I’m fine, honest!

Are you very good at being fine? I am!

If there was an Olympic medal for being OK, I would be gold, Guinness World Record holder, top of my class, Valedictorian, first class with honours.

But why? Where does that get you, being fine all the time. I mean no one wants to be that person, the one who when you ask how they are gives you a full medical rundown of all their aches, pains and procedures but truthfully is being stoic and stiff upper lipped any better?

Surely there must be a middle ground, somewhere where you can express your needs but not bang on about them. People do it all the time. I’ve been in conversations with them, but to do it myself…

So why do some people not feel comfortable with others knowing their business? Here’s my theory at some point the belief instilled in you was that your needs were not important enough to be important. And you have carried that forward with you through life, noticing the times when it was proved right and ignoring the times when it wasn’t.

It’s all about our inner narrative, inner critic, unconscious behaviour. Have you heard of them? They’re similar but not quite the same.

So inner narrative is the story you tell yourself about who you are and where you are in the world. It is shaped around your belief systems and the experiences you have had in the world. Let’s take an example.

You believe that family time is really important because growing up you had good memories or feelings about family time and it has shaped your beliefs about its’ importance (this is just one way of looking at something not THE way). But some else’s experiences of spending time with their family my not have that effect, maybe it was just not that pleasant. They didn’t get on with their siblings or it felt forced and uncomfortable, or it was just a time when people argued.

The thing with your inner narrative is that it is ongoing, because your life is constantly moving so your experiences shift and alter. It can be a force for good or it can limit you by creating narrow beliefs and set ways of thinking.

Your inner critic is that little (or big) voice in your head that seems to constantly berate you, or add a layer of anxiety to your everyday. It generally brings about feelings of unworthiness and inadequacy. It’s there chipping away at you daily, trying to keep you safe but actually often keeping you stuck.

Some people say that it belongs to people from their past, for others it’s an amalgamation of lots of different influences and nay sayers.

Linked to this is your unconscious behaviour this is the way we interact with the world, we don’t really put much thought into it we just behave in certain ways. It’s shaped by past experiences and memories. And by it’s very title we are not really in control of it.

Something might give you the ick and you don’t know why. A lot of phobic behaviour lies within our unconscious mind. It’s not something you can ever get rid of but it can be looked at and explored. Some theories suggest it’s where we keep the worst of ourselves, I’m not so sure.

The thing is all of these are linked to that need to be fine all the time.

In the process of counselling you can work at exploring your inner narrative and how it was formed.

You can work at challenging your inner critic and replacing it’s words with more compassion and kindness to your self.

It is through this work that some of your unconscious behaviour gets moved forward into your conscious mind. Then it’s up to you. Then you can decide do I want to keep saying I’m fine or do I want to say something different this time?