Choices, mistakes and pain - what do you gain? A few minutes of your time :)

Forgiving yourself is something needing to be done before you can forgive others. That's something I once read and it always stuck with me! 

If you continue to carry a burden of guilt or hurt around it can make it a challenge to genuinely forgive other people when they have hurt or upset you. The time when you say 'I truly forgive myself' (and believe it) is when forgiveness becomes an open doorway to freedom. It opens up to all sorts of possiblity, colour and lightness, without the restricted vision of guilt, hurt or pain.  

If your path to forgiveness seems blocked, you can definitely start to clear it and move towards freedom. Take one small step a day or even once a week to learning about any guilt, fear or anger that you are holding. What did holding onto it do for you in the past? How does it serve you now? Was it a habit or a choice? Allow time to reflect on thoughts without over-analysing. This should be a brief process of a few minutes. The more you do it in small steps, the easier it can become to see clearer what works for you now, and perhaps what old ways of thinking are best left behind. Particularly if they leave you hurt, angry, guilty or sad.    

Angie

See:
angiegiles.co.uk
Twitter: angie_therapist
Facebook: Angie Giles Hypnotherapy

About the Author: Angie works as a hypnotherapist, counsellor and coach at the Norfolk Clinic Complementary Healthcare Clinic, 38-40 Magdalen Road, Norwich. 

Call Norfolk Clinic reception on 01603 660792 or Angie directly on 07773 610816. She loves helping other people achieve their potential at work ,life and find greater happiness using a range of therapeutic techniques.

Adult brain vs inner child - who wins?

When was the last time you were drawn to something that was not good for you? Was it savoury or sweet? Going out with some friends the unmistakable mistake was there. I saw it right away, drawn magnetically to it, before even ordering my meal.

I’d been pointed in the direction of it from the start: a ‘specials’ menu. As I stepped in the room, a smug smile fleetingly spread across its face. The gentle, unmistakable draw of it from across the room. At first a gentle, sweet voice spoke softly in my head as my main course was enjoyed. As my tummy continued to fill, it began pleading childishly. Feeling fuller, the noise in my head got louder and louder, heading towards a meltdown. I could have ignored it. With my full tummy it was time to order coffee and just enjoy the conversation. However, that childish voice in my head was nagging me ceaselessly. ‘Go on, you know you really would love it, remember how good it tastes? Mmmm’. Louder!

The dessert tray arrives. You see a grown woman with a puzzled look, faced with an internal dilemma as the picture perfect merits of the dessert tray are laid out before her. The large, smiling face of the banoffee pie, with a fat tongue of goo oozing out the side.

Irrationally I’m thinking ‘Bananas’. That’s it! My inner child wins with a simple negotiation trick: a faint reminder of some nutritional basis for choosing an extremely calorific and fattening slice of dessert. I said 'yes' to banoffee and manage half before nearly being stuck in the chair with fullness. In the afternoon, a stomach ache and feeling tired and tetchy with all that sugar having given in to the temptation of that sweet and clogging dessert.

My adult brain took over the next day, not wanting to feel ill again and my inner child was noticeably quiet as I was in the gym, methodically working off that fattening dessert. As I made a choice to eat it, I can choose to get active and make amends. I can feel OK about that. I can choose to say ‘no’ too. Choice and balance is what it’s all about, isn’t it? What will you choose today?