Nothing is Perfect December 15, 2009

Perfection is a subjective value. You determine what works and does not work for you. You are the only person who knows what makes you feel good and what doesn’t. No-one’s definition of perfection should be holding you hostage. You decide. You choose.  No-one and nothing in this world is perfect. We should take comfort in the fact that we each have the opportunity to be unique because no-one is like you, thinks, acts, smiles or looks like you. Acknowledge that your imperfections make you different and special. They make you–YOU!!

Quotes:

Nothing is perfect. Life is messy. Relationships are are complex. Outcomes are uncertain. People are irrational.
Hugh Mackay

“In nature, nothing is perfect and everything is perfect. Trees can be contorted, bent in weird ways, and they’re still beautiful.” Alice Walker

“There is nothing perfect…only life.”
—Sue Monk Kidd (The Secret Life of Bees)

Once you accept the fact that you’re not perfect, then you develop some confidence.
–Rosalynn Carter

So if your teeth are crooked, your waist is a little bit larger than you’d like, your nose is too large, small or off-center, or any number of things that you don’t really like but are a part of you, remember that nothing is perfect and it is the imperfect that makes you perfectly you.

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Namaste

The Stories We Tell Ourselves December 15, 2009

Everyone has a story. This is the story we tell our friends when we’re sad. This is the story we tell our therapists about our lives. This is the story we tell ourselves about why we are the way that we are–we’re the children of a broken home, we were abused as children, we were the product of single parents, we were born poor and on and on. These stories, while largely legitimate, have an enormous amount of power over how we view ourselves, our abilities, our successes and our failures. These stories are often as true as we know them to be but often they lack an element of truth because we forget or we have stopped remembering who we really are. These stories help us to determine the things we value as well as the things we are vulnerable to. When we meet people whose stories are disempowering for whatever reasons, it’s easy to see that they don’t value themselves. It may be in the way they walk, talk or treat themselves. It may be in the tome of voice that the use, the goals that they have set that far undervalue their worth and the way they avoid reaching for things they could have. These may sound like low self-esteem, no self-confidence, no/low strength of character, goals or pride and even if this is the manifestation of those things, they are being maintained by the stories that they have told and continue to tell themselves. If you tell yourself that nobody loves you and you’re not worthy of someone’s time, you will act that you’re wasting their time. you won’t ask for a favor or you will issue 1200 caveats explaining why you don’t think you deserve to ask. These are all blaring signals that your story is doing you a disservice.

Another thing that give these stories power over us is that we believe them wholeheartedly. There rarely is a doubt as to the accuracy/truth in the stories that we tell ourselves. We sometimes wear it as a badge of honor that we have these terrible stories to tell because they demonstrate our role as survivors. It makes us feel entitled in that we have earned our right to be miserable, to not trust others, to not take risks and to not be happy because after all, we have been through so much. We have been through so much and we’re here NOW in this moment. Those experiences show our potential to overcome, not just to survive. It should have built our character and encouraged the development of a new, fresh outlook. The truth is we no longer need to hold on to those stories and pull them out like war medals. We know we’ve earned those medals but that does not and should not keep us back. Never forget from where you’ve come but don’t just stand there. Choose to keep moving forward.

Because the story is yours, you can change it, revise it, give it a new ending. These stories have defined you as an individual, so who are you now? Based on your stories, you may not even be really sure, but think about many of the lies in those stories that have helped to mold who you think you are. When you re-craft your stories, you can choose who you really are who will you become.

