If you’re living in Cape Town or even South Africa you are all too familiar with the current crisis affecting our country and in particular the Western Cape. Cape Town has even been featured in international news stories as the first major city that may run out of water. It is a frightening reality.
For those of us Read More
Social media is as ubiquitous as it is new. In the last decade we have seen social media go from something “the kids use” to a standard modern communication device used by everyone, young and old. And now due to its use as a marketing tool for brands, it’s almost impossible to avoid.
Although there are still the rare peeps who refuse to partake, let’s assume that most of you reading this are on some form of social media. You and I both know how much time we spend on social media and its waaaay more than we’d like to admit to ourselves. But what is the effect of using social media regularly? Are our lives better, more connected?
I’ve written before about the powerful ‘like’ button and how it is normal to crave recognition and validation from our social networks. When it is used constructively, social media can be a way of sharing with people from all over the world. There are also a lot of really positive messages floating around the interweb with informal support groups cropping up all the time linking people with common ailments or struggles. I see a lot of you giving each other support and digital high fives out there.
But there is another side to social media that isn’t so happy-clappy. A lot of us areRead More
When you get to a point in your life and its time for a big change because you are finished with University or for whatever reason, and at this point you do not necessarily know where to turn. Committing to the dude freaks you out. losing him freaks you out. staying in your hometown freaks you and leaving freaks you. starting a job in your ‘chosen career’ freaks you cos you not sure if that’s what you want etc.. what do you do?
Shit dude, welcome to life!
Confession. I didn’t always feel comfortable in my role as a therapist. I am sure this is the same for a lot of people in different professions and roles. But for me it felt agonising. A huge amount of work and effort went into getting accepted into my Master’s programme and then once in it I felt sometimes like I wanted to run a million miles away.
For me the problem was that I had this idea of what a psychologist was, how a psychologist looked and acted, and I thought I needed to fit in with this idea. The stresses and strains of being in an academic environment didn’t help matters. University always felt like a rigid and highly conformist structure, this ivory tower that dictated how one should be based how others had been for centuries. There was always one or two lecturers who believed in freedom and encouraged individualistic expression but the vast majority did things by the book.
If I had followed their lead I would have believed (which I truly did some of the time) that I needed to speak in a calm, low voice in order to be a real psychologist. A real psychologist wore clothes that were never too dramatic. A real psychologist’s hair was always pulled back in a conservative bun. Although these are all incredibly superficial markers of a “good therapist type”, they represented something more than that. The feeling I had was that perhaps it was my personality that was so ill suited to being a therapist.
I am a loud, bubbly, talkative person. Meet me out and about and you would never automatically think I was a therapist. People mostly believe I work in the arts, as an actress or artist or in advertising or something.
All these factors combined made the process of becoming a professional that much more tricky for me. I was constantly being confronted with this sense of being in the wrong place. I worried that I had made all this effort only to discover that I was hopelessly wrong for the role and would have to start from scratch again.
Each time I sat in the room with a client I thought about what other psychologists would say and do, I thought about what my lecturers would say and do, and I thought about how they would scold me for not fitting in with the model of what a therapist should look like.
The worst part about this, is that this really had a negative impact on the work. These intrusive thoughts interfered with my ability to really be present in the moment with clients as I was so busy trying to fit in with an idea of who I should be that I failed to truly listen and engage with what was in front of me. I felt tense and unsure of myself. And I worried constantly whether I was ever truly helping.
I think this is a really good analogy for all anxiety. Our anxiety takes us out of the moment. It pushes thoughts into our minds that call our selves into question. It asks us whether we’re good enough and tells us we’re going to fail. But fail at what?
My lesson was this. I learned, through my own process of self-discovery along with others’ guidance, that the only thing there is to be is yourself. There is actually no “model” for what makes someone a good therapist. Just like there is no model for what makes someone a good human. We all have to figure ourselves out in our own ways. But don’t think for one minute that you will ever arrive at a fixed point of completion. Because just when you think you know yourself, something else will come along that will test you and challenge you and you will discover another facet, another layer. The journey may go through different stages and you may feel on top of the world one minute and like a piece of dirt the next. The choice is always there, however, to be true to yourself.
And so this was/is my ultimate lesson. I believe there is only one thing each of us can ever do. It’s what drives out the anxiety. It’s what drives out the fear. And it’s what drives out the fake friends and false comrades. BE GENUINE. And if you can’t feel what is your genuine self right now then at least have the intention to reach out in that general direction.
When your thoughts undermine your courage and you question yourself or your role, just try and be yourself. Ask yourself what it is you really think, feel, and believe in. Ask yourself what you want to share with the world, what it is that you think you have to offer, and you will find that there is something there. It might not look or sound like what you expect it should be. But if it’s real then it will matter more than any performance could ever.
