Tag Archive for 'Self-esteem'

Your Say Yes to Life Monday Motivator: Who are you calling a “people pleaser?”

To a certain degree, we all struggle with the desire to please others who are in our life. While usually our eagerness to please aligns more closely with achieving an advantageous compromise that benefits both the other party and ourselves, there are times we may find that, in the choices we make, the benefits to the other party far outweigh our own.

When this happens on a consistent basis, we may be struggling with a common syndrome known as “people pleasing.” “Who me?”, we might catch ourselves thinking…or saying…when the subject arises. Yet while it can be painful to discover that we have been engaged in a habitual focus on others’ wants and needs to the exclusion of our own, what is more important is that we develop that awareness so we can make a different choice going forward.

If you have ever caught yourself worrying about what to wear, how to act, what someone is thinking about you or how you can change what someone is thinking about you, you have a taste of what people pleasing feels like.  

Let’s take a common example – you have just come home from work and you are looking forward to your one free evening of the week to rest, relax, and just take good care of yourself for a change. But when you get home, your daughter asks if her friend can please stay the night. Then your spouse informs you that he is no longer able to take your son to baseball practice because he has scheduled a guys’ night – and he knows you will understand even though this is the first you have heard of it. Your daughter is begging….your husband is looking at you with expectation that you will graciously pick up the ball he dropped.

Appalled at yourself even as the words come out of your mouth, all you hear yourself saying is, “Yes, of course – no problem. I’ll take care of it. Have a good evening, honey!”

This is people-pleasing at its finest. And it probably doesn’t feel very good either while it is happening or after it has occurred.

In Internal Family Systems (IFS), we would call this the “People Pleaser Pattern.” IFS is a unique and powerful therapeutic model that assigns these different aspects or parts of our being different names and encourages the IFS therapist and student to work together to discern the roles each of these parts play in our lives and how we can work with instead of against them.

So in IFS therapy, we might look at the People Pleaser within and start trying to discern how it works in our lives by asking ourselves, “Does this happen all the time, with everybody, or just with a certain person or just a few folks?” “Or does it perhaps happen only in certain situations under certain conditions?” “What is triggering my desire to say ‘yes’ when I want to say ‘no’, from agreeing when I really disagree?” As we begin to seek and hear our own answers to these questions we are already on our way to understanding and then transforming our people pleasing behaviors into something more self-respectful.

Using the IFS therapy model, you will work to first understand your specific behavior, and then identify the motivation(s) you have for encouraging or at least allowing that behavior to continue. Next, you will begin to trace the behavior backwards to possible origins. Where did you learn that it was not safe to say “no”? Who rejected you because you stood up for yourself or expressed disagreement with their opinion? Did you lose a valuable opportunity because you were too vocal in a team-based setting about an important group decision? Rejection always hurts….and it will continue to hurt until you recognize it, acknowledge it, and begin to heal from it. IFS gives you this chance to identify and heal from past wounds that are still driving current choices and behaviors.

Next you will begin to learn how to work with your People Pleaser part so that you can understand how it is trying to protect you. The People Pleaser is not out to get you – it is simply looking out for what it has come to believe are your best interests. The more you can allay the fears that part of you carries within it and reassure it that whatever the outcome, together you can find another way to deal with life without having to people-please, the less that part will be inclined to go rogue when it feels you are in danger.

Finally, having established a more collaborative relationship with the People Pleaser part, you can begin to finally regain the power of decision in your own life. IFS offers you a powerful way to hear and respect what each part of you is trying to do to help you while still reminding them that in the end, the buck stops not with any one of them, but with YOU.

At Southlake Counseling, we understand that discovering and befriending all of the various parts of yourself can feel like a handful – when attempted alone. We want you to know you are not alone – we are here and we can help. Our caring, experienced and professional staff has more than two decades of experience in guiding individuals in their exciting journey to self-transformation. If you want to learn to say “no” to allowing past pain to overshadow current gain and say “YES” to all the fantastic possibilities that are yet ahead of you, contact us today at www.southlakecounseling.com. 

Be Well, 

Kimberly



Published on Monday February 22, 2010 in Monday Motivator. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Your “Say Yes to Life” Monday Motivator: The Critic versus the Champion

Into every day a little criticism must fall.

This could be the motto of the part of us we might label “the inner critic”.

