"New Year; New You" ? Not for me ...

I'm writing this now as I've just received an e-mail from a well-known store inviting me to their online Beauty Department sale with the promise of a 'New Year; New You.'

At the start of another new year, I'm already noticing how often this phrase, 'New Year; New You' is being bandied about in magazines and online.  It's a line that comes around every year, and much as I see the potential good in the concept I think it's implying, it's an idea I no longer subscribe to.

I think that life is a constant process of personal development and growth and that we can always strive to be the best that we can be.   But for me, that means becoming increasingly true to my authentic self; to who I 'really' am, outwith the expectations society places on us to be a certain way.

In the past, I might have grabbed hold of the 'New Year; New You' promise and latched on to whatever product, diet, exercise regime it was attached to and placed a lot of hope in its changing me into that 'new' me.  That new me, that would somehow be a better version of the one I already was.

I think that lots of people do this.  Somehow believing that if they eat the diet, follow the exercise regime, buy the products, wear the clothes, etc., they'll somehow become a better version of themselves.  And yet by placing faith in external purchases and regimes, people are becoming increasingly detached from their true inner self.

In my counselling work, this is something I see a lot of.  People looking outside of themselves in an attempt to find themselves.  Somehow believing that other people, other peoples' rules and regimes or material objects will give them their answer, will give them their happiness.

This approach rarely works though.  People follow the diets, the exercises, buy the products and maybe feel good about themselves for a while.  But it's often a hollow sense of happiness; not the genuine happiness that comes from being congruently oneself.

So for me this year, I'm not even going to try becoming a 'new me.'

I like the me I already am.

And I don't want, or need, to change that;

but I will allow myself to grow in whatever direction my authentic self leads me ...

Lost and Adrift Between Selves

Personal growth or change is not always an easy process. Letting go of old ways of being and thinking can leave a void in an individual’s sense of themselves until they establish and integrate new ways of being. For a period of time, the individual can feel themselves lost and adrift between selves.

I think it’s important for us as therapists to remind ourselves of this sometimes. We work with clients, facilitating their growth and change and often, our focus, and that of clients’, remains purely on a positive outcome. But sometimes, to get to that outcome, a period and process of discomfort and instability needs to be experienced.

This is pertinent for me right now. I took a deliberate step onto a new path in my personal growth recently and have reached the point of feeling lost and adrift. It’s an uncomfortable feeling, but with the experience and knowledge I have behind me, I can make sense of what is happening for me. I know that this sensation of not knowing who I am won’t last forever. I know that for me, this sensation means that I’ve let go of yet more past beliefs and ways of being that are no longer true for me. What I haven’t yet been able to do is fully grasp my new belief system and new way of being. But I do know, that that will come when the time is right. And so for me, uncomfortable as this time may be, I can also feel excited that a brand new me is about to spring into life … & I can look forward to meeting, becoming, and being, my new self.

It’s made me think though about clients who go through this process. Clients who don’t have the understanding and experience that I have. I imagine it could feel very unnerving; frightening even. They come to therapy in order to feel better about themselves, and yet sometimes, in order to reach that more congruent place, they need to go through a period of instability. And as therapists, we have to facilitate our client’s experience of themselves and living through this time.

It can be an unexpected experience for some clients, and sometimes too unsettling. The point of void can be a point of taking a big leap forward in to the future, or of retreat back into the past, and safe, established ways of being. But for everyone who stays with the process and comes through the other side, the rewards more than outweigh the dis-comfort … the sun begins to shine as the self sets sail on the next stage of its journey …

The Embodied Experience of a Researcher Researching Embodiment

My experience to date of researching the embodied subjectivity of therapists working with clients presenting with eating disorders is having interesting and unexpected effects on my own sense of embodiment. My experience of living within, and experiencing the world from within, my own body has changed over the last year and a half that I’ve been conducting the research.

For many years, I now recognise how much I lived from inside my head. I intellectualised everything and tried to rationalise everything, living a very detached life, regimented by self imposed intellectual ‘rules’. Believing I had to be “the good little girl” in order to be loved and accepted, I was relatively disconnected from my Self and my own body. I took my cues as to how I “should” be from this set of rules; living life according to how, and who, I believed other people wanted me to be.

This disconnection from my Self and my body was a huge contributory factor to my experience of eating distress and non-acceptance of my body. As I journeyed through Anorexia, I attempted to disappear, causing my body to become increasingly small and insubstantial … as I felt my Self to be. Moving then through a phase of Bulimia, I was attempting to grow, to fill my body with my Self, to allow both my Self and my body to become more substantial … but an ongoing lack of self-acceptance led to the Bulimic purge and rejection / repulsion of that attempt. A rejection / repulsion of my Self. And these symbolic meanings of eating disorders seem to be relatively common to a number of people experiencing eating distress.

