How to leave the cross-roads requires clarity of self…!

Being at crossroads includes a position of dissatisfaction with significant aspect of your life and you are in the process of determining to change for the better.  It means you have decided to analyze the true nature of your feelings about the current situation without being under any form of external influence which in most cases is could be mislabeled as virtue.

 

I define confusion as not realizing whether you are happy or unhappy.  This is what I call being like a rose.   Roses look beautiful, smell wonderful; but are adorned with thorns.  Another position could be the second phase of your attempt to free yourself from painfully permanent situation to seek a place of refuge.  Staying in a position of permanent compromise is a form of procrastination.  It is not making necessary decision for fear of another mistake.  Usually you do this when you do not know who you are, why you are here and where you want to be.

Let us say you are a rose; that is, your thorns are hidden from afar! It could mean that your life skills to maneuver current pain, has kept you afloat.  Your head is still above the water and therefore alive.  The point is, if nothing changes for the better, it is a matter of time before issues that placed you in that position compels you to use the remaining strength to pull yourself to safety or ideal position.

Some of us have processed informal, non-formal and formal education from all social institutions so well that we do not know who we are and want in this life.  Finding who you are is an ability to discern the truth from the inner man.  It is transcending the superficial existence of acting on the fruit of your thoughts only.  It is reaching your spiritual self where wisdom is not cluttered with socialization and academic stuff; but a domain of connectedness with your Creator, and therefore executed outside the mind.  It is like being on the highest mountain where you have a clear view of what direction leads to your true destination.

The purpose of highlighting the position of spirituality is to enable you to re-assess where you are.  If you have never access yourself in this realm, it is likely that you are acting on values and beliefs imparted mostly to empower you as a social being and not as a spiritual being.   Let me offer a light for those who may not understand their make-up.  You are not a physical being but a spirit because you are created in the likeness of your Creator who is a Spirit.  Your real life-changing wisdom is therefore more profound when you are able to transcend the physical self.  This enables you not to focus on things that are seen but those things that are spiritual and true.  You may opt to start the journey of discovery of self from scientific view to realize the illusion of the physical world. This too is liberating.

If at this point you have more question than answers, it means you are hearing what I am saying!  You have started the awakening process of finding the real roadmap that will enable you to move from the crossroads.     

Leaving and cleaving: Are in-laws aware of their position?

Marriage is designed by the Creator with specific rules and regulations to make it work. Anything contrary to the couple leaving their parents and cleaving to each other surely contributes to marriage disintegration.

In the context of African culture, the in-laws regard and apply leaving one’s parents to the woman and not the man.  The principle of cleaving is totally omitted. In reality a woman marries all in-laws and soon finds out that most of whatever she thought and cherish about the spouse is null and void.  Regardless of several academic degrees and exposure to non-African way of life, African men find it hard to go up the stream and cut loose from the traditional muddle. What works is what the in-laws believe and value.  The most challenging dilemma is to meet the in-laws expectations: The common one is spending the whole Christmas and Easter holidays at in-laws home and participating in cultural rituals.  This gradual slowing down of building and working on married life manifests in subtle tension and resentment of the in-laws which gradually creeps in and become a wet blanket between the couple. It is a common factor which destroys many marriages.

When cleaving is omitted in any marriage, it is replaced with both emotional and verbal abuse.  The in-laws demands take a toll on marital relationship and a woman gradually feels cheated because she is constantly betrayed by lack of support from the beloved husband. Eventually with hushed voices the son is confronted and scolded for not marrying a real woman who fits in the community.  A woman so burdened with in-laws rules will soon forget to be a wife and a mother of her children. This becomes a significant cause of socialization blemishes because unhappy parents cannot give love to their children.  Absence of love and role modeling in parenting contributes to failed relationships to the couple and their children.

The issues of leaving and cleaving are challenges which are real for any modern girl who regards marriage as a sacred contract that deserves to be adhered to. Remedial measure may include migrating to far place immediately after marriage; thus creating excusable reason for not spending all holidays and practicing numerous rules of the in-laws. What an irony! It is tempering with the Creator’s marriage formula!   

Emotional Intelligence in developing organizations and people

People are essential assets in all social institutions and it is important to consider their academic capability as well as personal traits when developing organizations and employees.   Application of Emotional Intelligence principles has become a new way to understand and assess people's behaviors and their management styles. 

People become customers when they get friendly and efficient services which denote an ability to give positive attention to people when serving them.  Interpersonal skills could be a natural trait but it requires to be developed through the application of Emotional Intelligence principles. This is why it has become an important management tool in human resources planning; job profiling, recruitment interviewing and selection. For an example, a genius with a negative attitude is not an asset because he or she will destroy the image of an organization if given a people related job. This is why interpersonal skills rank high in jobs specifications because all organizations thrive in attracting and retaining customers. 

