The topic this week is about not hiding your true self and loving all parts of you. Part of the ability to be able to do that requires awareness of self and identity. Many people tell me in the course of therapy that they have no idea who they really are and what their identity is all about. To me, this is very sad and I can even think of a time when that was the case for me.
The idea of discovering your true identity and finding your authentic self is the best course you can set for yourself. Living up to someone else’s reality of who you need to be or living with a mask on that you created because you fear not being accepted as you are or thinking that a false self is a better person than the real you, is an insidious way to live. It makes no sense.
Begin to think about the real you and how far away from that person you are and what it would take to allow the freedom to be authentic. It is a journey that is not just about moving from where you are now to a new place or point on a line. It has aspects that are woven among the three parts of your being which are physical, emotional, and spiritual. True knowing of your self and identity will require knowing how you are known by your Creator which in turn means you must know the Creator of your being. You are more than a bunch of cells with a unique DNA. You have a spiritual being that connects to the physical world and your feelings and emotions.
As you consider your own identity, try to focus on the fact that you have inherent worth, are deeply lovable and are loved by God. If you can accept and affirm yourself in that paradigm, you can begin to accept yourself as you are and get grounded in your reality. If you have lived in the shadow of someone else’s reality of you, it will feel strange to give yourself permission to begin to live in your own reality and the things that matter to you.
It is possible that you are living in some self deception. Regardless of denial or self deceptions, you still need to start with things that matter to you and the way you see life. You can work on distortions with the help of God and other wise counsel. Be committed to stay true to your view of those things that are important to you.
It matters who you are and how you feel. It matters what you think about things. Ask yourself these questions: How do I feel about _____________? What am I feeling right now? Discover your likes and dislikes. Meet with God and ask for truth about yourself. There is no substitute for prayer and seeking help to discover these core issues of self. Read books that talk about identity and self awareness. Find a group or a good therapist that will help guide you into the process of unmasking or coming out of hiding. Many times people go into hiding to protect themselves from past trauma and/or traumatic situations and they don’t come out without professional help.
Reply today with responses that talk about identity and ways you have either worked through some of these things to find your true self or post questions you might have about the process. Just generate some messaging that explores this whole issue of how we gain self awareness and learn to stay grounded and free to be our authentic self.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Loving Yourself as a Gift
Extending the theme of new beginnings and a new year, I want to ask for participation in the topic of loving yourself. To me, you cannot love others without first loving yourself. There are so many people who would view this as downright selfish. This is especially the view in Christian or other religious circles. In those arenas, it is not popular to think highly of yourself because it is seen as pride or self centeredness. This teaching says that you “should” consider others more highly than yourself or that you should just consider others first - period.
Somehow, that thinking does not seem right to me because I do not see how it is possible to feel genuine heartfelt love for another without feeling love for who you are as a person. You should feel the law of self worth and esteem yourself as a worthwhile person, worthy of love. If you believe that you have a Creator, a Higher Power, or God who made you in the image of Himself, why would you not believe you are lovable? You were created and placed on the planet with just as much worth and value as anyone else. That means that you are worthy of love and that Something bigger than you gave you that inherent worth and value. Once that is established in your inner being, you can love the uniqueness of you without hiding or being ashamed of who you are, including your character flaws.
If you begin with this love of self in a healthy way, you can work inside out and be able to love others. Jesus said that one of the two greatest commands is to love others as “you love yourself” which means to me that you would first need to love yourself. In order to love yourself, you also have to know who you are and come alive to a deep knowledge of your own self. No matter what your religious beliefs, your identity is key to mature spiritual growth.
A basic need is to love and care for yourself. If your parents or teachers or others who had influence on your early life development did not encourage or nurture you to love who you are and to teach you that you are special and unique, you may have pushed self love away by acting the way others expected you to behave. Partly, that was okay because we all need to fit into societal norms, but the other part was not okay because it taught you to “cover up” or not accept all of you. It may even have taught you that only your “good” parts or your strengths are lovable.
