How Intimate Are You In Your Relationships?

Opening up to someone needs courage because this act carries risks and rewards. The risk has to do with not knowing how they will respond to seeing your naked soul, to witnessing you at your most vulnerable. By choosing to avoid the risk you also avoid the pain associated with disappointment and perhaps rejection. However in playing it safe and avoiding pain you also might perhaps miss out on the rewards of love and acceptance, on the chance of experiencing a true connection and developing a meaningful and intimate relationship with another. 

How quickly or slowly we are willing to open up to another is impacted by our old as well as recent personal history. How safe and trusting our first ever attachments were when we were children and at our most vulnerable stage in life. More recently by whether we have experienced a painful betrayal of some kind. 

However no matter your history, healing and change is possible and you can learn to trust and open up again. You only can decide how, when and to whom to open up. You only can decide whether the rewards are worth the risks. 

The topic of daring to open up and show your true self to another often comes up in sessions with clients. Many find it difficult to show their vulnerability or be authentically themselves even with close friends and family members. They mask their fear, swallow their sadness and bottle their anger. I can relate as I too have experienced difficulties in the past with being authentic with others and myself.

The habit of suppressing parts of ourselves starts in childhood where we forgo authenticity in favour of attachment. This reminds me of a piece of theory from Transactional Analysis called Time Structuring, which I do share with my clients. It allows us to explore how intensely we spend time with others and ourselves. 

Time Structuring proposes that as humans we have a need to structure our time and relationships. We do that by moving through six modes: Withdrawal, Rituals, Pastimes, Activities, Psychological Games, and Intimacy. 

In Withdrawal we spend time isolated and out of contact with others and this may be physically, emotionally or both. We might be present physically but absent emotionally. We all need a degree of time to ourselves to get grounded and re-charged so some withdrawal time is necessary. Having a balance is important as too much withdrawal can lead to depression and anxiety. On the other hand a total absence of time to oneself can also negatively impact mental health, as connection to oneself is as important as connection to others. 

In Rituals we go through a familiar, safe and predictable pattern of interacting like shaking hands and saying “Hello, how are you?” Rituals provide comfort, a sense of belonging, and a way in into more intense conversations. They are culturally and trans-generationally based.

Pastimes is where we engage in polite and superficial conversations about safe topics such as the weather, food, jobs or hobbies. They happen typically at parties, social gatherings or in the waiting time before a formal group meeting. You certainly wouldn’t talk about personal stuff at this stage however Pastimes do form the basis for the selection of acquaintances, and are a tentative way of exploring greater closeness with others. 

Activities can sometimes be combined with Pastimes and are usually goal directed such as attending meetings or playing hockey. It is time spent doing things together be it at home or at work. It can be fun and possibly a way of avoiding intimate contact.

Psychological Games, in brief, are a series of interactions with others with a concealed motivation, and which end up with both parties experiencing familiar bad feelings. Here there is a social level interaction with an underlying and hidden psychological level interaction. 

Games are re-plays of childhood strategies that are no longer appropriate when grown up. Games can be seen as a failed attempt to be intimate with another person, as both parties do not take the full risk of being open and authentic with each other. The result is a repetitive pattern of interacting from set roles.

Intimacy is when we have an authentic encounter with another, a moment of shared openness, trust and honesty. In intimacy there are no hidden messages as the social and psychological level interactions are congruent. Intimacy means emotionally intimate, not necessarily sexually intimate. It also doesn’t necessarily mean nice and peaceful. An intimate interaction can involve an angry argument. The difference is that both parties are open and respectful and able to articulate their thoughts and feelings respectfully. Each person accepts his or her own responsibility for the outcome instead of blaming the other. In Intimacy we experience the highest level of emotional intensity as well as taking the greatest risks as we do face the possibility of being rejected or ridiculed. 

In a lot of our relationships it’s the moments of emotional intimacy that may be missing and which are so important to us all. Intimacy is an exchange of authentic wants and feelings and the offering of our authentic selves in relationships is a way to connection. All modes of time structuring can be viewed as a route into greater connection as we have observed during the COVID lockdowns when we were forced to withdraw and as a consequence we longed to connect through any and every aspect of time structuring.

So it is clear that as we move from one mode to another, the risks are higher and so are the rewards.

Again how much time we stay in each mode and how quickly we move from one mode to the next is related to our personal history. Working with a practitioner can help you unpack your personal history and become more self-aware of how you structure your time at home and at work, and how this is impacting your relationships. Perhaps with this awareness you might like to make some changes. This kind of self-awareness can lead you to have a healthy connection with self so you can access your inner resources and creativity, and in turn develop more intimate relationships with others. 

Should I Stay Or Should I Go?

Should I stay or should I go?

Have you ever been in a situation where you repeatedly asked yourself the above question? 

I have, in both my personal and professional life. 

I have also worked with some clients who found themselves at some point facing such a dilemma. 

Although being in this in-between stuck situation feels uncomfortable, the experience, with the guidance of a professional, might present opportunities for growth and self-discovery. It can offer a space for personal development.

As a coach and counsellor I of course do not have the answer to my clients’ question. It is not my place to tell them whether they should stay or indeed go. My role is to work with them and explore together, from the here and now, the best way forward for them. 

We explore together what aspects of their personal history are impacting the present situation. Together we decontaminate the present moment from past out-dated beliefs, prejudices and fantasies so the client can gain clarity and expand their capacities for an appropriate response in the here and now. 

 I do that by applying a model called the Ego State model from transactional analysis. This model proposes that we have three distinct parts to our personality: Parent, Adult and Child. Each of these parts has its own set of thoughts, feelings and behaviours that interact differently with the world. 

When we are in Parent ego state we interact with the world like a Parent figure from our childhood. We embody their beliefs and prejudices about the world and way of thinking, feeling and behaving. 

 When we are in Child ego state we interact with the world the way we did as children, emotional, spontaneous, creative and uninhibited. 

 When we are in Adult we interact with the world from the here and now moment using all the information and data available to us in the moment. 

 We reach a dilemma because we are trying to negotiate between Child needs and Parent demands. 

 Together with my client I explore the following:

 What are the past childhood needs that the client is trying to meet today?

 What past parental beliefs and prejudices are still forming an obstacle today?

 And in their quest to meet those needs and uphold those beliefs and prejudices are they losing their authenticity? 

 Being in a space and time when we are asking the question “Should I stay or should I go?” means that we are in a space between stories. The old past story and a possible new story. 

 The above curious exploration allows for discovery that in turn leads to recovery. The aim is to strengthen the client’s Adult so they can think for themselves and give themselves the permission to hold on or let go of what no longer feels harmonious to their authentic being. 

 This added clarity allows the client to take the right actions in the moment from their Adult ego state. 

 So if you find yourself like me, once upon a time, or like some of my clients, facing the kind of dilemmas where you are asking yourself the question above, then working with a coach or counsellor can help you arrive at making the appropriate decision. An outcome that is reached with awareness and is devoid of unwanted influences from your past. 

 Is this something you need support with? 

 Get in touch. 

Embrace Your Fear. Don't Freeze It!

I believe fear must have been the first emotion that I have learnt to master. Growing up I feared many things. The first ever fear that I consciously remember experiencing was fear of taking the lift. I was stuck in a lift once as a child and found the experience extremely frightening and distressing. I refused to go into a lift after that and always took the stairs no matter how high I needed to go. It kept me fit but I hated the feeling of being afraid. At some point in my early teens I started to challenge myself and go in the lift for a short distance, a kind of exposure self-therapy and in time I managed to overcome it.

 The next fear on my list was fear of the deep. I was afraid of swimming at the deep end of a swimming pool or in the deep end in the sea. An incident when I was a teenager of jumping into the deep end of a pool by mistake and nearly drowning did not help matters. Movies about sharks that were popular in the eighties fuelled my imagination and only served to make this fear grow. My fear of the deep comes and goes depending on my level of exposure.

 Next was my fear of flying which is now a thing of the past. Neuro-Linguistic Programming concepts really helped me to overcome this particular fear because I became aware of the pictures and movies I was creating in my head that were contributing to my fear. Once I played around with those images my fear diminished considerably. Also reading and gathering knowledge about aviation risks helped me also realise the absurdity of that particular fear. 

 However my biggest fear to date I would say was or is fear of public speaking. So how have I learnt to manage this fear and speak in public? 

 Fear, like sadness, anger and joy is an important emotion. It signals danger and propels us to take action towards safety. However in some cases it can be experienced out of context and out of proportion to the situation. That is when it is important to delve into it and start exploring it. 

“Most of us experience fear as a kind of stop sign or flashing red light that warns: “Danger! Do not enter!” But we may need to decide that signal and consider what it’s trying to convey. What is the actual nature of the danger? Is it past or present, real or imagined? Are we feeling anxious because we are boldly charting new territory, or because we’re about to do something stupid?”

     - Harriet Learner, Ph.D., The Dance Of Fear

 

Fear is a misunderstood emotion. Experiencing fear is unpleasant and so we rush to block it, suppress it, ignore it or avoid the situations that cause it to arise in us. In the right context it is important to take measures for safety, however when it is out of context then we need to pay more attention to fear instead of blocking or ignoring it. That is because fear carries important messages about our past experiences and clues to understanding our behaviours in the present.

 Dr Pippa Grange writes that there are two types of fear: the one that is appropriate in the right context of a crisis which she calls in-the-moment fear, and the other type of fear that is out of sync with the situation and rules our lives, affects our choices and leaves us unfulfilled. She refers to this type as the not-good-enough fear. She echoes what Harriet Lerner wrote and adds that the not-good-enough fear is mixed up with what happened in the past and what might happen in the future.  Something that was true with my fear of public speaking. 

 I realised I had a fear of public speaking in my early twenties when I started university in the UK. Not only did I discover that I was terrified to stand in front of an audience and speak, I was also ashamed about having such a fear and so did not want anyone to know about it. This added to my stress as it meant that in addition to fear of public speaking, I was afraid of being exposed as having fear of public speaking. I believed that I would be laughed at and ridiculed if others found out. It meant that every time I needed to stand up and speak before an audience I was using lots of energy to block and also disguise my fear. I can tell you that it was exhausting and left me drained and unable to enjoy the experience. 

 My way of managing this fear at first was to avoid speaking in public. However there were times when I couldn’t avoid it as my grades depended on it. In those situations I suffered tremendously before, during and after the event. 

 Yet at the same time I wanted to share important thoughts and ideas with people. I felt often that I had meaningful things to talk about that can make a positive difference in people’s lives and perhaps offer them clarity or alleviate their pain. This drove me to explore more deeply my fear by first allowing myself to be exposed to it, which meant doing the very thing I feared doing, stand in front of an audience and speak through joining clubs like Toastmasters of The Hague.

 More recently during my Transactional Analysis studies I explored further my fear using the tools and concepts the course offered and also during therapy and supervision. The most transforming thing that I learnt on this emotional journey was to withstand the discomfort that engulfed my being when I experienced the fear. To sit with the fear for a bit and listen to what was happening in my body and to the possible messages and information that this fear was trying to convey. 

