I have long had an intense irritation with the way “change your mindset” is bandied about as though it’s the answer to all of life’s problems. That somehow we have it “wrong” in our mind and we just need to change that for some hallelujah moment, the sparkly gates will open and we will be allowed access to the place where nothing will bother us anymore. Bollocks! I’m swearing again so I must be feeling strongly about this.

Perhaps the mindset stuff is more nuanced than I experience it. What I see is people peddling the idea that they can change our mindset to change our life and it is made to sound that simple. If there is more nuance to it, then I have definitely missed it.

Feeling broken

I come from a background of childhood emotional neglect and trauma. I am not alone in this and many of us experience some trauma in our lives. The younger we experience it, and the more of it that we experience, the more it shapes who we become. Trauma affects us all at some level because that is the essence of trauma. It is not the thing that happened to us but how we experienced it. As a result of my trauma, I grew up as a people-pleaser, a high-achiever and I tried really hard all the time to be what I thought was “normal” as I felt so broken inside. I tell you this for context as the way I feel will be how many others feel too. Unfortunately.

I also want to touch on the growing awareness of trauma. It is not just the big things we have always understood to be trauma, like physical and sexual abuse, serious illness and serious injury. Trauma also comes from neglect, emotional abuse, dis-honouring of our experience and existence. It is now understood that what amounts to trauma is much wider than once thought. Until I was 47, I would never have described my childhood experience as traumatic but I now know that I experienced a lot of trauma during that time. It is how we experience something that makes it trauma, not the thing itself. It is subjective, not objective. Never let anyone deny your experience.

If I had discovered personal development work before my unravelling in my late 40s, and had I been able to engage with it, I am pretty sure I would have thrown myself into it with my usual gusto and with the intention to “fix” myself. I would have tried courses, workshops, programmes, books, articles. You name it, I would have given it a go, searching for that one thing that would work.

Knowing what I know now about myself, it is highly likely that nothing would have worked unless I had been lucky enough to come across a person who recognised my trauma and helped me that. So I am convinced that the outcome of any work I had done then would have been more trauma.

I would have told myself that I was even more broken that I thought I was because whatever I tried didn’t work.

Not all about the mind

Mindset work from people who say it’s just a case of reprogramming your thoughts particularly bothers me and I think I’ve worked out why. As I was preparing for a podcast interview the other day, I was writing a few notes. These are some of the notes I wrote:

· learned to love myself

· listen to my intuition

· my inner critic is now much quieter

· life now makes my heart and soul sing

· mind is now the least important as it follows the heart and soul

Boom

There it was. The reason why mindset talk bothers me so much. It can help as part of a bigger piece of work but on its own, I believe, it is merely a sticking plaster. The real work is for the heart and soul and without that work, any mindset work is pretty much doomed. It bothers me that people embark on mindset work and when it doesn’t bring them the change they’re looking for, it serves to deepen their feelings of “not enough” ness and is, really, more trauma.

It doesn’t surprise me that mindset work is so popular. Society reveres intellect and intelligence so the mind is seen as everything.

Hard work at school + good job = money

money = success

success = everything

Does that sound familiar?

Heart and Soul

Where in that equation is the room for creativity?

Creativity is more about following our heart and soul. What we put on the paper (or screen), the canvas, on the fabric. What we do with the food, the clay, the musical instrument. However we express our creativity, we leave a little bit of the essence of who we are in whatever we create and that fills us up. Using our own ideas to create something gives us a feeling unlike anything else, we fill ourselves up with those feelings and we feel good about ourselves. We learn to love ourselves, appreciate our unique expression and being, and we give our mind a break.

We no longer have to try and think our way out of our discomfort and disquiet of our unhappiness because we have filled ourselves up with self-love.

I believe that the way to true happiness is self-love and we achieve that through knowing ourselves, loving ourselves for who we truly are and no longer looking outside ourselves for validation.

Mindset work has it’s place but it is part of a bigger picture. We can’t simply think ourselves to happiness.

If you want some support getting to know and love yourself, book a call and we can chat over a coffee