Let's Bust The Myth
Let’s bust the myth.
Being a coach, counsellor or therapist does not mean:
That you have all the answers.
That you can fix anything or anyone.
That your life is perfect and always together.
That you don’t experience bad days.
That you never doubt yourself or feel anxious or afraid.
We are human after all. We are not perfect nor in possession of magical powers.
Let me demonstrate this through sharing a personal story. I am living up to the Arabic meaning of my name after all, the female storyteller.
All the work I did in relation to mental and emotional well-being, provided me with insights into my childhood experiences and how they led me to have certain behavioural patterns as a result of those experiences. This is also often the case with most of us. The circumstances surrounding our childhood shape who we are as adults. The coping behavioural patterns we develop as a result were helpful then as children, however prove to be ineffective strategies when we are adults. One of the things I became aware of are the issues surrounding abandonment, feeling unloved and unaccepted as I am. It drove me to try hard to people please, to adopt a perfectionist attitude and to suppress my authentic emotions. Gaining that self-awareness was transformational on a personal as well as a professional level.
I quit working as a pharmacist after many years in the profession and retrained to become a coach and a counsellor.
In my existing professional role I do experience periods where I am busy with clients, inspired to write blogs and social media posts, interacting with other professionals in the field, and attending webinars and workshops as a form of continuing learning and education.
And there are also the periods when I am less busy, have fewer or no clients, feel uninspired, experience fewer interactions and sit in a kind of stagnation.
I noticed that those quieter periods make me feel uncomfortable, and I observed that I seem to fall back onto the old out-dated childhood strategies of trying too hard to be and do what I feel is expected of me, in order to escape this discomfort. This was mostly evident to me during the COVID lockdown years when the world felt like it came to a standstill.
“How interesting”, I thought to myself, on noticing my discomfort. “I wonder what is happening here?” I questioned myself.
So I decided to consciously take a different approach during those quiet periods. Instead of getting busy ‘doing’ I chose ‘being’, to instead sit quietly with that discomfort and discover its source. I remembered Dr Susan David’s famous quote, which I love,
“Discomfort is the price of admission to a meaningful life.”
- Susan David, psychologist, speaker and author.
It’s not surprising that I did gain some meaningful information through withstanding this discomfort. I discovered that the source of this discomfort was connected to my past abandonment issues and feeling unloved and unaccepted. The discomfort I experienced in those quiet periods was due to me connecting to my Inner Child’s old fear of being abandoned, forgotten and left behind.
That insightful moment was so helpful and healing. It meant that nowadays when I do experience quieter and less productive periods in my profession, I do not feel that uncomfortable anxiety anymore. I let myself be and trust the process. I embrace this time of quiet and enjoy the valuable reflections it brings me that ultimately are so helpful in the work I do with clients. I see them as periods of enrichment.
Being coaches, counsellors and therapists simply means that we have the knowledge about psychological models, and having experienced them during our own therapeutic and supervision sessions, we know their value in assisting others, as well as ourselves, to resolve emotional and mental issues. We know how to implement them to support others without judgement and with much empathy and compassion.
The solution to ease our suffering lies within us. In the same way I was able to support myself in easing my discomfort I support my clients in finding the answers within them to ease their own discomforts.
I am curious what other professionals in this field think?
Please share in the comments.
Do You Unknowingly Carry Unconscious Bias?
At the junior school that I attended in Lebanon there was a small kiosk where students could order something to eat during lunch break. Students could make their orders through a small window and were served by two ladies. There was no such thing as a queue system. The only way to purchase something during the break was to push your way through dozens of other students doing the same until you reached the front and then got the attention of one of the ladies and asked for what you needed, paid, got your change and then fought your way out again.
On one such occasion I fought my way in, bought myself a sandwich then fought my way back out, only to find out that the lady who served me gave me the wrong change. She gave me back too much money. I had more on me than when I started.
“Oh no!” I thought to myself, because I knew that annoyingly I was going to have to fight my way back in again to return the extra cash that did not belong to me. Those were the values that my grandma brought me up with. She taught me to never steal or keep something that does not belong to me.
So I went back, before I even ate my sandwich, fought my way back to the front of the window then tried to shout louder than the other kids to get the attention of the lady who served me. When I got her attention I handed her the money back and told her that she gave me too much by mistake. She was shocked! She literally stood there with her mouth open in disbelief. Not at making a mistake but at the fact that I, the black girl who has been experiencing racism and discrimination at school and, no good were ever expected of her, voluntarily returned what was not hers to keep. The lady finally thanked me quietly once she recovered.
