My Essay Blog

Are you stuck in a rut? Do you ever feel that you are being perpetually driven; that life is a never-ending round of rushing from here to there, or from one chore to another, with no time for relaxation? That money worries &ndash how to pay those rising bills, or where the next payment is coming from for your children’s education, your family’s healthcare, your house mortgage &ndash occupy your mind much of the time, or that relationships with your family or spouse suffer because you haven’t got time to spend with them &ndash you’re working all the hours there are to pay the bills after all, aren’t you. Things never seem to go right, no matter how hard you try, and feeling frustration and discontent has become a part of what you are. You long for the day when you can get just a little time for yourself, and do some of those things you always wanted. Without knowing it, you may have programmed yourself for unhappiness and failure.

But what if there is a way to say goodbye to fear, anger, worry, and all those other negative emotions? What if you can transform your life so that you can obtain all the things you ever wanted? You can you know. The powerful and secret techniques taught by manifestation can do just that. Learning to become a Master Manifestor is your blueprint to success, prosperity and personal fulfilment. Using the inside knowledge of manifestation, you can discover how to implement your ideas and dreams in a simple and stress-free way to dramatically change your life for the better.

Manifesting is an ancient science (over 1500 years old), and although the manifestation techniques are largely unknown to the modern world, the tried and trusted methods have proven to work and are needed now, more than ever. By manifestation you can attract good fortune to yourself, financial and personal, and work magic in your life. Radically different from any other self-help programme &ndash in fact you can realistically throw away 90% of every self-help book you’ve ever collected &ndash this Manifesting Mindset will transform the way you think on all levels. A new departure in self-improvement, it will harness the physical laws of the universe to create anything you desire: attract love and romance, make your perfect job appear, eliminate stress and low esteem, lose weight, find abundance and financial freedom. Consciously draw life-affirming experiences to yourself.

Anyone can learn the art of manifestation. Regardless of what you’ve been conditioned to believe, it is available to ALL of us. Why not give it a try and see where it takes you.

Penelope Housden

From the time Jennifer was a little child, she was demanding of attention, especially from her mother, Sarah. With two older brothers, Jennifer had a “special” place in the family as the baby and the only girl. She made sure to establish a “special” relationship with her mother, who relished the connection since she didn’t have much of a relationship with her emotionally distant husband.

It was easy for Jennifer to control her mother’s attention. Because her mother was needy for emotional connection and afraid of not being liked, all Jennifer had to do was get angry at her mother and Sarah would capitulate, giving Jennifer the attention she craved. Jennifer learned early to control her mother by becoming angry, critical and withholding love when her mother didn’t do what she wanted. Unwittingly, Sarah contributed to Jennifer’s neediness, entitlement issues, and the belief that happiness was dependent on approval and attention from others.

Jennifer, now in her late 30’s, finds herself continuing the pattern she started with her mother - attaching to others in needy and demanding ways. The result is she has not been able to have a successful relationship with any of the men she has dated.

We all have a need to feel special. It is not the need that is dysfunctional, it is how we go about getting the need met that can be either dysfunctional or healthy. It is dysfunctional when we make others responsible for making us feel special. When others have to give us attention, compliment us, seek us out, and attend to our wants and needs in order for us to feel special, our behavior is dysfunctional.

HEALTHY SPECIAL-NESS

You will stop pulling on others to make you special only when you accept the full responsibility of making yourself feel special. This means learning to give yourself all that you may be trying to get from others &ndash treating yourself in the loving ways you desire from others. There are many ways of making ourselves feel special. Instead of trying to get others to give you what you want, you can:

* TAKE EMOTIONAL RESPONSIBILITY:

o Attend to your feelings throughout the day and explore what you may be doing that is causing painful feelings, rather than making others responsible for your feelings.

o Attend to your own needs rather than expecting others to meet your needs.

o Accept yourself rather than judge yourself. Validate yourself, approve of yourself &ndash tell yourself the things you want to hear from others. Value your talents and gifts.

o Value your intrinsic worth rather than just your looks or performance &ndash your kindness, compassion, creativity, caring.

o Behave in ways that you value &ndash being loving, kind, integreous, compassionate, understanding, caring.

o Pursue work you love, work that fulfills you, if possible.

