Read through a number of articles this article in Psychology Today captured my interest and thought it might be enjoyable for others as well. Give a read and see what you think! http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/confessions-techie/201008/dump-your-ego

This is a continuation of my inner bully series.

The inner bully hosts a plethora of toxic friends.  These friends were once nice appropriate preferences that have now become Jehovahian absolutes or musts.   You will also notice that the Bully utilizes primarily binary thought processes full of judgment.

So who are these friends?

• The need to be right!  (and if you are not it is . . . . . )
• The need to feel right! (and if you do not it is . . . . . )
• The need to be accepted! (and if you are not it is . . . . . )
• The need to achieve and prove worthiness (and if you are not it is . . . . . )
• The need to control painful or embarrassing feelings (and if you can not it is . . . . . )
• The fear of failure (if you are fearful it means . . . . . )
• The fear of rejection (if you are rejected it means . . . . . )
• The need to never feel frustration (if you feel frustration that is horrible and should be avoided at all cost . . . . . )

THE CONTAGIOUS COMMITMENT TO THE PURSUIT OF UGLINESS

Every aspect of life follows a process; this is one of the primary truths that lend each of an ability to have some predictability in our lives, to possess a sense of security regarding our daily actions.  Just as a newborn baby is not born completely educated and full of wisdom each of us start out in life as a small child.  Metaphorically some of us grow to adulthood very quickly and others less so, and for some it seems like the process takes forever.

Being born and growing to maturity is a process, all living things follow this process, and it is laughable or the stuff of fiction writers to expect things to occur differently.  A child of four that openly looks at and berates oneself as being incompetent because he or she  cannot drive a car like their parent does might be amusing, but it if they were serious, this would sadly impact the child in the process of growth.  Yet many if not all people do an equivalent thing by raging against themselves for being in process, rather than having completed the process.  This internally focused rage at being in process is in part fueled by the inner bully with a contagious commitment to the pursuit of ugliness.

Wisdom comes through a process just as skills and knowledge.  Each of us learned through a process to be a son or daughter, sister or brother, student, to be responsible for our own grooming.  All aspects of living require time and process to reach maturity or proficiency on any consistent basis.  Each of us is an act of creation and becoming.  Creation is a process, a slow bringing of a thing to perfection.  The artist applies one hue at a time, the sculpture one stroke at a time and over time and their process a piece of art emerges and becomes visible.

Over years of working with students and mental health clients I have discovered that many are thoroughly committed to the pursuit of ugliness in thought.  I have mourned the potential that is blocked and subdued by the wholehearted pursuit of people focused on discovering and magnifying the ugliness, the ineffectual and the incompetent within themselves.  What is the toll on a person’s faith in a world with more abundance and possibility when they are completely and utterly bound to the inner bully who is the dark agent of a contagious commitment to the pursuit of ugliness?

Significant portions of this material are from Self-esteem by Matthew McKay and Patrick Fanning (1987).

Do you suffer from an Inner Bully? Do you feel like you are your own worst enemy and suffer from low self esteem? Does your inner voice speak to you, whispering negative sentiments that shape how you perceive yourself? Do you tell yourself I am a failure, I hate myself, I’m worthless, I hate my life and other self-hating thoughts?

End self judgment. Stop hating yourself and feeling worthless. If afflicted by the symptoms of depression, anxiety, or trauma we encourage you to call our office at (480) 478-4221 or schedule a complementary thirty minute consultation with one of our therapists at Psychological Health and Wellness, meet with one of our psychotherapists and learn how our trauma counselors can help you live a life free from the suffering effects of anxiety, depression, trauma and conflict. Silence the voice inside your head. We are located in Mesa, AZ.

The inner Bully is a deceitful and misleading in a number of ways, one of his most significant deceptions is the idea that you should be equally successful in all areas of your life and when you are not, and then it is a “failure” in you! Anyone can have anything they want, but they cannot have everything they want.  The reality is that we live in a finite world, for an undetermined period of time.  This reality means that we simply cannot have it all. WE have to choose and prioritize and learn to mute the inner critic and the voice inside your head who says we should have it all and be able to do it all.

