How to Be Yourself

To be ourselves means acknowledging how we hold ourselves back; how we may protect our hearts from others and armor against the world. How we may have learnt to deny and shut down parts of ourselves: of needing to be a certain way, in order to keep ourselves safe.

When our energy is not focused in self-protection, we become available for connection.

To be free to be ourselves we need to notice our self judgment, the shame and shrinking. The fears of not being (good) enough or being too much or of being rejected. We can let go of ideas of needing to be a better person in order to experience self acceptance. We need to give ourselves permission to accept ourselves before we can expect others to meet us in the way we want to be met. When we are open-hearted towards ourselves we can meet the world with an open heart.

We need to find a way to meet our own vulnerability, not be scared of what we feel. We need to be able to find our voice, use our anger, establish boundaries, and be assertive in order to feel comfortable with expressing our needs.

On Having A Tantrum

Project Self

Do you ever get that feeling that you’d just like to have a full blown tantrum in all its childish glory? I heard a child the other day in full expression of their pain and frustration, tearfully and angrily shouting “why is everything always my fault”? It seemed so honest in its emotion. I connected with that, felt envious even. The feeling, desire and capacity to throw a hissy fit, a paddy, crying and shouting in full blood rushing freedom. Just the rawness of the pain and the unfairness of life. The desire to wail and pummel, “I’m so tired…

On Self Compassion

Project Self

What’s the most significant relationship in your life? It’s the relationship you have with yourself. We have a continuous and inescapable relationship with our self. And it’s the most fundamental relationship in our adult life. But our relationship with our self can flux and suffer. It needs appreciation, attention and investment like any other. The self is our personal experience of our aliveness in the world. Our relationship with how we experience our living of life, our beingness. Our ‘simple self’ is our essential capacity to enjoy being our self as is. This is our inherent value and worth, contribution…

On Feeling Grounded

Project Self

What does it mean to be Grounded? The traditional definition of someone being grounded is that they are well-balanced and sensible. The implication is that they remain level-headed despite a context or circumstances which could carry them away, such as great wealth or success which may go to their head, or that they don’t flap in a crisis. They keep a sense of proportion, remain in touch with reality and with themselves and see things in perspective. Grounded people ‘keep their feet on the ground’ and so are down to earth. In more spiritual terms or in self-development language the…

On Loss, Pain and Lostness

Project Self

Loss is the state of being deprived of, or of being without something that we once had. It’s a natural part of the cycle of change. Loss is integral to growth. Loss is also the sense of something we haven’t had in our life, where our needs haven’t been met. Where we are growing, but with the sense of absence. There is also a kind of natural loss where we lose interest, that which was so meaningful loses it’s value. We can’t maintain the keeping. We cannot keep a growing stack of treasures; collect more and more. That which is…

On Wanting Recognition

Project Self

See me, feel me, touch me, heal me. Listening to you I get the music. Gazing at you I get the heat. Following you I climb the mountain. I get excitement at your feet! Right behind you I see the millions. On you I see the glory. From you I get opinions. From you I get the story. Roger Daltrey Imagine if these words were said about you? You’d probably get a positive sense of yourself, of being seen by another, of being felt by another. Of your impact being appreciated. We all need someone to ‘get’ us. One of…

On Resilience and Emotional Drain

Project Self

What does it mean to be resilient? Resilience is commonly described as being able to withstand and bounce back from negative experiences. Resilience is not the capacity to not feel, like a teflon skinned human; unaffected. It’s not the capacity to carry on regardless in the face of adversity. It’s not endurance. It’s the capacity to experience; sometimes extreme emotional difficulties, and recover; with the emphasis on recover. To bow but not break. To stay calm even in the bow. To adapt and not hit out, or in. For me, resilience is that our value and attitude towards our self…

On Knowing You Can Do It

Project Self

Why do we need to hear the words ‘everything is going to be okay’ or ‘you’ll be fine’ from someone else? What difference can those fairly innocuous words really make? Several clients this week have voiced that they need reassurance. Clients who are making changes in their life and are standing at the point of commitment. In fact one had already taken the step they needed, but were feeling doubtful now they were standing in the new position about the unfolding challenges more tangibly ahead, whilst another needed reassurance to start taking the steps. The question behind the need for reassurance is “Can…

On Getting Out Of Your Own Way

Project Self

I had a conversation with someone recently who was anxious about an important forthcoming meeting. As we often do, he had expectations and hopes. He was very invested in the outcome and potential significance of the meeting. He was concerned things wouldn’t go as he wanted them to. He was afraid of disappointment. He worried about how he would be perceived by the other person. He felt the meeting could affect his future and not knowing which way the meeting would lead, he played out different scenarios in his head. The meeting was with someone he didn’t know. All he knew…

On Feeling Lost and Not Knowing

Project Self

What does it mean to feel lost? To feel lost is to be stalled, to feel a loss of onward motion. When the wind leaves our sails, often without warning, the trajectory we were on is no longer viable; we can’t proceed. We have lost power, momentum, and with it inclination. We have no driving force, we are no longer a driver. Lost one’s way? Lost a sense of purpose? To be lost is to not know. To feel we don’t know where we are heading, to not know where to look, what to look for or how to find our way…

On Acknowledging What You Know

Project Self

The whole premise of coaching is based on the concept that the client already has the answers. A coach works with the client so they can surface what they already know and so this forms part of their solution. The fact that we often know more than we let ourselves acknowledge is usually to do with shutting down part of ourselves, self-protection, devaluing intuition and ignoring our truth because of what it will mean if we face it – a call to action which is often challenging – and may involve facing our fears. But acknowledging that we do know…

How to Be Yourself

On Having A Tantrum

On Self Compassion

On Feeling Grounded

On Loss, Pain and Lostness

On Wanting Recognition

On Resilience and Emotional Drain

On Knowing You Can Do It

On Getting Out Of Your Own Way

On Feeling Lost and Not Knowing

On Acknowledging What You Know

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