Blog - Suzanne Wylde Coaching

Fear of Happiness and Joy

Trigger warning: brief mention of adverse childhood experiences.

Joyophobia it\’s called.

Just kidding – cherophobia is the actual term for a fear of happiness.

Does it sound like the most bizarre thing you\’ve heard today?

Well -it\’s not that strange really. We may think we\’re constantly trying to move away from being unhappy and that we desire happiness above all else. But often our conscious mind is saying one thing, while our actions, feelings and underlying thoughts have a very different idea.

It might be good, before exploring this further, to start by exploring when feeling happy all the time became the ultimate goal.

It certainly wasn\’t for the Victorian English, who celebrated hard work and more rigid values over aspiring toward an emotion (ptui!), especially such a messy and self-centred one. And many other cultures and groups have their own desired goals, of which happiness is not the main aim.

So why did we choose happiness?

An article in The Harvard Business Review by Peter Stearns says the whole thing started in the age of Enlightenment, maybe they decided to enlighten things up a little bit? And he mentions that among many of factors, improved dentistry made smiling more desirable and generally less scary.

And, OK, yes that was before the Victorians. They just seem a little uptight to me, but it turns out that was my mistake as one study found they were happier than we were! Isn\’t that kind of insulting, like when you realise someone is much better at you at something you love, but they don\’t even care?

We are definitely locked-in on it now as a goal though, ranking the happiness of different countries (oh to be Finnish!) and using happy colours and filters in our depiction of our lives (I do it all the time). I think it\’s a great goal to have, as long as we can ride through all the other emotions we experience naturally, because happiness feels good and it can help us to live longer (I popped a link to an article below).

So why be scared of it?

OK, here\’s my short take on this complex topic. It won\’t be exhaustive and if you\’re dealing with this, you may want to explore it with a therapist.

Here we go.

1. Being happy a lot of the time would be a change. Change is hard.

Let\’s say your body, thoughts, emotions and general way of being, are all pretty calm and content. When you\’re feeling somewhere between content and slightly grumpy, that is, because that\’s what they\’re used to.

But you actually want to be a more positive and happier person. So you try to make choices that will get you closer to that goal.

However, when you finally get there, instead of enjoying it you feel off-balance or unsettled. Maybe you\’re not used to the feeling in your body, or you have to change the way you speak, or just be OK experiencing yourself in a different way. Perhaps it\’s all of the above.

If you don\’t really enjoy the change in you that happiness creates, you may find yourself using partsof yourself to pull back from it. You could slouch with your body or cross your arms, use more negative or critical language, have your mind figure out things that are wrong or that could go wrong. All to avoid having to feel different.

2. Happiness Can Be a Much More Vulnerable Emotion Than People Realise

How can happiness feel vulnerable?

It is an emotion that opens us up – to other people, new experiences, and even to new parts of ourselves. When we\’re trundling along in normal life, dealing with the ups and downs and generally doing our best, we usually have a fixed sense of who we are, what we like and what we\’re capable of.

Sometimes happiness can blow that wide open.

And that\’s scary!

When you get a lot of comfort from feeling like the boundaries of your Self and your life are pretty solid, to have them expand and change unexpectedly may cause fear and uncertainty.

We Might Feel Guilty Being Happy When Others Aren\’t, Or Are Gone

I don\’t know a lot about survivor\’s guilt, but I do know it can make it very hard to feel like you have permission to feel happy. Or even just to get on with your life. At its core, happiness is life. It\’s an abundance of life force. Just the thing your departed loved one doesn\’t have. So why should you get to feel it if they can\’t?

Or if your friend or partner is suffering, sick or even dying, it can feel almost impossible to let yourself have even short experiences of joy, as if it\’s disloyal.

I would say this empathy makes you human and that sometimes not feeling happy is appropriate. But you can also ask yourself what they would want. Because leaving behind the legacy of people who are more able to be happy because they knew you is a great thing for a person. And if you have a friend who is suffering or even about to die, opening yourself up to all the genuine emotions allows them a fuller experience of life and of you. It allows for more honesty and intimacy. If you\’re going through this, I hope you\’re getting the support you need.

Fear of the Jealousy of Others

Ooh, this is a tricky one! Have you ever had a moment of success and wanted to celebrate with those closest to you, but they aren\’t all happy for you? Seeing someone else do well, especially in an area you hope to do well also, can be triggering for people.

