Month: March 2023

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Let’s Talk About Losing: Can We Gain from It?

Believe in Yourself

I know. I know. What a drag! No one likes to lose, let alone talk about it.  But here is the thing: losing is a fact of life, no matter how accomplished you are. You will lose at something—an election, a sporting event, a debate, a board game and so on. Take, for example, the accomplished Scrabble player in our house who has a vocabulary loaded with the English language from various countries and cultures.  He is a shoo-in, right?

Most times but he has lost a time or two to the fledgling amongst us. And as painful as it has been for him, each loss has made him better and harder to beat. I should know. I am the underdog at Scrabble. So how does he do it? He learns from his mistakes, of course.

What’s new, you might be asking? Isn’t that one of those things that we learn in kindergarten–learn from your mistakes. Sure, but perhaps there are a few lessons that go hand in hand with learning from mistakes that we hardly ever implement.

One of them is feeling the loss and bouncing back from it anyway. Yes, it is natural to cry or feel gutted in the immediate aftermath of the experience.  I have seen plenty of athletes shed tears or show their disappointment at losing a game/a match and come out fighting the next day. The point is ignoring difficult emotions can be unhealthy both mentally and physically, so best to acknowledge and deal with them.

However, there is a huge difference between feeling the loss and being a sore loser.  Almost always, a sore loser is too upset to learn from the experience, which is a great segue to the next point.

Let it go! At first, blinded by tears or painful feelings, this might be hard to do but holding on to the past often clouds your view and can lead to depression.  A cloudy view is not a good starting place to learn lessons, even if you don’t get depressed. As a girl, I was a high performing runner and one day at a school competition stalled at the start line and I never let go of that humiliating, horrible feeling. It stalled me forever as a runner. 

That’s why I know letting go is easier said than done.  Doing so often means accepting the situation for what it is, meditating, praying, studying, practicing, overcoming any errors that might have contributed to the loss and looking to the future with belief in yourself.

Most of us either know someone who has done a remarkable job at letting go or have our own personal experience.  I certainly have and have reaped the benefits, for example, in my writing.  And if we don’t have an up close and personal example, we don’t have to look too far for inspiration. Examples that spring to mind are Jennifer Hudson who did not win American Idol but look at her now and Michael Jordan who didn’t make his varsity basketball team. Everybody knows his name.

A third lesson to be learned from losing is to play your own game, even if others don’t believe in you, or you think someone else is better. This means fully immersing yourself into your skill, delivering the goods in flow, also known as the zone. I have experienced the flow as a writer and have watched numerous athletes perform from this mystical place within, which brings the mental and the physical together magically. The key is to keep other people and things out of your head. It is just you.

Another lesson has to do with taking ownership.  Don’t worry about what so and so didn’t do unless it truly is an impediment. Do what you do, as my brother often tells our niece. And I’ll add, get what you need to grow.  

A passage from Michelle Obama’s book, The Light We Carry, in which she complained of a math teacher who struck her as arrogant, sums it up beautifully.

After her mother heard her complain, here is what she said. “You don’t have to like your teacher and she doesn’t have to like you, she said. “But she’s got math in her head that you need in yours, so maybe you should just go to school and get the math.”

Finally, give your all and when you have done that, you have done enough.  In the early days of playing Scrabble, for example, I was a bit of a sore loser.  I’ve come along away.  Whether I win or lose, I give my all the entire game, playing my game, and when it is all said and done, I don’t feel rubbished at all. I know I am enough!

For more tips on personal development, check out UIO’s podcast On Personal Development with Robyn Spens, which is loaded with advice on how to develop your full potential. And for information on overcoming challenges, listen to Rising Above Odds  with Hannilee Fish, who shares her personal story about overcoming seemingly insurmountable challenges.

 

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Cracking the Code for Good Sleep

At least once a week, sometimes several times, someone on social media posts about their very own experience(s) with insomnia. Often time, the posts come in the throes of the moment. Not that I see them in real time unless they are in a time zone when the midst of their wee hours is my mid-morning.

Anyhow, I know the feeling. When I am detained by insomnia, I don’t want to lie awake in bed, stare into the oblivion and be heckled by the thoughts in my head, either. I just want to sleep. That’s all. Is there a code that I haven’t cracked, I often think glancing over at a sleeping husband?

If there is one, the first part of it must be a lesson I have learned over the years: the more you chase sleep, the more evasive it becomes.

Case and point:  A few years ago, I did not sleep a wink the night before I appeared on a major television talk show in London to discuss the results of some UIO research. I tossed, turned, bed hopped, meditated, prayed, tried several sleep masks, and even commanded myself to sleep but I lay awake miserable.

