 Changing our bad habits, thoughts, and behaviours are often portrayed as a complicated task, but it is not. Because essentially, we need to know that our practices are feeding a need and a why internally. We don't do things by accident. Whether we are conscious of the situation or not, we provide for ourselves by quenching that situation that burns within. The methods that we use are the ones currently available due to our comprehension of the case. We cannot outdo our level of understanding and ability at the moment. We can only understand that ''when we know better we will do better,'' to paraphrase Dr. Maya Angelou's famous statement. Since our habits reflect and represent the choices available to us, how then can we go forward and make better choices leading to positive results?
FORGIVE YOURSELF: Is it fair to punish yourself for not knowing any better? No one taught you any better, and you didn't have positive examples and options available to you at the time. Be glad you have the opportunity to correct yourself and see yourself as a student of life. As a student of life, be open to learning, changing, questioning and evolving each moment as you go. Life is about learning, relearning, unlearning and such. Life is not about perfection but authenticity. So have self-compassion and take it easy. OPEN YOUR OPTIONS: So most of us make bad decisions because of a lack of better options and choices at our disposal. I would suggest to read, connect with positive role models and continue to do more research. By talking to people who live differently than you, you can learn what other options are available and which ones to avoid. Through reading and research, you learn alternative realities you can't fathom; this gives you resources and spaces to tap in if you desire to create a different experience. DESIGN & WRITE YOUR NEW REALITY: Write down everything you wish to be and want to achieve. Design your blueprint from now until you leave this earth. This book of your life will serve as a reminder for all you desire and want. This will be programmed into your subconscious, and naturally, you will start to do things to usher these things into existence. Think and act as if you have already arrived. The only difference between yesterday and today is a choice. That's power. Today, take the time to go to the store and get some empty notebooks and schedule quality time with yourself for your desired future. In your current state, write down everything you want to be, hope to achieve and who you wish to be. Practically write down your legacy as you envision it. Then set daily, weekly, monthly and annual goals to keep you on track of your vision. Because in one year, you will be grateful for honouring your commitments. Good luck.
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 As humans, we have exciting and complicated lives. We get to choose each moment how we would like our days to go or how to live our lives best. But most of us are enslaved to toxic generational issues and deeply personal traumas we often not discussed with others or mental health professionals. Because we think we are so ''unique'' and ''special'' in our circumstances and that we are ''too hard to understand.'' These are the lies we tell ourselves, which is excellent for toxicity to thrive. Toxicity of any kind thrives in shame, secrecy, guilt and projection. Toxicity needs you not to address the problem as it is at the source; it requires you to dance your way around the pressing issues for years and even decades.
Photo by Kat Jayne Alter Your Perspective, ''Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become the next moment. By the same token, every human being has the freedom to change at any instant.'' - Victor Frankl (Holiday., page 36). Victor was right. Man makes meaning every moment. Everything that is happening we make our conclusions out of it. Such assumptions can serve us or destroy us. But it is human nature to assume the worst and suffer from preventable situations. Our minds often go to the worst out of fear and survivalism. Many of us are making decisions and living from a state of survival. ''Context: a sense of the larger picture of the world, not just what is immediately in front of us. Framing: an individual's unique way of looking at the world, a way that interprets its events. '' (Holiday., page 38). Events, circumstances and human behaviour are often filtered through the lens of traumas, cultural conditioning, past bad experiences and unhealthy attitudes. We often see the situation as a reflection of our worth and not as a result of human behaviour that has been occurring since the beginning of the human race. We take mundane situations and dramatized them through the lens mentioned above. Many things good and bad will occur in 2020 but it will be our perspective that will run the show. This year can be a year of triumph or suffering based on how we react to our situations that are on their way. If we can accept that we are not special and that life will happen anyway and we can remain calm and cool in whatever occurs we could conquer ourselves and trump our survival instincts that are fuelled by fear of the unknown. Let us become friends with the unknown. Accepting whatever the unknown brings us is what we are meant to be experienced and act accordingly. |
AuthorNyabuoy Gatbel is a South Sudanese Canadian currently living in Calgary, AB. She was born in Ethiopia in 1993 and moved to Canada as a refugee in 2002. She's currently a undergraduate student at the University of Calgary. Besides her studies she's a social entreprenuer focusing on the, ''Paarman Centre project,'' a fashion model, writer and author of the book, ''The Fire Within poetry in Thok Nath and English.'' Archives
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