How To Heal From A Hard Start In Life

Our Psychological Foundations Are Built In Youth

It could be said that we are only as strong as the foundations we’re built upon. 
As we go through life we see people confident and self-assured seemingly gliding on a cloud of ease and self-belief, while other equally wonderful intelligent and talented people shrink in anxiety and self-doubt, missing opportunities because their eyes are fixed on the ground instead of ahead.  

Why are some people naturally confident while others are afraid?
It may be genetic predisposition, however it’s often due to the childhood experience of the people in question.
If you grow up in a household where you are treated with respect, treasured and feel safe, you become wired to feel worthy of respect, valued and safe.  If you grow up in a household where you are not allowed to have healthy boundaries, where you are put down, criticised, judged, abused and let down – you are wired to be vigilant and wary of where the next attack or painful disappointment is coming from.  Your base line for anxiety is set very high. Whether consciously or unconsciously you feel unsafe.  
 
Your energy is channelled into maintaining this hyper-vigilant state with little left to devote to developing your true authentic self, the you that you were meant to be had you had the nurturing and support  that you missed out on.
 
So how do you turn it around? 
Think about this, if you were living in a house and the walls were cracking and the floor buckling because the foundations were not up to the task of holding the house up – would you stay there as the house fell around you or would you  get the foundations fixed?
In order to fix the foundations would you need to travel back in time and dig them out at the moment they were first laid or would you fix them in the here and now?
You would of course fix them in the here and now.  You would call in an expert to evaluate what is needed to make the house safe and secure again and you would discuss with them how to go about rectifying the current situation.  You might even get a second opinion.  You would then arrange for the work to be done and commit to it.
There’s very little different in how you would go about ‘fixing’ your own psychological foundations.  When we grow up in a family home that hasn’t provided us with the love, nurturing and sense of safety required to build solid foundations, we call in an expert to help rectify the situation i.e. a Therapist. The therapist will then work with you to establish what needs to change in order to make your foundations solid. Usually you will have some  cracks and skill gaps.  These  can be filled as skills are learned, (don’t despair skills can be learned at any stage of life) given the right environment and the right help.

How can Hypnotherapy Help ?
As a Counsellor and Hypnotherapist I work with my clients in a variety of ways.  Always on two levels, the conscious level at which my clients have realised things could be better in their lives i.e.  there’s a part of them that wants to be out there doing more, mixing more, eating healthier, drinking less, being more successful, living more.   Then at the unconscious level where limiting beliefs and  unresolved emotions tend to lurk.    Often  there are damaged frightened parts of the personality holding them back. The part that says quietly ‘it’s not safe’, maybe not always in words, sometimes it’s a feeling e.g.  that feeling that comes over them when the night out they’ve been looking forward to is about to happen, the feeling that says ‘ no, cancel it, stay in, make an excuse’, the part of them that allows other people to take credit for their work, or talk over them or disrespect them in other ways because it whispers ‘if you speak up you’ll be rejected or attacked’.  The part of them that says ‘stay quiet’ even when they know the answer to the question being asked.   The part of them that makes them keep eating long after they’ve had enough, because it will make them feel better now, and ultimately it will make them invisible.
These damaged parts are all working hard to protect the whole person, their intentions are good, however they’ve been stuck in a time-warp in the persons psyche, where they believe the whole person is still a helpless child dependent on the reckless adults around them, whose only hope of survival is to avoid attention and exposure.    
In Hypnotherapy we work with these parts to find ways that they can learn to be a more constructive component of my clients mindset.  We provide them with new skills and tasks and build their confidence and most importantly we then teach them to all work in alignment, in synergy towards the goals of the whole person while teaching and reassuring them that the whole person is now an autonomous adult in control of their own life.  In doing so we create a strong foundation, on which my clients are able to build something wonderful for themselves, a loving home, a safe place, with solid boundaries and picture windows through which they can see a world of opportunities from their true self.
Would you like help making positive changes in your life?
If you’d like to find out more about Hypnotherapy here in Melbourne and Hypfocus and how I can help you overcome internal blocks please give me a call on 0435 923 817 or visit my website and drop me a line via one of the contact forms.  You are more than good enough!
Some issues that arise from damaged personal foundations:

• Anxiety
• Fears and Phobias
• Depression
• Eating Disorders (Over eating, emotional eating, binging, sugar addiction, anorexia, bulimia)
• Smoking 
• Skin Picking, Hair Pulling, Nail Biting
• IBS
• Chronic Pain (often triggered by unresolved emotions particularly anger)
• Addictions