Some Background Colors

The colours of life are always unpredictable. Likewise, our emotions are. I am not an artist, but I know that a mixture of black will make a colour darker, and the more you put it, the more the fade effect would happen. The original colour will be finished and dissolved into the black one.
So along similar lines, we behave, think, and feel. Some of you might get information that their deadline for doing some task is near or their deadline for meeting some threshold is near. Some of you experience your attention level fluctuating under some stress, or if there is some uncertainty in the environment and if you listen to some susceptible news! So all of this is backgrounds that dim your original life, and resultantly your initial thoughts, emotions and behaviours fluctuate.
For a background to work, it is essential that it :
it is relevant at that moment
it is the most important among all other backgrounds
by all means, you are affected by it
most of the time, we are aware of its influence
it will not last longer or until the colour effect changes
or the next competent background comes in


Whatever it is, when we are under its effect, our emotions, language, behaviour, everything is changed. Then the people interacting with us will get the wrong signals from us as we are under some toxic influence of our background. Or the other way around.
We are different by all means when we are happy; we feel good, behave, and react differently. The environment we live in is also perceived differently. We know the effect, and we have no control over it.
You cannot change your background, and so the effect as well. But you can limit its impact if you are aware of its source. You can try some interventions to feel as congruent and as authentic as possible. For instance, you can use shifting attention, displacement, diverting attention, and other tricks to ease your symptoms. You can work on it or wait for it to fade away naturally. The choice is yours. If you decide to work on it, it will not cause you much harm. In this work, remember to recognize it at the first stage. Then try to use strategies to lower the effect if it is negative.
For the motivators and initiators, a pleasant background is always a catalyst for their actions. They can try to have a scaffolding effect which means when they know they are in the good background, they can use it for their benefit. They can be involved in their goals for longer and more productively if they use that background sensibly. You only need to be aware of that. It is that simple.
The background is your body of emotions, that give strength to your emotions. The background will define who you are in terms of your feelings. The gap between behaviour and thoughts is due to the unknown effect of backgrounds (contexts). When we are conscious of our backgrounds, we can better deal with our emotions and behaviours. The mediation effect of backgrounds should always be addressed and discovered for the benefit of our survival and effective physiological and psychological health. Keep going and keep trying; one day, you will be a master of it. And the day will come when you will define your background and work on it, eventually leading to your choiced emotions, behaviours and life as a whole.

Keeping a balance between mind and body while focusing on the goal leads to success:

Courtesy to Google images

Today was the Fun Sports Day in St Mary’s Primary School, Bathgate. My son was also participating and having fun with his friends. It was a sunny day with light wind. I was not sure what I was going to observe and learn about that specific event. I thought I would just pass time and then come back with blank mind. After all the sports level was quite basic. There could hardly be anything to learn from.

Then I started watching little kids running and trying to win enthusiastically and with great passion. I can see real fun on their faces and more fun on the parents of those kids. It was not as boring as I thought I would be.

The main thing was that they all were of the same age in one group and belonged to almost similar cultures. They were having almost similar nurturing environments, learning facilities, and parental involvement. They had no specific instructions on how to win. They all seemed fully engaged with the idea of winning and having fun. I meant to say that despite having similar developmental levels and almost equal learning opportunities, one or two of them stood apart out of the group of around 20 to 25 and won the race.

I observed that the children who won had some similar traits, for instance:

They all were very much focused

They all were maintaining a balance between their brains and body movements

They all seemed very much attentive to their tasks

They all were maintaining a normal pace neither fast nor slow

They won irrespective of their body shape and energy level as some of them were fat

I also noticed that the children who were left behind the winners were sharing some traits too, for instance

Some were fun-seeking

Some were highly enthusiastic

Some were overly anxious

Some were too relaxed

Some seemed uninterested

Some looked depressed

Some were overly conscious

So what do we learn from it. In life, we all try to maintain a balance between our mental states and bodily actions. We get instructions from our brains to complete the tasks as effectively as possible. We all want to reach our goals without losing the balance! At every stage of life, we compare ourselves with people who are similar to us in some capacity. When we see others going fast, we try hard to win. Meanwhile, when we see others leaving behind, we try harder to get better than those who are ahead of us. And the race continues.

In fact, life is not a race. We don’t have to win to compete with others rather we have to win to reach our full potential. When we reach our full potential, it does not matter whether we won or not. So we should try our best and use each and every possible means to find our dreams. We should enjoy the process as well. The goal should not be to win and leave others behind; rather win while utilizing our full potential and improve ourselves to achieve what we want.

Should we accept abuse in exchange for our emotion, energy, and time!

Suppose you are going to market and want to buy a thing of the best quality. Fortunately, you find it with the lowest price available for you. Would you like to buy it if you can afford a much more priced item with the same quality? I think you will compare and if the quality is in your mind and money is no problem for you then you will go for the second one-not the first one or if you are concerned about money too then you will go for the first choice. This is very much relative to your choice and need.

People are just like this. You have a price tag on your face and people purchase your time, emotion, and energy for that price. You get something in return for the price you pay for that. Unfortunately, your marketing strategy decides what you will sell and what you will gain. If you only sell your energy, emotions, and time and want some money in return- you will get it. If you sell your money for the energy, time, and emotion of someone besides you – you will get that. So it is all based on an exchange between two persons.

The more cunning, clever, abusive, and humiliating you are, the more you are likely to get your fellows’ time, energy, and emotion in exchange for your time/or any trivial thing only. The other person might get it wrong due to your wrong price tag. S/he may think that s/he will get some love, care, and sympathy from you in exchange for your time, energy, and emotion. However, the price tag on your face was fake!

Such an abusive person is only interested in your drainage of energy, emotions, and lifetime and in return he was not able to give you a single penny of anything. This is what abusive persons do in this world. It takes a lifetime for some people to understand that they are in an abusive relationship. They keep their price as low as possible while perceiving that the other person will do the same whereas the other person will always demand more and more till the highest level you could afford. This is the best marketing strategy to be rich, controlling master, and powerful.

If you are wise enough and know all these tricks you will set your price at the highest and will not tolerate any fake-priced person. You can exchange your time, energy, and emotion with someone else’s emotion, energy and time. Or you could exchange anything you like with anything you don’t have and would like to have. It is that simple. People do exchanges and know that their achieved benefits are worth spending. They enjoy the bargain and keep on doing their business with profit and loss from time to time. Usually, friends follow such policies and they are great markets indeed.

There is another kind of person in this world whose price tag is ‘free’. They are available to all humans – bad or good equally. However, they do not give their time, energy, and emotion to anyone and receive love, care, and sympathy from almost all the world. They know that their time, emotion, and energy are priceless and they cannot afford to lose these special products even in exchange for all world. They keep these jewels secret and well taken care of. People again may get it wrong and strive for these things from such people in exchange for pennies or any worldly thing however some do not deserve and some are not fit for those. The exchange never happens. Such people are God-gifted and well-lived. I wish I were among those.

when it is a matter of my well-being and health!

I prefer being a decision maker, financial supporter, independent, decisive, assertive and elegant over being a tolerant, obedient, selfless, passive, empathetic, compromising, hospitable, and relationship-oriented.

To Daughters of Pakistan

When we talk about the background, we talk about any persistent belief that is strong enough to dictate our behaviour, to affect our emotions and to change our perceptions about the way we react to the information. Such environmental stimuli could cause many physical or emotional changes in our psychological or physical lives. Among these factors or beliefs, one is the ‘COVID-19’. People are taking it seriously enough to apply all precautions on their lives. Mainly they are staying at home, shopping for basic necessities, resisting going out to see friends and family, just postponing all parties and picnics; are using hand sanitizers often, wearing masks on faces, and keeping the social distance at all times. People have changed their view of the world around them and that is ultimately changing their behaviour in return. All this is happening consciously or unconsciously; however, it is powerful enough to pave the way to follow the guidelines given by their health officials or governments. This is the reality of life. 

Similarly in our traditional domestic life, we, being girls follow some beliefs collectively that ultimately design our lives, dictate us a certain type of behaviour and similarly guide us that we cannot resist. Among these beliefs, one is the ‘rukhsati’. Rukhsati dictates our parents to up-bring their daughters under the influence of their destiny (rukhsati). It helps people to understand the status of women in our society; it helps us to feel like we are having a different status from our siblings (brothers), and it sets our pathways accordingly. We lose our confidence in decision making, we leave striving for a powerful career, we think about marriage stuff as our ultimate reality, we miss our parents while being with them, we make our minds ready to sacrifice for our parents, for our husbands and then for our sons. Not only we accept such thoughts for ourselves rather we donate them to our daughters proudly and happily. We simply ignore reality as we are the most satisfying souls in the world. This is not true sadly. 

