Am I acceptable to me?
After all, you are good enough! Do you really know that though? Have you granted yourself permission to really, truly believe in you? Many people have something in them that is waiting to ‘be discovered’ and are sadly held back for any number of reasons!
Negative, or prohibitive self-judgemental, chat is easy to find in most of us. Sometimes you can consciously hear the throwaway remark passed many years ago, and it rings in your ears! However, it is just as powerful when we are unable to ‘hear’ them!
My daily work is incredibly rewarding and often so sad too! When a client discovers that for decades they have been behaving in a conditioned way because of some early years experience, it is both sad – and exciting!
It’s so sad that for so long we may ‘behave’ and react in ways less healthy to certain situations, aggressively, fearfully, sadly, or any number of other responses. We may avoid situations entirely leaving us missing living life to the full; and so exciting when an individual is ‘released’ right before my eyes!
An Example
A child is maybe 7 or 10, and at school he has been told to stand at the front of the class and tell everyone how their vacation was. Despite being shy and nervous, the child does as instructed and whilst recounting the holidays, two children sitting close and at the front start mocking ‘knobbly knees’!
The event passes and unpleasant and disturbing though it was, the memory is ‘filed’ in the sub-conscious as a ‘risk of harm’ event, sometimes incomplete and hidden away. Except whilst the memory may lay apparently dormant, it manifests some 25 years later when the adult is asked to ‘present’ at the works exhibition. And it doesn’t just happen the once, the more successful the employee gets the more presentations are required and each time the individual gets sweaty and anxious, losing sleep and arguing with loved ones. Life becomes almost intolerable!
All this from one dismissed yet significant moment 25 years earlier.
Uncovering the past can be painful; it can also release these hidden moments that lead you to respond with errors of thinking and responding. Do you get angry when asked to see the boss? Perhaps your subconscious sees a significant person from the past, and is incorrectly leading you to respond as was appropriate then?
If you have troublesome thoughts that appear unexplained, talk it through with someone trained to listen, and let them guide you through your potential to ‘letting go’.
Image Credits https://www.flickr.com/photos/susivinh/6919645669/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/12392252@N03/2476119902/
Bob Brotchie is a counsellor, mindset consultant and creator of "Conscious Living by Design"™. He writes for Anglia Counselling, is featured on various other websites and introduces us to many guest writers all covering topics related to mental health and wellbeing.
Bob provides bespoke counselling services to individuals and couples in the privacy and comfort of a truly welcoming environment at his Anglia Counselling company office, located near Newmarket in Suffolk, England. Bob also provides professional online counselling, for local, national, and international clients. The therapeutic models offered are bespoke to the client’s needs, especially those in receipt of 'childhood emotional neglect' (CEN), whilst integrating a mindful approach to psychotherapy and cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) principles. For clients experiencing trauma and/or phobia, Bob offers EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing).