"What is right with you?" Pt. 8: Growth

Growth is desirable, but one thing I generally find is that there anxiety involved. This is where it can become tricky.  Almost a "a bait and switch" feeling. I step towards this change to grow, to feel better, and it feels like this! No Thanks!  Yet, I want to normalize this. You are likely on the right track if you feel this way.  My Website

"What is right with you?" Pt. 7: So, what is right with you?

You may have wondered if I was ever going to get to the original subject of what is right with you.  One of the reasons for the other topics is that we need to evaluate ways that we can lose our way from what is right.  That is why even when we get closer, we have phrases that often adequately describe how something is there all along, but we have obscured it.  Examples include, "a diamond in the rough," or "our hidden jewel/treasure."  This can even show up in dreams of treasure, or perhaps discovering rooms in a home that were not there before.  Much to our frustration, our hidden gems can become strangers even to ourselves.  Further, when we begin to encounter more of something closer to our uniqueness, we find that we can be quite afraid of it.  Sometimes this can appear in dreams in the form of showing up in public places in our underwear or even naked!   Of course, this does not mean that one needs to shed one's clothes to be more real or display our real talents!  However, the feeling that such a dream creates, can be like that feeling when we relax our outer persona or self-image to "expose" more of ourselves.  This can be more frightening than we had thought.  Many have stories of being so excited something newly learned, want to share, or some ability, and then have a painful response like being teased, criticized, ridiculed, ignored, etc.  In coming posts, I will explore more issues related to this matter and further explorations in more self-discovery and "what is right with you."   Please feel free to comment!

"What is right with you?" Pt. 6: Life Themes and their power

When a person begins therapy, themes begin to emerge.  Sometimes a powerful theme emerges in the first (and on some occasions only session) session.  This theme usually dominates thinking and life choices.  Often, it can be simple like, "I want my life to be like one long highlight film!"  At other times, it can be painful and disappointing like, "I never feel like will be enough for anyone to love me or want to stay with me."  While themes can change, be numerous, or remain somewhat constant, it is through elaborating them, their power, and their consequences that determine not only what has been silently assumed, but how we might work together to find other ways of living.  The themes that are self-defeating have been a part of a life story, but are not the path of the "What is right with you" story.  What is right with me can be expressed in terms of one's true self, one's always known inner truth, one's innate talents, who God created me to be, etc.  But when the theme has been destructive, tearing down those latent abilities that remain part of an un-lived life.

Steven M. Harris, Ph.D.  My Website

"What is right with you?" Pt. 5: Getting Unstuck

Sometimes one of the hardest things about growth and change is seeing ourselves and our role in the outcome.  Finding what is right with you might need to involve  a kind of self-examination that means finding paths that repeatedly are not working.  As I saw on a facebook cover:

This somewhat clever, even pithy slogan says a lot about what seems like a simple truth.  But it is not.  We need to first see just how something is not going right, and that sometimes there are decisions we make or how we view things about ourselves that are not working.  One of the reasons that this is hard is because we are going on a path that has been shaped over time.  In a way, we assume that this path is reality, rather realizing that it is really "our" reality.  This is a big step.  It is finding what we are doing and beginning to find that it can be tied to the outcome.  We can begin to find choices and different paths to see what might fit better.  Getting unstuck starts by finding out about these themes.  These themes can form the heart of our growth.  This will take up some discussion in further posts:

1)  What are the role of themes of my life?

2)  How do I work on them?

[HINT: the answer may not be in the How? but in the What?]

Stay tuned.  Steven M. Harris, PhD  My website