On a personal note, I have always loved to write. I remember writing poems in elementary school and keeping a 5 subject notebook of poems in high school that I lost on a plane. Throughout college, I wrote tons of poems, short stories and began a memoir. I have stories from writing classes that I still impress me now when I read them. Yet, when I entered graduate school with tons of ideas for research and articles I encountered someone who told me that I could not write. For two years, I had that pounded into my head until I began to believe it. I struggled for the next few years writing only when I had to because I honestly believed that I could not write. I developed a dislike for writing and all things written, I feared presenting any written work to anyone because I just knew that it was terrible. I began to feel that my advisor was just trying to make me feel better when he said my writing was good, when my friends said it, I knew they were just being my friends. I told myself that I could not write, was a bad writer and would do everything to avoid writing. The truth was, I took his statements to mean that I was a bad student, I did not know what I was doing, I could never be good and that I was a failure. I let his statements change who I knew I was. I knew I was a good writer. Maybe I hadn’t mastered academic writing and probably never would like the thousands of academics who are still trying to perfect their craft, but at that time and for years, that defined me. I didn’t deserve to be in graduate school, I didn’t deserve to be a doctor of anything, I wasn’t good enough. From then, I read writing books and asked for advice from anyone with a pen, but still held onto that story.

Today, my passion to help others has overridden my fears of writing and so I am doing my best as I work to change my story. I know that I will never be the best writer in the world, and academic writing may not be my cup of tea (as the scars are still there) but I will always strive to convey the information that the world needs to the best of my ability. I will become a better writer with time and I won’t stop writing regardless of what others think. I will do and be my best in spite of my experiences. My gifts and talents serve a purpose–to support my passion and that’s what guides me.

Namaste

The Power of Our Reactions December 15, 2009

Life happens every minute of the day. Life has been happening to you since the day that you were born. The current emotional and psychological space that you are in is the combination of these experiences and most importantly your reaction to these experiences. It has often been said that “its’ not what happens that has a lasting impact, it’s how you react to what happens.” I know I have been guilty of overreacting a number of times in my life and most recently, I have been a self-proclaimed “Overreactor.” Prior to this period, I was an underreactor; there weren’t too many things that could derive a reaction from me because I did not care about too many things and too many people. The interesting thing during that time was that I was a bit mor content than I am now.

After interacting in life and in therapy with hundreds of clients, I have come to realize that the way that people in general react to things, has th greatest impact on their current functioning. Granted, the majority of people who are functioning below their optimal level are reacting t negative events that have happened to them and that do warrant a negative reaction. Many of us are stuck in a pattern of reacting in the same ways that we have always reacted even though things are constantly changing. We get angry when our friends/parents/colleague/whoever says something that our parents used to say when we were children. We react in the same way we did when we were young and end up stuck in the belief that we cannot get over it. I am not saying that our past should have no impact; instead our past should teach us that we are strong and resilient; that we can overcome anything and still thrive. We keep ourselves saddled down with sad stories and fears that outweigh the innate power that we possess by just being human. We let our emotions run our lives and react in self-defeating, disempowering ways that only serve to remind us that we’re not who we want to be. Well, the truth is your reactions are the most powerful things that guide your life right now. If you change how to react to the things that happen in your daily life, you can change the life that you experience. Nothing is more important than what you do when something bad (i.e. unexpected, disappointing, distressing, challenging etc) happens in your life. Your reactions show you where you are in your journey; they show you whether or not you understand the fundamental idea of living–that nothing stays the same ever. If we can grasp that idea and respond likewise, then we will set ourselves on a path to actually live, embrace life, look fear in the face and do what we want anyway, smile at challenges, help someone else to grow and leave a legacy worthy of emulation. Life is hard, life is unfair but life can be the most interesting, exciting game that you ever play, if you change how you react to the things that come your way. Just think about it, your thoughts are the most important determinant of what you experience and your reactions are the most important determinant of how you experience life.

So how do you change your reactions??

You look at the ways that you have always reacted and examine them to see if they serve your highest good. Is this the way that you want to react to this situation. Ask yourself about the impact that your reaction will have on your self-esteem; when you react in this way, do you feel good about who you are and where you want to go? Does this reaction help you or hurt you on your path to development?