If you grew up with rejection of parts of you or even all of you, it taught you to reject your own self in favor of others. It also caused you to not love yourself because your basic human need to be loved and accepted for who you are was denied. People who have had this rejection as children nearly always go through life attempting to have others meet these needs. They do not realize they are rejecting themselves just as the influential people in their lives rejected them as children. They also do not realize that the ability to meet the need of being loved could be met by themselves.
Lack of self love usually takes a toll on relationships in the form of depending on others to meet your unmet need for love. It is actually more selfish because the expectation follows that it is the responsibility of someone else to fill the emptiness inside of you. That is not the job of any other person on the planet. That is the job of your Maker and you in an intimate relationship with each other. After that, you move out to fulfilling relationships where there is a mutual giving and receiving of love. Of course, it is necessary to find your source of self love from the unconditional love of God. The Gift of loving yourself must first be opened and received as a gift from your Creator. It is an intrinsic part of your inner being.
Loving yourself also requires that you love ALL of yourself, not just those good qualities that you admire or the ones you self created. Loving yourself means accepting the angry and unloving components because in those you will stay humble and know you need a God bigger than you to transform those weaknesses into more loving behaviors. If you split off the parts you deem flaws or bad and don’t allow them to be changed into more loving responses, you will not be whole.
You will meet many people who seem to be one way at home and a completely different person with others. That is a person who is split. They are acting and presenting who they want or need others to see outside their intimate circle. Inside with intimate relationships, they may act the opposite. This is often referred to as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde syndrome.
Another way to tell if someone is not loving their whole self is if they are over reactive to certain situations or are easily triggered into extreme behaviors (for example, raging).
You must begin to learn to give yourself the gift of accepting and loving yourself just as you are and admitting that you have faults and weaknesses. Affirm that you are a work in progress or on a journey that will never be complete until your life on earth is over. You do not have to change you overnight (nor could you even expect to do that), but you do have to admit that you need to make changes. That is the first step. What most people do, however, is to either change to the other extreme or get rid of having the issue at all. For example, if a person is dealing with anger, they will often go to never allowing themselves to get angry or they will dump all their anger out on others saying it is just the way they are and you need to accept them as they are and love them that way.
A healthy way to deal with weaknesses is to first admit them. After that, ask for help from God to change them into more acceptable forms and to know what is at the root of the weakness. In the example of anger; it is okay to be angry, but it is not okay to dump it on someone else or vent it out to them. It is okay to ask what the anger is all about. Anger is a friend that tells you something is wrong and it is usually about unmet needs or buried feelings that are unresolved. That is why you need weaknesses. They help you grow and mature and love yourself through that process. Being a friend to yourself is the best gift you can give.
Starting today, as participants, begin to find ways you could love yourself more in a healthy way. Please post messages in reply to this about the topic of self love in general as well as how you feel it might apply to you personally.
Blessings,
Susan
Somehow, that thinking does not seem right to me because I do not see how it is possible to feel genuine heartfelt love for another without feeling love for who you are as a person. You should feel the law of self worth and esteem yourself as a worthwhile person, worthy of love. If you believe that you have a Creator, a Higher Power, or God who made you in the image of Himself, why would you not believe you are lovable? You were created and placed on the planet with just as much worth and value as anyone else. That means that you are worthy of love and that Something bigger than you gave you that inherent worth and value. Once that is established in your inner being, you can love the uniqueness of you without hiding or being ashamed of who you are, including your character flaws.
If you begin with this love of self in a healthy way, you can work inside out and be able to love others. Jesus said that one of the two greatest commands is to love others as “you love yourself” which means to me that you would first need to love yourself. In order to love yourself, you also have to know who you are and come alive to a deep knowledge of your own self. No matter what your religious beliefs, your identity is key to mature spiritual growth.
A basic need is to love and care for yourself. If your parents or teachers or others who had influence on your early life development did not encourage or nurture you to love who you are and to teach you that you are special and unique, you may have pushed self love away by acting the way others expected you to behave. Partly, that was okay because we all need to fit into societal norms, but the other part was not okay because it taught you to “cover up” or not accept all of you. It may even have taught you that only your “good” parts or your strengths are lovable.
