When I was a teenager, I had a meaningful conversation with my dad. He told me that he never heard the words “I love you” from either one of his parents growing up. I remember thinking to myself, how could they do that? Don’t all parents say, “I love you” to their kids? I was so grateful that my dad showed me love instead of being cold and distant, like what he had experienced from his childhood. My dad always made me feel important because he listened to me. I knew he cared, and he always supported me, and he often told me how much he loved me.
Isn’t it interesting how he was able to overcome his childhood trauma around not feeling loved? He told me that he had made a decision to do things differently. He said to himself, “I never want my kids to feel the way I did” so he decided to raise his family the way he would have wanted to be raised. He made up his mind, not to let the past influence the present.
Why is it so difficult for others to move past those haunting childhood memories? If this rings true for you, there is a definite way to overcome this. There is hope.
Here is something to think about, hurt people, hurt people. So if someone has hurt you in the past, they too may have been hurt. This doesn’t make it better, but in some ways it can put things in perspective. If you change your thinking, on how a situation has affected you, then you can change the way you react to it. My dad realized that his parents were uneducated; young when they had 5 children, and could barely make ends meet during the depression. He understood the pressures that were placed upon them, and chose to accept his difficult childhood. However, he did not plan on staying in a poor mans mentality, he had made the decision to be grateful and create a life of abundance and happiness. I remember him reading self-help books back in the 60’s by Norman Vincent Peale, The Power of Positive Thinking.
It boils down to whether you will do the work, and if you say, “I’m ready YES”! You can let go of negative thoughts. You will learn to recognize negative feelings and behaviors. It sounds strange, but you must thank them for making you who you are, and then let them know whose the boss now, and tell those negative beliefs to please go now! It is important to tell yourself, that these thoughts from the past no longer serve you. Allow some time to familiarize yourself with this new positive way of thinking. A great exercise that I have my clients do is to write down all the negative things that they say to themselves daily. Then they must come up with new self-empowering thoughts to replace the old negative thoughts. This may take some getting used to, because negative thoughts sometimes run rampant. But the more you catch yourself thinking negatively and changing those thoughts to a positive, you can expect amazing things to happen in your life. We must take what was once familiar (negative thinking) and make it unfamiliar. This is where the magic happens.
Remember that “your mess, can be your message” and you can look forward to an amazing future without the baggage from your past weighing you down. You can change your thinking, and change your life.
I work with incredibly smart, talented, and amazing human beings using a method called RTT (Rapid Transformational Therapy). Serious issues can be overcome in a two-hour session. I have seen it work over and over again. That is why it’s called Rapid Transformational therapy. What sounds better months and years of seeing a therapist… or just one to three sessions only? One of the greatest joys in my life is to see how my clients have empowered not only themselves, but also their businesses, and most importantly, their families to operate in a positive way. Perhaps you are ready to face and solve some past challenges. You may have been thinking about it for months or even years. If you have questions or you want information just let me know. Feel free to set up a complimentary session by going to www.callwithgigi.com. Sometimes a conversation is all it takes!
Gigi Souritzidis, Certified RTT, and C.Hyp.