Hearing ourselves and really listening to ourselves is very different. You can hear but subconsciously you can decide not to listen to your unheard self. How often do you hear what’s going on around you but don’t pay attention to it? This is exactly the same as how the majority of people treat themselves most of the time. It’s not too late to help your unheard self be heard.
How are you listening?
You may be hearing this chatter in the background but are you really listening to it, understanding it and using it to help you move away from the feelings and emotions you don’t want to be experiencing any longer?
How often do you really hear what you’re saying to yourself?
There are going to be a lot of other things to take into consideration such as:
Have you ever thought about how to help your unheard self be heard?
So many of us ignore what our chatter is saying and don’t really notice how our feelings are being affected. Often this is due to the frightening feelings and emotions these thoughts give us. So, we subconsciously decide to sweep them under the carpet hoping they will go away and continue to ignore our unheard self.
We’ve all experienced times when we’ve been talking, explaining something or even opening our hearts out to someone and you feel as if you’re not being listened to.
How does this make you feel?
May be;
Now image how not listening to your unheard self is going to affect you long term.
If you’re not listening to yourself how will you notice that you’re beginning to slide off the happiness scale to somewhere less bright, murky or even dark?
Rachel’s Story
Rachel, a client of mine was going through a terrible bout of illness. The Dr’s couldn’t find the cause of the problem and she’d already had eight weeks off work due to this illness.
Rachel was explaining to me that she was usually a very positive person, able to keep herself upbeat, motivated and out of the doldrums. Her health had slowly been improving but she described her state of mind as very low, and she was really struggling to stay positive. As we discussed her health and how she usually supports her positive thought processes she suddenly realised the problem.
Rachel was having to keep a symptom diary, recording throughout the day and night what she was experiencing and how long for. As a Practice Nurse, these notes were being recorded meticulously. She had been focusing on the negative aspects of her health which was now causing her mental health to decline dramatically. The problem wasn’t improving because she wasn’t listening to the right conversations in her head.
What Changed?
Now she had found the cause of her negative feelings and the struggle to keep her usual upbeat character, she now needed to start reversing the process and start focusing on the positive things in her life. Working together we structured a series of exercises to support the growth of her positive feelings so she could start to really feel like her usual self again. To form, Rachel started these immediately and when I saw her a few days later she was able to show me how she was working the symptom chart and her positive focus exercises together.
Very quickly Rachel noticed the difference. By continuing with these exercises her health was moving in an upward direction. She was a lot more patient with herself, celebrating the good things that had happened during the day. Rachel admits she was still frustrated that she couldn’t get back to work but was now taking positive action. The more she focused on the positive the more she noticed other positive aspects in her life. Each day Rachel could see improvements with her mind, body and soul because she had begun to listen and help her unheard self be heard.
Where To Begin If You’re Thoughts And Feelings Are Overwhelming You.
If you’re struggling to listen to your unheard self and make sense of difficult, unhelpful feelings then the key is to STOP. Really listen to yourself, look at what is going on in your life and ask yourself:
Is this helpful to me?
Why?
What do I want to being thinking and feeling instead?
What can I do differently to change this?
A whole section on supporting yourself can be found in part 2 of my book "When Dad Became Joan" which can be bought directly or from Amazon.
This can be a difficult process to master on your own. If this is how you’re feeling then book a conversation with me and let’s get you started on listening and help your unheard self be heard.
