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Posts Tagged: self-worth

“Mind the Gap”: Overcoming Obstacles and Distorted Beliefs

Posted by Marlene Anderson, MA, LMHC, NCC

In London’s underground stations you hear a mechanized voice say, “Mind the Gap,” as you prepare to board a tube train.

That “gap” between platform and train is usually quite small and as a tourist, after the novelty wears off, you take for granted the need to watch your step and the recording simply becomes one of those endearing facets of the London experience.

Neil Gaiman, in his book, Neverwhere, artfully creates a more sinister reason for “minding the gap” in his fantasy story about London above ground and the London below.

Turn Your Gravel Pit Into a Beautiful Garden

Posted by Marlene Anderson, MA, LMHC, NCC

Turn Your Gravel Pit into A Beautiful Garden | focuswithmarlene.com

Can something ugly and scarred be turned into something beautiful and inviting? Let me share with you a true story about a real gravel pit.

A gravel pit is a piece of land where bulldozers and huge earth-scooping machinery have removed the soil to extract gravel and other ingredients needed to build roads, make cement, gather building rocks, etc.

What remains, after all the extractions, is a huge scarred and pitted hole in the ground with unstable and crumbling sides, water seepage from underground springs, stagnant pools of rainwater, huge, discarded pieces of rock and other un-usable mounds of earth. Debris is scattered everywhere, discarded by individuals who consider this a worthless piece of land; a place to throw away their pop cans, beer bottles or candy wrappers.

That Unexpected Visitor – Your Internal Critic

Posted by Marlene Anderson, MA, LMHC, NCC

That Unexpected Visitor – Your Internal Critic | FocusWithMarlene.com

Life is going great when bam! The earth quakes and a landslide comes tumbling down, burying everything you had worked so hard on.

And without warning, as if on some internal cue, you are assaulted with doubts and misgivings. Buried under an avalanche, hidden from view, out of sight are all the things you have accomplished. You no longer consider and appreciate all the things you have done and are capable of doing. The rubble is not just life happening, it is a reminder of the bad choices you made and how inadequate you are.

In the blink of an eye, an old and unwanted visitor has just returned.

The voice is loud and clear. “You just won’t learn – you will never amount to anything, no matter how hard you try.”