emotions

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.

Feel Good Therapy

 

Have you ever seen flavored juices in markets, flavored sweets and flavored yogurts in markets? Usually, they are only flavored, not real. When we talk to someone without feelings, we become those flavored products. We are not real. We are not pure. We are fake and unreal. Our deeds are not accountable without our feelings. So are we.

Let’s taste a real treat with actual flavors. It will taste real sweet, salty or fantastic compared to the artificially flavored food. So you also taste like that. If you speak with feelings, you are perceived fully with taste. If you speak with no feelings, you will taste nothing. You might be misperceived or perceived wrong.

When we talk about relationships, feelings become the most important ingredient. Without feelings, relationships don’t survive or only survive. However, their charm, attraction, and beauty fade up. We don’t feel good in return. We look unhappy, stress full and lethargic. We miss the real fun and quality time.

Feelings are very important to maintain one’s life fully. If you neglect your real feelings and always try to take care of others feelings – you are on wrong track. To get the real taste of life, you must feel good. When you feel good- you perceive good and in return, you enjoy the harmony of goodness between you two. Therefore, feel good is as important as to look good.

One should also take care of others feelings. Without taking care of others feelings, one is never able to respond accordingly/appropriately. In the end, both suffer a lot due to misperception or misunderstanding. So to establish any relationship, it is a vital part to express one’s feelings truly and understand other person’s feelings as well. Feelings play a great role in keeping your relationships alive, healthy and happy.

Usually, people go for rich experiences to feel good. However, experiences between man and environment could not make us happier than the happiness we cultivate from sharing feelings of love, empathy, and kindness with our friends, intimate partners, or relatives (whom we belong).

The good news is that you can work on it. You can find new ways to express your feelings and seek for clues to understand other person’s feelings. You can plan new shared experiences to feel better and improve your relationships. One moment of true feelings of love is always better than a long lived happily married life without any feelings of love.
Be Cheerful and Happy always.

 

Little_girls_and_Judo.jpg

When a girl is born in the UK, her parents welcome the child with flowers of love, care, and unconditional affection. Girl daughters feel very proud of being a daughter and start their life with great confidence and motivation. They are pleasantly taught about the rules of life in which they are expected to be educated as much as possible, to achieve a career to their satisfaction, and to live a happy life ever after. They are taught about the freedom they will enjoy in their life; they are taught about their rights ( right to move, right to dress-up, right to marry, right to re-marry, right to divorce, right to have kids’ custody, right to speak about their love and interests, right to save their life, right to leave a bad person’s company, right to live alone, right to speak for their rights, right to call police in time of danger, right to excel, right to live as per their wish). Girls are always their parent’s daughters like sons: no discrimination at all. Girls enjoy the same lifestyle as their brothers keep rather they are more valued and honored. Parents spend more on little girls and let them enjoy the games like judo, karate, gymnastic, swimming, boxing, and other skills even when they are 3 or 4 years old. Usually, girls show more energy and flexibility in these games! They are never given any message in which they would be fearful about their future husband, future home or future in-laws! They are never given any idea of ‘leaving home after marriage’, rather they can live forever with their parents if they would like. Girls are more protected in a sense they can live alone after they are grown up. They can choose their partner and get a divorce without having any ‘honor killing’ syndrome. They can very easily shut the door to their husband if he is harassing them or abusing them in any form.  They  are not mentally prepared for the house hold work in future ( for the husband and his family). They are not waiting for the prince to take them to his palace to protect them ( an imaginary theme). They are free to move anywhere in the world with peace of mind and happiness. They are free to choose any profession, any vehicle to travel, and any identity to own. They enjoy the support of their parents, culture, society and the government in each and every field of life. They are very much pampered and loved. 

    It does not mean there is no rape, no sexual or emotional abuse, no threat and no killing in this society. There are still some cases to report and to feel scared; however, they are not as much in quantity as much we ( in Pakistan) could note and publish. In each home of Pakistan, gender discrimination, gender differences, physical and emotional abuses, parental control ( negative )and female child neglect is very much prevalent. A female child starts her life with lots of mixed messages about her female role at home, in society and in her married life. She is supposed to adopt that role in her adult life irrespective of her education or career choices. She is very much forced to think in that particular way in which she is a female, a responsibility to parents, a subject of fear, a figure of special respect, a source of honor, a guest in her parents home, a person who will be living the life of her husband, a person who will leave her parental home for her husband’s home, a person who cannot live alone with respect and honor, a person who is less powerful than a man, a person who would always need a man to protect her, a person who is vulnerable to various traumas, a person who should be caring, loving and serving to others, a weak person and a weak decision maker. 

