Psychology Today
How to Diagnose an Unhealthy Relationship
You need a partner who's sincere, not manipulative.
Once I ran to you, now I'll run from you
This tainted love you've given,
I give you all a boy could give you
Take my tears and that's not nearly all
Tainted love. -- "Tainted Love," Ed Cobb, 1964
When someone says they've fallen in love with you, it can be hard to tell if they love you in a healthy way, or if their love is tainted. Here are six key differences:
1. Giving freely vs. giving to get. Real love is based on a desire to give to the other when the need arises, without expecting something in return. You trust each other to have one another’s back, and to be there for each other. Tainted love seldom gives without a price—giving is only a way to get something back, not a way of caring.
2. Knowing each other vs. changing each other. People who love in a healthy way work to know each other by building maps of each other and working hard to discover more and more of who each other are. Tainted love demands that you change into what someone else wants you to be. It doesn't care who you are, just that you conform to its demands.
This tainted love you've given,
I give you all a boy could give you
Take my tears and that's not nearly all
Tainted love. -- "Tainted Love," Ed Cobb, 1964
When someone says they've fallen in love with you, it can be hard to tell if they love you in a healthy way, or if their love is tainted. Here are six key differences:
1. Giving freely vs. giving to get. Real love is based on a desire to give to the other when the need arises, without expecting something in return. You trust each other to have one another’s back, and to be there for each other. Tainted love seldom gives without a price—giving is only a way to get something back, not a way of caring.
2. Knowing each other vs. changing each other. People who love in a healthy way work to know each other by building maps of each other and working hard to discover more and more of who each other are. Tainted love demands that you change into what someone else wants you to be. It doesn't care who you are, just that you conform to its demands.
3. Privacy vs. exposure. A healthy love
creates areas in the relationship that are private, where no one else
can enter in. Real love protects the time the two of you share, your
knowledge about each other, and the unique things the two of you do with
each other. Tainted love provides no privacy—your weaknesses become the
butt of jokes; details of private events like kissing are shared with
anyone who will listen; and time together is given away to anyone but
you.
4. Repair vs. revenge.
If your partner really loves you, fights become ways to learn more
about each other. You will see a genuine effort to repair conflicts
through turning toward each other and sincere listening to feelings.
Tainted love is vindictive. Each argument turns into an opportunity for
payback. You’ll see fights produce blaming, coercion or rejection.
5. Shared goals vs. selfishness.
Real love places two people into a joined life-space, where they create
shared goals that promote each other’s well-being. Your partner should
want your your hopes and dreams
to come true. Tainted love takes for itself, it doesn’t give. Unhealthy
love asks you to sacrifice your dreams, not fulfill them. Tainted love
is self-interest, not other interest.
6. Desire vs. guilt.
Healthy love creates a desire to care for each other’s needs. You want
the other person to be in your life, and you care about their needs.
Tainted love, instead, demands things and uses guilt to get what it
wants. Your partner will tell you why you’re bad or uncaring, and
compare you to others to make you feel bad—and then deliver the message:
“But, sweetie, if you do what I tell you to, then maybe I'll forgive you." You don’t give because you want to, you give because you have to.
There
are other ways to identify the difference between unhealthy and healthy
love, but these six contrasts provide some key distinctions. If you
want to learn more about healthy love, the Gottman Institute provides
many useful materials and books on the topic—all supported by research.
Remember: Healthy love leaves you better off at the end of the day, but
tainted love hurts an awful lot of the time.
Resources: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zQ8hYnayqM
How To Motivate Yourself – Self Motivation
Staying
motivated is a struggle — our drive is constantly assaulted by negative
thoughts and anxiety about the future. Everyone faces doubt and
depression. What separates the highly successful is the ability to keep
moving forward.
There
is no simple solution for a lack of motivation. Even after beating it,
the problem reappears at the first sign of failure. The key is
understanding your thoughts and how they drive your emotions. By
learning how to nurture motivating thoughts, neutralize negative ones,
and focus on the task at hand, you can pull yourself out of a slump
before it gains momentum.
Reasons We Lose Motivation
There are 3 primary reasons we lose motivation.