When we are listening to our inner critic, we may not feel much desire to go deeper in our connection with ourselves or go for our goals and dreams. We may hear messages like “I wouldn’t ask for that promotion if I were you – they’re just going to tell you ‘no’”, “He doesn’t like you – that is why he didn’t call you back”, “Nice try with joining a gym, but you know it isn’t going to help with your eating habits because you never change.”

From the outside looking in, the inner critic seems to have one function and one purpose only – to tear us down. The inner critic hates us – or so it seems. We may even catch ourselves wondering why we hate ourselves so much and what we have done to deserve such unkind messages that come to us so frequently from within.

And we probably wonder on an almost daily basis if the voice will EVER go away.

In Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy, we dig deeper into the origin and role of our own inner critic. We also look at why our inner critic gets louder at some times than others. And we explore why our inner critic often appears to affect us more than the inner critic of those around us appears to affect them.

Let’s take an example. Imagine that you are a junior in college, and you have excelled in all of your undergraduate coursework. Your professors keep encouraging you to take more challenging classes – they can’t resist reminding you repeatedly of the straight-A’s you achieved in your first two years. They continually tell you that you have far more potential than you are tapping into. Every time one of your professors starts down this line of discussion, you hear a voice inside you that says, “They are only saying that because they don’t know you as well as you do. Remember that time in fifth grade when your teachers convinced your parents to let you try out for that middle school for ‘gifted’ children and you flunked the entrance exam? No need to go down that path again – you’ll just be setting yourself up for failure a second time”.

Here, all of the outside proof seems to show that you have every chance of success. Your professors even point out that some of your fellow classmates who are taking the accelerated program didn’t score as high as you did in their undergraduate work. But you think you know something your professors don’t about your chances for success.

Certainly your inner critic knows that you are afraid to fail again. You were very hurt the first time you were rejected after you stuck your neck and your pride out to go for what you wanted. You will never forget the sting of shame and the disappointment in the eyes of your parents and teachers. Your inner critic reminds you continually of how painful that experience was.

But – just for the sake of argument here – could it be that, rather than tear you down, your inner critic is actually trying to protect you – or at least protect that fifth grade inner child who still resides within you – from even more pain?

Students of IFS learn to re-examine and in time re-frame their relationship with their inner critic. Whereas in other therapeutic approaches, you may have been encouraged to ignore or overpower your inner critic, with IFS you will learn how to befriend it. IFS opens the door to ask questions you may never have considered before, like, “What can I learn from my inner critic?” “What service is my inner critic providing to me?” “What part of me agrees with my inner critic and why?” “How can I let my inner critic know that s/he is heard and respected so rather than standing in my way, we can work together to achieve my dreams and goals?”

In time, using the IFS model, you will be able to introduce your inner critic to its new best friend, your inner champion. The inner champion gives the inner critic a new lease on life – literally. When the inner critic tells you, “You must be crazy to believe you are as smart as Professor So-and-So claims”, your inner champion will say, “You ARE that smart. You just got scared before when you took that entrance exam. So this time we will practice some relaxation exercises before tackling this new challenge before us. It is not how many times you fall down, but how many times you get back up that matters. Together, we can do this!”

IFS offers us a new way of life through giving us the chance to look inside ourselves and see, not a collection of bitter enemies, but a close-knit and loving family that simply uses different communication styles to express their love for us. Each part of ourselves exists for a purpose. Each deserves a voice. Each requires closure for past hurts and disappointments. Each needs and wants love and connection. And each part loves us – in its own way. With IFS we learn to speak the love language of the inner critic, the inner child, and the inner champion, and then we are better equipped to help each part learn how to work together and enjoy life as a team.

If you are struggling with feelings of worthlessness, hopelessness, discouragement, fear, anxiety, or depression in the face of the messages you hear inside you, IFS can help. At Southlake Counseling, we understand what it is like to feel like a house divided from the inside out. We have nearly two decades of professional expertise in guiding individuals through change and use the Internal Family Systems model to help achieve comprehensive health and well-being. To find out more about how IFS can transform your relationship with your inner critic and awaken your inner champion, contact us today at www.southlakecounseling.com.

Be Well,

Kimberly



Published on Monday February 8, 2010 in Monday Motivator. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Your “Say Yes to Life” Monday Motivator: Just who do you think you are?

Ask yourself this deceptively simple-sounding question, “Who am I?” and you may find that questions like these are easier asked than answered.