   

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Thus girls, even from educated and well-established families suffer a lot. They do not enjoy their life as they would if they were born in the UK ( or any other liberal society). They are very much oppressed and suppressed due to societal norms, traditions and customs. They even like those traditions and beliefs as the change would disturb their comfort zone. However, this is not what should continue as many of them are suffering a lot due to these discriminatory acts and thoughts,painful beliefs, cruel customs, horrible traditions, bizarre irregularities, injustices, emotional, physical and sexual abuses. Mostly women who suffer from such traumas in their childhood, are  very much vulnerable to anxieties, depression, and post traumatic stress disorders in their adulthood. So much so, suicidal thoughts are very common among such victims.

    Therefore, I request you ( if you are a parent) to please negate the beliefs that create any discrimination among your kids; ( if you are a girl) fight for your own rights or at least never accept any negative belief; (if you are a victim) speak about it on any forum you could and if you are in any capacity to protect someone you know- please go ahead and bring a change in society.

Thanks

courtesy to Google images

Female Child Abuse in Pakistan​

images

Almost every other child in Pakistan is being, physically, mentally, sexually and emotionally severely abused by her own family members. The data is usually not collected and news is never generated for ordinary people. Even if the news is being printed, the case is being registered; there is no output from police or courts. 

People do not check their attitude towards their kids- usually, it is too rigid, harsh and intolerable. They scold them, beat them and even torture them so badly that they feel like to run away from home. Especially for the females, their behavior is never acceptable. The following examples will further elaborate the concept of female abuse in detail: 
a. Most of the parents never welcome a female child – a kind of abuse
b. Parents always expect from female child to take care of siblings and others in terms of house chores and serving food. 
c. The female child is rarely exposed to good education and health needs. 
d. Female Child is always kept home due to security and religious reasons. 
e. The female child is never allowed to play in parks with boys  or alone.
f. the female child is not given skill or technical education. 
g. female child is always exposed to toxic beliefs : such as leaving home after marriage, being obedient to husband; being obedient to in-laws; never ask for her own interests; sacrifice for the family honor; never argue in front of husband; never think of her own income; girls first priority is home; girls should be expert in cooking; girls should not participate in family matters as they have to leave the family one day; girls should not go to markets often; girls should not mix with boys; girls should not speak loudly; sons are better than daughters; and many alike.Some of the beliefs are not bad itself; however, they are used in such a negative way that contribute towards female child abuse very much.  
g. The female child is encouraged to look after her face, body, and dress more than other things (education, career, finance, and security) as she is supposed to win a beauty contest for the future husband. 
h. Some female children are being sold, dropped somewhere or left unattended for being female at home. 
i. Some fathers always blame their wives for giving birth to a female child in front of their daughters. 
j. People offer food to male members first and then females. This applies to other things also. 
k. The females are less likely to be exposed to driving a car, bus or truck. Similarly, she is less likely to shop (any big item that a boy can buy), run a business or have a bank account under parents guidance. As a child, they are never educated to adapt these roles in future. 
L. Parents spend a lot on sons compared to daughters. 
m. The female child is less likely to have friends or enjoy any social circle. 
There are many other restrictions that make a female child less confident, less motivated and less creative. They are never able to lead their own lives and follow their dreams. Rather they always walk on the egg shells with the fear of being homeless, stigmatized or tortured ( in some cases being dead). 
 
Thanks 
Courtesy to google images

Doing Homework is Fun for Some!

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When your child is not interested in doing homework? Not interested in reading or not interesting in writing – what would you do ? Stuck! Follow the steps below and hope for the best.