Around 5 am, I happily sprung out of bed and prepared for the opportunity ahead—a car from the BBC would arrive soon to take me to the studio and I wasn’t going to botch that opportunity. Off I went and though my appearance was successful by most measures, I was exhausted and barely made it home before my lack of sleep made me sick.

Even after this, I still couldn’t sleep—too tired and ill feeling.

So where did I go wrong? According to sleep experts, I stayed in bed that night, perhaps another part of the code. Apparently, there are many scientific rules, if you will, around getting off to sleep. One of them is that if you can’t sleep, get up, leave your bed and the taunting thoughts behind, and do something interesting, meaningful, distracting. That something for me nowadays is to play solitaire with a beautiful Christian Lacroix deck of cards, a gift from a good friend. For at least one other insomniac that I know, it is decorating.  Find out what works for you and do it when insomnia visits.

Thankfully, however, I don’t have to play cards during the wee hours as often as I once did. I’ve now incorporated the practice into my sleep hygiene on the nights when I suspect I might have trouble drifting off.

According to Dr Nerina Ramlakhan, guest of our On Sleep podcast, it is important to develop sleep hygiene from the time you start your day to the time you wind down. This means paying attention to when and what you eat and drink, whether you nap or not and what you do before going to bed, all code sounding language to me.

Now about that canteen of coffee or caffeinated tea or oodles of chocolate that you enjoy daily, it might have something to do with whether you get off to sleep or even stay there or not. Experts say caffeine has an average half-life of about 6 hours. In short, that means if you have a chocolate dessert three hours before you sleep, you might be in for an awakening that night.

Worse yet, Dr Ramlakhan points out that even if you get to sleep, you might not stay there. Many people drift off and wake up suddenly, unable to get back to sleep. The good news is that staying asleep responds to the same sort of habit forming that getting off to sleep does. Not only does paying attention to your food and drink intake matter, so does power napping during the day.

One day after lunch, although I felt sleep come over me like dusk, I took Dr Ramlakhan’s advice and did not rush to my bed and pull the covers over my head. I took a nap on the sofa, setting my timer for 20 minutes. It worked. I managed to get off to sleep that night and stay there, having kept to winding down at least an hour before going to bed, signing off all devices and turning them off, assisting my chatter box to quiet down with meditation, and concealing any other blue light or indeed any light in my room, all key tips from our podcast.

Code cracked, right! Not so fast. There is another unhealthy encounter that many people have with sleep–sleeping too much, otherwise known as hypersomnia, which is not the same as being jet lagged and sleeping more than usual. It is when someone needs to sleep a lot all the time.

This can be tricky to diagnose because teenagers need more sleep than adults because of the growth and development they are encountering. But Dr Ramlakhan points out they can overdo it, putting a damper on health altogether, since sleeping too much is not good sleep either and can cause health problems akin to the ones caused by not getting enough sleep.

The key is getting the right amount of sleep for you. That cracks the code for sure. For more information on how to do this, outside of any medical problems, check out On Sleep wherever you listen to podcasts.

 

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Boundaries for Your Best Life Now

Boundaries. Now there is a word that sets the cats amongst the pigeons, particularly for those who don’t really have boundaries or value the boundaries of others.

When I was a teenager, the word threw me into a tizzy, even if I did understand the importance of having boundaries, not only the ones my parents set for me but also the ones I set for myself. Still, I found some of them hard to honour, mostly because of peer pressure, though I didn’t often cave into the desires of others. But when I did, the consequences were longstanding.

Take for instance, the biggest boundary disaster I had during my teen years got me into hot water with my parents and on the outs with some of my friends, too.

I won’t go into detail but upon reflection, had I honoured my own boundaries, even withstanding the ones that my parents clearly set out, I would have saved myself a lot of trouble and maintained a friendship that meant a lot to me.

In hindsight, however, I only have myself to blame. Caving into peer pressure led to being irresponsible and broken trust and broken relationships all over the place. Likely my reputation suffered a bit too.

Though much has changed since I was a teenage girl, such as the widespread use of technology, many of the issues are still the same—peer pressure is one of them.

It is all about being liked, reminds Lindsey Turnbull, guest of UIO’s On Girls Rights. Everyone wants to be liked.

I can vouch for that. But here is the thing: dishonouring your boundaries doesn’t guarantee being liked. It might backfire, as it did for me all those years ago.

It is important to like yourself, says Lindsey, who is founder of Miss Heard Media.  The more you like yourself, the easier it is to say no to things that don’t serve you.  Another way of seeing this is that having boundaries protects you from situations that do not serve you.

Further to this, Dr Henry Cloud and Dr John Townsend says in their New York Times bestselling book, Boundaries, that boundaries define us—what is me and what is not me.