If you grew up with rejection of parts of you or even all of you, it taught you to reject your own self in favor of others. It also caused you to not love yourself because your basic human need to be loved and accepted for who you are was denied. People who have had this rejection as children nearly always go through life attempting to have others meet these needs. They do not realize they are rejecting themselves just as the influential people in their lives rejected them as children. They also do not realize that the ability to meet the need of being loved could be met by themselves.
Lack of self love usually takes a toll on relationships in the form of depending on others to meet your unmet need for love. It is actually more selfish because the expectation follows that it is the responsibility of someone else to fill the emptiness inside of you. That is not the job of any other person on the planet. That is the job of your Maker and you in an intimate relationship with each other. After that, you move out to fulfilling relationships where there is a mutual giving and receiving of love. Of course, it is necessary to find your source of self love from the unconditional love of God. The Gift of loving yourself must first be opened and received as a gift from your Creator. It is an intrinsic part of your inner being.
Loving yourself also requires that you love ALL of yourself, not just those good qualities that you admire or the ones you self created. Loving yourself means accepting the angry and unloving components because in those you will stay humble and know you need a God bigger than you to transform those weaknesses into more loving behaviors. If you split off the parts you deem flaws or bad and don’t allow them to be changed into more loving responses, you will not be whole.
You will meet many people who seem to be one way at home and a completely different person with others. That is a person who is split. They are acting and presenting who they want or need others to see outside their intimate circle. Inside with intimate relationships, they may act the opposite. This is often referred to as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde syndrome.
Another way to tell if someone is not loving their whole self is if they are over reactive to certain situations or are easily triggered into extreme behaviors (for example, raging).
You must begin to learn to give yourself the gift of accepting and loving yourself just as you are and admitting that you have faults and weaknesses. Affirm that you are a work in progress or on a journey that will never be complete until your life on earth is over. You do not have to change you overnight (nor could you even expect to do that), but you do have to admit that you need to make changes. That is the first step. What most people do, however, is to either change to the other extreme or get rid of having the issue at all. For example, if a person is dealing with anger, they will often go to never allowing themselves to get angry or they will dump all their anger out on others saying it is just the way they are and you need to accept them as they are and love them that way.
A healthy way to deal with weaknesses is to first admit them. After that, ask for help from God to change them into more acceptable forms and to know what is at the root of the weakness. In the example of anger; it is okay to be angry, but it is not okay to dump it on someone else or vent it out to them. It is okay to ask what the anger is all about. Anger is a friend that tells you something is wrong and it is usually about unmet needs or buried feelings that are unresolved. That is why you need weaknesses. They help you grow and mature and love yourself through that process. Being a friend to yourself is the best gift you can give.
Starting today, as participants, begin to find ways you could love yourself more in a healthy way. Please post messages in reply to this about the topic of self love in general as well as how you feel it might apply to you personally.
Blessings,
Susan
Monday, January 5, 2009
In the Beginning
In the beginning, hiding began. Where do you think the notion of hiding yourself or your bad behaviors came from? Who taught you that you were doing something that needed to be hidden?
This is my topic today. I am posting hiding as one of the basic notions that causes problems in relationships. I am talking not just about relationships with others, but also with yourself. If we hide our weaknesses or things about us that we feel are defective or character flaws, do we not hide them from ourselves (over time) as well?
I have noticed that people like to present well. For the most part, they like to be liked and have others think highly of them. I think this is a need for most of us. If we are ashamed or self conscious about something and it bothers us, we may try to cover it up, like a cat in his litter box. Even after covering, it still has an odor. We may try to act differently and may even pretend we do not have that problem even though it still lurks beneath the surface. I do feel this is at the root of many relationship issues.
Not liking or admitting to a weakness and trying to run and hide from it will always lead to problematic behaviors. You need that weakness and that character defect to be admitted and worked on, not hidden. If you do not, you will either project it onto someone else or develop self loathing in order to deal with it. Neither one of those strategies is healthy.