We deserve something more than we get from our parents. We need unconditional love from them; we need real support from people around us, and we need social security to protect us in times of need. We need real care and equal rights from our partners when we are in a relationship; we need equal help as men retain from our family and parents, and we do not need to sacrifice for anyone! We can dream big, we can earn respect like men too, we can hold decisions too to follow, we can run a house too to support the family and we can live a fulfilling life too with dignity, respect, success and challenges. We are not physical things to keep us inside the home or to protect us from others; rather we can enjoy outside life too with courage, determination and power- just like men! Our destiny should feel proud of us rather we cry under the umbrella of destiny! 

Again it is important to note that we cannot change our behaviour unless we change our thoughts, beliefs, perceptions, and even emotions. We need to change how we think first. And this is called ‘background’ information. This unconscious belief system could determine a new ‘us’ if triggered with new beliefs, thoughts and emotions. Then the behaviours will take place. In the end, the traditions will die, cultures will revive and new values will take place. The incredible change will not take place suddenly; however, the first step is always a little ‘nod’ that something somewhere went wrong in our lives for which we are still paying the price. This little uncomfortable feeling will change the world at last!  

Traditions or Abuse in Disguise!

god-or-karma-what-to-believe-in-1090x613

From centuries people have been learning about relationships and experiencing all kinds of abuse in their day to day life whether personally experiencing or through knowing about others’ stories. There are many kinds of abuse-child abuse, old age abuse and female-child abuse with various types: emotional abuse, physical abuse, financial and mental abuse. People usually low in power in any aspect face such kinds of abuse. Like a land load owner will threaten his workers of hunger and tortures them; a brutal husband would threaten his wife for being not so obedient and caring due to having super control over her life given by the society and law; a rude demanding sexual person could humiliate any child of his choice due to his greedy, inhuman and frustrating emotions and animal instincts. The abuser finds pleasure in his abuse as he wants to control his victim as per his wish and desire. There is no way to convince him or her that they are being wrong with their victims and they are not going to listen to you in normal circumstances.

            When I talk about female child abuse in Pakistan, people give me a shut-up call that all of this is shit as they respect their traditions, culture and values. They firmly believe in their traditions whether they are so valuable or not. Just like the people of some regions in Africa where people fed young girls unhygienically and over load them to make them beautiful! It is just like those people who let their daughters to have sex with someone special to clean them before marriage (e.g. in some regions of Africa) and they don’t realize that it could be dangerous to their health as well. Female genital mutilation is also an example of so called cultural thing that is against the universal human rights. People do not follow the guidelines of the scientific research going on in the world; rather for most of the time, due to their vulnerability and extreme poverty they are totally helpless in finding another solution to their problems. Usually under pressurized cultures, weak gender that is women is always a target. In many societies of the world where female child abuse is very common; it is also the fact that they are extremely poor and malnourished societies of the world.

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In Pakistan, people are not always so much poor to decide about their daughters; however they are still maintaining their deeply rooted traditions – I don’t know why! Girls are subject to leave their parents’ home forever after marriage and boys are thought to keep with their parents, perhaps to take care of them in the old age. Girls are not given any skill to earn their living as they are thought as husbands responsibility. They have to ask for the money from husband from time to time, day  by day, monthly or whenever they feel it is the best time to ask. The husband has got an authority over them – he decides what a wife should do for him, what a wife needs, what a wife should eat, what a wife should live like and what she should not do forever! The divorce is not an easy task from both sides: society pressure and law. Moreover, they are not welcome in their parental home after divorce. So girls have to bear it all while remaining in silence. The destiny for them is that husband should be nice otherwise you are as unlucky as a person who is sentenced to death!

How can we discriminate between men and women on the basis of gender?

Courtesy to Google Images

 

Gender roles have been described as society’s shared beliefs that apply to individuals on the basis of their socially identified sex. Stereotypes can be conceptualized as the descriptive aspects of gender roles, as they depict the attributes that an individual ascribes to a group of people. Agency is often cited as the defining characteristic of the male stereotype, and communality as the defining characteristic of the female stereotype Whereas men are thought to be more agentic (i.e., independent, assertive, decisive), women are thought to be more communal (i.e., unselfish, friendly, concerned with others). Values (Halstead & Reiss, 2003) as, “ the principles and fundamental convictions which act as general guides to behavior, enduring beliefs about what is worthwhile; ideals for which one strives; broad standards by which particular beliefs and actions are judged to be good, right, desirable or worthy of respect”. Taken together the concepts of gender roles, stereotypes, and values, we can synthesise the concept of gender stereotypes, especially in Muslim, Latin American, and Black African societies, as being the product of religious and cultural patterns often are transferred from one generation to another through values and beliefs which underlie attitudes, behaviors, and norms

