Relating with others starts with the self.

Before we can sustain a mutually loving relationship with another person, we need to build a knowing and accepting relationship with our self. An "action plan" means confronting our full self and making peace with our history and our own conflicting parts. This “self-awareness work” includes:

• Differentiating ourselves from those closest to us in order to affirm our true identity.
  
  
• Plunging below the “tip of the iceberg” into the murky depths of the past to evaluate an emerging self-image which often serves us poorly.
  
  
• Exploring and updating old core, often unconscious values and beliefs that can lead to poor decisions and sabotage good creative thinking.
  
  
• Accessing and expressing a range of emotions since feelings act as fuel to action and the catalyst to increasing intimacy.
  
  
• Replacing old reactive behaviors (“acting out”) with more thoughtful and productive choices.
  
  
• Asserting needs and wants openly and honestly while employing good boundaries in healthy ways.
  
  
• Accepting the whole self along with a new appreciation of talents, strengths, and challenges.

Growth takes work and it takes emotional courage. But the journey is so worth it.

Call Chris Loeffler, LCSW at FORAYS Counseling Services, 303/936-9946.

Life is not a dress rehearsal

You will experience yourself differently, successfully.
We create movement and momentum.