Since that time and on every single occasion I fought my way to buy something from the kiosk, that lady would attend to my needs as soon as she saw my face emerge through the crowd of students, which was easy to spot as I was one of two black kids in the whole school. She would make a point of ignoring everyone’s screaming orders and look at me and ask me what I needed. It was her way of showing me appreciation for my action.
"Systems do not maintain themselves; even our lack of intervention is an act of maintenance. Every structure in every society is upheld by the active and passive assistance of other human beings.”
- Sonya Renee Taylor, author and activist
At the time I was struck by how my genuine behaviour caused a shift in this lady’s preconceived notion of black people. However now and with everything I have learnt over time about human behaviour and societal issues I realise what an unfair burden was put on that child that was me, to have felt that I needed to prove my worthiness as a black person by being a good little girl; that as a black person it is too risky for me to make mistakes. A similar message, that many black people experience in the US, UK and elsewhere. A message that was reinforced when I worked in the UK and was told by a well meaning line manager that as a black person I needed to work twice as hard as a white person to get the same recognition.
I hope this story makes you stop and think. Perhaps reflect on whether you unknowingly carry any unconscious biases and decide to confront those biases and change. One way to explore this is through working with a coach, counsellor or therapist.
To Let Go Of The Past, You Need To Stop Avoiding It.
I remember a particular period in my early thirties when I became a mother often revisiting and talking about unhappy aspects of my childhood.
On one occasion someone close to me said this:
“Why are you talking about the past? It’s done. Just move on.”
Sounds logical, right?
I hear that statement often from many people in both my personal and professional circles. They believe the same. “Why dredge up the past?” They say, “It’s done and dusted.”
Yet I consistently observe in those very people how their avoidance from learning about the past continues to determine their actions in the present.
It is true that the past is done. However simply closing the door on the unintegrated and unresolved past does not mean that it stops impacting your present. Not to mention the loss of access to valuable resources that the past often offers. As long as the past is left unresolved, it will continue to impact your present because the impact is unconscious. You are living in the past without realising it and are continuing to react to past events as if they were in the present.
“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”
- C.G. Jung, psychiatrist and psychoanalyst.
The past reappears every time:
You go into an inexplicable rage and direct it at someone in the present who ultimately is not responsible for the wrongs you have experienced in your past.
You are terrified from things that terrify no one else because your body is responding to danger messages carried from your past.
You sob uncontrollably for no valid reason because you are grieving for losses you had no opportunity to grieve for in your past.
You laugh in situations that are actually distressing because it is easier to discount their significance instead of acknowledging the pain they carry for you from your past.
Basically anytime when you find that your emotions and actions don’t fit the current situation. In that moment you have unconsciously time travelled to the past.
Moving on, as logical as it sounds, is not that simple. To move on you need to first look back and make peace with the past. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to do so.
I invite you to do the same. Take a fresh look at your past, integrate and resolve it, so you can finally stop it from charging or contaminating your present, and affecting your current actions and experiences. This is how you can let it go once and for all. The result is less time travel and more grounding in the present.
“Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, and today is a gift…that’s why they call it present.”
- Kung Fu Panda, animated movie.
By becoming aware of the past and gaining the ability to live with it, you transform yourself from an unaware victim of the past into an empowered individual in the present.
You don’t have to do this alone. You can get the support of a professional if need be, so you can begin to enjoy fully the gift of the present.
Are you ready to let your authentic self back in?
I grew up in an environment that conveyed the message to me that born as I was, I am not good enough.
As a result I worked hard to be, and do, what was expected of me in order to become good enough and accepted. Through that I was not being authentic. According to Gabor Maté, when we are faced with a choice between authenticity and attachment we will always choose attachment.
“We stray from being authentic to seeking acceptance. We let go of authenticity in order to stay connected.”
- Gabor Maté, Canadian physician & author
In time this lack of authenticity became exhausting and I no longer recognised who I was. I crashed.
I got some help in the form of coaching, counselling and trauma therapy. It was transformational and motivated me to study and qualify in the very psychological concepts that supported my change. The crash indirectly brought an ending to this inauthentic life and from the ashes emerged the authentic me. What looked like a negative experience lead to a positive outcome as I found my courage to re-connect with and bring to the world the real me.
Do you find yourself doing one or more of the following:
Trying hard to fit with others’ expectations of you?
Focusing on others’ needs and neglecting your own?
Hiding your true emotions under a mask that permanently says, “I am fine”?
