Excerpts from the upcoming book “Make Better Relationships Choices”
Acknowledgement
Although you may feel stuck or scared right now, you do have the inner power to pull through…. Start with acknowledging your remarkable journey!
Think about your childhood; look at your old photographs and imagine going back to that time. Visualize the happiest memories of your childhood and bring them to life again through the power of your imagination. No matter how miserable you might believe your childhood was, you must have at least ONE happy memory.
Activate this happy, pleasant feeling fully in your body. Feel how treasured and lovable you were. Now look at yourself in the mirror with awareness that you still have this inner moment of happiness as a child within you. Though you may not be as wide-eyed and youthful as you were back then, you are still treasured and lovable. You have just found a treasure within.
Celebrate Your Remarkable Journey
Celebrate every possible journey from this little defenseless baby to a grownup who has learned how to handle uncertainties and predicaments, how to live with integrity and compassion, love and be loved. That is a really daring journey and you have every reason to celebrate who you have become!
Confession Of A Self-Inflicted Sufferer
You probably spend a lot of time talking about what you want to do, want to have and how you want to be. With a question, I invite you to look deeper at your own feelings and the reasons for wanting something or someone: What is your guiding assumption about yourself?
If you asked me this question a few years ago, my honest answer would be: “I am not enough.” For years I struggled to control and fix what felt like this: “I could do better,” “I could achieve more,” “I could become someone important.” I excelled in academics; kept acquiring new degrees from prestigious schools. I pursued my ambition in the corporate world and became an executive for top Fortune 100 companies. I’ve become a successful entrepreneur and a lifestyle coach. I was loved by family and friends and yet…I was never enough for myself!
I had a need to prove myself, to do more, learn more, give more and be more. I was imprisoned in this invisible and toxic “not enough” inner jail for years, not realizing that I was haunted by my unconscious “not enough” belief about myself.
Years later, when I studied with great masters and teachers and became a yoga and meditation practitioner and then an instructor, I realized that ACKNOWLEDGEMENT and ACCEPTANCE are at the core of contentment. Slowly, and with admitted resistance, I began to realize that I am enough just the way I am.
If You Feel “Not Enough” – You’ve Got Company
Through my work and personal encounters I realized that so many people feel this lack of acknowledgement—a painful burden of being flawed and unworthy—that prevents you from having unique and individual experiences of unconditional love and happiness, a sense of security and the simple joy of living. It doesn’t matter how good you look, how many friends you have, how accomplished or well off you are. This hidden, self-imposed attitude of insufficiency and self-critique may be your guiding assumption and the cause of silent suffering.
Tara Brach, clinical psychotherapist and meditation teacher refers to this silent and lonely suffering as “the trance of unworthiness.”
(read more on this topic in upcoming weeks)
