If you are a practitioner who is always seeking greater states of wellbeing, growth, and inner peace in your life, 

Then you are probably already well-aware that we have these old patterns called "schemas" from our past that continue to get in the way of our ability to experience optimal wellbeing. Dr. Jeffrey Young first described 18 early maladaptive schemas over 30 years ago, which are like a blueprint for discovering what is underlying our blocks to mental health.

These schemas are like codes programmed into our sub-conscious mind,  

which automatically give us instructions about:

🧬 how to think,

🧬 how to feel,

🧬 how to react, and

🧬 how to protect ourselves as we go through life.

In fact, when we automatically respond to the instructions we get from this old sub-conscious coding over years or decades, it can eventually show up in our personality! 😲!

The problem with the outdated coding from these schemas,

Is that although it helped us to adapt and survive as children, 

The same coding becomes redundant and even destructive for our present lives.

Why? 

Because as adults, we now have RESOURCES to manage situations where our core emotional needs are not being met.

Resources that we didn’t have as children. 

These new resources come in the form of both internal help (like knowing how to talk to yourself calmly with reassurance during a stressful situation),

and external out-in-the-world skills (like knowing how to express your opinion in a regulated and grounded way - to a partner, friend, in-law or colleague - during a moment of tension. Or knowing when to bite your tongue vs. when to speak up).

These resources are readily available to the “Healthy Adult” part that lives inside all of us –

the part of us that has a nice wide view of our life: past, present and future –

and can make wise decisions and choices that take into account our own core emotional needs,

as well as other people's needs.... and most importantly....

our own sense of SELF and our core values 🤯.

Without the resources of the "Healthy Adult" part,

We can easily get drawn back into more child-like parts of ourselves.

Like when we feel like:

- running and hiding from our problems, or

- keeping the peace even though we feel wronged, or

- pretending like we are fine with something even when we're not, or

- lashing out at someone else instead of taking a moment to pause and reflect on the bigger picture.

These habitual coping responses were the best we could do as children,

but they wreak havoc in our lives as adults,

because they take us away from the things that we most want!!

You see, it’s the "Healthy Adult" part in all of us that has the capacity to steer us back towards the wellbeing outcomes that we want in our lives, like:

✅ more connection,

✅ or knowing who we are and what we stand for,

✅ or taking new risks,

✅ or being open and vulnerable in an intimate relationship,

✅ or making repairs with someone we value following a rupture. 

The child part in us cannot do that!

The child part is just focused on survival and staying safe. 

Which may have meant reaching for coping behaviours and responses that are in the fight, flight, freeze, or fawn categories. 

But as adults, we don’t want to just be in survival mode.... NO!! 

We want to THRIVE!!

And there are specific pathways towards thriving that each of us will need to take, depending on what our specific wounds or schemas are.

So..... where to from here? 

If you are still reading this, it is probably because you really do value growth and thriving,

and you yourself, like us, are on a pathway towards EVEN GREATER STATES of wellbeing and thriving in your own life. 

You want to release the hold that these patterns or schemas have over you, and you want to wake up most days feeling:

✅ Filled up with love – from yourself first, which then attracts it from others

✅ A sense of inner strength and a solid sense of self 

✅ Filled with gratitude and wonder about life  

✅ Free to pursue pleasure, beauty and joy as a source of energy and revitalisation  

✅ Excited for your future 

✅ A basic level of trust and faith in your own life journey 

✅ Appreciated and honoured in all of your connections where you are giving a lot, and

✅ A strong sense of your own core values, and clarity about what habitual patterns and impulses you need to stay on top of.

If you know that you are capable of experiencing all of these feeling states above, but you are yet to fully understand HOW to achieve these feeling states on a regular and lasting basis throughout your life, then read on....