It's Not You, It's Me

by Camilla Sacre-Dallerup

  Where an exercise requires you to write down answers and reflect, you’ll see a symbol. You can use a notepad, your phone or even scraps of paper, but by writing in a journal you can keep a record and track your progress. You may find it helpful to look back at some of your answers and reflections as you work your way through the exercises.

  There are also meditations throughout the book, which you can do whenever you need them and which I hope will become an invaluable self-help tool in your day-to-day life. Look out for the links to the meditations online too.

  1. Self-awareness. When we are self-aware, we are able to observe our own feelings, emotions and behaviours. Once we are tuned in, we will become aware of the patterns and behaviours we are repeating and what we would like to change and improve on. I always tell my clients that being aware of an issue is the first step to healing it. The tricky part is when you are not aware. I like to think of becoming self-aware as waking up. Once you are wide awake to what is working in your life and what isn’t, and who you are surrounding yourself with and what you truly want to surround yourself with, you will start to make better choices for yourself with a newfound awareness.

  2. Self-acceptance. We can’t change a situation we are in or something about ourselves until we acknowledge it and then accept it. When you accept a relationship is over, for example, or that you are in the wrong career, that is the moment you can start the healing journey and make positive changes. Or when you accept that a behaviour or habit is not really working in your favour, you can get to work on how to change it or improve it.

  3. Self-love. Once you’re fully self-aware and self-accepting, you can truly love yourself, warts and all! And believe me no one is perfect! The love you have or don’t have for yourself will be reflected in the relationships around you. You will learn how to meet your own needs before you look for someone or something to meet them for you. I’ve watched so many of my clients fall in love with themselves and it’s the best thing ever – truly life-changing – and I can’t wait for you to experience it too!

  4. Self-care. This is last but definitely not least. Taking the time to care for yourself says a lot about how much you actually value yourself and your self-worth. I’m going to share all of my favourite tools with you in my 7-Day Self-Care Plan, so that you can rise and shine and be your best awesome self.

  “If you don’t love yourself, it’s impossible for you to love others. You can’t give away what you don’t have.”

  Joyce Meyer

  Your toolbox

  Look out for the ‘Your toolbox’ sections in each chapter. These are the exercises I mentioned on page 6, created to help you move closer to and fall in love with your true self.

  Now let’s look at some of the techniques used, and some of the inspiration behind them, in more detail so they provide a useful reference point for you as you do the exercises:

  Reframing: This is such a great tool for retraining the mind so that you can feel, think or see something differently. It’s a technique often used in therapy or coaching allowing the client to perceive the situation from a different perspective. Later on I will share the “how to” so you can become a master of reframing in your own life and know you have a mind tool up your sleeve you can rely on whenever you are trying to work out an issue.

  NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming): NLP is a tool that helps you to better understand words that you use and how they support you or hinder you – you are basically learning the language of your own mind. NLP includes different types of communication techniques that can help you change a behaviour or thought. An NLP tool I use a lot, and which I’m going to show you, is “Perception is projection”, which helps us look at relationships as our mirrors.

  Meditation: Everyone can meditate and it really is one of the most effective self-help tools. Research is continually proving more of the amazing benefits of meditation, including that it helps to lower blood pressure, improve concentration and decrease stress and anxiety. I am passionate about teaching meditation and sharing my passion for it, both as a teacher and as a student, because I have felt the benefits in my own life and seen how it has helped to improve the lives of my clients.

  I am going to share some of my favourite guided meditations with you, some of which I have recorded especially for this book for you to listen to for free – just head to www.zenme.tv/mindtools.

  A common question I get asked by people starting out in meditation is, “How do I switch my thoughts off?” So let’s just clarify something here – you can’t switch off your thoughts, even when you meditate. You have about 60,000–80,000 thoughts a day, so when your mind feels busy and like it’s racing at 100 miles an hour it’s because it pretty much is! However, what we learn through meditation is that we can choose what we focus on and practise over and over again, bringing our focus back to one thing. That might be your breath, a mantra, an affirmation or even a colour. For example, while meditating you might think, “I forgot to do xyz today” or a specific relationship issue may be going around in your head on repeat. You might want to dive into each thought that appears, allowing worry to set in, and start speculating on the future or worrying about things that have happened in the past. Instead when each thought arrives, acknowledge it, but then instead of diving into it, bring your focus straight back to your breath or whatever is your chosen focus point. When the next thought comes, because it will, again bring your focus back to your breath and so it continues.

  You will slowly start to become the observer of your thoughts and adopt a non-judgemental approach, just allowing the thoughts to pass by like clouds in the sky. This practice for the mind is very similar to working your muscles at the gym – the more you do it, the easier it will become. And the most wonderful thing is that the more you practise, the more you will be able to use this skill in everything you do, becoming more present in every moment and able to give each thing you do your full attention.

