It would be a different world if we each received our birthright of knowing love from our parents. The fact is that not enough children do know that they are loved. As parents, our most important legacy is to offer our children that love. If they know they have it, they can deal with almost anything else in life. If they don’t, it may take years before they love themselves and can take that love out to others – if indeed it ever happens.
As adults our emotional selves are the reflection of our childhood experiences and feelings. We re-experience and act them out every day, usually unconsciously. If we never felt that we were loved, we find it hard to believe that we are lovable now. The result may be that we constantly seek attention, or talk negatively about ourselves and, by extension, others.
It’s not too late though. We can change the messages that we give ourselves. If you don’t believe that your parents, or one parent, loved you, ask yourself if that’s really the truth, or just your belief. More important, go back to your own child self and ask if he or she is lovable. The answer you get, and the continued inner conversation you can have, could be revealing to you in more ways than you imagine.
People who have recently gone through this process with me have included executive coaches, a senior marketing executive, several business owners and entrepreneurs and a number of professionals in the health services. They have all changed how they have seen themselves and therefore act with their clients and employees more positively.
If parents only knew how they can affect the future health of organizations by just showing love to their children! That alone will beat any number of business degrees and create the kind of leaders we need in the world.
In peace
Warren Redman
www.EFitInstitute.com
1-866-310-3348(EFit)
Warren Redman trained in the UK as a psychotherapist, facilitator and coach and has developed his own unique style of Emotional Fitness Coaching. He is president of the Emotional Fitness Institute (formally the Centre for Inner Balancing), writing about, teaching and coaching people in Emotional Fitness. He is the author of fifteen books, including the Award-winning The 9 steps to Emotional Fitness, Achieving Personal Success and Recipes for Inner Peace.
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