Fairy Tales Can Come TrueWritten by Dr. Barbara Becker Holstein
In private moments we may find ourselves reflecting upon our lives, what could have been, and our true potential. We often cast our hopes and dreams aside, and then experience feelings of disillusionment or emptiness. We feel cheated of our inalienable right of happinessIn this world of fast paced communications, it's very easy to become sidetracked when it comes to finding our Enchanted Self. We are constantly bombarded with images from TV, radio, magazines and newspapers telling us what to wear, how we should look and smell, or what car to drive. According to these outside options, if we follow their plan then we should be happy, right? Wrong! When we place our lives in hands of others we lose magical, potential for happiness that exists within each of us. How do we begin process of looking within? What do we look for? First, we must understand that each of us has ability to create our own happiness and joy. Second, we need to realize that most important tool we possess is our own unique memories. Memories don't just pop up out of nowhere; they sometimes have to be prodded or coaxed. Think of them as children playing hide and seek, hoping and waiting to be discovered. How do we coax our memories out into open? Experiencing moment can trigger positive memories from your past. Learning to recognize your positive talents and strengths through memory retrieval is an important lease of process toward discovering your Enchanted Self. The third step is learning how to use positive memories to reinvent yourself. Recently while
| | Excerpts from THE ENCHANTED SELF, A Positive TherapyWritten by Dr. Barbara Becker Holstein
In my years as a psychologist, I have come to believe that most people seeking psychotherapy are unhappy not only because of earlier hurts and traumas, as well as present frustrations and problems, but because they cannot access earlier happy moments often enough. Resulting in not being able to experience enough positive states of well-being. It is these unique states of well being that I have come to label THE ENCHANTED SELF.Many scientists of human behavior recognize that we do not yet, and perhaps never can, fully understand human nature. I have become more and more convinced that we do not. For example, what interests me is that we do not fully understand some people, who have apparently fortunate lives but experience little joy, while others, apparently less fortunate, experience great joy. Perhaps we have tried too hard to understand pathology in our science of psychology while we have not tried hard enough to recognize and understand what I call ego-states, or happiness. When I first began to analyze data from women I interviewed, I kept trying to understand how their enchanted adult lives evolved from childhoods they talked about. I found that although there seemed to be some clear connections, many others were not clear at all. The capacities of these women to reclaim positive aspects of their childhood, while discarding dysfunction that was often also present, was astounding to me. It seemed as if a magic wand had been tapped on women's heads in their adult lives. For example, when Edith talked about her childhood, she at first remembered only its dysfunctional aspects: fighting between her parents and their constant criticality. I suggested that we go back and look again at her childhood to identify times when in spite of pain of family life, she felt excited about her own life and about herself. With encouragement, she could separate out positive memories of herself from dysfunctional family experiences and she remembered some wonderful times: delightful family picnics, fishing with her grandfather, etc.
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