You Are Not Your Thoughts
by Lisa A. Romano
There is nothing that upsets me or excites me more than an adult child of an alcoholic, or an adult child of a dysfunctional home who is on the cusp of being able to comprehend that he/she is NOT her thoughts.
When you are born to parents who cannot SEE you, who cannot HEAR you, who are unaware at how self absorbed they are--in relation to you--YOU never learn to be comfortable in your own skin. Because it is the absolute responsibility of the parent to instill within a child a sense of unconditional love and acceptance--children are not born knowing how to love self. In fact, children learn about their worth or lack of through their relationships with parents. If the parents are dysfunctional, then so will be the messages the child receives about self, others, the world, relationships and love.
As a Life Coach I have had to learn how to detach from the emotions that well up within me whenever a client opens up their heart and bestows me the honor of stepping inside their temple of pain. Listening to my life coaching clients stories of emotional, mental and physical abuse inflicted by their parents/spouses/siblings and so on, is not always an easy thing to stay detached from. However, as a Life Coach it is my responsibility to be emotionally, mentally and physically present for my clients--and to offer them total and complete unconditional acceptance of whatever they are sharing--so to help them integrate and ultimately transcend the wounds of the past.
Unconditional acceptance is perhaps the most blessed 'thing' any human being could ever give another.
But because so many of us do not know how to get out of our own head, because we are so wounded from our childhoods--all too often we stay stuck in the ego--in an attempt to protect our personal insecurities. If you were labelled selfish for wanting as a child, or if you were labelled a whore, or a jackass--today as an adult--you may be stuck trying to not only protect your inner child from being re-wounded, but you also may be stuck trying to prove to others you are not the labels your parents gave you so long ago.
Sadly all of this emotional sewage is below the level of consciousness--and keeps beings playing and replaying the same old dramas throughout their lifetimes.
Until YOU the being learns to unconditionally love YOU--those labels stick--and attract to them all the negativity you tried to avoid ( a form of control ). Because your programming and defenses are below the veil of consciousness--YOU will be a REACTIVE being--unaware that your compulsion to defend self by reacting to everything and everyone is unnecessary.
Perhaps the saddest thing about being a wounded adult child of a dysfunctional parent--is how often we tend to argue for our limitations. We argue for why we can't stop smoking, lose weight, exercise, or eat properly. We find dozens of excuses for why we just cannot do what we know we need to do--and we believe them. We believe the excuses we tell ourselves--because we love ourselves conditionally--and never learned to love self. Ultimately--we do not believe we are worthy of health, love, peace, freedom or abundance..and so we sabotage ourselves time and time again--repeating the emotional neglect we experienced in our childhoods.
The greatest thing about being a Life Coach who specializes in Adult Children of Alcoholic dynamics, is the fact that I am one who gets to watch a soul resurrect him/herself within his/her own mind. There is nothing as splendid or as joyous as being a witness to a souls resurrection.
As a being learns to understand that all of his/her adult woes are the results of reacting to unconscious dysfunctional programming, he/she also learns to comprehend--that by becoming conscious he/she can begin to deliberately create the rest of his/her life as he/she desires.
However, the change does not come about overnight--nor without consequences of years of denial, avoidance, lack of personal responsibility, blaming, enabling, or codependency.
When a Life Coaching client is ready to face the pain, I am ready, willing, able and beyond honored to be the one standing beside them as they do.
To all of my past clients, clients of today and future clients--Thank you for gifting me with the tremendous honor of being the one who you chose to help you remember your true divinity.
We are One...
Namaste...