But some people are just triggered by happiness in general. Grumpy-pants! (That is not a technical coaching term). I just mean the people who feel hurt and confronted by seeing happiness in others. Not your ideal support system.

If you find yourself unable to celebrate your successes with others for fear of hurting them, they may not be able to stay with you for your whole journey, because the better you do, the worse they will feel. And we also have to master our own envy and learn to celebrate the success of our peers too. The world is hard enough without having to minimise ourselves to makes others comfortable, or minimise others to keep liking ourselves and our lives.

Worrying that It Will End

Waiting for the other shoe to drop is a common issue, especially in those who have experienced trauma. And this is not only when experiencing happiness, but it definitely plays a part in worrying that our current state of happiness is going to end.

The good news is that happiness always ends – at least for a bit. Bad drivers, bad news, arguments – the stuff of day-to-day life, as well as the occasional catastrophe. They always eventually pop up and our mood shifts (as it should).

Why is that good news?

Well, you don\’t need to worry happiness will end – it definitely will. But it doesn\’t have to end because of something terrible. It, like all emotions, flows in and out. So you don\’t need to anxiously grasp at happiness when you finally feel it, you get to just try and enjoy it while it lasts.

But, I completely understand that for many of us that takes practice, especially if we have not been accustomed to stable situations and relationships.

5 is a good number and place to stop for now. There are many reasons we might feel fearful of or resistant to happiness.

I find that as individuals we all need practice feeling and holding certain emotions that are challenging for us. It could be happiness, or anger or any feeling. It can even be the ability to feel and receive love (that\’s a topic for another article!).

All of this work can bring up strong emotions, sometimes from the very moment we had to make a split-second decision that a certain feeling wasn\’t safe. So you may need to work with a therapist on that. And be careful with yourself, take your time, journal, practice self-care. You only have one of you after all!

And as always,

Take care!

Suzanne

Articles and studies I mentioned:

The History of Happiness (hbr.org)

Victorians were “happier” than we are now, finds CAGE research (warwick.ac.uk)

If you are happy and you know it… you may live longer – Harvard Health

Bonus for all the people who read to the bottom!

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What We Look For When We\’re Looking or How…

Trigger warning: mention of childhood conditioning.

Also, I\’m not a therapist but do see one if you are struggling, or another professional as appropriate.

In my brain there are a lot of connections that light up like little fireflies as thoughts shoot around. There\’s likely a unicorn wandering about over here and a cesspool of unwanted stuff over there, and little random snippets of trivia fluttering about like brightly-coloured butterflies.

Perhaps your brain is similar?

And then under all that are some train tracks, hidden in overgrown grass, but there all the same. And my mind-carriages just snap into their grooves without me even noticing sometimes and suddenly I\’m back to where my mind was trained to be, through early repetition and observation. Before I even knew what thoughts were.

I have one track that I\’m not proud of. But I\’ll share it, because I think it might be useful. My first underlying instinct of what to look for when I see something new (not in-person, but on TV or another removed way) is to immediately find out what\’s wrong with it. My other way of looking, which is more conscious and more \”me\” is warmer and more appreciative (and nuanced). But underneath – that old train track is steering me. Telling me what to look for. What to see. What is most important.

So, recently I\’ve started to pull the grass up to uncover this particular track, now that I know it\’s there, to reveal the mechanism behind the instinct. Is it scary to think that something we do so naturally might not be a genuine part of us at all?

“But how do you know it\’s not genuine?” I hear no one asking. Well – because it doesn\’t feel like me. It feels like the people I learned it from. No blame – we all have stuff to deal with. But that is what it is.

And it happens in loads of different areas of our lives.

However, today I want to ask:

What are you looking for when you\’re looking?

Because most of us have been trained to look for something. Trained to orient ourselves around some kind of certainty which fits in with the way we see (or have been taught to see) the world.

OK, do you have your answer? I\’m going to give you some further questions you can ask about this particular way of looking at things.

Take your time and you may want to write the answers down. Also, try to keep an open mind and accept the \’fresh\’ answers rather than formulated or more controlled ones. They may be unexpected. OK, call to mind your way of seeing, now ask yourself:

How do I feel about that?
How is it affecting me?
How does it shape my view of the world and me in it?
How do I think that would make the person I\’m looking at (or creator of the thing I\’m looking at) feel?
And finally – what is a more genuine way for me to look at things?

