By Morgan Webert, Holistic Counsellor in Manly
How often do you catch yourself asking, “What’s wrong with me?” I hear my clients say it all the time! And admittedly I catch my inner critic repeating it more often than I’d like.
While sometimes this can be a productive question that helps us resolve problems, other times it can be a berating question that doesn’t always get us out of the negative situations, emotions or problems that we find ourselves in. In fact, it often can get us deeper into them.
That’s because the more we ask “what’s wrong with me?” the more we see what’s wrong with us…and the less we see what’s right.
Einstein said, “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
Thinking (or being told) we are damaged goods, innately bad, broken or destined to fail is often the thinking that got us into our problems in the first place.
We’ve got to change our thinking! And that means changing our questions.
In Oprah’s latest book that she made in collaboration with neuroscientist and psychiatrist Dr. Bruce D Perry they change the question “What’s wrong with me?” to “What happened to me?”
But when we believe something is innately wrong with us…there is no solution! Hence the feelings of helplessness, depression and anxiety.
When we understand our issues, addictions, behaviours and emotions are LEARNED based on experiences that happened to us, we begin to acknowledge they aren’t who we are nor do they define us.
We can start to see that we are not our history and open up to the empowering possibility that these behaviours, emotions and issues can (and do) change.
What to do when you’re asking, What’s wrong with me?
More empowering, perspective shifting questions include:
- How can I support myself right now even though this is happening?
- What am I getting out of this “bad” behaviour and how can I get that same thing in a less destructive way?
- Why do I believe this? And what examples prove the opposite?
- What is right with me?
Perspective is everything my friends. Marriane Williamson said, “The miracle is rarely that the situation changed, but more often that our perspective about the situation changed.”
My job as a Holistic Counsellor & EFT Tapping Therapist is to support you in finding an empowering and compassionate perspective, and let me tell you, that is where all the magic and healing unfolds.