 I discovered that my fear was associated with childhood traumas. The fear of public speaking was a disguise to a bigger fear. Fear of being abandoned, unloved and rejected. Fear of being shamed and humiliated. Although my mind could not pinpoint specific events, my body somehow remembered and kept the score. So whenever I was in a situation that put me at the centre of attention, like speaking in public, my body reacted and signalled to me that I was in danger. Gaining that self-awareness was extremely helpful in managing my fear. I realised that my fear was a thing from the past and did not belong to the present moment. I felt gratitude and compassion towards my body and it’s attempts to protect me from what it perceived as dangerous due to past traumatic experiences. I realised that the present is different and that I am no longer facing that danger. Furthermore it is okay to be afraid sometimes. There is no shame in that and no need to hide this fact. In fact in the first speech I gave at Toastmasters I started my talk by acknowledging my fear and anxiety. This resonated with many people who later came and shared their own fears with me. These insights were also helpful in my work as a coach and counsellor as many of my clients also struggle with fears and anxieties. 

 Have I stopped being afraid of public speaking? No. However nowadays it no longer silences my authentic voice. It no longer stops me from acting with compassion and courage. By embracing my fear I was able to manage it better.

 Dr Pippa Grange, a sports psychologist, writes in her book, Fear Less, that facing our fears is a kind of growing up and is about shedding our parents’, generational and social fears. She adds that facing our fears will free us to explore our true ambitions and allow us to look at the world with a new perspective. 

“The best thing we can do with fear is to befriend it. That is, we can learn to expect, allow, and accept fear, observe it, watch it rise and fall, attend to how it feels in the body, watch it mindfully, and understand that fear will always reappear. Fear is a physiological process that cavorts and careens through our bodies and makes us miserable. Eventually it subsides — only, of course to return. The real culprits are our knee-jerk responses to fear, and the ways we try to avoid fear, anxiety, and shame.”

- Harriet Lerner, Ph.D., The Dance Of Fear

I invite you to also embrace your fear rather than freeze it. Learn to sit with the discomfort for a bit and find out what you can learn. Perhaps you might find that befriending your fear yields better results than avoiding it.

5 Questions That Will Support Your Journey Of Change

Many of us, in our quest for self-development, personal growth and change, embark on courses, coaching packages, counseling sessions, therapy and more. However we all know that change can be difficult and as we are creatures of habit, acquiring new habits and new healthier patterns of behaviour can be challenging. When it comes to our journey of change, we may resist, self-sabotage, distract from or give up altogether on our attempts at transforming ourselves.

 What can we do to support our work towards self-development? How can we ensure that we follow through and stay on the path towards growth and change? What can keep us motivated when the going gets tough? How can we prevent ourselves from throwing in the towel and giving up on ourselves?

 Below are some questions to ask yourself and reflect upon that may be helpful. Answering those questions forms a contract, not with another, but a contract with yourself that you can adhere to and honour. I was introduced to this concept of making a contract, during my Transactional Analysis studies and I found it extremely helpful.  

 Let me share it with you.

 Get a piece of paper or a notebook and answer the following five questions as honestly as you can. Do this exercise, when you are about to embark on a programme or any kind of work that is towards your self-development, and that will involve you making profound changes in your life. Take time to reflect after each question and then write your answers down.

 These are the 5 questions to ask yourself:

 1      What do I want to change for myself by doing this work or being on this programme and why?

Answering this question will help you identify your needs and wants and clarify the reasons or purpose that is igniting your need for change. It helps you to see the benefits clearly and fires up your passion and your feelings of excitement. You need to know what you want before you can seek it.

 2      What steps do I need to take to achieve this?

This helps you identify what you already have at your disposal and what you are lacking by way of skills, knowledge or support. Maybe you need to organize childcare in order to be available for certain course dates for example and set the right environment for you to focus. . It can also help break the task down into smaller more achievable bite size pieces and thus reduce overwhelm.

 3      How will I know when I’ve made this change? And how will others know?

This is an important question because if you don’t know how the change you are seeking will look like, sound like or feel like, then you will not know when you have achieved it. It also creates a momentum towards a vision of the future that you want. Is it about demonstrating a change of behaviour in certain situations, or about mastering a new way of communicating and relating, or perhaps about managing stress better?

 4      How will I sabotage myself and what steps can I put in place to prevent this?

This will bring into your awareness the negative patterns of thinking or behaving that you have engaged in in the past, that got in the way of achieving what you want. It can also alert you to any obstacles that might stand in your way. Once you identify these patterns or obstacles then you can notice them early when they creep up and have some preventative ways planned ahead of how to manage them.

 5      How will I celebrate the success of change and with whom?

We often neglect this last step, which is extremely important. We must allow time and space to celebrate our successes, however small, instead of brushing them off and rushing into our next project. Take a pause and enjoy the moment with those that love you and support you. Plan a date for a party or a few days away to mark the successful end.

 Once you are done with this exercise, I suggest that you keep this piece of writing somewhere safe and re-visit it every time you feel that your motivation is waning or when the going gets tough.

 If you would like to explore this sort of work further then do get in touch and take advantage of my 15 minutes free call.

Why April is my favourite month of the year

I was born on the 10th of April, yet for the first 10 years of my life I was told mistakenly that my birthday was on the 27th of March. I remember not feeling emotionally aligned with that date and only later, when my mother told me the correct date I was induced into the world, that I understood why. Yes the 10th of April felt good, it felt right. 

 I turn 60 this April. The most striking thing for me at this moment is the fact that I am so much happier at 60 than I was when 16, and that at 60, I still feel the curiosity, the excitement, the spontaneity and playfulness of a 6 year old. I am reminded by a piece of writing I came across ages ago that describes how a woman sees herself through the different ages. At 60, it says that,  “She looks at herself and thinks of all those who can't even see themselves in the mirror anymore and goes out and conquers the world.” (Find the link to the full piece below).

 April also marks the anniversary of my business. It was pure coincidence, or perhaps a magical thing from the universe, that I ended up later on in life launching my practice Recipes4Change in this very month. I remember how at a networking event I handed out small bags of chocolate eggs with my business card since the launch coincided with Easter.

 As some of you might know, I was not always in the role of coach and counsellor. I previously worked as a pharmacist for many years. How come, I get asked, I made this transition from a lucrative job to a role that many view as financially uncertain and less stable? 

 The answer involves a story, a personal story. 

“What mental health needs is more sunlight, more candour, more unashamed conversation.”

- Glenn Close

 If you follow me on social media or read my blogs you will know that I do not hide the fact that I struggled emotionally and mentally in the earlier years of my life. A combination of an unsettled and traumatic early 5 years of my life, coupled with facing racism and discrimination later on, resulted in me making distorted decisions about who I am and what I can and cannot be and do in my life. It was through coaching and counselling that I grew myself up again, let go of those decisions, and reclaimed my self-worth bit by bit. It was during those sessions that my curiosity about the things that impact how we think, feel and behave was further ignited. Those sessions were later complimented with studies and qualifications in the field of human personality, behaviour and communication.

 Those around me who observed my transformation asked for my support in various emotional issues that they were facing. Through supporting others I discovered my true purpose and my passion. This kind of work felt meaningful and rewarding. That is why I left pharmacy and set up Recipes4Change in April 2012. 

 Through sharing some aspects of my personal life and the empowering concepts that I have learnt and continue to practice, I want to promote an important message, which is that there is no shame in seeking support when life becomes too heavy and you are struggling emotionally and mentally. The stigma that many hold that people with emotional issues are crazy is obsolete. We now know better than that. Taking care of your mental and emotional well-being is not crazy. It is a sign that in fact, you are sane. You not only owe it to yourself to care for your mental and emotional well- being, but also to those around you. When you are not happy and emotionally healthy then you tend to take it out on those closest to you and this way pass on unhealthy patterns of being and doing from generation to generation. Through your unhealed emotional wounds you inflict wounds on others around you. All your relationships will be negatively impacted because essentially you neglect to pay attention to the most important relationship of all, your relationship with yourself. 

“Nothing is as powerful as an idea whose time has come.”

- Victor Hugo

 If this idea of prioritising our emotional and mental well-being grows, then perhaps we will have less suicide attempts, less depression and anxiety, and less abuse and violence. 

 Yes, April is my favourite month of the year because it reminds me of something much bigger than me. Plus nature blooms and flourishes in April, just like I did through receiving therapy, and like my idea to set up my practice bloomed in my soul so many years ago. 

 Thank you for being part of my network and professional journey, for your trust and support, and for sharing your expertise, thoughts and ideas. 

 This April marks 10 years of my practice and I am giving 10% discount on sessions throughout the whole month of April to the first 10 people that request it via commenting below or by direct messaging me. 

 Join me in spirit in celebrating the month of April, in which my business and I were born.

 Cheers everyone!

https://www.scrapbook.com/quotes/doc/21939.HTML’s 

Are you feeling stuck?

Stuck in an unwanted job?

Stuck in a toxic relationship?

Stuck in a state of indecision?

“I feel stuck.” This is a common phrase that some clients say to me when they come to the sessions. 

“Stuckness” is often the result of an inner conflict between two parts inside us. The Parent part,  that took on all the parental messages from childhood about what we should or shouldn’t do, and the Child part in us, that wants to satisfy our needs and wants. Both of these parts are operating on information from our past personal history. To be able to resolve the conflict and get unstuck, we need to come back to the present moment and use the information available to us in the here and now. That is to access the Adult part in us, which focuses on current reality. 

We also get stuck as a result of denying our reality. As long as we are in the denial loop we stay in the stuck loop. This happens when we live our lives according to old decisions we have made in the past. We are no longer aware of these decisions yet we are still following them automatically. The behaviours resulting from these decisions are no longer useful to us, yet we still defend those behaviours and carry on. The act of defending behaviours that are no longer useful in the present moment is called denial or discounting, in Transactional Analysis terminology. 

When we discount, we are denying our responsibility to act appropriately in relation to a current reality. We can discount on four different levels: 

🙈Discount that a problem exists - no problem. 

🙈Discount the seriousness of the problem - not serious.

🙈Discount the solvability of the problem - no solution.

🙈Discount our ability to find options to resolve the problem - no self capacity.

We can discount ourselves and others. 

When we think, feel and behave from one of these discounts then we feel stuck and powerless to change the situation. We can’t change the things that we continue to deny the existence of. 

The first step to getting unstuck and feeling empowered is to bring to awareness and explore on a deeper level those inner conflicts, the discounting patterns and past decisions that are still influencing our present life. 

Does this resonate? Would you like to explore your personal situation further? 

Get in touch. 

Burnout, a blessing or a curse?

I have worked with a few clients who have shared with me that they have experienced burnout several times in their lives, and they are afraid of experiencing it yet again.

