Keeping your mental health strong - The song “Walk a Mile in my Shoes” talks about seeing life from someone else’s point of view, and being able to step into someone else’s shoes is the route toward achieving good mental health.
Life can spring challenges upon us when we least expect them. I know that when this happens to me I feel put out. I say to myself, “This was not in the plan!” But we have to be prepared to change in order to adapt to different circumstances, and one thing that is for sure, is that nothing in life stays the same. Even nature is forever changing. Life is a constant learning process so keeping an open mind and being prepared to move with the times is not only sensible, it also keeps our minds healthy and strong.
Very early on when we are young, we construct out our own picture of the world based upon our experiences of life. How we want to live, what we believe in, how we should behave and how we expect others to behave toward us.
We gather all this information from the world around us and store it in an assessing process to help us to deal with and react to most situations that we encounter. When we meet new people, we quickly gain a first impression of them, so that we know what to expect. We process people and life’s events in this way so that we can make judgments about people and life. But guess what? Not everyone shares the same construct on life. We don’t all hold the same values, morals or codes of behavior. I am often taken back by people who behave with perfect manners, yet behind the veneer of politeness there is an underhand nature. And when we meet someone who acts in a way that we don’t expect or approve of we find them difficult to deal with. And if it happens to be a work colleague or superior, this can make our lives difficult, or even stressful. It can make for a highly stressful work environment, and if it is a family member, it can make for an equally difficult home environment. But it is never a cut and dried case of, I am right and you are wrong — the reason being that in most cases, both believe that they are in the right.
It takes a wise and confident person to say, “I’m sorry, I was wrong”, but in doing so, you don’t lose the high moral ground and you always gain respect. Mutual respect is vital in all relationships.
As a parent, your child may occasionally be difficult or misbehave. They don’t do as they are told and maybe they become angry and throw something. Sometimes a mother may feel, “How could my child behave like this when I am so good to him?” It is easy to see a child’s difficult act as a challenge to our authority as a parent, or just as an act of pure naughtiness that needs punishing, but almost always there is something that triggered this act or inappropriate behavior. Possibly something had gone wrong at school that day and a young child does not have the emotional literacy to say how they felt about their day. So when they came home they refused to do something that their parent wanted them to do. It may be a cry for help — or a way of telling you that they don’t know how to explain how they feel or why they are upset — so often this feeling of powerlessness manifests itself through being grumpy and difficult. Even teenagers who suddenly seem to show a singular lack of communication skills need the love of parents. Teenagers are very sensitive and very easily wounded — especially boys, who will try to hide any hurt.
The magic trick is not to punish the behavior but to give your child time and try to discuss what triggered the outburst in the first place. ( arabnews.com )
Life can spring challenges upon us when we least expect them. I know that when this happens to me I feel put out. I say to myself, “This was not in the plan!” But we have to be prepared to change in order to adapt to different circumstances, and one thing that is for sure, is that nothing in life stays the same. Even nature is forever changing. Life is a constant learning process so keeping an open mind and being prepared to move with the times is not only sensible, it also keeps our minds healthy and strong.
Very early on when we are young, we construct out our own picture of the world based upon our experiences of life. How we want to live, what we believe in, how we should behave and how we expect others to behave toward us.
We gather all this information from the world around us and store it in an assessing process to help us to deal with and react to most situations that we encounter. When we meet new people, we quickly gain a first impression of them, so that we know what to expect. We process people and life’s events in this way so that we can make judgments about people and life. But guess what? Not everyone shares the same construct on life. We don’t all hold the same values, morals or codes of behavior. I am often taken back by people who behave with perfect manners, yet behind the veneer of politeness there is an underhand nature. And when we meet someone who acts in a way that we don’t expect or approve of we find them difficult to deal with. And if it happens to be a work colleague or superior, this can make our lives difficult, or even stressful. It can make for a highly stressful work environment, and if it is a family member, it can make for an equally difficult home environment. But it is never a cut and dried case of, I am right and you are wrong — the reason being that in most cases, both believe that they are in the right.
It takes a wise and confident person to say, “I’m sorry, I was wrong”, but in doing so, you don’t lose the high moral ground and you always gain respect. Mutual respect is vital in all relationships.
As a parent, your child may occasionally be difficult or misbehave. They don’t do as they are told and maybe they become angry and throw something. Sometimes a mother may feel, “How could my child behave like this when I am so good to him?” It is easy to see a child’s difficult act as a challenge to our authority as a parent, or just as an act of pure naughtiness that needs punishing, but almost always there is something that triggered this act or inappropriate behavior. Possibly something had gone wrong at school that day and a young child does not have the emotional literacy to say how they felt about their day. So when they came home they refused to do something that their parent wanted them to do. It may be a cry for help — or a way of telling you that they don’t know how to explain how they feel or why they are upset — so often this feeling of powerlessness manifests itself through being grumpy and difficult. Even teenagers who suddenly seem to show a singular lack of communication skills need the love of parents. Teenagers are very sensitive and very easily wounded — especially boys, who will try to hide any hurt.
The magic trick is not to punish the behavior but to give your child time and try to discuss what triggered the outburst in the first place. ( arabnews.com )
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