YOUR VERY BEST FRIEND AND WORST ENEMY…
‘Our deepest fears are like dragons, guarding our deepest treasure’. Rainer Maria Rilke
Imagine if you had a friend, someone who really cared about you deeply and was willing to do whatever it took to make you happy. That would be fantastic wouldn’t it? Imagine if that friend worked to help you by observing what you liked and disliked, what scared you and what you loved and then pushed you headlong into those things that you showed you really loved and pulled you back from doing anything that you demonstrated that you didn’t like. That would be helpful wouldn’t it? But then imagine that this friend had been with you all your life – and that the things that scared you at age four were what this friend was protecting you from – and that the things that you loved at age six were what he/she pushed you towards. How would that be now – good or bad?
What scared you when you were four? Was it going to kindergarten/preschool? Was
it the dark? Maybe it was vegetables?
What did you like at age six? Was it playing games? Could
it have been doing lots of different things every day?
Or did you really like chocolate or ice cream because your mum gave it to you whenever you were sad?
Well, what things do you pull away from nowadays? Do you avoid seeking out a new career because you’re scared of new experiences, so you put up with a dead-end job? Perhaps you’re stuck in a relationship with someone you don’t really like but are scared of being alone? Can you see a pattern in your life with any of these things?
What things are you compelled to do? Do you find yourself changing jobs every few months because you’re bored? Or do you find yourself eating ice cream or chocolate whenever you’re sad? Can you see a pattern of these behaviours in your life?
Have you ever wondered why you automatically like/dislike things even though you consciously may want something different?
If you have, then let me put you in the picture. In essence, you’ve made your very best friend into your worst enemy! You see, your unconscious mind is that fabulous friend that you read about earlier. It helps you avoid pain and increase pleasure, and it determines what is pleasure and pain for you based on powerful emotional experiences that you’ve had during the course of your life.
Because when we are young so many of our experiences are strongly emotional, our unconscious mind easily evaluates them as either pleasurable or painful. Then, as we grow older, our unconscious mind causes us to want to avoid those painful things and increase our pleasure by indulging in things previously determined as pleasurable. So, that’s why some of us eat uncontrollably when we’re sad – our unconscious mind determined that this was a way to decrease pain and increase pleasure. And that’s why some of us stay in jobs we hate our whole lives – trapped – because our unconscious mind identified ‘new’ experiences as painful.
The beauty of all this is that we can change what we evaluate as painful
and pleasurable in order to make our unconscious mind our greatest
ally in fulfilling our dreams. With the help of your coach,
you can eliminate these old, unwanted beliefs and replace them with
new ones that empower you and drive you on to success.
So, when you feel down or lonely, remember that you have a faithful friend sitting right next to you who is ready to help you achieve whatever you want in life. But this time, tell that friend clearly exactly what you really want and then watch out – because it’ll be coming your way sometime soon!!
Copyright C Change Coaching 2008©
C Change Coaching approves the reproduction of this
article so long as it remains unchanged and contains the following subscript:
C Change Coaching is an emotional wellness and life coaching
company specialising in helping people uncover and eliminate negative
emotions, decisions and issues to empower them to achieve success
in all areas of their lives. To find out how C Change Coaching
can assist you to do this, visit www.cchangecoaching.com.au.