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Marketing messages follow us wherever we go. We switch on the television and see advertisements with people who look like models (because they are). We are told how we can be better and have more. This subconsciously gives us the message: we aren’t enough! We aren’t good enough, smart enough, rich enough, etc. Having too much information about others isn’t helpful. It results in constant comparison and disappointment with what is causing us to indulge in unrealistic expectations. Marketers benefit when you feel like you need to do something before you are good enough. That way you will buy their products. Social media paints pictures of the glamorous lifestyle of others. This creates lop-sided, unrealistic expectations from life. ...

When people who are loving and caring go overboard with their service to others, they tend to be taken for granted. Unfortunately, not everybody acknowledges how much they do. It is easier to just get used to it and start expecting more. Here are the signs when people take you for granted: They don’t acknowledge your effortsThey constantly criticize you and find faults with everythingThey control you and tell you what to doThey have high expectations and get angry when you don’t complyThey don’t respect your boundariesWhen challenged, they escape by saying you are not good enough; you must improve yourself and work harder on the relationship. They will not take any responsibility for what went wrong. It would help to distance yourself physically or mentally from people who take you for granted. Very often, that doesn’t work out because they are in your inner circle. Nevertheless, there are some things you can do if you are in this situation: ...

Has it happened sometime with you that you wanted things to be in a certain way but despite communicating your needs, you got nothing in return? You feel worse because you told the other person what you wanted and their not complying makes you feel uncared for. You might even feel that it was better when you said nothing, as that way you could live with the myth that they would change if only they knew your views. ...

As children we had plenty of people telling us what is right and what is wrong with us. We were asked to work on our behaviour and were reprimanded if we didn’t. What happens to this once we grow up? Now that we have complete autonomy we don’t really need to put up with any feedback. Sooner or later, there is no one who can point out anything about us. In other words, we can not be challenged ….and we like it that way! ...

Most people think that the will to survive is the strongest instinct in human beings, but it isn’t. The strongest instinct is to keep things familiar. –Virginia Satir, Family Therapist We sometimes hear incidents like when a person dies his/her partner commits suicide. It’s because the need to keep things familiar is greater than the need to live life itself. Richard Bandler, the co-founder of NLP, said that we make something familiar and even when it doesn’t function anymore we stick with it. That’s when we start to make our lives dysfunctional. People persist in extremely uncomfortable situations as they are familiar to them. They are unaware that they have choices (from the book: Richard Bandler’s Guide to Trance-formation). ...

I sometimes wonder what is required for lasting change. Consider the number of self-help messages, books, videos and seminars that bombard our social network. These positive messages show up on a daily basis. It feels good to read for a while but shortly after, the effect is gone. Self-help is a million dollar industry. Every year people spend a whole lot of money buying content that will help them ‘fix’ themselves. ...

The first thing I learnt as a student of counselling is that feelings are real. Somehow, I seem to have missed a simple point like that all along. Like everyone else, I always thought that there was a certain way I should feel and another way I shouldn’t. I went about living my life like there was some kind of switch in there, using which any feeling that was uncomfortable, could simply be turned off. After I started working as a counsellor I realized that this is one of the most common misconceptions. This is something I found in each person to some degree- rejection of feelings. May be because it was buried in us a long time ago. As children we were told — “Don’t get angry”, “Don’t feel bad for small small things”, “There is no need to feel scared in the dark” ...

As we go over the hurt and pain from our past we are only gripped with sadness. It’s natural for us to wonder why we suffered the way we did and how much better it would have been if we hadn’t. However, there is another side to this story that is worth exploring. Every time we go through pain we learn something. The lesson could be big or small -it carries meaning for us. When someone abuses me I learn how it feels to be at the receiving end of such treatment. This gives me an idea of how not to treat others because I now know how they could feel. This knowledge subtly shapes my personality. Empathy helps people form strong bonds with others. People who are empathetic manage to have great relationships as others feel understood in their presence. It’s noteworthy that empathetic people are also the ones who have suffered long enough to be able to understand another’s pain. Can they appreciate how their suffering helped them develop good relationships with others? Not really. They usually just feel sad about the way things turned out. The advantages are rather obscure. There are several people who have been victims of childhood abuse and have grown into beings rescuers for others, in adulthood. They tie up with NGOs, adopt children or do some kind of volunteer work to prevent others from going through the same. When I joined the field of counselling I was surprised to see how many therapists had suffered themselves in their growing up years and were now doing a fantastic job of helping others in need. Their suffering might have motivated them to work on reducing the pain in themselves and others around them. Hurt and pain are great motivators. They teach us what to move towards and what to move away from. Without this knowledge it would be difficult for us to make decisions that are favourable to us. Here is an example : “A person who is jilted in love gets depressed. He feels that there is no point living life as all people are unworthy of his trust. This person goes ahead in life and chooses a partner that is perfect for him. They have a happy life and a beautiful home.“ Does this person realise the benefit of the pain he went through earlier? Being hurt by one made him prudent while selecting another. People who hurt us and people who loved us equally contributed to our growth We don’t complain when our past makes us a better person, do we? But that is only if we choose to look at it that way. Research indicates that events by themselves don’t have any impact on people. The perception of the event makes them feel the way they do. Going by this, if we were to think about the benefits we got from the unpleasant events that happened to us, how would that change things for us? Will it make us grateful for the knowledge which was impossible without the experience or will it make us resentful for all that people did to us? I think these two directions lead to diametrically opposite ends of a spectrum. I don’t mean to say that we should voluntarily get ourselves into trouble so when we come out bruised it’s a great experience. I mean to reframe the past in way that helps us move forward without the weight of the grievances that tie us down. All ways of looking at the past are equally valid. The frame that we hold onto longest and hardest, wins! –David Snyder, master trainer NLP — — — — ...

I recently read about the invention of a love-pill. Brian Earp, researcher at Oxford University’s Institute for Neuroethics, is working on magic pills to help you fall in and out of love(!) I was instantly transported back to Shakespeare’s midsummer night’s dream. Remember that story in which Titania (the queen of fairies) falls in love with Nick Bottom (the weaver with a donkey head)? That spell is being cast all over again -just that this time it isn’t fictional. ...

To be loved and accepted is a basic human need. As children we feel good about ourselves when we receive positive strokes from our environment. In the absence of which, we could enter into a pattern of behaviour to get these needs met. A series of well-crafted transactions could help the person get what he didn’t get from his environment in the developmental years. This method of trying to gain love and acceptance leads to games which is an unhealthy way of getting physical and psychological needs met. The players are unaware of their game plan which comes naturally to them. This pulls down communication lines and in turn affects relationships. ...