• Think about someone you admire, a behavior role-model. If this person was in your situation, how would he/she react? Why would this person react that way? What do they know that you have not yet accepted?  How can you change your thoughts and behavior to come in line with this lesson?
• Ask yourself if you need additional help to change your reactions. There is power in admitting that you don’t yet know how to do something well and that you would like to learn.
• Practice. Practice. Practice. It took years to develop the reactions that you currently have’ it’s going to take a while to develop new reactions.
• Acknowledge that effort is as important as outcome. Although you may want to see changes now, most times these immediate results are not long-lasting and you will slip back into a reaction that you want to overcome. What do you do when that happens? You acknowledge that you still have more work to do and then you continue to do it. Making mistakes does not mean all is lost, it means your mind still remembers what you used to do and requires more effort and time to change. DO NOT get down on yourself and give up. Remember how you felt the first time you succeeded!
• Redefine what it means for you to succeed. My definition of success is not the same as anyone else’s. Yours should not be either. In therapy, I have to remember that sometimes, little tiny changes are successes in their own right. I have to remind others that slight changes can make all the difference and sometimes if we wait on big successes alone, we’ll never feel successful.
• Measure the changes that you make in relative not absolute terms. Don’t undervalue the small changes that you have made so far. Changing your reactions is not an easy task and it may seem overwhelming at first because after all, you’ve reacted in these ways for a long time.  So begin with a tweak of your usual reaction. Then ask yourself: Compared to where I was before, did anything change? Yes and has it made any difference at all? If it has celebrate that!! Next, if you could make one little tweak to improve that, what would the tweak be? It you continue making these small tweaks, they will add up to big changes after a while. Continue to strive for the change you want and maybe you will get to a point where the small changes that you have achieved will be good enough and you won’t need the really big change.
• Try 30 day trial periods: I read about  this concept on a blog a couple of years ago and have seen various versions on the web since. Pick a situation that you would like to react differently to, maybe the way you get upset when your significant other doesn’t do what you expect or even in the way that you like them to do it. Normally, you would get angry and nag or whine or argue, but for your 30 day trial, you’re going to choose a different reaction. Maybe you could not say anything about it or just appreciate the way that they did it. It saves you emotional energy and makes the other person feel like he/she can be him/herself. After 30 days you can stop if it doesn’t work for you and try something else but at least give yourself 30 days.

Well, thank you for reading. Namaste!!

Someone to Help You Through December 11, 2009

I was born in a culture in which the women of the lower echelons (of which I am very familiar) do not participate in “mushy shows of affection” like hugging their children, telling them they love them or showing any sort of emotion that could be mistakenly taken to mean affection.  In 1982, I come along and I am he opposite of that, I am needy, emotional, constantly crying, affectionate, mushy, lovey-dovey and, needless to say, out-of-place. My parents did not understand me and I did not understand them. I grew up feeling unloved and uncared for and until recently I hadn’t quite grasped the problem. It was venus and Mars, only this was a parent-child relationship.  In hopes of finding my lovey-dovey, mushy love, I went looking in many places–teachers who showed me any attention, older adults who showed any concern, older partners, really, anyone. Throughout my life, I hated myself. I felt like no-one loved or cared about me, especially the people who should care the most and I was alone and lonely. I wondered why God made me and knew I wouldn’t make it past 25 because I just couldn’t.

I pretended my way through high school. I had great grades because I had nothing else to do but get good grades. I devoured books, ironically I spent my time reading mostly fiction (which I rarely if ever read) because I was trying to live my life through an osmosis of sorts. I was always the happy-go-lucky girl on the surface; I was always smiling, laughing, having fun. I was the social butterfly of any group, the one who made friends quicker than anyone else. I was vivacious and vibrant all the time. And was it ever tiring. Truth? I had, maybe, one friend. I am an introvert by nature, I love the quiet of my own mind, I love small crowds and I tired quickly of smiling and laughing all the time but did not like the questions I got when I “came down.” So I played and lost my real self. I was who people wanted me to be and had no idea who I was. And it was tiresome.

I loved and poured myself into people who didn’t see me or understand anything about me, I accepted things I should not have because I did not know I was valued and valuable. I knew I could not have deserved more than I was getting and no-one could have forced me to believe different even though i said the words, “I deserve better”, “I don’t deserve this.” I stayed in relationships for too long that did nothing but erode the little bit of progress I tried to make fighting my own battles and actually believed I was getting better, loving myself by teaching myself how to take more and heavier emotional blows. I was self destructing and living an illusion.