 As always I do all that I can to fully understand my clients’ experience, be it taking on more courses, attending workshops, reading a book or tapping into my own personal experience. In this quest I came across a book written by Dr Dina Glouberman, entitled The Joy of Burnout. Yes you read correctly, Joy! As I read it and reflected, I was reminded of a very challenging time I went through just prior to starting my coaching practice.

 I set up my coaching practice, Recipes4change, almost 10 years ago. What I did not realise then, but fully comprehend now, was that the symptoms I have experienced just prior to setting it up were in fact burnout. I worked for many years as a pharmacist and enjoyed it. However what I really enjoyed about the job had nothing to do with pharmaceuticals and more to do with human connection and a desire to make a difference. In those times I remember that patients often talked to me about issues that were not directly related to their medicines. They felt comfortable, safe and had enough trust in me to share their troubles. What I observed was that often the fact that I took time to listen and acknowledge their issues was sometimes enough to make them feel better. I in turn also felt good after those interactions and wanted to give more of my time to this kind of work.  It took some more years for me to become aware of my true passion and even more years to envision it. Yet fear stood in the way. Burnout finally got me to face my fears, and was the final catalyst that spurred me into taking a series of actions that led to the work that I do today. I quit pharmacy work for good and put my focus on my coaching and counselling training and practice. In doing so I reaped the joys of my burnout. The book has many such personal stories.

 Dr Glouberman, a psychotherapist and formerly a Senior Lecturer in Psychology, and someone who experienced burnout herself, says, “when we burnout, it is our old personality that burns itself out. Then our soul fire begins to light our way and to bring us joy.”

 Her words resonate with me and seem in sync with an article I came across during my Transactional Analysis (TA) training. The article explores further, and from a TA perspective, a research carried out in 1975 by German- born American psychologist Herbert Freudenberger, who classified different personality types that are vulnerable to burnout. He found a link between the phenomenon of burnout and a person’s identity as a professional. He classified three personality types:

 1-The Dedicated & Committed:

Who work hard to meet the increasing demands made upon them and do not question those that make such demands. This person is not able to say no because of a belief system that the needs of others are more worthy than their own needs. They tend to feel good about themselves through the service to others. When their efforts meet with less success, they work even harder and get caught in a vicious cycle of hard work, frustration and become less efficient and ineffective.  This compounds feelings of guilt and worthlessness. Such personality types over- identify with the people they serve.

 2- The Overcommitted & Work Enmeshed: 

Who indeed are overcommitted with an unsatisfactory private life and work becomes their only source of meaning and worth. They have no real boundaries between their professional and personal lives. They become over involved in their work environment and spend more and more time at work. 

 3-The Authoritarian & Patronising:

Who need to be in control and believe that no one else can do the job as well they can. They believe that others are inadequate and incompetent and need micromanaging and controlling. 

 Do you see aspects of yourself in any of those personality types? I recognise behaviours that I used to exhibit in the past that fit in with the first type, the dedicated & committed. I used to always put others’ needs above my own and certainly struggled to say no.

 Dr Glouberman outlines also a typical burnout profile that shows some similarity to the above personality types. In her book she writes that those prone to burnout tend to be:

-       Ambitious, high achievers with high energy

-       Enthusiastic, work hard and do whatever is needed and at any cost

-       Perceive themselves as holding together situations that they perceive would fall apart without them

-       Think that they are unlimited in energy, superwomen or supermen

-       Generally driven and have a high need to be needed or approved of

-       Have a pattern of overdoing and over-giving without a regard for themselves

She says that all of these are patterns that may have begun way back in childhood when in our families we felt loved for what we achieved or gave, rather than for being who we are.

 If we read those above profiles and classifications, it is no surprise that when we give so much of ourselves, coupled with an environment that is not supportive, understanding or appreciative, we can sometimes burn out. My clients’ fears of re- experiencing burnout again is valid, because often it is not a one off event, and can recur again in different forms and different areas of our lives, including within intimate relationships, until we do the work necessary to address the underlying issues and process the messages that burnout is trying to convey to us. In this way burnout can lead to powerful transformations and challenge us to create a new way of life.

 We tend to experience burnout in the areas that are close to our heart and soul and where we invest our creativity. They are also the very same areas from which we draw our sense of identity and belonging. When things are going well and our efforts are met with appreciation or reward, we feel energised and vibrant and life seems positive and successful. It is when something upsets this picture that we become candidates to burnout. That was exactly my personal experience almost a decade ago.

 The general message of the book is that burnout, although a painful experience, can ultimately lead to positive results if we are open to its message of examining our personal and professional life and see if we are living the life we want and that our work reflects who we truly are. 

 Burnout is simply the body’s way to let us know that we have reached the end of a particular path, yet we are refusing to acknowledge this fact. By having burnout we are forced to slow down, sometimes, even stop for a while, reflect and re-assess. This can allow us to connect again to our true self and acknowledge that the way we have been leading our lives before is not working and we need to make a change going forward.

 I am glad that I had courage to do the work necessary, with the support of a professional, to understand my patterns and my needs, to gain awareness of how my personal history impacted my beliefs and behaviours and to work on my fears and to re- connect with my true self. The awareness I gained coupled with my willingness to change and follow a new path meant that I was finally able to be who I want to be and do what I want to do.

 I wish that too for all my clients and I will share what I know to support their growth.

 This book, alongside working with a professional, can be helpful to those who have experienced burnout, those going through it right now and to those who would like to learn how to recognise the signs early in order to prevent burnout. 

The One Thing You Can Do To Ensure Healthy Parenting

When I became a mother for the first time I remember being very anxious, over-protective and obsessively worrying about the safety of my daughter. I thought that it was part and parcel of motherhood. However I observed that not all parents around me were exhibiting the same behaviour. This made me curious. 

When my daughter was six months old, I remember being gripped with anxiety as I watched her happily playing with her toys on the living room floor. It struck me then that I was exactly that age when my mother left me and went on a scholarship abroad. This was the first realisation that slowly exposed the root cause of my anxiety and overly protective attitude. Unconsciously, my daughter at that age, was reminding me on a bodily level, of the emotions I went through when I was at her age. I was unaware that my own childhood experience was contaminating my parenting behaviour in that present moment. 

Parenting is by far the most important role we may encounter with probably the least amount of formal training and preparation. We tend to either parent the way we were parented or do the extreme opposite. 

However there is a more balanced way to be the best parent you can be. How? By investing in your own personal growth and development. By reflecting on your own childhood experience and upbringing so you can become more self-aware and learn healthy ways to stop passing on negative patterns from generation to generation. 

My desire to be a better parent motivated me to invest in my own emotional and mental well-being and in my own personal growth and development. I was, thus, able to explore and reflect on my own upbringing so that I could identify and understand my own discomforts in the hope of not passing them on to my children. This supported me in learning healthy ways of relating to myself and others, most importantly to my children. This allowed me to process my inherited fear and anxiety so I could stop passing it on to my daughters. 

You also can make such an investment in yourself. It will help you reshape that parenting link that stretches way back to your ancestors and way forward to the next generations to come. This ensures that you pass on the good stuff from your own upbringing and hold back on the unhealthy aspects of it. 

If you had a healthy and happy childhood then this exercise of examining your childhood is unlikely to be painful. However for many of us that was not the case and therefore looking back on our childhood may bring emotional discomfort. However the rewards for the present and future far outweigh this discomfort.

As Philippa Perry, a renowned psychotherapist, writes in her book entitled, The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read, “It is necessary to become more self-aware around that discomfort so that we can become more mindful of ways to stop us passing it on. So much of what we have inherited sits just outside of our awareness. That makes it hard sometimes to know whether we are reacting in the here and now to our child’s behaviour or whether our responses are more rooted in our past.” 

It is not about being a perfect parent. I personally do not believe in such a thing. As Perry says, children need parents to be real and authentic , not perfect. It is about reflecting on your own childhood experience in order to understand how it may have an effect on your parenting. It is about accepting that you will make mistakes and how to learn from those mistakes. It is about letting go of judgment of yourself and others. It is about improving your chances of having a healthy relationship with your children so they in turn will be able to perpetuate that healthy relationship with their children. 

It is important as parents that we do not feel disheartened when inevitably we make mistakes that can be hurtful. Hurts and misunderstandings are common in intimate family relationships. What is important is that when we realise our mistakes we take steps to mend the hurt. 

Perry stresses that it is not the rupture that is important, it is the repair that matters. In other words mending the hurt. This can be achieved through working on changing the way we respond through recognising our triggers and using that awareness to behave differently as parents. My personal experience confirms this. Feel proud at noticing the issues and taking steps to bring about a positive change.

As parents we play a major role in our child’s environment, which in turn plays a big part in forming the unique person that our child will be. Healthy parenting starts with looking at you, how you feel about yourself and how much responsibility you are willing to take for your behaviour. If you are a parent or considering becoming one then I highly recommend reading Perry’s book. 

Contact me if you are interested to explore this further. 

A Simple Approach To Improve Your Communication

Miscommunication issues commonly arise when we can only see our own perspective and when we make wrong assumptions about the perspectives of others.

I am reminded of an incident years ago during my first couple of years living in the Netherlands when I used to take my daughters to swimming lessons. The cafe in the building formed a waiting area where all parents and children converged and waited in between lessons. One waiter served the entire cafe and everyone complained about how rude and unfriendly he was. I had recently finished my NLP studies and was starting to view the world differently. It was true that the waiter’s behaviour was rude and unfriendly however I was curious to explore beyond the surface impression so I took my focus from him and onto the surroundings.

The environment was that of total chaos. Noisy children running riot and school bags strewed everywhere. I thought to myself that if I had his job I would probably also be grumpy and possibly rude. That shift in perspective affected my behaviour such that when I went to order coffee and snacks I spoke to him from a place of compassion instead of animosity. Before I made my order that day I acknowledged the difficulty he faced regularly in managing such a crowd. His body immediately changed. He softened and agreed that yes it was difficult. He felt seen and heard. His situation was acknowledged. He then sweetly told me to take a seat and, to the astonishment of all the other parents, he brought my order to my table. On many future occasions he even helped my daughters with their Dutch homework which they did while waiting for their swimming lesson. The grumpy waiter was a nice person after all.

The reality is that we have no control over the behaviour of others but we have total control over our own. Often you can have an influence on the behaviour of others by starting with changing your own. Newton’s third law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. By changing the action you can ultimately change the reaction. 

I changed my focus and perspective in order to view the world from the waiter’s perspective. That produced a shift in my thinking, feeling and therefore behaviour, which in turn impacted the waiter’s thinking, feeling and therefore his behaviour. Our communication was much improved because it came from a place of compassion, understanding and a wider frame of reference. We were able to really see each other as we were in that moment in time. I could see his viewpoint as a waiter managing a difficult crowd and he could see me as a parent navigating children between home, school and after school activities. We empathised with each other instead of taking out our frustrations on each other. 