For instance, who you experience yourself to be may change depending on who you are with. With your parents, you may find yourself dropping into some of the mannerisms, thoughts, and opinions you held as the child-you. With your spouse, you may experience yourself as an odd assortment of relational habits you attribute to either your mom’s or your dad’s influence. With your child, you may struggle to reconcile the deep love and enthusiasm you feel for being a parent with your own all-too-human personal desire for a return to the unscheduled free time and rest that you enjoyed as a single person.

Your sense of yourself may be equally fluid – and elusive – depending on where you are. Facing a schedule that includes a full day of work, a quick after-work visit to the gym, and a later dinner date, you may find yourself keeping company with a completely different you as you move through your day. At work, work-you is task-oriented, focused, forgetting to eat until the hunger in your belly yells “LUNCH!” and you quickly hurry off to check that item off your to-do list. At the gym, gym-you counts calories and berates yourself for your earlier choices as the treadmill spins. And at dinner, over a relaxing glass of wine, you witness how dinner-you casually shoves gym-you aside as you go for your favorite high-calorie dessert – tres leches.

So who are you? Which you is “the” you?

Internal Family Systems (IFS) is a new therapeutic discipline that provides a roadmap by which the intrapersonally inquisitive student can begin to find his or her own both accurate and self-respectful answer to this question.

Students of IFS recognize and accept that “the you” they are tempted to conceptualize as a single discrete identity is actually a diverse collection of parts called “sub-personalities”. These parts can range from the inner critic to the abandoned child to the people pleaser to the anger-monger to the scapegoat to the loving caretaker and so on. 

As students of IFS, we work to identify and learn from each part. As our investigation unfolds, we begin to perceive how each part relates to each other part within us in helpful and sometimes not-so-helpful ways. As we learn from each part about the memories, associations, assumptions, perceptions, dreams, goals, and aspirations it carries within it, we become more attuned to how that part subtly shapes and drives our conscious behavior. With this awareness, we can work with each part to transform for the better its relationship with the other parts of us, with us-now, and with the world around us.

The true power of IFS, however, comes from the compassion we begin to develop towards each part of ourselves. Once we know that part’s story, past, present, and persistent hopes for the future, we cease to resist or fight its involvement or influence and start instead to seek a common good. IFS promotes a deep inner empathy with and affinity towards not just us-now but towards all our parts, as we recognize that we have each been employing different means to achieve the same shared goals for acceptance, success, love, meaning, and joy in life.

Lest a student of IFS begin to suspect that they suffer from multiple personality disorder, however, there is one more important basic component of IFS work that is worth mentioning.

IFS practitioners recognize that we are at our core spiritual beings, centered in what IFS calls “the Self”. The Self is nurturing, stable, and full of compassion. The Self exemplifies the best us that we can be, and reminds us that as we learn to stay centered in our sense of ourselves as “the Self”, we are then able to begin to repair, restore, and re-energize our tangled relationships with each of our parts. As the Self, we can help our parts to heal, heal ourselves, and develop a relationship with our own life that is both inspiring and empowering.

At Southlake Counseling, we have invested more than two decades in assisting you with your personal growth and development goals. We are strong proponents of Internal Family Systems therapy as a powerful and effective tool to help you learn how to say “no” to self-limiting thoughts, behaviors, and relational patterns and YES to your dream of being the best you that you can be. If you are ready to explore how IFS can help you achieve your personal growth and wellness goals, contact us today at www.southlakecounseling.com.

Be Well,

Kimberly


Published on Wednesday February 3, 2010 in Monday Motivator. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Your Say Yes to Life Monday Motivator: Saying YES to Life in the New Year!

“Oh the weather outside is frightful, but the fire is so delightful” is the opening line to a popular Christmas carol.

2009 has been a very rough year for a lot of us in an assortment of ways – financially, emotionally, physically….we have all been affected by the unavoidable shifts and changes in the world around us.

So as we meet here together for the last Monday in 2009, we may be tempted to carry that perspective into 2010. It is frightful outside, and it is easier, safer, better, unavoidable, to stay inside by the warm fire – instead of fighting for change. Well, yes it is. But does it work – and will it help us to say no to the fears and doubts that keep us feeling small and stuck and instead say YES to the life we really want and dream of living in 2010?

Don’t get me wrong – there is absolutely nothing wrong with enjoying a cozy warm fire, especially if you are surrounded by supportive loved ones and some hot eggnog or spiced cider. But we can’t make it into a lifestyle. There is always something that we can do now to change our circumstances and move in the direction of our dreams. We may not have power we might wish for to transform our outer environment, but we always retain the power to change the world within ourselves for the better.

