Session Excerpt: resolving shame, standards of Beauty and good enough

Client: "I’m 3 or 4 years old. I can’t tell exactly what is happening, but the feeling I get is that this is the time when I became convinced that I have to behave, be kind and loving, in order to be ok, to be accepted and loved by my mom. Not only do I have to be good, my mom is telling me in many small and subtle ways that I need to look a certain way as well."

Dustin: And if you don’t look the way they want you to look, how do you feel about it?

Client: I feel shame and disgust. I hate my body. 

Dustin: Can you see what effect that has had in your life since then?

Client: I can see myself separate from my body, like I separated my spirit from my body and it has just been hanging around outside of my body, refusing to be in it. 

Dustin: And have you experienced any feelings of being incomplete or having a void within you that can’t be filled? 

Client: Oh yes. I always feel the void, like something is missing but I never knew what is was until now. 

Dustin: Are you ready to heal it? Are you ready to feel whole again?

Client: Yes, absolutely. 

Dustin: So far, we have talked about two different standards that got created when you were three or four years old. One regarding the way you should look to be beautiful, and therefore believing that you aren’t beautiful if you don’t look that way. The other standard has to do with your behavior, of what you have to do to be a good girl. Can you see what effect that has had in your life since then? Perhaps you can take a moment to allow any memories to come back to you from anytime in your life when you felt like you weren’t good enough, or when you felt like you had to be loving to others. 

Client: Yes there are many memories.  I used to always feel like I had to be loving to others. I would exhaust myself people-pleasing. Luckily, I realized a while ago that it doesn’t work, so I have been careful not to do that anymore. 

Dustin: Making a new choice to live a more balanced way is great, but as you may have also noticed, if we don’t heal, reintegrate our frozen selves with our higher self, then the old parts of us, the standards you took on for what it means to be good and beautiful, will still be there to pull us towards that, not allowing us to fully move on. Are you ready to complete the healing process by merging those things with your higher self?