It can be hard to remember not to be too self-critical when trying to deepen our understanding of ourselves. After all, we\’re often looking for what\’s \’wrong\’. A deeper view of ourselves is not that reductive though, the self is not sorted into good and bad in such a black and white sense.

It might be more helpful to see traits and behaviours as \’more\’ or \’less\’ us. I know that I enjoy my intellect, and that intellects love looking for what is wrong – it gives them something to grip onto and wrangle with. They aren\’t so engaged with rainbow-hues and positivity that is enough in itself. The intellect likes to dissect and compare and contrast and it really, really likes facts it perceives as distinct objects. The edge it likes to use to orient itself around is often a flaw, so to use it in this way, you have to look for flaws. On the other hand if you were an engineer maybe you wouldn\’t be looking for flaws so much as weaknesses and if you\’re in a creative mode, you would be looking for possibilities, while a communicator or pattern-maker might be focusing on connections. (These aren\’t specific terms used within a specific system, by the way, just the language I\’m using right now).

Woah, I didn\’t mean to get into a discussion on aspects of the mind! What I mean is, I like that intellectual side of me. But I don\’t like the fact I can have a behaviour that is mainly the result of conditioning that supersedes my free will and my personality. So, without throwing it all out, or condemning it, I want to find the parts that feel like me and the way of doing things that feels like me also.

And then when the old behaviour shows up (which it always will, especially at first), I will start to practice allowing myself to be different in the moment. And take care to process the emotions that come up (which could be any, but will usually include uncertainty and fear – because it\’s different).

So, if you\’re looking to change how you look at things, do be gentle with yourself, and be intentional about how you do it. The current way won\’t be all bad or all good, most likely. Find the parts that work for you. And then notice how when the way you look is more attuned to who you are, things start to shift.

And as always, take care of yourself, you good-looking person!

Exercises

The Importance of Self-Development in Leadership

We are surrounded by leaders. Teachers, CEOs, parents, influencers and others who steer the course of a group and serve them. They are not only the figure heads and decision-makers: they are actively shaping the culture of the group they are leading – whether that is a conscious effort or not.

I have had a lifelong interest in self-development because it seems to me that the real parameters of our lives are not the opportunities we come by or the successes we achieve, as much as how able we are to expand and grow into new situations. And how we shape those new situations. A group culture can easily become a reflection of the best and worst parts of ourselves (and to different extents those of other team members, although usually the leader\’s influence is strongest).

In my leadership coaching sessions with clients, it’s very clear to me that they’re great people with very good intentions. And 95% of the time, doing exactly the right things. But in that 5% – that’s where we have the opportunity to grow in really exciting ways.

The people who are already succeeding 95% of the time are experienced, have mastered a degree of self-reflection and are good at what they do. Usually the remaining room for improvement comes from the part we’re not taught about. This is the fact that how we feel inside and how we relate to, and know, ourselves, is crucial for having healthy relationships with other people and with groups. And that healthy connection is essential for true leadership.

Working through our own issues can help us to suddenly see issues in the culture or a group that we have been blind to. It can help us to realise how we have been contributing to a dynamic or a culture. And the more work we do on building our own self-love and self-esteem, the easier it is to invite feedback and actually be able to hear it.

We all have unique personalities and histories and so there is no judgement around the fact we all have stuff to work on. It’s a shame that often as we move into positions with more influence, people are usually more hesitant to point out our flaws. For some leaders this makes them even more cautious, because the usual safety-guards are removed. Other times it means the information a leader is working with is lop-sided or incorrect, because only certain people are speaking out. So it can be very helpful for leaders to have support from people they know will tell them the truth, with the right balance of compassion and honesty.

But at the end of the day, a lot of the quality of our leadership comes down to us. A leader with a healthy sense of self, good boundaries and an ability to work through their emotions is going to create a much stronger and more productive culture, than someone who has many tools, but none of those self-development skills.

And finally, because it can be a lonely job, it’s so important to practice self-care. It can also be very helpful to the culture in your team for them to see you modelling that behaviour also.

So, a big shout out to all the leaders. It’s not an easy job, and we need you! I hope you’re getting all the support you need to be the leader you always wanted to have.

Take care!

Suzanne

Exercises

I Can’t Get No Satisfaction (From the Wrong Places)

Sometimes – no – often, I find myself working with a client who has a 100% pure impulse towards something good they want or need. It could be anything – art, beauty, intimacy, skill, authority. Anything.

