Your Relationship With Yourself

As someone who has worked in the people-helping industry for many years, I am well aware that the one person we are most likely to misunderstand is our self. The truth is that every single person on the face of the planet has quirks and flaws, but when we have to live with the ones that are part of us, twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, one of two things happens: either we become desensitised and no longer notice those things about us which are unhealthy, or we become so uncomfortable that we go to extraordinary lengths to justify our shortcomings and disguise them.

In order for us to come to a point where we can enjoy a sense of balance and well being in our life, we need to first make peace with who we truly are.

What Things Shape Us?

• The family setting in which we grow up.
• Our birth order.
• Our personality type.
• Our expectation of life: are we an optimist or a pessimist?
• The way others see us.
• The presence of any limiting illness or disability.
• Whether we find the world to be safe or unsafe in our earliest years.
• Whether we are exposed to abuse or trauma (especially in the first decade of life).
• The availability of enough resources to meet our needs.
• The presence (or lack) of people who encourage, support and believe in us.
• Addictions.
• Mental illness.
• Learned ways of coping and responding.
• The presence (or absence) of absolutes which act as a stabilising anchor in our life.

Depending on the combination of these factors which have been part of our history, we will learn to hold certain beliefs which will be the foundation of every potential choice we make throughout life. For example, if a parent abandoned us as a small child, we may form the belief that we are not good enough to deserve love. This can open the door to all kinds of complications in our life relationships, all of which arise from an unhealthy and incorrect belief.

Working with a counselling service, such as Point of Change Counselling, can help you sort through the unique tangle of ingredients which adds up to you. You can learn to identify the masks that you choose to hide behind, and to understand why you play the games that you do (and everybody does this). You can be supported to make different choices that will help you to move out of the cycle you are stuck in.

If you want to understand yourself better, the things that shaped your life, and how they affect you today, contact Alli at Point Of Change Counselling and make an appointment.