Are you well-fed or hungry? – Master Yourself
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How to prevent rules from ruining your relationships – Part 1
Without rules, we’d perhaps live in a world that is filled with chaos. Rules are important. It is important to understand that my freedom ends where your nose begins. Since this isn’t very easily accepted, we have rules in place to help all of us co-exist in this world. However, there is some such thing as too many rules. There are caveats when we think of using rules in our homes and in relationships. Let’s explore what they are.
In relationships, rules shouldn’t be used to exercise power or authority over people. Rules can be used to create a common ground for understanding and to facilitate co-existence without causing mutual harm. Usually, rules are created with the same purpose in mind. But we don’t realize when we lose sight of the purpose and start pursuing them as if it is our dictatorial regime. Predominantly, this happens when the ego steps into the game. Then it becomes my rules versus you! Or, against you!
Often between a parent and a young child, or an adult and their parent, or a dominant spouse, rules leave little or no breathing space. Mind you, they are all with the right intentions. However, actions may be quite out of the line. It causes fear, feeling of rejection, helplessness, loss of freedom, and bitterness in the relationship, to name a few.
Too many rules take away the freedom – and with that the will!
So, how would you ascertain whether your rules are enabling and empowering or disabling and stifling? Here’s a checklist to consider…
- What happens if the rules are broken? How badly you react shows how ineffective or distasteful the process is.
- Instead of educating, if you are dictating, then the purpose is defeated. You will get compliance only so long as you are insisting. If you go out of the frame, the scene might look entirely different for the others in the game.
- How do people perceive you with regard to your rules? Do they see you as someone who is understanding and upholding everyone’s respect and space or do they see you as a direct descendant of Hitler and find it difficult to deal with you?
- How much do you have to insist on compliance? Do they readily happen or do you literally have to remind them every single time?
- Are most of the conversations centered around rules being followed and not followed? (More instructions?) Or, do you tend to have congenial conversations? Dialogues where both parties exchange pleasant conversations about life above and beyond reminding each other of rules.
- Most importantly, how do you feel? Do you feel like Hercules carrying the entire burden of the house? Or, are you relaxed and stress-free as you go about your day?
Rules are necessary and important to bring order to the house. But they are not above individuals. Rules are for humans. Humans aren’t meant to be ruled. If you remember this much of a distinction before you insist on adherence, you’d do really well for yourself and others too. If rules are affecting an individual’s sense of existence and their sense of self is being threatened, or if their acceptance is based on whether they follow the rules or not, that definitely isn’t a great strategy. It is bad enough that we use fear in every other sphere of life. To live at our own homes too with the same sense of fear is a questionable choice. What do you think?
In Part-2 of this blog, we’ll explore more about how to have rules that are ecological and win-win. And how to overcome resistance and gain acceptance. So, stay tuned. 🙂 And thank you for stopping by!
To evaluate something, this is the quality you need to possess
And that is RESPECT for that thing or that person.
You can’t evaluate anything that you don’t respect. Because then you aren’t evaluating, you are being biased already.
Whether you are evaluating yourself, someone else, movies, situations, or anything for that matter, if you don’t have respect as the top-most value, then it is best to refrain from evaluating. Since you are evaluating to judge, not to understand, and your judgment may be detrimental.
Respect the process, respect the background, respect that there’s a lot that would have gone into creating what you see in front of you now.
You also have to understand that your evaluation has the capacity to break someone. And hence, be mindful never to do that. If you are evaluation isn’t helping, then it is of no use really.
When I used to watch movies in the past, I used to judge actors based on looks, on the movie based on acting and simply come to a judgment saying – “How can someone make such a bad movie.”
When I look back at all those today, I am aghast! How could I have made such harsh judgments? No one decides to make a bad movie. They put in a ton of efforts to make a great movie. But it didn’t turn out that way for various reasons – like lack of idea, understanding, skill, finances or other such things. By being so vain in judging them, I have made no better use of my own life either! How could I comment on someone’s looks? Would it be okay if someone did that to me or someone I love? Just because someone is a public personality, doesn’t mean we have the right to talk rubbish about them and pass off our entire internal poison on them through our judgments. This has been a huge learning for me – that respecting anything is most important before I set out to evaluate.
And as I say this, I am also aware that in the process, I shouldn’t be harsh on myself. I have observed that I did that. And I understand that I can do better. So, being harmfully critical isn’t going to make me do any better. How can someone do better when they feel bitter. So take care of yourself. Understand that anything you have done was out of ignorance. Now that you know better, choose better. Likewise, empower others too. No one wakes up deciding to be terrible. We all wake up wanting to be wonderful. Let’s help each other be that!
4 important questions to ask yourself
Part I – Important questions to ask yourself
- What’s your biggest fear?
- What’s your most important need that drives you ?
- What makes you connect with people?
- What makes you disconnect from people?
Part II – Follow up questions to the above:
- What if your biggest fear came true – what will happen 6 months, 1 year, 5 years from then?
- What happens if that need is not met? What can you do about it for yourself?