Many of my clients tell me about their communication issues. They often feel hurt that they get negative responses when their intentions were positive. They tend to put their focus on blaming others and wanting to change them. In our work together I bring them back to themselves. What can they change in their thinking, feeling and behaviour in order to get a different outcome? How can they change their actions in order to bring out a different reaction? Are they able, for a moment, to embody the other person and view the world from their perspective? That often, on its own, brings positive results.

Of course there are other aspects that influence our communication that are connected with regressing into our past where we use present people and situations to resolve past issues. Transactional Analysis offers many concepts that can help process and resolve those issues. However the simple approach I mention above can on its own bring profound change. 

Please get in touch if you are experiencing communication issues and would like to explore resourceful ways of enhancing your interactions with others.

The Benefits Of Failure

Photo credits: Hicham Boumediane | @hicham_boumediane

Those of you who know me will know that my youngest daughter is a fairly high level athlete. As her mother I have witnessed closely her journey from the start to where she is now. She is hoping to make it to the Olympics. She might… and then again she might not.

I observe on a regular basis the benefits she gains from the many perceived failures and disappointments she encounters. She learns something valuable with every single run and competition that fails to meet the desired targets. I witness that her positive approach to setbacks is what has got her so far in her athletics career. There is a lot to be learnt from children and young people.

To be able to support her I read a lot about the subject of success and failure, of winning and losing, and on fear, which depending on how we manage it, can motivate us or paralyse us. I can tell you that fear of failure has played a big part in my life and in the lives of many clients that I have worked with.

I happen to be reading now a book by Dr. Pippa Grange, a renowned psychologist, called Fear Less.

Dr Grange says that there are many myths surrounding our concept of failure and success: the main one being that losing turns you into a loser. She believes that this is wrong.

She goes on to say this about failure:

“Really you shouldn’t see failure as part of you, but just as giving you a puzzle to solve. Yet that’s not the message most of us absorb. We let failure leave behind a smear on our character, rather than simply being an indicator of our performance on a given day. And that makes us reluctant to show imperfection or vulnerability, in case it’s mistaken for weakness. The truth? Losing is for winners. “

And I say that failures are the path to success. 

I agree with Dr Grange that it is not how we fail or lose that matters but our attitude towards it. 

How do you handle failure? 

My grandmother taught me early on how best to manage my failures. When I came home to her crying and disappointed at failing an exam, she would lovingly comfort me and then ask me a very important question: where do you think you went wrong Rawia? What can you learn from this experience that you can take with you to the next one?

Your willingness to examine closely the failure, see where you went wrong, where you can improve, reassess, re-think and then move forward with this added information is key. If we do this then failing becomes a valuable lesson because it allows us to learn and simply provides us with information about the areas where we need more growth and development. Failing might feel uncomfortable but by perceiving it differently we can reap the benefits.

Dr Grange goes on to say that the best attitude to failure is the one that willingly invites it. 

So how do you willingly invite failure in your personal and professional life?

How about by daring to step out of your comfort zone and do the things you so much desire to do but some old fear or limiting belief has been holding you back. I still remember how terrified I was the day I walked into the chamber of commerce in 2012 to register my coaching practice.

What if I fail? What if I am not good enough?  I felt the fear and did it anyway.

I confess that I have made mistakes and have failed many times on my journey. I am human after all. However through it all I have learnt to face my fears, fully identify them, name them and check which ones are truly mine, and which ones I have inherited from parents and carers and the environment. This has allowed me to do some growing up, and let go of limiting beliefs and decisions around those fears. The result is that I fear less as Dr Grange entitles her book. My failures have been extremely beneficial.

Fear of failure can explain a plethora of human behaviours. It can explain why many avoid public speaking roles and why members of an organisation hesitate to engage in a new scheme or procedure. As a team manager and a coach my experiential understanding of this fear helped me to be more supportive of members in my team and my clients who happen to have a similar experience. I was better equipped to guide them to a place where they felt encouraged to take a chance.

I encourage you to explore your fears and beliefs around failure on your own or with the support of a coach or counsellor. Dare to step out of your comfort zone and do the things that you find most challenging in your personal life or your business.  And let go of the idea of being perfect. Perfectionism is boring. Instead look forward to making mistakes and failing because that is where the most growth and learning occurs. At some point you will succeed. Ultimately in life we win some and lose some. I certainly have not reached the end of the road yet. However I am enjoying every minute of the journey.

My journey to becoming a coach and a counsellor has given me so much more than I had anticipated. It has allowed me to experience the joy of finding myself, expanded my human experience, broadened my frame of reference, and increased my compassion and connection to others. It allowed me to transform pain into power, and poison into medicine as someone in my network once told me. I am very excited about sharing all of this knowledge and experience with others through my work.

As the saying goes “ it’s better to try and fail than fail to try”. Life is so much richer that way. My daughter’s attitude to setbacks constantly reminds me that we live and we learn.  She is always a winner in my eyes whether she makes it to the Olympics or not.

Survival Tips Through Conversations With My daughters

I have a close relationship with my daughters and in this challenging time we make up for this lengthy physical separation through regular group video calls. We have open conversations about what is happening in the world and how it is impacting our personal lives in our various locations. We give each other support and encouragement when one of us feels down. They are a continuous source of inspiration for me as I witness them navigating their lives during this crisis. In my role as a parent, I do what I can to support them drawing from my own life experience and from what I have learnt about human behaviour and change.

My eldest daughter, a science journalist, has been reporting on daily coronavirus news since the pandemic hit Europe in March 2020. While you and I can choose to take time out from the news of the pandemic, she as a reporter ends up facing these scary realities on a regular basis. She was the one who guided us through the sensible yet difficult decision not to meet at Christmas as originally planned. I was so moved by her sense of community and global responsibility in doing the right thing. Under the circumstances, she of course is working from home, away from the physical support of fellow colleagues and mentors.

On the other hand, my youngest was one of the students who did final university exams during the pandemic. Shortly before her graduation, the UK plunged into the March 2020 lockdown. The reality certainly did not meet her expectations of how her bachelors’ degree would come to an end. There was no graduation party or a celebratory conclusion to three years of hard work as is customary. Instead, we had an intimate celebration at home in our garden. Like many in her shoes, she is applying for jobs in an environment that she had not imagined in her wildest dreams. For people like her, staying positive and motivated can sometimes be a struggle. Here you are, armed with your degree, your fresh talents and skills, and your dreams but with nowhere to go. Frustrating! As she is also an elite athlete with a realistic possibility of going to the Olympics, the cancellation in 2020 was a blow. Now she and her fellow athletes are training hard for 2021, which could also face cancellation.

“We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope.”

– Martin Luther King, Baptist Minister & Activist.

How does one stay motivated in such an environment of uncertainty?
These are the tips that we collectively came up with during the many conversations that keep us motivated and lift our spirits up:

• When job applications do not lead anywhere then keep your thoughts realistic and avoid making hasty decisions about your personal capabilities. Realise that the world is facing an economic crisis that has a huge influence on recruitment and employment. The rejection does not define you. How you respond to the rejection and the lessons you choose to take from it can help shape you.

“Problems are not stop signs, they are guidelines.”

– Robert Schuller, Author & Motivational Speaker.

• Having a purpose is important in staying motivated so set yourself some weekly tasks to help you structure your week and avoid being purposeless. Getting up at a regular time in the day and getting dressed for the work you are planning to do can help with that structure.

“He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.”

– Friedrich Nietzsche, Philosopher

• Think skills and do some online workshops that teach you something new and different. It can also be something unrelated to your studies like learning how to code, a writing course, or painting, all good for your mental and emotional wellbeing.

• Stay connected with your peers so you realise that you are not alone. Sharing is caring and also a problem aired is a problem shared. This also allows you to offload to each other, exchange tips and ideas, and cheer each other up.

• Plan in some time out and away from your stressful daily job, where you can take walks in nature and disconnect from what is happening in the world for a short while. Choose to do this in your lunch break, especially in the winter months when the light is at its best at midday. Find some quiet, sit in stillness and breathe. Press the pause button on your problems. Everyone deserves a break. This can help to recharge and energise you.

• Start a journal, in which, you can write about your experiences and reflections. Difficult times teach us valuable life lessons that are important to record. Your thoughts and reflections might be an inspiration and motivation for others and you can look back one day and remind yourself of your strength and the challenges you have overcome.

• Last but not least remember that nothing is permanent and this time too shall pass.

“Sooner or later, every last echo fades. Even the loudest thunder in the deepest valley.”

– Brian K. Vaughan, Comic Book & Television Writer.

You Are Not Alone

 When I established my coaching practice nearly 10 years ago, I did not expect fear and anxiety to be the most common issues that my clients would present with. I remember my trainer saying, during one of my NLP certification courses, that, often we end up attracting the clients that experience the very issues that we ourselves have dealt with in our lives. As counsellors and coaches we can only take our clients as far as we have taken ourselves. As someone who has experienced fear and anxiety, I am able to understand and relate to my client’s experience. As someone who has gained understanding on how I create this state of mind and learned how to manage it, I am in a better position to support my clients in understanding and managing their own fears and anxieties. Persistence and patience are key here, as behavioural change is a gradual process.

 “The best way to not feel hopeless is to get up and do something. Don’t wait for good things to happen to you. If you go out and make some good things happen, you will fill the world with hope, you will fill yourself with hope.”
― Barack Obama, former president of the United States

 I have come to realise that the issue of fear and anxiety being so common is really not that surprising because it is the underlying cause of many other problems that clients struggle with. At the heart of low self- confidence is essentially fear of failure; at the core of avoiding relationships is fear of rejection, the act of shying from promotions could be linked to fear of presenting and public speaking; underneath social anxiety is fear of being judged; you please others at the cost of discounting yourself because of fear of being abandoned and hypochondria can be related to fear of death. The list of fears that underlies surface issues is endless. 

 Often fear and anxiety hold a person back from living an authentic and fulfilled life. I am reminded of a couple of clients that I worked with in the past. They both lived with and were held back by their respective fears. One suffered from fear of flying and the other from fear of small confined spaces. At some point an opportunity presented itself to each of them that meant getting on a plane and flying to an exotic location. They had the possibility to do something that they strongly desired and dreamed of but the fear formed a big obstacle in their way. However, their desire to live out the dream finally motivated them and gave them enough leverage to work on their fears and make a change. These were stories with happy endings.

 “Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.”
— Marie Curie, physicist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity

 Fear and anxiety can sometimes be so strong and paralysing that the person experiencing them can end up feeling confused and unable to perform simple tasks. One client I am supporting right now during these difficult times told me that they no longer recognise themselves, and so instead of reaching out to others for help, they shy away and isolate themselves, because of shame and embarrassment at letting others see who they have become. This isolation can take a person from being fearful and anxious to experiencing full-scale depression and even becoming suicidal. It can also put a great strain on their relationships. In such situations, conversations with a professional may be necessary and even life-saving.