* TAKE PHYSICAL RESPONSIBILITY:

o Feed yourself well to maintain health and appropriate weight.

o Get enough rest and exercise.

o Create balance between work and play and creative time.

o Make sure you are physically safe such as when riding a motorcycle.

* TAKE FINANCIAL RESPONSIBILITY:

o Make sure you are financially independent rather than dependent upon another, if physically able to do so.

o Spend within your means to avoid the fear and stress of debt.

* TAKE RELATIONSHIP RESPONSIBILITY:

o Stand up for yourself and speak your truth rather than complying, defending or resisting in the face of others’ demands or criticism. Don’t be a victim.

o Refrain from blaming others, with anger and criticism, for your feelings and behavior. Don’t be a victim.

* TAKE ORGANIZATIONAL RESPONSIBILITY:

o Do what you say you are going to do regarding time and chores.

o Make sure your living space and work environment are clean and tidy, and esthetically pleasing.

* TAKE SPIRITUAL RESPONSIBILITY:

o Take the time to connect with the love and truth of God/Higher Power.

o Take time throughout the day to bring the love down to the level of your feeling self &ndash your Inner Child.

Treating yourself in these loving ways will eventually result in feeling internally special rather than needing others to make you feel special.

As Jennifer practiced making herself special, she discovered that her relationships with others were becoming stronger and more fulfilling. People were no longer pulling away from her, resisting her, or defending themselves against her demands for attention. Her behavior naturally and gradually changed with others when she was treat herself as a special person.

Just what is a silent subliminal message? Surely if you can’t hear a silent message it won’t work?

Well yes and no. You see, silent subliminal is really a misnomer. Whilst it’s called silent, it isn’t really. It’s actually either a very high frequency message or a very low frequency one. Either way, it’s inaudible to humans. Which means it really ought to be called an inaudible subliminal. Except that wouldn’t sound as catchy.

Silent subliminals have been around for some time. The patent application for them was filed way back in 1989. You can search it out if you’re technically inclined.

Ok, so we’ve established what a silent subliminal is.

Now, what do you do with them?

Essentially, they’re a hidden communication. Providing that silent subliminals work, they can be added anywhere so long as the frequency range of the “carrier” medium is wide enough.

Oh, and also if the “carrier” medium doesn’t use some kind of lossy compression. So your MP3 collection is almost certainly safe from silent subliminals. MP3’s get rid of information that we can’t hear in order to keep their file size down.

On the other hand, your CD collection could be harboring silent subliminal messages if the artists you listen to are crafty enough to include them.

Of course, systems like the Centerpointe Holosync CDs are up front about their use of silent subliminal messages. In fact, it’s part of their selling point.

Rock bands could use silent subliminals. After all, they have been accused of other dodgy practices over the years, such as including backwards messages in their tracks. Whether or not that is true is a matter of conjecture. It could just have been dreamed up by the band’s publicity department in an effort to encourage rebellious teenagers to buy the music. Who knows?

There is all the hype these days about the Law of Attraction and the process of manifesting your desires into your life. Basically the key to this law is that you will manifest whatever you desire. There are several contingencies that come into play when you want to manifest your desire. First you must be very clear about what you want. Your desire should be written out, for in writing it you will be able to be more specific and as you write you will get more clarity. If for instance you desire a lot of money or a certain car, you much be clear on how much money or what type of car, color and include as many details as possible. It’s like a target, you need to know what you are aiming your attention towards. You must also make sure that you know the feeling of what your desire will bring you. It is in the feeling, the emotional feeling that will assist you to work with the universe to attract or manifest what you want. This is also important because if you do not know how you will feel when you receive the car or the relationship you may get what your desire but still be unhappy. The feeling is very important for it is that energy that attracts your desire through the universe.

