When we embark on personal development work, one of the first things we invariably learn is that we need to start thinking differently about ourselves. We need to love ourselves more. And while this is ultimately true, it’s imperative to realise that this isn’t something that happens overnight. Expecting that to be the case has the opposite to the desired effect – it literally leaves us feeling like we’ve failed in our mission to become a more evolved person.
When we haven’t had the blessing of feeling both safe and unconditionally loved consistently through our formative years, we have unmet childhood needs. (Notice I used the word feeling in that sentence, because it doesn’t matter whether we were unconditionally loved or not – it’s about whether we felt it at the time).
It doesn’t matter that we reached adulthood in one piece, or that what’s going on inside isn’t visible to the outside world. Unmet childhood needs continue to affect us through our adult years in how we feel about ourselves and how we behave as a result.
Emotionally healthy adults behave in a considered way, based on rational, logical thoughts. Their responses aren’t driven by emotion, or by past experiences, they come from a responsible place of self-awareness in the present moment.
Anything less is behaviour that’s being driven by unmet childhood needs and fundamentally, these always boil down to a sense of unworthiness.
On the scale of human emotions, unworthiness is about as low as it gets… That sentence is worth reading again.
Telling ourselves we should be thinking or indeed behaving differently may be absolutely true for our greater good. But… when unworthiness is running our operating system, it’s one of the most unhelpful things we can do to ourselves.
As long as the person we want to be is a far stretch from who we feel we are, forcing ourselves down a certain route of faking it ‘til we make it is never going to end well.
It’s going to lead to a mismatch inside; an internal battle of how we feel versus how we want to feel. And that is a recipe for disaster. It isn’t us being authentic; it amplifies internal conflict, self-contempt and feelings of failure. And it has a habit of spewing out onto the people around us who had no part in causing our pain in the first place.
We are vibrational beings before we are thinkers, processers of information, or operators. And when our dominant frequency is unworthiness, we are not in a position to attract a better version of ourselves. It simply cannot unfold from that place. Which is where the need for healing comes in.
But here’s the thing. We don’t heal ourselves with our minds. We cannot think our way to a better place. We can’t tell ourselves to be different and expect things to change. Thinking positively will support our healing, but it can’t be the be all and end all.
Healing comes from the heart. It must be felt.
This is one of the reasons it’s particularly challenging for the analytical among us to achieve it. We have to get out of our heads and into our hearts and feel what we want to at the very core of our being. And this can’t be done with instructions or words, or when we’re busy distracting ourselves in the hopes of numbing our pain. It takes a willingness to open our heart, it takes commitment and it takes time.
Something else that is often misunderstood about healing is that it does not come from a place of pain. It happens as a result of pain yes, but while we are lined up with old pain; sitting in a place of sorrow or resentment and feeling like a victim, we are not lined up with healing energy. And while we’re not lined up with healing energy, there’s no way we’re going to heal! The reason there are so many people in the world bouncing around in their old pain and letting it overflow onto the people around them, is because they’re working with words and thoughts and memories and not with energy!
Energy is where it’s at. And that’s a fabulous thing. It means we can heal without remembering and reactivating past pain, without exasperating negative feelings, without spending a small fortune on therapy and without feeling like a victim. How great is that? There’s just one prerequisite to it working: you have to want it!..
What we aren’t changing we are choosing.
Uncomfortable feelings exist for the very purpose of showing us where we have changes to make. And while it may seem strange to think that anyone might want to hold onto their pain, it’s a common human phenomenon for the reason that it is comfortable. We humans seek comfort first and foremost – it’s right at the top of our list. Change is disruptive and unsettling and holds no guarantees. Sometimes it’s just safer and easier to stay with what we know. Unworthiness only serves to strengthen that belief. It keeps us firmly in self-punishment mode until we are brave enough to step out into unfamiliar territory.
Life is what we make it and without the healing it will always be mediocre.
In my Happiest You Programme, you learn how to fall in love with yourself which enables a softer, more gentle approach to change. The changes you then make feel natural and can unfold at a sustainable pace. You learn how to work with your own energy and why that’s so imperative to living the life you want and of course, we do some big healing work.
Healing isn’t something that ends at a certain point; it is something we integrate into our everyday life, so it just becomes a part of living. This is how we take back control of our emotions and feel the way we want to about ourselves.
In the meantime, much love and abundance to you
Kate x