 “Knowing is not enough. We must apply. Willing is not enough. We must do.”
― Bruce Lee, actor, martial artist and philosopher

 How proactive are you when it comes to your relationship with yourself and your relationships with others? Being proactive is now more important than ever before. Take action and check regularly on family members, friends or neighbours and ask how they are feeling. Do the same for yourself and monitor your thoughts and feelings frequently. Listen to yourself and others with compassion rather than judgment. If you deem it necessary then do reach out to a professional or advise others to take that necessary step. It might seem like a small and insignificant action to you, but it could mean the world to someone who is feeling alone and hopeless. Connection now is more important than ever and it can save lives.

 According to Bessel Van Der Kolk, a world-leading expert on traumatic stress and author of The Body Keeps The Score, being able to feel safe with other people is the single most important factor for maintaining mental health.  He also said that numerous studies of disaster response around the globe have shown that social support is the most powerful protection against becoming overwhelmed by stress and trauma. We are unable now to be there for each other physically, however we can still provide a lot of social support from a distance.

 “How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” – Anne Frank, a diarist and a victim of the Holocaust

Physical Lockdown Need Not Be Emotional Lockdown

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” -Viktor E. Frankl, neurologist, psychiatrist & a Holocaust survivor

 When I started my learning journey in Transactional Analysis a couple of years ago, as participants in those workshops we were encouraged to take part in a ritual. We started and ended each learning day with a “Check-in” and “Check-out”. This, it turned out, is a practice to teach us to pause and look inward, checking in on how we are really feeling at any given moment in time. We were then given the chance to “name” how we are feeling and process those feelings in a safe and supportive environment. Naturally some participants found it easier than others to engage in this practice. In the beginning I used to dislike this ritual. I viewed it as unnecessary and a waste of learning time. However in time, like the others, I learnt to appreciate and understand its value and importance.

 How are you feeling?

 When was the last time you asked someone this question and meant it? Or vice versa, when were you asked the same question from someone who genuinely wanted to know how you really felt and actively wanted to listen to your answer? The reality is that most of us engage in a meaningless ritual where we ask the question “How are you?” and expect the standard answer of “I’m fine.” We interact and look at each other, but sadly, we rarely take the time to see the person within the person.

 The lockdown is forcing many of us to slow down. Maybe that is not such a bad thing. Perhaps you can use this unexpected available time to pause and look inward. “Check in” on how you are feeling during this unprecedented time. Direct your focus for a while to your inner world instead of the external world and gather some very important information that you might have been missing previously. Check on your emotions, thoughts and feelings. You might then choose to name that feeling and share it with the other members of your household. You might choose to have an honest exchange about how you are each feeling at the moment. Even if you happen to be in lockdown on your own, the internet means that you can still reach out to a family member, a friend, a neighbour or anyone who might be in a vulnerable position and check on how they are feeling right now. Physical distancing does not necessarily mean social distancing as, thankfully, technology provides many possibilities that allow us to connect with others. You still have the possibility to reach out to others, especially if you know that they are alone and in need of support at this difficult time. Reach out, not only to talk, but also to listen without judgement and give each other the time and the compassion that you might not have bestowed on each other when life was fast and furious. Use this physical lockdown in order to free yourself from emotional lockdown.

“Everybody has a home team: It’s the people you call when you get a flat tyre or when something terrible happens. It’s the people who, near or far, know everything that’s wrong with you and love you anyways. These are your people, your middle-of-the-night, no-matter-what people.”
― Shauna Niequist, an author and a blogger.

 Why is it important for us to pay attention to how we feel? Why is it important to understand those feelings and feel comfortable in expressing them? More importantly, how many of us give ourselves permission to actually feel, let alone name those feelings? Instead, we distract ourselves from addressing our emotions and processing our feelings. 

“Emotional sickness is avoiding reality at any cost. Emotional health is facing reality at any cost”.  – M. Scott Peck, psychiatrist and best-selling author.

 Research has shown that emotions affect many aspects of our being. Emotions have an influence on our attention, memory and learning; our decision making process; our relationships; our health and our creativity. The evidence around us is plentiful. So imagine what you stand to lose if you ignore your emotions and deny them room to be expressed. 

“All learning has an emotional base.” – Plato, Greek philosopher

 The truth is that many people struggle with expressing their emotions or finding “feeling words”. A contributing factor could be the way we were brought up and the culture and society we were raised in. Sometimes the reasons relate back to traumatic life experiences that led us to shut down and protect ourselves from further hurt and pain. However keeping our emotions under lock and key can lead to the loss and impairment of all of the life skills that I listed above.

 Psychologically speaking there are four main emotions: Joy, Sadness, Fear and Anger. In some families and cultures, certain emotions are allowed and encouraged while others are frowned upon and discouraged. Sometimes this can be gender specific, “boys don’t cry” or “girls should be nice”.  Certain phrases allude to the prohibition of certain emotions: “Stiff upper lip”, “tough it out”, “Get over it”, “Don’t be so sensitive”, “Time to move on”, “Cry baby”, “don’t be so aggressive”, “Scaredy-cat” and so on. Therefore your life experience could mean that you end up finding it easy to express some emotions and difficult to express others.

 I grew up in a family and culture where expressing fear and sadness was acceptable and plentiful. However when it came to joy and anger the permissions to feel those emotions were different. Do you recall as a child how sometimes you can laugh your self-silly? I remember comments from grown ups shushing us laughing children with superstitious phrases that suggested doom scenarios if we laugh too much. Perhaps it was an attempt to bring order and reduce noise but hearing such comments repeatedly can certainly impact one’s freedom to express joy. Anger was another emotion that was frowned upon in the environment where I grew up. It was viewed as negative, aggressive and certainly unbecoming of a woman. Thankfully with everything that I have learnt and experienced in my adult years I now know that all emotions are important and okay to be expressed within a certain healthy framework. I am now able to express joy without reservation and I am still working on expressing healthy anger, the kind that sets boundaries and protects one from abuse. How were things for you growing up? Were you lucky enough to grow up in an environment that taught you early on the power of facing into, rather than avoiding, difficult emotions? Take a moment to reflect. 

“Emotional agility is a process that allows you to be in the moment, changing or maintaining your behaviours so that you can live in ways that align with your intentions and values. The process isn’t about ignoring difficult emotions and thoughts. It’s about holding those emotions and thoughts loosely, facing them courageously and compassionately, and then moving past them to make big things happen in your life.”– Susan David, Instructor in Psychology at Harvard University.

 Professor Marc Brackett, founder of the Yale Centre for Emotional Intelligence, said, after years of research in this area, that feelings are a source of information and they report what is happening within us in response to the internal and external events we are experiencing. He stresses the importance of being able to - or learning to- access that information and interpret what it’s telling us. This global crisis that we are experiencing right now must be bringing up very strong emotions for many of us and with the absence of the external distractions we are no longer able to avoid these emotions. I invite you instead to face them, name them, be curious about the information that they carry about the things you care about and be creative about how you can find ways to process those emotions and stay grounded.

 Yes we are in physical lockdown but we need not be in emotional lockdown. Stop standing guard at the door to your emotions and give yourself permission to feel. Below is a list of resources in case you want to explore this topic further. You have now the time to make a change.

 Emotional Agility by Susan David

Permission to Feel by Professor Marc Brackett

When Panic Attacks by Dr David Burn 

7 Tips to Stay Calm in this Frantic Time

working from home

We all at some point in our lives probably experienced fear and anxiety. At the moment with what has been happening in our world we are all probably worried, anxious and afraid. Some of us might even be experiencing panic attacks. I thought it might be useful to share a few tips that might help you manage your emotions in order to stay more calm and rational in these difficult and unprecedented times.

 “If you’re always focused on what you can’t control you’re going to feel overwhelmed. You’re going to feel fearful. You’re going to feel frustrated. You’re going to feel stressed. You’ve got to focus on what you can control, not what you can’t control.” -  Tony Robbins, Author, public speaker, life coach.

 1- Cognitive technique

As cognitive theories have explained, our feelings reflect our thoughts. So one way of managing how we feel would be to manage our thoughts. Often fear and anxiety result from distorted and illogical thoughts. At the moment we are constantly interpreting what is happening and this process happens without our awareness. Our thoughts just flow through our minds and create powerful and strong positive or negative emotions. Therefore if you were feeling anxious and afraid at the moment then I would invite you to take a step back and check on the kind of things that you are telling yourself. What kind of thoughts are you engaging in that are leading to your feelings of fear and anxiety? Once you become aware of those thoughts then take each thought one at a time and check on how realistic and true it is. What is the evidence if any that supports it? This will hopefully lead you to separate between neurotic fear and healthy fear. 

 “The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another. “ -  William James, philosopher & psychologist

 2- Fantasy versus reality

Why is it that some people are more vulnerable to feeling fear and anxiety as compared to others? This relates to your imagination and the fantasies you might be creating that are leading to your fear and panic. One technique that helps bring these fantasies or horror scenarios into your awareness is the “What If” technique. The way it’s done is by starting with a negative thought that you may have and writing it down then you draw an arrow underneath it and ask yourself “what if this were true, what’s the worst thing that can happen?” A new fantasy will pop into your mind. Write it down under the arrow and continue asking yourself the same question and repeat several times until it will lead you to the core fear that is triggering your fears. Knowing your core fear can help you process it and hopefully arrive at a healthier way of managing and thus avoid panic. For example, my daughters are in a different country to me at the moment and my core fear is that one or both of them might get seriously ill and have no one as caring as their mother to look after them. If I stay with this thought it can drive me insane. However, I challenge it with the reality that they are with their partners and friends who are as loving and as caring as myself. This new thought diffuses my fear immediately.

 “To experience peace does not mean that your life is always blissful. It means that you are capable of tapping into a blissful state of mind amidst the normal chaos of a hectic life. “ Jill Bolte Taylor, neuroanatomist, author & public speaker.

 3- Compassion technique

The reality is that most of us are kinder to others than we are to ourselves. This technique invites you to talk to yourself the way you might talk encouragingly and kindly to a family member or a friend who is having anxious, depressive and negative thoughts. Be willing to talk to yourself in the same compassionate way that you use with others.

 “Choose to be optimistic. It feels better. “ - Dalai Lama, spiritual leader.

 4- Virtual community

Stay connected, as physical isolation these days, thanks to technology, does not mean emotional and mental isolation. Use the various means available to you to get in touch online with friends, family, work colleagues and your coach or therapist. There is plenty to choose from: Zoom, Skype, FaceTime, WhatsApp, Messenger, Linkedin, Instagram and so on. Through technology we can be there for each other virtually if not physically and support each other and feel a certain degree of comfort. All my group activities have moved online plus I regularly do a group video call with my daughters and my sisters and feel very happy and comforted after such calls.

