Category Archives: Self growth

Fear of failure

16 Thursday Mar 2017

Posted by in Advice, Being brave, Change, Life Lessons, Self growth

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I never loved school – when I look back at my schooling, the one thing that always comes to mind was my fear of failure.  That was probably because we were constantly being taught that failure is a bad thing and we not only had to avoid it at all costs but also to always work harder.
As children we are often told by our parents and grandparents what we are not allowed to do or say or touch.  To avoid risk and potential failure or hurt and pain.
So we stick with those beliefs.

The negative reputation that failure gets follows you into your adulthood where you still feel that fear is a bad thing.
More often than not, you are not taught that failure might actually open up new doors for you.  You are not taught that failure is an opportunity to learn and grow as an individual.  You are not given the chance to discover what your strengths and weaknesses are and to really build on your strengths because you spend so much energy and time trying to fix the weaknesses.

If you could let the fear of failure go and bravely enter new places, discover new opportunities and take chances, you may just find something that you never even knew existed.
As uncomfortable as it is to fail, the fear of failing or avoidance of failure just holds you back.  It makes you want to stay in your comfort zone.
And you are worthy of doing so much more than just holding yourself back.
Jump in, try it, take a risk – great, great things might happen!

The story of my life (today)

05 Wednesday Oct 2016

Posted by in Attitude, Freedom, Positivity, Quiet and slow, Self growth

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Today was a totally bizarre day:

  1. I woke up too early
  2. I got to work late because an accident happened in front of me and the drivers decided to resolve the problem by beating each other up
  3. I left work late which meant that I was late to fetch my kids from school
  4. BUT: my kids came out of school late which meant that I drove in exactly as they were walking out of class
  5. AND: the icing on the cake…. As I was driving to fetch them, I came across a terrible accident that had happened only a few minutes before I got there – the few minutes before that I was meant to be driving through that intersection if I hadn’t been running late.

I don’t try to analyse things too deeply – I may have a (very stressed out) guardian angel looking after me, knocking disasters out of my way.  G-d may be on my side (for once).
It may be fate, it may be coincidence, it also may mean nothing.

But this I do know:
We do not have control over anything outside of ourselves.
Things are going to happen and they may affect us negatively or positively but still we have no control over them.
Sometimes you just need to let things happen.
Bad things happen to good people, good things happen to bad people, good things happen to good people too.
If we can be gracious enough to let it go, to not stress about what we can’t control, to not worry about other people and their actions, we would be much calmer and happier in our lives

Outgrow up

17 Wednesday Feb 2016

Posted by in Advice, Attitude, self esteem, Self growth

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Sometimes you find something that is so perfect that there is not much else to say.
This morning I found piece of writings by Chanda Kaushik:

“I have outgrown many things.  I have outgrown relatives who gladly offer criticism but not support.  I have outgrown my need to meet my family’s unrealistic expectations of me.  I have outgrown girls who wear masks and secretly rejoice at my misfortunes.  I have outgrown shrinking myself for boys who are intimidated by my intelligence and outspoken nature.  I have outgrown friends who cannot celebrate my accomplishments.  I have outgrown people who conveniently disappear whenever life gets a little dark.  I have outgrown those who take pleasure in gossiping and spreading negativity.  I have outgrown dull, meaningless conversations that feel forced.  I have outgrown those who don’t take a stand against ignorance and injustice.  I have outgrown trying to please everyone.  I have outgrown society constantly telling me I’m not beautiful, smart or worthy enough.  I have outgrown my tendency to fill my mind with self doubt and insecurity.  I have outgrown trying to find reasons not to love myself.  I have outgrown anything and anyone that does not enrich the essence of my soul.  I have outgrown many things – and I’ve never felt freer.”

Obviously you should change certain sentences to suit your gender and your relationships with others but I honestly believe that every person should read this every day and remind yourselves of how valuable and worthy you really are.

Happy 2016!