Putting in enormous efforts to be the perfect person in every role you occupy in life?
Hurrying up through life to reach an end that always seems to elude you?
If you are, then like me once upon a time, you have lost touch with your authentic self.
Are you ready to open the gate and let your authentic self back in?
Let’s talk
Life Lessons From My Grandmother
When I was in primary school in Lebanon, an incident at school taught me some important life lessons.
During a writing assignment that we were instructed to carry out by our teacher, a classmate sitting next to me whispered something funny which got us both giggling. At that very moment the teacher looked up and witnessed our playful interaction. She singled me out and instructed me to come to the front of the class. Then she picked up a piece of chalk from the writing board and asked me, as punishment, to put it in my mouth. I looked at her incredulously and refused.
She became frustrated when despite her insistence I repeatedly refused to put the piece of chalk in my mouth. She then tried to force the piece of chalk into my mouth. I clenched my teeth and in the process the chalk slid across my clenched teeth and bruised my gum. I took the piece of chalk and flung it defiantly on the floor. At that moment the school bell rang signalling the end of the school day, so I collected my things and took the school bus home.
“We have absolutely no control over what happens to us in life but what we have paramount control over is how we respond to those events.”
- Viktor Frankl, Austrian psychiatrist
When I arrived home I told my Teita (Arabic for grandma) what happened at school. Teita was furious, not with me but with the teacher. She headed straight to the phone and called the deputy head and made a formal complaint. The deputy head was very apologetic and assured my grandma that she would look into the matter.
When I went to school the following day, the class teacher called me to the front of the class again, however this time, with a stony expression on her face, she apologised for what she had done the previous day. I nodded my head in acceptance and went back to my seat.
At the time I wasn’t able to make sense of my teacher’s behaviour. I felt hurt and confused by it. Various questions were going around in my mind. Why did she act so weird? How come she singled me out for punishment and not my classmate? Was she being discriminating? (I was the only black kid in class and one of two in the whole school), a concept I was too young to comprehend then.
As usual I took my pain and confusion to my Teita who always made me feel better. Teita helped me learn a few important life lessons from this event:
Someone’s behaviour says a lot about him or her and nothing about me.
To hold compassion: Even at that young age I was forgiving and remember feeling sorry for the teacher who I imagined was clearly going through some difficulties and made a big mistake. My Teita helped me separate the person from the behaviour. The teacher was a good person but her behaviour was bad.
To call it out: I am glad I told my Teita about the incident as in my childlike mind I could have easily assumed that I was in the wrong for being playful in the middle of a task. By taking appropriate action, Teita demonstrated to me that bad behaviour is not to be tolerated. We need to call it out and take action.
Lastly and most importantly, I have people on my team. No matter what I faced in life I had people like my Teita who reminded me that I am loved cared for and supported.
Teita’s wisdom helped me learn that the way we respond to what happened, and the meaning we make of what happened, leaves a bigger impact on our lives than what actually happened.
DECISIONS, FEAR & RAIN
We often make decisions based on an emotion.
Fear is an emotion that most often drives our decision making process. Fear signals danger and directs our mind to take an action that can hopefully get us back into safety.
However when intense fear is repeatedly experienced in the absence of real danger, then it is no longer serving to secure our survival. In these circumstances fear serves to make us feel trapped and ends up holding us back from living to our full potential.
Our emotion of fear is shaped by our personal history and can get contaminated by memories of past events. That’s why some of us fear things that for others hold no danger.
My personal history meant that I have experienced the rise and fall of fear most of my life. I often said no because I feared saying yes, and I said yes because I feared saying no. In time I have learnt to explore and befriend my fears so I can stop expending energy defending my life instead of living it; most importantly so I can make decisions from a calm instead of a reactive place. It seems that I am not alone as many of my clients have their own stories around fear and how it impacts their decision making.
So what can you do when fear, in the absence of real danger, seems to often hold you hostage and negatively impact your decision process?
“Quiet the mind and the soul will speak.”
- Ma Jaya Sati Bhagavati, spiritual teacher
I personally find Tara Brach’s RAIN meditation practice extremely helpful. RAIN is an acronym for: Recognise, Allow, Investigate, Nurture.
Recognise what is happening right in that moment and name it. What are you feeling exactly?
Allow those feelings and let them be without judgment. Don’t try to ignore them, criticise or get rid of them. On the contrary, let them be.