I can testify to this. Having now been practicing as a therapist for five years, I can tell you that there is no greater strength than that of being yourself, and there is no greater gift to others. I believe that over and above anything I may say in therapy, over and above any techniques I may use, the greatest gift I give my clients is that they come into contact with someone who is genuine. My determination to be myself, my commitment to be present, to be thoughtful and honest somehow gives them permission to be themselves and to find acceptance.
As Marianne Williamson wrote:
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people will not feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone and as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give others permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
I think we are all afraid of showing up and showing ourselves. If we expose ourselves for who we really are then we are also exposing our vulnerability and this feels scary and dangerous. I’m not saying it isn’t. I have not become immune to rejections. I do not feel invincible because I am myself. Hiding oneself from the world will keep you safer. But at what cost? The freedom you feel when you are just yourself is more thrilling than you can imagine. And not only that. I truly believe that it improves your “performance”. Ask any top sportsman. It isn’t possible to beat an equally talented opponent without the magic x-factor that comes with self-belief and the truly exquisite feat of tuning out the noise and being fully present to the current moment. Go on, give it a go!
I know this doesn’t apply to everyone but I think a lot of you will identify yourselves as controllers or control freaks. Wherever you fall on the scale from “go with the flow” to “perfectionist”, I am sure you can recognize some moments in life when you feel anxious or scared or you feel out of control. But what do people mean when they say they feel ‘out of control’ and what is the solution or antithesis to this?
In my experience, people like to think that the only way to manage anxiety or other overwhelming feelings is via ‘control’, which the dictionary defines as a verb, meaning:
I’m sure you all know someone in your life (yourself included perhaps) who likes to have control of every situation, increasing controlling behaviours during times of stress or when feeling insecure.
We all feel insecure and we all have fears and anxieties. Very often it is the unknown that we fear the most. We feel most out of control and insecure when we are not sure what will happen, when something or someone else has an impact on us and we cannot predict what they will do, or when we ourselves feel like we are losing our grip and becoming “out of control”. This may be due to bad habits that we cannot kick, or when things are just not going ‘according to plan’.
The thing is though that control is an illusion. We like to think that if we control those around us or the circumstances we find ourselves in that we are going to be safer and happier. But very often, our controlling behaviour leads to further stress and anxiety.
I haven’t always been aware of this but the opposite of “out of control” is not actually control, it’s freedom! Freedom, autonomy, self-directedness, consciousness, etc. are all aspects of our brains’ higher-order processing capabilities. But to exercise freedom we need to practice something much harder and less automatic than control, we need to learn how to practice trust. Having faith and giving over to a sense of trust is actually not something that comes naturally for most people. Although I have written before about attachment styles and about how we get pre-programmed in our early years to either trust and be open in relationships or closed and untrusting, I think that most adults have had enough difficult experiences to be slightly guarded and distrusting in their interactions with others and the world. And what’s more, is our own insecurities play a huge role.
You may have immense trust in those around you but you may doubt yourself, your capabilities, your worthiness. And this doubt makes it hard to believe that the world around you will fit in with your wishes and desires. And most importantly it will cause you to use control rather than trust as a mechanism of allaying anxiety. When we use control, however, we are always left feeling uneasy because
A) we know deep down that we have manipulated events or people in order to achieve our ends and
B) there will always be more bumps in the road and it is pretty tiring to know that each and every time you have to get out there and try and predict and control all the factors in order to feel safe.
I hope you can see that if you use control as a mechanism for alleviating anxiety, then you are also giving up your freedom. By dominating and controlling everything around you, you also limit your experiences and narrow your perspective. And when you act out controlling behaviours, these tend to become habitual too. So in the long run, you’re just a slave to your anxiety and your need for control.
What’s the opposite of being a slave? FREEDOM. Freedom says you have a choice. Freedom gives you options, widens your perspective and opens up possibilities. But freedom is also easier said then done. To be truly free requires two things from us:
1) a trusting relationship with the self and
2) the courage to take responsibility for your choices
I’m pretty sure that those two things are also the foundation for adulthood, maturity and living a conscious life. But hey we’re getting real here.
Next time you feel anxious or out of control ask yourself if you love yourself, if you want to trust yourself, and if you want to be there for yourself no matter what. Ask yourself what choices you have at this moment. If you feel you don’t have any then ask a friend. Sometimes it’s really hard to see out of our fixed ways of seeing the world. Don’t limit yourself. Open, open up. Once you can count at least three options that are available, then you know you are endowed with that special thing called freedom. You can choose to control, you can choose to freak out, you can choose to do nothing. But if you can develop a trusting relationship with yourself over time then you will come to realise that freedom feels better than control, trust feels better than insecurity and loving yourself feels better than relying on others’ love in order to feel good enough.
Just a thought for your Tuesday.
Have a beautiful week xoxo