“ ARE YOU INVISIBLE?”
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Ellen was brought up to be invisible. She was taught to be very tuned into others’ feelings and needs, but to never have any of her own. Her family made it clear to her that her job was to give to them but to never expect anything in return. As a result, Ellen learned to be totally tuned out to her own feelings and needs. It was as if she, as a person, didn’t really exist, other than to be there for others.
When Ellen’s feeling and needs did surface, she would tell herself that they weren’t important, that she was strong and could handle not having her feelings cared for and or her needs recognized. She convinced herself that if she just cared enough about others, others would eventually care about her. It never happened.
The inner stress of never attending to her own feelings and needs and always feeling so invisible to others as a result finally took a toll on Ellen’s health. Ellen is now dealing with cancer and finally has to attend to herself.
Many of us have learned to be invisible – to ourselves and to others. What are some of the ways you create invisibility?
Do you remain silent, not speaking up for yourself, when feeling discounted or unseen by others?
Do you ignore your own feelings and needs in deference to others?
Do you go along with what others want, even if you really want something else?
Do you accept blame for things that you know are not really your responsibility?
Do you put aside your own opinions and accept the opinions of others to be accepted?
Do you accept disrespectful behavior from others, finding ways to excuse the behavior?
Do you pretend everything is okay when you are really feeling lonely or sad?
Are you conflict avoidant, preferring peace at any cost rather than rock the boat?
Are you carrying too much of the load at home or at work, without complaint?
Do you pretend to like a food, a movie, a topic of conversation, or sex, rather than run the risk of disapproval or rejection?
Do you allow yourself to be violated in any way – physically, emotionally, verbally, sexually – to avoid rejection?
Do you allow others’ anger or bullying to control you into doing what they want?
Do you do everything yourself, never asking others for help?
How often do you end up feeling unappreciated, unseen, not valued? How much of this is a reflection of how you treat yourself?
If your own feelings and needs are invisible to yourself, they will end up being invisible to others. It is not realistic to constantly put yourself aside and then expect others to value and respect you. Anytime you tolerate uncaring or disrespectful behavior in others to avoid conflict, you are training others to see you as invisible, to not care about your feelings and needs.
If you have been allowing yourself to be invisible for a long time, it is a real challenge to start to care about yourself. You need to be willing to go through a difficult period of feeling others’ anger and resentment. After all, you trained them for years to not have to care about you or see you, and now you are changing the rules. They won’t like it, but they will eventually respect you for it. You will also discover in the process of caring about yourself who really cares about you and who has just been using you. Those people who really care about you will eventually applaud your self-care, while those who were just using you will go away or be constantly angry with you for changing.
It takes great courage to shift from invisibility to being seen and valued. It takes great courage to be willing to lose others rather than continue to lose yourself. Yet, like with Ellen, your very life may depend upon it. Hopefully, you will not wait until you are ill or feel alone and cast aside by others to start to become visible to yourself.
It must start with yourself – with learning to tune into, acknowledge, value, and take loving action for yourself regarding your own feelings and needs. It means moving into personal responsibility for your own feelings and needs rather than taking care of everyone else in the hopes they will eventually take care of you. If you are ever going to feel cared for and loved, it has to start with you caring about and being loving to yourself!
About the Author Margaret Paul, Ph.D. is the best-selling author and co-author of eight books, including "Do I Have To Give Up Me To Be Loved By You?", "Do I Have To Give Up Me To Be Loved By My Kids?", "Healing Your Aloneness","Inner Bonding", and "Do I Have To Give Up Me To Be Loved By God?" Visit her web site for a FREE Inner Bonding course: http://www.innerbonding.com or mailto:margaret@innerbonding.com
Using a powerful Self Esteem Hypnosis mp3 is a proven confidence building hypnosis tool - get these self confidence building self hypnosis downloads today to build confidence and improve your self esteem! http://confidence-building-self-esteem-hypnosis-mp3.com Self hypnosis Downloads used for weight loss and quitting smoking have proven an effective tool for motivated change, including confidence building hypnosis downloads like self esteem hypnosis mp3 recordings. Listen to your self hypnosis downloads at your convenience as often as you need for one low price! http://www.self-hypnosis-downloads-mp3.com Blushing It is not surprising that in today's "got to look good" society, facial blushing causes people a lot of pain. At its extremes, the embarrassment from blushing can become so acute that the sufferer avoids social contact. Talking to other people, whether in person or even on the phone, is often associated with blushing.
Here are some things you can do about it.
(Please note: Here we are talking about the common social blushing that nearly everyone experiences at some time. There is a condition called hyperhidrosis (excessive sweating) that is often treated with surgery. Normal blushing does not require such an extreme solution.)
So Why Do We Blush?
The first thing to understand is that blushing is a perfectly natural thing. It seems to be nature's way of disclosing our true feelings about a situation. Some have theorised that blushing is naturally attractive as it is safer in evolutionary terms to have a partner that cannot lie without detection. (Of course this is not fail-safe!)
Tips to Avoid Blushing
Relax Out of It
Blushing tends to get worse at first as people start to get embarrassed about their embarrassment, creating a sort of vicious circle. The more tense you get as you start to blush, the more the blood is forced to the face. One trick is, when you feel it coming on, to deliberately drop your shoulders, relax your body, and push your stomach out. This takes a bit of doing at first, so you might want to practice.