Investigate with a sense of curiosity and interest the sensory experience in your body. Where exactly in your body is this feeling? How is it being expressed inside of you? Ask yourself, “What am I believing is happening?” Sense if there is a core belief there. Do you perhaps feel unlovable or unworthy? How does this feel somatically in your body? Place your hand gently on whatever part of your body where you are feeling those difficult emotions. Ask yourself, “What does this vulnerable part of me need?”. Is it forgiveness, compassion, understanding, love or trust?
Nurture by intentionally offering whatever kindness is needed and is most going to serve you in that moment. Is it love, acceptance, understanding or belief in you? It can be something that you offer to yourself, or you can also imagine someone else offering it to you like a grandparent or a dear friend. Sense their presence and loving care. Communicate and offer what is being asked. Send a message that is simply helpful such as “thank you for trying to protect me but I am okay now” or “you are loved and safe now.”
Now take a moment and reflect on the situation. Notice what has shifted. What decision is now coming naturally to you? What have you learnt or discovered as a result of this practice?
It’s a simple mindful and self-compassionate practice yet very profound. As Tara says, the gift from practicing RAIN is that you start living from the truth of who you are rather than from your reactive self.
For more information you can check Tara Brach’s website: https://www.tarabrach.com/rain/
Or read her book Radical Acceptance.
The Secret To Happy Relationships
I have been preoccupied the past couple of weeks with the wedding of my daughter, who got married on the 4th of June. I took a break from all other activities in order to be fully present with her, close family members and friends, on this special occasion. We had a beautiful and joyful day. Luckily I had been practicing my ‘one leg’ dance (check previous posts) as we ended up performing it later that evening 😃.
In the run up to the wedding day my daughter asked me this question:
“What is the secret to a happy relationship?”
My answer without any hesitation was:
“The secret to a happy relationship with another, is to have a happy and healthy relationship with yourself first.”
I truly believe in the importance of having a healthy relationship with yourself before you can have a healthy relationship with others. I also believe that this applies not only to romantic relationships but all other relationships too. This is what my life experience has revealed to me and what I later learnt when I studied human behaviour and personality.
When you have a healthy relationship with yourself:
✔ You take responsibility for your own behaviours instead of carrying the blame for everyone else’s.
✔ You do not entertain the fantasy that you can fix everything and everyone, and recognise that you can only manage and bring about change in yourself. This in turn will most probably lead to changes in your environment.
✔ You will not always neglect yourself and put others’ needs above your own, and then feel resentful because they do not follow suit. Instead you will recognise that to give to others you need to give to yourself first.
✔ You will not say yes when you actually want to say no, then feel overwhelmed and have a sense of failure because ultimately you are unable to meet all those demands you have put on yourself.
✔ You will not feel constantly anxious, agitated and on shaky ground, due to self-doubt, and instead feel secure, confident and grounded with your sense of self-worth.
✔ You will speak to and treat yourself with the same kindness and compassion that you show others.
✔ Having a healthy relationship with yourself means that when you disagree with another you manage the situation with the ability to still show love, kindness and respect.
✔ When you have a healthy relationship with yourself you will know that you are good enough.
From this vantage point every other relationship you form, will be healthier and happier, and if it is not, then you will spot the signs early on, and have the awareness and self-worth to intervene early on, and take steps to exit a toxic relationship or set boundaries that protect you from harm.
“every time I meet more of myself
i can know and love more of you”
- Yung Pueblo, poet and philosopher
What do you think is the secret to healthy and happy relationships? Please share your insights in the comments.
What is the most important quality in a leader?
“Is being a leader a choice or a skill set?”
A question posed by Alastair James during the latest Purpose Collective conversation I attended. During the breakout room discussion that followed, someone mentioned how at school some of us were told that you could either be a leader or a follower. It occurred to me in that moment that, as a young person, I never saw myself as a leader because I was way too emotionally reactive and had zero self-confidence.
I grew up in an environment that discriminated against people who look like me. The rejection and the feeling of not belonging chipped at my sense of identity, and self-worth. I did not have the confidence to speak up or share my creative thoughts and ideas for fear of being ridiculed. In addition, my need to belong and feel accepted meant that my focus was on meeting the needs of others and neglecting my own. This environment did not offer me safety to be me or to make mistakes. I bottled up my emotions and tried hard to adapt to the expectations of others around me and in that process I temporarily lost myself.
“Sometimes, it is only in the getting lost that we can find our way back home.”
-Jeanette LeBlanc, speaker, coach & mentor
When you grow up in a challenging environment you instinctively develop patterns of thinking and behaving to survive that harsh environment. You carry those behaviours unconsciously into adulthood and they become part of your skill set and character traits. However what served you so well as a child can become an obstacle in your adult life. For example in my case, caring for others is great, however not so great when it is at the expense of neglecting my own self-care.