My ongoing internal battle continued until I stopped fighting myself and allowed my Self to live within my body. And for a number of years prior to embarking on my research, I felt myself to be relatively comfortable with my experiencing of my Self in my body.

However, as I’ve read countless books and research articles, and interviewed people for my research, my sense of embodiment has intensified massively. I’m now very aware of how I chew over any information given to me before digesting it and allowing it to become part of me and my belief system. In the past, I was more likely to simply swallow whole what people told me, introjecting other peoples’ beliefs and ideas about the world, and consequently then not living true to my Self. Now though, reflecting on any information I receive allows me to mull it over, consider if and how, I can integrate it with my own beliefs before digesting it and allowing it to become part of me. Bulimia fits symbolically into this idea … wolfing down food indiscriminately (food symbolically representing information, ideas, love, etc) before then rejecting / expelling it through the act of purging because it doesn’t fit comfortably into one’s sense of Self.

I’m now very much more connected to my body. I’m aware of constantly checking things out with my body to find out how I’m feeling about something. It’s very easy to rationalise / intellectualise things, but feelings experienced within the body can often be relied upon to tell the ‘truth’ … trusting one’s ‘gut instinct.’ It takes time and awareness to ‘listen’ to your body and to learn to interpret what its feelings are communicating to you … my body now, is a valuable source of information for me…

I’m aware now of when I’m biting something back, something I’m maybe reluctant to voice … by the tension in my clenching jaw. Linked to this is a tendency to chew my lower lip, again when I’m biting something back; this is usually linked to feeling angry & not wanting to verbalise what I’m feeling. My shoulders raise slightly when I’m tense … I become aware of it, consciously drop them, and & I feel instantly relaxed. I have a certain tilt to my head when I’m feeling confident … when I need to access that confidence, I know I can tilt my head that way & I feel instantly more confident! And one of the big ones for me is holding tension in my stomach … for many years, I hated my stomach, rejected it … I now know that for me, my stomach is where my true Self rests … tension there means I’m not connecting fully with my Self.

And a rather more bizarre effect for me, has been how react to TV programmes such as “You’ve Been Framed” where people are shown experiencing physical pain … I find myself struggling now to watch them as I physically feel their pain. I’m also aware of a ‘rush’ of feeling from my adrenal glands as my body physically responds as though the incident is happening to me … bizarre!

Our bodies are fascinating communicators and they tell us so much about ourselves. Observing other people’s bodies can be very telling too; it’s easy to hide the truth behind words, but our bodies are constantly ‘leaking’ out the truth! It’s simply a case of learning how to read the messages of our own, and other people’s bodies.

Dreams

I love dreams … my own, & other peoples’. And I love working with clients’ dreams in the counselling room.

I think your dreams can teach you a lot about yourself … if you’re prepared to listen to them and work with them. Dreams tend to be metaphorical and rarely send their meanings literally … which is what makes them so fun … connecting to your unconscious, where dreams play …

People often ask me how they will know if they’ve uncovered the true meaning / message of their dream …. Because dreams are so personal and unique to the dreamer, when their true message is uncovered, in my experience it’s something that hits at a real gut / instinctual level, usually with a smile … one of those “a-ha” moments when you simply know that it’s right, you’ve got it.

I’m sharing this dream on here for a couple of reasons … to illustrate how meaningful our dreams can be, and also because it fits in nicely with my previous blog entry.

I had a dream sometime during Friday / Saturday night; it was about me realising that my eyes were red and bloodshot, and I was worried about other people noticing. On being reminded of this dream on Saturday morning, I knew that it had some significance for me and I made a mental note to spend some time remembering and thinking about it.

The timing of our dreams can be significant … this dream came to me at a time when I was talking and thinking about ‘moving on’, and what that means to me. And as written in my previous entry, I now know that for me, ‘moving on’ means letting go of my old Self, my old ways of being, & allowing myself to become more of my authentic Self.

Out walking this morning along Tynemouth sea front, meditating on this dream, its meaning suddenly made itself known to me … I realised that for me, red, bloodshot eyes probably mean that I’ve been crying, which probably means that I’ve been affected by something deeply emotional or something which had touched me at a deep personal level. A lot of this crying and emotional experiencing, has, for me, been done in private … often feeling too ashamed or vulnerable to let people see the true depth of the ‘real’ me. I remember times when I have felt self-conscious after a period of crying and wondered if people could see that I had been crying … I’ve spent a lot of time restraining the real me, not allowing the full potential of my Self to be seen or experienced.

What I realised today though is that I’m ready to ‘move on’ & to risk allowing myself to simply be me, to be that real authentic Self and to allow people to see me with red, bloodshot eyes.

Thank you unconscious …who would have thought that dreaming of red bloodshot eyes would be a message to me to move on towards being true to myself?!