My Best Personal Coach

A concept developed by C.H. Cooley called Looking Glass Self  describes how we come to see ourselves based on others' perceptions of us. http://sociologyindex.com/looking_glass_self.htm

Like many people, I grew up in a very dysfunctional family. My mother was mentally ill and my father was an alcoholic. From the age of about ten until I was at least seventeen, I experienced a number of traumatic events  including some physical abuse and persistent emotional abuse. I was bullied at school - tripped, spit on, and constantly harassed. At fourteen I was beaten and attacked; because of my own family's dysfunction, I ended up in juvenile detention after the attack rather than receiving any help. At fifteen, I became pregnant. At sixteen, I sat alone and signed necessary papers to relinquish my parental rights. I thought I was all alone. Today I know that many, many other people have experienced similar or much worse childhoods.

If our sense of who we are is shaped by how others perceive us and interact with us, then my sense of self was like a mirror that had been dropped on concrete - I could only recognize pieces of myself through the reflection of little shards that remained.

Now I think that it is not so much what we experienced growing up that matters but how we respond to those experiences. We still have choices and can move forward if we are willing to work at it.

Early in adulthood, I started learning how to put the pieces of my life back together. I learned these strategies through reading, talking to people, seeking out help where appropriate, and becoming a lifelong student of a field that has given me some powerful tools to rebuild my life and to live my life in a purposeful way.

I have become my own best personal coach. I know who I am and who I am becoming. Thanks to a personal mission statement I've developed, I've been able to stay focused on a purpose that is important to me. I have the tools I need to challenge thinking that I need to change. For example, I have learned about a mental trap called "either / or" thinking. The trap sounds like this: "Either you are good or you are bad. Either you are successful or you are a failure, etc." 

Growing up, I believed that I must be bad because I wasn't told I was good. I must have been a failure because I didn't hear that I was a success. Yet that is not true. I may do things that I regret at times, but that doesn't make me bad. I might not reach all the goals I set for myself, but that doesn't make me a failure.

This summer I had all kinds of plans to accomplish different goals. I started a lot of projects, but bounced from one project to the next. Though I finished a few things I started, I didn't finish others. I could beat myself up and tell myself I wasted time and failed to use my time as intended. Or I could reframe my experience and recognize that I accomplished what I really wanted to do and learned a lot about myself in the process. I now see my life through the lens of a lifelong learner. It is all a journey - one that I am enjoying.