But no matter how hard they try, they can’t ever quite satisfy it. At least, not until we’ve done some work on finding the approach that is right for them.

In this brief article I’m going to talk about the way we take those pure, healthy instincts and even with very good intentions, utterly fail to satisfy them.

And this is such a common human error that you could almost say it’s a part of being human. So it’s definitely not something to beat yourself up for, we all do it.

Let’s use an example. Let’s say a man called Henry has been missing something in his life. It’s a kind of emptiness. He tries the gym, socialising, meditating, experiencing more culture. But although these things are all rewarding in their own way – none of them get to that deeper ache he’s experiencing. He even thinks about changing career, but before taking such a drastic step he decides to try figure out what his need is.

By looking more deeply at the emotion at the core of his uneasiness, he realises that it’s actually emotional intimacy he has been craving. It’s something he’s avoided in the past as it has been too painful and he has successfully distracted himself up to now with work and other activities. But on a deep, soul-level, he knows that’s what he truly wants.

He’s done something that we all do. We use the things we’re familiar with to try and meet our desires and needs. After all, they’ve worked for us in the past, why wouldn’t they work again?

We don\’t only do this out of habit though. We’re often unconsciously trying to silence needs that want us to grow. Perhaps we don\’t want to lose our sense of safety or control, or to change the status-quo. So we do the things we already know haven’t resulted in that growth. We get to tell ourselves we’re trying something, while never risking change and vulnerability.

And other times, we just don’t know any better. Why?

Because we don’t know what we’re truly craving.

Let’s try a simple exercise, one which may help you to uncover what you want right now. You’ll need a pen and paper preferably, but a device is ok too. I’m going to list a series of prompts, you just need to write the answers that come to mind naturally, without judgement. You take your first answer and use each subsequent prompt to go deeper. So you stick with the same emotion and go deeper with it, but bear in mind the topics that come up may vary wildly and even seem unrelated. Just trust the process and let go of judgement.

Also, each desire may need a different number of prompts, so if you need to go for longer (and you can go as long as feels right to you), just keep alternating prompt #5 and 6 until you’re done.

One at a time, write down these prompts and the words that come to mind right away:

What I want right now is:
And underneath that I truly want:
And even more deeply beneath that I want:
And below that I want:
And under that:
And beneath that:

How was that for you? Your final answer may have surprised you. Here’s an optional bonus exercise.

I recommend closing your eyes and putting your hands on your heart before saying to yourself:

I trust that I want or need this.

Take a moment to be with that knowing, and take a couple of relaxing breaths.

And now ask yourself any of these questions that feel right, with an open mind:

Based on who I am deep down, how should I move towards that?

What would that look like in my life?

Based on my deepest self, what is a first step I can take towards this?

I hope you got some value out of exploring how to meet your deepest desires in a meaningful way. I think it’s interesting that knowing what our needs are can be just as fulfilling as meeting them sometimes, because they tell us so much about who we are.

And growing that deep connection with ourselves is where true satisfaction begins and ends.

Take care of yourself and I hope you find the satisfaction that is right for you!

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Our Pain is the Same

But How it Comes Out is Different.

In my work over thousands of sessions and in my travels I’ve come to realise our feelings, our pain, wishes, desires – are strikingly similar from person to person. But the way they come out is different.

Have you ever judged someone for having this, while you’ve had that? Substitute infinite number of options: being overweight, being underweight, bad habits, a tiny bladder, a funny tummy, gas, nervous tics, strange behaviours, an odd sense of humor, defense mechanisms, limitations that don’t seem to make sense etc etc.

One person is stressed and gets diarrhoea, another gets stressed and stops eating, another gets stressed and yells. We all get stressed sometimes. We all experience pain.

But it can be so hard to relate to the things that are non-optional for other people. To experience them as real for that person.

I’ve been told I didn’t have low blood sugar and wasn’t really about to pass out by someone who had never suffered from low blood sugar. I’ve had clients who were told their excruciating pain wasn\’t that bad, by someone who had never felt that level of pain.

And I’ve sometimes had a lack of understanding for other people’s pain, just because it wasn’t coming out in the way I could relate to.

I try to believe people and to listen. To understand that our physiology, psychology, energy levels, life experiences, challenges, abilities, strengths and weakness, innate traits, support networks and beliefs are different.

But our pain is the same.

It just comes out in different ways.

