Do you ever feel different from how other people may perceive you as being? I do, and it gives me both a sense of pride and a sense of dread at the same time. Example: A co-worker of mine compliments me on what a good rec therapist I am. I, on the other hand, sometimes feel like I have no clue how to do rec therapy, despite having majored in it in college. It's times like that that I evaluate myself as a person and a professional. But what I sometimes find is that the evaluation itself is almost scary in a way. What if I look deep enough to realize that I have no talents in my job and that I am essentially a failure as a person? It's something I don't like to think about too much, as I'm afraid of what I'll discover.
Fear really plays a big role in my life. I hate to admit it, but a lot of things make me afraid. Smoking, for example, is very much driven by fear...but you'd have to have heard my philosophy (and Allen Carr's) on fear related to smoking to understand, and I'm not going into that now. I am constantly afraid that my apt will get broken into. I'm afraid that Bob's plane will crash. I'm afraid that one Saturday night, Kate will walk home from the bar early (or late) and never make it. I'm afraid that I won't be able to have children. I'm afraid that my parents will die an untimely death. I'm afraid I won't pass my certification exam when I finally take it. I'm afraid that I'll get a flat tire on the interstate (or at all). I'm afraid of getting old (and by "old" I mean in the post-retirement years). You get the point.
I tell a client of mine, whose life has essentially revolved around fear, to look past the initial fear and focus on what the fear is doing to her and how it's affecting her quality of life. Immediately, I don't feel my fears are destroying my quality of living, with the obvious exception of smoking. But what I predict is that the fear will eventually render me helpless and unmotivated to take back some of that control. And isn't that exactly what I tell my client to do? Take back that control?
It's funny how often we don't take our own advice.
Fear really plays a big role in my life. I hate to admit it, but a lot of things make me afraid. Smoking, for example, is very much driven by fear...but you'd have to have heard my philosophy (and Allen Carr's) on fear related to smoking to understand, and I'm not going into that now. I am constantly afraid that my apt will get broken into. I'm afraid that Bob's plane will crash. I'm afraid that one Saturday night, Kate will walk home from the bar early (or late) and never make it. I'm afraid that I won't be able to have children. I'm afraid that my parents will die an untimely death. I'm afraid I won't pass my certification exam when I finally take it. I'm afraid that I'll get a flat tire on the interstate (or at all). I'm afraid of getting old (and by "old" I mean in the post-retirement years). You get the point.
I tell a client of mine, whose life has essentially revolved around fear, to look past the initial fear and focus on what the fear is doing to her and how it's affecting her quality of life. Immediately, I don't feel my fears are destroying my quality of living, with the obvious exception of smoking. But what I predict is that the fear will eventually render me helpless and unmotivated to take back some of that control. And isn't that exactly what I tell my client to do? Take back that control?
It's funny how often we don't take our own advice.
