Berkshire Counselling and Psychotherapy Services

Berkshire Counselling and Psychotherapy Services

Solution focused and CBT counselling

Confidence and Assertiveness Issues

The worthwhile you
You are a worthwhile person but sometimes it's hard to maintain that belief when others doubt you. It's very easy to magnify others criticisms and implied criticisms and magnify them to the point where your self esteem has no chance of thriving. This can become a habit and we get to the point where we can only see ourselves through the imagined criticisms of others. Thus we allow others negative viewpoints, real or imagined to define our identity.

We are trained in our world of human being to 'love thy neighbour as you would love thyself' but we are culturally forced to love ourselves the least because we are scared of being called 'narcissistic'. But consider this: that thing you love: car, house, jewellery or job; that animal you love: horse, cat, dog; that person you love: wife, husband, lover, child. What are you contributing to their lives just by loving them? what are the qualities, skills or emotions you are creating and instilling in them that could be valuable for you or your business relationships if you could just learn to give yourself the same kind of love?

We use terms such as self confidence, self image or else self esteem but basically we mean our internal voice is not telling the same story as our logic. Logically when you are looking in the mirror you can see you look good and smart but the inner voice doubts that it is enough for the party. You leave home with the doubt growing and comparing yourself with every person along the way to the party. When you enter the room someone you barely know glances at you and then turns away. Already your inner voice is confirming your belief in your being not good enough and your brain is saying "flight or fight". The rest is history with a person who suffers from self confidence, self esteem issues.

The skills of love
The way I see it, when we love someone or something we are using five main skills very subtly, that turned towards ourselves could make a lot of difference to our professional and personal relations. Think about the last person's hand you shook at a business meeting: did he inspire you? was his enthusiasm real or faked? was he someone you would to do business with or remember? Now if you apply the same logic to the person you love, your face will lift immediately and you feel that warmth instantly. How about if that person you met was in love with himself- what then?

  1. Love creates an energy boost: a walk with your favourite dog, a drive in your loved car, a moment with the loved person. You sit back at that inanimate computer feeling invigorated and energetic; you answer the phone for a prospective client with a smile still lingering on your lips. Your voice sounds young and genuine because of that contact with the loved one.
  2. Love causes us to be patient and attentive: we are careful before we use words or gestures lest the person or animal we love might get hurt and that will hurt you in return. We are more patient waiting for the loved person to interact in their own way; we are patient that they change for their own potential and we encourage them to believe in themselves. do we do that to ourselves?
  3. Love creates consistency and stability: the routine we fall in for the loved ones without questioning: getting up half an hour earlier for the dog; trying to joke in the car when leaving your child at school for his benefit then ending laughing yourself, making a cup of tea for the wife/husband even if we are in a hurry. How consistently do we care about ourselves? We resolve to walk everyday, then after a few days the work load takes over and we give up but we are still making that cup of tea for the other!!
  4. Love inspires and motivates: being around that person or animal or even object inspires you to work harder but without feeling forced to do it; suddenly you are putting extra hours to clean the garden you love or putting extra hours to find that birthday gift but you are not coming out of it mentally drained; in fact you are like a child anticipating the pleasure on their face when they receive that special gift from you. you are inspired by that promising smile and hug to work odd hours and long hours without feeling the pressure. next year you are motivated to try harder to have that hug again.
  5. Love refreshes and creates as a sensation of novelty. However tired you are when you reach home, that baby smiling in your wife’s arms is bound to make you feel young again, even if not physically!! You explore the meaning of life, work, money , movies and humanity with the loved ones, if not in words then in deeds. You keep an active, vibrant sense of aliveness when they are around. Even if you fight and hate for a little while that in itself adds a sense of novelty of having reached a new level of understanding and there you are: embarking on another search for meaning in your relationship.
Reading Counselling and Psychotherapy in Reading, Woodley, Wokingham Berkshire has over ten years' expertise in working with confidence, self image, esteem, blushing, shyness issues. Counselling creates a bridge between the cognitive voice and person who knows she is good at what she does or who she is and the emotional voice that doubts and self defeat. We all know which voice tends to win generally or how much effort you have to put in to avoid, ignore or resist that inner voice....which then creates tension in the body and worsen the self doubt. Amreeta Chapman, Your Psychologist and Counsellor in Wokingham, Reading, Woodley, Berkshire has been trained for twenty years now in the world of the mind and emotional intelligence. She has experience of working with confidence issues and self esteem issues in children, adults as well as couples who often suffer because of self doubt issues due to self image in the couple. She aims within 10-15 sessions of solution focused Counselling Integrated with CBT techniques and NLP techniques to help clients grow a congruity between their inner voice and cognitive voice, so that the inner script believes the person is worthy, capable and okay even when things are not going as well... Clients rate their goals in the first session and re-evaluate their goals every few sessions to evaluate their progress while in counselling with Amreeta. For more information or questions call Amreeta on 0118 926 9978 or 0786 129 3634. You can also email her your questions by clicking here. Please note that she may be with clients so do leave a message as she aims to answer you within two to three hours. Amreeta understands you are making a huge step ahead by contacting her and she will definitely answer you by call or mail whichever you prefer!

Practicing in Reading, Wokingham and Woodley, Berkshire.

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