Announce It, Don't Hide It
One thing that allows the circle to continue is the 'hiding' of it by the blusher. I used to blush much more than I do now (most people do from time to time). The way I dealt with it, and a way that has helped clients of mine, was to announce it when it was about to happen. "Here we go, I'm going to go red now" or "Oh, I think I might blush".
Accept It, Don't Fight It
You need to shift your relationship to the blushing. At the moment you are trying to hide it because you are embarrassed about it. If you can work on relaxing about it, it will get better. This will be helped by you accepting it as a current part of yourself. You can try saying to yourself "At the moment, I am a blusher". I t sounds strange, but if you can bring yourself to like that part of you more, it is more likely to go away!
Other Peoples' Opinions
Part of the embarrassment about blushing is caused by the thought that others will see you as weak or silly. However, everyone has had the experience of being embarrassed, and it's not nice for anyone. Any decent person will be sympathetic about it. Anyone who thinks less of you for it is most probably not worth knowing anyway!
Retrain Your Body
Self hypnosis can help greatly as you can train your body to relax as you feel the blushing coming on, or have the thought that you might blush. If you do any relaxation techniques such as yoga or meditation, once you are really relaxed imagine the feeling of the blushing and have yourself relax with it. Practice feeling accepting towards yourself as you feel it coming on. You can imagine how you would feel if you saw someone else suffering the same way, and then feel that way towards yourself.
This self hypnosis download can help with blushing.
Your Standards
Remember, if you were perfect, you would be God! ;-)
Article by Roger Elliott, author of the Free Self Confidence CourseClick here to subscribe to the free self confidence course now http://www.self-confidence.co.uk/
Overcoming Shyness and Social PhobiaShyness, (sometimes inaccurately called 'social phobia'), affects most people at some time in their life. Young people in particular find overcoming shyness difficult as they improve their social skills. And for some, shyness seems to persist into adult life, almost as if it has become a 'habit'.
Shyness has its roots in self consciousness and usually dissipates as people mature and become more experienced. However, for some it can 'stick', and then action is required.
Although most people think in terms of 'overcoming shyness', it is more likely that you will become comfortable in social situations by learning the strategies of self confidence along with social skills. Then, shyness is no longer the issue, as social nerves will melt away as a new 'habit' takes their place.
Shyness versus Social Phobia
It is my personal opinion that social phobia is too often diagnosed where people are simply experiencing natural shyness. It is perfectly natural to be a little timid in a situation where you don't yet know the 'rules', or what to do. In fact, most people experience some degree of nerves when, say going to meet friends, especially if it is somewhere they haven't been before, or someone new will be there.
We have to be very careful not to assume that there is something wrong with this. Social nerves are natural, as long as they don't get out of hand. Focusing on them and making them into a 'big thing' will only make matters worse.
When learning about social situations, young people need the chance to find their own way, without being labeled with 'social phobia'. This is not to say that social phobia does not exist; I know it does because I have worked with people suffering from it. However, in the vast majority of cases, the solution is social skills training, and perhaps relaxation and rehearsal, rather than drugs.
If a person can maintain a degree of calmness in a situation, then they are much more likely to be able to learn about how the situation works. However, if they are highly anxious and internally focused, both their emotional state and focus of attention will make it more difficult to pick up on subtle social cues.
The other key point about overcoming shyness is that most of socialising is an unconscious process. That doesn't mean you should be asleep when you're doing it (tell that to people I speak to at parties ;-), it simply means that much of human communication is non-verbal. That is, 'it's not what you say, it's the way that you say it'.
If you become highly anxious, this will tend to focus your conscious mind on your immediate environment, getting in the way of those unconscious processes.
Tips For Overcoming Shyness
Check out the tips in the article on self consciousness, particularly the ones to do with where you focus your attention.
• Practise becoming fascinated by other people. Ask them about themselves, and concentrate when they answer you. Remember what they tell you about themselves so you can talk about it later, or on another occasion.
• Great socialisers make other people feel comfortable and interesting. How do they do that? By being really, genuinely interested in other people. If you are talking to someone and you feel boring or inferior, ask why that is. Is it really all your fault?
• Practise using fewer 'personal pronouns' when you talk about things. Sentences beginning with 'I' are not only a turn-off for the listener, they also keep the focus of attention on you, which increases shyness. (Note: Of course, part of friendship is giving away things about yourself, but only when you feel it is appropriate to do so.)
• Remember that the way to overcome shyness is to focus elsewhere. Like on imagining what it will be like to really enjoy the social event, on how it will feel to be full of energy, or to be having a great conversation with someone.
The exercises and techniques contained within the Self Confidence Course should help with shyness because they focus on what to do to feel confident, rather than how to avoid feeling shy.
Overcoming shyness is about doing the things that allow you to enjoy social situations, not wondering why you feel shy! Good luck and I hope this article has been useful.
This self hypnosis download can help with shyness
Article by Roger Elliott, author of the Free Self Confidence CourseClick here to subscribe nowhttp://www.self-confidence.co.uk/
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