I started my latest journey of self-discovery earlier this year. My mental state had been steadily on a downward trajectory since I got back from holiday in early October 2019. The reasons for that are many, although there was one defining trigger that set it all off. No need to elaborate on that now but safe to say my self-doubt and self-loathing was rampant by the turn of the year.
I eventually recognised I needed to do something. Rather my daughters recognised it, and all three of them tried their best to help. As did three of my work friends. And for that I am very grateful. So I started to look for solutions.
To get to the point, my work life was also stagnating having reached a ceiling in my current department. I constantly need to grow. I still suffer from restless ambition. So to nourish the hunger, I enrolled onto some of the courses my employer offers to us all. The course that had the biggest impact was called Personal Effectiveness. This was a full-day course and it somehow became a bit of a personal therapy session that led the way to the 1-2-1 therapy with Dr M.
A book called The Magic of Metaphor (77 stories for teachers, trainers & thinkers) by Nick Owen was referenced a lot that day, as were several NLP techniques to train your thought into better practice. I have since bought the book. In one of the stories, I was drawn towards and extract from Sue Knight’s NLP At Work….
Beliefs are not true. They are constructs around which we organise our behaviours. So we each behave as if our beliefs were true. And for this reason all our beliefs become true. Beliefs whether empowering or limiting, are self-fulfilling prophecies.
This has resonance with me. All of my despair and anguish has stemmed from limiting beliefs that I have acquired throughout my life. People around me have nurtured some of these, either consciously or unconsciously. This is my fault to an extent as I constantly seek re-assurance and recognition. And if I am feeling low or depressed the limiting beliefs run wild overgrowing everything else.
With this in mind I am now weeding out the limiting beliefs, feeding my empowering beliefs and discovering some new ones. I have always tried to keep my mind open. I sometimes forget that.
These pictures have all been worked into something new from photographs I have taken with my iPhone using a fisheye lens attachment. The photographs only provide the subject to base the artwork around. The amazing Dark Matter album by Moses Boyd has been the inspirational soundscape for the finished work. Along with the empowering belief that I have found a creative release for the thoughts and feelings that are very personal to me. If you like them too, then great, if you don’t then that’s fine by me too. I also believe that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, allegedly.
Ronnie xx
