In the News

South China Morning Post
Saturday 25th July 2009

Signposts: Learn to Trust

How much of your family beliefs and dynamics do you bring into your life? Part of the work to become aware of our emotional fears is to look at what stops us from being accountable for creating the life we want.

Key blocks to being accountable can include excuses, past failures, secrets and fears. Within excuses we often find family beliefs and unconscious expectations.

Sacha reached out for coaching after a long period of back pain and weight gain. She grew up in a home with a mother who was obsessive about weight. Sacha was afraid of her mother, who taught her to always be strong and in control, never vulnerable; she believed it was weak to get angry and didn't trust others. Sacha was told girls were stronger than boys, and taught to be independent and to make sure she had money in her own right.

Sacha's parents argued a lot, especially about money. She was afraid of her parents divorcing and had little sense of security growing up. She felt unhappy and left home as soon as she could, and worked hard to make a life for herself. She became a high achiever, which gave her a sense of worth - and power. She said she was "born to strive".

How would it be to thrive instead of strive, I asked.

Sacha had been on diets since she was a teenager. Sometimes she would comfort eat, other times binge drink. She craved sweets when she was bored or needed comfort.

She learned during our coaching time that her greatest fear was being seen as weak.

Unconsciously, she expected herself to be strong and to hold it all together - for herself and others. It was easier for Sacha to smile and pretend than to feel pain.

She was afraid of confrontation. She avoided anger. She didn't know how to cry and could not release emotional pain.

We examined the messages passed down. How much of her past was deciding her present and creating her future? Now that Sacha was a grown-up, she could decide what to think and how to behave. Did the beliefs still work? How could she reframe/replace if she chose to? With new thinking, she could practise conscious ways of behaving rather than reacting in fear.

Sacha became aware she had adopted an attitude of having to go it alone because she didn't feel safe as a child. She was driven by a need for control: she did not trust herself to ask for support or to speak up about her feelings or to be angry. Because she didn't bring all of herself into relationships, no-one really knew her. She never experienced true intimacy. And because she couldn't trust, she never knew peace of mind.

To change the cycle, Sacha decided to:

• Reframe her thinking on being weak and vulnerable. She decided to allow herself to tap into her feminine energy and be human, soft, gentle.
• Change her idea of confrontation and see it as an opportunity to have a conversation and clarify.
• Practise letting go of her need to control by trusting - herself, others, life.
• Get clear on what she could control, what she could not control. She could control how she behaved, how she responded to her thoughts, feelings and beliefs. She could not control others' thoughts, feelings, beliefs and actions nor what they thought of her.
• Become more aware of her feelings. Identify them, give them a name, and express them. She recorded them in a journal, then shared them with me and a friend.
• Learn to be comfortable with her anger. Anger is just a feeling. A fear of anger is a fear that we won't be OK.
• Trust herself with her weight, rather than give power to the scales; there was no need to control herself by checking the scales every day.
• Listen to her intuition rather than be led by all the noise in her head.
• Practise becoming more present and in the moment by focusing on her senses.

The gift of learning to trust was that Sacha learned to release her attachment to outcome, to relax and watch life unfold - effortlessly.

 

Glynis Ferguson is founder of Freedom from Fear Coaching™ and a member of the Hong Kong International Coaching Community

 

Copyright 2010 Glynis Ferguson