Self-Fulfilling Prophesies - Make Them Good Ones!

I’ve been thinking about what I wrote the other day and you know, we hardly ever apply logic or rational thought to the negative words we adopt to describe ourselves, or the negative things we think when we’re faced with particular situations or people, or have to learn something new. I know I never used to. My own particular negative nugget was 'I'm bound to make a mistake'. Guess what happened...

Anyway, I don't want you falling into the same dark hole, so I'm listing a few of things that I often hear people say about themselves. They don't make cheerful reading, but they illustrate the point I'm trying to make - and that is that we often think damaging things about ourselves that are wrong, irrational, illogical or past their sell-by date.

I want you to think when you read the list. I also want you to apply logic and try to refute each statement as you go along, and to try to stand outside yourself and imagine what advice you would give to someone who made any of these statements to you.

OK? Here's the list:

• I feel inferior to other people who are better off/better educated/better looking than I am.


• I have negative beliefs about myself and my own abilities.


• Although I realise that the negative beliefs I hold about myself influence my current conduct, I remind myself of them every day.


• I make negative statements and self-deprecating remarks about myself in every­day conversation.


• When I was younger members of my family or peer group made negative remarks to or about me. I remember them and still believe them to be true.


• When I get negative feedback from people close to me I take it personally and believe it to be true even though I know, logically, that it is not.


• I have a negative self-image about my body/looks/background/social skills that influences the way I present myself to other people.


• I always believe negative assessments of my competency, skills, ability, knowledge, intelligence, creativity, or common sense to be true.


• I feel negative about my future prospects of success and lack the motivation to make the effort to achieve my goals.


• I feel angry, resentful or hostile toward others for real or imagined mistreatment.


• I dread the future. I don’t believe that I have what it takes to be successful.


• I have made mistakes in the past and feel sure that I will make mistakes in the future.

Do you really believe that’s its logical to feel inferior to another person just because that person is better off, better educated or better looking than you are?

Do you sincerely think that it's rational for a person to make negative statements about him or herself to other people, or make negative assessments to themselves about their own abilities?

Do you honestly consider that people always tell the truth about other people, or do you believe that some people sometimes have a personal agenda that makes it politic to denigrate other people?

Do you think it wise for a person to base his or her view of themselves on what people said to, or about, them years ago?

Do you really think it’s a good idea for people to keep reminding themselves of their personal negative beliefs about their own background, abilities, etc?

Do you consider that people who don't believe in themselves and lack motivation to pursue their goals can make a success of their lives?

No? Me neither. But I do sincerely believe, think, and consider that negative thoughts and beliefs can become self-fulfilling prophesies.

Many of the things we think or believe about ourselves are wrong, illogical, irrational, or distorted. Most of those thoughts or beliefs are rooted in the past, but things that happened in the past, however painful and damaging to the self-confidence, have little or no relevance to the present.

I've a great belief that if there's a monster in your closet then the best thing to do is to haul it out, and shine a strong rational, logical, and realistic light on it, because that's the only way to see the monster as it really is - a scrawny little creep that's trying to ruin your life.

If you make negative statements about yourself that you apply to yourself - write them out on a piece of paper, and treat them exactly as you treated the statements I've written here. Stand outside yourself, apply logic, try to refute the statement, and try to give yourself some good, impersonal advice. You might also ask yourself a couple of questions: like “What does it matter to me now? or "Why does it bother me so much?" and write out the answers to those questions, too.

All part of not shooting yourself in the foot and making your self-fulfilling prophesies good ones...

Emily - http://www.therapypartnership.com/

Get Rid of Your Ghosts!

I read Bill's post yesterday evening quite late, and woke up this morning thinking about ghosts - not the ones that hang around in damp, derelict, and lonely mansions (and you'd certainly need to be dead to live in any of those, because I never saw one that had a bathroom) but our own particular ghosts - the shades of the past that can come back to haunt us sometimes.

Anyway, round about half past six or so after I'd fed the cat, put out the rubbish and was well into my second cup of tea, I came to the conclusion that the person who coined the phrase 'Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me' was a certifiable lunatic.

Bones mend in the end, you see, but words can create abrasions and bruises in secret and invisible places, and they sometimes never really quite heal up.

