Tag: not good enough

To stay or to leave?..

To stay or to leave?..

How many of us had relationships where this question has never been raised at least hypothetically? We either ask it to ourselves or worry that it may be a concern of our partner. In either case thinking about separation brings discomfort, anxiety, uncertainty, guilt, fears, frustration, etc.

In some of my trainings I conduct a little exercise.  I write ‘separation’ in the middle of a flip chart and ask people to write their association with this word on a post-it note and stick it to the flip chart. No surprise, 95% of the associations are negative. We like to have and we don’t like to let go.

To help you with this struggle, I suggest a different view on separation. In the physical world we live in separation is an inescapable reality. “In the world nothing can be said to be certain except death and taxes.” once said Benjamin Franklin. So why does the most certain thing in the world bring us so much anxiety and uncertainty?

Separation is a basis of our life’s cycle. As we grow up we separate from our parents to live our own lives and create our own families.  We join and separate a lot of educational institutions, groups of friends, clubs, jobs, locations, etc.  Later on in life we separate from our own children when they leave home, from our older family members who pass away and so on until our own death.

So what is the idea behind the separation? A friend of mine, Olivia Bareham, who is a specialist in death and dying said, “We only love and enjoy something because we know that one day it will no longer be there.  That’s why we enjoy fresh flowers and don’t enjoy fake ones.”  Separation, or knowing that one day things will come to their end, changes our perspective, makes us improve, change, do things better, value what we have, enjoy the relationship with another person. Separation is healthy, otherwise our lives will be full of old things, people and situations. Every separation gives us back a part of ourselves and reminds us of our own value, identity and purpose. It helps us break the old dysfunctional patterns and ties, face reality and change it for the better.

So how can we embrace the idea of separation and include it in our life’s journey? First of all we need to realize that the only person who will stay with us till the very end is ourselves. Other things, people or situations are external to us and can change or part from us at any time. Thus the only thing worth investing into is ourselves.

When we create clear and healthy boundaries with the external environment, cutting all the dependencies and assuming ownership and leadership of our own lives, we become the managers of ourselves always choosing what is better for us. Some people call it selfishness, but if you think about it, it’s the opposite. To live the way you want is not selfish, it is selfish to expect others to think and live the way you want.

In the ideal situation our parents bring us to our teen years with enough support, leadership, care and love.  This allows us to separate from them mentally and physically and become self-sufficient. This first significant and important separation in our lives sets the tone for the way we approach and handle ourselves in relationships, personal and professional, and in other situations in our lives. If this separation is compromised, the instinct of childhood codependency stays active which prevents the person from creating a safe and trustful connection with the world.

You may guess what happens next. People grow in age and size, but keep relying on external sources of leadership, guidance, love, attention and validation. This condition is called Bosurgi Syndrome. It creates vulnerability, hence anxiety, fears and make people feel unsafe. In this context any separation is considered by the mind as a threat to the emotional and physical safety of the person creating a lot of pain and discomfort. It also keeps the person in the position of a receiver, e.g. I need to receive attention, validation, love and guidance from others in order to feel safe and good about myself.  Again, separating from the sources of these emotions becomes very stressful.  A self-sufficient person who leads and loves themselves, becomes a giver and views separations not as a personal horror, but as a natural process of life change. A giver doesn’t see in their partner a provider of emotional or physical comfort, but makes a choice based on the qualities supporting a strong and trustful connection.

If an unsatisfying relationship is part of your life and your mind is full of doubts and dilemmas, remember the first important separation in your life, separation from your parents, and think about the nature of your connection with them in the present. If you find any traces of trying to prove yourself to others, feeling not good enough, guilt, anger, control, etc. it may mean that it’s time to work through those unproductive feelings and dependencies, and set yourself free to make the choices out of your personal confidence, peace and independence.

To learn more about adult codependency, the Bosurgi Syndrome, it’s consequences, treatment and prevention, visit the website. You can also ask your questions on our blog.

Are Relationships Ruled by the Heart or the Mind?

Are Relationships Ruled by the Heart or the Mind?

This essay brings to your attention the two very frequent scenarios of behaviors in relationships. A lot of people go through similar experiences and wish to change the situation. I suggest a different view at the problem, in fact, I shouldn’t call it a problem, rather an adaptive mechanism of your mind. This perspective shows you why your mind believes that it needs to apply the dysfunctional behaviors. The reason is the instinct of codependency which, if failed to terminate at puberty, prevents you from being self-sufficient. It holds the key to turning the situation around by fulfilling the critical needs of your mind and hence stopping the crippling codependency.

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The Bosurgi Syndrome

The Bosurgi Syndrome

From the book The Mind Shaman –

“The Bosurgi Syndrome is a condition that describes an overextended codependency. Codependency is a natural stage in human psychological development and occurs in childhood. As part of our survival system, it acts to keep children psychologically dependent upon the parents in order to keep the children safe while they are physically and mentally vulnerable. It also allows children to be receptive to their parents’ tutoring and leadership. In essence, it is a tool offered by nature to our parents to protect, educate, and raise us. It also keeps us close to our parents so that we don’t wander away from home at an early age when we are not equipped to navigate the world.

“The codependency period starts at birth and ideally continues until puberty, around the age of twelve to fourteen. During the codependency period, the developing mind of the child is dependent upon the parents for leadership, security, validation, and guidance. Ideally, the parents will give the child leadership, unconditional love, validation and precise guidance, and will teach the child how to lead itself so that the child can begin to exit codependency around eight years old. The full transition to complete self-leadership should occur around puberty. Correct termination of the codependency period allows the young adult to become emotionally independent and equipped to lead and live an efficient and balanced adult life.

