by Dr. Heléna Kate | Nov 28, 2016 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog
We all know that we can sometimes be our own worst enemy. Usually, this is because there is some aspect of yourself that you have restricted, or some part of your life that you have not been willing to fully embrace. There are many reasons why we might hold ourselves back including our early experiences, more recent negative experience, and a lack of experience with more positive potentials. We manifest our holds against ourselves with negative thinking, emotional instability, and a lack of imagination.
Negative inner dialog is sometimes referred to as the “inner critic.” You may not have heard this term before, but I would bet you are familiar with that voice inside your head that says negative things, tells you that you are not good enough, or criticizes your actions. Our inner dialogues are shaped by voices from our past, our thinking habits, our chosen environments, and the effects of the stress and strain of life. Thankfully, there are ways to effectively deal with each of these forces that shape our inner world. Here\’s how:
Voices from the past:
When familiar voices from the past fill up our mind, we can confuse them with our own thoughts. If we listen closely, we can distinguish that these thoughts are not in our own voice, they are in the voices of those people who impressed their views on us. When we bring awareness to what we are hearing/thinking, and we are able to name the person that is speaking to us in the form of our thoughts, it disempowers the thought. It is not what we think. It is what the person who is speaking it thinks.
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Habits of thinking:
Some habits die hard. One habit that is particularly difficult to eliminate is the habit of imagining a negative outcome or assuming the worst. When we engage in this type of thinking, we are both less happy and more closed to alternate outcomes. A reframe, is when you take a situation or a thought and restructure it to be both true and positive. For example, a simple reframe can be removing words like never and always to create more room for a positive experience.
via GIPHY
Our Company:
The company that we keep makes a huge difference to our inner dialogue. The companions of today may become the “voices from the past” that fill your head with negative thoughts. The way the people around us talk, talk to us, and act will all have an effect on the way that we think. If you are trying to overcome some negative inner dialogue, you might want to take a look around you and see what the people around you are saying and doing. Make a choice to be happy and surround yourself with people who are happy.
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Stress and Strain:
The stressors of life can wear us down over time. As we get run down, we tend to get more negative. Our bad habits come to the surface. They can even take over. It is important to take really good care of ourselves so that we can have the strength to be positive. So, if you start seeing more negativity in your thinking, pause and take stock – are you taking care of yourself in the best possible way?
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What next?
If you are feeling held back in your life, if you are wanting more in each moment, check in with what is happening between your ears. If there is a lot of negative thinking, or even a little, take some time to apply the suggestions above to shift to a more positive perspective and liberate yourself to be more of your full, true self. And tell those negative inner voices – buhbye!
Resources
Tune in to this podcast by Dr. Kate on Transforming your Inner Critic. Listen here.
by Dr. Heléna Kate | Nov 21, 2016 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog
Oxford English Living Dictionaries defines Gratitude: [mass noun] The quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness. In the vein of “paying it forward,” here are a few ways you can show gratitude and kindness through action:
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Team up with all your friends and family this Thursday and donate to help end hunger in the United States. For every dollar donated, the Feeding America network of food banks secures and distributes 22 meals to people facing hunger. Think about what an impact you can make if everyone at your Thanksgiving dinner donates just $5.00 …
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Call your local and state representatives.
Thank your reps for the work they’ve done or plan to do (and if they’re not doing that work, you can always mention that too…). You can find your representatives here.
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Volunteer at your local homeless shelter.
Show compassion and kindness to a community that is often marginalized. Community through humanity.
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Commit to running a canned food, jacket, or toy drive in your community.
We see a lot of these around the holidays, but don’t be afraid to keep it up year round! Hunger and poverty don’t quit, and neither should you! Check out these resources.
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Recycle, even if it means making a trip to the recycling center on your own.
The fish, dolphins, turtles, and the planet thank you.
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Take a stand for veteran care.
Step up to the plate for a group of men and women who stepped up in the biggest way for all of us. Do more than write a thank you letter and take action with this list of helpful steps.