 5- Mind your language

If there was ever a time to pay attention to your words then it is now. Your brain is always actively listening so make sure your language is clean so you can re-enforce a positive and enabling attitude at all times. We are constantly engaging in self-talk so bring that internal dialogue into your awareness and choose your words carefully. Some words and phrases will enable you and others will bring you down. Instead of saying “Quarantine is going to drive me crazy”, you can say “Now I will have the opportunity to do the re-organising that I never had time to do before”. We are all forced to slow down. Look at this time as an opportunity to start a new hobby like writing or meditating. Engage in a family activity like sorting and looking at old photos. Be creative and use this time to reflect and perhaps make some important changes in the way you have been living your life.

“ A different language is a different vision of life. “ - Federico Fellini, film director & screenwriter.

 6- Exercise

We know that regular exercise helps release happy hormones so do it daily. You don’t need a gym as you can do fitness anywhere, even indoors. Dancing, skipping, hoola-hooping , yoga or running up the stairs several times. There are many videos again online that can give you creative ideas on how to stay fit indoors so keep on moving.

 7- Humour

Don’t forget to laugh as laughter teaches us something that words can only allude to. When you laugh you stop taking your self so seriously and therefore can see the absurdity of your fears and distorted thinking. Laughter delivers a message of self acceptance as well as acceptance of others. There have been a lot of funny videos and captions being passed around online at this difficult time and some have made me laugh till tears came rolling down my face. Laughter still remains the best medicine!

 “The human race has only one really effective weapon and that is laughter. “ -Mark Twain, writer.

 I hope you find these tips helpful. If you have any other ideas then please share in the comments. Stay safe and calm in this frantic time.

To Volunteer Or Not To Volunteer, That Is The Question.

I joined ACCESS as a volunteer in December 2018. At that time I had recently separated from my partner of 30 years and was going through mediation and divorce proceedings. I also saw my youngest daughter off to University in the UK where her older sister had gone some years before her. In addition, the coaching practice that I had established six years earlier was going through a stagnant period due to the lack of attention I had been giving it. I found myself at a loss as to what to do and where to start. So I did what I always did in the past in such life situations. I started volunteering.

 “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.” — Mahatma Gandhi, Lawyer & anti colonial nationalist

 Through volunteering at ACCESS, a non-for-profit organisation that offers guidance and support to Internationals arriving in the Netherlands, I instantly found myself thrust into a community of like-minded people. Two days a week, I woke up and had a sense of purpose. This unlocked my brain’s creative channels, which had been blocked from recent negative emotional experiences. A month into my volunteering role I soon discovered that, as a coach, I can join the ACCESS Trainers network which plunged me into yet another community of entrepreneurs who were facing similar challenges to me and willing to exchange skills and support one another.

Seven weeks into my volunteering I moved to The Hague International Centre, which is part of the many expat centres in the country that ACCESS serves. I loved the face-to-face support that we as volunteers were providing there. Furthermore, working alongside the Dutch municipality staff was an added bonus as I was trying to grow and develop my Dutch language skills to a higher level.

 In July of that year, I became Project Manager at THIC. Through networking events I attended via the ACCESS community, such as Rise and Lead, a yearly event to advance women in leadership, I connected with Stephanie Ward, a business and marketing mentor, who was instrumental in supporting me and offering guidance that got my coaching business again off the ground.

 For some people volunteering may conjure negative images of unworthiness and lack of appreciation. On the contrary, I have found that volunteering has huge benefits to my mental and physical wellbeing as well as leading to new and sometimes, unexpected, career opportunities.

 “Volunteers don’t get paid, not because they’re worthless, but because they’re priceless.” – Sherry Anderson, Author

 Before completing the year at ACCESS I moved from a position of wondering what could I do, to a place of feeling involved, productive and content. I had a sense of purpose and a goal. Gratitude plays a huge role in volunteering work. I was grateful for the connections and friends that I made and the networks I became part of, not to mention the personal fulfilment that I felt at playing a part, however small, in an organisation that made a positive contribution to the lives of others.

“Remember that the happiest people are not those getting more, but those giving more.” ― H. Jackson Brown Jr., Author

 Research has revealed that volunteering has many health and social benefits. Belonging to a group and regularly interacting with people can increase your lifespan, strengthen your immune system and fight off depression. Volunteering can also sharpen your mind because you are constantly learning new ways of doing and being. I personally don’t need research to prove to me the benefits of volunteering as I have experienced it first hand on many occasions in my life.

 “You give but little when you give of your possessions.  It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.” – Kahlil Gibran, writer & Philiospher

 My job at ACCESS was not the first time I did volunteer work. My first experience with volunteering was in my early twenties in the UK when I took on a voluntary summer job as part of the work experience demanded by my Pharmacy degree. As I was an overseas student at the time I was not allowed to get a paid job. This volunteer summer job led me to secure a year’s internship that I was required to do after graduation in order to become a member of the pharmaceutical society and thereby practice as a pharmacist in Great Britain. During that internship I developed a great friendship with my mentor whose advice and guidance led me to secure my first paid job as a pharmacist at St Thomas’s hospital in London, where I worked for the next 5 years. That first volunteer job cascaded into a sequence of positive events that were very beneficial to me on a personal and professional level.

 “It’s easy to make a buck.  It’s a lot tougher to make a difference. ” – Tom Brokaw, Journalist

 The next opportunity for volunteering came my way when I was married and a first time mum in Aberdeen in Scotland. I decided to become a stay at home mum and take a career break. Unknown to me I was suffering from postnatal depression and, at the suggestion of a neighbour, I started attending a toddler group where mothers gathered with their children and created together a fun and playful time for the children and an opportunity for stay-at-home parents to bond and be part of a community. Volunteers, who were amongst the parents that attended, ran it. At some point when a volunteer was needed to continue running this group I put my name forward. I realised how helpful the group had been in combating my depression and I wanted to do my part to support other parents who might have been in a similar situation to mine. My daughter and I experienced happy times in the two years that I volunteered there and made lasting friendships.

 “We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.” — Winston Churchill, Politician

 Later on, in Oman, volunteering called again and I became a member of an information centre that was part of the Global Shell Petroleum network, which supported internationals relocating to and from Oman. Through this volunteer work, I learnt new skills and made great friendships, while making the transition of relocating to a new country easier for others.

 When back in the Netherlands, and shortly before I started with ACCESS, another opportunity to volunteer came up. This time it was in a municipal organisation that was set up to help with refugees following the war in Syria. I was one of many who gave some of their free time to supporting refugees with the settling-in process in this new country that was offering them a safe home away from their war-torn country. It was a very humbling experience.

 Should you ever be faced with the question of to volunteer or not to volunteer, I would invite you to consider saying yes.  Perhaps, like me, you might experience health and social benefits as well as developing personally and professionally.

Your Past Could Hold The Key To Unlock Your Future

Many of my clients tell me at some point during our intake session that they don’t want to look back at their past, that they just want to shut the door on the past and never look back. For whatever reason, they have a great fear with regards reflecting on their past. 

 “I just want to move on”, they often say to me.

 However in some situations, just like driving a car, to move forward you need to glance backwards, to make sure that no obstacles are in the way.

 “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.“

Søren Kierkegaard, Philosopher

 There is no denying that sometimes examining the past can be painful. However, sometimes the issues that we take to a coach, counsellor or therapist can be deep rooted in our past.  Reflecting on the past, as painful as it might be, will most probably be less painful than suppressing it and pretending it’s not there.

 “The past is never where you think you left it.”

Katherine Anne Porter, Writer

 When we want to just shut the door on the past we might be in denial of the suffering that this past is causing us today and maybe by not processing it we may end up carrying that suffering into our future. 

 “We are products of our past, but we don't have to be prisoners of it.”

Rick Warren, Author

 What I usually tell my clients is to have courage and to be brave. To dare to look back at the past, because this time, they will be looking at it from a grounded ‘here and now’ place. They will be looking at it with a new lens and a fresh perspective.

 “Study the past if you would define the future.”

Confucius, Philisopher

 This healthy way of reflecting on the past will allow them to gather knowledge and arm themselves with important lessons from their past.

By shutting the door on the past we are missing out on a wealth of resources that can help us navigate our present and in turn our future.

 “We leave something of ourselves behind when we leave a place; we stay there, even though we go away. And there are things in us that we can find again only by going back there.”

Pascal Mercier, Philosopher

 By looking and learning from our past we can discover how to make the necessary changes so our past doesn’t necessarily equal our future.

 Personally, it’s not the thought of looking at my past that I find scary, rather the idea of walking into my future without the back up knowledge and wisdom from my past.

 “My scars remind me that I did indeed survive my deepest wounds. That in itself is an accomplishment. And they bring to mind something else, too. They remind me that the damage life has inflicted on me has, in many places, left me stronger and more resilient. What hurt me in the past has actually made me better equipped to face the present.”

Steve Goodier, Writer

 I always invite my clients to let go of their fear of the past as it maybe holding them back from making the changes that they desire in their life.  To let go of fear and experience true freedom.

 “Everything has a past; everything; a person, an object, a word; everything. If you don’t know the past, you can’t understand the present and plan properly for the future.”

Chaim Potok, Author

What Does Your Favourite Food Say About You?

Shortly before the commencement of module two, during my exciting journey of learning Transactional Analysis, our trainer, Rosemary Napper, asked us to go back in time to when we were six or seven years old and recall what was our favourite food. We were then to bring enough of this favourite food to the training session that weekend to allow each member of our group to taste a small portion. We were not to talk or discuss this amongst ourselves beforehand and wait till the designated day and time when we will share this food together in a planned exercise.

I was intrigued. In module two we were going to explore in more detail The Child Ego State. Shortly after reading Rosemary’s WhatsApp instructions I immediately rubberbanded to the age of six years old. I was living with my paternal grandmother, whom I called Teita,in Tripoli, Lebanon. Two memories came to mind connected with two of my favourite foods from that time.

My first memory was of Teita making us Riz Bil Haleeb (the Lebanese take on rice pudding). I remember that it took an awfully long time to make and involved endless standing by the stove and stirring the milk, rice and sugar mixture for hours on end. My two cousins, Teita and myself would take turns to stir the pot, each of us putting in their share of the work, while chatting about nothing and everything. This went on until the mixture thickened and Teita was satisfied that it was the right consistency. At this point Teita would take half of it and pour it equally into ready set dessert bowls, which will be cooled down first at room temperature then in the fridge. The other half she would then pour into a round metal tray and bake in the oven until golden brown. In the meantime we were allowed to scrape and eat bits of the delicious sticky pudding that clung to the pot after all these hours of stirring. It was heavenly delicious!

My second memory was of waking up early in the morning to a faint sweet smell that wafted into the bedroom from the kitchen. I would get out of bed and, like someone in a trance, would walk and follow the trail of smell into the kitchen where I would find Teita standing at the stove and dipping her right hand into a gooey batter that she had prepared the night before, and squeeze a ball of it through her fist, scooping the ball with a spoon with her left hand and lowering it into in a pan with hot oil where it would sizzle for few minutes. Once the ball turned golden brown Teita would scoop it up with a slotted spoon and dip it in sugar syrup before it was finally set on a serving plate. These were called Awamat, a word that literally means floats, since the balls were airy, light and crispy. They were to be eaten while still warm and tasted out of this world! This also took some time, during which I would watch Teita skilfully do her job while chatting to her amicably. Soon my cousins would wake up and we would all sit together and enjoy these sweet dumplings made with love.

