Today, I want to share Christine’s story with you. ( name changed to protect privacy)
Christine was just 25 when we first met. She came to see me for hypnotherapy. It had been a year since she quit her “boring office job” and moved back in with her mum to figure out what she wanted to do with her life.
She now had a part-time job as a hostess in an upmarket restaurant, randomly blogged about fashion, and hung out with the girls on weekends. As for figuring out her life—she wasn’t.
During our first session, she said: “I feel that my self-esteem is what’s holding me back.”
She explained further “I feel I am not ‘good enough’ — in any way and that I won’t amount to anything. I wanted to break out of this rut so I downloaded an app with positive self-affirmations like I am going to be very successful very soon.” She put her hands on her face and cried in frustration “I use it several times a day but nothing changes I feel like this is not working for me. I say the words, I journal them in my notebook, I read them several times in the day but I don’t feel any different. I am now questioning whether affirmations really work? Or am I just not ‘good enough’ for affirmations as well?”
I felt her angst as I calmly explained to her that the positive affirmation she was using was not good, both grammatically and subconsciously.
The larger issue was that she was doing nothing to nurture and nourish her self-esteem nor taking any action that would make her feel good about herself.
It’s not rocket science, in order to grow strong and healthy even a plant needs fertilizer, water, sunshine and care.
If we want to feel good about ourselves, we have to do things that actually make us feel proud, accomplished, appreciated, respected, or empowered. We have to take steps that make us feel that we’re advancing toward our goals. Christine was doing none of these things.
She needed to nourish her self-esteem.
I suggested she implement just 4 steps to before she tried hypnotherapy with me. I’ve outlined them in another blog 4 Steps to Nourishing Self Esteem