What do we think of ourselves?
Do we hold ourselves in high regard? Are we kind to ourselves? Are we gentle with our own humanity, resting when we need to rest, moving when we need to move, taking action when action is required?
How about when we get things wrong?
How much regard then for our humanity?
Or when we are ill, or overwhelmed, or grieving, or transitioning into new ways of being?
Do we think harshly of ourselves? Forcing ourselves on to meet deadlines, to keep the show on the road, doing when we need to stop, or getting stuck when we need to act? Do we go to shame or anger when we make mistakes?
What we think of ourselves is deeply influenced by the various communities to which we belong.
Belonging isn’t simple.
Most of us belong in more that one community each with it’s own narrative about what it means to belong here. Each community has its shared history of how it came to be, it’s ways of being, its unspoken ways of ‘getting along round here’.
These narratives and shared histories combine in unique ways and inform what we think about ourselves, the information we are exposed to, the things we turn towards and the things we turn away from.
Culture, race, religion, family, disability, neurodiversity, gender, sexuality, age, opportunity, class, education…these are just a few of the many intersecting identities that make up and inform what we think of ourselves.
In TA these cultural narratives form part of the cultural parent, the ways of belonging that go to inform aspects of our identity which are often unspoken and are ’just they way things are’.
They are deeply ingrained in our psyche and an important source of information for what we think of ourselves.
What we think of ourselves in turn shapes many aspects of our lives including our perception. It prompts us to pay attention to some stimuli more than others and thus shapes our experience.
If we think we are not OK. In some way not good enough, efficient enough, strong enough, kind enough…fill in almost any word here before the word enough, then this is a threat to self and our bodies will mobilise to keep us safe. If we think we might not be OK, our perception will be skewed towards the potential for mistakes, we might fail to rest when we need to, or start to try to earn our way to being ok.
It can also mean we are critical of others demanding the same from them as we demand from ourselves.
It is a harsh way to live and often leads ot getting stuck in cycles of shame and avoidance.
Conversely knowing we are ok, right down to our bones, in every ego state, means we see the world differently becoming more accepting of our humanity, our mistakes. We are gentler with ourselves and therefore we are gentler with others. When we know we are ok then we can get on with life, put down the hyper-vigilance and allow ourselves to be vulnerable.
Knowing we are ok is a fundamental tenet of TA therapy.
When we know we are OK, we can more easily meet others where they are and our relationships improve.
Sometimes knowing we are OK is a challenge. We might need to work through some difficult experiences to get there. We may have been badly treated by others, told we are fundamentally not OK, told ourselves the same. There may be lots of evidence we can point to that begs to differ.
If this is true for you then almost certainly it is not the whole story. Often when we think badly of ourselves we are are ignoring important information, paying attention only to the things that confirm our harsh opinion of ourselves.
A therapist can help us back to OK, no matter how far we have strayed from the belief that it is true or the feelings of well being that come with truly knowing it.