  Meditation will also help you to become less reactive in situations where a considered response is more helpful – it allows you time to assess. So as you meditate, invite thoughts and noises around you to come and go and know that they are a reminder for you to bring your focus and awareness back to your breath. I want to make something very clear here, allow for your practice to be whatever it needs to be for you, even the days where the mind feels super busy and you are less relaxed, it’s still working. Every time you redirect your thoughts in meditation back to you practising focusing on one thing, it will serve you long after your meditation is finished. Sometimes it’s the most relaxing thing you have ever done and sometimes it’s not – it is whatever it is and that’s okay. As author and Buddhist teacher Pema Chödrön said, “We don’t sit in meditation to become good meditators. We sit in meditation so that we’ll be more awake in our lives.”

  Mindfulness: Like meditation, mindfulness teaches us to allow thoughts to arise and for us to observe what is present in the moment without judgement. Mindfulness, however, can be practised throughout the day not only when you decide to sit down and meditate. You can have a mindful cuppa, a mindful walk or even a mindful bath as you give that one thing your full attention. You are present in the moment, simply sensing what is there right now – not needing to change anything or worrying about the past or the future. There is such solace when practising mindfulness because you know you can be with and feel however you are feeling at the time, negative or positive, and honour what is there – give it space and allow anything that needs to clear through you to do so as you simply observe and stay present to what is happening in each moment. Thoughts, feelings, sounds – there is space for it all.

  Visualize: I learnt to visualize as part of my sports training when I was 13 years old and this tool has followed me through life like a dear friend. Visualization is more of an active meditation in that you are intentionally imagining something. When thoughts come and go, you can still go back to your breath to bring your focus back to what you are visualizing. I truly believe that v
isualizing a goal, dream or relationship as successfully accomplished or healed helps you to achieve it in reality. When you go within and get still in both meditation and visualization you allow for your breath and thoughts to slow down a little and for a certain amount of space to appear between each thought. In this space, clarity, inspiration, intuition, peace and calm can appear. You allow yourself to connect with your true self and to feel connected to your deepest desires and as Bob Proctor, motivational speaker, bestselling author, and contributor to the world-renowned book The Secret, famously said, “Thoughts become things. If you see it in your mind, you will hold it in your hand.”

  Affirmations: An affirmation is basically a positive or negative statement we repeat over and over again. We create these statements for ourselves and as we repeat them they seep into our subconscious mind and become what we believe to be true, our reality if you like. Throughout the book we will explore the importance of making sure the affirmations you use are positive rather than negative and help you create some powerful ones for yourself. It’s important when creating the affirmation to remember to make it in the first person ie “I”, and present tense not future tense. For example, “I am strong”, not “I’m going to be strong.” “I am full of energy and focused.” Writing these positive statements on your phone or mirror or in your diary, and repeating them in your mind or out loud to yourself in the mirror, can really help you to achieve your goals.

  Personal stories: I have asked friends and clients to share their stories of how they healed challenging situations and relationships by healing nothing but themselves. I hope you’ll be inspired by what you read.

  My wish is for YOU to create a loving relationship with yourself, which I believe is the most beautiful kind of relationship. The kind we dream of, filled with deep love, understanding, forgiveness, compassion and respect. Imagine entering into any situation and relationship with that in your toolbox. I know, pretty awesome, right? It’s possible and you deserve it as much as anyone else in this world. And just in case you doubted it, it is as possible for you as it is for anyone else. All you have to do is to be willing to invest in yourself by committing to doing the work within. Align yourself internally with what you want to attract externally. It’s time. Are you ready to explore the possibility of falling madly in love with yourself? Let’s begin.

  “We’re all just walking each other home.”

  Ram Dass

  1

  SELF-AWARENESS

  You may have picked up this book in the hope of finding a quick fix for your relationship problems, but although that might sound appealing, I know it wouldn’t really benefit you in the long term. Because to truly attract and sustain healthy and happy relationships, you need to look inward and become fully self-aware. And the exercises in this chapter are designed to do just that – they will help you become aware of your behaviour, and of any negative patterns and beliefs, and allow you to observe and redirect your focus to those areas of your life you would like to improve. All you need is to be committed and disciplined in doing the work, and soon your inner strengths and qualities will be revealed to you.

  The words “Know thyself” are nothing new; in fact, they go way back to the philosopher Socrates. He believed that people were motivated by the desire for happiness, but that they could only make the right choices and achieve happiness by truly knowing themselves. Only when we do that will we create deeper, more meaningful and harmonious relationships in every area of our lives. When Robert Holden, author and psychologist and “Britain’s foremost expert on happiness”, said “Your relationship with yourself sets the tone for every relationship you have” he was spot on.

  So it’s time to dive deeper, beyond the issues that are present in this moment and gain clarity, knowledge and understanding so that you can soar in your relationships and find true contentment.

  “True power is living the realization that you are your own healer, hero and leader.”

