Its ok to boast!

When I was a child I remember being told not to boast. It's not polite and people won't like you. Did you hear that message too?

Here in the UK we have this reputation for being reserved and not 'brash'. People don't like it if you 'think too much about yourself'. In essence we have absorbed 'you're not important', 'don't put yourself first', and 'you don't matter, no one is interested'.

Perhaps our parents were right to tell us not to boast, they wanted us to be socially acceptable and thought of as 'nice', but I believe these messages do us all a great disservice.

A little while ago, after I passed an exam, someone asked me if I had celebrated. I hadn't, it was just something I'd done and now I was on to the next thing. It took years of work to pass, I went through blood, sweat and tears (literally) and here I am just carrying on as normal. Why am I not singing it at the top of my voice? Well, because it's rude to boast!

The messages we receive as children, from our caregivers and later from society itself stay with us and are not always helpful. Messages that tell us we and our achievements are not important keep us small and become self limiting beliefs. Our lives become a shadow of who we could actually be and what we could really achieve. If we have absorbed 'you are not important' then that's how we live our lives. We constantly put others first, we may become 'door mats' or stressed out workaholics. We want to matter.

The belief about ourselves becomes how we live, it has behavioural consequences that form a negative feedback loop. We put ourselves last and others then take us for granted and the cycle continues. We are told we are not interesting and we shrink away at parties believing no one wants to talk to us; and the outcome? No one does.

We all have limiting beliefs in our lives. Do you know yours?

They don't have to define us. Through counselling you can uncover these messages that you have received and taken on board as truths. Counselling can help you examine them and find out if they are true. They may feel true but often they are not and you can then find a way to make new beliefs for yourself that are formed around more positive messages.

Your life can bloom and flourish and you really can be the person you were meant to be.

You can feel more positive and flourish and bloom.