As always, wherever you and whatever you\’re doing, take care,

Suzanne

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Calming Down Your Nervous System for the Homesick

This is just a short one. I realised that listening to the sounds of nature from back home in the UK made my nervous system instantly drop down into a state of relaxation. And then I wondered why that might be.

I think that if you’re away from where you grew up (in a different country or even a different part of the same country), then you’re having an experience that is not always congruent with how your nervous system was formed. On the plus side you may have left old reminders of tough times behind. But on the downside, all those times you relaxed at home with the windows open, or in a park or in nature, where your nervous system learned to relax and let go, they might only be easily unlocked by the sounds (and other senses) of home.

And I believe this is true for city dwellers also, as you usually get birds and other wildlife in streets and parks. Although we might not be aware of all those sounds in the background, they sink in and become part of us. And not just when we’re children either, it’s also about the amount of time we’ve had experiences of relaxation, to build up that reaction.

So why not find a (hopefully music-free) audio or video recording of nature sounds from a place you grew up or lived for a long time, close your eyes and breathe. See if it helps.

And in case you’re curious, this is one I found for Britain (I think the nature may be more extraverted than the people 😀 ).

Take care!

\"A — A photo of me in the New Forest, UK – can you believe this isn\’t the Redwoods?

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Where are you spreading your sunshine? Aka the glorious…

If we think of your attention an energy as a kind of light you can shine, where are you putting that effort?

And who is putting it into you?

The most satisfying relationships are the ones where the energy you put in is roughly equal (with allowances for child/ adult relationships and others where it can’t be the same).

When we’re younger we’re a little more indiscriminate, and we tend to give our emotional energy to things that don’t always feel satisfying to us, but we haven’t learned not to yet.

While as adults, we only usually do that when we have an issue that’s holding us back (i.e. as a wound from childhood that is trying to get healed).

And there are different ways to put energy into people. For example:

– listening

– paying attention

– praising

– giving feedback

– supporting emotionally

– cheering up

– laughing with/ flirting

– validating

– connecting people with others

– giving advice

– problem-solving for them

– thinking for them

You might notice it as the sparkle in someone’s eyes when they talk to you, a text or call, a book recommendation, a suggestion of someone you might want to meet, a pat on the back, words of encouragement or advice, amongst many other forms.

All these things are the little intangibles of being in relationship. And as such, we don’t always think about how we’re spending that effort. But we definitely notice when we’re starting to feel drained though.

This isn’t a do this or don’t do this post. It’s just a question (OK, a couple):

Is there somewhere you’re spending that energy that isn’t being reciprocated or is otherwise draining you?

Are you doing it because on you hope it will one day become mutual or satisfying?

Where would be better to put your attention/ energy?

I would say that even if someone is a friend or close relative, if the energy you put into them is always squandered, you’d be better off using it to cheer up your local barista.

And sometimes people give all the appearance of reciprocating, but it\’s only the appearance. The warmth and energy that should be coming through the smile or attention to energise us, doesn\’t, and we can be left feeling confused and jaded – after all our brain saw we were receiving something, but at the same time our heart knows we didn\’t actually receive it. It\’s like zero sugar drinks making your insulin spike for no reason, because the sweetness was just a trick. And it might not be intentional, people are often doing the best they can do, but it still may not be enough for us.

And if, thinking about this, you realise someone has been putting emotional energy into you, it would be great to just recognise that and feel grateful. It’s not nothing, it’s a real effort for people.

I hope that wherever you’re investing your emotional energy, it is paying off for you.

And as always, take care!

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Growing Pains and Personal Evolution

Or outgrowing Your Old Life: the Discomfort of Shedding the Skin vs the Discomfort of Staying in it.

One of my most important jobs as a coach is to support people through transitional times. This is a privilege for me, as it’s a unique and special journey. But it may feel very not-special while you’re going through it! More painful and confusing, perhaps.

Just like a snake grows and has to shed its skin, it is in our human nature to evolve. What was comfortable becomes restrictive, and we naturally set our sights on the next step up.

But fear and comfort can stop us taking it. All that energy we’ve stored up, which was getting ready to help push us forward, adapt and grow, is now just pent up inside us. It has to come out somehow, so it may become an unhealthy habit, or a negative attitude such as jealousy of someone who has been successfully growing, or resentment towards someone we are blaming for our lack of growth.

But either way, that energy for change will come out somehow. You can wait your impulse to grow out over time, as it can diminish with age as your energy levels diminish also. But it\’s not ideal because deep down you always know the truth, that you let fear stop you from becoming more of who you are.

