While I don’t usually post pictures of myself on social media, even on my own business page, I took a picture of myself, being imperfect. To tell myself to let it go, to say that I am loved, and treasured.
I was afraid of making mistakes, I didn’t trust myself & I kept playing small, and putting myself last.
I learned to do it when I was younger and kept on doing it growing up. It wasn’t until I started putting myself first because of my life coach business did I see the pattern.
I wanted to be perfect. I learned growing up that if I was *perfect* I wouldn’t get in trouble with my parents, or teachers. I *thought* I wanted everything to look nice and clean, and I had to act a certain way.
But I overdid it and I had to deal with depression and anxiety attacks. Why was this happening to me?!
I was play-acting all thru my adult life. I pretended I was fine when I wasn’t. Nobody cares to hear about why you are depressed! Just snap out of it they would say! But with diagnosed depression, it is a chemical in your brain that is imbalanced. You can’t just snap out of it, or be happy!! I know, I tried! You become fatigued and more depressed.
It wasn’t until I started to see a psychiatrist and therapy with him, that I started to talk about my life with a special needs child. And growing up with alcoholic parents. My conditioned self wanted everything to be perfect and non-stressed. If that is even a thing. I grew up with stress as a child. I didn’t want a repeat of it, thank you very much.
But my conditioned self reacted to the stress because it’s what she knows and fears, and hates. Anytime something happened I would label it *bad*. Then I would be negative about the situation and I couldn’t handle it. Growing up as a small child when my parents would start drinking and then rage fighting, I would run up to my bedroom, get under the covers and finally fall asleep! I wanted to do that as an adult too. But I would just charge into the situation like a mad bull and start yelling. I didn’t know how else to handle it. It’s what I learned.
Now I meditate, journal, do Pilates and do what I learned, and teach as a life/mindfulness/spiritual coach. Positive affirmations work well too.
My mind used to go over and over again with the past. It’s called monkey-mind. You have repeats in your head. Even trying to fall asleep my brain would try to recreate my fear. After EFT (Emotional Freedom Tapping, I learned to become *safe* when going to sleep. It’s something that I didn’t link to my childhood. I didn’t feel safe sleeping at night. Not until the depression did I start having insomnia. I didn’t feel safe. Now I have to remind myself that I am safe and it’s ok to sleep.
I had a lot of things going on that I had to have unconditioned. In her book Gabby Bernstein “Happy Days” she says: “`When someone experiences a traumatic event, their amygdala (the emotional response center of the brain) often becomes overactive, which can lead to a heightened fear response, leaving the person in a persistent state of hyper-arousal and stress”. Even though our brain can forget what happened from disassociation these continue to affect us subconsciously. It can be in our bodies and our minds. “There it remains energetically present, leaving us in a constant state of alertness and on the lookout for danger”.
My course teaches 6 steps on how to recondition yourself from these responses. The first step is to become aware that you are having “flashbacks” of whatever trauma you experience. If it needs immediate attention, please seek professional help. If you are interested in having a life coach, please feel free to reach out to me and we can have a free zoom call to see if I can help you.
Below is the link to my Instagram page