A walk outside can help
Last week, we broke down the 5-step process of getting upset. We used the example of a father trying to get his daughter ready for school. He wanted to remain calm in a stressful situation, but instead became anxious and angry. It ended with him yelling at his daughter, her crying, and him feeling like a bad father.
Don’t we all want a better handle on our emotions? However, at times you are not able to make that choice to behave like you want and you end up feeling badly about yourself. You can learn skills to help you handle emotional situations differently.
In the previous post,we asked the question,”Do you know your true self?” Today, let’s take a closer look at what the false self is, and how it develops.
As human beings, we need a witness: a person to see what we do and feel, and to reflect back to us. That enables us to put words to our experiences, making it possible to give meaning to our lives. As we mature, the external witness is incorporated into the self, creating the ability to give meaning from the inside. Continue reading
Do you spend time thinking about how to make friends and how to get others to like you? Do you think about how to like yourself, or even how to be your own best friend?
When you like yourself, then the Harsh Inner Critic has less power over how you feel. You have more strength to fight back against the negative messages we all have inside. When you feel like a good friend to yourself, then you can recognize when the Internal Drama starts. Being your own best friend makes it possible to turn the negative thoughts and beliefs into the positive. This will increase your happiness.
The same techniques that can be used to make others like you can be used to help you learn to like yourself.
In May of this year Maya Angelou died at the age of 86. She was a wise and respected woman, who grew beyond her abusive childhood and used her early experiences to help others.
At 16, she became the first black female streetcar conductor in San Francisco. Over the next 24 years, she worked as a calypso singer, waitress, dancer, actress, prostitute, and a madam. She began her journey to become the woman most of us knew – the writer, poet, and speaker at President Clinton’s inauguration – when she wrote her first book I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings at the age of 40 .