Reading this, someone could definitely take it as a sign they should finally give up their job and go travelling round the world, end that relationship or start their own business. If that’s genuine then it could be your next step, but it’s often something smaller and deeper.

Having a difficult conversation you’ve been putting off, setting up a healthy boundary, believing in yourself enough to learn a skill you’ve been wanting to for ages, loving someone more deeply, taking a chance on intimacy, being honest with people about who you are.

A lot of self-development work is about leverage: a small but deep change is worth a million huge outer changes.

And although many of us can get restless and feel pulled to grow, it can be hard to know in what direction. Many of us assume it should be more of the thing we’ve been doing, especially if it has paid off so far. More travel, more success, more money, more influence, more socialising.

It’s a challenge to pause long enough to listen to what our deepest self wants, especially when we don’t want the answer (because the answer is often the thing we’ve been subconsciously avoiding for a long time). It’s the thing that is really going to make us leave our comfort zone. Not just of external things like how we dress or where we go, but in our experience of who we are to ourselves. What we know about ourselves.

There’s a risk of shattering ideas we’ve held about ourselves that have helped us feel safe in the world. I could write a book, if I ever just sat down and wrote it – could you actually? I am a good person, even though I lose my temper – are you being a good person in that moment? I’d be a great husband/ wife, I just never felt like settling down – or are you scared of not being enough when you’re truly seen? (These are just examples, of course, and they don’t have black and white answers most of the time).

Our ideas about who we are keep us feeling safe in the world. What if we try to step beyond them and there is nothing there to catch us?

What if we try and we’re not enough? What if we succeed and then we actually have to like and believe in ourselves more as a result? What if we try to find love and get rejected? Or worse, are truly seen and loved, subverting our beliefs? What if the thing we’ve always been blaming (ie; I’d be happy if I got a raise), turns out not to be the thing (I got the raise, but I’m not happy) and we realise it’s been us all along?

The good news is that when we grow for genuine reasons, the path appears. But that’s not to say there won’t be hard and dark times. And it’s not to say the difficulties won’t last for longer than you want them to. For that reason, growing isn’t always the right thing to do. You have to be ready, with enough of the things you need to succeed and stay healthy. It could be money, health, emotional support or something else.

Here are some tips based on what I’ve learned after years of supporting people through transitional phases. I hope they help.

You won’t be able to see the end. You’ll definitely know you’re going through something, but the outcome will not reveal itself to you until you’re very close to it. I don’t know why, but I think it’s an important part of the process, because self-development dynamics don’t tend to be a certain way just to mess with you. It can feel disorienting though.
Regarding the point above, since you may find it hard to know exactly where you’re going, it helps to try orient yourself according to your deepest self. Your needs, wants and instinctual knowing. Your deepest self will lead you in the right direction, you just have to try and make sure it isn’t your old habits and fears masquerading as your self in an effort to stop you changing and protect themselves.
It may take a week, it may take years. Probably not what you want to hear, but change has its own speed and process. It’s much healthier to help it along rather than cut it off before it’s done (unless you are overwhelmed and need time off), or to hurry it up (and cause overwhelm).
It may be a multi-stage process, especially if it happens over years. So you may be growing for a time, then resting and integrating for a time, and so on. For some of us this process is our whole lives, but I don’t think that’s the case for everyone.
You have to have faith in yourself and your capacity to adapt. But you should also be smart and balance your material needs with your need for change. Other resources such as emotional support, nutrition, advice, practical help and more, may also become important at various points.
Growing is hard work. Rest when you need to.
A lot of emotion from the past may come up, so you may need therapy to help you process it. Growing doesn’t only open us up to new opportunities, it can also open up old wounds. Perhaps the scar tissue is too restrictive for who we need to become to fully be ourselves.
We can get energised then a bit crazy. Sometimes throwing off a restraint that’s been holding us back (that we’ve been allowing to hold us back), for a long time gives us a huge burst of energy. Suddenly anything is possible and we feel young and vibrant. That is an amazing feeling, but I do recommend not indulging in a series of external changes, where you just go from one thing to the next and never settle. It can become addictive and a way of avoiding the deeper meaning of why you were growing in the first place.
The above can also become a version of “my ex-wife never let me wear shirts like this”, while everyone thinks perhaps his ex-wife had a point. But actually there is a lot of value in trying different things to find out more about who you are and what you like. But you don’t want to orient yourself too much around the past, ie. what you were not allowed to do, how you were failed etc. New bursts of energy need somewhere to go and if you’re not certain of who you are, it can be easier to look to the past and to other people. So, I recommend trying different things, having fun, but also getting massages and meditating. It’s about getting a balance between using the energy to push outwards into new life, while also bringing it back to who you are deep down and staying grounded (and working through any emotions that come up).
I also highly recommend journaling. It will help you to process what you’re going through and stay connected to yourself, even when it feels like nothing is certain.
I know I said it before, but it is the open-ended blank space you’re heading towards that is a vital part of the process. I think it makes you have faith in yourself, get closer to your instincts and hold a beginner’s mindset. It opens you up again, where comfort may have made you a little closed. I know it can be unnerving, but it’s really good for you.
One last piece of advice: if you’ve been through a transformative time before, you may assume this one will be similar in shape, length or outcome. But it may be completely different this time, so keep an open mind.

