Читать книгу Ten Times Happier - Owen O’Kane - Страница 11

Earlier in the chapter you will have listed some of your unhelpful rules or beliefs learnt from past experiences. I want to keep this really simple by asking you to go back to your rules and for each of them ask:

1. Do these rules work for me?

2. Are they achievable all the time?

If not, then it’s time to re-evaluate and make them more flexible. Remember, as I mentioned earlier, not all rules or beliefs are unhelpful but if they lack flexibility, therein lies the problem.

I worked with a client recently who had very strong rules and beliefs about being a ‘good person’. He did laugh in a therapy session one day when I highlighted that Mother Teresa would have struggled to live with some of his rules! He worked as a fulltime carer, volunteered in a soup kitchen five days a week and sang in the church choir.

His belief was that he should always help people and put others first. If he didn’t, he then saw himself as a bad person. It won’t surprise you that he arrived in therapy exhausted, frustrated and unfulfilled. He was operating from a belief that to be a good person he had to do good all the time. It wasn’t sustainable. Ultimately, he had to learn that he was a good enough person whether or not he engaged in all these activities.

As you look at your rules from earlier I would encourage you now to consider introducing some flexibility to some of the more rigid rules you might have. For example, the rule, I must be perfect, could now become, I don’t need to be perfect all the time. Likewise, I must never disappoint people, could now become, sometimes it’s OK to say no. If it’s helpful for you, write your new flexible rules down in your journal so you can remind yourself of them when needed.

Be mindful that this work takes time and patience. You are rewiring your brain to respond more flexibly. Sometimes you will fail and want to return to the safety of what you are familiar with but stay focussed on the new freedom and flexibility this will eventually bring.

You are now giving yourself the opportunity to rewrite the rules from your past, and make the new rules work for you. You are no longer living by the unhelpful inherited rules that simply don’t work for you.

It is important to be mindful that you can respect the inherited rules of your past but you don’t have to agree with them.

Living your life by rules that are not comfortable for you is tough. It’s almost like walking through life in a pair of shoes that are the wrong size. It will be uncomfortable, restrictive and painful at times. You now have the option of choosing a more comfortable fit. Take it from me, I’ve spent many years wearing size seven hobnail boots, when a pair of size nine loafers would have been a much better fit.