  • At first, start thinking positively. Your child might not be a scientist, doctor, engineer, or priest of the future- he might become a sweeper, postman, door guard or cleaner of someone’s house in future. There is nothing wrong in it. What is important in life is education, not status; morality, not money; character, not beauty and good health is the one and the only thing in life to strive for and thankful to All-Mighty.
  • Now, if you still want your child to study hard and pay attention to homework; then watch him or her minutely. Watch day and night and look for things he or she is interested in. Find out his or her interests or cultivate some interests in his or her life. List all of those things according to the priority of your child. For example:

Watching movies

Playing digital games

Playing outside

Talking to friends on Facebook

Singing or listening music

  • Now try to motivate your child to do some homework through the above incentives. You can appreciate his or her small efforts with the rewards ( above mentioned) or anything else appropriate. Please take care of timings in this regard. The incentive should be achievable and not frustrating to achieve within a reasonable time frame. The reward should be very near to completing a task; otherwise, it will lose its effect. There could be thousands of incentives, rewards, motivating grandeurs, and charms for kids to manipulate; however they should not be used in the routine. When a child is a little bit used to do his or her homework in time, incentives are no more needed; otherwise, the child would learn to manipulate your needs as well.
  • Start talking with your child ( in any age) with confidence about the issues you are facing with him or her. Tell him or her, what is irritating you and in what ways, he or she could solve this issue. Tell your child honestly that you are suffering from him or her. Help him or her to understand your stance, perspective, and concern; no matter how long and how many times you need to talk!
  • It is always better not to compare your child with other children; however, sometimes you have to set criteria to educate your children. You can explain your child, ‘ look, the other child is reading very fast, can you try to read like him, or better’. Your child will start trying. Appreciate, appreciate and appreciate. That’s all. Leave other child and focus on your child again.
  • Do what you want from your child. You cannot do his homework, but can do something on a notebook in the same time your child is doing homework. This is true when the home is single child home. Parents should be present with their children mentally and physically when their children are studying. At least for the young children, this is a must! It will make doing homework a fun for your child.

There are many other things to suggest but would recommend in another blog.

Thanks

Parental Emotional Support in Time can Prevent Children from being Emotionally Abused in Future!

There is no doubt that parents are supposed to take care of their children all kinds of needs: physical, security, esteem, social, educational, economic and emotional ones. In our culture( the culture of Pakistan), emotional needs are very much neglected by the parents consciously or unconsciously. You can, however, learn how to fulfill your child’s emotional needs by following the simple rules listed below:

  1. by exploring their emotions on various subjects and asking them what they felt over; how they would like to be treated; what is good; what is bad; if this would happen, what are they supposed to do? what is more important? What is least important? What is good for them and what is bad for them? In this way, you could explore your children’s emotional sphere in depth and guide them accordingly.
  2. by giving them plenty of opportunities to boost their self-confidence. Remember, if your child is shy and passive in nature; it is not your neighbor’s responsibility to make her social. You have to be social first, have social interactions and set an example for your child to make her social. Having friends is always good for children. They should be encouraged to have a healthy friendship, social interactions, and maintain a rich social life. However, some children by birth are of shy nature. They should also be provided enough experiences to boost their confidence level and to overcome social anxiety if they have.
  3. Whenever your child is low in emotions; it should not be ignored. Please talk to your child if she is kept lying on her bed since long or she is in a bad mood, or she is being emotional in any way.
  4. Keep an eye on your child’s big events. Big events don’t mean ‘birthdays’ or ‘kids’ day’, or ‘new year day’; rather it means what your child is passionate about; what she longs for; and what she adores. If it is something odd, strange or worrisome-discuss, discuss, and discuss a lot about it. It is kind of poison that should not stay in the body for a long time; otherwise severe consequences would occur.
  5. Many parents claim that they are the friend of their child, whereas in real life it seems as if they are not even in a healthy relationship. Where lays the problem? In fact, there is no consistency and fluidity in parents’ behavior. They usually behave well in a good mood but bad in a bad mood as well. So they loose trust on their children. Like a boss who is good in good time and worse in a bad mood. Friends are not like this. They need to maintain a very consistent temperament throughout their life to maintain a very healthy relationship with their friend. On the opposite side, it does not mean you should be nice and kind all the time; rather you should be firm, passionate, encouraging, persistent, and a secure guide all the time- like teachers to some extent. Rather you can be friendlier to them – more than teachers in your capacity but at the same time more persistent and flexible. One thing more, if you think that you can replace friends of your child’s life, you are wrong. You can be ‘like friend’ but not ‘friend’ indeed.

So emotions of your child should be regulated, trained, maintained and nurtured very carefully, passionately and regularly. In the end, they will not only become your friends, rather will become good decision makers, nation builders, leaders, helpers, persistent and consistent workers, brave and brilliant students, courageous and social human beings in future.

 

Rukhsati (part 2): a source of emotional and psychological abuse!

