personal growth | My Wardrobe, Myself

Facing Our Fears

Debbie Roes

May 17, 2010

Fear is a normal emotion and a natural part of life. We all have things which we’re afraid of, and many of our fears are actually healthy and adaptive. Fear can help us to steer clear of dangerous situations and it can help us to navigate safely through treacherous encounters. While some fears can be healthy and helpful, other fears are actually detrimental to our happiness and well-being.
Irrational Fears…

Most of us have fears which could be considered irrational. We can be deathly afraid of things which really cannot hurt us. Some of these fears impact us in fairly minor ways. For example, if you’re afraid of clowns, you may avoid the circus, but this fear likely won’t impact you to any large degree. Likewise, if you are terrified of thunder but live in an area where it rarely even rains, you won’t have to face your fear on a regular basis.

Body Love, Self-Love

Debbie Roes

3 comments

May 11, 2010

If someone were to ask you if you love yourself, how many of you would reply with an enthusiastic “Yes”? How about if you were asked if you love your body? I know that for most of my life, I would have found both questions absurd. I definitely and unequivocally did not love myself or my body.

For years, I was my own worst critic. I would unleash a torrent of criticism upon myself on a daily basis that I wouldn’t wish upon my worst enemy. In fact, I was my own worst enemy. Nothing I could do was ever good enough for me; my standards were impossibly high and there was no way I could reach them. While my targets for accomplishment and success were virtually unachievable, my standards for my body and physical appearance surpassed them by leaps and bounds.

It’s Always Something!

Debbie Roes

5 comments

May 5, 2010

I just got back from a doctor’s visit concerning my most recent health challenge. I have a sore and scratchy throat and a cough, and I’m having ever increasing difficulty in swallowing. I feel as if I have a lump in my throat and have had a few experiences of almost choking in recent days. Needless to say, this is both troubling and scary. Unfortunately, my general practitioner could not ascertain the problem or its cause, so I now have an appointment to see a specialist next week to explore the matter further.

This is just the latest in a long litany of health issues for me. I have come to feel that it’s always something. Just when I feel that things are improving, something else seems to crop up! The main reason I started my “healing project” a few months ago was to try to overcome my laundry list of health woes.

Missing Tile Syndrome

Debbie Roes

9 comments

May 3, 2010

Today’s post focuses on a concept introduced by author Dennis Prager in his book, “Happiness is a Serious Problem.” I highly recommend this book as a concise and extremely informative book on the often elusive subject of happiness. Dennis presents a number of life-changing philosophies in his book, but one of the best is the concept of the “missing tile syndrome.”
Imagine this Scenario…

Imagine that you are in a dentist’s office having your teeth cleaned and are thus focused on the ceiling above you. As you glance around the room, you notice that one of the ceiling tiles is missing. Although the majority of the ceiling is pristine and perfect, you would likely be transfixed upon that one missing tile for the remainder of your visit.

As human beings, we have a tendency to focus on what is missing instead of on what is present. That is fine for ceilings, as they can be perfect. The danger is when we apply the same focus and filter to our lives…

Uncovering Our Hidden Beliefs

Debbie Roes

no comments

April 28, 2010

I recently completed an exercise on beliefs from Louise Hay’s “You Can Heal Your Life Companion Book.” The exercise was straightforward and consisted of sentence completion for nine topics. The objective was to uncover hidden beliefs which may be holding me back in certain areas of my life. In this blog entry, I will share some of the insights that I gained from completing the beliefs exercise.

The topics which were explored in the beliefs exercise were: Men, Women, Love, Sex, Work, Money, Success, Failure, and God. For each word, I wrote the various thoughts which popped into my head. I tried not to think too deeply about the “right” or “best” answers for any of the topics. I spent about twenty minutes uncovering my beliefs and then took some additional time to review my answers and look for insights or “aha moments.”