December, 2023 | Relationship and Sex Coach

Here we are at the end of another year.
Don’t know about you but I for sure can say it was a trying one.
And as I look around me, with certainty I can say there are many joining this sentiment about 2023.
Let it be relationships, personal life, professional settings, economy, whatever segment of life, most had it in multiple areas this year, as well as felt it on their own skin what politics was up to.

The other day I had a discussion with an intelligent, open minded world citizen.
Among many, we touched on this subject too.
As we talked we got to the point when we established that we live in a dualistic world.
There is right or wrong, good or bad, nice or ugly, right or left, traditionalist or modernist, men lead world or female lead world, etc.
And the core of many, if not all, of the problems is that people are conditioned to always take side and defend theirs through thick and thin.

Think about it!
When in school, in a generally poor educational system, kids are pressured to study things word by word, not to ask questions but take things they hear from their teachers or read in their books as facts.
Then getting into the workforce where yet most employer are authoritarian, telling to employees to basically shut up and do as told, do not question the higher ups.
All these experiences of course filter into people’s private life, into their friendships, relationships and are very lucky if they didn’t experience such attitude already since their birth from their family too.

One is pressured to decide and stand by one or the other side in mostly everything.

Even Christmas food is in this category: panettone or pandoro, turkey or ham, Yorkshire pudding or mashed potatoes, fish or stuffed cabbage, meat or seafood, and this list is endless too😊

The believers, the committed ones of whichever side are constantly generating, fueling the arguments, disagreements, violent actions.
And I am not even talking about the extremists of any kind, as they make a very different category.

What could be a solution?
Allowing.

How about we allow the other person to say, to believe in, to live by whatever one chooses.
As long as it is not harmful to others.

Let’s be honest:
– if one is religious and the other isn’t that is not hurting either of them, they still could have an intelligent conversation, could be asking one another what makes them believe whatever they believe. They could learn from each other, they both could widen their worldviews
– if one is a left and the other is a right side voter that is not hurting either of them, they still could have an interesting conversation, could be asking one another what makes them vote as they do. They could learn from each other, they both could widen their worldviews
– if one is taking a side (in any subject) and the other sees pluses and minuses on both sides and is not ready, nor willing to take any of the sides, that is not hurting either of them, they still could have an exciting conversation, could be asking one another what makes them to form whatever opinion. They could learn from each other, they both could widen their worldviews.
– and if one is strictly a ham and the other is a turkey person, the same applies. No harm is done.

With all that we arrived to the over 100 years old question, duck or rabbit!?
‘Thomas Kuhn used the rabbit–duck illusion as a metaphor for revolutionary change in science, illustrating the way in which a paradigm shift could cause one to see the same information in an entirely different way.’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit%E2%80%93duck_illusion
‘The duck/rabbit image is one of the most famous in philosophy, and it highlights a curious phenomenon called “aspect perception.” The philosopher Wittgenstein argued that objects often do not simply appear to our senses, but are “seen as” something. They arrive meaningfully in our understanding.’ https://bigthink.com/thinking/wittgenstein-duck-rabbit/

That drawing, simply said, is an optical illusion showing that it only depends on your perspective whether you see one or the other when you look at the picture.
It is a very simple tool to make everyone realize, that two, or even more things can be true, can be right at the same time.
Views only may differ due to perspective!

So the very simple and highly effective solution in any and all questions/subjects can be if we ALLOW each other to be, to think, to believe as each want to.

Be open, be curious, don’t let yourself be fooled, nor pressured.
And with all that, I wish you a healthy, happy, abundant, loving, allowing New Year!
A happy 2024 to all!

Mental health is a hot topic.
There are conferences, videos, researches, summits happening, articles and opinions are on every possible platform over the Internet.
Many are amazing sources of information, knowledge, help, and some are doing nothing more than add to the harm.

Yesterday I heard a sentence that hit me hard, and triggered me to write this post.

Must start by saying, I am not a doctor, so what follows is my opinion and what I am about to say are rooting from my studies and experiences as a coach, as someone who met an extreme amount of people in her life through work, what I see and realized around me both on- and offline, and what I learned, realized, discovered about myself.

It is a huge subject so there is a fair chance of me not touching on something that affects/concerns/bothers you personally.
It does not mean on any level that I invalidate that, or you.

With all that said, here it comes.

Mental health is not a new age woo-woo.
Mental health is not something that the weak came up with to ‘use as cover’.
Mental health is not a luxury of the rich.
Mental health is not a privilege.

Mental health is a hot topic because it, and its effects on life in general were ignored for the longest time.
Mental health is a hot topic because the stigma on mental illnesses finally started to get dismantled.
Mental health is a hot topic because by now one in four people are affected by it at some point in their lives, and one out of two will develop one in their lifetime.
Not to mention that everyone has some moments when some form of support would benefit their mental health.

How is that even possible, you may ask.
Well, let’s see: life is getting faster and faster (at least in the so called civilized world); changes are daily occurrences; we are constantly bombarded with information; basically anyone is able to see, hear anything anywhere in the world in real time with the help of modern technology; social media gives opportunity to anyone to show anything and pretend it is real; work is often way more stressful than it could be considered reasonable, … no wonder that mental health is declining as the human brain was not designed to deal with all that and more.

Stress, anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), dissociative disorders, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), obsessive-compulsive disorders (OCD), … and so on are diagnosed in more and more people.
And 1 in 5 people have suicidal thoughts and over 700.000 people (that is 1 person in every 40 seconds) die of suicide yearly.

When you are at a certain age and you look back you might think, or at any age you are you might have heard people saying ‘back in my time there were none of these stuff present”.
The truth of the matter is, they were present, only neuroscience and psychology were not where they are at today.
A decade and more back in time people were just labelled as crazy, lazy, strange, or were simply dismissed as simulants.

Nowadays as researches, studies and personal experiences are growing in numbers on the subject, it finally has the platforms where it is addressed not only that what mental illness means and what the different illnesses are, but also the consequences on personal life, sex life, work and physical illnesses too.

The sentence I heard yesterday was by Mel Robbins addressed to a girl about her suicidal thoughts: ‘you didn’t want to die, you just didn’t want to feel what you felt’.

Woah! Ain’t that the truth!?!

To feel bad, sad, useless, unloved, unsuccessful, lonely, cheated by life, a burden on others, see no way to change the course of events, and which ever feelings in whatever combination, it gets too much for the person and feels suicide is the only option left for them.
Because who would want to feel these feelings?
Of course, nobody!

Mental illness is nothing to be shameful about!
Also having bad days, bad periods in one’s life is normal, nothing to feel shame about it either, not to mention that such periods don’t necessarily equal to any illness either.

Let’s normalize having bad days; let’s normalize asking ‘do you want to talk?’ when we see a friend/relative/colleague being down; let’s stop judging and throwing dismissive comments; let’s agree that everyone’s feelings are valid.

The only way to turn around this tendency is if we take care of ourselves more, if we respect our feelings more, ask for some kind of help when feeling down; if we pay more attention to each other at work, at home, among friends and neighbours.

Also, let’s normalize ‘no’ as a full answer.
You are allowed, you can say it to anyone in any situation if this is what you want to say.
On the other hand, you must take it and understand it if this is the answer you get.

The sentiment of ‘be kind to everyone, you never know what battle they are fighting’ had never been more true.
And especially now, when ‘the season’ is here.
Understand that for some this is the most difficult time of the year.
Be kind, be loving but as the bare minimum, quit being an insensitive, judgy creep.