Who doesn't know what I'm talking about

You guys, 

You know how I always plan to start these weekly features and then kind of forget about them after a week or two?

It's happening again. Yes!

My new weekly feature (inspired by Meliss) will be...

FREE THERAPY!!

What good is it to read the blog of a therapist if you aren't getting some free therapy out of it?

So, every Sunday my blog shall be dedicated to providing you with some amazing therapeutic tool or insight.

Let the healing begin!!

Today's FREE THERAPY....

"it is a psychological fact that we treat ourselves the way we were treated as children"

I often share that quote with my clients who were children of addicts or who come from abusive homes. 

What starts out as our parents voices in our heads eventually becomes the same words, but in our own voice.

Sometimes that is a good thing and sometimes it is bad. 

In my life it has been both.

I never doubt my intelligence- I can still hear my parents voices telling me that I am smart. It's my voice telling me that now and I have always been very confident in my intelligence. 

I struggle with feeling like I am a deep down lazy person. That's something my dad would say alot (because he was probably frustrated by the never ending mess!). I constantly worry that other people are going to judge me as lazy and if I leave something, it's my voice now saying "stop being so lazy. You are such a slob" etc. 

The thing is that those kind of self castigating thoughts neither motivate nor inspire real change. Guilt and shame are not long term motivating emotions. 

So... I guess the first step in changing the negative thoughts is to be able to recognize them. Then challenge them. Then replace them.

Easier said than done. 

Yikes..I feel like this feature could get pretty boring, pretty quickly. 

Hang in there. We'll get to the more festive therapy stuff soon!

The therapy where I make you look in a mirror and say "You are a sexy creature" over and over.  That's coming, trust me. 

Lori Ann