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Register for a fundraising 5K
and raise money for an important cause while treating yourself to a physical challenge. Run with a team to optimize your fundraising impact and your fun!
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Join Translators without Borders
As a translator you will “help non-profits organizations overcome communication barriers, increasing access to critical information and services while fostering a climate of understanding, respect and dignity in times of great need.” More info here.
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Be a big sister or big brother to a child in America.
Big Brothers, Big Sisters has been around for years because they are good at one they do. Join the team as a mentor.
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Love yourself.
Transform your life so you can optimize the change you make in the rest of the world. Hold positivity, light, and love within yourself and it will infuse everything you do. Be thankful to yourself for who you are and show yourself kindness.
by Dr. Heléna Kate | Nov 18, 2016 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog
According to some psychoanalytic and psychological theories there are five personality types. These personality types grow out of the experiences we have during the first seven years of our life, called the imprinting phase. Unmet needs from these early childhood experiences carry into adulthood and shape our personality traits and our defenses. Below, I have outlined the five personality types and their associated unmet needs. By examining ourselves through this structure we can gain insights into our own traits, defenses, and needs.
THE FIVE PERSONALITY TYPES, NEEDS, & DEFENSES
Type One and the Need for Safety
Experiences in infancy shape this personality type’s strong connection to and awareness of the spiritual aspects of life, great capacity to connect with feelings, and profound creativity. This type is also often ungrounded and has a difficult time creating and sustaining relationships, and dealing with the day to day.
An early wound occurring in the womb or around birth, in which the child’s needs for safety were not met, results in a chronic lack of safety. This lack of safety creates a fear of connection and a fundamental lack of groundedness. The adult tries to protect herself from feeling the rage and fear brought on by these early experiences by avoiding contact with others, disassociating, and prioritizing the spiritual.
Type Two and the Need for Security
Experiences in the first year of life shape this personality type’s deeply nurturing nature, capacity for abundance and joy, and deep intuitiveness. This type is also often needy, has difficulty standing on her own two feet, suppresses her emotions, and believes that she must give to get.
The early wound of abandonment by caretakers early in life results in a sense that this type’s needs might never be met, as well as a difficult time using the energy and resources they do have. This type will use depletion, dependency, and compulsive giving to defend against feeling.
Type Three and the Need for Freedom
This type has a high capacity for pleasure, humor, optimism, playfulness, and joy, and a deep desire to be of service to others. This type also believes that she must please others, suppress all negative emotions, and suppress her own will in order to be loved.
Extreme efforts to be nice, kind, and pleasant defend against losing love and a feeling of inferiority. A deep anger rooted in not being allowed to express oneself results in intensely felt emotions that are repressed. This person may have a difficult time knowing what they think or feel and may use passive aggressive methods to communicate.
Type Four and the Need for Control
This type is a natural born leader with strong abilities to guide and inspire others. They are true adventurers and seekers of truth. They can be humble, honest and loyal. They can also have a difficult time being wrong, be skeptical about everything, and have a difficult time with vulnerability.
This type will defend against being wrong , vulnerable, or out of control by getting aggressive or controlling others. They are likely to use divisive tactics to gain the upper hand in situations and protect themselves from feeling controlled and dominated by others.
Type Five and the Need for Wholeness
This type can be incredibly passionate in relationships, competent in life, and have a strong ability to go with the flow. They can have an appreciation for beauty and the capacity to create beauty. This type can also be unwilling to be vulnerable, have a strong need for perfection, and may choose superficial superiority over real connection.
This type will often use an intense focus on superficial perfection to protect from feeling rejected. In relationships they are likely to withhold either sexual or emotional feeling to protect against re-experiencing the rejection they fear from their childhood. This type will also often use overworking as a defense mechanism.