1. Lack of confidence – If you don’t believe you can succeed, what’s the point in trying?
2. Lack of focus – If you don’t know what you want, do you really want anything?
3. Lack of direction – If you don’t know what to do, how can you be motivated to do it?
How to Boost Confidence
The
first motivation killer is a lack of confidence. When this happens to
me, it’s usually because I’m focusing entirely on what I want and
neglecting what I already have. When you only think about what you want,
your mind creates explanations for why you aren’t getting it. This
creates negative thoughts. Past failures, bad breaks, and personal
weaknesses dominate your mind. You become jealous of your competitors
and start making excuses for why you can’t succeed. In this state, you
tend to make a bad impression, assume the worst about others, and lose
self confidence.
The
way to get out of this thought pattern is to focus on gratitude. Set
aside time to focus on everything positive in your life. Make a mental
list of your strengths, past successes, and current advantages. We tend
to take our strengths for granted and dwell on our failures. By making
an effort to feel grateful, you’ll realize how competent and successful
you already are. This will rejuvenate your confidence and get you
motivated to build on your current success.
It
might sound strange that repeating things you already know can improve
your mindset, but it’s amazingly effective. The mind distorts reality to
confirm what it wants to believe. The more negatively you think, the
more examples your mind will discover to confirm that belief. When you
truly believe that you deserve success, your mind will generate ways to
achieve it. The best way to bring success to yourself is to genuinely
desire to create value for the rest of the world.
Developing Tangible Focus
The
second motivation killer is a lack of focus. How often do you focus on
what you don’t want, rather than on a concrete goal? We normally think
in terms of fear. I’m afraid of being poor. I’m afraid no one will
respect me. I’m afraid of being alone. The problem with this type of
thinking is that fear alone isn’t actionable. Instead of doing something
about our fear, it feeds on itself and drains our motivation.
If
you’re caught up in fear based thinking, the first step is focusing
that energy on a well defined goal. By defining a goal, you
automatically define a set of actions. If you have a fear of poverty,
create a plan to increase your income. It could be going back to school,
obtaining a higher paying job, or developing a profitable website. The
key is moving from an intangible desire to concrete, measurable steps.
By
focusing your mind on a positive goal instead of an ambiguous fear, you
put your brain to work. It instantly begins devising a plan for
success. Instead of worrying about the future you start to do something
about it. This is the first step in motivating yourself to take action.
When know what you want, you become motivated to take action.
Developing Direction
The
final piece in the motivational puzzle is direction. If focus means
having an ultimate goal, direction is having a day-to-day strategy to
achieve it. A lack of direction kills motivation because without an
obvious next action we succumb to procrastination. An example of this is
a person who wants to have a popular blog, but who spends more time
reading posts about blogging than actually writing articles.
The
key to finding direction is identifying the activities that lead to
success. For every goal, there are activities that pay off and those
that don’t. Make a list of all your activities and arrange them based on
results. Then make a make an action plan that focuses on the activities
that lead to big returns. To continue the example from above, a
blogger’s list would look something like this:
- Write content
- Research relevant topics
- Network with other bloggers
- Optimize design and ad placements
- Answer comments and email
- Read other blogs
Keeping
track of your most important tasks will direct your energy towards
success. Without a constant reminder, it’s easy to waste entire days on
filler activities like reading RSS feeds, email, and random web surfing.
When
my motivation starts to wane, I regain direction by creating a plan
that contains two positive actions. The first one should be a small task
you’ve been meaning to do, while the second should be a long-term goal.
I immediately do the smaller task. This creates positive momentum.
After that I take the first step towards achieving the long-term goal.
Doing this periodically is great for getting out of a slump, creating
positive reinforcement, and getting long-term plans moving.
It’s
inevitable that you’ll encounter periods of low energy, bad luck, and
even the occasional failure. If you don’t discipline your mind, these
minor speed bumps can turn into mental monsters. By being on guard
against the top 3 motivation killers you can preserve your motivation
and propel yourself to success.
http://somalijobs.net/index.php/job-seekers/resources/115-how-to-motivate-yourself-self-motivation
Mind, Self, Soul, Spirit, and Happiness from an Islamic Perspective
By Hassan Ali El-Najjar*
Al-Jazeerah, 13th
Dhul Qa’ada, 1428 -
November 24, 2007
Revised on 2nd of Dhul Hijja, 1429 - November 30, 2008
Revised on 1st of Ramadan, 1433 - July 20, 2012
Introduction
The concepts of mind, self, soul,
Spirit, and happiness are closely related in the Holy Quran. This article
attempts to increase people’s understanding of these concepts, their
interconnectedness, and their relevance to Islamic teachings in general.