Whenever top management decides to develop their managers for higher positions, they go deep in analyzing each manager in terms of ability to deal with self; that is, knowing and managing their emotions. Those who pass such assessment are those who know who there are, and attempt to treat people as individuals at appropriate situations.  Most people fail to strike a balance and end up compromising the required integrity of the organization. Studying the concept and principles of Emotional Intelligence is one of the ongoing self empowerment items especially for those who seek to redefine their goals.

How I understand emotional intelligence

Most people relate success with high level of education and this is why it is rated as one of the basic needs and a right of every child. You may know or have read about successful college drop-outs and therefore noticed that they applied another factor to experience a breakthrough. This factor is known as emotional intelligence which entails knowing one’s emotions and being aware of their nature and learning to control and manage them.  Success is also related with knowing other people’s emotions in order to develop and maintain healthy relationships.

Each person has a given knowledge and skill to be successful. Education could therefore be regarded as a catalyst that accelerates the process.  Knowing your emotion is being able to analyze how you think and will also identify strengths and weaknesses. The process will enable you to understand your intentions, behavior and response to life issues; and most importantly, what you want to achieve.  Understanding others and their feelings is a bit challenging but necessary because you need to recruit those that will enable you to reach your destination.

 

Emotions are visible results of the nature of your thoughts which are revealed as various feelings. Management of your emotion is therefore a lifelong learning exercise because your thoughts are aligned to how you perceive your world.  Emotional intelligence helps you to realize when you get stuck by indulging in negative past experiences rather than working on your motivation to start a new life. Overcoming negative thoughts that could possibly hinder your success requires your full awareness of your level of desire and zeal to develop strategic plans towards reaching your goals. 

Success is also about managing relationships with those in your boat so that you can maintain the tempo in rowing the boat towards the destination. To me this is the most challenging part because I must be able to motivate the team or the target group to want to achieve what I want.

Love is central to all that you are and need…!

It is amazing how mankind is so well equipped with potential ability to acquire knowledge and skill and yet struggle to find the key to accessing the given wealth in this life.  Love is the most common subject but illusive to many even the most intellectually successful.  The Book of origins tells us that love is central to that which we need and seek to achieve.  Is this the way you understand success to be?

You are not like anybody; you are unique!  This is the concept that you have to look at and determine whether it is a fact or not. The introspection should not be based on whatever theory you have read other than that which describes you as a product of love.  If you have never analyzed the three dimensions that make you different from an animal, you will likely treat yourself like one and miss the purpose for which you have been created for.  The Creator made you in His likeness.  This is a starting point.  When you seek this truth, you will arrive at an answer of who you are and your capabilities.

Your Creator’s name is Love.  He tells us that all that we seek is contained in love.  Let us explore the simplicity of this matter with what you do when you buy expensive equipment like a car:  First you read the manual of instruction because you do not what to ruin this prized property. Secondly, you want to enjoy all that it has been created to perform and carefully note what the manufacture bound himself with and the part you must play to get the maximum benefits of the car. 

Now let us look you.  All living and non-living things on the planet earth have been created for you and you are to benefit from all.   When the Creator declared that His idea of creation was complete, He was satisfied.  He actually said it was very good!   This is where your quest for self discovery must start.  The first question goes like this: If I am created in the likeness of my Creator who is the Spirit, then it means I am a spirit.  Judging from what I see in all things He created – earth, its inhabitants and the universe – then it means I am very smart and creative being too.  Then comes the point and the context of my study; the laws that governs me and the whole creation.  Do I know them? 

If you have ever experienced love in all its forms: joy, peace, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control – and got placed in all negativety; then you will have attained enlightenment that love is central to ideal life. Such exploration is mandatory if you seek who you are.  It is a revelation of the love principle! It is amazing…!  

Parenting that bypass the vicious circle of dysfunctional family

Parenting is the foundation building process that starts before conception and transcends the grave.  Having babies should be a well thought and planned responsibility of mature people because it is the function of populating planet earth with quality inhabitants.  Both social and spiritual principles of parenting point to love as the main ingredient in starting a family. Anything contrary to these ideals denotes dysfunctional families.

Parents should be conscious of their emotional stability and readiness to be role models.  They should feel honored to construct behavioral foundation of their children.  We all know that children do what they see; so the following could be included in parenting guidelines:

·         Love unconditionally by expressing love and affection through hugging and kissing which is foundational in building future relationships

·        Providing safe social and physical environment encourages your children to talk freely hence enables you to know their cognitive development level and the nature of other concepts picked from the media, other kids at school and the public at large.

·        Praise good behavior and reprimand undesirable one; always being careful not to attack a child but a behavior.