The worst thing, of course, is that we often adopt those harsh, unkind - and actually untrue and ridiculously inappropriate - words and phrases to castigate ourselves without realising it, simply because the wounds they create haven't healed up. It certainly took me a long time to stop saying "God, Ems! You're so f*****g stupid"every time I dropped a cup or forgot to do something - but then it took me a long time to realise why I was saying it, or even that I was saying it at all.

There are a lot of people - parents, teachers, coaches, line managers, peer groups (you name it actually!) - who should really carry a Government Health Warning. They use hurtful and damaging words and phrases like: 'You're Stupid', 'You'll never amount to anything', 'That was dumb', 'Why can't you think?', 'Are you deaf?', or 'Why are you always so clumsy?'. Some of them don't intend to do any permanent damage but, sadly, some of them do.

The fact that words or phrases like that were aimed at you doesn't make them true - and the fact that someone else applied them you doesn't mean that you have to apply them to yourself.

Watch how you speak to yourself about yourself. Try to use words positively. 'I could have handled that better' for example, is certainly an admission that you made a mistake, but's it's also a statement of belief in yourself and your own ability to 'handle things better'.

'I f*****d that up' , on the other hand, is not a positive remark!

All part of of not shooting yourself in the foot!

Emily - http://www.therapypartnership.com

Don't Shoot Yourself in the Foot!

Your unconscious mind is probably something you rarely think about - who does? - but anytime you have a problem is a good time to start thinking about your unconscious mind and speaking to it seriously every day, because it can do you a lot of very big favours.

Your unconscious is much more powerful than your conscious mind, and knowlegeable in a completely different way. It does a lot of important things for you all the time - if it wasn't doing its job right now, for example, you'd have serious problems breathing in and out without spending all your time thinking about it - but the most interesting thing your unconscious mind can do for you is to initiate personal change and help you to achieve your goals.

Turning what is effectively a daydream into a reality isn't difficult - it's just a matter of imagining and visualising very clearly and very slowly exactly what you want to achieve over and over again until your unconscious gets the message.

You can do that at any time of the day - and in fact the more often you do it the better - but optimum visualisation times are just before you go to sleep, when you're just waking up, just before you eat, or when you're showering, jogging, or relaxing, because those are the times when you're in an ideal state of mind to get the best results.

This kind of visualisation is actually a very mild form of self-hypnosis, and it works (just like regular hypnosis) because your unconscious mind can't tell the difference between what's real and what's imaginary, has no sense of linear time, reacts uncritically to suggestions and ideas, and acts upon them without judgement.

Your conscious mind knows perfectly well, of course, that the images you create when you visualise what you want to change or achieve are imaginary, but your unconscious mind isn't capable of making that distinction - or of interpreting those images as things that might happen in the future. It sees them as representing situations that are factual and real NOW - and it's able to make them factual and real NOW by using all of its formidable resources to ensure that you act in an appropriate way.

Simply put, if you imagine and visualise yourself as a confident person, you will become a confident person, because your unconscious mind believes that you are a confident person, and changes your behaviour to reflect what it believes to be true.

There is, of course, a fly in this ointment.

Every thought or idea automatically produces images.

Think of a rabbit.

See that rabbit?

What do you think happens if you consistently think of yourself as a failure, error prone, accident prone, fearful of something - or 'surplus to requirements'?

Your unconscious mind responds to your thoughts and ideas and makes change happen in accordance with what it believes to be factual and real NOW - and what it comes to believe to be factual and real NOW depends on you.

Maintaining positive thoughts about yourself and your future is essential to your good health, happiness, and success. Don't shoot yourself in the foot!

Bill - http://www.therapypartnership.com

Attitude Matters

When somebody suddenly pulls your personal rug out from under you and you end up 'redundant' (for want of a better word!) a structured existence makes it easier to stay motivated and positive and focused, so the best thing to do is to continue to live your life much as you used to do, or as most other people do - working 9 to 5 Monday through Friday, and taking Saturday and Sunday off - until you get another regular job.

Don't worry about filling in the 'working hours' part of the plan, by the way. You're about to become a self-employed financial advisor to yourself, do a lot of research, write a new CV, do some self-advertisement, head-hunt a new employer, and spend some time staying mentally and physically fit. You could find yourself working overtime.