Scientists of our time
have been able to clone animals. This has made it easier on people to
believe that the Creator (Praise to Him), the All-Knowledgeable, is capable
of resurrecting the human body in the Day of Judgment.
The current information
revolution has demonstrated that information can be captured in diskettes
and compacted disks (CDs) and transferred through space (from Earth to satellites orbiting
our planet, then back to Earth). However, humans have neither been capable
of transferring information from the human brain nor to it.
This is God’s sphere so
far. He is the Creator of scientists and internet innovators. He is capable
of transferring information from our brains at the moment of death to a
super
computer somewhere in His universe until the Day of Judgment. He has not told
us how He does that but assured us that we will know a little about it.
These facts also mean that
God is capable of cloning the same individual and of transferring the
information back to his/her brain, thus resurrecting humans in body and
soul, at the Day of
Judgment.
Happiness, Good, and
Evil
Ultimately, believers in
God's ability of resurrection would behave in a good way during their
life time on Planet Earth. As a result, they will be rewarded in this
life by living in happiness, and in the hereafter by entering God's
Paradise and enjoying a happy life there forever.
Conversely, those who
don't want to believe in the Day of Reckoning, don't also believe in
accountability. So, they may act in an evil or a bad way during their
life time on Planet Earth. As a result, they will be punished by not living
in peace and happiness in this life and by entering Hell in the hereafter.
An important point in the discussion about the Day of Judgment is that
capturing human voice and picture, recording them, and broadcasting them
through radio and TV waves have demonstrated that it is possible to record
every movement, action, or word a human being does or says while living on
Earth.
If humans could do that, then it should be a given that their Creator is more capable
of doing it than they are. This constitutes further evidence about the
accountability humans are held to by God, who will judge them according to
what has been recorded about them.
The two concepts of good
and evil are not
left to people to define. Otherwise, they may never agree on what
constitutes each one of them.
God's teachings revealed
in His messages to guide humanity, as summarized in the Holy Qur'an, include
specific definitions and examples of what constitutes good and evil.
These messages were
delivered by God’s messengers throughout human history. Some of these
messengers were mentioned in the Holy Books, others were not mentioned.
Among the mentioned
prominent messengers of God, we are told about Adam, Nooh (Noah), Ibrahim
(Abraham, Loot (Lot), Is'haq (Isaac), Ya'aqoub (Jacob), Yousuf (Joseph),
Moussa (Moses), Hood, Saleh, Elias (Elijah), Elyasa'a, Younus (Jonah), Ayoub
(Jobe), Dawood (David), Sulaiman (Solomon), Zakariyah, Yahya (John), Al-Messieh
Eissa Bin Maryam (The Messiah Jesus, Son of Mary), and Muhammed (Peace and
blessings of God be upon all of them).
The message of God to
humanity, taught by his messengers, includes commands and recommendations.
While good is what God has
wanted humans to do, evil is what He warned them against, telling them to
avoid or not to do (See
Introduction to Islamic Law, Shari'a, Part I).
It follows that obedience
to God, through doing what He wants people to do, constitutes what's good,
and leads to happiness. However, disobedience to Him leads to committing
evil acts, which causes suffering to offenders and to their victims.
More direct association
between obedience to God and happiness as well as disobedience to Him and
unhappiness or wretchedness can be found in verses throughout the Holy
Qur’an.
The Mind
The mind
is the body of knowledge housed in the brain. It includes two main parts.
The first is a software which develops inherently with the brain in the
womb. It is responsible for the functionality of the body, readiness for
learning, and disposition for knowing good and evil, as explained in the
self below.
The second part of the mind is
accumulated from birth until death, as a result of the interaction with the
world. So, the mind actually houses everything a person learns throughout
his/her life. However, not all the information accumulated in the mind may
be used by a person.
The word mind (aql,
عقل)
does not appear in the Holy Qur’an as a noun in the singular form. Rather, a
derivative of which is used as a verb (aqala
عَقَلَ ), meaning to tie,
tighten, control, or restrict.