06 Wednesday Jan 2016

Posted by in Advice, Attitude, Being brave, Change, Creativity, Life journey, Self growth

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Happy new year everyone!
I hope that this is going to be a year of self discovery, learning and finding peace.

Those of you who have been around me or have been reading my blog for years (thank you very much!) know that I hate the concept of new year’s resolutions.
Yet, I make them anyway because when do you get a greater time to make change than from the very beginning of a brand new year?
That doesn’t mean that you can’t make resolutions whenever you want – make them as often as you want. Don’t worry either if you fail on one of your resolutions, keep trying or take the failure as a clear indicator that you need to do things differently for a change.

Here are some of the things that I have decided to do for 2016 (and I would love it if you joined me in one or two or all of them):

1.  Care less.  It sounds horrible but I know that I care too much about too many people.  My very kind friends have told me that caring is part of my personality and that I shouldn’t change but I am trying to care a little bit less so that I make a little more time for myself and my happiness.

2.  Always (ok, close to often) have well manicured nails – the first thing that people see when they reach out their hand to greet you is your hands.  A well groomed hand says a lot.  Buy that funky coloured nail varnish…

3. Smile more – before people shake your hands, they notice your face (I hope).  Smile! Even if you don’t necessarily feel like smiling, if you make yourself look happier, you generally feel more positive and so does the person who is looking at you.  Unless you are grimacing – don’t grimace!

4. You may meet shy people who don’t look you in the eye and don’t extend their hand to you.  They tend to look down when they talk to you – which leads me to my next point: wear awesome shoes!
If you don’t feel awesome, then wear nervous breakdown shoes, which is a whole other story.

5. Learn a new skill this year – creativity is the one thing that absolutely keeps me calm so I am going to learn a new craft.  You can learn a new skill, gain a new hobby, sign up for a new course (remember that there are thousands of free online courses) or just teach yourself something that you’ve always wanted to do.

6. Do something that scares you – choose to do the thing that you have been putting off, confront someone who needs confronting,  go ahead and book that bungee jump (I won’t be joining you but feel free to do it anyway)

7. Be less worried about order and control and therefore, I am going to calmly only have 7 points on my list even though my logical brain is telling me to keep it even – a nice number like 10.  Sometimes, we have to live a little chaotically and see what will happen and where life will take us with less planning and less need to have control.

I would love to hear what your plans for the year are.
Let’s make it wonderful!

Making failure work

14 Wednesday Oct 2015

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This week has been awful so far.  It seems that there is bad news followed by more bad news and then horrific news.
I was actually going to write about some of this news but I’ve decided that we all need a break from bad news.
There is, however, one huge thing that we can learn from all of this bad news, and that is that we should really count our blessings.  I’ve seen tweets today from people narrowly missing (by seconds) the collapse of a bridge and a woman who was late for work and because of it, she missed being hit by a car that ran into the bus stop that she should have been standing at.
Today is a good day to take a deep breath and really focus on how lucky we are to have what we have, to be alive and even to be able to take that deep breath.

So, onto lighter things (and South Africans, please remember to keep everything in perspective this weekend – this is a lighter thing) – the Rugby World Cup.
This is the tournament where South Africa lost their first match against Japan.
People were disappointed in the team and a lot of people lost faith in the team’s ability to even win another game.  Predictions were that we would be knocked out of the World Cup in the first round.
But where did we end up after the first round of matches?
At the top of our group!
I have a very strong feeling that if we had not lost that match against Japan, we may not have continued to play in the tournament so well.

Sometimes you need to fail or to lose in order to build yourself up.
You really do not have any idea how amazing you are and what a survivor you are until you are tested.
We don’t want to be tested and we don’t want to fail because failure is generally seen as a bad thing.  Stop seeing it like that!
Failure is an opportunity to learn, to grow and to succeed.
Count your blessings that you have the opportunity to fail, because one day you will look back on this and say:
“I don’t regret a thing!”