To be able to meet the needs of others I developed great powers of observation and an ability to read people and anticipate what they might do next. That ensured my safety and protection in the past. By being discriminated against and ‘othered' , I became someone who can empathise, show compassion and understanding towards people who have been viewed or treated as intrinsically different. Instead of being angry and bitter, I was curious about people’s behaviours including my own. In my curiosity I often asked myself the question “How” instead of “Why”. How do we become the way we are? How do we develop certain ways of thinking, feeling and behaving? What are the factors in our environment that influence this? More importantly, is it possible for people to change, if so, then how? The fact that I survived childhood traumas also demonstrates a degree of resilience and perseverance. I was not fully aware that those qualities were my signature strengths when it comes to leadership. As a coach I observe a similar lack of awareness in some of the clients I work with. I make sure that our work together re-connects them with those forgotten inner strengths.
Many years later when I started my career as a pharmacist, my hard work paid off and I got promoted. Promotion thrust me in leadership positions and my emotional and mental struggles made this role difficult. I inevitably made mistakes along the way, which, in some cases, deepened the wounds from childhood.
In my thirties I finally got the coaching and counselling I so needed and desired, and that brought about a wonderful transformation within me and outside of me. The counselling addressed a lot of the distorted decisions I made about myself and others as a result of childhood trauma, and that positively impacted my role as a leader.
✨ My self-esteem and confidence grew.
✨ I became more responsive instead of being reactive.
✨ The care I gave to my emotional and mental well-being meant, that as a leader, I am also able to convey to members of the team this same important message.
✨ It meant caring for others without neglecting my own self-care.
✨ It meant being open and curious about what I can learn when mistakes are made, instead of being hard and unforgiving of myself.
✨ It meant having the ability to be honest without being hurtful, to listen to feedback without feeling shame and rejection, and to create a safe environment where we can all enjoy together the journey of learning and discovery.
Most importantly I found my voice and dared to speak up and share my thoughts and ideas especially on the subject of emotional and mental health. My vulnerability became my strength. We can’t shine bright without acknowledging that we all do have a dark side that is in need of change.
“I raise up my voice-not so I can shout but so that those without a voice can be heard...we cannot succeed when half of us are held back.”
―Malala Yousafzai, an activist for female education and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate
Taking care of my mental and emotional health was a game changer for me on the personal and professional front. Nowadays I find myself again in a leadership role in my work with ACCESS, alongside my coaching practice, at The Hague International Centre, where I lead a team of amazing, talented and skilled individuals, navigating their own personal challenges as well as supporting internationals to have a smooth transition into the Netherlands. We work well together as a team despite our cultural, religious, gender, and age differences. Perhaps that is what makes us so suited at providing a service to a similar diverse audience.
I think that we always have a choice when it comes to leadership. We can choose what kind of leader we want to be and, with that in mind, take the necessary steps to acquire the skills needed to be that leader.
I believe that there is a leader in every one of us. We are influencing someone somewhere all of the time. This is not the case only at work but at home too. As a parent you are the shining example for your kids. What you say and do will form a big part of their life values. Therefore we all have the responsibility to personally develop ourselves so we become a healthy example to be followed. This may mean doing the work necessary to heal our wounds, understand how the past has impacted our personality and behaviour and learn the tools necessary to grow ourselves up again into leaders that can demonstrate the qualities that Alastair shared with us: care, courage, curiosity, collaboration, candour and consistency. To lead effectively it is paramount that you first take care of your emotional and mental health so you are leading through responding to the current reality and not to wounds and triggers from your past.
To lead when thrust in a leadership position might not be a conscious choice but how to lead is!
The Benefits Of Failure
Photo credits: Hicham Boumediane | @hicham_boumediane
Those of you who know me will know that my youngest daughter is a fairly high level athlete. As her mother I have witnessed closely her journey from the start to where she is now. She is hoping to make it to the Olympics. She might… and then again she might not.
I observe on a regular basis the benefits she gains from the many perceived failures and disappointments she encounters. She learns something valuable with every single run and competition that fails to meet the desired targets. I witness that her positive approach to setbacks is what has got her so far in her athletics career. There is a lot to be learnt from children and young people.
To be able to support her I read a lot about the subject of success and failure, of winning and losing, and on fear, which depending on how we manage it, can motivate us or paralyse us. I can tell you that fear of failure has played a big part in my life and in the lives of many clients that I have worked with.