 

PAKISTAN was placed at 148thout of 149 countries in gender inequality index, as per the World Economic Forum report, 2018. Gender role discrimination is quite evident in the pictorial form of textbooks assigned to primary schools in Pakistan in which women are seen as helpers to men while doing various house hold chores, field works, or supporting their men while working at home (Agha, Syed, & Mirani, 2018). The main thing is that they are not doing something out of their will and desire rather give service to the men in their family. ALSO, a wide gap in general mobility between genders where women are half as mobile as men has been observed by the researchers (Adeel & Zhang, 2017). Additionally a severe gender disparity has been observed in children enrolment rates that are not significantly related to household income which implies that overall boys are preferred for higher education than girls irrespective of the economic status of parents (Quayes & Ramsey, 2015). In the same context, women are not generally encouraged to pursue a career, and their income related needs are hardly met by their own efforts ( Shah, & Baporikar, 2013).

 

Pakistan is a country where we celebrate sorrow feelings (like the custom of rukhsati in marriages), pains, and sufferings of the other vulnerable people. Pakistan is a country where we enjoy taking part in others helplessness, selflessness, and dependency. We provide opportunities to feel embarrassed (by teasing them physically in supermarkets), we provide sentiments to feel shame, to feel guilty and to feel harassed. Pakistan is a country where we love to kiss someone even at the cost of her dignity, willingness and approval. We are basically pathetic minded people and we don’t react upon others emotions appropriately- a kind of schizophrenic or in other words mentally sick people!

Usually, parents show the way to their kids and tell them, say

         Don’t don it, it is not appropriate to your sex

          Girls should stay at home

Boys should play with boys

Girls should know how to do house chores

Boys should look strong and resilient

Girls should help their mother in the kitchen

Boys don’t need to learn knitting or sewing

Boys don’t shout

Girls should behave nicely

Boys don’t play with dolls

Girls don’t play outside

Girls don’t complain

daughters are guest in their parental home

and much more alike

It is so simple! when something is not appropriate due to gender identity – it is not appropriate actually. Our way to analyse it should be appropriate. We should tell our kids a different reason to do something or not to do something. We should not focus on gender in any way.

When we see the broad picture, societal pressures, parental attitudes, religious themes, and overall cultural settings combine to depict the sorry picture of gender discrimination in the society of Pakistan. It is not one single person’s fault, or duty to bring a change. It is each one of us if we are live, and if we can think, we are liable for thinking so. We need to be punished for thinking so- when we go for it by choice!

I request the parents of our society to deal with your kids fairly and equally. You are not allowed to discriminate among them on the basis of their sex except choosing color blue for boys and pink for girls. You can still choose various outfits to identify your daughter and son distinctively; you can still choose a haircut for girls and another for boys; however you should not go beyond it. Gender discrimination is not harmful in any way– but according to UNO guidelines of human rights it will become harmful when it will limit them from gaining personal abilities, restrict them from pursuing professional careers, limits the access of equality education and health, prevents them from making choices about their lives, results in violation of human rights, restricts them from enjoying fundamental freedom of movement with peace and security, and when these discriminatory beliefs underlie sorrow and grief in day to day family life.

Freedom, independence, powerful acts of decision making, free mobility, and strong ego could also be the ornaments of the women, as well as men. Women can exert their true will and make choices based on their own desire rather than to the sake of the family, culture, honor or any other fake idea or belief. In other words, women can decide what they want to do in their life, till how long they want to stay with their parents, when they want to get married, to whom they want to get married, to whom they want to get married a second or third time. In total, they can decide about their life freely and without having any social pressure in an ideal situation.

Traditions and customs should not be practised on someone’s freedom and right to live fairly. When you say, someone, to be quiet on having pain, to be patient and do sacrifice, you are not follower/preserver of a tradition (nice women sacrifice for their family), you are not making her a true legend; rather you are a perpetrator and exercising a devil. In other words, you are making their life miserable and torturous- that is a crime in itself.  

For the women who usually feel guilty, and miserable, it is not easy to make them understand that they need to change their reaction from feeling guilty to feeling aggressive, annoyed on the apparent mis justification and mistreatment. Though it is unlikely that we change our mindset in an hour or so; however, we need to speak, think and reflect until neurons in our brains start working on such communicatory pathways and take information at the conscious level to act physically. This is the first step and it is the most crucial one in certain cultures like PAKISTAN.

