If you are addicted to seeking others’ approval, this article is for you!
Many years ago, I became aware of feeling anxious much of the time. Since this feeling had been with me as long as I could remember, it had seemed normal – until it stopped being okay with me. It stopped being okay when I went back to school to become a psychotherapist. I realized then that, normal or not, I didn’t want to continue to live my life with this anxiety.
However, I had felt this way for so long that I had no idea why I was anxious. So every time I was aware of the anxiety – which happened most often when I was around people – I started to notice my thoughts and actions.
The first thing I noticed was how much I was judging myself around others. I was constantly putting pressure on myself to say the right thing and do the right thing. Why? I believed that if I said and did the right things, I could have control over getting others’ approval. Continue reading Why Do We Seek Approval?
How often have you had the thought, “If you really loved me, you wouldn’t…
Get angry, yell, curse, call names, say mean, untrue things about me
Project your behavior onto me
Withdraw, run away, shut down, sit spaced-out in front of the TV
Resist doing what I ask you to do
Look at other women, have an affair
____________________ (fill in your own)
I used to have this thought all the time. If someone yelled, blamed me, shut me out, didn’t see me accurately, or went into resistance, I would think, “You don’t care about me. If you cared about me, you wouldn’t treat me this way. How can you say you care about me and then treat me this way?” Sometimes I would even say this out loud. And always I would feel deep loneliness and heartache at being treated this way.
“I can’t seem to stop snacking,” said Linda, in our phone session. “And I can’t figure out why. I don’t overeat during meals, but then I snack on things that I don’t need to be eating. I’ve had this issue on and off since adolescence and I want to resolve it.”
“Linda, right now, take yourself back to the last time you snacked. See if you can tune into what was going on and what you were feeling.”
“It happened a lot this last weekend. I had some work I needed to get done I didn’t want to do it. Snacking is a way of putting it off for a bit.” Continue reading “I Feel Trapped”
I have learned over my 43 years of counseling that no one heals without a personal connection to a spiritual source of Guidance.
William was struggling with issues of shame and depression. He had struggled with feelings of insecurity and jealousy most of his life, despite years of inner work. While he intellectually knew that he was okay, emotionally he never felt it. This was his first phone session with me.
“William,” I asked, “what is your concept of God or a Higher Power?”
“Oh, you know, the traditional Judeo/Christian concept – an old dude up in the sky dishing out judgments.” Continue reading The Law of Love
“Everybody is like a magnet. You attract to yourself reflections of that which you are. If you’re friendly, then everybody else seems to be friendly too.” —Dr. David Hawkins, Physician and Lecturer
Have you ever noticed how true this is?
I would change it a bit and say that we attract to ourselves what we choose to be in any given moment.
What we intrinsically are, is our true essence, which is a spark of the Divine – unconditional love. But since we don’t always attract unconditional love to us, others are generally reflecting who we’ve chosen to be. Continue reading Others Treat Us The Way We Treat Ourselves
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