If you are hard on yourself, do you believe that this is helpful to you? You might want to re-evaluate this false belief.
Are you hard on yourself? Do you think this is a good thing? Do you believe this motivates you to do better? Think again. If you are doing well, it’s likely in spite of being hard on yourself, not because of it.
Many of us grew up with parents and teachers who believed that being hard on us was the way to motivate us. As children, we absorbed their judgments of us and became strict taskmasters with ourselves.
If you are single, do you relate to any of these false beliefs about being in a relationship?
I have discovered that many of the single people I work with have a number of false beliefs about relationships. If you are single, do you identify with any of these beliefs?
“Security is mostly superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing. To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable.” ~ Helen Keller
“I freak out when my husband even looks at another woman. I trust him not to wander, so I don’t know why this upsets me so much.””My partner spends too much time with her friends and family. What’s the point of being together if she’s always gone a couple of nights a week?”
“My wife wants to go back to school now that the children are older. She doesn’t need to work, so why does she want to do this? It’s going to take up way too much of her time.”
“My husband has to go out of town for work a lot. I feel so angry about this. What about me?”
“I love to dance and my husband doesn’t, so why does he get so upset when I dance with someone else – even with another woman?”
I, like many of you, was brought up and programmed to believe in a number of ideas that have turned out to be untrue. These false beliefs led me to make various life and relationship mistakes. I didn’t like making mistakes any more than you do, but it is from my mistakes that I’ve learned so much.
In this article, I’m going to discuss the 4 major mistakes that I used to make and that so many of my counseling clients make before working with me.
“Perception is a mirror not a fact. And what I look on is my state of mind, reflected outward.” – – A Course in Miracles
I remember many years ago seeing the movie “Rashomon” (starring Toshiro Mifune and directed my Akira Kurosawa) where three people saw a murder committed and each saw it completely differently. Of course, each believed that what they saw was the truth. It is hard for many people to understand that perception is a mirror of what is going on for them on the inner level, rather than what is actually going on.
This is very apparent in our relationships with each other. For example, if you believe that you are not good enough – that you are in some way flawed, inadequate, unworthy, unlovable – and someone is rejecting you, it is very likely that you will take the other person’s behavior personally and believe that their rejecting behavior is about you. Continue reading Do You Believe What You Perceive?
Listen to Dr. Margaret Paul's interview with Alanis Morissette
Comments are closed 
Listen to Dr. Margaret Paul's interview with 