The other element that plays a major role in attracting your desire is your belief. We have beliefs based upon experiences in our lives. We experience an event, we perceive what happens and then we come up with an explanation of what the event means. Two people can witness the same event and had two totally different experiences of what happened based on their perception. Usually the event carries along with it an emotional feeling. This emotional feeling sets the belief within our being at a cellular level.

We have so many beliefs, some that serve us and other that do not. The thing about beliefs is that many are unconscious habits of doing and thinking which operate on a sub-conscious level. If your beliefs, either conscious or unconscious, do not align with your desires, chances are that you will not attract what you desire or you will have to work much harder at getting what you desire.

The final step in manifesting your desire is to let go. Yes, let go of the emotional connect to what you desire and let the universe deliver it to you. This is a tricky part. Because it has been said “ask and it is given” you expect this to happen right away. If you don’t see what you have asked for right away you may doubt that it will work. Many times our desires show up when we get busy working on other things in our lives and take our minds off that desire for a short period of time. When we do this our desires magically shows up in our lives.

As stated in Quantum Physics, as you observe something that which you observe will react to your observation. So if you are watching and holding onto what you desire too strongly it may prevent that from manifesting into your life.

So in conclusion the Law of Attraction goes like this. First you ask for that which you desire and get clear. Second the universe will do its magic to deliver it to you and thirdly you must let go and allow yourself to receive it. The Law of Attraction or the manifestation process is a law that works all the time whether for the good or bad, so watch your thoughts and feeling and make sure you let go and receive.

In a culture full of reasons to say “no,” it takes a lot of courage to find ways to say “yes.”

We’re taught to say “no” from a very young age, after all. For most of us, our first word was “no”, and it quickly became our favorite word. As toddlers and teenagers, we used “no” to

differentiate ourselves from our parents, peers, and surroundings. It’s how we began to control what was happening around us, or at least, how we tried to control that. It helped us over those early developmental hurdles, and gave us our earliest sense of our personal boundaries — and that’s a lot of significance bound up in such a tiny word!

The problem isn’t that “no” in and of itself is somehow bad; indeed, giving yourself permission to say “no” as an adult can keep you out of an awful lot of trouble.

The problem is that “No” begins to take on a life of its own. Too often, that life is yours.

Life is change, and “no” becomes a way of slowing down that change, or trying to stop it altogether. It is a shield we use to protect ourselves from having to experience anything new or different. Rather than riding the wave of change into a life full of exhilarating possibilities, we use “no” as a tether to keep us safely confined to the kiddie pool.

Using “no” to protect ourselves from change is like a kitten poking its head under covers, assuming it’s completely hidden. Change is going to happen, whether you say “no” to it or not. And, just like that kitten, assuming that “no” protects you from change is one sure way to have it pounce on you and bite your tail.

Let’s be honest here: We usually say “no” out of fear, and some fears are entirely reasonable. It’s sensible to say “no” to jumping off a bridge or “no” to cake if you are diabetic. These “no’s” aren’t the ones that keep us from living lives of incredible satisfaction and happiness. It’s those silly, neurotic fears like fearing rejection, or of looking stupid, or being wrong. It’s the fear of commitment, the fear of speaking out, and the fear of facing our truest, deepest desires. The list is nauseatingly long, and we’ve all bought into some of these at least once. These fears have shaped our lives, often to our detriment and sometimes to the detriment of those around us.

So the next time you’re faced with something new and exciting and all those little neurotic fears start rioting inside you, what does it take to fight down a “no” and say “yes” instead?

In a word: Courage.

Like the Cowardly Lion (an archetype for the fear-ridden) we need to find our courage. Unlike him, we know that we have to face our fears, and find our courage within. Inside each of us beats a brave, fiercely courageous heart, willing to take on a challenge if it means that life afterward will be more authentic, happier, and freer. What better challenges to tackle than the fears that keep us chained to our tiny, boring, closeted little lives?

Do yourself a favor: Right now, identify and tackle at least one of those inner fears. Find a reason to say “yes” today, and every day. You’ve only your inner coward to lose!