I happen to be reading now a book by Dr. Pippa Grange, a renowned psychologist, called Fear Less.
Dr Grange says that there are many myths surrounding our concept of failure and success: the main one being that losing turns you into a loser. She believes that this is wrong.
She goes on to say this about failure:
“Really you shouldn’t see failure as part of you, but just as giving you a puzzle to solve. Yet that’s not the message most of us absorb. We let failure leave behind a smear on our character, rather than simply being an indicator of our performance on a given day. And that makes us reluctant to show imperfection or vulnerability, in case it’s mistaken for weakness. The truth? Losing is for winners. “
And I say that failures are the path to success.
I agree with Dr Grange that it is not how we fail or lose that matters but our attitude towards it.
How do you handle failure?
My grandmother taught me early on how best to manage my failures. When I came home to her crying and disappointed at failing an exam, she would lovingly comfort me and then ask me a very important question: where do you think you went wrong Rawia? What can you learn from this experience that you can take with you to the next one?
Your willingness to examine closely the failure, see where you went wrong, where you can improve, reassess, re-think and then move forward with this added information is key. If we do this then failing becomes a valuable lesson because it allows us to learn and simply provides us with information about the areas where we need more growth and development. Failing might feel uncomfortable but by perceiving it differently we can reap the benefits.
Dr Grange goes on to say that the best attitude to failure is the one that willingly invites it.
So how do you willingly invite failure in your personal and professional life?
How about by daring to step out of your comfort zone and do the things you so much desire to do but some old fear or limiting belief has been holding you back. I still remember how terrified I was the day I walked into the chamber of commerce in 2012 to register my coaching practice.
What if I fail? What if I am not good enough? I felt the fear and did it anyway.
I confess that I have made mistakes and have failed many times on my journey. I am human after all. However through it all I have learnt to face my fears, fully identify them, name them and check which ones are truly mine, and which ones I have inherited from parents and carers and the environment. This has allowed me to do some growing up, and let go of limiting beliefs and decisions around those fears. The result is that I fear less as Dr Grange entitles her book. My failures have been extremely beneficial.
Fear of failure can explain a plethora of human behaviours. It can explain why many avoid public speaking roles and why members of an organisation hesitate to engage in a new scheme or procedure. As a team manager and a coach my experiential understanding of this fear helped me to be more supportive of members in my team and my clients who happen to have a similar experience. I was better equipped to guide them to a place where they felt encouraged to take a chance.
I encourage you to explore your fears and beliefs around failure on your own or with the support of a coach or counsellor. Dare to step out of your comfort zone and do the things that you find most challenging in your personal life or your business. And let go of the idea of being perfect. Perfectionism is boring. Instead look forward to making mistakes and failing because that is where the most growth and learning occurs. At some point you will succeed. Ultimately in life we win some and lose some. I certainly have not reached the end of the road yet. However I am enjoying every minute of the journey.
My journey to becoming a coach and a counsellor has given me so much more than I had anticipated. It has allowed me to experience the joy of finding myself, expanded my human experience, broadened my frame of reference, and increased my compassion and connection to others. It allowed me to transform pain into power, and poison into medicine as someone in my network once told me. I am very excited about sharing all of this knowledge and experience with others through my work.
As the saying goes “ it’s better to try and fail than fail to try”. Life is so much richer that way. My daughter’s attitude to setbacks constantly reminds me that we live and we learn. She is always a winner in my eyes whether she makes it to the Olympics or not.
Survival Tips Through Conversations With My daughters
I have a close relationship with my daughters and in this challenging time we make up for this lengthy physical separation through regular group video calls. We have open conversations about what is happening in the world and how it is impacting our personal lives in our various locations. We give each other support and encouragement when one of us feels down. They are a continuous source of inspiration for me as I witness them navigating their lives during this crisis. In my role as a parent, I do what I can to support them drawing from my own life experience and from what I have learnt about human behaviour and change.
My eldest daughter, a science journalist, has been reporting on daily coronavirus news since the pandemic hit Europe in March 2020. While you and I can choose to take time out from the news of the pandemic, she as a reporter ends up facing these scary realities on a regular basis. She was the one who guided us through the sensible yet difficult decision not to meet at Christmas as originally planned. I was so moved by her sense of community and global responsibility in doing the right thing. Under the circumstances, she of course is working from home, away from the physical support of fellow colleagues and mentors.