Harmful gender stereotypes, rigid constructions of femininity and masculinity and stereotyped gender roles are a root cause of gender-based violence against women and put them at risk for various kinds of psychological and mental disorders like anxiety, depression, and stress. To eliminate gender-based violence against women, it would be crucial to transforming discriminatory gender norms and stereotypes into fair and equity-based traditions and norms that promote non-violent, respectful and equal gender relations between men, women.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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References

Rhoodie, Eschel, M. (1989). Discrimination against women a global survey of the economic, educational, social, and political status of women. North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc.

Mirza, I., & Jenkins, R. (2004). Risk factors, prevalence, and treatment of anxiety and depressive disorders in Pakistan: Systematic review. British Medical Journal, 328(7443), 794. https://www.bmj.com/content/328/7443/794.full

Khan, M. M., & Reza, H. (2010). Gender differences in nonfatal suicidal behavior in Pakistan: Significance of sociocultural factors. Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, 28(1), 62–68. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1943-278X.1998.tb00626.x

Ali, N. S., Azam, I. S., Ali, B. S., Tabbusum, G., Moin, S. S. (2012). Frequency and associated factors for anxiety and depression in pregnant women: A hospital-based cross-sectional study. The Scientific World Journal, 2012. https://www.hindawi.com/journals/tswj/2012/653098/abs/

Khan K.S., Rafique G., Bawani S.A.A., Hasan F., Haroon A. (2015). Social and Societal Context of Women’s Mental Health, What Women Want, What They Get: Gap Analysis in Pakistan of Mental Health Services, Polices and Research. In: Khanlou N., Pilkington F. (eds) Women’s Mental Health. Advances in Mental Health and Addiction. Springer, Cham

Agha, N., Syed, G. K., Mirani, D.A. (2018). Women’s Studies International Forum. 66. Pp. 17-24. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wsif.2017.11.009

Quayes, S., & Ramsey, R. D. (2015). Gender disparity in education enrolment in pakistan. Asian Economic and Financial Review, 5(3), 407-417. Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/1678797188?accountid=14116

Halstead, J Mark & Reiss, Michael J. (2003). Values in sex education. London and N.Y. : Routledge Falmer.

Shah, I. A., & Baporikar, N. (2013). Gender Discrimination: Who is Responsible? Evidence from Pakistan. Women’s Studies, 42(1), 78–95. https://doi.org/10.1080/00497878.2013.736284

Tazeen S. Ali, Gunilla Krantz, Raisa Gul, Nargis Asad, Eva Johansson & Ingrid Mogren (2011) Gender roles and their influence on life prospects for women in urban Karachi, Pak0istan: a qualitative study, Global Health Action, 4:1,DOI: 10.3402/gha.v4i0.7448

Pakistan second worst in gender equality: WEF. (2018, December 19). United News of India (UNI) [New Delhi, India]. Retrieved from http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A566261610/STND?u=ustrath&sid=STND&xid=e61f3084

Eagly,A.H.(2009). The his and hers of prosocial behavior: An examination of the social psychology of gender. American Psychologist, 64(8), 644-658. 

http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.64.8.644

Eagly, A. H., & Mladinic, A. (1989). Gender Stereotypes and Attitudes Toward Women and Men. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 15(4), 543–558. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167289154008

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thoughts That Matter!

When you are going out for a walk or for any trivial thing, what is usually in your mind? Very simple, you think about things to do next or things going on in your life at that moment. Sometimes, some kind of information is so strong that you even cant focus on your present talk- this time the information hidden in your brain is stronger than all other confounding factors. Let’s say you have been told that you are going to be a millionaire- should you see the world around you in the same light or very differently. Definitely very differently. Your all vision to see the world including trees, flowers, grasses, landscapes, seaside, buildings, roads or even a look on your own close family members will be changed for that moment! And what next- you will smile and react on the information with great gestures. You might be very pleasing, happy and satisfied in the coming few days at least! You will be under the influence of this informational background until you get some other unconscious thoughts to interrupt this one. Then you will be again under the effect of that specific thought. And the circle of unconscious tutorship will never end until you die!

