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Self-Love

"Been dumped" and its consequences.

Sometimes a seeming crisis in your life can be the best thing that's ever happened to you - it depends on what you do with it.

Client feedback:

There was a point, during my sessions with Neil, where he asked me to explain to him how much I loved myself and I just couldn't answer the question. I remember actively trying to avoid answering it. I told him that I liked myself, that I respected myself and that I thought I was generally an OK type of person. But love myself? No. That was something I saved and gave to other people, not squandered upon myself. The very idea of loving one's self seemed arrogant to me.

Don't get me wrong, I was and still am quite capable of love! I love my girlfriend, I love my kids, and I love my parents.

In fact, I'd originally gone to see Neil because I loved someone very much and she had dumped me to run off with my best mate. Love hurts!

But my issue, if I had to put it in a box, was self-awareness. I lacked the tools to be able to step back and look at myself, my life, my wants and needs and evaluate them with any kind of perspective. I had no mechanism to hold an internal conversation with myself. I had no means of analysing my feelings. I struggled to reconcile my sense of duty to others with my own aspirations. I hated being alone and on my own and I had no way of dealing with the pain and loss I was feeling at the time. 

In fact, if I had to deal with any kind of emotional conflict that couldn't be solved by a purely practical solution, the best way I can describe it is to say that on the inside I felt like a washing machine - just a fluid grey sensation, churning round and round, intangible, without form, with nothing I could "grab hold of" and so no way to start addressing the problem.

Despite those negatives, I have some advantages in life. I'm a very quick learner. Some people think in words and some people think in pictures and some people think in a mixture of the two (perhaps that’s like subtitles?) I think almost exclusively in pictures. As long as I can picture something in my mind, I can pick it apart and understand how it works pretty much intuitively. That's enabled me to have a very successful career, and allowed me to have a lot of fun experiences in life that a lot of people only dream of. I'm definitely someone who does rather than someone who wishes they did mainly because I can learn how to “do” so easily. The inside of my head is like a DVD, and I just jump around watching scenes and accessing the “special features” as required.

Emotion, however, that just seemed formless to me, not something I could understand because it wasn't something I could "see".

Neil's real skill was in recognising this and adapting his approach, his language and his method to one that would suit me. Our sessions became very challenging. Neil used increasingly visual metaphors to describe his ideas and I responded with equally visual retorts. In fact, it didn't feel like therapy at all - it felt more like sparring with a very wise sage who seemed to possess all the secrets of inner peace and contentment who would reveal them to me one golden nugget at a time, every time I solved some bizarre mental puzzle he set me.

Gradually, lights came on and I gained a new perspective. I was able to look at myself and others around me in a different way, and I started to be able to hold a conversation with myself inside my head. I became able to analyse my feelings, and recognise the things that were important to me and understand what made me feel good and what made me feel threatened or hurt. I began to be able to develop ways to express those feelings to others.

Eventually, I turned up at one of our final sessions feeling very excited. I couldn't wait to explain that the night before, as I lay in bed, waiting for sleep to come, it dawned on me that I was hugging myself. I realized that I felt a warmth from knowing who I was, and what I wanted, and knew that not only did I love myself, but that I loved loving myself! And that as long as I had that, everything else in life was going to be alright.

Several years on now, I look back on that period in my life fondly. Though it was painful at the time, I made a lot of discoveries about myself, and have approached so many aspects of my life quite differently since. I have a wonderful partner now with whom I am able to share all my thoughts, feelings and desires and any fears and insecurities. I have a much better relationship with my children, friends and parents.

And I love myself very much.

 

   

Alcohol
Addictions
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Been dumped?
Bad habits
Bereavement
Blushing
Child Abuse
Comfort eating
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Cosmetic Surgery
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Divorce
Depression
Driving Test
Empty Nest Syndrome
Erectile Dysfunction
Exam nerves
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Fear
Fertility
Flying
Forgiveness
Getting Married
Giving birth
Guilt from the past
Insomnia
Interviews
Laser Surgery
Morning Sickness
Nail-biting
Overweight
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Phobia examples:
  
Bells
  
Birds
  
Commitment
  
Darkness
   ● Flying
  
Needles
PostTraumaticStress
Pregnant
Presentations
Public Speaking
Redundant
Relationship issues
Regret about the past
Self Confidence
Self Esteem
Sex Performance
Social Anxiety
Student exam nerves
Student Performance
Smoking
Stress
Taking control of life
Unattractive
Weight Loss

 

 
 

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