Your relationship with yourself cannot be built entirely around improvement.

[HealingMe]

Unfortunately, for all of you, I enjoy inspirational and cheesy quotes.

Recently I stumbled upon a quote on social media and it made me stop and think. I wanted to share with you all and especially newer folks who are brand new to TMS work.

“Your relationship with yourself cannot be built entirely around improvement. At some point, you have to become someone you are allowed to enjoy being. You get to be proud of who you are. Present tense.”

Let me know your thoughts.

 

[Adam Coloretti (coach)]

Unfortunately, for all of you, I enjoy inspirational and cheesy quotes.

Recently I stumbled upon a quote on social media and it made me stop and think. I wanted to share with you all and especially newer folks who are brand new to TMS work.

“Your relationship with yourself cannot be built entirely around improvement. At some point, you have to become someone you are allowed to enjoy being. You get to be proud of who you are. Present tense.”

Let me know your thoughts.

So important and something I've been working on! I think it goes with the idea also of sometimes you have to make the leap and you'll never feel 100% ready

 

[Diana-M]

I think radical self acceptance is ultimately a huge part of what leads to healing.

 

[Duggit]

“Your relationship with yourself cannot be built entirely around improvement. At some point, you have to become someone you are allowed to enjoy being. You get to be proud of who you are. Present tense.” Let me know your thoughts.

Dr. Sarno in his final book, The Divided Mind (p. 103), wrote that the drive to be perfect or to be good "was either the predominant factor or a very important factor" for 94% of his patients. Later (p. 140), he addressed what to do regarding these personality traits:

"Patients are routinely advised that they need not strive to change their personalities to be successful, since so much is made of the perfectionist and goodist traits as well as other problematic personality characteristics like feelings of inferiority, narcissism, and dependency. One cannot change one's inherent traits, though they can be consciously modified. For example, the person person who feels perpetually compelled to make a doormat of himself and do nice things for others can take stock and decide to curb the tendency."

Modern neuroscience research, which largely postdates The Divided Mind, reveals why Sarno was correct in his clinical observation that personality traits like perfectionism and goodism cannot be changed. They are automatically and unconsciously triggered again and again in our daily lives. What can be done is exactly what Sarno suggested: You can take stock and decide to curb the tendency. You can't curb the tendency unless you first take stock and realize you are in the grip of your perfectionism or goodism or other inherent trait(s). My dominating personality trait is an insidious variation of perfectionism, which I became aware of only with professional help. It affects me almost every day and I have no idea what is happening until I take stock and realize what is going on. Once I realize that, it is easy for me to curb the tendency, though it can take repeated reminders in the particular situation.

"Improvement" does not require changing one's inherent traits. It is impossible to do that because they are deeply buried in the unconscious (or in modern neuroscience terminology, buried in the the brainstem's nondeclarative long-term memory). But it is possible to take stock of what is going on and then curb it. In my case, I regard doing that as something to be proud of.