This is a very powerful technique if we utilize it in our learning paradigm. We must encourage our kids to learn more and more not because of the motivation of getting some rewards or not having punishment incentives rather because in the mind there is something powerful to guide them in the way they should. It could be a thought that you have to do it for the sake of your dignity, respect and honour; or it could be a thought that challenging kids are always winners or leaders, or it could be a belief that you have to prove that you can do it by tomorrow. It might not be suitable to the young pupil; however, it will be must strategy for the teenagers. For the young pupil, there should be something to achieve practically- other than an abstract concept. They should be given a title to prove themselves what they should look like. They would happily imitate that personality/model in real life. Moreover, it should be unique to maintain the integrity of the child. It should also be relevant to the child’s personality. It can be an odd idea or can be any complex concept that a child may grasp, accept and internalize. One would need to juggle around to find a strategy to deal with the child’s unconscious mind so that he could start living up to the high standards(usually set by parents or teachers). It looks very simple- but indeed it is not that easy!

How can we give feedback in the shape of unconscious​ background?​

 

We all know we have a conscious and unconscious mind and we all deal with our mind continuously all the time. It is very much clear that without mind, we cannot survive. The things we do with our choice, like or dislike are always considered part of our behaviour and the things that form our experiences, on the whole, become part of our memories. We live a life with motivations, aspirations, accomplishments, disappointments, worries, appreciations and total satisfaction/dissatisfaction overall. In our day to day life, sometimes we just don’t want to do something and we think our mood is off. We don’t feel thrilled to do something. Many times we don’t know the reason behind those low mood episodes and sometimes we exactly know what is the reason behind our depress mood. Our depress mood is the first sign of our depressive life in case it continues and we don’t do anything to stop its occurrences. So, suppose we don’t know the reason for our upset mood- in this case, we cannot do much help to uplift our spirit. Whereas, when we know what is the reason behind our low mood and our reason is someone else’s behaviour with us- then, in this case, we are again in the helpless situation. You got it, that in this case that significant other would need to resolve the issue. If I tell you I am angry with you and don’t tell you the reason for that – how will you react? If I tell you, that you are worst- what will be your reaction? On the other side, when I tell you that I love you, what will you feel like? On listening something positive your all day will be a great time of your life – and you will do many things with feeling love right inside your brain. So we can say that, sometimes, some people create our unconscious with their loving words, gestures, statements, language, behaviour or whatever the way they choose to say that they love you. And on the other side some people, all the time remind us that we are bad and thus ruin our lifetime

abuser

For the people who belong to the ‘difficult’ category, and who make other’s life miserable with no guilt, I have no advice. For the people who are in that abusive situation, and facing such people in their life on a daily basis, at first, stop being stupid by thinking that you are dealing with humans. Such people are unpredictable, miserable to deal with, and highly toxic. Believe me, they don’t need even your attention span for a second! However, if you have to deal with them, be careful and be aware of your safety exit roots!

The Person-Centered Background Effect

The person-centred approach is a widespread practice nowadays. It says that we should trust in our self-perception and we can determine our well-being through a proper understanding of our situation and needs. It means that there is no need to value unconscious motives and meanings derived from other sources by counsellors. Proposed by Roges (1959), it says that we are capable of organizing our beliefs, concepts, and self-perceptions. Our self-concept is central to our perceptions about others and the world. The self-concept might be different from the reality of what we are in reality. We might think that we are strong; however, in fact, we could be assessed as shy and feeble personality.
I am entirely in favour of such thoughts. We know what we are and we can very quickly be guided in that light. However, when we are in trouble, our unconscious mind dictates to us what we don’t want to listen in reality. Suppose you are going to save someone’s life and your belief tells you that it might put you in trouble. Or the reverse case, you want to do something refreshing and funny; however, your mind says you to do something generous and moral. What we do, choose, figure out, decide to do, or think about all depend upon our unconscious thought that is present in all times and that is subject to change. We do not pay attention to that thought and react as we think we are doing.
For example, we are going shopping with a great mindset. It is straightforward to guess; we will have excellent shopping experience following that. Another side, with sad and muggy mood, we will make many mistakes in shopping or will not enjoy that experience thoroughly.

Our most of the problems are based on our perception of the situation. We do not understand what is wrong with us. We blame others for our miseries and issues; however, it is not right for most of the time. When psychologist uncover our background information at that particular time ( the time of misery ), the real cause for our pain comes out of the shadow. We feel great relief at that moment. So the hidden unconscious information/perception of the situation is the most important thing to discover.
For example, a person is very much lonely due to his family members behaviour. He thinks he is being ignored and not given much importance. Here, the belief ‘the importance given by family ‘ is fundamental to be discovered. In other situations, other ideas might work as a background. Those beliefs play an essential role in our decision making, role-playing, acting and reacting and even thinking.
Thanks TH