Thus, minding or reasoning means
subjecting one’s thinking to known restrictions, rules, laws, and controls
in order for one’s behavior to become as educated, safe, wise, and
intelligent as possible, as mentioned in many verses of the Holy Qur’an.
The word al-albab ,(ألألباب)
however, is used in the Holy Quran to refer to the “mind” but in the plural
form.
It has been used in 15 verses, all
addressing believers who are intelligent enough to use their “minds.”
Self and Soul
In Surat Al-Ana’am
(Chapter 6), Verse 60, of the Holy Quran, we are told that Allah,
praise to Him, knows what we do in the daytime, when we are awake, then we go back to Him in
the Day of Judgment, so He tells us what we have done in this life.
In Chapter 6, also, Verse
61, God tells us that when the moment of death comes, God sends angels who
are curators or record keepers to end a person’s life on Earth. Nothing will
be left out of his/her record. The record will be completed. Thus, the
physical death is also accompanied by “wafah” or “completion” of a person’s record during his/her time life
on Earth.
Some Messengers of God,
however, were lifted to heavens to save them from death but their records on
Earth were completed, such as the case with Jesus Christ, peace be upon him,
who experienced "wafah" but not death. This is also the case of martyrs,
whose lives on Earth ended but they are alive in heavens.
Verse 67 of Chapter 6
assures us that every bit of news has a destination where it can be saved or
recorded, and prophetically tells us that we will know that this can and
will happen.
Part of this prophecy has
been fulfilled in our time, as we have been capable of capturing the sound
and pictures of humans and their environment and of broadcasting them
through radio and TV waves throughout terrestrial and extraterrestrial
space.
The main idea here is that
if humans have been capable of accomplishing that, then it should be a given
that Allah Almighty, praise to Him, is
more capable of doing it and more.
But what exactly are we
going to be held accountable for?
The Holy Quran tells us
that we will be held accountable for all what we say or do with our own free
will and choice. This is because God has given humans the freedom to choose.
The Holy Quran is very
specific about the contrast between the two choices. In Verses 7 and 8 of
Chapter 91 (Surat Al-Shams), God Almighty says that when He has fashioned
the
human self (by blowing His spirit in it), He has also equipped it
with the ability to choose to be pious or deviant, following the straight
path or going astray from it.
Translators of the Holy Quran generally use the word “soul” as a translation
for the Arabic word nafs (نَفۡسٌ۬).
Sociologists use another term, “self,” to refer to the body of
knowledge, which is selected from the mind in a developmental process to
form a unique identity for a living person.
The word “soul” is more used by
religious scholars to refer to a person’s unique identity after death, than
during his/her life on earth. Thus, the “soul” is the “self ” after death,
which will be held accountable for its performance during life on Earth. It
will be resurrected through being transferred back to its cloned body in the
Day of Judgment, in order to be able to communicate with its Creator, then
to be rewarded or punished on the basis of its Earthen performance.
There are hundreds of verses in the Holy
Quran, which mention the self (“nafs” in Arabic). Some of them refer to the
self during its life on Earth and others refer to it in the Hereafter.
Spirit
While psychologists, sociologists, and
other scientists have been studying the mind and the self (which becomes
soul after death), we know very little about the spirit, as the Holy Quran
tells us.
The word “spirit” is a
translation of the Arabic word roo'h (روح
), which is mentioned in about 20 verses in the Holy Quran.
Humans received part of God’s spirit when
He blew it in Adam, thus becoming part of the human DNA, as Verses 5:110,
15: 29, 21: 91, and 66: 12 tells us. This is the part of the brain which is responsible for the
automatic functionality of the body organs, readiness for
learning, and disposition for knowing good and evil.
From these 20 verses of the Holy Qur’an, we know that the spirit is a quality of God that He sends to the humans He has created in order to support, strengthen, and give life to them. Thus, humans have some of God’s spirit. The verses also refer to the angel Jibril (Gabriel) as "the Spirit."
From these 20 verses of the Holy Qur’an, we know that the spirit is a quality of God that He sends to the humans He has created in order to support, strengthen, and give life to them. Thus, humans have some of God’s spirit. The verses also refer to the angel Jibril (Gabriel) as "the Spirit."