Redemption

I met my friend, Ann*, my first year in college at a small private liberal arts college in the middle of the snow belt. Ann was a woman who took no bull. She was tall and visibly strong; she strutted when she walked. She was sweet and genteel. She was funny and interesting, all the things I admired and would have killed for and none of which I was or knew how to be. She noticed I walked with my head hung even before I did; she was the one who pointed it out to me. Up until that point, I did not know if my head was to the left, right or backwards. All I knew was that I was living day-to-day. Ann took me on as her project, I now believe. She nurtured my spirit and helped me build an important layer of self-esteem that got me to walk with my head held high by graduation. How did she do it? Diligence and consistency.

The Prescription

• She listened to me and empathized with my feelings.
• She developed a vision of the person I was and would become.
• She invested financially and emotionally in me and was constant even when I lost complete sight of the goal.
• She planted empowering words and images in my head, in my line of vision, in my heart.
• She reminded me daily of how intelligent, talented, beautiful, kind and sweet I was.
• She told me over and over who I was and what I was worth.
• She physically lifted my head when it hung low, until I did it on my own.
• She cried with me, laughed with me, got angry for me when I couldn’t see anything to be angry about.
• She advocated for me, to me.
• and she gave me multiple reality checks when I needed them.
• She challenged me to find myself and live out who I was at my core.

She loved me in spite of me, and for me and helped me to love myself because if she could love me with such intensity, I can at least start to love myself. And I did. Now, I hope that I can one day do half as much for another young lady as Ann has done for me. Thank you, you are truly a blessing.

We are not all fortunate to find someone like Ann but you can be that to yourself or better partner with a friend and develop a buddy system. Push and pull each other through. It’s much easier helping someone else than it is helping yourself.  Namaste!!* Names have been changed to protect the innocent.

What Is Self-Esteem? December 11, 2009

What do you like about yourself? Are you proud of yourself? If these questions make you feel uncomfortable, or you cannot answer them, chances are that you have a problem with self esteem.

Why is that? Why do so many of us basically dislike ourselves? Why are we embarrassed to “esteem” ourselves?

Before answering this question, we must first define self-esteem. Self esteem comes from the inside out. It means that a woman is not dependent upon anyone else to make her feel good about herself, because she already knows she’s fine just the way she is. She is confident and aware of her strengths and abilities. She wants to share them with others. This does not mean she is conceited. She is also aware of areas needing work and growth. But that’s ok, because she knows she’s not perfect, and she doesn’t have to be. No one is. She understands that we all have our strengths and weaknesses.

Self-esteem is a core identity issue, essential to personal validation and our ability to experience joy. Once achieved, it comes from the inside out. But it is assaulted or stunted from the outside in. A woman with low self-esteem does not feel good about herself because she has absorbed negative messages about women from the culture and/or relationships.

The reign of youth, beauty and thinness in our society dooms every woman to eventual failure. Women’s magazines, starting with the teenage market, program them to focus all their efforts on their appearance. Many girls learn, by age 12, to drop formerly enjoyable activities in favor of the beauty treadmill leading to nowhere. They become fanatical about diets. They munch, like rabbits, on leaves without salad dressing, jog in ice storms, and swear they love it!

Ads abound for cosmetic surgery, enticing us to “repair” our aging bodies, as if the natural process of aging were an accident or a disease. Yet with all this effort, they still never feel like they are good enough. How can they? Magazine models are airbrushed to perfection, and anorexic. “Beautiful” movie stars are whipped into perfect shape by personal trainers, and use surgery to create an unnatural cultural ideal.

But youth cannot last. It is not meant to. If women buy into this image of beauty, then the best an older woman can strive for is looking “good for her age” or worse yet, “well preserved”. Mummies are well preserved. Mummies are also dead. Abusive experiences join with cultural messages to assault female self esteem. Abuse is pervasive and cuts across all socioeconomic lines. It invariably sends the message that the victim is worthless.