On the other hand, my youngest was one of the students who did final university exams during the pandemic. Shortly before her graduation, the UK plunged into the March 2020 lockdown. The reality certainly did not meet her expectations of how her bachelors’ degree would come to an end. There was no graduation party or a celebratory conclusion to three years of hard work as is customary. Instead, we had an intimate celebration at home in our garden. Like many in her shoes, she is applying for jobs in an environment that she had not imagined in her wildest dreams. For people like her, staying positive and motivated can sometimes be a struggle. Here you are, armed with your degree, your fresh talents and skills, and your dreams but with nowhere to go. Frustrating! As she is also an elite athlete with a realistic possibility of going to the Olympics, the cancellation in 2020 was a blow. Now she and her fellow athletes are training hard for 2021, which could also face cancellation.
“We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope.”
– Martin Luther King, Baptist Minister & Activist.
How does one stay motivated in such an environment of uncertainty?
These are the tips that we collectively came up with during the many conversations that keep us motivated and lift our spirits up:
When job applications do not lead anywhere then keep your thoughts realistic and avoid making hasty decisions about your personal capabilities. Realise that the world is facing an economic crisis that has a huge influence on recruitment and employment. The rejection does not define you. How you respond to the rejection and the lessons you choose to take from it can help shape you.
“Problems are not stop signs, they are guidelines.”
– Robert Schuller, Author & Motivational Speaker.
Having a purpose is important in staying motivated so set yourself some weekly tasks to help you structure your week and avoid being purposeless. Getting up at a regular time in the day and getting dressed for the work you are planning to do can help with that structure.
“He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.”
– Friedrich Nietzsche, Philosopher
Think skills and do some online workshops that teach you something new and different. It can also be something unrelated to your studies like learning how to code, a writing course, or painting, all good for your mental and emotional wellbeing.
Stay connected with your peers so you realise that you are not alone. Sharing is caring and also a problem aired is a problem shared. This also allows you to offload to each other, exchange tips and ideas, and cheer each other up.
Plan in some time out and away from your stressful daily job, where you can take walks in nature and disconnect from what is happening in the world for a short while. Choose to do this in your lunch break, especially in the winter months when the light is at its best at midday. Find some quiet, sit in stillness and breathe. Press the pause button on your problems. Everyone deserves a break. This can help to recharge and energise you.
Start a journal, in which, you can write about your experiences and reflections. Difficult times teach us valuable life lessons that are important to record. Your thoughts and reflections might be an inspiration and motivation for others and you can look back one day and remind yourself of your strength and the challenges you have overcome.
Last but not least remember that nothing is permanent and this time too shall pass.
“Sooner or later, every last echo fades. Even the loudest thunder in the deepest valley.”
– Brian K. Vaughan, Comic Book & Television Writer.
Physical Lockdown Need Not Be Emotional Lockdown
“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” -Viktor E. Frankl, neurologist, psychiatrist & a Holocaust survivor
When I started my learning journey in Transactional Analysis a couple of years ago, as participants in those workshops we were encouraged to take part in a ritual. We started and ended each learning day with a “Check-in” and “Check-out”. This, it turned out, is a practice to teach us to pause and look inward, checking in on how we are really feeling at any given moment in time. We were then given the chance to “name” how we are feeling and process those feelings in a safe and supportive environment. Naturally some participants found it easier than others to engage in this practice. In the beginning I used to dislike this ritual. I viewed it as unnecessary and a waste of learning time. However in time, like the others, I learnt to appreciate and understand its value and importance.
How are you feeling?
When was the last time you asked someone this question and meant it? Or vice versa, when were you asked the same question from someone who genuinely wanted to know how you really felt and actively wanted to listen to your answer? The reality is that most of us engage in a meaningless ritual where we ask the question “How are you?” and expect the standard answer of “I’m fine.” We interact and look at each other, but sadly, we rarely take the time to see the person within the person.
The lockdown is forcing many of us to slow down. Maybe that is not such a bad thing. Perhaps you can use this unexpected available time to pause and look inward. “Check in” on how you are feeling during this unprecedented time. Direct your focus for a while to your inner world instead of the external world and gather some very important information that you might have been missing previously. Check on your emotions, thoughts and feelings. You might then choose to name that feeling and share it with the other members of your household. You might choose to have an honest exchange about how you are each feeling at the moment. Even if you happen to be in lockdown on your own, the internet means that you can still reach out to a family member, a friend, a neighbour or anyone who might be in a vulnerable position and check on how they are feeling right now. Physical distancing does not necessarily mean social distancing as, thankfully, technology provides many possibilities that allow us to connect with others. You still have the possibility to reach out to others, especially if you know that they are alone and in need of support at this difficult time. Reach out, not only to talk, but also to listen without judgement and give each other the time and the compassion that you might not have bestowed on each other when life was fast and furious. Use this physical lockdown in order to free yourself from emotional lockdown.