This, I can attest to.  After my big disaster, I often had to dig deep and stand my ground if something just wasn’t me and I still do. This understanding of boundaries continues to help me navigate difficult situations. Though I don’t always get it right, being tuned into my own values helps me to take responsibility for my own life experiences.

Nonetheless, taking ownership isn’t always easy. It is much easier to cast blame. It’s this person’s fault or that person’s problem. The flipside is feeling guilt and taking on someone else’s problem. In this case, they likely haven’t set boundaries and you are dishonouring yours by taking on the issue.

Make no mistake about it, friends show-up for friends in need but it doesn’t have to be at the expense of values and boundaries.

According to Lindsey, the key is to self-reflect and review your values, which play a huge role in setting boundaries, as does character. This helps to curate your space, not only online but also your physical space.

Boundaries can be considered in all aspects of life ranging from the content you put online to who you follow online and what you read. You can use boundaries, for example, to block content that makes you uncomfortable or report it is as abuse.  In our On Being a Teen Girl Now podcast, Leah and Divaina talk about the inappropriate content that targets teenage girls about body image. While you might not be able to eliminate it completely, you can honour your boundaries and not read it or report it.

And, understanding that body image is about more than how you look helps you to like yourself more and live out your values—exercising, eating well, sleeping better and so on.

The thing about being young, Lindsey says, is that taking care of yourself does not have to be so regimented. Exercise can be running and jumping in the park or having fun with your friends on a sports team.

In other words, tap into your childhood spirit for as long as you have it, all the while setting boundaries, honouring them, and living your best life intentionally now. For more about boundaries and dealing with peer pressure, listen to On Girls Rights and Peer Pressure Inside Out with Full Circle Author Natalie Savvides.

 

 

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Maintaining Your Family Relations

Family matters! It always has and it always will, but here is the thing about family: the relationships require maintenance just like friendships and romantic relationships.

If someone said this to me when I was a teenager, I might have hunched my shoulders because as far as I was concerned the relationship at home ran on auto pilot. It was my parent’s job to raise me and to put up with every sulk and mood that came over my teenage mind and body and quite frankly be happy about it. I felt they were responsible for meeting my needs. It never occurred to me that they had needs, too.

Thankfully, I had no nonsense parents who went a long way to take care of me and my siblings, but they didn’t jump through hoops, accepting disrespect and disregard. According to their values, they developed boundaries, which is quite key to maintaining family relationships. More on that later.

For now, let’s look at another aspect of maintaining good family relationships—effective communication. Without it, relationships perish, whether in a traditional family unit, like the one I grew up in, or a blended one, akin to what I live in now.

According to Dr Lisa Doodson, guest of our Your Family Matters podcast, if we rely on sensitivity and effective communication, we bring an openness to the table rather than a closed mindedness that can squash opportunities.

Take something as a simple as music, an acquaintance once talked about the importance of learning about her teenage daughter’s music instead of fobbing it off and refusing to let her play it on their drive to school. Though it wasn’t her thing, she decided it was a way to connect with her daughter.

No one needs to be marginalised or feel snubbed. But everyone must bring willingness to the table, says Dr Doodson. That means everyone—when I was teenager, I am not sure I understood.  However, in On Being a Teen Girl Now, teenage guests Leah and Divaina stress that communication is a two-way street.

Communicating effectively can open doors that have been previously shut, and in a blended family can be the gateway to broadening horizons of its members and can also increase emotional intelligence, according to Dr Doodson..

Take my relationship with my in-laws, for example. We had a good rapport from the word go but not for a moment did we pretend that we understood each other’s life experiences fully, particularly when it came to race. My in-laws grew up in the 30s, long before I was conceived, and were open minded about embracing my culture. And I had to put aside pre-conceived notions and stereotypes about theirs as well.

Another example might be a parent taking on a new partner after separation or divorce or loss. This can be challenging for everyone but employing sensitivity and effective communication can assist with overcoming hurdles. Instead of refusing to accept the new person, let your parent know that you understand that they have needs but you are not quite ready and need to take things slowly.

In our podcast, Dr Doodson and I talk about understanding roles and boundaries when a new person or persons enter your life. If new siblings come into the fold, open and honest communication becomes even more pivotal.

As for boundaries, they really come in handy in any family unit. Traditionally, such as in my family, our parents had rules about our comings and goings, etc, and it worked for the benefit of everyone. Nowadays boundaries extend far beyond the physical.

When using the internet, for instance, be sensitive to other family members. In a blended family this can become quite complex when posting about holidays and activities. Make sure it is fine with family members who are on the outside of the experience before doing so, otherwise, you could cross a line that leads to hurtful consequences.

The point is that all family members matter, whether a part of a traditional family or a blended one. Take care of yours with effective communication and healthy boundaries. For more information on family life, listen to Your Family Matters and Your Family Inside Out with Helen Lewis, founder of Literally PR.