A lot of people try to recreate themselves into who they would like to be. They may either compare themselves to someone they think has it all together and adapt some of their behaviors or they may act in a fashion that creates an identity that is acceptable to others around them. This is usually what happens during childhood. A parent is unhappy with a child acting in a certain way so the parent tells the child how they “should” be acting. This is okay as long as the parent is healthy and is giving wise and healthy parenting advice. The problem is that most of us have our own flaws and when they show up in our children, we try to stamp them out without finding what is causing the behavior. For example, if you have a child throwing temper tantrums and turning themselves blue from holding their breath, you do not throw water on them until they extinguish the behavior. If you do that, you will most likely stop the behavior, but that child will learn it is not okay to have angry feelings or will not learn to deal with them in a healthy way.
It is important to admit our character defects and not hide from them. Creating a new identity is not the issue. Learning about yourself and finding your true identity is the issue. This calls for self awareness and being conscious of your actions.
Hiding our true self and presenting a false self or a fake identity blocks intimacy. Relationships suffer when we are not free to be ourselves due to cover up and shame. It also leads to addictions and compulsive behaviors. This is because hiding a dark side or a character flaw is hard to maintain if you are living a fully awake, conscious life of sobriety. Deep down there is a wounded self yearning to be free and in a lot of pain. That self will need to be deadened in some way. There are numerous things people use to cover pain such as work, alcohol, drugs, religion, shopping, relationships and so forth.
As you begin this New Year, begin with you and ask yourself what behaviors you might be hiding that you do not like. Beginning with yourself is the best place to start when you are looking for help, no matter what the situation. It is important to get honest with yourself and have the desire to take a candid assessment of your own behaviors and how you respond or react toward others with whom you are in close association. I cannot stress this part enough. If you start with others and what they are doing, you will be working backwards. Starting with yourself is the place to begin because the rule of thumb in therapy is: You cannot change others but you can change yourself and your responses to others.
The Serenity Prayer is “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.” Many of us have spent our life trying to be someone we are not. Addictive/compulsive behaviors may be an attempt to escape from our true self because we do not really like who we are as a person. This is not the answer. The answer is to begin by believing that we are enough just as we are and to accept yourself with the idea that you are not going to stay stuck in old patterns that are destructive and that you can be free to be yourself.
Separating and hiding from your inner being because you carry shame and guilt of who you are is something that needs to change. It promotes self hatred and you need the opposite of that. You need self love. You are a unique and beautiful masterpiece that may have coverings that are not as beautiful as the real you. There have been valuable paintings found that were covered over by a not so good painting because someone wanted to reuse the canvas. You are that masterpiece that either you or others have covered over with hiding and shame of the real you.
Let’s talk about what you are hiding and why you think you need to hide. Let’s talk about shame and self hatred and feelings of “less than” or trying to be “better than.” Let’s talk about who you really are and how you can uncover your true identity. What are your thoughts on hiding? This forum is a good place to get honest with yourself and others about when you went into hiding along with what you are hiding about yourself from others. Let’s also talk about how others respond to you with your weaknesses. Do they accept you just as you are or do they want you to be someone else?
Please post your feelings about the issue of hiding and pretending and how you feel they block intimacy with yourself and others.
Look forward to tomorrow when I will present the idea of loving yourself and why it is not only not selfish, but imperative that you learn to do it.
Blessings,
Susan
This is my topic today. I am posting hiding as one of the basic notions that causes problems in relationships. I am talking not just about relationships with others, but also with yourself. If we hide our weaknesses or things about us that we feel are defective or character flaws, do we not hide them from ourselves (over time) as well?
I have noticed that people like to present well. For the most part, they like to be liked and have others think highly of them. I think this is a need for most of us. If we are ashamed or self conscious about something and it bothers us, we may try to cover it up, like a cat in his litter box. Even after covering, it still has an odor. We may try to act differently and may even pretend we do not have that problem even though it still lurks beneath the surface. I do feel this is at the root of many relationship issues.