Let mistakes go

12 Wednesday Aug 2015

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I have been treating a lady for the past few weeks who was raped and is constantly beating herself up about why she chose to walk through the area that she did when it happened.  She keeps on saying that she wishes that she had decided to walk somewhere else that day.  But she didn’t and unfortunately she had a horrific and traumatic experience.

And that is just one story.  I hear stories of regret every single day.  Things like “I should never have married him, I should have known that he was abusive”,   “I don’t know why I hit him, I wish that I hadn’t”,  “I was so stupid to have believed her” and one of the most common ones “I should have insisted on him using a condom”
Unfortunately it is too late!
Yes, it is too late to change what you did.
But the thing is that if you did something ‘stupid’ or even something not so stupid that still had negative consequences, unless you know how to tell the future (and I sincerely doubt that you can), you had no idea what would happen as a result.
In simple terms:
You most likely did the best that you could at the time.
It is easy to look back with hindsight and berate yourself.  As far as I know, nobody ever ‘fixed’ the past by beating themselves up about it.
It is what it is, it was what it was.
Bad things happen to good people.

You can go a long way by forgiving yourself for doing things that you did not know or understand at the time.
You are human, you are wonderful and therefore you make mistakes.
Try your best to let it go.  Try to be more gentle on yourself.

mistakes
There is this lovely quote:
“Everyone makes mistakes in their lives, that is why pencils have erasers”
You are allowed to ‘erase’ the past and move on.
Even better, you are allowed to redraw your life story, building on what you learned from your mistakes – and this version may be even more awesome than the one that you set out to write in the first place.

A new mission

24 Wednesday Jun 2015

Posted by in Being brave, Freedom, Gratitude, Mental health, Projects, Recipes, Self growth

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I would like to take the opportunity to thank every single one of you who follow, like and are inspired by I Don’t Want to be Stressed.
It started with very humble beginnings when somebody suggested it because they could not travel to see me for a session.
I don’t want to be stressed has grown in followers and in content but the time has come for it to be something more.

time 2
I want to share more good news, more stories, more recipes and more crafts.  These are the things that keep me motivated and positive when I am stressed and I would love to be able to share them with you.

So here is the mission:

  • If anyone would like to share their story, I would be really honoured to be able to put your story right here so that other people can be inspired by you and your story of survival.  You can email your story to: andi.bengis@gmail.com
  • We are surrounded by such a lot of bad, terrible, horrific and sad news and not enough good, exciting and uplifting news – I will be on a mission to find some of this news!
  • I will share some projects for you to make (and bake) at home that may assist you in managing stress and will definitely  work on giving you a creative outlet for your stress – don’t worry if you think you are not artistic. Not everyone is an artist but everyone has the ability to create and express themselves
  • Watch this space for exciting workshops , retail opportunities (yes!) and perhaps even the long awaited I Don’t Want to be Stressed journal.

I look forward to sharing this new journey with you all!

Thoughts on Valentine’s Day

18 Wednesday Feb 2015

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I had some serious activities lined up for my clients this past Friday in celebration of Valentine’s Day.
We made Valentines bags filled with goodies and ate red popcorn.  Each person added a note to their Valentine craft describing why they were amazing.

Heart lollipop

It was all about spending some time on the day of love focused on self-love.  Or self-like if love was too strong an emotion to deal with at the time.

awesome

I’ve come to realise that the one main reason that people don’t like themselves is that their only reference of what is considered great, or even good enough, is to compare themselves to other people.
And of course there are always going to be people who are prettier than you, richer than you, happier than you, and people who have more opportunities than you do.

I think that what Einstein had to say was most appropriate:
fish in a tree
Stop spending your life competing!
Stop constantly working hard and fighting to fit into any boxes that society wants to squash you into in order to define who you are or what you can do.
Stop spending your life worrying about what other people think or say.
Stop pleasing other people.

This is your opportunity to be you and to really nurture your talents.
So what if you are unconventional? Who cares if you do things differently?
Don’t just wait for Valentines Day to tell yourself that you are awesomely unique – make it an everyday celebration.

