Category: False self

There are very few roles in the world with the expectation to be and do it all, quite like the role of a mother. There are also many contradicting messages about what exactly all of the IT we are meant to be doing is. So often, instead of challenging this ridiculous expectation, mothers succumb to the overwhelm of it all and just end up feeling like failures. The reality is, when you are expected to be and do it all, and you push yourself to achieve it, you are never really going to be doing any of it particularly well. How could you? This sets moms up for burnout in the one job you can not give up.

I recognize this phenomenon in every mom that sits across from me in therapy and I look upon their faces with so much empathy because years ago, that was me! What changed the game for my motherhood a few years ago, is that I came across the podcast, The Lazy Genius, and felt like this woman was throwing me a lifeline! She encouraged her listen ...

“It’s fine.”  “Everything is fine.”  “I’m fine.”  Have you ever strung together these three sentences and thought to yourself, “shoot, I think I might not be fine”. 

About a year ago I was in a car accident that resulted in emergency surgery, a stay in the trauma center at the hospital, and a long recovery (in addition to other challenges). It was the most challenging and scary time in my life. I didn’t think that I was going to make it, and yet I would find myself telling my loved ones who came to visit me, “It’s fine.”  “Everything is fine.”  “I’m fine.” 

Why is it so hard to admit that sometimes we are not fine? It has taken me a while to figure out why I was so desperately pushing myself to be fine. Though I wanted those words to be true, what I wanted more than anything was for my loved ones to think and feel that those words were true.

Whet ...

There are many different trainings or theories that I have walked through in my personal and academic life. Each one has offered a unique skillset to help myself and others navigate stormy seas. One of the most recent approaches has stuck in my mind more than others in the past. It is an approach created by Dan Allender and taught to me from an LPC named Matt Kenney under the name of  “Story Retelling.”  The premise is fairly simple: each person at one point in their development incurred a wound. This wound spoke a message of shame to the child. The child then created a vow to be a certain person or live a certain way so as to never feel that shame again. As a result, a false self is created through which the child learns to interact with the world. This false self is the point of discontentment and battle within the adult.

It begins with a wound. The fallen nature of the world ensures that each person will be hur ...