Many, many women have told me that verbal abuse has hurt them far more than any physical act. As one woman put it, “his words scarred my soul”. Women whose abuse started as children have the most fragile sense of identity and self worth. Poor self esteem often results in depression and anxiety. Physical health suffers as well. Many times, women with this problem don’t go for regular checkups, exercise, or take personal days because they really don’t think they’re worth the time.

Relationships are impacted as well. Their needs are not met by their partner because they feel like they don’t deserve to have them met, or are uncomfortable asking. Their relationships with children can suffer if they are unable to discipline effectively, set limits, or demand the respect they deserve. Worse yet, low self-esteem passes from mother to daughter.The mother is modeling what a woman is. She is also modeling, for her sons, what a wife is.

In the workplace, women with low self-esteem tend to be self-deprecating, to minimize their accomplishments, or let others take credit for their work. They never move up.

Finally, with friends, they are unable to say no. They end up doing favors they don’t want to do, or have any time for. They end up going where they don’t want to go, with people they don’t want to go with! A woman with low self-esteem has no control over her life. But that can change.

These women can get help and emotional healing. It is criticial to remember that no one deserves to be abused. If something bad has happened to you, it does not mean there is something wrong with you. The responsibility for the abuse lies with the person who chooses to hurt you.

If you are presently being abused, you must put yours and your children’s safefy first. If you think you are in danger, you can call your local domestic violence hotline number. You can choose your own identity. You can discard the popular cultural image and replace it with something real.

As I read someplace once, “We are bound by our fate only as long as we accept the values that determine it.” Nobody is perfect, but everyone is worthwile. Believe in yourself.

By Maggie Vlazny

www.saidaonline.com/en

Finding my “me-ness” December 11, 2009

The “I” that is inside you is separate and apart from the “I” that you see staring back in the mirror. Although this is an intellectual acknowledgment for most and for me, for a long time, I am in the early stages of feeling the separateness that is the internal “me”. At times I can actually feel my inner self differentiated from my outer self ( this may be some mental condition as yet undiagnosed, but for now, I call it progress).  I guess I refer to it as  my “me-ness”, the part of me that holds 95% of my value (5% since I’m still caught up in the small bit of validation that my physical ‘me” contributes). I believe the place where real understanding begins is the place at which this acknowledgment is made. There is a “me” on the inside that is not the “me” that I have lived with and tried to beat into submission. The person who looks back at me in the mirror is only the house for my real self. It will grow old, lose firmness, gain rolls and flab, wrinkles, crow’s feet, laugh lines, age spots, bald spots, stretch marks, cellulite, stray hairs and end up old, BUT, the person inside, my real me, my soul (as some have said) is always there, vivacious, eager, excitable, jubilant, alive and bubbly, beautiful in every way. At the moment I grasped this, it felt like a light-bulb exploded and I could see things about myself that I had never seen before. I was beautiful on the outside but goodness was I gorgeous on the inside!! This was my own hard-earned epiphany despite the many years of hearing others say–It’s what’s inside that counts. Now I know. Although we all have to arrive at our own little epiphanies, having someone to remind us of our value (positive value, that is) does not hurt one bit. So, you are immensely more than you can imagine right now. You are all light and beauty and goodness. You are love. You are worth more than anyone has ever said or shown you mostly because those who can’t see it have the same struggles and those who can don’t know how.

Now the big question is, how do we get to the point where this external part of us isn’t the most important part? This is the problem that I have struggled with for a long time. Accepting myself for the person I know I am and not the person other people see and have created in their minds is no small task.  For me, the first step was wanting to be at peace with myself and taking a huge dose of ….perspective.

Ask yourself: How many of the people who you let determine how you feel about…. your hair, your body, your smile, your breast size, your car, home, job, your kids, your mate, those cheap clothes you bought (even though your neighbor just bought a bag that was half your paycheck) or anything else are really thinking about you at 7:45 p.m? How many are actually thinking, I wonder if Su’s okay right now, is she happy? Chances are, if you do cross their mind, it’s not because they’re wondering if you’re doing well.