Not liking or admitting to a weakness and trying to run and hide from it will always lead to problematic behaviors. You need that weakness and that character defect to be admitted and worked on, not hidden. If you do not, you will either project it onto someone else or develop self loathing in order to deal with it. Neither one of those strategies is healthy.
A lot of people try to recreate themselves into who they would like to be. They may either compare themselves to someone they think has it all together and adapt some of their behaviors or they may act in a fashion that creates an identity that is acceptable to others around them. This is usually what happens during childhood. A parent is unhappy with a child acting in a certain way so the parent tells the child how they “should” be acting. This is okay as long as the parent is healthy and is giving wise and healthy parenting advice. The problem is that most of us have our own flaws and when they show up in our children, we try to stamp them out without finding what is causing the behavior. For example, if you have a child throwing temper tantrums and turning themselves blue from holding their breath, you do not throw water on them until they extinguish the behavior. If you do that, you will most likely stop the behavior, but that child will learn it is not okay to have angry feelings or will not learn to deal with them in a healthy way.
It is important to admit our character defects and not hide from them. Creating a new identity is not the issue. Learning about yourself and finding your true identity is the issue. This calls for self awareness and being conscious of your actions.
Hiding our true self and presenting a false self or a fake identity blocks intimacy. Relationships suffer when we are not free to be ourselves due to cover up and shame. It also leads to addictions and compulsive behaviors. This is because hiding a dark side or a character flaw is hard to maintain if you are living a fully awake, conscious life of sobriety. Deep down there is a wounded self yearning to be free and in a lot of pain. That self will need to be deadened in some way. There are numerous things people use to cover pain such as work, alcohol, drugs, religion, shopping, relationships and so forth.
As you begin this New Year, begin with you and ask yourself what behaviors you might be hiding that you do not like. Beginning with yourself is the best place to start when you are looking for help, no matter what the situation. It is important to get honest with yourself and have the desire to take a candid assessment of your own behaviors and how you respond or react toward others with whom you are in close association. I cannot stress this part enough. If you start with others and what they are doing, you will be working backwards. Starting with yourself is the place to begin because the rule of thumb in therapy is: You cannot change others but you can change yourself and your responses to others.
The Serenity Prayer is “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.” Many of us have spent our life trying to be someone we are not. Addictive/compulsive behaviors may be an attempt to escape from our true self because we do not really like who we are as a person. This is not the answer. The answer is to begin by believing that we are enough just as we are and to accept yourself with the idea that you are not going to stay stuck in old patterns that are destructive and that you can be free to be yourself.
Separating and hiding from your inner being because you carry shame and guilt of who you are is something that needs to change. It promotes self hatred and you need the opposite of that. You need self love. You are a unique and beautiful masterpiece that may have coverings that are not as beautiful as the real you. There have been valuable paintings found that were covered over by a not so good painting because someone wanted to reuse the canvas. You are that masterpiece that either you or others have covered over with hiding and shame of the real you.
Let’s talk about what you are hiding and why you think you need to hide. Let’s talk about shame and self hatred and feelings of “less than” or trying to be “better than.” Let’s talk about who you really are and how you can uncover your true identity. What are your thoughts on hiding? This forum is a good place to get honest with yourself and others about when you went into hiding along with what you are hiding about yourself from others. Let’s also talk about how others respond to you with your weaknesses. Do they accept you just as you are or do they want you to be someone else?
Please post your feelings about the issue of hiding and pretending and how you feel they block intimacy with yourself and others.
Look forward to tomorrow when I will present the idea of loving yourself and why it is not only not selfish, but imperative that you learn to do it.
Blessings,
Susan
Sunday, January 4, 2009
New Beginnings
When I think of starting anything new, I obviously look at where to begin. Since this is a new venture for me, I need a beginning. I thought I would let you know first of all the “why” and “what” of this blog and the “where” it is headed as to goals and purpose.
The “Why” of this blog is a combination of my own personal journey into emotional healing and wellness and my professional journey as a therapist in working with emotional healing and healthy living. This is the foundation for each blog that I will post. I have personal experience with a lot of the issues I will write about as well as professional expertise as a licensed counselor helping others achieve their own personal growth goals.