  Yung Pueblo

  Change starts with you

  As my coaching and hypnosis business grew, both online and in LA, it became more and more apparent to me that the relationship issues clients were dealing with had a common thread running through them. They all required my clients to accept that they could only change how they responded to things, their own behaviour – not the person or situation they had problems with – and decide for themselves which traits they needed to improve. They would tell me about their issue, for example about the person who was making them angry or sad, but the only thing we could do anything about right then and there was a) find out why this person triggered them in such an extreme way and b) work on making them feel stronger, more confident, and calmer so they were able to cope better when they had to face that person or a similar situation again. As we all know, if it’s a boss, colleague or family member, it isn’t always possible to just walk away. Neither is walking away always the solution – sometimes it’s better to stay and learn from it and heal the wounds that have been revealed to you through being in a particular relationship or situation.

  “Every situation that triggers you is an opportunity to get to know yourself better and to grow.”

  So my aim was to help my clients to navigate through tricky situations with more ease. What I found to my surprise in the early days of my practice was that when you improve your relationship with yourself, you fully wake up to the fact that it’s the most important relationship you will ever have. When that’s a loving, kind and respectful one, guess what… you will react differently to situations, you will choose differently and you will attract different things into your life. And even when met with difficult or selfish people you will be equipped to handle them without it destroying you or even, with time, disturbing your inner peace. Extraordinary people like Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi demonstrated very well the art and importance of self-mastery and the power of forgiveness to create inner and outer peace. I can promise you that once you have fully connected within, you will be able to handle most things with grace and peace.

  “It’s like working any muscle in your body – each time you are confronted with a similar situation, you will be able to deal with it differently and feel stronger within each time.”

  What do you need to heal?

  I don’t believe in coincidences. I have seen way too much synchronicity in my life to believe anything but that whatever happens is meant to be. I truly believe there was a specific reason why you picked up this book, if not consciously, then subconsciously. You will get an opportunity to heal whatever frustration, hurt and disappointment was on your mind when you did so, through the work we are going to do in this chapter and beyond.

  By looking inward and becoming more self-aware, you will find the areas of your life where there is room for healing, where perhaps it’s time to return home to you. Maybe you have detoured, maybe you have put the feelings and needs of others above your own and handed over the control of how you feel to someone else. Or perhaps you have been caught up in materialistic things or turned to substances, such as drugs and alcohol, looking to those to fill a void within. Wherever you have been searching for that one thing to fulfil you, my aim through this book is for you to realize you had it within you all the time. To know you are already whole and complete, and that you are love!

  Noticing negative behaviours and patterns

  When we raise our self-awareness – I think of it as becoming awake – we are able to notice negative behaviours and patterns we repeat that we would like to improve on. We can bring them to our conscious mind. According to scientist Dr Bruce Lipton, your life is run by your subconscious mind 95 per cent of the time and what is in our subconscious has been there since the first six years of our lives, so it’s akin to having a child run our lives 95 per cent of the time! That is exactly how it can feel at times, especially when we get triggered. As adults we realize that some of those old patterns created in our childhood are not aligned with how we want to think, behave and react now.
<
br />   However, unless we consciously work with mind tools to change or improve some of those patterns, we will subconsciously continue to act and react in undesired negative ways. Dr Lipton explains: “The major problem is people are aware of the conscious beliefs and behaviours, but not of subconscious beliefs and behaviours.” However, he says: “Once you have become aware of the fact that invisible programs from the subconscious mind are running your life, then you are responsible for it.” The good news is that you can access your subconscious and create change via meditation, hypnosis and affirmations, as you will learn more about throughout this book.

  Let’s look at what those patterns lingering in the subconscious mind from childhood can look like. Perhaps your parents split up when you were a child, leaving one parent devastated; such an experience may have made you grow up overnight – perhaps you took on the role of caring for the parent you were living with to help them through this difficult time. Then, later in life, that role is familiar to you, so you feel you have to save and fix everyone in every relationship you’re in, but deep down you are tired and would actually quite like to be saved and looked after yourself – the child within you is longing for that love you yearned for but didn’t always receive in the way you needed it. Or perhaps your parents fought a lot and you took on the role of peacemaker or stayed out of the way for safety, which made you stay in your shell as an adult. Another example is if as a child you had a very controlling parent, perhaps you couldn’t voice how you really felt and so your go-to was to get angry or frustrated. Later on in life when you detect this kind of controlling behaviour in someone else, you will subconsciously react in the same way, with anger or frustration or even by being controlling yourself. However, at this stage in your life, this probably doesn’t feel good to you – something isn’t aligned and you know deep down there is another, better, way to deal with it. You don’t yet know how to react in your desired way in the heat of the moment because you are still being triggered by the old pattern in your subconscious. You may long to resolve the situation by calmly and assertively letting the person know that you won’t be controlled in this way, or you may simply recognize the controlling behaviour and move on because you know that’s not for you and you have already healed that within yourself.