Individual Therapy & Personal Growth
You wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down.
~Toni Morrison, novelist
What is weighing YOU down?
The great writer and storyteller, Toni Morrison, knew how to tell it like it is. In her amazing novel, The Bluest Eye, Toni tells the story of an 11-year-old, African-American girl named Pecola, who grows up in the 1940s.
Pecola wishes, yearns, and prays for her eyes to turn blue, so that she will be as beautiful as all the blond, blue-eyed, white children in America. Pecola truly believes that she is “ugly” and has absorbed all of the supporting messages to “prove” that it is true.
Like Pecola, every one of us has some negative message (or several messages) that we believe is true. My question to you is, “What is YOUR version of ugly?”
While growing up, what have YOU absorbed through no fault of your own? Is it that you are ugly, fat, or stupid in some way? What do you believe about yourself that is simply not true?
Sneaky messages
There are lots of ways messages sneak into our head. Over the years, I have heard many of them like:
“I’m not __________ (i.e., good, skinny, light skinned, smart, tall, strong, young, athletic, etc.) enough.”
“I’ll be okay (i.e., good enough) when I _________ (i.e., lose that 40 pounds, get married, make the sports team, get straight As, get into an Ivy league school, make X amount of money, and am debt free).”
Finally, I will make ___________ (i.e., mom, dad, God, or grandma) proud of me.
Is it wrong to want others to be proud of me?
No, but if you are attaching your worthiness to something that you must accomplish in order to feel okay or needing others to simply validate you, you are likely listening to those ‘ugly’ messages.
We are not supposed to hustle for our worthiness. Think of holding a baby and what it feels like to connect with them. Does he or she have to do something to be worthy for you? No, and neither do you. We are worthy by simply being here and alive.
The concept is quite simple.
We all have these words and messages that we have mistakenly believed are true, and that belief has greatly affected what we believe about ourselves.
Unpacking negative, repeating messages
I want to unpack these messages and the repeating nature of your inner voice so that we expose these voices for what they really are: lies declared by others that assume they know us or may be threatened by us.
I’ll give you an example.
When I first met Marlene, she was sending her last daughter off to college and always wanted to attend college herself. I asked her why she had not gone to college, and she said the high school guidance counselor told her she didn’t seem like ‘college material’ and steered her to secretarial school.
No one else from Marlene’s family had ever gone to college, so she listened to the guidance counselor and became a secretary. For years, Marlene kept believing she wasn’t smart enough to make it in college.
The thing is that Marlene never forgot wanting to attend college; and when she and I were able to wade through all those messages of limited thinking, internalized racism, and double standards for men and women, she enrolled in college at the age of 51.
Six years later, Marlene now has both Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees, and she loves telling her kids that they are not the only ones who are smart!
Music can really tap into our feelings.
Music can tell so many stories and showcase so many feelings that at times we are unable to describe for ourselves.
Paul McCartney of the Beatles wanted to write a song that spoke to the leaders and advocates of the civil rights movement back in the 1960s. It is my favorite Beatles song for its rhythm and its message for us all.
“Blackbird, singing in the dead of night, take these broken wings and learn to fly. All your life, you were only waiting for this moment to arise…” – The Beatles
All our lives have prepared us for this moment, right now.
If this is your moment to fly, please call
or
message me to schedule a free one-hour consultation to begin to pick up your wings and fly.
How do I embark on this journey when I have a busy and full life?
In short, we make each session count to bring you closer to the true vision for your life.
Let me illustrate what it may look like to see how stress or neglect in one area of our life can have a significant effect on other areas.
Have you ever been let go from your job without another side hustle? What did it feel like when your income (or your partner’s) was not secured during your/their job search?
As a result of not knowing when the next paycheck or job offer will materialize, relationships, routines, and self-care can become horribly affected. When there is a sudden decrease in income, I do not know anybody who hasn’t been stressed in other areas of their life.
Here is another example. When you are chronically short on sleep or are feeling depressed, it is harder for you to exercise or even take a shower?
When you are feeling anxious or overwhelmed, do you tend to meditate more or less? Do you lean into people for support or does your personal life drop off? Are you closer or more distant to your children or your friends?
When you are not feeling okay about yourself, your body or your being, do you naturally reach out to create more intimacy and sexual connection with your partner or do you stay busy, not present, pick fights, or become more disconnected?
Physical pain affects us in a similar way.
About a quarter of my clients have found me through another practitioner.
Chiropractors, acupuncturists, naturopaths, and others sometimes find that their clients can’t seem to get physically well, and they suspect that they have a deep, unresolved issue. The physical pain serves as a sharp nudge to begin to deal with it.
Think about the last time that you or someone close to you was either sick or in substantial pain. Everything from migraine headaches, an ankle sprain, digestive problems, insomnia, or chronic low back aches can cause pain.
Do you notice how being in pain negatively affects your personality, especially when it is chronic?
One of psychologist Abraham Maslow’s greatest contributions to us was the concept that we, as humans, have a hierarchy of needs.
With this pyramid, we can see that essential things like breathing, food, water, and shelter always take priority before the safety of needs, love, and belonging. We need the bottom of the pyramid fairly complete before we can move on to belonging, confidence, and self-actualization.
Our circumstances can change everything.
Maybe you could ‘keep it together’ until you had a more demanding job or a longer commute. Maybe having your second or third child became so taxing on your time, money, and resources that it feels like you will never ‘catch up’ to your life.
Many of us are not only supporting our children late into their 20s but also are caring for our aging parents with chronic health issues, too.
When these events happen, we need to travel back down the pyramid to make sure we get enough sleep, have healthy food around to eat, and don’t forget to pick up the kids.
Sometimes, we feel we can meet most of our basic and safety needs; and we are still figuring out how to feel like we love and belong, while at the same time looking up at our pyramid and wanting to skip this difficult part to get to the good stuff like self-actualization.
We cannot skip the messy middle part!
The messy middle is essential to our self-development. It is where growth and change happen. Every great novel or movie tells the story of someone’s messy middle. We pay money and eat popcorn all while witnessing someone else’s journey of triumph over tragedy or success over fear.
When we get to the middle ourselves, we just don’t want it to be too painful.
Guiding you through the messy middle
We will both determine where you are on the pyramid and what you need next to keep climbing toward a more fulfilling life.
I have helped many people like you get from feeling completely stuck, scared, and paralyzed to breaking free from all the self-imposed limiting beliefs about yourself. The hardest thing is always to make the first step.
Once you make the decision, the universe begins supporting you.
After we began meeting, people have told me that they already felt better after making the call and talking to me.
The universe supports the action step.
So, now you have a choice to evolve or repeat your old behaviors.
Say Yes to your messy middle and find your triumph over tragedy or slide back into the easy chair of your own life, staying safe and secure.
Even though it is scary and unknown, you can move ahead or continue with your numbing behaviors, avoiding unpleasant emotions and difficult conversations. The choice is yours to make.
If you are ready to say yes to you, call me now.