In the past, I have led groups that support people going through rough patches or dealing with tough issues in their life. I do not have the time right now to lead any groups due to my large case load of clients. For this reason, I decided to post a daily blog to help fill the void that group dynamics often satisfy. It is well known in the world of good mental health that group involvement can be healing and nurturing like no other forum. It is my hope and dream that this blog can help support and engage participants in a similar way.
It is important for my readers to know that I do have a strong spiritual center as well and I believe that it is important to listen to that inner leading to follow the things that God has put on my heart to do. That is part of the “why” of this blog as well. If you have ever been involved in a 12 Step Recovery program, you know that the 12th step is the one where you pass on the message to others that you have received from your own spiritual awakening. I know I was asleep to many of the issues and behaviors that I will post so I hope that others will wake up or be enlightened through these daily posts.
The “what” of this blog is a bit broad and not even totally clear to me as I begin to create. I only know that it will be a combination of topics that are currently important to you, the participant. I will be using topics that come up to most people who come to counseling such as addictive behaviors, anxiety, depression, traumatic experiences and how to move through them, grief and loss, how to deal with problematic and controlling relationships, life stressors, and a host of other subjects that all of us as humans need to grapple with and face as we move through the seasons of our lives. I am interested in your postings and feedbacks so that I can hear what your needs are. That is how I will decide what to consider in addition to the areas I am already planning on addressing.
I also have a book that I am working on called “Free to Be Me” that will be a part of future blogs. Please look for inclusions from that because they are also part of the foundation I am using for the daily posts. “Free to Be Me” is about leaving codependent behaviors behind and moving on into the person you are meant to be without being under the influence of others to decide that for you. It is really good and very liberating and I am excited to present some of the chapters to you on this blog.
The “where” this is headed really is about my purpose and goals along with what you need and what you post interactively. I am usually pretty good at sensing others’ needs and following up on those. Please reply to postings whenever you feel prompted to do so. I can assure you that if you have a response, comment, or message of your own, it will help someone else. That is the main purpose. This blog is not about me as much as it is about you and I mean that collectively as well as individually.
On this first post, I am hoping that you will be excited with me to take the blog journey to find good therapy and what others are thinking and feeling and that this will engage you. I am also hoping it will encourage and uplift you like a daily dose of sunshine. Obviously, some topics will be hard, but that is how we grow. We face and confront difficult areas of ourselves and our relationships and gain amazing nuggets of how to respond to these in healthy ways. We learn new techniques and strategies to overcome and stay peaceful in the midst of the worst of circumstances.
I have seen so much in my personal journey and in the journeys of my clients that is good come out of horrible situations. This is what motivates me to stir up enthusiasm in you that you can find hope and encouragement instead of despair no matter what has or is happening to you. Good therapy and wise counsel does that. It is infectious and can put you in touch with tools and strategies to enjoy your life and experience the freedom to be you and pursue the dreams and desires of your heart.
Eleanor Roosevelt said, “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” I believe that is true, but I would add that the future is also about the reality of your dreams. If you have dreams and desires, they can turn into reality. It has happened to me.
I love that I am starting this in a New Year, 2009. New Years is usually a time that people use to set goals and maybe do things differently in order to become a better person. This blog is all about that. I am hoping to help you get out of old ways. Remember, it has been said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Hopefully, you will learn some new things, some new ways of behaving, and some new choices that will put you on great new paths and out of old ruts.
I also expect that I will learn new things from you. That is the great part of sharing in a format like this. I am full of optimism for this new relationship with you. It may not seem intimate because it is “just a blog” in cyberspace, but I have a feeling that we might develop amazing interpersonal connections. I do a lot of phone counseling with people I have never met and we discover a relationship that is just as close as if they came to a physical office for counseling sessions. I think it will be similar with this blog.
Join me each day as we attempt to accomplish a Blogging Relationship.