Emotional dependency means getting one’s good feelings from outside oneself. It means needing to get filled from outside rather than from within. Who or what do you believe is responsible for your emotional wellbeing?

There are numerous forms of emotional dependency:

* Dependence on substances, such as food, drugs, or alcohol, to fill emptiness and take away pain.

* Dependency on processes such as spending, gambling, or TV, also to fill emptiness and take away pain.

* Dependence on money to define one’s worth and adequacy.

* Dependence on getting someone’s love, approval, or attention to feel worthy, adequate, lovable, and safe.

* Dependence on sex to fill emptiness and feel adequate.

When you do not take responsibility for defining your own adequacy and worth or for creating your own inner sense of safety, you will seek to feel adequate, worthy and safe externally. Whatever you do not give to yourself, you may seek from others or from substances or processes. Emotional dependency is the opposite of taking personal responsibility for one’s emotional wellbeing. Yet many people have no idea that this is their responsibility, nor do they have any idea how to take this responsibility.

What does it mean to take emotional responsibility rather than be emotionally dependent?

Primarily, it means recognizing that our feelings come from our own thoughts, beliefs and behavior, rather than from others or from circumstances. Once you understand and accept that you create your own feelings, rather than your feelings coming from outside yourself, then you can begin to take emotional responsibility.

For example, let’s say someone you care about gets angry at you.

If you are emotionally dependent, you may feel rejected and believe that your feelings of rejection are coming from the other’s anger. You might also feel hurt, scared, anxious, inadequate, shamed, angry, blaming, or many other difficult feeling in response to the other’s anger. You might try many ways of getting the other person to not be angry in an effort to feel better.

However, if you are emotionally responsible, you will feel and respond entirely differently. The first thing you might do is to tell yourself that another person’s anger has nothing to do with you. Perhaps that person is having a bad day and is taking it out on you. Perhaps that person is feeling hurt or inadequate and is trying to be one-up by putting you one-down. Whatever the reason for the other’s anger, it is about them rather than about you. An emotionally responsible person does not take others’ behavior personally, knowing that we have no control over others’ feelings and behavior, and that we do not cause others to feel and behave the way they do - that others are responsible for their feelings and behavior just as we are for ours.

The next thing an emotionally responsible person might do is move into compassion for the angry person, and open to learning about what is going on with the other person. For example, you might say, “I don’t like your anger, but I am willing to understand what is upsetting you. Would you like to talk about it?” If the person refuses to stop being angry, or if you know ahead of time that this person is not going to open up, then as an emotionally responsible person, you would take loving action in your own behalf. For example, you might say, “I’m unwilling to be at the other end of your anger. When you are ready to be open with me, let me know. Meanwhile, I’m going to take a walk (or hang up the phone, or leave the restaurant, or go into the other room, and so on). An emotionally responsible person gets out of range of attack rather than tries to change the other person.

Once out of range, the emotionally responsible person goes inside and explores any painful feelings that might have resulted from the attack. For example, perhaps you are feeling lonely as a result of being attacked. An emotionally responsible person embraces the feelings of loneliness with understanding and compassion, holding them just as you would hold a sad child. When you acknowledge and embrace the feelings of loneliness, you allow them to move through you quickly, so you can move back into peace.

Rather than being a victim of the other’s behavior, you have taken emotional responsibility for yourself. Instead of staying stuck in feeling angry, hurt, blaming, afraid, anxious or inadequate, you have moved yourself back into feeling safe and peaceful.

When you realize that your feelings are your responsibility, you can move out of emotional dependency. This will make a huge difference within you and with all of your relationships. Relationships thrive when each person moves out of emotional dependency and into emotional responsibility.

Michael was raised in a home where anger was used to control. His parents used their anger to attempt to control each other as well as their children. Sometimes the anger erupted into violence and Michael and his siblings would get physically hurt. Michael never knew when one of his parents would suddenly become enraged, so the threat was always there.

Michael was the oldest of four children and was often put in charge of taking care of his siblings. He often took out on his siblings his fear and rage at being abused by his parents. While some part of Michael didn’t want to be like his parents, this was all he knew.

