Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.
Rumi
In this quote, the word ‘love’ is a placeholder for having a sense of wholeness, well-being, and worthiness.
It describes how any barriers you experience to enjoying your own sense of wholeness, well-being, or worthiness were created by and within you.
This is actually powerfully good news.
You built them.
You can dismantle them.
All it takes is the awareness of why it was necessary, and even essential, to create them in the first place.
And this is all contained in who you think you are.
Your self-concept is who you think you are and it can be limiting or restorative.
Learning how to attain a Restorative Self-Concept is key to experiencing meaning, success, fulfillment, happiness, and well-being.
A Restorative Self-Concept is…
- Knowing that your wholeness is never altered, only your awareness of wholeness.
- Understanding that who you think you are is adaptable and has been shaped by your perceptions of your experiences.
- Recognizing that these adaptations to your self-concept are manifestations of innate resilience.
- Approaching adversity as opportunity and invitation.
- Accepting that any separation from the awareness of your wholeness is created from a place of abiding wisdom, in service of evolving your consciousness.
A Restorative Self-Concept relies on the foundational understanding that you were whole when you arrived here as your Original Self. This is the ‘you’ who existed before the world had a chance to impact you. This is the ‘you’ who can never be harmed. This is the ‘you’ that remains intact and acts as a magnet drawing you back home to yourself.
Any negative changes to your self-concept will most likely have been a reaction to moments of stress, fear, or pain that were beyond your capacity to successfully process and integrate at the times they occurred.
This would have been during times when you were small, powerless, and unable to leave a situation that was harmful to you.
It’s common to refer to these as traumatic experiences. And, we do experience them as traumatizing.
As Dr. Gabor Maté clarifies, “Trauma is not what happens to you. Trauma is what happens inside you as a result of what happens to you.”
What’s less obvious is that the trauma was constructed in order to save you from what, at the time, appeared to be a worse threat.
The trauma was some form of separation from your knowledge of your immutable wholeness and worthiness.
This altered belief was a protective measure which would result in a limiting self-concept.
And it would have an adverse affect on your subsequent thoughts, feelings, and actions.
Even so, you’ve still found a way to live a productive life with moments of joy, connection, and gratitude.
However, now when stress, fear, or pain arise, your limiting self-concept takes over and it can be common to see this as evidence of your unworthiness or that you’ve done something wrong.
Fortunately, with a Restorative Self-Concept, you learn how unpleasant people and situations are, in fact, showing you a way back to wholeness.
And, you realize that there never was a loss of your worthiness to begin with.
There was only a loss of awareness of your worthiness.
The process of attaining a Restorative Self-Concept weaves the elements of
- Story
- Metaphorical Thinking
- Sensory Intelligence
- Emotional Intelligence
- Energy Leadership™
- Core Values Mastery
- Neuro-linguistic Programming
- Jungian Principles
This is a comprehensive program for thoroughly transforming your relationship to yourself and others. Attaining a Restorative Self-Concept will give you a quality of peace that doesn’t require you to tolerate, deny, or ignore difficult people and situations. It also removes the need to fight against them. And, it nurtures your capacity for compassion and caring.
A Restorative Self-Concept develops an inner core strength similar to a physically strong core. With it, you’re less likely to be caught off balance or knocked off your feet.
If You’re Here, You’re Ready…
As a Transformation and Executive Coach, what I’ve observed is that when we feel called to grow and evolve, we’re already where we want to be.
It’s simply our Rational Mind that needs help to catch up.
It’s the part of ourselves that needs evidence and wants proof to justify doing the uncomfortable inner stretches needed to evolve our self-concept.
That’s what coaching is… your Rational Mind’s guide, cheerleader, and shoulder to lean on in the challenging moments.
If you’re here, you’re ready.
You just need someone who knows what the path ahead looks like and who will walk beside you to support you in clearing out those barriers.
You’re not alone and you don’t have to be.
Schedule your 20-minute call to receive immediate access.
20-Minute Virtual Coffee Date
Restorative Self-Concept is rooted in principles also found in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Radical Acceptance, Somatic Therapy, Compassionate Inquiry by Dr. Gabor Maté, and Self-Compassion by Dr. Kristin Neff.