“The codependency period is naturally terminated by the mind, when the mind detects that the self-leading learning process has been completed. The mind will not terminate codependency until it is unconsciously confident that sufficient self-leadership is in place. Codependency may remain active in some cases throughout an adult’s entire life.”

“Liam, have you ever asked yourself why puppies are anxious when they are separated from their mother? The answer is at the base of my discovery. All mammals during the first vulnerable and inexperienced period of life are forced by nature to seek the protection of adults, typically their mother or both parents. This is a natural instinct that makes the puppy feel unsafe and anxious if it is unprotected—it is called codependency. Codependency is a healthy temporary instinct, part of the survival system, which disappears automatically when the puppy becomes a self-sufficient adult dog, able to be independent and protect itself.

“In the human, the codependency is much more sophisticated. It is active during our first twelve years of life with a variety of restrictive feelings. It makes us dependent on our parents because it is unsafe to be out in the world on our own. It makes us feel anxious and insecure if we are left unprotected. We look up to adults, and we seek their guidance and leadership. We need a lot of love and validation. So we act in ways to please grown-ups. We resent it if we are unguided, and we feel unlovable and not good enough if we are rejected. This instinct is supposed to weaken around seven or eight years old when we start developing our own reasoning process and it should terminate at puberty.

“During these first twelve years, nature has entrusted our lives to our parents. They are our protectors, tutors, guides, and source of love and validation. We depend on them to do their job. We deserve to receive their leadership, to constantly feel safe and to get unconditional and unlimited love, validation, and guidance.

“Unfortunately, many parents are unable or just unqualified to offer proper parenting to their children. The consciousness revolution of the sixties has dramatically transformed our society, making this task much more challenging than ever before. The result is that many kids grow up without the fulfillment of their basic emotional needs and without a good leadership model that can be replicated in the process of becoming adults. The consequence of this is that many young adults are reaching puberty without the leadership tools required to take charge over their own mind, which has been dependent upon their parents since birth.

“So at the time that they are supposed to become independent, they don’t have the self-leadership tools to do it. Their mind consequently doesn’t feel self-lead, and it makes the decision that it is unsafe to give up codependency. It holds onto it. The consequences are devastating. People grow in age, size and experience but the codependency is still active making them feel like a ten-year-old kid unsafe if unprotected, and always in search of external leadership, love, validation and guidance. Remember that codependency is the software program that is supposed to get you safely from age zero to twelve. If the program does not terminate, the body grows, but the mind keeps running assumptions that you are still a child.

“Imagine a ten-year-old girl looking like a thirty-year-old woman that is living an adult life. She feels inadequate, like a child in an adult world, terribly anxious because no one is protecting her, and tries to please other adults to get some love and validation, constantly facing the fear of been rejected, judged, or abandoned. She may also be angry and resentful because she is not receiving the care that she deserves. Sound familiar, Liam? This is the condition described by the Bosurgi Syndrome.”

“The Bosurgi Syndrome is an unnatural human condition that is the result of lack of self-leadership. Our mind is always seeking efficiency and likes to stay abreast with nature. So with enough discipline and education, people affected by the syndrome can establish the self-leadership required to beat the condition. It will take time, but it is certainly possible. Liam, if you want to help your friends affected by the Bosurgi Syndrome, teach them some of the lessons that you will receive during the next sessions. You will be surprised to see that several of them will get it and come out from the Bosurgi Syndrome as if by magic.”

“My school is progressing fast, and I hope that in a few years we will be able to open centers throughout the world. In view of the magnitude of the problem, this is just a drop of water in the ocean. My hope is that the leading schools of psychology will acknowledge the existence of the Bosurgi Syndrome as one of the main psychological issues of this era. This will focus the psychological research to explore my methodology as demonstrated on a large number of cases and provide the clinical statistical work, the rate of success, and the permanent results required to demonstrate the validity of the therapy. For this purpose, I can offer clinical researchers hundreds of clients that have seen major permanent changes in their lives because of CognitiveOS Hypnosis. Unfortunately, the scientific community’s validation process will be very slow and terribly argued, but I hope that one day the medical community will eventually realize the gravity of the problem and start thinking about the available solutions. We have, with CognitiveOS Hypnosis, a very effective method that could offer many licensed professionals a new set of tools to be able to beat the plague of codependency.

“I also hope that more mind researchers, after having embraced the concept of the Bosurgi Syndrome, will find other methodologies able to deal with codependency permanently. Of course, prevention will be the real solution. The Bosurgi Syndrome can be avoided altogether with careful parenting and education. This should become one of our government’s major efforts. It can also be easily treated as soon it manifests itself during the initial stages of the teenage period. I have great success with teens. They are fast and wonderful to heal. My hope is that we will see teams of psychologists helping teenagers to come off codependency.” – The Mind Shaman

Feeling powerless ‘makes tasks more physically challenging’

Feeling powerless ‘makes tasks more physically challenging’

Another scientific testimonial that feeling powerless and not good enough makes things seem more difficult than they really are. Thus instead of acting people fall into procrastination and depression.

by Honor Whiteman

Do you ever have days when the simplest task can feel physically challenging? It could be down to your social and personal sense of power. New research suggests that people who feel personally and socially powerless see the world in a different light and perceive tasks to be more physically demanding, compared with individuals who have a strong sense of power.

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I deserve to be loved, why can’t I find it?

I deserve to be loved, why can’t I find it?

It’s Sunday and you are out in the park jogging or walking your dog, through your sunglasses you see a couple passing by, they are holding hands, smiling and having a chat, they seem to be peacefully happy and in love.  You notice those couples on the way home from work, in coffee shops, supermarkets, etc. Your imagination completes the image by picturing them in their cozy house, sitting on the couch, hugging and reading a book. And every time the same questions pop up in your mind: why am I not like this?

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