Have you ever gone to a doctors or a dentist appointment and expected to receive horrifying news about your body or your gums or your boobs?
I have. Many times.
Every time I go into a medical setting my body tenses up incredibly tight and braces for a destructive impact.
(Thanks survival brain)
However, what actually ends up happening is the practitioner in front of me remains calm, certain, and confident and usually tells me my health (or my teeth) are totally healthy and normal.
This is incredibly relieving in the moment, of course.
But it always ends up happening all over AGAIN the next time I go.
That’s because this visceral fear is caused by my ego thinking I’m a super special different snowflake unicorn with problems that will confound, stagger and shock all the PhD holders all over the globe.
It’s because my ego wants to be stroked in some sadistic, miserable way.
It wants confirmation that all my fears and anxieties are rooted in sound, brilliant logic (they are not, my friends).
It wants me to be distinctly SET APART from everyone else, in a special, helpless way.
NOT in a useful, helpful, empowering way.
In a way that excuses me from taking responsibility for how I think and feel and show up for myself.
It’s an interesting survival/trauma/coping mechanism that I am NOT here to judge or shame.
I am here to become aware of it so I can have much more power over my fears and anxieties, and so I can experience them LESS.
It took me a while to learn this.
It took me a while to even realize I was DOING this.
Thinking I’m special.
And it doesn’t just show up in my physical health.
It also shows up for my mental health.
Now. When I was really depressed and helpless, I needed to hear that I had something unique to contribute, I needed to hear that I had value to offer this world.
But once I was well and out of that hole… It no longer served me to continue separating myself off from the rest of the world in this “special” way that was once useful.
Here’s what happens when we imagine ourselves as special beyond the inherent value of our existence:
I remember getting on my first 1 on 1 coaching call expecting the coach to go: “Wow. I can’t help you. No one can. You are too far gone. Your problems are for life. Good luck, bitch.”
I was subconsciously thinking my problems were so special and so different and I was so uniquely flawed that real change or healing would never, ever happen for me.
It could happen for everyone else!
Just not ME.
Because I was thinking I’m special.
That was, of course, a big fat lie.
But the ego hates to hear it.
It hates to let go of the idea that our experiences aren’t so different, our problems aren’t new or rare, and in the most loving way, we AREN’T more special or different from others.
This is next level growth.
Depending on where you are right now, take what serves you and leave the rest.
If you need to hear you are unique and valuable because you feel really low right now, then take it! And feel better soon.
But if you are hiding from taking responsibility for your fears because you’re afraid a life coach is going to look at you and say you’re fucked, be brave and use this idea that your problems just aren’t that different from everyone else’s and your life isn’t more special than the next persons.
THAT is lasting relief and freedom.
THAT is an equal and fair playing field in life.
THAT is the power of being witnessed by an expert.
go ahead and book your free consult now here.