Send to KindleLast week I wrote about how Cinderella is a great role model. What I forgot to mention was that she’d been a client of mine, obviously it was only in my dreams. I have of course asked her permission and all other names and details have been changed to protect the innocent!
This is how it began :
Cinderella got in touch having read my Guided Be Yourself Love Yourself page. Would you like to see what she said?-
Hi Jackie, I don’t know if you can really help me, but I’m so tired of being taken for granted by my step mother and sisters. My father passed away a few years ago and my mother died not long after I was born.
I feel as if I no longer know where I belong, am unable to make my own decisions and am frightened to speak the truth as I am punished. Truly I’m desperately lonely, alone and have nothing to look forward to in the future. I am resentful of my step family and my heart is still sore from the death of my parents.
What do you suggest.
I got in touch with Cinderella and we started to work together. Over the next 7 weeks she made magnificent progress. It went a bit like this:
Week 1 – during the first session Cinders came to realise that although she was born into a titled family, she was more than that. With help and encouragement, she learned to find ways to find things which were alive and real for her to connect to – things in nature – rivers, animals, plants. Each day she took time to be outside enjoying the world in which she lived, feeling more and more a part of it, rather than separate from it. She found her own individual sense of belonging.
Week 2 – this week was a challenging one for Cinders as I asked her to look at her feelings surrounding money, material possessions, family roles, and her emotions. She had shut down her ability to feel because she hadn’t had the privacy and time to do it. It was easier for her just to exist and to go through the motions of living. At this point she learned that being defined by ‘things’ and ‘roles’ was unsustainable. We tapped into her existence as a feeling, emotional and loving person, secure in their own body as an individual with her own rights.
Week 3 – oh boy, this was a really fun week! Learning to stand in your own power, even when employed (albeit by your stepmother!) can be challenging. The essence of this week’s lesson was about how she was going to let herself feel when others were rude, bullied, or abused her. Nobody can make you think or feel anything unless you choose to. With her sense of self now intact, she was much more able to laugh and see the step family’s actions for what they were.
Week 4 – her heart was sorely aching for her parents’ love. With gentleness she came to realise that their love was still there, even if it wasn’t in physical evidence. I taught her how to ‘speak’ to her parents regularly. By learning how to forgive her step family Cinderella lost the resentment and jealousy which had been eating away at her.
Week 5 – although Cinders had felt she was unable to express herself previously, she now knew that the things she’d wanted to say weren’t the things which would have benefitted the situation she was in. She found new ways which allowed her to stay true to herself, and to communicate calmly, and more effectively. She no longer felt as though she was being hard done by, and a victim, which really allowed her to take huge leaps.
Week 6 – the work was now building up and amplifying a new world to Cinderella! She couldn’t believe the differences in how she felt and how she now viewed her circumstances. She could see clearly and found happiness easily.
Week 7 – having got this far, she knew it was time for some magic, some extraordinary luck, she was practising all the tools and exercises, she visualised and meditated. She had healed her heart, spoke with the birds and trees and could even see beyond her ugly sisters’ behaviour and nastiness.
It was a couple of weeks later, I got an email -
Hey Jackie, you won’t believe it, but I dreamt of going to the ball, and then things just happened to let it be so. It was like magic!
Love Cinderella x
The rest, as they say, is history! So here’s the thing, if you would like your own dose of rags to riches, despondency to hope, despair to inspiration, you know what to do – read this page Guided Be Yourself Love Yourself, send me an email and let’s get going!
[photo credit: seyed mostafa zamani via photopin cc]