To help us remember this as the New Year draws closer, we need to acknowledge now that 2010 will have its frightful days too. Some days we will be very tempted to stoke the fire, crawl back onto the couch, put off until tomorrow what we should have dealt with yesterday and still could today.

Acknowledging this, we may even now be considering what New Year’s Resolutions we want to make on January 1, 2010. But this may not be the approach that serves us best in saying “no” to what didn’t work for us in 2009 and YES to our ability to explore what does work in 2010.

The problem with New Year’s Resolutions is that they lack perspective –as do we when we are making them. For instance, we forget that they are year-long resolutions, just as full of ups-and-downs as any year will be, and only achievable over time. Resolutions rarely factor in the small, daily steps we need to get from here to there. They live in giant leaps – leaps which more often than not prove to be neither possible nor safe to attempt. Finally, resolutions often address our determination to change our outer circumstances, rather than focusing on the only place where we can ever hope to change anything – inside ourselves.

So this year, I would like to suggest that we forgo the traditional New Year’s resolutions in favor of New Year’s intentions. Intention, unlike resolution, is flexible. Moreover, intention is gentle, recognizing that there is a bigger picture that adds up over time if we just stick with our intention for long enough. Intentions are also relational – recognizing that the good of each individual is only achievable by seeking not just our own good, but the good of those around us as well. Most importantly, intentions come from deep within us, forcing us to dig down underneath concrete goals like “get a new job”, “eat healthier”, or “fix the problems in a relationship” to find what stands in between us and our ability to achieve our heart-held goals.

So now, start thinking about the intentions you wish to pay attention to in your new year. Are you worried about cherished relationships? Ask yourself what you can do to better cherish yourself so that you will have more to offer to cherished others as well.  Do you long for greater equanimity in the face of situational difficulties? What can you do to identify what evokes feelings of peace within yourself, and include those activities in your daily schedule? Are you seeking financial stability? Maybe it is time to end the harsh inner criticism you have been feeding yourself in favor of simply asking for help to better understand and change your financial picture.

At Southlake Counseling, we are excited to see what the New Year will bring! We have been privileged over the last two decades to witness countless individuals’ inner transformations – transformations that have led to amazing outer shifts as well. Do you need help forming intentions and figuring out how to bring your dreams into reality? Are you still grappling with the fear, hesitation, and doubt that a hard economic year engenders in us all? Do you know that 2010 must be different, but are just not sure how to make the changes you dream of? Contact us at www.southlakecounseling.com today. Together, we can help you say “no” to self-limiting thoughts and behavior patterns and YES to your own limitless possibilities for 2010!

Be Well,

Kimberly


Published on Tuesday December 29, 2009 in Monday Motivator. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Your “Say Yes to Life” Monday Motivator: Loving Yourself Unconditionally – If Not Now, Then When, Part III

I hope you have enjoyed Parts I and II of this special three-part Monday Motivator series on practicing unconditional self-love. In Part I we explored the differences between conditional and unconditional love. In Part II, we examined how love becomes conditional, how regular doses of conditional love affect us in the short- and long-term, and how practicing conditional self-love limits us.

Here, in Part III, we conclude our exploration by coming full-circle back to answer the questions we asked at the start of the series – What does “loving yourself” mean? How do you know you are doing it? How do you know you are not doing it? And what do you do if it doesn’t feel okay to love yourself, and you often catch yourself wondering “if I can’t love myself, now, today, then when? When will I finally be able to look in my own eyes and see someone worth loving looking back at me?”

The answer to all of these seemingly complicated questions boils down to one simple word: when you begin to practice it.

Learning to Love Ourselves Unconditionally 101

When we want to learn a new skill, there is no getting around it – we need to practice. Practice may never equal perfect (regardless of what our parents or teachers may have told us), but practice is guaranteed to equal progress, and that is what we are working towards here. Furthermore, once you experience for yourself just how good unconditional self-love feels, you will find it easier to make time to practice this invaluable skill until it becomes as second-nature as practicing conditional self-love used to feel.

There are several techniques we can use to practice unconditional self-love – so try each one, and select what works best for you. Again, you might also want to have a journal handy for recording your observations and experiences.

Exercise One: Learning to Identify the Critical Inner Voice

Before there can be application of a new skill, there must be awareness of what isn’t working for us to get us the desired results. So with this first exercise, we will begin to take notice of how, where, when, and why our critical inner voice speaks to us. Here, we will not be attempting to analyze the messages for insights, but simply noticing them with the intention to distinguish them from other messages we may hear within.