Blessings,
Susan
The “Why” of this blog is a combination of my own personal journey into emotional healing and wellness and my professional journey as a therapist in working with emotional healing and healthy living. This is the foundation for each blog that I will post. I have personal experience with a lot of the issues I will write about as well as professional expertise as a licensed counselor helping others achieve their own personal growth goals.
In the past, I have led groups that support people going through rough patches or dealing with tough issues in their life. I do not have the time right now to lead any groups due to my large case load of clients. For this reason, I decided to post a daily blog to help fill the void that group dynamics often satisfy. It is well known in the world of good mental health that group involvement can be healing and nurturing like no other forum. It is my hope and dream that this blog can help support and engage participants in a similar way.
It is important for my readers to know that I do have a strong spiritual center as well and I believe that it is important to listen to that inner leading to follow the things that God has put on my heart to do. That is part of the “why” of this blog as well. If you have ever been involved in a 12 Step Recovery program, you know that the 12th step is the one where you pass on the message to others that you have received from your own spiritual awakening. I know I was asleep to many of the issues and behaviors that I will post so I hope that others will wake up or be enlightened through these daily posts.
The “what” of this blog is a bit broad and not even totally clear to me as I begin to create. I only know that it will be a combination of topics that are currently important to you, the participant. I will be using topics that come up to most people who come to counseling such as addictive behaviors, anxiety, depression, traumatic experiences and how to move through them, grief and loss, how to deal with problematic and controlling relationships, life stressors, and a host of other subjects that all of us as humans need to grapple with and face as we move through the seasons of our lives. I am interested in your postings and feedbacks so that I can hear what your needs are. That is how I will decide what to consider in addition to the areas I am already planning on addressing.
I also have a book that I am working on called “Free to Be Me” that will be a part of future blogs. Please look for inclusions from that because they are also part of the foundation I am using for the daily posts. “Free to Be Me” is about leaving codependent behaviors behind and moving on into the person you are meant to be without being under the influence of others to decide that for you. It is really good and very liberating and I am excited to present some of the chapters to you on this blog.
The “where” this is headed really is about my purpose and goals along with what you need and what you post interactively. I am usually pretty good at sensing others’ needs and following up on those. Please reply to postings whenever you feel prompted to do so. I can assure you that if you have a response, comment, or message of your own, it will help someone else. That is the main purpose. This blog is not about me as much as it is about you and I mean that collectively as well as individually.
On this first post, I am hoping that you will be excited with me to take the blog journey to find good therapy and what others are thinking and feeling and that this will engage you. I am also hoping it will encourage and uplift you like a daily dose of sunshine. Obviously, some topics will be hard, but that is how we grow. We face and confront difficult areas of ourselves and our relationships and gain amazing nuggets of how to respond to these in healthy ways. We learn new techniques and strategies to overcome and stay peaceful in the midst of the worst of circumstances.
I have seen so much in my personal journey and in the journeys of my clients that is good come out of horrible situations. This is what motivates me to stir up enthusiasm in you that you can find hope and encouragement instead of despair no matter what has or is happening to you. Good therapy and wise counsel does that. It is infectious and can put you in touch with tools and strategies to enjoy your life and experience the freedom to be you and pursue the dreams and desires of your heart.
Eleanor Roosevelt said, “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” I believe that is true, but I would add that the future is also about the reality of your dreams. If you have dreams and desires, they can turn into reality. It has happened to me.
I love that I am starting this in a New Year, 2009. New Years is usually a time that people use to set goals and maybe do things differently in order to become a better person. This blog is all about that. I am hoping to help you get out of old ways. Remember, it has been said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Hopefully, you will learn some new things, some new ways of behaving, and some new choices that will put you on great new paths and out of old ruts.
I also expect that I will learn new things from you. That is the great part of sharing in a format like this. I am full of optimism for this new relationship with you. It may not seem intimate because it is “just a blog” in cyberspace, but I have a feeling that we might develop amazing interpersonal connections. I do a lot of phone counseling with people I have never met and we discover a relationship that is just as close as if they came to a physical office for counseling sessions. I think it will be similar with this blog.
Join me each day as we attempt to accomplish a Blogging Relationship.
Blessings,
Susan
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