- What do you do that shows that you value them? Do they see it and feel it too?
- What if you were forced to stay connected with them? What do you need to develop within yourself so that you can remain happy despite of how they are?
What quality of relationships do you maintain the most?
Celebrating illness? Strangely so!
We take sickness more seriously than health.
We take death more seriously than life.
Such is the irony of our lives.
We don’t bother greeting a healthy person in front of us but we’d be busy sympathizing and giving attention to a person who is ill. We may not have spoken to that person until that time. But suddenly when we hear they are ill, we gather all the time from our ‘busy schedule’ to go and mark our attendance with that ill/dying person.
On birthdays, we leave a message through some form of social media or messaging systems and wish people. Phone call is reserved for a few. Why did we message and not call? We never gave it much of a thought. One day you get to know the person is no more. Would you regret not having called and spoken to them?
If someone is unwell, we will be sure to ask them how’s the pain or how’s the illness? With the best of intentions, we accidentally shift their attention to something not okay.
When someone is unwell we’d be sure to keep asking them about that illness or ailment each time we see them. Even if they forget they were ill, we will keep reminding them. We prove that if you want attention, the sure-shot way to get it, is by falling ill! We celebrate and give attention to illness! If someone is healthy, we only say ‘hi’ and walk past. That’s not a reason enough to pause and talk about good things. Only illness gets that extra attention, that extra greeting, that extra question, and that extra concern. I m guilty of this too. I recall visiting a friend when she was unwell. But I never went to her house all the zillion times she invited me over to have a cup of tea. I am not saying don’t visit when they are unwell. Please do, if you think it helps and doesn’t cause a disturbance. Show them you care and show them you are there – but don’t completely ignore them when they are healthy and happy. Spend more time celebrating health than fearing illness. If we spare that time while the person is hale and hearty, we give them an extra boost to be even more happy and healthy.
We make time to travel to cities and continents to visit people when they are no longer In a condition to talk. How happy would they have been if we went while they were still in a position to engage with us. Alas, we make time when they are no longer conscious of our arrival nor departure!
What a shame that we have to wait for death to celebrate life! That we realize something only when we are about to lose it or already lost it!
Rather than make people feel lonely when they are alive and missed only when they are gone, how about spending time with people who matter while they are still conscious. So that they know they matter to us. Our immediate family might matter the most. However, it doesn’t end there. There are others who matter too. If we realize in time, we can make time for them too. So no one waits to know they are loved. And no one dies to know they are missed. They live knowing they are loved.
Why do we dramatise our lives…
Why do you think these days we have an increasing need to dramatize our life and the problems and post them like heroic stories on social media?
Is it the need to establish ourselves as heroes? Or is it the need to gain attention?
Why do we have this need to establish ourselves as heroes?
Is it to feel good about ourselves? To reassure our egos that we are doing well?
What if we don’t dramatize the problems? What difference would it make to our lives?
What if we don’t try to grab every opportunity (or problem) to project ourselves as over-rated heroes of our own stories?
Do we need to inflate ourselves to that degree to get through life?
Just wondering how did our parents get through without the over dramatization and without these heroic projections?
They remained grounded I suppose. That meant, the highs and lows of life could touch them – but not break them – since they never thought it made them into some super hero as well.
While we, on the other hand, make huge things of ourselves, so we get caught up in every problem that comes up and want to either play the dramatized victim or the emphasised hero. We try really hard to project someone else as the villain or try even harder to project ourselves as the heroes. And we place ourselves in a rather fragile bubble of greatness. So, anyone who comes close to challenging our heroism or heroic deed is a sinner to be banned and banished from our lives. Else, there’s this perennial fear that they might break us.
In the past, without all these extreme projections, people got along with each other despite issues. Now, in spite of all good things, we can’t seem to stand each other, because each story can have only one hero – the megastar – and we can’t dream of sharing that space with anyone else – hence, we have to make villains of the rest – so we can make the hero of ourselves or someone who we absolutely love. This is not to say that we should stop appreciating ourselves or our beloved ones. By all means we should, but without dramatizing and blowing things out of proportions. If we absolutely love ourselves or someone close to us – can we still continue loving the rest of the world? Or will that excess love towards one person stop us from connecting with the rest of them, or even worse, hate them from not being similar?
And that’s the flip side of making ourselves or our loved ones heroes – we are unable to appreciate others. We feel if we appreciate someone else, we may not be considered good enough. So, we stick to appreciating ourselves. We don’t want to be inspired and appreciative of all the others since we are THE HEROES according to us. Like the old story of the lion and the hunter – unless the lion learns to tell it’s story, the stories will always glorify the hunters.
The other flip side is – we are tending to be super secretive – and act as if we are burdened by the world’s biggest problems that we can’t openly talk about. You’ll find a quite a few this way – who keep walking with pumpkin faces, and you ask them, “What’s wrong?” And they reply rather glumly, “Nothing!” (With an expression that shows “EVERYTHING is wrong!”). And they add on to say, “I don’t want to talk about it!” Why be so secretive? Because the stories aren’t that big, we realise. Rather than tell the story to others and let them realise how trivial are the things that we are holding on, we want to be secretive and make people assume we have these big monstrous, unthinkable, unimaginable and un-talk-able problems that we are having to dealing with.