Reality check: Most people have their own lives and they don’t care about yours, at least not for longer than a day or two if  it’s really good gossip and even then they get over it.  Case in point: Michael Jackson–The KING of pop. When I was younger and watched people faint and cry uncontrollably because they were in his presence, I thought “Man, I can’t imagine how they’ll react when he dies. It’ll be a pandemonium. After all, he was one of the most interesting men alive. But then August 2009, he died and people cried and mourned in a much more lackluster way than my little mind conjured up years ago. Not to dismiss the power of  “The Michael,” millions of fans will think of him casually or when they hear a song, but their lives have not stopped in any real way.  So, why, oh why would their lives stop for me? I’m wonderful and everything, but I’m no King of Pop.  Are you any different?

View of Life

Looking at the outside world, we’re on eye-level with everything that happens to us. We see things happening TO us. Most times, we are the silent receivers in the game. What we really need is to adjustment the way we view the world, maybe take a bird’s-eye view, a sniper’s view or some other view that divorces us from the one way we’ve seen things for so long. Some people gain this perspective when they have hit rock bottom and they’re forced because the only way to survive is to discard the old way of seeing and experiencing things and develop a new outlook. We all have the power to change the way we see things and think out our lives, it’s available to every one.  We need to ask ourselves some questions that challenge the way that we see things and unearth our very core.

Know Your Essence

• Is the way you see your world or life accurate?
• Are your thoughts true reflections of your experiences?
• Is the I in the mirror a true reflection of the “you” on the inside?
• Who are you at your center?
• Who is this person that goes to work or school everyday?
• Who are you apart from your job as a student or parent or sister or daughter?
• What values and traits define you?
• How are these things manifested in your life?
• Do you experience you best self everyday?
• Who determines what you experience?
• Who determines what your best self is, does, thinks and says?
• Do you feel in control of your self? Or do you let what others thing or say or the way that they look at you guide your emotions?

Importantly, when we don’t know who we are at our core, everything and everybody can alter our day with just a glance, or a tone of voice or their own negative views of their world. Why let that into yours?

Determine Your Day

Another important factor in changing perspective is determining where we want to go and what it will look and feel like to get there. By this I am not suggesting that we set ourselves up for disappointment, I mean prepare your mind for things to go the way that you want them to go. This largely entails directing your mind toward the positive. Try the following:

• Wake up and thank your Higher Power for the opportunity to see another day, experience the things that you didn’t have a chance to and live a new, more interesting day filled with surprises.
• Think that today will be a day unlike any other, with new challenges for you to experience, some fun and exciting, others not so fun but still important for your growth.
• Remind yourself that everything that happens, positive or negative is ultimately in your best interest as nothing happens by chance.
• Verbally acknowledge that you are in the exact place where you need to be and cannot imagine being in any other place to learn the things you need to learn.

Enjoy your days. Namaste!!

Welcome… December 8, 2009

I have thought long and hard about the ways that I can contribute to the development of myself as an individual, as a part of the larger fabric of society and ultimately as a therapist. I have a love for working with teenage girls, mostly because adolescence is a most turbulent time, when navigating the many social and emotional difficulties that are experienced is almost an art that most never quite appreciate until adulthood. Even then this time is looked upon as the worst that most women have experienced. I have spent a great deal of time reading self-help books, self-development sites, psychotherapy manuals, motivational memoirs and a whole host of ”How to’s.” I haven’t always found answers I liked or wanted to hear or even know how to begin but I have always begun. That is what I want for others; sometimes you don’t need to go the whole way because a little might be just what you need at that moment. I wanted to start a self-esteem movement but never quite figured it out. I decided to try this route because I like blogging. I like the freedom to express myself and meet with others on my own terms.  I will try my best to make this an interesting experience for you all and mostly to enjoy this journey. This is an invitation to come along and witness the flourishing of your spirit and the unearthing of your best self. Namaste!!

Susaye