Psychological Well-Being: Relishing Motherhood

Recognize Your Strengths

Recognize Your Strengths

The word ‘Strengths’ evokes a positive response or meaning in our minds signifying qualities both physical and mental that one could perform and is of genuine interest to oneself.

Knowing exactly, what one is capable of doing, tends to boost one’s self-confidence and hopes are held high to execute better. 

Discovering your strengths enables you to determine your future aims, plan for success, and do time management effectively. Focusing on your strengths enables you to cope well in difficult times, in stress or adversities  and help you to be resilient. Therefore, it’s important to know and focus on your strengths and abilities. 

Here are a few ways through which one can try to discover one's core strengths.

Know Your Passion: Work that drives you intrinsically to consummate, cherish and let you be creative may define your passion for it to some extent. Activities that naturally motivate yourselves to strive for perfection, go with the flow,  let you be fully engaged and involved could be your passion for it. Being passionate about your work is one of the determinants to discover your strengths.

Frequency and Time Spent: If an individual tends to carry out  activity of one’s choice within a fixed regular routine and feels a sense of accomplishment, then this may indicate your strength in it. Also, frequently sparing time to indulge into your favourite activity and striving really hard in mastering the skills leads to unravelling your strength in that field. Activities that you tend to relish even amongst your busy schedules and find it mentally relaxing could be your inner strength to carry out that particular activity with ease and be more productive.

Acknowledging Qualities: Qualities that one possesses, can have a great impact on one’s perception about self and on developing personality as an entity. If one is known by and praised for his/her particular set of quality/qualities such as being a philanthropic, social worker, leadership qualities, etc. amongst friends, relatives, respected elders, in community and is embedded in one’s own belief system, then acceding to it, would not only build your self-esteem but also helps to know your personality attributes. 

Source for Relaxation: Having access to plenty of resources, when one tends to practice a particular habit such as indulging into philosophical readings or staging dramas, etc., because it’s a constant source for mental and physical relaxation then it may be indicative of one’s genuine interest and core strengths. Your inclinations to carry out any activity with great fervor as it revitalizes you in search of your inner quest could be your strengths. 

Unfeigned Endeavour: if an individual puts in sincere efforts to nurture one’s prowess through finding several ways and means speaks volumes about one’s desires to be an expert in that activity. Desiring to learn through enrolling in various courses to strive for perfection and to horn on one’s skills could be your strengths for that activity. 

Experimented and Creative: if one is ready to explore and experiment with one’s thoughts and ideas for learning new techniques to master skills, for example, experimenting with cooking, drawing, weaving, composing music, taking risks in stocks exchange, newer methods of poetic expressions, etc., can help to identify one’s strengths. Indulging and carving creative tools to refine on cherished aims could be your signature strengths.

To conclude, knowing one's strengths  may open new horizons for self-  connectedness,self-management, higher  self-esteem and to achieve greater heights in both personal and professional lives.

By: Bhavna Mukund

Clinical Psychologist

Nurturing Relationships

               Nurturing Relationships

Happy Relationships are an integral part of human lives to remain productive, joyous and enhancing positive well-being. Healthy Relationships are the core component for building  a healthy society, for personal growth and happy living. Relationships that are embedded with mutual trust, affection and respect  acts as a  buffer to adversities.

Here are 5 Effective ways to nurture relationships with significant others in our lives: 

 

Be Empathetic: Understanding others  pain, emotional agony, challenges  and feeling emotions of others with same intensity but remaining calm and compose, may  generate a sense of security to enable to overcome hardships. Being empathetic in attitude foster emotional bonds and deep trust for each other.

Open Communication: Practice active listening, avoid being judgmental and impulsive in jumping to conclusions, these tools would generate a mutual sense of affection and a sense of being respected. Positive communications are the key to unravel ones likes and dislikes, strenghthening understanding and co-existing in harmony. Learning to agree to disagree is a tool to open communication. Effective communication points must include relevance , selections of  words, framing of sentence, clear intentions, rational  points for discussion are needed to have an effective communication thus fostering connectedness and like-mindedness amongst each other.

Be Solution Focused: Almost every relationships goes through upheavals, conflicts, emotional turmoil etc., therefore for conflict resolution, one must focus on solutions rather than the causes of the problems. Specifically putting efforts to know the strength i.e., What can be done together to overcome the situation rather than focusing on weaknesses i.e., What cannot be undone or gone wrong. Avoid blame gaming rather share the burden equally. This solution focused attitude would instill mutual interdependence, agreeableness and foster togetherness.

Be Complimentary to Each Other: Most relationships do not always  share similar thought patterns or think alike.,But investing time and energy to  encourage the other person to follow his/ her desires and be passionate about each others success, would enable to develop a sense of mutual care and respect for each other. Filling each other with qualities that one isn’t possessing are ways to enrich each other lives and strengthening personal bonds.

Value Each Other’s ‘ME Space': Too much of involvement in others lives may be regarded as ‘interference’ and could be suffocating for them. Giving space ( read time )that one feels required would pave way for self-introspection, healing,  rejuvenating oneself to bounce back, and to become creative. This valuing of each other’s ‘'me space' attitude would foster affection, sense of freedom, and happiness in relationships.

The above ways if practiced diligently would enable human beings to bloom their relationships to some extent.

By: Bhavna Mukund 

Clinical Psychologist