A loud, voluble Bully is ENORMOUSLY TOXIC. He is more poisonous to your psychological health than almost any trauma or loss. That’s because grief and pain wash away with time. But the Bully is always with you; judging, blaming, finding fault, making you feel worthless. You have no defense against him. “There you go again,” he says, “being an idiot.” And you auto­matically feel wrong and bad, like a child who’s been slapped for say­ing something naughty.

Another important thing you need to know about the Bully is that he speaks in a kind of shorthand. He might only scream the word “lazy.” But those two syllables contain the memory of the hundreds of times your father complained about laziness, attacked your laziness, and said how he hated laziness. It’s all there, and you feel the entire weight of his disgust as the Bully says the word.

Sometimes the Bully uses images or pictures from the past to under­mine your sense of worth. He shows a rerun of some awkward mo­ment on a date; he pulls out snapshots of a dressing-down you got from your boss, images of a failed relationship, and scenes of the times you performed poorly.

Although the Bully seems to have a will of his own, his indepen­dence is really an illusion. The truth is that you are so used to listen­ing to him, so used to believing him, that you have not yet learned how to turn him off. With practice, however, you can learn to analyze and refute what the Bully says. You can tune him out before he has a chance to poison your feelings of self-worth.

Do you suffer from an Inner Bully? Do you feel like you are your own worst enemy and suffer from low self esteem? End self judgment. Stop hating yourself and feeling worthless. If afflicted by the symptoms of depression, anxiety, or trauma we encourage you to call our office at (480) 478-4221 or schedule a complementary thirty minute consultation with one of our therapists at Psychological Health and Wellness, meet with one of our psychotherapists and learn how our trauma counselors can help you live a life free from the suffering effects of anxiety, depression, trauma and conflict. Silence the voice inside your head. We are located in Mesa, AZ.

One time a client spent considerable time trying to convince me that she wasn’t communicating anything to her husband or children when she refused to speak with them or would behave sulkily.  Of course through a discussion of this she finally came to realize that these silent communications were often louder and clearer than the verbal things she might say.

To be an effective communicator one must be able to possess certain sensitivity or sensitiveness to the messages one is sending and the interpretation of messages being sent that have no words attached to them.

Many times, people that have experienced trauma as children have some difficulty recognizing the non-verbal messages that they are both receiving and sending.  This deficit is commonly a feature in anxiety and depression, and may require support or therapy to overcome.

Many times families have tremendously good intentions and yet lack sensitivity to how members are responding.  An example of this can be found in a family that was by nature and culture a very loud and boisterous group; they were funny, sarcastic and energetic with each other and anyone that came into their circle of contact.

This family had four boys ages 12, 9, 8 and 5 before the parents finally had a little girl. During this pregnancy there were some health issues and when the little girl was born one of the side effects of the medications that the mom had taken was an increased sensitivity to light and sound, where at very low levels of sound the little girl reacted with fear, withdrawal and discomfort.

This was very difficult for this family because they had a pattern of what it meant to show love and to be with each other that was pretty set in their family.  They were very hurt that their little girl and sister didn’t like them and would go to some lengths to avoid them. By the time she was three she would scream anytime she had to leave her room.

There was no lack of love and no bad intent in this family but they struggled with being sensitive to the needs of this child who read and received the messages send by this family far differently than they were intended.

After a short consultation and a few sessions of therapy the child and family began to accommodate each other and the child through increased sensitivity.

If you find that you may need support to develop better sensitivity to ease the situations in your home then we encourage you to call our office at (480) 478-4221 or schedule a complementary thirty minute consultation with one of our therapists at Psychological Health and Wellness, meet with one of our psychotherapists and learn how our trauma counselors can help you live a life free from the suffering effects of anxiety, depression, trauma and conflict. We are located in Mesa, AZ.

When seeking to meet or fulfill these needs, people frequently create problems by elevating them to demands that must be achieved rather than desires that would be a preference.  Each theme is worthwhile and worthy, it is the efforts that one uses that determines if it is healthy or an unhealthy way to approach possessing these things.

• To be capable and successful or achieving at something
  
• To feel cared for and belong to a group
  
• To have power and control in one’s life
  
• To give of ourselves and help others
  
• To be stimulated in mind and body, and have fun
  
• To understand reality, and possess knowledge
  
• To have a sense of meaning or purpose in life and be connected to the divine.