Although the specifics of a a transformational time look different for each of us, the general dynamics are the same. We go from a stable period in our comfort zone, to a feeling of restlessness and an urge to grow. From there we either don’t take action and the energy comes out in less productive ways, or we start to grow. As we evolve into more of who we are we also have to confront unhelpful beliefs, work through emotions, and then also re-evaluate priorities and make life adjustments to reflect our new, greater level of personal truth. We then either progress to another level of growth or we’re done for a while and we get to just integrate what we’ve learned by living and enjoying ourselves (hopefully).

If you are currently in the restless feeling or the process of change, I can empathise. I’ve been around the transformation block a few times and experienced the unease (as well as moments of unexpected joy) that comes with it.

Make sure you’re taking care of yourself and finding the support you need. It\’s not meant to be a battle, but a natural process of growth. The difficulty is part of the process, but you don’t need to make it any harder on yourself than it is.

Maybe the point of growing is not to become something, perhaps it is just to keep us open and supple in our spirits. If that’s the case, I think it’s worthwhile. I hate to see people sad and stuck, calcified in their ways of being, and so sure that nothing can ever change or improve. If pushing through the fear and uncertainty is the price we pay to stay open, creative alive and loving, I think it’s worth it.

And, as always, take care!

Suzanne

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Figuring Out How Someone Is Broken Inside

Trigger warning/ caution: I wouldn’t do this exercise if you are feeling sensitive right now, or raw from something that someone has done. As always, seek help from a qualified professional if you need to.

If, like pretty much everyone else in the world, you know someone who is unkind or has a bad habit and you want to deepen your understanding of why, this may help you.

I thought of the exercise below just today and I like it as a way of cutting through all the logical arguments you, they and others have supplied, which don’t match up with the emotional charge, consequences, reactions or likely intentions of their actions.

It’s best to do it with an open mind because it is a gut-reaction search for information, not an intellectual figuring-out of a problem. Also try to minimise your judgements of the person and the situation because they make us less open to receiving information. Finally, it is most likely unhelpful to tell the person your experience, this is just for your own understanding.

Exercise: How Are they Broken?

Close your eyes.
Imagine doing one thing that they have done, something unkind, unhelpful or unhealthy.
While picturing yourself doing it, follow the feeling all the way back to the inside of you and imagine/ wonder what you would have to feel like inside to want to act that way yourself.
When you’re ready, remind yourself that you and they are separate beings and release any feelings that do not belong to you.
Open your eyes.

This exercise, like all self-help exercises, can give us unexpected and useful information about a situation.

Of course, it doesn’t make us experts on others and sometimes our minds can step in and tell us what to see, rather than allowing our intuition to supply fresh (to our conscious minds anyway) information – especially if we’re holding a grudge! And sometimes we\’re projecting our own stuff onto other people and situations. So it’s worth treating the results as a possible, not ultimate, truth.

It’s also good to bear in mind that it’s not always useful to have empathy for unkind people, especially if your empathy has a tendency to lower your boundaries. It depends on how easy it is for you to feel empathy and have a healthy relationship with that person and care for yourself at the same time.

But it can be an interesting exercise because we can all either down-play things, make excuses for people or judge them too harshly. Using an exercise like this to understand someone’s habitual unhelpful behaviour may give us a sense of the internal pattern that’s causing it. That can help us get more perspective and even to take appropriate action.

