I shall wear purple

I want to buy that bubble gum that I had as a kid, you remember the large pink stuff that cost about a penny. You could blow the most amazing bubbles, which almost covered your face. I want to stand in the middle of Asda and blow the largest bubble ever!What stops me? I am a 53 year-old mother of three, a grandmother of nine. I am a counselor, a daughter, a sister, and a friend. It is not what I am supposed to do. It is not how others would expect me to behave. So do I live my life as I believe others want me to or do I stand in Asda and blow bubbles?That is what this book is about, it is a journey through our lives to look at what has changed us from being who we really want to be, who we really are. Where and why has "ME" gone?It help's us to understand the beliefs that we adapt, the feelings that we hide and the thoughts that effect the way that we feel. It helps us to take a look at how we behave due to these feelings and thoughts. It helps us to express the feelings that we feel unable to express It will demonstrate how we become the people that we think other people want us to be losing a sense of who we really are in the process.We all want to be accepted and loved. It is my view that most of us navigate our way from morning through to night, each day, trying desperately to avoid and protect ourselves from what we most fear, which may be rejection, abandonment, a lack of control, abuse, silent treatments, engulfment and more. In this process, we set ourselves up for what we most fear, we lose a sense of who we really are, we are not true to ourselves and we live predominantly in the past or the future and not in the present. Moreover, it depletes us of energy and can cause most of our mental health difficulties, such as depression, stress and anxiety.Many self help books will promise you success, wealth, love or many wonderful things, if you just read the book. I find this difficult to understand, as human psychopathology is a very complex subject. Emotional intelligence and emotional growth is a life long journey, so I can't promise you this. What I can promise you though is a 'tool' to help you on that journey, a different 'road' to travel by and a deeper understanding of your own pathology and ways in which to change the personality traits that you have developed over the years that are not helpful to you.Somewhere along our life journey we lose our 'real selves' and become exhausted by the different masks that we wear. This can eventually lead to psychological illnesses such as depression, stress and anxiety. It can lead to substance misuse, broken relationships, anger, resentments and unfulfilling lives.This book will help you to begin to drop some of those masks and be your own unique self. It will help you to begin to accept yourself and subsequently be accepted for who you are by significant others. It will enable you to begin to love freely, to offer acceptance to other people and in the process it will increase your energy levels, leaving you feeling more alive than you have in years.Maybe when you have this energy you can then follow your dream of money, love, the ideal career etc. However, psychological pain depletes you of physical energy which prevents you from reaching your true potential.My motivation for writing this book is that we are living in an age where therapy is becoming more and more difficult to access, waiting lists are far too long and 'brief' therapy appears to be the answer to everyone's problems, I learned during my own therapeutic journey both as a client and as a therapist many tools that can help us to begin to learn more about ourselves and change the 'things' that are impacting on our lives in a negative way. I wanted to share those tools with therapists and clients to empower people to get back in touch with their 'true selves.' There is nothing wrong with being 'you'.