Revisit the textbook "Be Your own Psychotherapist" written by Lynn Lott and Barbara Mandenhall, the founders of Encouragement Counseling. The book says that when we were children, all of us made a series of decisions, and we often didn't realize that we were making or storing these decisions, but these early decisions constituted our "core beliefs" or "personal logic".
People's unconscious decisions when they are young have an impact on our present life. How to walk into these inner children and help them grow up again? Encouraging consultation is to nourish, encourage and embrace our inner child through various activities, so that he can grow up slowly and let us be ourselves again and become better ourselves.
Encouraging consultation is an activity that can help us make changes; Encouragement can inspire courage; Encourage concentration on efforts and progress; Encourage us to change for ourselves; Encouraging negotiation is a method based on respect, aiming at finding solutions to problems in real life.
Being your own psychotherapist has eight chapters, and each chapter follows the same pattern: identifying obstacles to growth and change; Try one or more changed options; Carry out suggestion activities. Each chapter is a complete system, which helps us find out the problems thoroughly, make changes and bring happiness to your life.
There are many experiential activities in the review class, and I want to share one activity with you: ten fingers of anger. Hold out your hands and imagine putting an angry thing on each finger. We will think that anger is a bad emotion, and we are unwilling to look for something buried in our hearts that makes us angry. What most of us do is to accumulate anger and then explode, and it becomes dangerous. Some people think it out quickly, while others take a long time. It doesn't matter. Treat our anger with respect. Now look at my anger!
The first step is consciousness: when we often don't know what the problem is, it's like walking in a dark room. Because of the darkness, we bumped around, but we didn't know how to get around these obstacles. Perception is like turning on a lamp in this dark room, which makes us suddenly enlightened and clearly see all kinds of furnishings in the room. Although the room is a little messy, at least knowing the layout can easily bypass the obstacles that hinder our progress. Consciousness is the key and the beginning of our change. I realized that my "anger goal" was to point at others. The things I will be angry with are: quarreling, lying, accusing, uncivilized, wasting, bullying the weak, destroying, disturbing, interfering and nagging. ...
The second step is acceptance: this is the most difficult step. Paying attention to and admitting your anger is a simple and effective way to relieve it. Anger is just one of many feelings that we have the ability to experience. When we stop belittling the feeling of anger, many relationships can be improved, whether we are ourselves or others. Don't be afraid to experience and express anger without judgment. When I saw these things that made me angry, I kept asking myself, "What makes me angry?" "What makes me angry?" "What is the truth?" When I pay more attention to: "What is it?" The reason to find the depths of my anger is: "when I see something that makes me angry, I feel that there is no way to change it immediately." I don't know what to do. " There is nothing I can do! "I found that the root cause of my anger was seeking skills.
Step 3: When we become more accepting of ourselves, we will find that the world is full of all kinds of such choices. When we stop paying too much attention to our mistakes or the impression we leave on others, we can try new ideas and behaviors with a more open mind and have the courage to do our homework in reality. In reality, the new skills I will adopt are: "Pay more attention to the advantages of others", "Replace criticism with encouragement", "Don't give up", "Allow others to feel their feelings, allow their actions to be related only to themselves", "Be alone for a while", "Speak your thoughts and feelings more frankly and sincerely", and tell myself: "Accepting imperfections is part of human beings, and making mistakes is good for learning." I am very angry. I'm mad at you. I just want you to know how I feel. It doesn't matter if it's not solved. "
There are also many cases and experience activities about self-growth in the course, which tell us how to be a counselor to encourage ourselves and others and help us move from depression to encouragement. Change will not happen overnight. Since we have the desire to make life better, when we begin to learn to feel and accept ourselves, the process of change will naturally happen. Even though we are clumsy and unnatural at first, after practicing many times, what we feel uncomfortable at first will become our new behavior or new skills and become a part of us.
If you also want to explore and discover yourself and become your own psychotherapist, please act! From this moment on, let's practice together, practice awareness, practice acceptance, practice encouraging words and actions, practice embracing our inner children, make our thoughts, feelings and behaviors look brand-new and make our lives more peaceful, healthy and happy!