Fear of speaking in front of others. b. Shame for not satisfying them especially her Anger with herself. e. Feeling others as antagonistic when she is Suppression because of the feeling that she has to satisfy them. Message: You are special - different

Robert Elias Najemy - 49 - Remove Pain – Physical and Emotional quite lonely. She could not be just “one of the group”. The result in that childhood experience was that she actually refused to speak in front of the class and disappointed her mother. These experiences create pressure on her today to be perfect, particularly when she is speaking in front of others. She is a lawyer. We worked on the following aspects, which came up one by one:

a. Fear of speaking in front of others. b. Shame for not satisfying them especially her

mother. c. Anger with her mother.

d. Anger with herself. e. Feeling others as antagonistic when she is

speaking in front of them. f. The need to please them and fear of not being able to do so. g. Guilt because of disappointing them.

h. Suppression because of the feeling that she has to satisfy them.

We can see here how a supposedly positive affirmation can create serious problems, when it is interpreted to mean that the child will be worthy of acceptance and love only if he or she always fulfills these prerequisites. Some examples might be:

a. Message: You are special - different - better.

Resulting belief: I must always be special, different and better in order to be worthy of love and acceptance.

b. Message: You are the prettiest. Resulting belief: I must be prettier than the others

in order to be worthy of love and acceptance.

c. Message: You are the smartest. Resulting belief: I must know more than the

others in order to be loved and accepted. The problem with such messages is that they create the idea that we are loved under certain conditions and also that we must compete with others for those conditions. At our second meeting, we continued with the public speaking problem, which seemed to still be there, addressing the following aspects.

a. Fear of leading people to wrong conclusions with what I tell them.

b. Fear of their opinion of me as I speak. c. Fear that they will not understand what I

have to say. d. Feelings of separateness - loneliness. After one month we spoke about this last feeling of separateness from others, which she explained was about 3 or 4. She felt that was not something negative, but something which allowed her to find her center more easily and spend her time more creatively. She had no negative feelings about feeling different and separate.

12. Guilt, pain and rejection towards homosexual and drug-using son.