At an early stage in our lives, most of us have been taught that we need something outside of us to be happy – the right body, partner, job, car, house, bank account. Then somewhere along the line we also get taught something like, “True happiness comes from within.”
And we think we’re totally on board with that. We think, “Right. It’s not stuff that makes me happy – it’s things like kindness + compassion that make me happy!”
The thing is, none of the above is true.
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Whether or not you had a childhood marked by conflict, or grew up in an environment of rage, you have likely – at some point in your life – struggled with anger.
Even in the closest relationships (especially in the closest relationships) anger and conflict are inevitable.
And so, when they show up it’s not necessarily a bad thing – it’s not a “bad sign” about the relationship, per se, because what anger is most often showing us is that our basic, most fundamental needs are not getting met.
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As a life coach, part of my job is helping people develop the tools and skills to be able to do something really crucial to their own long term growth: coach themselves.
Yes, I am here as a sounding board, a listener, a co-conspirator and a co-mastermind in helping my clients create the lives they want and deserve, (as a kick in the you-know-what if that’s what they need!) – but I cannot do the work for them.
We all have to do our own groundwork to free our minds, so that we can free our lives.
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Human brains love black-and-white thinking. Thinking in terms of absolutes: of ‘right or wrong’, of ‘good or bad’, of ‘all or nothing’.
With black and white thinking, there’s no tension or resistance – none of the discomfort that comes with cognitive dissonance. Because things are either one way or the other way, and this allows us to settle into the comforting absence of ambiguity – the comfort of being 100 percent convinced that we’re right, or that we are good, or that they’re wrong, or that that’s bad.
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