Even when we’ve been severely hurt, understanding the underlying, constant state of pain a person can be living with can really help us with our own recovery (as long as we don’t decide to try and fix or save them – that’s their job if they’re an adult).

It can even help us to take it less personally. After all, hurt people hurt people (or themselves). If it’s not you, it would likely be someone else. So, as strange as it may seem, drawing the person’s dynamic even closer to us with this visualisation may actually give us more distance from it, through the perspective we gain.

I hope this was useful for you.

And as always, take care!

Additional note: As I mentioned above if you need specific help, such as therapy, do seek it out. Also, if you’re worried about someone who is acting in a way that is harmful to themselves or others, there may be people you can reach out to for support for yourself, even if they are not yet ready for help themselves. Remember to always take care of yourself and your boundaries first, so that you can be happy and whole, a much better foundation for taking care of others. Finally, if you\’re dealing with a hurtful person it may also be useful to revisit the post on dealing with narcissists in case that is relevant to your situation.

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Why Do We Care What Jerks Think?

..is the shorter title I came up with so it wasn’t too unwieldy. What I really wanted to call this blog post was: Why Do We Care About The Opinions of People We Don’t Really Respect?

But that was a mouthful.

Part of me wants to just say, seriously – if you know the answer, let me know, and end the post here. Because it seems like a pretty tough question.

We all do it. We all know that person that maybe doesn’t have any expertise in our industry (or perhaps they do, but they’re not really someone we look up to for various reasons) but we still want them to have a good opinion of us and our work. Or that relative with a lifestyle that is nothing we’d want for ourselves, but we want them to approve of us/ our choices/ our home etc..

And they’re probably not bad people (although if they do routinely treat you like you’re not living up to their standards, their behaviour probably doesn’t have the best motivation behind it). There’s just a dynamic floating around the world that we don’t really talk about that often.

We talk about power, who has it, who doesn’t. The same thing with money, influence, success, looks, luck etc… We’re aware of all of that. But we don’t talk about approval as a kind of currency.

I wonder if that person you thought of when you began reading, are they someone who often withholds praise and approval? Do you they give you appropriate credit for your achievements? Are they happy when you succeed?

Or do they hold back, do the corners of their mouths turn down and their eyes narrow at your good news, do they point out the flaws in what you’ve done, the potential pitfalls of your future endeavours? Are they acting in some kind of self-appointed voluntary capacity as a judge or a gatekeeper to your permission to enjoy your own success?

And what is it that they’re withholding and that we’re feeling? What is it made of? When people approve of us and congratulate us freely it feels really nice, but it can flow away faster than it came. We don’t always value it very highly.

But these withholding people – their approval sometimes seems so precious, it must be or they would give it away freely, right? We may even yearn for it. And as we yearn, they may feel a sense of control, even superiority perhaps.

It feels like a strange kind of game where a person throws away pieces of gold they are freely given and stares rapt at a jealously-guarded piece of tin. And the person holding the tin doesn’t value it. They value the attention and power they have claimed for themselves by denying someone’s achievement. (The gold is genuine praise, the tin is praise being withheld by an insecure person, in case that wasn’t clear).

It’s so odd. Being a person is so odd sometimes.

What do we think will happen if we get that piece of tin, that worthless approval that is probably completely disconnected and irrelevant to the thing we have/ made/ did? Will everything be magically alright then? Will we give ourselves permission to celebrate our achievements?

What do we get from playing along with this ancient and bizarre ritual of craving approval from the least deserving among us? (Not to say that any one person isn’t deserving in themselves, but this behaviour is not inline with the character traits of people I respect.)

So what are we getting out of it? We’re getting something out of it, or we wouldn’t do it.

Perhaps these people are tapping into the insecurities we all carry. I am not enough, I am an imposter, I am unloveable etc etc. Maybe it even feels good to have someone confirm these familiar old feelings too us. “Ah, yes, thank you for seeing how rubbish I am – other people don’t understand, but you do”.

Sometimes when I stand on the outside of myself and look at this dynamic and how it’s playing out in my life, well – it seems pretty perverse.

Maybe one day I’ll just gratefully accept all the pieces of gold and treasure them, and see the piece of tin for what it is. Just let the wind fall from the sails of that particular dynamic, so it falls flat on its face. Just let it be as weak as it is and not use my energy to prop it up.

Maybe one day the person jealously holding the tin will offer me a piece of gold with an open heart. Maybe.

If you hate analogies I expect that this was your post from hell.

As always, take care!