HOW TO USE THIS INFORMATION
Our defense mechanisms can be extremely pervasive and determine much of our existence. The extent that they do so is usually determined by the severity of the wound we experienced and our awareness of it. It is interesting to note that what we defend against is often also our greatest potential asset.Using this five personality model we are able to identify what we are most afraid of, find mature ways of creating what we need, and begin to find the gifts hidden in our wounds.
To explore deeper, take the quiz here on our website and sign up for the extraordinary life series. The quiz will help you determine your core wound and the extraordinary life series will help you find positive ways of working with it so that you become less hampered by your defense mechanisms.
by Dr. Heléna Kate | Oct 27, 2016 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog
What is the mask?
The mask is the outer expression of who you are. It is also called the persona. Your mask makes up much of what you might think about when you think about “you.” How you choose to cut your hair, what you wear, and how you connect socially are all a part of the mask or persona that you choose to put out to the world. Sometimes the mask gets a bad reputation. New age rhetoric and self help books tell us to be authentic and to be our true selves. Some spiritual traditions emphasize dropping the illusion of the self for a deeper connection with the spirit. Let\’s also consider the benefits of the mask.
How is it useful?
The mask is a useful and important part of who we are. At its best, the mask is an outward expression of who we feel ourselves to be on the inside. It can be the creative material of our deeper expression. When our mask is in alignment with our deeper nature, it feels authentic and is fun to play with.
How does it get in the way?
On the other hand, when we overly identify with our mask, and think that it IS who we truly are, we live a life of subtle or not-so-subtle anxiety. We suffer from feelings of emptiness and feel a profound loss of meaning. Our defenses are grounded in our mask. When we live in these defenses, we can find ourselves caught in the drama of life, fighting often, or feeling the victim.
What is the true self?
Our deeper nature exists as the part of the self that is differentiated from the oneness of everything, but fundamentally expresses our essence. This is often called the true self or the core self. This is distinctly different than the no self that is discussed in Buddhism. The no self is when we are able to completely step outside of our personal identity. In this space we are able to connect with the infinite. There is a lot to learn from this experience of the no self. I find it is the true self that helps most people live fully and create a life of meaning.
How do we connect with it?
As I mentioned, we can live our lives believing our mask is our true self. Often times, this illusion only gets dismantled when we have significant crisis that pushes us to question how we have come to see ourselves. As our mask is challenged, we go searching for something else and this search can lead us in the direction of our deeper nature.
So what?
We do not need to wait for crisis to begin our journey. Some of us feel a call to look for something deeper and more significant. Some of us are fortunate to have maintained a strong connection with our deeper nature. Others of us might experience a generalized sense that there is more to our life than what we have previously lived. But regardless of how we start, the way that we get there is by challenging the hold of the mask, dismantling the beliefs and emotions that hold us to experiencing the world through this limited view, and learning how to express our deeper nature through the filter of our mask.
by Dr. Heléna Kate | Oct 20, 2016 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog, Self Awareness
In my LifeWork Community program I teach a number of ways that we can more productively work with our true self and bring its expression through our mask and into the world. The following are some of the areas that I address in my program and questions that you can use to support yourself in moving towards living your true self.
Self Love and Acceptance
People sometimes believe that you do personal development work if you are broken, but that is not really the case. Yes, it is true that hurt people work on themselves to feel better. However, it is also true that the best place to start your work from is a place of total acceptance. When we do our personal development work from a place of more and more appreciation, we gain so much more for our efforts.
What is one thing that you get on your case about that you can start to accept about yourself?
Personal Truth
Personal truth can sound like a lofty concept and like it is detached from everyday life, but this does not need to be the case. Our personal truth can be a felt and lived experience. In fact, it is. When we live our personal truth we feel happier, more loving, and more energized. When we step out of integrity we feel less happy, closed, and like we have lower energy.
When do you feel that you are connected to your personal truth? What does it feel like to you?