 

The late, late new year blog

29 Monday Sep 2014

Posted by in Advice, Quiet and slow, Self growth

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My humblest apologies for the very late blog.
I was offline last week for the Jewish New Year – Rosh Hashana.
While writing this blog on a Monday, I was thinking that maybe it is better for people  to read about being more positive and dealing with stress on a Monday, when most people really need it, rather than on a Friday when most people are probably winding down for the week and feeling less stressed than they were on Monday.
So, I’m going to try to send this out on a Monday in future and see how that works out.

My new year was great!
Our new year is not the same as the secular one which is about one big party and celebration.  It is much more solemn and somber than that.  It is a time of reflection, contemplation and prayer.
In other words, you get to spend a lot of time with yourself, thinking about life and your actions.  If ever there is a time to truly make resolutions, it is probably now.
One of the things that really only struck me after it was over and I had spent 3 full days with no access to my phone or computer, was that I really didn’t miss it.
In fact, I found it really intrusive to turn my phone on and be bombarded with messages and notifications.  Not one of which were that important that waiting 3 days to see to them caused the world to shift off its axis.
And I really didn’t miss hearing about people’s pets or their pet peeves either.
I resolved not to get so caught up in social media and the constant need to be connected.  There are really more important things to deal with and to make time for.
I challenge anyone reading this to check their phone a few times less than what you think is necessary and see if it makes a difference to you.

The other thing that I reflected on was how much I give and how little I often receive in return.
My choice is to either feel sorry for myself because “nobody gives as much as me” and stop giving all together or to continue to give but to give freely knowing that I am doing it because I choose to do it and not worrying about what anyone else does or says.
When I mentioned thisin my group session this morning, there was a consensus that most people who end up being overwhelmed by stress just give too much.
And then they get more stressed by choosing to focus on why nobody else gives as much as they do.
Make your choice.
If you are a “giver” – choose to give with no expectations of others.  Choose to give because you are a nice, kind person.  Acknowledge what you get from giving and if it still makes you happy, then keep doing it.
If it makes you bitter and resentful then stop doing it right now.

My mission in giving is to give more compliments.
And I’ll start with you:
Thank you for being so awesome.
Thanks for reading my blog and for using it to make yourself a better person.
Thank you for being a unique and special person – for being you!

More things that I have learned from watching the World Cup

26 Thursday Jun 2014

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Since our lives and routines are still so full of the World Cup, I thought I would share a few insights that I have learned while watching soccer (or football if you wish) with some help from my son.
What can we actually learn from soccer that applies to life? Quite a lot when you think about it.

If you’re having a bad day, don’t bite anyone!
Just because you are frustrated, you shouldn’t take it out on anyone else. Find a way to deal with your frustration that allows you to let it go without hurting anyone else (physically, emotionally or spiritually) in the process.

If you’re slightly hurt, there is no need to act out
Nobody likes a drama queen.  Everyone has bad days, everybody gets stressed.  There is no need to tell the whole world out loud about how terrible your life is.  You don’t need to post it on Facebook or be passive aggressive about it.  Look inwards and find better ways of coping without the need for having everyone around you feeling sorry for you.

If you are actually badly hurt then by all means scream and shout and perform
If you feel that your stress, depression or anxiety is getting to a point where you can’t manage it on your own, shout out loudly for help. And make sure that you get that help.

Don’t waste time blaming somebody else for your fall
It may be their fault, it may not be.  But all the energy and time you spend blaming them is wasting time and energy that you could rather spend building yourself up.

Sometimes even the greatest players or teams fail
We all make mistakes, we all fail.  But make that failure matter by learning from it and moving in a new direction rather than digging yourself into a hole of self pity.

Be a good sport
Be proud of other people’s achievements.  It doesn’t mean that you are a failure just because somebody else has succeeded. You could learn from them and their success may push you in the right direction too.

Keep your eye on the ball
Never lose focus of your goals and dreams.  It is easy to let the routine of life distract you from where you want to be.
Go out and be brilliant!