Remembering those two favourite foods and playing those memories in my mind’s eye like a movie, brought on an unexpected flood of tears. It reminded me of what a loving, nurturing and giving woman my grandmother was and how much sharing and caring happened while we cooked and ate together. I wondered whether my love of sweet things, especially if they were home made, had anything to do with these childhood experiences.

The day came when we were finally allowed to reveal, talk about and share our favourite foods from the age of six or seven years old. Not so surprisingly we shared more than just food. We shared also sensitive memories with a huge emotional content that brought on floods of tears or roars of laughter. For some of us the food symbolised a statement about our individuality and personal freedom. For others it linked to family dynamics, conflict and even rebellion. For some it was about health and vitality, and for others about love and connection. The huge range of emotions that were connected to our favourite food amazed me.

Interestingly, later that evening, my daughter and I met and ate at a restaurant nearby and to my amazement I had no desire whatsoever to have a dessert. Surprising because I almost always want to have dessert. I usually skip the starter and sometimes half of my main meal in order to sample the dessert. Not wanting to have a sweet treat that evening was extremely unusual for me, and it made me think whether there was any connection to what we explored in that exercise about our favourite food earlier that afternoon.

For as long as I remember I had a sweet tooth. I love to discover and taste desserts or sweet treats from around the world, especially if they are home made. There is a feel good factor involved for me in this ritual. I only understood this feel good factor when I did the exercise with the group under the guidance of our group leader Rosemary. I understood that somehow on a deep emotional level my love for sweets was entangled with my feelings of being loved, cared for, nurtured and protected by my grandmother. A mouthful of homemade cake was a dose of Teita’s love. I also realised that in my life I was and still am demonstrating similar behaviour to Teita’s around cooking and sharing with my loved ones. My chocolate brownies have been baked and shared a hundred times and more, on many happy occasions and with many family members, friends and acquaintances. I am spreading the love.

What to eat or not to eat was never an issue for me until I reached menopause and discovered that the upheaval in my hormonal balance meant paying close attention to what I put into my body. This meant not being able to indulge in eating sweet things the way I used to. My head understood this but my soul struggled with it. After doing the exercise in module two, I had a deeper understanding of the reasons behind my struggle. This understanding helped me gain more control over the amount of sweet treats I consume. It was no longer a struggle but a conscious choice. I wonder how many people out there have such an emotional connection with food and what exploring that connection will mean to their lifestyle.

Therefore I invite you to do the same exercise. Take a moment and go back in time to when you were six or seven years old. What was your favourite food then? How did you eat it? When did you eat? Did you eat alone? Or did you eat it with others? What do you love about it? Do you still love it and eat it in the here and now? You don’t need to explore this alone. You can do it with friends and have them also bring a sample of their favourite food. Taste theirs and let them taste yours. Share the stories, memories and discoveries connected with your favourite food. Explore and have fun together. Who knows what you will discover and what changes this might bring into other aspects of your life.

Can a simple card game teach you something about your relationships?

During my second module, studying Transactional Analysis at TA Works with Rosemary Napper, I learnt about Strokes. This newly acquired knowledge gave me so much insight into the way we conduct our relationships with others and with ourselves.

So what are ‘Strokes’ exactly?

 Eric Berne defined a stroke as a unit of human recognition. The word stroke came about after Rene Spitz observed through a study he conducted that infants reared with a lot of physical stimulation fared better than infants who were deprived of such stimulation. The word ‘stroke’ refers to an infant’s need for physical stimulation. As grown ups we still crave such physical stimulation but we learn to substitute other forms of recognition in place of the physical. Therefore, a stroke can be a smile or a frown, a nod, a look, a hand gesture, a spoken word, a compliment, or a touch. As humans, we desperately seek strokes from others. Berne called this need “Stroke Hunger.” Hence, we do what we do in life in order to be stroked and we learn about ourselves from the strokes that we get.

Types of Strokes

Strokes can be positive, experienced by the person receiving them as pleasant or pleasurable. Strokes can also be negative, experienced as being painful. A stroke can be verbal or non-verbal. A smile is a non-verbal stroke, but saying to someone, “Have a good day” is a verbal stroke.

Strokes can also be unconditional or conditional. Unconditional strokes are those directed at what you are, your being. Conditional strokes are those directed at what you do or accomplish. When you say, “I love you” to your son/daughter you provide him/her with an unconditional stroke. When your child wins a race at the school sports day and you shout,” Well Done!” you are providing him/her with a conditional stroke because you are referring to something they have done or accomplished.

Unconditional strokes are a very rich kind of strokes and children who grow up in an environment where they receive a lot of positive unconditional strokes really thrive. The same is also observed with adults who receive a lot of positive unconditional strokes. On the other hand, negative unconditional strokes are extremely harmful since they convey the message that the recipient is not OK. If a person is subjected repeatedly to such a pattern of strokes early in childhood, he/she can end up with a negative impression of self and can have low self-esteem and self worth.

Conditional positive strokes recognise something we do and can fulfil an important need. It is necessary for parents to give conditional strokes as it helps guide a child to what is acceptable or unacceptable behaviour. However, as the name suggests, they are given on condition. Therefore, if a person feels that in order to get the positive stroke he or she has to do certain things or behave in a certain way or the stroke is withdrawn, then the stroke can become limiting because the relationship becomes more about pleasing the other and, therefore, less spontaneous. For example, a child who only gets recognition for doing well at school might perceive that he/she are only loved by the parents when they do well at school and that the love might be withdrawn if they fail.

The above are all examples of external strokes, those we receive from others. In addition we can have internal strokes, those we experience within ourselves like fantasies, self-talk, self-praise or self-criticism and other forms of self-stimulation.

The ideal scenario is to always receive positive strokes. However in reality that is not the case, and so we are sometimes faced with the choice of receiving negative strokes or no strokes at all. Usually our hunger for strokes means that receiving negative strokes is better than no strokes at all. This links to why children who feel unheard or unseen by parents misbehave in order to get attention, even if it is negative, as any attention is better than no attention at all. It is good to mention here that stroking reinforces the behaviour which is stroked.

Rosemary has an interesting way of representing these different types of strokes by using playing cards.

Positive Unconditional strokes for Being
- The Hearts

Negative Unconditional strokes for Being
- The Clubs

Positive Conditional strokes for Doing
- The Diamonds

Negative Conditional strokes for Doing
- The Spades

Listening to Rosemary explain all that about strokes, got me thinking about all the stages in my life and, hence, I started reflecting on the kind of strokes I received growing up. I also thought about the “here” and “now” and the kind of strokes I give and receive as a partner, a mother, a work colleague, and a friend. I also wondered about the kind of strokes other people close to me have enjoyed or endured in their lifetime, and what was the effect of that experience on their way of relating and communicating. Furthermore coming from and having been raised in different cultural backgrounds I also wondered on the influence of culture on strokes. I realised that, growing up, I received more strokes for doing than being and that hunger that I had for receiving strokes for being made me the kind of person who gives lots of strokes for being. It also had an influence on my good performance at school and being generally “a good girl” because it got me the recognition strokes I craved even though they were conditional rather than unconditional.

Take a moment and think about your childhood. What kind of strokes did you receive growing up? Was it for being, doing, both or none? Then come back to the present and reflect on the kinds of strokes that you give to and receive from those in your circle. What is also of interest here is what kind of strokes do you give yourself? See what you can learn and discover and perhaps even change.

The next thing we did in this module was the following exercise, which I also urge you to do, because it will reveal even more about your relationships. Rosemary asked each one of us to think about a particular person with whom we have regular contact, at work or a personal level, and reflect on the kind of strokes that we give to this person. We were asked to represent this by holding a deck of cards of various suits that best reflected those kinds of strokes in our left hand. Next we were asked to reflect on the kind of strokes that we in turn perceived to receive from that person and again represent this by holding a deck of cards with the various suits that best reflected those strokes in our right hand. Then we took a look at the deck of cards we held in each hand and made comparisons. We discussed our findings in groups of two. So go ahead and think of a person in your life and repeat this exercise. Now take a look at the cards you are holding in each hand and compare them. What do you learn about the way you relate to that person?

We can’t talk about strokes without mentioning the work done by Claude Steiner in this area. Steiner suggests that while we are growing up, our stroking habits are greatly influenced by our parents who pass on the following unwritten rules about the exchange of strokes:

• Don’t give strokes you want to give.

• Don’t ask for strokes you want.

• Don’t accept strokes you want.

• Don’t reject strokes you don’t want.

• Don’t give yourself strokes.

Steiner refers to these rules as The Stroke Economy. I mentioned the influence of culture earlier on and here my attention is drawn to the last point “Don’t give yourself strokes.”, because I notice that some cultures particularly encourage it and other cultures frown upon it and discourage it.

Gaining knowledge and becoming aware of our habitual patterns of exchanging strokes can be greatly beneficial. For example, developing awareness of why you might find it easy to give strokes for doing but struggle to give strokes for being, or why someone might have a tendency to accept or tolerate negative strokes or why some find it difficult to ask for the strokes they need, can be enlightening. Making sense of all this can be freeing and can enhance the quality of our relationships with others and with the self.

I will end with what Steiner writes in his book, Emotional Literacy:

“One of the most important discoveries I made in 20 years I have been teaching emotional literacy is that by systematically breaking the rules of the Stroke Economy and providing people with a steady diet of positive strokes, people’s hearts will automatically open. They will experience loving feelings they have not before experienced and the effect will spread out from them to their families and friends. I have seen many people (myself among them) develop their loving capacities over time, simply by giving strokes, asking for strokes, accepting the strokes they want, rejecting the ones they don’t want, and giving themselves strokes.”

So take some time to figure out your stroking profile. Use the game cards to help you discover what you can keep or change in order to communicate and relate more effectively with yourself and others.

My Story With Self-Esteem

“ No way” said the lady incredulously, “She can’t be your daughter!”

“Yes, she is,” insisted my stepmother, looking a bit uncomfortable.

“Then why is she abdeh and you are not?” retorted the lady smugly.

Abdeh is an Arabic word that literally means a slave. It is the word that ignorantly was and perhaps still is sometimes used to mean black.

These were the kinds of encounters that I repeatedly experienced during my childhood and teenage years in Lebanon in the 1970s. Sometimes instead of my stepmother, it would be one of my half sisters being challenged. It was understandable as I was black and the rest of my family members were white. Without my Ghanaian mother’s presence in my life, strangers outside our family could not figure out the connection.

It is then not really surprising that I grew up feeling like I didn’t belong. I stood out even amongst my own flesh and blood, the only kid with black skin and frizzy hair. My parents divorced when I was a baby and my paternal grandmother, whom I called Teita, brought me up in The Lebanon.