·        Having one-on-one learning activities will help you know your child’s strengths, interests and weaknesses. It will also enable you to steer your child to develop career and personal goals from the point of strengths

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·        Avoid favoritism because it causes siblings to compete to win your affection and approval. This has a long term tendency to overcome low self-esteem by learning to manipulate in order to maintain ideal position in relationships.

·        Equip children with life skills to avoid occupational hazards from frying eggs to handling gardening tools.  

·        Praising your child is encouraging repetition of an ideal behavior and desirable efforts. It builds character and accountability of own actions.

I believe parents should be conscious of the quality of lifestyle they instill in their children in order to gradually bridge the moral gaps which contribute to prevailing dysfunctional families  

Reaching your mountaintops: Pick yourself up and chart your way forward…!

I wonder what life would be like without the twists and turns, the slopes and mountains conquered; the exhilaration experienced when reaching the top! Those who have experienced these, have physical, social, spiritual, financial and emotional scars that make their victory memorable. This is being able to pick oneself from one or all of these experiences and turning them into important stepping stones in crossing over and taking decisive direction forward.

I have noted that some people do not have financial challenges, but end up in emotional prisons because of relationships issues.  Others are poor but have blissful relationship with college drop-outs. Others were raised in spiritually rich families, but ended up being social thorns of the society because they wanted freedom in wrong places.  Still others found themselves in the wrong side of the law because of seeking financial success by enriching themselves through illegal strategies.  If you have experience one or some of challenges cited above and stayed on the right side of the law, you have endured the journey of life and reached your mountaintop. This list leaves those who have no issues or challenges; in this context, we call these blessed.

There are people at cross roads who need to make informed decisions to reach their personal goals without having to go through painful experiences and challenges.  Most of these are young adults.  They may have indirectly tasted a few challenges of life; but they need to walk with somebody who care enough to offer information and skills that could empower them to chart their way forward. If you are one of the blessed with less painful challenges; it would be a great honor if you could tell us how you avoided these challenges.  You see, at times the mind works against us. One cannot even start to climb one’s mountain if one has not crossed over the current issues.  I hope you can identify with this dilemma…!

Should children respect or fear their parents?

The two words are often used interchangeably in the African culture socialization settings.  Respect is a virtue which all parents would like to impart onto their children because it is a product of love.  Fear on the other hand is a negative emotion which reveals perception of the mind and reveals incompatible levels of a relationship.  

 Fear occurs after something undesirable had happened.  When referring to children, fear should not rear its ugly face between them and their parents. Children are very smart and do understand when a particular action is not approved. These are normal socialization dynamics that prepares children to merge in and comply with the values and beliefs of the community they are born into.   When children are encouraged to learn without fear, they develop positive regard towards other people and tend to stay in this lane of conduct throughout all developmental stages. Children who are socialized into respect demonstrate the following behavior pattern:

1.    Admire their parents and regard them as role models

2.    They develop high opinion of their parents and therefore listen to their guidance

3.    They readily aspire to be successors of the notable achievement of their parents and this increase their self-esteem

4.    They deeply revere authorities in social institutions and therefore maintain good relationships as adults 

This truth is revealed when children play house.  They role play their parents behavior, attitudes beliefs and values. Fearful children do not know how to love unconditionally.  This indicates that such children will learn to manipulate others to get approval.  They will likely be unable to choose suitable mates because those who were hurt will hurt others.  Fear is revealed in the following behaviors:

1.    Negative view of the world which is demonstrated by the tendency to dictate own desires on others.

2.    The tendency to expect the worse situation all the time

3.    Low level of trust because no good things ever happen without paying in kind

4.    Anxiety becomes the natural defense mechanism that prepares a child to rise above any disappointments.

Fear in children explains why there are people who seem to thrive in strife, and become the thorn of the society.  Naturally children are not fearful. Fear is a learned negative response which is detrimental to many self-esteem issues which are hurdles of social and economic success.  Respect and fear therefore cannot occupy one spaced. Fearful children are candidates for poor relationships when they become adults…!  

BEING AWARE OF SOCIALIZATION ISSUES

Most of us are lucky to have discovered our socialization issues during our early adulthood. Are you one of those? Well! You may not readily say yes or no… Either way, walk with me on the journey of discovery, healing and growth!

There are different views concerning the nature and the impact of childhood socialization. Some say there is little or no impact on how a child is raised. It is said that individual make choices that will propel them into success or failure. Others attach great importance on the quality of life before and during the first eight years of the child development. This view point senses we experience the world with: hearing, sight, smell, taste, touch and feelings as points of entry of either harmful or supportive experiences.  Our beliefs and values are therefore defined on the bases of our previous experiences; how we interpret information and how they impacted our emotions.