“Everybody has a home team: It’s the people you call when you get a flat tyre or when something terrible happens. It’s the people who, near or far, know everything that’s wrong with you and love you anyways. These are your people, your middle-of-the-night, no-matter-what people.”
― Shauna Niequist, an author and a blogger.
Why is it important for us to pay attention to how we feel? Why is it important to understand those feelings and feel comfortable in expressing them? More importantly, how many of us give ourselves permission to actually feel, let alone name those feelings? Instead, we distract ourselves from addressing our emotions and processing our feelings.
“Emotional sickness is avoiding reality at any cost. Emotional health is facing reality at any cost”. – M. Scott Peck, psychiatrist and best-selling author.
Research has shown that emotions affect many aspects of our being. Emotions have an influence on our attention, memory and learning; our decision making process; our relationships; our health and our creativity. The evidence around us is plentiful. So imagine what you stand to lose if you ignore your emotions and deny them room to be expressed.
“All learning has an emotional base.” – Plato, Greek philosopher
The truth is that many people struggle with expressing their emotions or finding “feeling words”. A contributing factor could be the way we were brought up and the culture and society we were raised in. Sometimes the reasons relate back to traumatic life experiences that led us to shut down and protect ourselves from further hurt and pain. However keeping our emotions under lock and key can lead to the loss and impairment of all of the life skills that I listed above.
Psychologically speaking there are four main emotions: Joy, Sadness, Fear and Anger. In some families and cultures, certain emotions are allowed and encouraged while others are frowned upon and discouraged. Sometimes this can be gender specific, “boys don’t cry” or “girls should be nice”. Certain phrases allude to the prohibition of certain emotions: “Stiff upper lip”, “tough it out”, “Get over it”, “Don’t be so sensitive”, “Time to move on”, “Cry baby”, “don’t be so aggressive”, “Scaredy-cat” and so on. Therefore your life experience could mean that you end up finding it easy to express some emotions and difficult to express others.
I grew up in a family and culture where expressing fear and sadness was acceptable and plentiful. However when it came to joy and anger the permissions to feel those emotions were different. Do you recall as a child how sometimes you can laugh your self-silly? I remember comments from grown ups shushing us laughing children with superstitious phrases that suggested doom scenarios if we laugh too much. Perhaps it was an attempt to bring order and reduce noise but hearing such comments repeatedly can certainly impact one’s freedom to express joy. Anger was another emotion that was frowned upon in the environment where I grew up. It was viewed as negative, aggressive and certainly unbecoming of a woman. Thankfully with everything that I have learnt and experienced in my adult years I now know that all emotions are important and okay to be expressed within a certain healthy framework. I am now able to express joy without reservation and I am still working on expressing healthy anger, the kind that sets boundaries and protects one from abuse. How were things for you growing up? Were you lucky enough to grow up in an environment that taught you early on the power of facing into, rather than avoiding, difficult emotions? Take a moment to reflect.
“Emotional agility is a process that allows you to be in the moment, changing or maintaining your behaviours so that you can live in ways that align with your intentions and values. The process isn’t about ignoring difficult emotions and thoughts. It’s about holding those emotions and thoughts loosely, facing them courageously and compassionately, and then moving past them to make big things happen in your life.”– Susan David, Instructor in Psychology at Harvard University.
Professor Marc Brackett, founder of the Yale Centre for Emotional Intelligence, said, after years of research in this area, that feelings are a source of information and they report what is happening within us in response to the internal and external events we are experiencing. He stresses the importance of being able to - or learning to- access that information and interpret what it’s telling us. This global crisis that we are experiencing right now must be bringing up very strong emotions for many of us and with the absence of the external distractions we are no longer able to avoid these emotions. I invite you instead to face them, name them, be curious about the information that they carry about the things you care about and be creative about how you can find ways to process those emotions and stay grounded.
Yes we are in physical lockdown but we need not be in emotional lockdown. Stop standing guard at the door to your emotions and give yourself permission to feel. Below is a list of resources in case you want to explore this topic further. You have now the time to make a change.
Emotional Agility by Susan David
Permission to Feel by Professor Marc Brackett
When Panic Attacks by Dr David Burn