Would you like more soul-satisfying success in Wealth? Health? Love?
Let’s find out.
Wealth
Are you making the money you want? Does it fly out of your bank accounts as soon as it comes in? Are you barely making ends meet? Maybe you are stuck in a job you hate — killing yourself to do the work of ten or feeling frustrated and even angry that your talents and skills are never recognized?
Health
Maybe health is your weak spot. You’re moving at warp speed and never seem to get enough sleep. You’ve gained 20 pounds because sugar is your keep-going drug of choice. Exhaustion is your constant companion. But people are depending on you and you can’t stop now. So you continue to continue while fantasizing about a full night of sleep and the kind of work that would truly feeds your soul instead of devouring it.
Love
Perhaps your issue is love. Are you recovering from the loss of a partner from death or divorce? Do you doubt yourself and wonder if you will ever be happy again? Does the future often seem bleak and hopeless? You are ready for a change but your first foray into the dating world has been disheartening. What’s out there isn’t very attractive. You feel pressured. They want too much too fast or they play games and don’t call you back. Is loneliness your life now? You don’t want to be hurt again. And isn’t that what you invite if you open to love?
Maybe you are in a relationship and it has lost it pizzazz. When did that happen? You have no idea because you’ve been too preoccupied with work or raising children. Suddenly the kids are gone or you work load has shifted and you wake up to a stranger. You hardly ever talk any more and when you do, he doesn’t seem to respect you or care what you think. Sex is either not on the calendar or might as well not be.
Success is not about luck, it’s about TRUST. 
When you don’t trust yourself, when you don’t trust the world, life is tricky and leads to problem in having wealth, health and love.
Maybe you think you trust yourself but deep down you don’t. You believe you can never have what you want because long ago you decided you are not enough, unwanted, unlovable, unworthy, imperfect, damaged and/or unsafe.
It’s not your fault! Life has taught you to distrust.
We learn these lessons of trust as young children when we were wholly dependent on our parents for all our needs. They were like gods to us. We loved them even with their shortcomings, even when they were critical, dismissive, over-protect or abusive. They taught us who to be through interaction and modeling. We absorbed it like sponges and in the process learned to distrust. One of the fundamental needs of a growing child, as important as food and shelter, is love and acceptance. This is something our parents often lacked in themselves.
It’s true, sometimes a significant event does happen later in life to trigger distrust – a dramatic loss, a traumatic experience — but the ground work for the pattern was almost always laid down much earlier.
From my own experiences and through my work as a transformational life coach, I have identified three basic patterns that children develop in order to survive a challenging family dynamic.
Controller
This pattern is forged within a chaotic or violent household where basic necessities e.g. food, warmth, clothing, and safety are often lacking or unreliable. There may be physical or sexual abuse. There may be abandonment of one or both parents. The oldest or most resourceful child steps up and takes control. Too young to have the necessary coping skills, she manages to survive and even helps her siblings to survive. But she is left feeling that others are not to be trusted and that she is somehow lacking. Her habit is to choose partners and life situations that require her intervention because as the intervener she feels needed and useful. She does not understand when family and partners object to her management. Often her projects fail to produce the results she desires because underneath she lacks trust in her own abilities as well as the others.
Pleaser
This pattern develops in a slightly less chaotic environment where the basics were met but love was weak or lacking. Children need love to thrive. Here, it was doled out in micro doses. There was just enough love to create the yearning for more. Father may be absent due to overwork or abandonment. Mother may be self absorbed or emotionally shut down. Maybe a new child was the tipping point that stopped the love flow. The pleaser is always chasing after love and learns a pattern of manipulation to earn the love or regard of others.
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Performer
Performer is one type of pleaser. A successful businessperson, real estate mogul, film star or rock star she proves her worth through material accumulation and accomplishments. Sadly, her successes never give her what she craves. Her need for love and approval is a bottomless hole and she burns herself out in an endless cycle of proving her value in the next project and the next. She tends to attract partners who feed off her accomplishments. They make her feel powerful but they are unable to give her what she craves. She does not trust them or their attention and eventually they leave her.
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Perfecter
Another pattern is the Perfecter. This person seeks love and acceptance through continual physical, mental or psychological upgrading. She amasses credentials, awards, metals and certifications proving her worth. However her achievement are rarely acknowledged by the judgmental parent whose love she craves. She embraces each new training with enthusiasm and high hopes, but it never delivers the goods because the underlying purpose, to feel loveable, is really an inside job.
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Good Girl
Then there is the Good Girl who does everything she is asked sometimes even before it is requested. Highly perceptive, she is able to detect the needs and desires of others. Teachers love her because she is an excellent student and makes her teachers feel effective and valued. She is helpful and giving to a fault. Some people take advantage of her and she often feels used, yet she is unable to stop herself.
Being other-focused, she is often clueless about her own needs and is uncomfortable when having them met, i.e. she has trouble receiving gifts, complements, generosity and any unearned attention. However, she is a stickler for reciprocity and becomes incensed when she does not receive the return she expects — but often fails to request. Intolerant of rejection she plays small and safe in order to avoid any chance of displeasing. Of course this never works because others feel her manipulation for approval and then resist and pull away.
Rebel
The Rebel is different. While the Controller and Pleaser try to manipulate others to get love and approval, the Rebel does the exact opposite. She invites rejection. Rebels come from a family dynamic in which they can never win. No matter what they do, they are always wrong, a disappointment and a failure. A parent might be unconsciously blaming this child for a tragedy such as the loss of her mother. Or she is a bitter reminder of a bad choice made long ago. Or she might have had to navigate the unrepressed jealousy of an insecure mom. In her effort to counter this constant and direct parental rejection, the child resorts to outlandish or illegal behavior in order to feel powerful in causing the resulting outrage. Actively seeking disapproval helps the rebel feel in control. “It’s not that I’m no good. I choose to be bad!”
These people sometimes take on hopeless or controversial causes in order to feel righteous in their provocative behavior and disruption of the status quo.
Although fueled by anger, underneath this pattern is the same mechanism of distrust. The rebel does not trust who she really is. She devalues her gifts and talents because she does not trust others to accept her for herself. She believes she is an alien, out-of-place and unwanted.
Health is at risk.
The constant stress of pushing and striving for control over others coupled with self-destructive habits to repress feelings, e.g. over-work, drugs, computer games and over-eating take their toll on the body.
The ultimate solution to all three patterns is self-trust. As children, we must depend on our parents for survival. As adults we can provide for our own needs. That is the ephifany of healing. This does not come easy because the behavior patterns are wired into the body’s survival system. Going against the pattern can trigger fear, anger, avoidance and depression.
I know, however, from my own 40-year journey as a people pleaser and from coaching clients back to love and self-acceptance that trust is possible to achieve. When you trust in yourself, you no longer need to manipulate others. You become the source of your ease and wellbeing. Best of all, the shift enables you to attract the people you really want in your life, the ones that love you for yourself and not for what you do or provide.
Have you seen yourself in any of these survival patterns? Are you ready to have more soul-fulfilling success in wealth, health, and love? Would you like to show your inner child that these three pillars of happiness are not mutually exclusive? That she is loveable, valuable and worthy?
Trust is the key.
If you would like to know how I can help you to create more trust in your life, let’s talk. Schedule a 15 minute introductory conversation @ meetwithdrmichelle.com and find out how I can support you in creating real success in your life.
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