If you were to internalize these views, would you say there is a certain behavioral pattern which point to the possibility of you being one of those who know that they need to engage in self-assessment exercise to identify socialization blemishes? If so, read on! Remember, you cannot correct unidentified behavioral issues.  In other words, even if you are those who believe that one can sweep the dirt under the carpet and move on, you have nothing to lose.  You would have attempted to clear the anchors that limit your success efforts.

You may agree with me that the starting point is being aware that you are never fully conscious of your present level of growth which would enable you to assess where you are and where you would like to go.  You live in an unconsciousness realm and fully allow your minds to dwell in the past or fast-forward into dreamland of the future. It is a futile situation because you cannot change the past and have very little chance to change the future without changing how you think and act now.

For an example, you may not even realize that you live under the threat of your own minds which take you everywhere except in the present.  The fact is; thinking is the function of the mind just as looking is the function of the eyes.  Some people are victims of the current education system which offered unclear career paths that led them to unsuitable jobs.  Others have sailed successfully through their career paths but are unhappy outside their prestigious offices. Why? Possibly because life proved to be far more complex than the academic hurdles they overcame. 

The point of focus is to raise awareness that those who studied human behavior and penned their views in psychological models articulated helpful guidelines: To understand behavior involves knowing both objective external situation as well as subjective perceptions. For instance, two people do not react the same way from the same challenging environment. This view simply point to the fact that there are complex elements that contribute to human behavior and also affirms the uniqueness of every person in the way they interact with others.

The ideal view is one that takes a positive perspective of life; that those who fly low need a shoulder to lean on while cutting loose from their emotional anchors. I know there are those who identify with the frustration of disentangling themselves by learning to say no to any limiting situations or factors.   Basically I believe that human nature is good and seek growth.  I also agree with those who say that all infants are born genius and through socialization, learn not to utilize their potential.  This is evident during the infancy stages where a child is more rebuked than encouraged because parents simply do not understand that infants learn through exploring their environment. Some parents do not know that children must crawl freely in a suitable environment to undertake this foundation building tasks.  They also do not know that they must learn how to interact with others through various stages of development in order to learn to create and manage relationships.

Mankind is created to live a good life. I have attempted to bring awareness of optimum life by highlighting the common deficiency of living in the past where there are unpleasant experiences.  We also tend to live in the future and therefore are permanently anxious.  You only have now to correct the past by learning to appreciate life daily. Love is present. Let everyday be an opportunity to take an upward mobility and enjoy it as if it is the last day.   

Are You at Cross Roads?

Being in control of your life means you are at least aware when you are stuck and unable to take any direction.  Most of us have been at cross roads when we were about to choose our profession, social status or review our religious belief. It is a normal corner to pause and think.

The condition of being at cross roads is threatening if you compare yourself with those who had career guidance; had educated parents who assist you to make up your mind about the right lifestyle – social and religious values and beliefs. The majority of us in developing countries were raised to fill the gaps of unfulfilled parents’ dreams.  Parents who are determined to have an engineer among their children by simply hand-picking any of their kids to meet this expectation. If that sound familiar, it is because you wondered if what you felt inside was true because you knew otherwise.  The pushing is always very painful and burden children with unsuitable careers.

When you prepare to exit into adulthood you are bound to pause and lay your cards of experiences on the table and try to make sense of what life holds for you and try to join the dots of the trends which point to your future.  Being at cross road requires you to be honest to your inner voice which we always ignore and yet is the most accurate if you do not confuse it with the mind stuff.  When you have a direction to take, you may want to research a little to be able to make informed decisions.  This means it is time to cast an open question to those whom you regard as level headed to be objective and professional in speaking into your life.  This means you do not burden your friend who is equally complacent about life and is at cross roads himself/herself. 

Being at cross roads means you are about to make life-binding decisions which may be expensive and disruptive if based on whims.  For an example, I wanted to be a doctor.  Nobody wanted to disprove me of my dream until I got it when watching a movie about contagious diseases.  The doctor who was treating the patients with inadequate protective clothing and equipment had to deal with horrible blisters on patients on daily bases.  It then dawned in me that if I was unable to watch the graphic scenes, I was not cut to be a doctor.  I then realized that I am not programmed to pass mathematics and science.  I even remembered why I chose physical science rather than biology when I was at a secondary school.  I could not look at flies, scorpions and let alone dissect a frog.  I realize that I cannot even slaughter a chicken; which is a normal thing an African girls are able to do so that they can be taught how to prepare one for their future husbands.

Where was I? I was at cross roads. I had to find my talent and then run in my lane if I were to pick a career.  What a revelation!  So, being at cross roads is an opportunity to find your feet and be able to run in your lane.

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