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MARCH 18, 2021 | The Jewish Home OCTOBER 29, 2015 | The Jewish Home OCTOBER 29, 2015 | The Jewish Home
Dr. Deb
Getting My Confidence Back By Deb Hirschhorn, Ph.D.
I
was talking to three “people” today. Well, actually, my Self was talking to one part of me and to my deceased mother, a”h, as if she were there and we could have a real conversation. There is only one reason for you to listen in on that conversation. Only one: That’s to tell you – emphatically – that you can do the amazing thing that I did, too. There is nothing different about me, nothing about me that is more of anything than you. So, as you will see in just a bit, I’m going to show you the steps in the kind of conversation you can have with parts of you that you just don’t understand, parts that seem out to get you and hurt you. Curiosity is Step One. Yes, really! It makes no sense to be angry at parts of you – after all, they’re you. And as I’ve been saying for quite a few weeks in this column, their only goal in life was to help you. Even their annoying, angry behavior was meant to help you. This makes sense because the direction of our energy is towards survival. It just doesn’t feel helpful more often than not. Which is why curiosity is key. You get to the ikker that way. So let’s get back to the conversation I had…
It was concerning the fact that I came to believe that my mission in this life is to help bring shalom bayis to couples. See, some of you may recall four – almost five years ago (Pesach will be five years) – my husband, a”h, passed away, and I realized, really in my gut realized, how fleeting life is. That’s when I told myself that it was time to stop kicking the can down the road regarding my personal mission, and, as Nike says, just do it. So I started working on my amalgam of therapy, coaching, and a course in which people would not merely learn how to “communicate” – because any two people can do that and then walk away thinking, “What, exactly, did we talk about?” Rather, it would be more. It would be deep. It would be intimate. Therefore, it would require other elements to make all that happen. And I struggled to put together something that people could understand. Something easy to learn and yet be transformational. I struggled not only to make the course superior – no, superlative – but to convey that to others. After all, why would anyone take it if they didn’t see the benefits?
That one piece – conveying how phenomenal the course is – takes something I didn’t have. It takes salesmanship. I was the little kid who hid behind my mom’s dress when we were out walking on the street and she encountered an acquaintance. I didn’t want that to be part of the deal. I wanted people to automatically line up at my door. Which was, of course, ridiculous thinking. The very fact that the delivery method was wildly different from traditional therapy seemed to me a plus. But others could see it as too weird, too different, and, therefore, a minus. So I would have to explain myself in a way that made sense, was appealing, and, most importantly, convinced people that what I offered was exactly as amazing as I thought it was. Tall order. But it happened. Slowly, people came on board. And changed because of it. Transformed, actually. I started getting raving remarks, off the cuff, unsolicited. I started feeling encouraged. But for some reason, that didn’t stop an annoying voice in my head doubting my role, my goal, and my future success. What was that voice?
Where did it come from? Why was it bothering me when I was doing well? In fact, why did it bother me just before every conversation with people who were interested in working with me? You would think that my inner voice would be encouraging, right? But we all, or mostly all, have an inner critic that does not let up, even when we’re doing well. Our tendency is to shove that critic in the basement where it’s out of our way. But don’t do that! Usually, our inner critic is a child that came into being when we were little. So it thinks with a child’s mind. It deserves love and appreciation for its childish efforts to help, not being shut off out of awareness. It needs a conversation. With curiosity. So I combined two self-love activities this morning: jogging around my apartment and having the conversation that follows: Critical Part: You don’t seem to enroll people. Why just last week, you didn’t enroll that couple. Me: It’s true. I hoped to help that couple. But I do know why they wouldn’t have worked out. Not everyone likes un-traditional therapy, after all.