Rukhsai is a concept which means a girl is not supposed to live with her parents after marriage and should live with her husband and his family forever. This or the similar meanings exist almost in every home of Pakistan and India. When a girl is born, she is usually blessed with some statements like,” God bless her with great luck and destiny” which means that god give her a good husband and in-laws in future (otherwise her luck is bad luck and there is no future for her anymore). People focus upon girls husband more than the girl itself. Education of the husband is more important than the education of the daughter; job of the husband is more important; home of the husband is more important and family of the husband is more important than family of the girl (where the girl was born). When our daughters listen to such mixed messages, they start dreaming of their future in terms of their hubby and in-laws (in some cases). They do not dream about their own future in terms of their education, profession or own home. They deny owning/upgrading their parents home as it is like a guest house where they are living for a short period. They even have little right in making decisions about their own life and future as it is the property of their future husband! In many cases girls are forced to marry as it is good for their brothers coming marriages.  

What about a girl who wants to feel like a boy in her home ? She regrets why she is born in a female body. She simply does not like the idea of leaving home or leaving home for hubby.In this case, there is no solution. She has no choice – either go for a marriage or face the curses of family members! She will never be appreciated or encouraged by doing so, rather people will blame her for increasing problems for her parents. 

Given the fact that a girl is very much protected by this way; it is a continuous pain in some of the little hearts ( aged 0 to 16). Toddler girls are unable to understand the hidden message and take it the other way round. They feel they are less loved, less welcome, and less motivated in return. They start feeling that they are not like boys or boys have many privileges in society  that they lack. They appreciate their parents for being there for them always in spite of the fact they are not staying with them forever. They feel reluctant to choose difficult professions, difficult subjects, or difficult lines in life as it will increase burden on their parents shoulder. They feel they are unable to return their parents’ blessings in shape of living together, helping them and supporting them. They feel home sickness in the very young age; lack of security; fear of unknown; and absence of parents even in the company of parents. This is the biggest reason for being inactive, aggressive (in some cases), shy, moody, agitated, depress, anxious, worried, and self-centred or non-social. These problems would lead to further cognitive and  personality disorders.

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There are countless reasons for not giving such concepts to a female child. A child, boy or girl has equal rights upon parents even in case of conceptual background. Female child should not be discriminated against male child on the ground of living together with parents. Female child needs unconditional love as much as male child; female child should feel secure and completely loved like male child in every situation of life; female child should not be treated as she is lacking something as compared to male child in terms of rights and responsibilities; and most of all female child should be given the same space in the home as the male child throughout their life span! 

Note:

This article is written while keeping in view the Pakistani culture and customs.

Stop Abusing Your Kids!

Abuse is a wide term that can start from a little humiliating joke to threatening a person to death. Every individual perceive it differently and silently! However, a general rule of thumb is that it is some feeling that you bear out of being abused from someone you know. Parents are not free from this kind of allegation as some of us definitely abuse their children. How can a parent abuse his child? There are many ways to abuse a child in which some are
being short listed below:

a. When a parent deliberately ignores his child’s needs such as cleaning, washing, feeding, cuddling and teaching..
b. When you see a child in danger and do not react in the best possible way to help the child whether it is your or someone else’s.
c. When you teach your child how to harm others, how to tell a lie, how to create fuss or how to make mess- you are abusing her.
d. When you do not stop your child from being aggressive, being crazy, being obsessive, or from being selfish. In each case, it is your duty as a parent to teach your child about her possible negative behavioral consequences.
e. When you teach your child about wrong, negative and harmful traditions of your society. Your child is not supposed to fulfill demands of society’s unhealthy and cruel traditions if there are any.
f. When you do not give your child a sense of confidence that she could share her feelings with you; you are abusing her. She will not feel secure unless you make her feel secure by your behavior and verbal assurance.
g. When you leave your child in a stressful situation to punish her. It is also a kind of abuse if your child is innocent and not getting what you mean.
h. When you force your child to sit with people she does not like or when you force your child to talk to people she does not like to talk to. You are not supposed to force your child to do anything unless her safety and security is compromised in doing so.
i. When you leave your child with others whom you are not sure if they would provide enough care to your child.
j. When you threat your child to leave her alone or any other kind of threat!

These are all passive abusive behaviors that most of the parents unconsciously adapt. It is always good to see our attitude in terms of abusive language; sometimes we can modify our role and become a good parent!