Helping teens and adults navigate stress and uncertainty with more confidence | Training practitioners to join the mission
Losing your Way: It Doesn’t Mean there’s Something Wrong with You
Today’s video highlights two clients that both felt they’d failed in life.
Client #1 is 21, had been academically ‘gifted’ as a kid, then started failing classes in high school and college as school got harder. Client #2 is a therapist who “thought she had it all together” but is currently going through divorce #2.
Both clients had given up on themselves and any hope of being happy or having a future.
I think we’ve all been there. We have a major setback or disaster and it makes us doubt who we are and whether we have what it takes to ‘do’ life.
In truth, at some point, we all suck at life in some area. Maybe it takes some people longer to discover that than others.
Everyone loses their way. It doesn’t have to mean anything or say anything about us. It’s a human feature we’re stuck with.
In truth, at some point, we all suck at life in some area. Maybe it takes some people longer to discover that than others.
In retrospect we can often see mistakes or bad decisions we made. But that could be said of everyone you know, no matter how sensible or ‘successful’ they are.
And ultimately, the ‘failures’ aren’t really the problem for us – the divorces, the failing out of school – those events themselves are neutral and ‘recover-able’.
Where we struggle is in the meaning we make of those events in our heads. Our struggle comes from the stories we make up about who we think we’ve become, what it means for our future, whether we have worth or value anymore as a person.
We just make those assessments up ourselves out of thin air through the power of thought.
When I was in the 5th grade the kid that could run the fastest in our school (Jason) was a celebrity. He knew it, I knew it. It was a truth. Somehow we all decided running fast was what mattered.
That’s how arbitrary thought is.
Once people realize that, it frees people from their stories.
When our minds are more free, when we let go of our insecurity and shame, we can get up, dust ourselves off, and we see how to recover.
That’s where all our power lives. That’s what today’s video is about.
erika bugbee
I’m a global coach who works with teens, individuals, couples, and practitioners that are open and motivated to change.