Even when I later moved to live briefly in Ghana for few years, this common scenario still took place as I lived within a Lebanese community. I remember a particular time when Baba, (dad in Arabic), took the whole family swimming at the pool at Tesano Sports Club, just outside Accra. You had to have had membership to use the pool and dad was a member. As always the person at the reception looked at the whole family and spotted me, the odd one out, and pointing at me said to Baba,

“Who is that?”

It was often assumed that I was, perhaps, the maid and it was against club policy to admit maids . Usually Baba would patiently explain that I was his daughter. This question always brought an awkward feeling in everyone, especially me. It was a constant reminder of my difference. On this particular occasion Baba just lost it and screamed at the receptionist for asking such a stupid question. I think dad felt bad at the fact that I had to endure such an inquisition on so many occasions when we went out as a family. But by screaming and attracting more attention he actually made me feel worse. I remember vividly the scene at the entrance to the club with all seven of us standing there patiently. The children looking longingly at the shimmering and inviting blue water of the swimming pool, which was in full view from the reception area. Baba was shouting at the top of his voice and various people entering the club looked at us disapprovingly. I wanted the earth to open and swallow me up.

That is why when I got older I often volunteered the information to save everyone feeling awkward or guilty and pretended in the meantime that it didn’t hurt and that I could handle it. This was a theme that stayed with me for most of my life, pretending not to be hurt by other people’s actions and insensitivities. No one needed to know how I felt inside. I cared more about protecting others from pain than acknowledging my own emotions.

Somehow these experiences made me feel inferior. I was the ugly duckling amongst the swans. I truly believed that I was ugly, that I was beyond hope. So much so that I dared not look in the mirror in public lest I was ridiculed. As there wasn’t much that I could do about my physical appearance in order to blend in, I just accepted it. However I could do something about my mind. I focused on my studies and as a result did very well at school.

The brief time I lived in Ghana at least made me realise that there were a lot of people out there who looked like me. I wasn’t that inferior after all.

I always felt that people looked at me and all they could see was my black skin and frizzy hair. They did not linger enough to discover the girl within. Remember, it was still the 1970s and black identity and pride was still in its infancy.   I don’t know how the child in me coped with that rejection. I just buried those emotions deep in the dark centre of my core and denied them entry into the light at the surface. It was easier that way.

Perhaps that was the reason that I became someone who was eager to please in order to be loved and accepted. I did a lot for others and in the process neglected my own needs. So much so that after sometime I had no idea what my own desires were. Later in life when I read so many psychology and therapy books in order to make sense of my experience, I always found it difficult to answer questions such as “What do you want?” and “What makes you happy?” I had no clue, since I never ever put myself first in any situation.

It was a lot later in my life, at the age of 36, when I was already married and a mother that I began the journey of finding who I truly am.

My story is not unique and there are many young people today who because of gender, sexual orientation, religious beliefs or physical appearance, feel unaccepted or have a sense of not belonging. As children if we repeatedly hear verbalised or non-verbalised messages about ourselves while growing up, we eventually internalise these messages and accept them as the truth. These internalised messages become the pillars on which our self-esteem rests. We start comparing ourselves to others and start doubting ourselves. We start valuing other people’s opinion of ourselves more than our own. In today’s world of social media this becomes 100 times worse.

In his book Emotional First Aid, Guy Winch writes the following: “Having low self-esteem is akin to having a weak emotional immune system: it renders us more vulnerable to many of the psychological injuries we sustain in daily life, such as failure and rejection, Further, people, with low self-esteem are often less happy, more pessimistic, and less motivated than their higher-self-esteem counterparts. They also have much worse moods; they face a greater risk of depression, anxiety, and eating disorders; and they experience their relationships as less fulfilling than people with higher self-esteem do.” Therefore, low self-esteem is one of the reasons for the rise in depression and eating disorders amongst teens and young people today.

Through learning NLP all those years ago, I was introduced to some tools and techniques that slowly helped build up my self-esteem, and as a result I began to feel more confident and assertive. I began to believe in myself and in my abilities. I dare say that NLP unlocked the key to my happiness. In this blog I would like to share what NLP taught me about self-esteem.

Change your beliefs about yourself
Beliefs are really powerful. They can drive you to the heights of success or drag you down to the depths of despair and failure. Your beliefs, especially about yourself, are formed in all kinds of unconscious ways. I believed that I was bad at mental arithmetic because of a comment from a teacher. As a child when you hear such a comment you delete any opportunities you may have had to learn to be good at anything, be it arithmetic, drawing, singing or dancing. After all, you were told that you couldn’t be good at it. Beliefs begin as a tiny seed in your mind and with time you begin to find instances which validate them. Over a period of time the seed grows to become a concrete belief that you live by. In NLP we say that one must choose their beliefs carefully because they have a tendency to become self-fulfilling prophecies. Start questioning those beliefs about yourself. Are they really true? Are they your own beliefs or have others imposed them on you? I find Byron Katie’s four questions quite useful for challenging beliefs:

1. Is it true?

2. Can you absolutely know that it is true?

3. How do you react, what happens, when you believe that thought?

4. Who would you be without the thought?

As a child I was lead to believe that my Afro hair was unsightly. For years I did all kinds of horrible chemical treatments to smooth it out. Now I leave it as God intended and happen to believe that it’s gorgeous!

Stop defining yourself by what others think or say.
Generally, what someone says about you says more of him or her than it says of you. In NLP we say Perception is Projection. The idea of this comes from the psychologist Carl Jung who said that what we perceive is who we are. In other words, people are not so much perceiving the external world as they are projecting what they carry inside out onto the world around them. So those who perceive you to be insecure are projecting their own reality about themselves on you. So what others do and how they act is their choice, just as much as how you perceive their actions is your choice.

Individuals have all the resources they need to achieve their desired outcomes.
In other words, everyone has the potential to change develop and grow. Self-esteem is a habit: through repeated negative experiences we acquire the low-self-esteem habit and if we do not take action we will be stuck in it for the rest of our lives. Instead we can learn a new habit, the high self-esteem habit. This can be achieved by changing our habitual way of thinking. How? First, we must become aware of our internal dialogue and pay attention to our negative self-talk and self put-downs. We can then replace those with more positive internal dialogue and affirmations. Model someone in your circle who has a good sense of self-esteem and observe how they act and get information about the kind of self-talk they engage in. I bet they don’t say phrases like: “I am such a loser!” or “No one cares about me!” and the like. If they can do it so can you.

Celebrate your uniqueness              
As Ellen DeGeneres said, “What makes you different right now, makes you stand out later in life. So you should be proud of being different. Proud of who you are. ″    
 
Through NLP I finally understood, that in order to be loved I need to love myself first; and to be able to bring up children with high self-esteem I need to experience first hand what that feels like. The fairy tale is true. The ugly duckling can indeed change into a beautiful swan.

What Influences Your Communication?

I first came face to face with Transactional Analysis about 6 years ago at a networking event where Jacqueline van Gent from TA denhaag, gave a short talk about the topic. I remember sitting amongst the audience listening to her talk about ego states and life script and something just clicked into place. What I heard her say made so much sense in my world, and it was there and then that I decided I wanted to learn more about TA.

The opportunity to start learning TA finally came round last October when I attended an Introduction to a TA workshop in Oxford, TA101, given by Rosemary Napper from TA Works. During that long weekend, I started my journey of learning about Eric Berne’s theories relating to human behaviour and became more and more intrigued.

So what is Transactional Analysis (TA)?

Transactional Analysis, like NLP, is a model for understanding human personality, relationships and communication. It was first developed by the late Eric Berne, MD. To put it more simply, Transactional Analysis is a method for studying interactions between human beings.

In his book Games People Play, Eric Berne described a transaction as “A unit of social intercourse. If two or more people encounter each other . . . sooner or later, one of them will speak, or give an indication of acknowledging the presence of the others. This is called transactional stimulus. Another person will then say or do something which is in some way related to the stimulus, and that is called the transactional response.”

Like NLP, which rests on a set of presuppositions, TA rests upon certain philosophical assumptions. These assumptions are:

• People are OK.
  This is the most fundamental assumption of TA. It means that you and I both have worth, value and dignity. I may not like your behaviour but will always accept who you are. Your essence as a human being is OK with me even though your behaviour may not be acceptable to me. This is very similar to the presupposition in NLP which says that you are not your behaviour; you must accept the person even though you may reject their behaviour.

• Everyone has the capacity to think.
  Again, this relates to another NLP presupposition which states that, each person has the resources they need available to them at the time. TA states that it is the responsibility of each of us to decide what we want from life and we will each ultimately live with the consequences of those decisions.

• People decide their own destiny, and these decisions can be changed.
  In other words, if we have been following strategies or acting on decisions that we have taken in the past that no longer serve us then we are not stuck, and we can change those decisions at any moment in our lives. TA, like NLP, believes that people can change. If at some point in our lives we realise that the decisions we made about ourselves in the past no longer represent who we are or what we want from life then we can make some changes. These changes can be achieved by first, gaining insight (referred to as awareness in NLP) and then, taking actions to change those old patterns and adopt new ones. These changes can be real and lasting. In NLP we say that if you are doing something and it’s not yielding the results you want then it’s time to do things differently.

The Ego-State Model

In TA the analysis of transactions relies heavily on the use of the ego-state model. This model is used to help explain how communication takes place – or, sometimes, fails to take place.

Berne defined an ego-state as “a consistent pattern of feeling and experience directly related to a corresponding consistent pattern of behaviour.” In other words an ego-state is a set of related behaviours, thoughts and feelings that make up our personality at a given time. Berne devised this model after treating and observing hundreds of patients during his practice as a psychiatrist in California in the 1950’s.

Berne observed that a person could behave, think and feel in a way that is copied from their parent or parental figures. He referred to this as the Parent ego-state. Alternatively, a person could behave, think and feel as they did during their childhood. He called this the Child ego-state. He identified a third way of acting and that involves behaviours, thoughts and feelings from the here and now and this he called the Adult ego-state. Therefore we can behave from three different ego-states, The Parent, The Adult or The Child. In some literature, the ego-state model is referred to as the PAC model.

Transactional Analysis suggests that we shift between these three distinct ego states during our interactions with others. This shift is influenced by what is going on around us at the time, who we are communicating with and the ego state they happen to be in.

The purpose of using TA is to gain autonomy and to realise our full potential as grown-ups. To gain autonomy we need to update the old strategies and decisions that we made as infants or children and adopt new ones. In NLP, we say “reprogramming” ourselves so we can become the best that we can be. In TA, we say that we need to move out of script.

Needless to say, this introduction was enough to wet my appetite and so I am already booked to do the foundation course in February. Watch this space.

PHOTO CREDITS:
MATUS KOVACOVSKY/UNSPLASH
AARON BIRCH/UNSPLASH

Tagged as: change, Communication, Ego, Interaction, Model, NLP, Personality, Relationships, state,Stimulus, Transactional Analysis