As an adult, Michael struggles with his frequent anger at his wife and children. His wife threatened to leave him if he didn’t get some help, which is what led him to consult with me.

“Michael, anger is often used to cover up another, more painful feeling. What do you think you are covering up with your anger?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I just get so frustrated and then out comes the anger.”

“What did you feel as a child, besides scared, when your parents were angry and violent with you?”

“I guess I felt pretty much alone.”

“You must have felt very alone and uncared for and also helpless over what was happening.”

“Yes, I felt so helpless! I hated feeling so alone and helpless. It was so scary. I couldn’t wait to get bigger so I wouldn’t feel so helpless.”

“What triggers that helpless feeling now?”

“Humm…I guess it’s when my wife and kids don’t do what I want them to do or what I think they should do.”

“So rather than feel and accept your helplessness over them, which is the reality but is a difficult feeling to feel, you avoid feeling that old helplessness by trying to control them with your anger, just as your parents did. Is that right?”

“I guess so. I guess I try to control them rather than feel helpless. But why should I feel helpless? It’s an awful feeling.

“Michael, when you were a child, you were helpless over your parents brutality, and you were also helpless over yourself in many ways. You couldn’t just leave and go live with someone else. You couldn’t walk away without further punishment. However, today, while you are still helpless over others, you are not helpless over yourself. You can walk away from a situation that doesn’t feel good, or you can speak up for yourself. You can also explore difficulties with your family. You didn’t have any of these options as a child. But unless you accept your helplessness over others, you will try to control them, and anger is the way you’ve learned to do it. Anger is your automatic controlling, addictive response to protect against feeling that old helplessness. You will continue to be angry until you accept your helplessness over others - over what they choose to do and who they choose to be.”

Helplessness over others is a very hard feeling to accept. For many people, it feels like a life or death feeling, because as infants we were completely helpless and if no one came we would die. Some of us cried and cried and no one came and we felt helpless over living or dying. While today helplessness over others is not usually a life or death experience, the feeling can trigger our infant terror. Most people will do anything to avoid the feeling of helplessness, even though we are no longer helpless over ourselves. Yet until we accept our helplessness over others, we will try to control them, and anger is a major way many people have learned to attempt to control.

It took Michael time to learn how to take care of himself - how to embrace and accept his helpless feelings rather than ignore them or cover them up with anger. As he learned to take loving care of himself and his own feelings and needs, he became more accepting of other’s feelings and needs. As a result of accepting himself and others, and of learning to feel and manage his painful feelings, his need to control others gradually diminished.

In the course of working with me, Michael learned to access a personal source of spiritual guidance to help him not feel so alone and to know how to take loving care of himself. Michael found that when he was connected with his spiritual guidance, he was much less likely to act out in anger. He found he could manage his difficult feelings of aloneness and helplessness far more easily when he felt the love and support of Spirit.

Why do so many self help, positive thinking and motivational seminars, books and audios not work, and what can I do that will work for me?

Some of the things that need to be considered in any realistic and effective life manifestation program are:

The person or people providing the training, mentoring, and/or coaching need to be masters of their own philosophies and living proof that the lessons being taught do actually work.

They need to be providing the information as part of their own ongoing self manifestation. If these important factors are covered then that’s a good place to start.

These things are obviously very important, but I’d like you to consider the following:

Below are my thoughts on the first thing to consider, and what can be done to help ensure successful life manifestation.

Does the program cater for the individual? We are all products of our genetic make up and social conditioning, that’s why we are where we are now, getting through life by reacting to our surroundings. There’s nothing wrong with that, if we react in the way we choose and don’t have someone or something else make that choice for us.

If a program isn’t available to us at a time and place that is truly convenient for us then chances are we will never be able to participate fully, or even complete the program. Therefore we’ll end up right where we started! And blame the course for not working! Because then, we can justify our failure, and continue along the same road we’ve been walking for years, we know this road and it’s familiar to us so we are comfortable here. We have just reinforced the behaviour that got us where we are now. That doesn’t help us does it?

