Self-Doubt is Like a Hydra

Self-doubt is like an internalized hydra – that mythological 10-headed serpentine water monster – and each head of the hydra has a different opinion.

There is self-doubt and then there is self-doubt. Self-doubt on overdrive is when making even a moderately important decision turns into a cacophony…in one’s head. One is at the mercy of conflicting thoughts.

“Cacophony” means a mixture of harsh and discordant sounds, and that about sums it up. If not this, what about that? If not that, what about the other? And if not the other, then what about this? Or that? Or none?

This kind of thinking is a bit different from what I call hamster-wheel thinking, or going round and round incessantly about a topic, but they are related. Hamster-wheel thinking is more obsessive and tracks endlessly around issues of relationship.

Craving Alcohol a Craving for Healing

 Diary of a Healer #9, by Annie Bond

“I have to have it – every day,” noted a client who wants to stop alcohol. She has a few glasses of wine every night, and while she generally doesn’t have more than that, feels dependent.

“When I start drinking I can’t stop,” noted another, a social binge drinker.

“I drank like a fish and have been sober for five years; I get addicted to everything” said another.

All three are professional women with husbands and children, and are haunted by their alcohol use.

Servant or Warrior at Work?

The ego is a tough taskmaster, an operating system all its own. We are born to its travails at home, in school, with friends, at work. It is part of being human and always will be.  Managing this system is part of everyone’s spiritual growth and also part of our individuation from family and the collective. Are we a servant or warrior at work?

This is the difficult terrain of the third chakra.

Maria is a client who is a digital media crackerjack. She is magnificently capable. She is in the midst of a deal breaker crisis at work –underpaid for her role, being paid less than men in her position, with a job title that doesn’t reflect her high level contributions – while a workhorse with a lot of responsibility, for a company whose mission she cares about. Exhausted and despondent, she was at the end of her tether.

Healing the Inner Parents

We are all born of unhealed mothers and fathers and we become unhealed children. We then internalize these unhealed mainstays as truth. Our energy body becomes deplete where these foundations are incomplete. Many of us spend a few decades trying to stabilize as a result!
 
Just as a seed needs enough of Mother Earth and Father Sun to sprout and leaf out, so, too, we need enough of the healed inner mother and father to become a healed child and ultimately, our authentic, true self.
 
Isabelle, a young woman, came to me feeling like she was really stuck in her life. In her job, relationships, personal trajectory. She exuded a kind of radiance, yet threw up her hands saying, “I want abundance in every direction and I don’t know what is stopping me!” She has suffered from depression.

Rips and Tears in Your Energy Field?

You know people like this, even if it isn’t part of your own experience. They pick up the heavy, emotional energy from the people around them; they feel it to their core.  

In extreme cases, there is a sense of energetic incoherence. They look like a deer in the headlights and feel overwhelmed and helpless. Such people tend to need a lot of time to themselves to stabilize after being with others. The onslaught is more extreme than if the person is an empath.

Here was a client who was a physical therapist and had to stop her successful business because she brought home her client’s energy and it made her feel lethargic and depressed. Presenting with those symptoms suggested a rip or tear in her energy fields, and I put it on my list to investigate.