Soulshine

“From an early age, Juanita’s mother would express disappointment when Juanita did something her mother disapproved of. Juanita’s fear of this disapproval kept her from sharing parts of herself that would disappoint her mother. As a result, her mother never really knew her.” Phil Stutz & Barry Michels , The Tools What do you hide from others, the world and yourself? A great many of us learned the same childhood lesson that Juanita did. We learned that if we said certain things, or acted in certain ways, it made our parents uncomfortable. And so we learned to hide parts of our true selves. Picture a five year old boy who innocently and sincerely says to his mother “When I grow up I’m going to marry a boy.” A deafening silence fills the room. Then Mom laughs nervously and exclaims “Boys don’t marry boys! Where did you get an idea like that?” After another sharp pause, Mom continues in a stern voice as she wags her finger in her son’s face: “Boys only marry girls! Wh...

“We’re tapped because of a universal human expectation that the world will treat us fairly. This is a cherished, childish assumption—‘If I’m good, the world will be good to me.’ We should know better.” Phil Stutz & Barry Michels, The Tools Granted, like Jimmy Seymour in Broadway Serenade , many of us mess-up our relationships because our self-love and self-esteem are poor. But many of us also mess-up relationships because we have an age-old bad belief stored in our subconscious minds. And that belief is that life should be fair. The belief that life (and thus relationships) should be fair is as irrational as an old belief that plague me for years: Everyone should like me. Both of these beliefs produce expectations that only serve to make our lives miserable. For many years I agonized whenever someone obviously didn’t like me. It left me feeling like a failure as a person. The belief that I should be liked by everyone kept me on constant guard. It meant everyt...