Not long ago, a tall and slim beautiful lady came to my office. Her graceful walk perfectly blended with her classy designer clothing, which was in harmony with her bag and shoes. Her hair was a beautiful chestnut colour that gently dropped down to her shoulders and was in perfect accordance with her lightweight make-up. Her middle-aged face was adorned by the gorgeous smile of a cheeky little girl and somehow brightened up the whole office every time she smiled.
After the usual introduction with my clients, I carefully started to listen to her story about her relationship with her partner. In a few short minutes she explained to me that she would love him to change, while at the same time she nonchalantly said: “I am an idiot” and continued to focus on telling me her story like she never mentioned that phrase. The first light bulb started to flash in my head. Another few minutes passed and once again by simply passing in her story she repeated: “I am an idiot”. In my head the light of bulb started to intensify, but after a few minutes once again she repeated: “I am an idiot”. I started to increase the intensity and speed of questions regarding her story and gained more details in which way she would prefer her partner to behave towards her, but nothing prevented her to repeat the same degrading phase towards herself every few minutes.
After 15 to 20 minutes into her story, I firmly put my right hand up and with an authoritative voice said: “STOP”, while she was trying to finish her phase; “I am idi…” Although the shock on her face was so vivid I totally ignored it and simply asked her: “Are you aware that you are calling yourself an idiot?”
“Ohhh I guess now when you mention it”, with the shyness of the shyest child she simply replied. I quickly imagined that we were two girls, playing in the playground and in a voice that was matching her I gently asked: “Do you feel like an idiot?” “Noooo”, she whispered back to me and I knew that she was telling me the truth. “Then why you are calling yourself names?” I whispered back to her. “I don’t know”, with wonder and surprise on her face she replied to me. “Ohhh maybe you heard it from somebody?” with an exciting surprise I replied to her and in that moment the light bulb started to flash in her head and was all over her face. Her body posture quickly changed, and, in that moment, I knew that we had the answer. With her classy, lady voice, she explained to me that about four years ago, a young girl started to work with her in her office. And she clearly remembers that the young girl was constantly telling herself: “I am an idiot”. Firstly, she was shocked that somebody called themselves that name, and even managed to gently suggest to the girl to stop calling herself that name by explaining her how beautiful she is. With the well-meaning suggestion of my client, the girl lightly brushed her off, while I continued to work with my client that was using the same phrase. Time passed by, my client clearly forgot her own advice and unfortunately adapted the phrase and started to constantly repeat it towards herself.
Isn’t it interesting, I explained to my client, when we have a situation, difficulties and challenges that are located inside of us, we usually always look for a solution outside ourselves. In your case, you are not happy with the relationship with your partner and you are struggling inside yourself. Furthermore, you are expecting your partner to change in order for you to feel happy and to make your life work the way of your liking. “Did it ever cross your mind that you have to go look inside of yourself first?”, I asked her gently but firmly. “No”, she honestly replied. “The answer towards your happiness is inside of you and not outside of you”, I simply told her while I gently with my right hand tapped on my heart.
“You are right. Can you please help me?” she gently asked. “Of course, I will’, I gently replied and quickly added: “Now you understand why I am the best therapist on the planet” and we both started to laugh.
P. S. I just wonder, when you are struggling inside, where do you go looking for the solution?