So start by keeping a log of what the inner critical voice is saying to you. When you hear messages delivered by the voice, write them down. If you are having trouble recognizing which voice is the inner critic, pay close attention for statements that include words or phrases like “should, how could you, you are bad/stupid/etc.”

Exercise Two: Learning to Listen to Ourselves

We give the critical inner voice plenty of airtime. But how much airtime do we devote to listening to our own authentic voice? With this exercise, you are learning to consider another perspective – your own. Here, you will practice listening to your own thoughts until you can clearly tell the difference between the inner critical voice and your own inner voice.

If you are having trouble distinguishing between the voices, a great technique to try is to ask yourself, “If I wasn’t afraid or knew I couldn’t fail, what would I do?” Practice asking yourself this question, and then jot down your responses. What you are seeking to identify here are your hopes, dreams, and desires apart from the messages your inner critical voice may give you about whether you deserve to or can achieve any of those hopes, dreams, and desires.

Exercise Three: Learning to Appreciate Each Voice for the Gifts They Bring

It is easy to react negatively to hearing criticism, especially when the critical voice comes from within.  But consider this – whether it sounds like it or not, each voice you hear within was at one time your invited guest. Each has a message for you – each one wants to help.

This is why learning to hear the message that lies beneath the tone of the messenger is so essential to healing, growth, and relationship-building. Practicing unconditional self-love begins with developing an awareness of how each message is trying to help you. Developing an attitude of curiosity and detachment can be very helpful during this phase as well.

For instance, when you hear the voice that compares you to someone else, choose to recognize it as a part and listen to it with curiosity. Why is the part doing this?  What is it afraid of?  What does this part truly want for you? For each message you hear, pretend you are the voice itself as you journal your thoughts about the answer to each of these questions.

Exercise Four: Learning to Give Yourself the Loving Care You Want and Deserve

Being able to hear, name, and decipher each messenger and its message lays the foundation for the most important skill of all – showing yourself that you love you!

To do this, start by journaling out a list of all the statements, activities, gifts, and experiences that make you feel truly loved. If it helps, you might imagine you are someone else, and ask yourself interview-style what you would really want and need to feel wholly loved, and then jot down your own answers.

You might also benefit from what I like to call “The Mirror Exercise.” Pick a time each day when you will have a few moments to yourself – it might be as you are getting ready for work or school each morning, or at the end of a long day just before bed. Whatever time works for you, make sure you can have a few minutes alone with yourself to look into your own eyes in the mirror as you tell yourself “I love you unconditionally…no matter what.”

This is not a time to evaluate whether you are having a good hair day, or whether those jeans really go with that shirt. This is a time to connect with YOU – eye-to-eye, heart-to-heart.

Again, if you find this extremely uncomfortable, it might help at first to ease into it by imagining you are looking into the face of someone you do feel unconditional, unwavering love for. It can even help to do it with pets at first because pets accept our love fully and without hesitation!

Work your way into being able to gaze into your own eyes and offer yourself total, unwavering, unconditional love. You can also use the mirror to offer your love and appreciation to other areas of your body about which, in the past, you may have felt shame or discomfort. Bring a sense of love and appreciation into your contemplations, and remember that you may have to “fake it til you make it”, but if you are persistent over time, your practice will turn into progress, and you will begin to feel just how wonderful it is to love yourself unconditionally.

How Internal Family Systems (IFS) Therapy Can Help

At Southlake Counseling, we know that it is one thing to decide to practice unconditional self-love…and quite another thing to actually do it! It can be scary, sometimes painful, often disconcerting to try to stop ourselves in our tracks and change long-standing ways we have been relating to ourselves, others, and our own lives. Here is where Internal Family Systems Therapy, a Southlake Counseling specialty, can help.

IFS Therapy is a uniquely effective approach to restoring loving relationships with self and valued others. Students of IFS learn to identify patterns of internal dialogue that create conflict and interfere with their ability to pursue healthy, productive change. IFS is a powerful vehicle for restoring your sense of self through promoting self-curiosity, self-compassion, and self-confidence. Southlake Counseling professionals have many years of training and experiencing in guiding students who wish to experience the full benefits of this powerful therapeutic practice.

Call us today at 704-896-7776 or email me at Kkrueger@centerforselfdisocovery.com to learn more about how IFS Therapy can help you say NO to conditional love and YES to life!

Be Well,

Kimberly

Published on Monday November 9, 2009 in Monday Motivator and Self-esteem. 0 Comments Tags: , .