Summary and Conclusion
The concepts
of mind, self, soul, Spirit, and happiness
are closely related in the Holy Quran. They are interconnected, in the
sense that understanding them individually cannot be complete without
understanding how they are related to each other.
As human beings, we are elated over a
lot of God’s creations because of our ability to collect, process, and use
data in a good way, by choice.
The human body is just an instrument
that incubates and sustains the brain, which houses the human mind, from
which the self develops and evolves throughout a person's lifetime on Earth.
God Almighty started the process When He
installed an essential software from His spirit in the human brain. This
is what allows and enables the human self to start a life-long process of data
collection, processing, and decision making while having the ability to
differentiate between good and evil.
When the body dies, when it is no longer capable of
sustaining the self, whether by old age, sickness, or accidental injury, then
records of the human self are completed by angels.
In the Hereafter, the self is going to
be judged on the basis of its performance on Earth. If it is obedient to God
in its behavior, it will be living in happiness in this life and in the
hereafter. But, if the human self is disobedient to God, it suffers in its
Earthen life and in the hereafter.
To sum up, goodness is obedience to God
and evil is disobedience to Him.
It follows that whatever happens to human beings in
their life is going to be good for them in the hereafter, as long as they are obedient to God, even if they become
poor, get sick, or killed
unjustly. It is good because their ultimate destination is an eternal happy
life in Paradise. They have to work as hard as they can in their pursuit of
happiness while on Earth but they have to observe God in everything they say or do.
You may get the results you want to
achieve here in this life (wealth, offspring, power, prestige, reproductive activities,
etc.) but there's a possibility that you may not get what you are pursuing
because of circumstances beyond
your control.
Success or failure, in the Islamic
sense, is in how you conduct yourself during the process.
==============================================
Notes:
* Dr. Hassan Ali El-Najjar is a native
speaker of Arabic. He has a Ph.D.
in Sociology and a Master’s degree in Cultural Anthropology from the
University of Georgia, USA.
This article is based on three Friday
speeches the author gave at the Dalton Islamic Center Mosque on 3 Sha'aban,
1425 (September 17, 2004), 6 Safar, 1426 (March 18, 2005), and 29
Safar, 1426 (April 8, 2005).
Though the author is solely responsible
for the translation of the meanings of the verses of the the Holy Quran
mentioned in this article, he consulted with the
translation of Yusuf Ali (may Allah reward him for his great work
in the service of Islam and Muslims).
7 Myths About Happiness
Nearly all of us buy into what I call the myths of happiness.
Nearly all of us buy into what I call the myths of happiness—beliefs that certain adult achievements (marriage, kids, jobs, wealth) will make us forever happy and that certain adult failures or adversities (health problems, divorce,
having little money) will make us forever unhappy. Overwhelming
research evidence, however, reveals that there is no magic formula for happiness
and no sure course toward misery. Rather than bringing lasting
happiness or misery in themselves, major life moments and crisis points
can be opportunities for renewal, growth, or meaningful change. Yet how
you greet these moments really matters.
I’ll Be Happy When I’m Married to the Right Person
One
of the most pervasive happiness myths is the notion that we’ll be happy
when we find that perfect romantic partner—when we say “I do.” The
false promise is not that marriage won’t make us happy. For the great
majority of individuals, it will. The problem is that marriage—even when
initially perfectly satisfying—will not make us as intensely happy (or
for as long) as we believe it will. Indeed, studies show that the
happiness boost from marriage lasts an average of only two years.
Unfortunately, when those two years are up and fulfilling our goal to
find the idea partner hasn’t made us as happy as we expected, we often
feel there must be something wrong with us or we must be the only ones
to feel this way.
I Can’t Be Happy When My Relationship Has Fallen Apart
When a committed relationship falls apart, our reaction is often supersized. Fear
of divorce is especially acute: We feel that we can never be happy
again, that our life as we know it is now over. However, people are
remarkably resilient,
and research shows that the low point in happiness occurs a couple
years before the divorce. As soon as four years after the break of a
troubled marriage, people are significantly happier than they ever had
been during the union.
I Need a Partner
Many of us are positive that not having a partner would make us miserable forever. However, multiple
studies show that single people are no less happy than married ones,
and that singles have been found to enjoy great happiness and meaning in
other relationships and pursuits.