In a couple of days someone else is going to be talking about beginning to get organised on the work front, but what I want to talk about now is your attitude to yourself and your situation and the fact that you might need to view what's happened to you in a different light, and begin to think about yourself a lot more positively than perhaps you've been doing lately.

The trouble with asking yourself the question 'Why me?' - and nearly everybody does when they become 'redundant' - is that it can lead a person to develop some really weird ideas. You can begin to believe, for example, that being 'redundant' is your own fault - that you somehow fell short of some unknown but vital criteria, and consequently got thrown out on your ear.

After my last horrendous brush with redundancy I had a really hard time getting to grips with the fact that I hadn't done anything wrong. I hadn't, actually. I wasn't 'let go' through any fault of my own. The firm I was working for was merging with another firm; they didn't have space for everyone, and so two people had to go. I was one of them because I was 'last in' at my level, and therefore had to be 'first out'. It was as simple as that, and on an intellectual level I knew it - but that didn't stop me wondering whether I hadn't been compared unfavourably with other people, or whether there hadn't been something lacking in my performance, my ability, my personality or my appearance. It took me quite a long time to accept, on an emotional level, that my 'redundancy' was due to the fact that there were too many bums for too few chairs, and that IT WASN'T MY FAULT.

Once I came to that realisation I was able to feel confident enough to get organised, get motivated, stay positive, and have enough faith in myself and my own abilities to move on. So here's a couple of things to think about and take on board:

• Redundancy is impersonal. It implies no adverse criticism of anyone's performance, ability, personality or appearance.


• A 'redundant' person is not 'surplus to requirements' in any meaningful way; he or she is simply unaffordable in a specific place at a specific time.


• The situation you are in is not your fault. To pinch a phrase frequently used by a famous person: 'It's the economy, stupid'.

Emily http://www.therapypartnership.com/

Redundancy Means Letting Go Of The Past

For the next couple of weeks we’re going to be talking about redundancy, how people deal with it, and what help there is available from anywhere and everywhere for people who have been made redundant.

I pulled the short straw out of the hat, so you’ve got me for a day or two - and I want to look at the emotional rather than the material effects of redundancy. I also want to hear from you about your experiences of redundancy, and what you think/thought and feel/felt about it, and what you believe are the best ways to deal with it.

I’ve been made redundant – actually more than once – and one of those occasions came at a really bad time. I’d recently lost my sister, and being made redundant just then was very much like being bereaved all over again. It was a serious loss, and I really felt shocked, and numb, and grieving and angry, and it happened - Oh joy! - at Christmas. My last working day that time around was the 23rd of December.

I think it didn’t help that no formal process of grieving accompanied the loss of my job, my colleagues, my income and my financial security. There were no comforting words, and no ceremonial parting; somebody said ‘Sorry, but we’re going to have to let you go’, and that was more or less it. The door closed Friday, I had nowhere to go Monday, the farewell party (and I think I was lucky to get one!) was grimmer than a genuine wake, and everything that had given structure to my life for five days of every week for three years (and had sometimes occupied my thoughts out of business hours) vanished.

I found that that absence of ceremony made it difficult for me to stay positive and motivated to accept the change and move on, and that it was far too easy for me to stay angry and keep grieving. The most difficult thing, though, was coping with the ‘structural void’ that not having a steady job left in my life.

I was lucky in having good friends and the opportunity to be ‘self-employed’ - but it was still an effort in the beginning not to slide into a cycle of getting up late, not bothering to dress for ‘business’, or trying to pass empty hours by watching too much television, or eating, drinking, or smoking too much.

My own experiences (and in particular that experience!) of being redundant have taught me that redundancy can put a serious dent in your confidence and self-esteem - and that imposing a new structure on your life from day one is vital when you suddenly find yourself ‘surplus’ to someone else’s requirements. And yes, there are a lot of ways of looking at that statement that don’t involve finding yourself without a job – but we won’t talk about that here and now!

Re-structuring your life takes self-discipline, self-motivation and a lot of determination – but it’s worth the trouble. You may find that you have unexpected strengths and abilities that you might never have known about had not circumstances forced them to surface.

Don’t forget – I want to hear from you about your own experiences. This is supposed to be a conversation, not a monologue!

Emily - http://www.therapypartnership.com/