Harmony through Forgiveness
Forgiveness is a pathway to healing. Healing is a state of harmony and peace. When we hold onto grievances from the past the pain of these events is carried in us and is reflected in the world around us. We continually activate the pains so that they can be healed. The idea is not for us to suffer through life but to become aware that the pain is there so that it can be transformed.
What are you carrying from your past that needs to be let go of? What needs to happen for you to be ready to let it go?
Creativity and Expression
Our most highly attuned state is a creative state. Creativity and its expression are the result of being able to be in the present moment, spontaneous, and positively focused. Creativity is a form of healing and an aspiration of conscious growth. We cannot create without the willingness to see more than what has previously been.
How can you nurture creativity in your life?
Purpose and Meaning
People crave a sense of meaning and purpose. Without it, we often feel lost at sea. The trials and tribulations of life are hard to weather because we face them with no sense of what to do with them. We may even end up feeling victimized by life and see ourselves transform into a perpetrator. When we have a sense of meaning we create a pathway through the challenges of life and create a sense of inner peace.
What is most important to you? Why is it most important?
by Dr. Heléna Kate | Oct 12, 2016 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog
When it comes to the “true self,” one fixed point for contemplation is the relationship between your ego and your essence. The terms “true self,” “ego,” and “essence” are broad and have many associations attached to them. Let’s take a look at how you can make your ego work for you as a tool to help you fully unearth your true self.
We need to have a working connection with our true self to feel a sense of success and fulfillment. Put another way, it’s only through our connection with our true self that we’re able to feel satisfied by the positive outcomes of our efforts.
Our ego is both an obstacle and an ally. On one hand, if our ego ran amok and ruled every decision we made, it would be impossible to experience our true self. On the other hand, our ability to fully access and express our true self emerges with the help of our ego.
Personal development work requires that you become aware of your ego and your true self. Further, this work teaches you how to use the many aspects of who you are in a productive way.
There are several common problems that people encounter along their path of personal development. The main problem is that once we realize that we’ve previously been totally consumed by our eg, we forget that we’re actually part of something much greater than ourselves.
As Eva Perakkos says:
“Even those of you who have, for years, formed a concept of the real self, of the creative substance that enlivens every human being, forget in ninety-five percent of your daily lives that this creative being lives and moves in you and you live and move in it. You forget its existence. You do not reach for its wisdom. You stake all your reliance on your limited outer ego self. You neglect to open yourself for the deeper self\’s truth and feelings. You go blithely ahead as though there really were nothing else but your conscious mind, your ego self with its immediately accessible thinking processes and will force.”
If she’s right and we do indeed forget to draw on the infinite richness always ever-present outside ourselves, what can we do to change this? How can we live from our true self more fully? How can we connect to our true self so that we can create richer and fuller lives?
I propose that we look at the ego as if it were a tool. Think of it this way: if I can use a hammer, then it can serve me. If I think I’m a hammer, then I will be used by something else to serve some other end (and most likely hit up against something quite hard in the process.) The only way that we can stay conscious of our ego is to employ it.
You can’t get rid of your ego, and you can’t ignore it either. And if you stop using it to help draw out your true self, you’re likely to fall under its illusion. So, how can you make your ego work for you? Well. You can draw on the will of your ego to focus yourself on removing obstacles to your true self. You can also work on strengthening the lived experience of your true self so that it becomes less and less of a concept and more and more of an indelible part of your everyday experience.
Eva:
The intellectual acceptance of the real self as a philosophical precept will not alleviate [the problems] because it cannot give a sense of reality and true experience of the real self. This requires more. It requires an actualization of the faculties of the real self.
What this means is that you’ve got to train your ego to sense and support the expression of your true self. The truth is that you really can feel into your true self. To do this, you need to use your ego to plug into the wants, needs and full expression of your deeper self and remove the obstacles to it along the way. All the while, keep your eye on your ego so that you do not fall under its spell.
Awareness, of all kinds, is not the end of the road. Rather, it’s part of a cycle. Once we have an awareness we need to learn how to apply it, live it, work with it.