Unfortunately, believing in this myth may be toxic: Not recognizing the
power of resilience and the rewards of singlehood (such as more time to
spend with friends or engaging in solo projects and adventures) may lead
us to settle for a poor romantic match.
Landing My Dream Job Will Make Me Happy
At
the root of this happiness myth is the misconception that, although
we’re not happy now, we’ll surely be happy when land that dream job. We
encounter a problem, however, when acquiring that seemingly perfect job
doesn’t make us as happy as we expected and when that happiness is ever
so brief. What explains this unwelcome experience is the inexorable
process of hedonic adaptation—namely,
the fact that human beings have the remarkable capacity to grow
habituated or inured to most life changes. Unfortunately, if we are
convinced that a certain kind of job would make us happy (and it
doesn’t), then misunderstanding the power of hedonic adaptation may
compel us to jettison perfectly good careers. Hence, a critical first
step is to understand that everyone becomes habituated to the novelty,
excitement, and challenges of a new job or venture. This new awareness
will suggest to us an alternative explanation for our occupational
malaise. To wit, there may be nothing wrong with the job or with our motivation or with our work ethic. The fact may be that we are simply experiencing a naturally occurring, all-too-human process.
I’ll Be Happy When I’m Rich and Successful
Many
of us fervently believe that, if we’re not happy now, we’ll be happy
when we’ve finally made it—when we have reached a certain level of
prosperity and success. However, when that happiness proves elusive or
short-lived, we weather mixed emotions, letdown, and even depression.
When we’ve achieved—at least on paper—much of what we have always
wanted to achieve, life can become dull and even empty. There is little
around the corner to look forward to. Many prosperous and successful
individuals don’t understand this natural process of adaptation, and may
come to the conclusion that they need even more money to be truly
happy. They do not realize that the key to buying happiness is not in
how successful we are, but perhaps what we do with our success; it’s not
how high our income is, but how we allocate it.
I Will Never Recover from a Dire Medical Diagnosis
When
our worst fears about our health are realized, we can’t imagine getting
beyond the crying and despairing stage. We can’t imagine experiencing
happiness again. Yet our reactions and forebodings about this worst-case
scenario are governed by one of the myths of happiness. Much can be
done in the face of positive test results to increase the chances that
our time living with illness will not be all misery and
purposelessness—indeed, that it can be a time of growth and meaning—with
hundreds of studies to substantiate it.
Science shows that we
have the power to decide what our experience is and isn’t. Consider that
during every minute of your day, you are choosing to pay attention to
some things and opting to ignore, overlook, suppress, or withdraw from
most other things. What you choose to focus on becomes part of your life
and the rest falls out. You may have a chronic illness, for example,
and you can spend most of your days dwelling on how it has ruined your
life, or you can spend your days focusing on your gym routine, or
getting to know your nieces, or connecting to your spiritual side. We can change our lives simply by changing our attitudes of mind.
The Best Years of My Life Are Over
Whether
we are young, middle-aged, or old, the great majority of us believe
that happiness declines with age, falling more and more with every
decade until we reach that point at which our lives are characterized by
sadness and loss. Thus, we may be surprised to learn what research
conclusively confirms—that many of us could not be farther from the
truth when we conclude that our finest years are long behind us. Older
people are actually happier and more satisfied with their lives than
younger people; they experience more positive emotions and fewer
negative ones, and their emotional experience is more stable and less
sensitive to the vicissitudes of daily negativity and stress.
Although
exactly when the well-being peak takes place is still unclear—three
recent studies demonstrated that the peak of positive emotional
experience occurred at ages sixty-four, sixty-five, and seventy-nine,
respectively—what is very clear is that youth and emerging adulthood are
not the sunniest times of life.
Why is this? When we begin to
recognize that our years are limited, we fundamentally change our
perspective about life. The shorter time horizon motivates us to become
more present-oriented and to invest our (relatively limited) time and
effort into the things in life that really matter. So, for example, as
we age, our most meaningful relationships become much more of a priority
than meeting new people or taking risks; we invest more in these
relationships and discard those that are not very supportive. In a
sense, we become more emotionally wiser as we age.
For a great deal more detail -- and citations of supporting theory and research -- see my new book, The Myths of Happiness (Penguin Press).
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