I love the way people like Martha Beck and yes, the ubiquitous Dr Phil, deal with certain things… I’m not necessarily a great believer in psychotherapy, because the result is only as good as the people involved- i.e., your own commitment to getting to wherever, and as good as the person walking that journey with you…. But there’s definitely room for it. There are none so blind as those who will not see (or deaf either)! We can labour under such massive self-delusion, because we like the way things are, it feels so cosy, and we most certainly don’t want anyone to mess with it by probing. And the things we keep hidden in the dark soon gain power over us.

See, here’s a good example: thinking, “I am not good enough”. Say your father told you this ten years ago, that you were totally useless, after you crashed his new car while he was teaching you how to drive. So you’ve been anchored in that moment ten years ago, and you’re still being “useless” because you’ve never learnt how to drive, and you will not let that thought be challenged, because every time you’ve ventured out to the driving school (if you have, even), you’ve been completely intimidated by your dad’s words. Never mind that you’re an adult now, and you have never again tested your dad’s theory. With no disrespect at all, the only way your dad could be absolutely right about your inability to hold, steer, shift, is if he were God, and he is not.

And if you’re like a lot of people, you’ve taken that sweeping statement on your ability to make a mistake at one specific point in your life, and extrapolated it to a statement on your general uselessness…. And now you’re possibly an underachiever in general, completely ignoring your fantastic abilities- because you’re functionally blind to them, and functionally deaf to any external input on how great you do this, or that. And so you’ve been trapped, you’ve given your power to those things in the dark, all those insecurities, and the words you took for gospel truth. What if your dad was simply expressing something his dad had said to him, fifty years ago- the way parents often pass things on to their kids? Would you really want to give up your personal power and freedom to an inaccuracy?

How about challenging those negative beliefs you have about yourself? How about giving yourself a chance, today, to risk finding out if you are maybe more than you’ve conditioned yourself (or been conditioned, if you like) to be? Yes, sure, maybe you’ll fall- and, ouch, it may hurt awfully, too. But maybe you’ll find a new way of being, a more authentic you- wouldn’t that be fabulous, to be so free?

You don’t even have to do it alone. You probably have people willing to go on that journey with you, those who may even be able to see you better than you see yourself. Stop giving your trust to those who would disempower you, and stop worrying about overvaluing yourself. It seems to be true that those who worry most about that are usually doing the complete opposite. What is your true, unfettered worth?