationships. Each of them is a test we need to pass in order to have a happy, healthy, successful and fulfilling life. Relationships are such an important element in our lives that we start the process even before we are born. We have 9 months of close, physical contact with our mom and through her, with our dad or her partner. The success of these early relationships will have a huge impact on our long term relationship with our parents – the most important test of our lives.

Life is full of tests because at every stage of our lives, we will have relationships with other people. It can be our families, our friends, colleagues, clients, people that provide us with a service or even people we meet for a short time whose name we may never know.

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Happy New Year: Best Beginning Quotes

The end of the year is fast approaching and with feelings of end, there are many feelings of hope. Because every end is a new beginning. At our house, we usually have a tradition of writing down our wishes, desires and goals for the new year, a list of requests to send to the universe. At the same time, we evaluate how much of the previous year’s requests the Genie of the lamp has granted us. Funnily enough, I discovered this year that my Genie has some time management issues. He has a bit of a delay. Sometimes I get my requests two or three years later. Luckily, I keep my requests from previous years and so I can see my Genie has granted my wishes, even if it was a bit later than I thought. Still, I am happy. I think I will add another request for my Genie to attend my time management course.

This year, I want to wish all my readers (and we had plenty of them) a wonderful 2013.

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Inspiration for Success: A Frog and a Parrot

When those around us do not support us, we can try to get rid of them. But sometimes they are the people we love, those who are close to us. If we got rid of all the people we feel do not give us love, cannot give us care, consideration, encouragement, motivation, hope, inspiration, kindness, empathy, compassion, or forgiveness, we would probably be a bit lonely. If they stay around us, we need to develop selective hearing. The best way for me to explain what I mean is through the story of the deaf frog.

Once upon a time, a group of small frogs decided to have a climbing competition. Their goal was to reach the top of a very tall tower. The frog community was very happy and excited. Many frogs gathered around the tower to watch the race and cheer the competitors on. The tower was so tall that no one in the crowed really believed the tiny frogs would reach the top of the tower. Throughout the competition, the crowd said things like: “The tower is too high”, “Oh, way too difficult”, “They will never make it to the top”, “There is no chance they will succeed”, and the tiny frogs began collapsing, one by one. At those who kept climbing the crowd continued to yell, “It is too difficult! No one will make it!”, “Just give up!”, “What needs to happen, for you to understand that you cannot make it?” and more and more tiny frogs got tired and gave up. But one continued to climb higher and higher. This one tiny frog refused to give up and kept on climbing. With a final big effort, he reached the top. When the winning frog came down, all of the other tiny frogs wanted to know how this one frog managed to do it. They asked him how he had found the strength to succeed and reach the goal. It turned out that the winning frog was deaf!

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Inspiration for Success: The Climb

Some goals are very hard to reach. That is why climbing is often used as an inspirational metaphor. Imagine yourself wanting to reach the top of a very high mountain. You know that it is going to be hard and maybe even long. You can prepare yourself for some of the paths you will need to take to reach the top of the mountain, but for others, you can’t.

In life coaching, we say that we can only work on the things we can prepare for. Why? Because “we do not know what we do not know” so we cannot prepare for it. We are not fortune tellers. Often we are able to think of a few challenges we might encounter on the road to wherever we are going, but we never know exactly what we will face. We cannot carry absolutely everything we might need for any possible unforeseen event.

Every mountain requires a climb. Sometimes the hill is steep and sometimes it is moderate. Some people have smaller legs and they need more steps, while others have giant legs and require less energy. Sometimes, you are physically strong, have lots of muscles and can run up the hill. Sometimes, you are a bit weaker and must rest every 2 meters. Regardless of your circumstances, climbing requires effort. The thing that determines if we make it to the top is whether we believe we can. Because as the saying goes, “if you believe you can or believe you can’t, you are right”.

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Be Yourself: Who Am I?

When my clients come to the Be Happy in LIFE program and I ask them, “What do you want?” they are confused by my question. They could easily tell what everyone else wants. Their wife, husband, mother, father, boss, children. But they do not really know what they want. Often times, all they want is for something someone else wants to stop. I tell my clients that when you don’t have a definition of who you are, it is easy for people to offer their definitions, regardless of whether they suit your or not. If you are confident in who you are, your self-concept will not change because of something someone says to you. For example, if a friend comes up to you and says, “You are not a good friend because you didn’t come to my wedding”, you might think to yourself that you did not come to the wedding because you were being a good son and your mum was in hospital. Your definition of yourself as a good friend would remain, despite your friends feeling. Conversely, if you do not have a good definition of yourself, you will probably accept it as “fact” that you are just not a very good friend, because your friend said so.

Every person has an image of perfection that they wish to achieve. It is an image of the perfect person, someone who is all knowing, smart, healthy, wealthy, loving and successful. There is no other person on earth who is exactly like you and has managed to find the perfect balance of all those things we want in life. Despite knowing this, we create an image of the perfect person by picking and choosing attributes form different people. Our perfect person is the miss universe beauty queen, who is a perfect mother, a great chef, a celebrity, with a PHD in something brainy, with bucket loads of money like the Queen of England and the spirit and dedication of Mother Teresa. Although I think it is good to be inspired by others, when we lose ourselves in the quest for this perfection, we chase our tails endlessly and never reach our final goal.

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