Are we by any chance thinking that dramatizing our stories and sharing them will inspire others to get through their life stories too? Well, if you see, the actual real heroes have never really publicised their trials or spoken big about themselves. They were humble and grateful. They tell a story without making themselves as the big hero – and more importantly, without making any person or any situation the big villain too. They talk about everything with a great sense of neutrality . No extreme love or hatred to anyone or anything . Those are the ones that actually inspire us. The dramatized stories might only teach people how to inflate their egos momentarily, if at all, and not much else.
Or are we generally addicted to dramas because that’s what gains popularity in reality shows, movies, tele-series? What is it about dramas that attracts us to that degree? Yes, we face rejections, we face failure, we face loss, we face isolation and so on. But that’s true of any life – not just you and me but humans in general. Life’s purpose is about moving ahead and finding our learnings.
Instead of living in pretentious bubbles of greatness, how about living in solid houses of reality & gratitude? Bubbles are fragile. We run the risk of it being broken and hence, we tend to be more guarded. We spend half our time trying to protect it. Or, because it is fragile, anyone can break it easily so we tend to get angry, upset or frustrated with people for breaking our bubbles.
I am sure our grandfathers had a lot tougher times than us. They had to walk for kilometres to get to a school. Our grandmothers had to really struggle to cook food. Nothing was easy for them. Compared to that.- a vast majority of our lives are a lot easier than those of our ancestors, thanks to technology and thanks to evolution. Rather than being grateful for our blessings, we choose to make heroic stunts out of everyday challengesand make ourselves look like ‘larger than life’ figures. It’s time to move towards gratitude without complaining or gloating about how we got here. We can’t be counting our problems and talking of ’sacrifices’! Everything we did, we chose to do! Either because doing it was important for us or the other person was important to us or we were ridden by fear. After doing it, we can’t now call them sacrifices. They are all choices. And there’s nothing wrong with being normal human beings. We don’t all have to be heroes and victims. Stuff happens in life and we learn to move on. That’s just how life works. No life is lesser or more. We need to choose between being a melodramatic hero versus a regular, happy individual who is capable of spreading happiness to others around too. We don’t need to keep proving ourselves to some make-believe human measures. We don’t need to move mountains to contribute to the world we live in. Just smile and make the day lighter for ourselves and others, and consider that a day well-spent.
Narmada Rao
Psychologist, NLP Trainer & Author
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRMxBbuAtDk-uQTND11gs3g
https://www.facebook.com/Masteryourselfacademy/
My project – a human! Result – destruction!
I made a happy one an unhappy one!
I made a childlike bud a withered one!
I gave rules instead of wings,
Instilled fears instead of confidence,
What did I do you ask?
I tried to make perfect, a natural one!
I kept correcting innocence,
I kept controlling humour,
I kept chaining freedom,
I kept preaching wisdom,
All in the name of life’s preparation!
What happened?
I destroyed it!
The bud never bloomed.
The smile faded.
Fears crept in.
I crippled it!
Now I look at the fearful, crippled, sad one and wonder what did I do wrong?
What should I have done?
Too late, it says! Now the damage is already done!
I sit with myself feeling despair and distraught knowing that nothing that I said or did can ever be unsaid or undone!
It took so much destruction for me realise that it’s better to let them make their own mistakes and learn rather than make them too afraid to even attempt one.
I could have instead just appreciated, gently nudged and silently supported them in building one by one.
Now I stand in ruins where an entire building could have easily been done!
Are we silent in places where we should speak?
Are we screaming in places where we should be respectful?
Are we tolerating where we could have done something?
Are we frightening where we could have inspired?
Are we laughing where we should have been sensitive?
Are we setting boundaries where we could have set free?
Are we claiming freedom where we should have been responsible?
Are we abusing where we could have been assertive?
Are we blaming where we could have taken responsibility?
Are we thankless when we should have been grateful?
Are we lying where we should have been honest?
Are we judging where we should have understood?
Are we avoiding when we should have been there?
Are we jealous when we should have celebrated?
Are we closing doors when we could have left them open?
Are we doubting our dreams when we should have been following them?
Are we saying “we can’t” where we could have at least tried?
Are we spreading anger in the name of love?
Are we lashing out unable to leash the beast within?
Are we living in the past to avoid the present?
Are we choosing to be asleep for the fear of waking up?
Are we pretending helplessness for the sake of attention?
Are we saying “me too”, to avoid voicing our own thoughts?
Are we shooting from others’ shoulders to shy away from consequences?
Are we trying to rebel unable to come to terms with the chaos within?
Are we saying “we are after all humans” when we could each be a wonderful human?
This isn’t what we wanted to be! This isn’t what we were meant to be either!
Dare to be different! Or care to be different?
It's All About Us! 