Rewind! Why did we start the course in the first place? Answer because we aren’t comfortable where we are today! Right?

If we want to change this pattern we need to be careful in choosing something or someone to help us to help ourselves.

While it’s easy to understand, theoretically, that in order to make changes we have to take action and start changing the things we do, say, and think, this is akin to asking some of us to run before we can walk. It may be easy for some of us, but for others taking the suggested action in a particular book, program, or course might involve stepping too far out of our comfort zone.

Therefore, a program that is personal and convenient means that we will be able to succeed at a pace that we are comfortable with, help ourselves, and this will give us success.

As you probably know “success breeds success” every time we take a small action and have positive results from it we are able to realistically perceive ourselves achieving more and more. Therefore I truly believe that a program that offers convenience will always be more effective than one that is less convenient to the user.

People go through this thing that we call life and while some are incredibly successful, there are others who just “get by” until the final curtain is drawn.

Determining your level of actual involvement in your life &ndash and thus, your level of success &ndash can be broken down into 3 categories: Desire, Duty, or Dereliction.

Desire

Following the path of desire is simply doing what you choose to do with your life. From a standpoint of health, wealth, and happiness, the person who follows their desires is fueled by one thing, and one thing only &ndash their own desires.

Duty

A life filled with a dedication to duty is one where even though you keep your own desires in mind, your primary focus always seems to be on the welfare of others. Whether you are talking about a dedication to your children or your family, or if you have a very high work ethic, the person motivated by duty always has plenty of things to focus on.

Dereliction

Dereliction is a pretty strong term, but it needs to be because this type of person doesn’t care about much of anything. They aren’t necessarily “evil” as most people would consider the meaning of that term, but this person isn’t concerned about very much. Whether considering what happens with their own life, or considering the needs of others or the world at large, this person is pretty much just floating through life without any real sense of duty or desire.

So now the question becomes which one of those personality types is most likely to succeed? Each of those people will achieve massive success on their chosen path because they are doing exactly what they feel they are supposed to be doing, and so they will continue to attract that type of lifestyle.

The person who is completely driven by their own desires and refuses to do anything that doesn’t match that direction will rarely be found engaging in any activity that is not centered around whatever it is that they want to be doing at that moment.

The duty-bound individual will continually find new ways to be duty-bound. When one commitment is handled, they will attract or create a new commitment for themselves, often without even realizing that they are doing it.

For the person who is practicing the opposite of duty &ndash dereliction &ndash their entire focus is on not focusing on much of anything. By not having any real direction for their life, and by not really caring one way or the other about what happens with other people, this person will continue to manifest that lifestyle. Their circumstances will require them to have as little input or responsibility as possible. For a more clear definition of this individual, think one word: Teenagers.

So who is right? Which one of these people is going to have the most happiness in their life?

If you define happiness as being “successful,” then each of them will be just as happy. They will each attract into their lives the people and the circumstances that will allow them to continue to successfully be exactly the type of person that they are choosing to be.

The key to determining which one of them will be the most successful does not rely on “standard” markers such as financial success, career satisfaction, personal life, etc., because those methods of measuring success only matter to the person who cares about those types of measurements.

The “starving artist” doesn’t care about financial success, at least not initially. Your average painter, illustrator, sculptor, or musician would probably do what they do for free, as long as they still had a roof over their head and enough resources to survive.

A family-focused mother or father will gladly give of their time and their financial resources, usually to the point of putting their own health, retirement, and even their sanity on the line. Yet they continue to honor what they believe to be their commitment to their children, regardless of the consequences.

The person who doesn’t much care one way or the other will happily float through life without a real financial plan, without any solid family or friendship commitments, and without even knowing what their own life is going to hold in store for them. However, they are choosing that life for themselves, so does that make them wrong?

The answer to all of these questions is that none of these people are “right” and none of them are “wrong”. They are only seen in a positive or a negative light by the person who is observing them, and they are being judged by the observing person’s belief system.

The fact of the matter is that the concepts of “right” or “wrong” don’t really exist. All that exist are the belief systems of individuals, and it is neither appropriate nor even in our power to judge others based on what we believe to be true.

The “secret of success” is that each of these individuals is 100% successful because they are doing exactly what they choose to be doing with their lives. In fact, failure itself does not even exist, as it is just another example of one person’s beliefs about what is good or what is bad.

Desire, duty, and dereliction will all bring success to the individuals who live their lives from that point of view. Not because that point of view is right or wrong, but simply because that is what that person wants to do. What greater success is there than that?

How often do you hear a parental voice in your head that says things like, “You’ve got to lose weight,” or “You should get up earlier every morning and exercise,” or “Today I should get caught up on the bills,” or “I’ve got to get rid of this clutter.” Let’s explore what happens in response to this voice.

We have a very good reason for judging ourselves: the judgmental part of us believes that by judging, criticizing, “shoulding” ourselves, we will motivate ourselves to take action and therefore protect against failure or rejection. We may have been judging ourselves to get ourselves to do things “right” since we were kids, hoping to keep ourselves in line. And we keep on doing it because we believe it works.

Let’s take the example of Karl, who is a high-powered executive in a large accounting firm. Karl has had a heart attack and is supposed to watch his diet. Right after his heart attack, he did well avoiding sugar, fats, and overeating, but after six months or so, he found himself struggling with his food plan. In our counseling session, Karl told me he was upset with himself for having a big desert as well as a big meal the night before. I asked Karl to put himself back into the situation and recreate what he had been feeling.

“Well, I was out to dinner with one of our biggest clients. He asked me a question and I didn’t remember the facts, so I couldn’t answer him. As soon as this happened, that voice came into my head telling me that I’m stupid, that I should have remembered it and ‘What’s the matter with me anyway?’”

“What did you feel as soon as you judged yourself?” I asked.

“Well, looking back, I think I felt that sad, sort of dark empty hollow feeling I often get inside. And you know what - that’s when I started to eat a lot of bread with tons of butter and ordered the desert! I didn’t realize it was in response to that empty feeling that I hate!”

“So the sad empty feeling is what you feel when you judge yourself. Judging yourself is an inner abandonment, so your Inner Child then feels alone, sad and empty. You are telling your Child that he is not good enough. I know that you don’t do this with your actual children, but you do it a lot with yourself, don’t you?”

“Yeah, I think it do it all the time. After I judged myself for not knowing the answer, then I judged myself for eating too much and having desert. And then I felt even worse.”

“So what did you hope for by judging yourself?

“I guess I hoped that I could control my eating and also get myself to work harder so I wouldn’t forget things.”

“It doesn’t seem to be working.”

“No, it just makes me feel terrible. In fact, I can see that judging myself for not knowing the answer made me feel so badly that then I wanted to eat more. Instead of giving me more control, it gave me less!”

“So you are trying to have control over yourself through your self-judgments, but what actually happens is that you feel awful and behave in addictive ways to avoid the pain. I think what also happens is that some part of you goes into resistance to being judged and told what to do, so you end up doing the opposite of what you tell yourself you should do.”

“Right. As soon as I tell myself not to eat so much and judge myself for eating, that’s when I really want to eat. So I’m eating to not be controlled and also because in judging myself I’m abandoning myself, which makes me feel sad and empty, and I’ve always used food to fill up that emptiness. Whew! How do I stop this cycle?”

“You can’t stop it until you are conscious of it. As long as you are doing it unconsciously - on automatic pilot - you have no choice over it. So the first thing you can do is not try to change it but just notice it. As you become very aware of this pattern, you will have the choice to change it. You will have the choice to be loving and caring toward yourself instead of judgmental once you become aware of what you are doing. You can start by noticing every time you feel that empty sad feeling, and then exploring what you were telling yourself that led to the painful feeling.”

Karl did start to notice and over time was able to stop judging himself. Not only did the sad empty feeling that he had experienced so often in his life go away, but he was able to keep to his medical nutrition plan for his heart. When his Inner Child felt loved instead of judged, he didn’t need to eat to take away the pain.